Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I'm just trying to steer this boat

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This is the knitted man jewellery I was talking about. The pattern is the Herringbone Leather Cuff from Alterknits by Leah Radford. The black one, made for K for his birthday (and completed in one long Friday evening) is knitted from black waxed cotton - a substitute for leather cord. Large quantities of 1mm leather cord are both hard to find, and pretty expensive. I made it slightly narrower than the pattern and added repeats to make it longer as well.
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During the Noosa weekend I made another one. The red part is hemp. This time I reduced the width even more to allow for the different gauge. I knew I was a bit short on the hemp and had thought I could try knitting stripes or sections in the black cotton, but the gauge difference spoiled that plan.
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Instead I did the crochet edging in the black and used a few extra rows on the ends to make it long enough.
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It took a couple of tries to get the crochet looking ok, and it's not perfect but then we know I'm not a perfectionist. I wasn't sure if it was dorky but both K and the recipient's girlfriend approved it before I handed it over.
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5 comments:

Michelle said...

I love these! I fascinated by the waxed cotton one. Did you wax it yourself or did it come read-waxed?

Donna Lee said...

I like the black herringbone pattern. It came out great in the cotton. I can't imagine what it would cost to make that in leather. And your pots n' pears make a great colorful display for the show.

And I know koalas are supposed to be quite fierce and nasty but they look so cute.

Rose Red said...

I think these look great - the herringbone is a very cool pattern. Now if only my decidely uncool husby would wear something like this!

Bells said...

Good work Olivia. When you talked about man jewellery I couldn't conjure up an image. This is so very cool.

Anonymous said...

Well now, you're really on to something there! They are so good.
Clever Olivia. Ma