The Easter egg reborn

When you see Easter eggs, a symbol of fertility and rebirth, you know that spring is near. In an effort to hurry it along, I decided to loom knit some Easter eggs. I used a plastic egg for stuffing to maintain the "egg shape", but I soon discovered another problem in what would appear to be a fairly simple project. The problem was the appearance of the bottom of the egg when using traditional loom knitting cast on methods. All the traditional methods I tried produced surface stitches or bunching when the bottom opening was cinched shut.

After some experimenting, I created what I call the "drawstring" cast on. This cast on is created by anchoring the working yarn and then wrapping it completely around the loom once. The working yarn is then held across the top of the peg on the first or odd peg while the bottom strand of yarn is flat knitted OVER the working yarn. On the next peg or even peg, the the working yarn is laid across the peg, but the bottom strand of yarn is hooked UNDER the working yarn and lifted over the peg. To complete the cast on, continue lifting the bottom strands of yarn OVER the working yarn & peg on all the odd pegs, and UNDER the working yarn & over the peg on all the even pegs, until the last peg in the row has been reached. The beginning yarn tail forms a drawstring which can be cinched to completely close the bottom. This drawstring cast on would be good when making loom knitted toys or flowers.

The egg was made on the Knifty Knitter flower loom and completed by flat knitting 16 rows and doing a gathered bind off, leaving the top open so the egg can be inserted. Detailed instructions for this Easter egg can be accessed here, or in the pattern box on the right.

Loomed leghorn: an egg cozy

It's official, I have spring fever! All I can think about are springtime looming projects. I've got patterns brewing for all types of baskets, bunnies, ducks, chicks and eggs. You could say that I'm "egg-cited" over all the possibilities.

Making an egg cozy
To start things off, I whipped up a little leghorn hen egg cozy that will fit nicely over an egg: both real and plastic. I just happened to have a bag of plastic Easter eggs that I bought on sale a few years ago stashed in my craft supplies, so that's what I used. The hen is loomed on the Knifty Knitter 12 peg flower loom. I did a chain cast on using a medium tension and two strands of worsted weight yarn and then with a flat knit stitch I worked K1/P1 rib stitch for 4 rounds.

The body & head
The body is done in alternating flat knit & purl stitches for 12 rows to form a garter stitch pattern, then I did a flat panel bind off on 6 pegs and continued with the garter stitch pattern for 6 more rows of flat panel work on the remaining 6 pegs to form the head. End by doing a flat panel bind off, remove the hen from the loom and whip the head & back opening shut.

Finishing
The beak, cone and tail trim are made using crochet chains in the corresponding colors and whip stitched in place. Small googly eyes were added for the eyes, but little black buttons or beads would work nicely. If the number of rows for the hen's body is reduced, the cozy could be used with a Cadbury Egg.

Note: A detailed pattern can be found by clicking the link for the Loomed Leghorn Egg Cozy in My Pattern Box on the right sidebar.

A couple cupcakes more

Chocolate-coconut cupcake (left) and Strawberry-coconut cupcake (right)

I've loom knitted a couple more cupcakes just to tweak my pattern and experiment with some different things. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see what one would look like when using two strands of yarn. The first one (above left) was completed using two strands of worsted weight (4 ply) yarn in the cup and one strand of brown worsted weight yarn with one strand of white fun fur for the "coconut" topping to simulate chocolate-coconut. It was larger than the first one I made and turned out too chunky to suit me, so I won't be using two strands of worsted weight yarn any more - at least not for the cup part.

The third cupcake (above right) was the results of a trip to Hobby Lobby to buy some supplies for my next project. I saw this yummy candy-colored hot pink yarn on sale and thought it would be perfect for another cupcake. This time the cup was made using one strand of pale yellow worsted weight with one strand of sport weight in yellow twinkle, which is a pale yellow with pink and blue flecks. Also, the cup was make using a regular knit stitch, instead of the knit one purl one ribbing used in the other two cupcakes. The cake topping was made using one strand of medium pink worsted weight with one strand of the hot pink fun fur worked in the same garter stitch pattern as the first two. The third time was the charm for the flat bottom. I discovered quite by accident a way to finish the bottom off very flat and at the same time create a lovely star-burst pattern with a stitch border around the perimeter.

The Loomy-licious Cupcake has been add to my pattern box on the right. If you decide to make a cupcake following this pattern, please send me a link to a picture of your finished cupcake so I can post it here.

Other Loom Knitters' Cupcakes

Tribegal

Trudy

Westie-Mom

A knitted cupcake: loomed & luscious

A topic of discussion on the Decoraccentsinc Yahoo group this week has been a knitted cupcake. One of the members said there was a pattern in the book, One Skein, that she had ordered, but hadn't received. Also, I searched and found a pattern online here. Of course, these were both needle knitted patterns and I never learned to needle knit. So, armed with determination I decided to design a pattern for a loom knitted cupcake.

For this project, I used one strand of worsted weight yarn flat knitted with a tight tension, which produces a gauge of 4 stitches X 8 rows = 1 inch. Three different looms were used: the 24 peg blue Knifty Knitter, the 12 peg Knifty Knitter flower loom and the 5 peg end of the Knifty Knitter spool loom. The visible part of the cup and most of the cake were knitted on the 24-peg blue loom. The cup was done in a flat knit using the K1/P1 rib pattern. The cake is garter stitch with a modified hang hem where the cup joins the cake. Near the top of the cake, I decreased and transferred to the 12 peg flower loom and continued with the garter stitch for several more rows before doing a gathered bind off. To make the bottom of the cup, I hung two of the twenty-four outer loops from the original cast on edge onto each peg of the 12 peg flower loom, then did four flat knit rounds. The yarn was cut and pulled through the 12 loops and left open so the stuffing could be added. Fiber fill was stuffed into the cake. To stuff the cup bottom, I cut the bottom from a clear plastic cup and added scraps of brown yarn and a rock. At this point I finished the gathered bind off to create the flat bottom. The cherry and stem were made on the spool loom and whipped stitched onto the top of the cupcake. The final touch was the addition of pearlized ball head pins to simulate candy sprinkles. So this cupcake actually has a practical function as a pin cushion.

The completed cupcake is 4 1/2 inches tall (including the cherry) and 3 inches wide. Since this was my pilot cupcake, there are a number of adjustments that need to be made before I write the pattern. However, I loved making this, so it shouldn't take too long to cook up another one and write the adjusted pattern.