Linen stitch cowl

Pattern/Technique: Jessica Jones Cowl by Handmade by Smine

Modifications: n/a

Materials: 1 skein Cece’s Wool Sock (3 ply fingering weight, 88% SW merino, 12% nylon, 490yds / 115g) in Rhinebeck 23 colorway

US9 24” ChiaoGoo SS circular knitting needle

New skills: EZ Sewn Bind Off

Lessons/Notes: While knitting the main fabric I held the tension in my working yarn fairly tightly so that I would have a nice structured fabric. I probably also could have achieved this more consistently by going down a needle size. I think there was some slight increase in tension toward the middle/top of the cowl vs. the bottom, but nothing overtly noticeable given the subtle variation in the variegated tones.

The cowl pattern called for 100g of fingering weight wool, so I knit until I had a small ball left then started weighing the ball and stopped knitting when my ball was 15g. (I certainly could have knit that remaining 15g but I love this colorway and would like to use my remnant as a pop of color on another knitting/weaving project.)

This is a very long cowl, which ends up having a really nice height and proportionality even as it slouches down around the neck.

What I'd do differently: The bound off edge looks a little bit rustic, so if I make this again I might research ways to get a more even finish when binding off linen stitch (e.g. perhaps 1 round knitting all stitches to have an even row of loops before binding off?)

Care: hand wash, dry flat

Jungle Friends Soft Book

Pattern/Technique: Jungle Friends fabric panel by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda Fabrics (purchased from Stitch Supply Co.)

Modifications: none

New skills: n/a

Lessons/Notes: The grain on the fabric panel was quite off in places, making some of the pages warped. For the large pages I compensated for this by cutting out the page, folding it in half so that the short edges were aligned, then ironing toward the folded edge (essentially a version of the Harriet Hargrave method for straightening fabric grain in Quilters Academy vol. 1).

Note: I’m now realizing that maybe it would have made more sense to try straightening the grain for the whole panel before cutting out any pieces, though I didn’t notice it was so far off until after cutting - definitely a thing to pay attention to if I make another one of these.

This project called for a lot of interfacing and fusible fleece so I got to use up a bunch of that weird papery Pellon Featherweight I bought a while ago. I may have misread the instructions for the cover page, and interfaced the interior side with single-sided interfacing, but I don’t think the extra stability hurt anything.

Sewing both sides of the pages together was a little tricky with the non-stabilized fabric side up (quite a bit of shifting/stretching), but much easier with the fusible fleece side up.

Used my trick of marking the start/stop point of my seam with red pins.

Sewing around tight corners is a skill I’m trying to improve and I saw better results when sewing at a slow but steady pace (vs. stopping frequently) and really bossing the fabric around curves. Just have to continue to practice.

What I’d do differently: Check panel grain distortion before cutting out pieces. Overall this was a really quick and satisfying little project - I’d love to make another one in the future.

Care: Machine wash, dry flat