Friday, July 13, 2007

Hempster and Ball Holder

Since I blogged last I´ve been sick. Laying in bed for 3 days and no knitting in the meanwhile kind of sick. This sickness has also made me crazy for organizing and creative (or what else can I blame this evening on?). I introduce to you Hempster (a hemp coaster) and Ball Holder (A.K.A. not your average husbands sort of Ball Holder).

hempster

Today at WallyWorld (A.K.A. Walmart) I came across a discounted hemp jewelry cord. I thought it was ugly at first but at $2 I started to see it´s true beauty shine through. Ahem...

It's small, only 21 yds (19 m) and limited what I can use it for. First I thought a small bowl, but being a product knitter 90% of the time (except when it comes to shawls) I thought I didn´t really need a small bowl since I wasn´t having problems with small things lying around the house.

Since I don´t have any coasters I decided to make one of those. Not long ago I acquired beads that matched the colorway of the hemp perfectly so a beaded coaster was born. The pattern is just made up. I started about 3 times and ended with the simplest start you can think of (4 sc in a circle, increase in each sc in next round, increase in every other sc in next round and every third on the final round). The beads are added last, sl.st., ch1, add bead, ch1, skip one sc and sl.st. in the next.

The coaster looks good from the other side as well. From purchase to product within 4-6 hours. Not too shabby.

ball holder

The Ball Holder is just a coffee container with a hole in it. But it works wonders. Took about 5 minutes to clean the container and dry and punch the hole in. I might have to sand the hole down a little as not to snag the yarn, but that remains to be seen.

If this is not enough, I also started a shawl and knit quite a bit on it as well (as I was hiding from my children in the bedroom). It helped that it is knit on size 15 (not US, but metric) needles. The yarn is Patons Divine originally bought for a crochet sweater but during swatching I realized I will never be able to crochet with this yarn. To tangly and hard to count. This simple garter stitch shawl is just what I need for it. I´m so glad this yarn found it´s match in a pattern. So the yarn I´m using is not as fancy as the original, it still has 15% mohair,

4 comments:

Harpa Jónsdóttir said...

Það er aldeilis dugnaður!

Rebecca said...

Sorry you have been sick, no fun especially in the summer!

I love the coaster, and glad you got to make the shawl you were talking about on Sigga's blog. Can't wait to see pictures.

The ball holder thing is a great idea. We don't usually use coffee in cans but sometimes we buy Trader Joes coffee that comes in kind of a Tetra Pak type material can with a plastic lid, I'll have to save one next time.

Sonja said...

Takk fyrir

It occured to me when I went to sleep last night that I was all excited about a COASTER! He he.

Anonymous said...

The coaster looks good. I love how you turned something that you didn't like at first into something useful :)

The ball holder is a super good idea. Especially if people have cats!