Projects
A True Friend for Mini Skeins
It’s very clear to everyone that I cannot stay on one project, for the life of me.
I finish almost everything I start (with some notable exceptions for projects that Just Didn’t Work Out), but on the way to finishing things, I definitely roam and ramble and follow my footsteps. Deep down, I’m a process knitter, but my top layer wants cute sweaters to wear, and I will drop one cute sweater to knit another one. Knitting is my hobby and my love, and a big part of the fun for me is to keep jumping down rabbit holes. (This doesn’t sound defensive at all.)
You can see where this is going, right? New project out of left field. Don’t fence me in!
I’ve been staring at these 3 sets of Euroflax Mini Skeins for several weeks now. (Colorways, left to right: Santa Fe, Earth, and St. Lucia, my perfect mix of juicy and blah colors.)
They’ve been beautiful to look at on the coffee table, but they are not turning themselves into the cute summer top I’ve been wanting. So I started looking around for the pattern that would work with these precious dumplings of joy. (Just looking! Not putting down my Granito or anything!)
Instagram: Danger!
Scrolling through Karen Braitmayer’s Instagram feed looking at all the amazing me-makes to be found there, from Alabama Chanin to Sonya Philip to Stephen West, I came across Karen’s version of the True Friend pullover by Veera Välimäki. (Karen, I know you posted this more than a year ago. I’m not creeping on you, I’m creeping on your exquisite handmade wardrobe.) I noticed: True Friend starts as a rectangle! Then you pick up on the sides, and miter around the two bottom corners! Stockinette all the way! The wide, loose fit I love! And stripes!
Photo by Jonna Jolkin, from True Friend.
There are 533 projects for True Friend on Ravelry. When I saw a couple of sleeveless modifications, and then a few versions that were all stripes, even in the center rectangle, I was sold. This was the pattern for my miniskeins.
So, I’ve cast on, and managed to snap a photo in the gloaming.
It doesn’t look like much yet. Just you wait. Colorful things are in store.
Today’s Hot Tip: Read the Pattern
To my amazement, True Friend is not constructed the way I had assumed from looking at photos. It is worked in the round, from the top down, and yet it has centered rectangles, and mitered corners, front and back. How on earth did Veera V visualize this construction? You knit the neckband, and then you knit a “bib” for the front and, on the opposite side of the neck, a bib for the back. Then follows much mitering, around and around, with it all adding up to an astronomical stitch count.
In other words: the very thing to drag around with me for the next couple of weeks, for easy, pleasant knitting as summer enters its final phase. Being knitted all in one piece, it’s even more perfect than I’d thought.
Linen yarn wants to be free, so it is already tangling like crazy. I may have to break out the ziplocks. I’m not sure muslin, for all its natural goodness, can handle the linen.
Wish me luck! And if you’re holding out for a trimmer, quicker summer top for Euroflax Mini Skeins, stay tuned. Right this minute, Nell Ziroli is writing an amazing pattern that cleverly deploys the miniskeins to use them up without cutting them.
(Sneak preview of the modeled shot is here on Nell’s Instagram.)
Beautiful!!!
Love Vera’s work and that sweater does sem like it was made with u in mind! Btw, how cone you hand wound the mini’s? Too much chance of tangling?
I love how you and Ann are so dang good with colors!
What Ellen says: cakes are a disaster with Euroflax. If I’ve got big skeins to wind, I’ll use a swift and ballwinder and then re-wind the cakes into balls by hand. Saves a lot of grief. These mini balls are quick to wind; once they get jumbled together they want to come undone.
Euroflax demands to be wound into round balls; cakes are a disaster with yarn this wirey. On pinterest this week, someone posted a picture of lots of round balls with their ends held in place with hair clips: the ones that bend in the middle to pop them open and shut and are frequently used to hold the baby fine hair of children; I plan to get me some this week!
Ellen–the hair clip tip is SOLID GOLD. I’m off to Walgreens to pick some up!
Two lovely sweaters, a short sleeve True Friend is going to be my new best buddy.
However, has Nell’s clever stripes been washed yet? Will the linen bias? My experience with linen in the round biased like mad. Will the stripes become a barber pole?
Good Morning Phyllis, I’m just this morning wet blocking the top and there was only the slightest bias which I easily smoothed as I laid it to dry. The real test will be when I put it back on, right? Stay tuned, I’ll report back.
I’ve been looking at 2 sets of Euroflax minis and some big skeins of white Euroflax for a while now, waiting for inspiration to strike. Thanks for the nudge! I wonder if I could finish something before summer is over…
Not gonna lie, Susan: at the moment I’m operating under the belief/delusion that I can finish this in time to wear it on vacation (in 2 weeks). Whatever keeps me at it, right?
I recently ordered some Euroflax Minis, and was planning to make some guest towels (finally). I have never, ever worked with this yarn and have really been looking forward to it. Alas, however, my dear highschool friend just became a granny, so my project bag will be filled with some baby things for now (yes, Kay, multiple projects. We could start a club–or an intervention!). Anyway, could a thin rubberband around its belly keep a ball of Euroflax from unwinding? Just asking.
I have had a lot of success with using the black mesh bags wine stores use to keep multiple bottles of wine from bumping together. My wine store actually gave me some extras when I was knitting something that required more yarn than wine!
Sounds like you go to some classy places. The stores that I have frequented use pieces of cardboard (cut from the cases of wine, no doubt) to keep the bottles from bumping. The black mesh bags sound divine!
Liquor stores usually have them, might have to ask….produce departments sometimes too
I could eat them!
Those hot colors are so you, Judy. Reminds me of your many mitered squares.
Fun looking through the projects gallery – so many interesting modifications! Some of my favorites are actually the solid color projects – but the striped ones offer so many different looks and would certainly be more entertaining to knit. Looking forward to seeing your creation grow.
I’d completely forgotten that last year I gathered up a bunch of single cotton skeins and started knitting a wide, slightly shaped tube ‘o stripes, with the idea of ending up with a swingy summer tank top…maybe time to find that project bag. And looking at Nell’s top, may be time to rip it all out and start over!
Not surprising that the solid versions are among my favorites too. You still see the rectangle shape but it doesn’t look like you’re wearing a sandwich board. I don’t actually love the original layout with a solid rectangle outlined by mitered stripes; I don’t think it would look good on me, anyway. Just goes to show you how flexible a good pattern is.
Just found about this pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/pooki/cancun-boxy-lace-top
It is a lace boxy. Wondering Howe you all think it would be in mini skein stripes? I love it in one color.
What a gorgeous pattern! I think it would work for minis because there is a clear beginning and end to the lace and non-lace “stripes,” so you can change color in a meant-to-be way. Thanks for the link to a pattern that’s new to me, in my favorite shape and fiber.
Nell is a genius! ❤
Woah! Talk about perfection in pattern/yarn matching. True Friend is going on my Must Make list!
Thank you Kay for inspiration. Rabbit Hole reading is my favorite and this looks like Veera’s BFF to True Friend:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/breathing-space
I bought 4 bundles of the mini skeins, and used it for a slightly modified version of Stephen West, Unicorn Parallelogram shawl. Very hapy with the results, now what to do with the remaining bundle????
Fun! Send us a picture!
I can die and go to heaven now, I’ve been mentioned on MDK! Thanks for the kudos, Kay and I love the idea of another True Friend out of many colors. Great choice! I’m so tempted to join you But wait… I Can Not Cast On another thing, after my WIP truth session this weekend…. I will live vicariously through your project…
What a beauty. And more wearable for most people than True Friend. Contrary to popular opinion thin horizontal stripes all the way down aren’t necessarily fattening and these ones can hide a lot of lumps and bumps. My hands can’t handle 100% linen these days as much as I love it, but I might try this with a linen blend. Thanks for the heads up!
I’ve had such good luck putting my mini skeins, wound into cakes, and keeping them in clean individual serving yogurt containers. I pull from the center and the cake stays well formed, as if perfectly content in its little home. Seriously. This works perfectly! I love the look of the cake, and how neatly it rests in place while I knit. Coffee mugs work well too.
Hi Kay:
You are obviously a more devoted (monogamous) knitter than I. I put down my Granito – at row 3 mind you, to embark upon my DIL’s Christmas gift. If you haven’t heard about, or seen the Wonder Woman Wrap, stop right now and go look at it on Ravelry. See what I mean? My daughter in law as beautiful as she is generally wears only black despite being blue-eyed, fair skinned and blonde. It makes me nuts. So when I first saw the wrap I emailed my son, who admits to a passing familiarity with Ravelry, to ask if I needed to knit this in dark black and light black or might I be allowed to knit it in red and yellow. He was blown away and requested the original red and yellow. I am beyond thrilled. It will be the first non black thing I have ever knit her other than a washcloth and she doesn’t wear those outside the house!
Sue