Knit Sweater Ornament

Pattern/Technique: Wee Woolens Ornament Set by Susan B. Anderson, from Making Gifts Vol. 2

Materials: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in Oceanic (scrap yarn).

New skills: n/a

Lessons: I'm normally really not a fan of knitting on DPNs but this was a pretty fun knit!

I used my wraps-per-inch tool and determined that this yarn was a fingering weight so I used US 2 (3.00mm) needles. However on actually looking it up this is actually a DK weight yarn (!) and I probably should have used the US 3 (3.25 mm) needles recommended by the pattern. It's not actually a big deal because gauge doesn't matter given it's a tree ornament and the proportions look fine, but I should figure out how to used my WPI tool correctly at some point.

The heathered blues and greens of the Oceanic colorway are gorgeous and I should definitely make a full sized sweater with this yarn at some point.

What I'd do differently: I'd love to make more of these with the attached mitten pattern (red mittens obv) for my tree.

Care: n/a

Pathway Pillow Redux

Over the holidays I revisited the Pathway Pillow and added in a zipper. The shape is actually square now (!!) and the project provided a nice opportunity to practice using my zipper foot.

Pattern: Covered zipper pillow tutorial by Lisa Bongean (h/t to Gloria H. for sharing this with me). After disassembling the pillow, I repurposed the back panels and trimmed them to the dimensions recommended in the tutorial (15” x 26” - I think the linen relaxed a bit since I’d first made the pillow, so the front panel was 26” x 26” when I measured it).

New skills: Sewing a lapped / covered zipper

Lessons: The back linen panels shifted and relaxed a lot while I was sewing in the zipper. I ended up with about an extra inch of fabric despite the panel width being even with the zipper tape when I was pinning.

Setting the stitch width at 3 mm positions the needle evenly with the edge of the zipper foot.

Despite the fact that the tutorial recommends a zipper much longer than the width of the pillow, I used a 24 inch zipper and achieved good results.

What I’d do differently: Because the zipper was folded in its package, it still had a slight kink when I sewed it to the pillow back, so the seam isn’t perfectly flat. Next time I sew in a long zipper I’ll take care to iron it (carefully if it’s made of a synthetic material) so it lays flat.