Patriotic coasters

Nighttime is the right time! It's that wonderful time when everyone in the household is in bed, except for me. It's a time when I can finally sit down, uninterrupted and test a project that I've been knitting in my head all day. Last night that project was the patriotic coaster pictured above. This coaster was actually a test of techniques that I had theorized about over a year ago, loom knitting edging directly onto a project and creating a perfect circle on the looms without using short rows or seaming. I'm pleased to say that these techniques are indeed possible.

The four inch diameter coaster was made on the Knifty Knitter 10" Long Loom using KK Loom Clips and Red Heart Super Saver yarn in White, Soft Navy and Cherry Red. Attaching the KK Loom Clips to the Long Loom, I knit the center of the coaster (white star & navy background) in the round using ten pegs. The last row of the navy background incorporated an I-cord bind off technique I developed to allow for increases. Once removed from the loom, the outer white & red borders were knitted directly onto the outer edge of the coaster using two pegs. Two strands of yarn held as one were used throughout the project, except for the red edging which used a single strand.

This pattern, along with many more, is part of a project on which I'm working, so it is currently unavailable, but hopefully will be in the future.

Contest winner announced

WOW!! After reading all those wonderful comments, I'm feeling pretty special! Thank you for all the nice compliments and your continued support. Also, as promised, today we find out who won the book, Tiny Yarn Animals. The contest officially closed at midnight last night with a total of forty-five comments to Win this book! The comments were numbered in the order in which they were received as follows:

1. Jenni J
2. Mari
3. Scarlett a.k.a. kittyred
4. AngelaJ
5. Robin McCoy
6. Jen Spilker
7. kelly
8. Deeners
9. wellie
10. MARIA EUGENIA
11. Tiffany aka: mieljolie
12. Bethany @ Gettin' It Pegged
13. westie-mom
14. Stacie
15. guppygirl
16. jpirkle
17. Angelbeader a.k.a Mari
18. Just Me
19. LindaJ
20. Michele
21. Kelly Croasmum
22. Angel
23. Laura
24. Marlys
25. karmicraft
26. Renee
27. MELINDA
28. Nel
29. Rayann
30. KathrynJB
31. Helen J.
32. Anonymous
33. Andrea
34. sevenstars7
35. Karen
36. dlandlrd
37. keeper
38. Aurora
39. wormlynn
40. Laura
41. Dianne Carroll
42. Linda M
43. LoomLady June
44. nugatorytm
45. Elizabeth S.

After assigning numbers to each comment, I went to Randomizer.org and had it to select two numbers out of the 45 comments. The first number is the winner and the second number is the alternate. The following is a screen shot of the winning numbers showing the winner as number 15 and the alternate as number 17:


Congratulations number 15, guppygirl! You have until April 27, 2009 to claim your prize. If I do not hear from guppygirl by April 27th, the prize will go to number 17, Angelbeader aka Mari. Guppygirl, please contact me to claim your prize!

Win this book!

The Loom Lore blog began it's journey on Thanksgiving, 2006, but I somehow never remembered to host a blogiversary. Since my birthday is April 15th, the day we Americans show our love by paying income tax (lovely day for a birthday, huh?), I decided to bring a little joy into this otherwise depressing day by having a little blog contest just to celebrate two and a half years of sporadic blogging.

Being a certified bibliophile who just happens to love loom knitting, I thought I would turn my recent mistake into my blog readers' good fortune. When I'm buying books, I sometimes forget that I already have one just like it at home and end up with duplicate copies of a title. That is just what I did when I ordered Tiny Yarn Animals by Tamie Snow (click on the title to read a description of the book from Amazon). All the best amigurumi patterns available seem to be crocheted; however, even though the patterns in Snow's book are crocheted, loom knitters can get plenty of inspiration from this book!

OK, this is how the contest works:

1. Leave a comment to this post telling me which projects from Loom Lore you have enjoyed the most and what types of projects you would like to see included in the future. This will count as an entry. Only one entry per person please. Also, if you are an Anonymous commenter, please include your name at the end of your comment so I'll know who you are in case you win.
   
2. At the end of the contest, each comment to the "Win this book" post will be assigned a number in the order they are received. One winner and an alternate will be selected using Randomizer.org based on the total number of comments listed to the contest post.
3. The contest begins on April 15, 2009 and ends on midnight April 24, 2009. The winner will be announced on April 25, 2009.
4. The winner will need to contact me with mailing information for their prize delivery at my email address located in the Loom Lore About Me page within 48 hours of the announcement notification. If I do not hear from the first winner by the April 27th deadline, the alternate will be declared the winner. The same procedure will be followed until we have a final winner.
   
5. The contest is open to all Loom Lore readers, both domestic and international.
   

Best of luck and thank you for putting up with me for the past two & a half years! Loom knitters rule!!

Fireman to the rescue

My grandson is happy - I finally finished his fireman. He is so obsessed with firemen & firetrucks that the entrance to the library off from the living room has become a fire station. A table and a floor lamp with a brass pole near the library doorway is now the station house. Every night he places three little firemen face down (one on a tissue box, one on the DVD remote and the other on the TV satellite remote) so they can slide down the lamp pole and head for the firetrucks in case of an emergency. When he's not battling a blaze at his sister's dollhouse, he's watching his "Lights & Ladders" DVD. Sometimes I think if I hear that DVD one more time I'll scream.
As you might have guessed, when I started making the little loomy amigurumis, I immediately got a request for a fireman so I immediately started designing one for my very special customer. My loomy arigurumi fireman was made very similar to the leprechaun, but with a few modifications. The following looms were used for this project:

• KK flower loom for the head
• 10" KK loom for the body/feet & hat body
  
• KK spool loom for the arms & I-cord hat brim
  

Two strands of Red Heart Super Saver yarn were use for everything except Vanna's Choice in beige for the head. The fireman accidentally ended up a bit taller (6.5 inches) than the 4.5 inch leprechaun due to several yarn color changes. Also, I decided to put arms on this one. However, after he was finished my grandson immediately asked, "Where are his legs?" I tried to explain to him that he was made that way so he could stand in the firetruck bucket at the end of the ladder (see photo above). He replied that the fireman would have problems fighting fires, so I guess the next one will have to have legs. There's always a critic in every crowd.
The hat posed the greatest challenge on this little fellow, since the back of the brim is elongated from the rest of the hat. To meet this challenge, I cast a 4-stitch I-cord circle onto 18 pegs of the 10" Knifty Knitter long loom and used the Knifty Knitter loom clips to decrease along with a couple of short rows toward the back of the hat. After that, I finished the hat as usual on 14 pegs and ended with a gathered bind off at the top. You can see that the shaping on the back brim worked rather well in the above side view photo.

Other finishing details included button eyes, an embroidered mouth and felt trim on the hat and shirt collar. This is so habit forming that I can't wait to start on my next little project.