14 March 2014

Little Penguin Jumper

Last week the ABC put out a call for knitters to knit pullovers for penguins, the request came from the Phillip Island Penguin Foundation.  The foundation use these jumpers for oil contaminated penguins because the oil causes the feathers to separate and mat, and when that happens the water will get into the feathers so they become non-waterproof, which can make the penguin cold and some even die of hypothermia. The penguin jumpers help keep penguins warm and prevent them from ingesting toxic oil when they try to preen themselves.

As I am pretty much swamped with my study now that my semester is in full swing, my crafting time has been vastly reduced. But these little jumpers are fairly quick to make and they don't require much concentration, and they're portable. So I opted to knit one of these, I only managed to make one this week.
The pattern says to make two pieces and sew together, which I did. But next time I'm going to make it in the round to eliminate sewing (anything but sewing!). My toy model is a tad too small for it but I don't think he'd complain ;-)
If you would like to learn more about how the foundation use these jumpers to help the penguins or to get the pattern you can follow the link here. There's also a Ravelry pattern page here.

Thanks for visiting. I'm linking this to Fibre Arts Friday at Andrea's place, you can find more fibre arts goodies over there.


07 March 2014

Weaving frenzy

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! I'm doing a show and tell for my weaving projects this week because I suddenly had an urge to weave lately.

I had some variegated pure wool yarn and I wanted to explore how they behaved in weaving, so I wove two scarves: the first one using the same yarn as both warp and weft, the second only using the variegated yarn as warp and a plain matching yarn for weft.
I think I prefer the one on the right, i.e. variegated yarn for warp only but not for both. 

But what I love the most is the third one I made, this time using a space dyed yarn for weft.


It turned out really well, the bamboo in the weft yarn gave it just the right amount of drape without being too heavy, there's also a soft sheen to it. 

When I first finished it I wasn't too happy with the overlaps where I joined the new balls of yarn, so I appealed for help on the Rigid Heddle group on Facebook, it is a fantastic group for weavers by the way. From the advice I received I decided to pull out the overlaps, split the yarn (a single) and weave in the split ends separately. The result was amazing, you can hardly tell where they are. 

That's me for the week, now it's your turn.

I'm linking this to Fibre Arts Friday at Andrea's place, you can find more fibre arts goodies over there.