Hot Bottoms

Yes, I actually own these shoes.  My mother
bought them for herself, and somehow I ended
up being the proud owner.  She also lamented
the fact that they're not appropriate footwear
for work in America.  Yes, I'm going to pipet in
club heels... 

Every time I want to wear a skirt in the winter, the biggest problem is worrying that I will freeze my butt off.  Literally.  Admittedly, living in San Francisco isn't as cold as some places, but it gets pretty damn cold.  So I've wanted to make a pair of knitted shorts for a while, to wear under skirts in cold weather, and a couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to doing that.
There aren't a lot of patterns out there for knitted shorts.  The one I liked best was this pattern to base mine on.  But, seeing that I had a completely different yarn weight, and wanted to have a slightly different shape, I actually ended up modifying it quite a bit.

How to make some of your very own? Well...

You'll need

• 200 grams of yarn, with a gauge of ~34 sts to 10 cm; I used Cascade Yarns Venezia - it's 70% Merino and 30% silk; 'nuff said.
• size 7 circular needles
• various bits of waste yarn for stitch holding
• ribbon and beads for waistband
• fine weight yarn for ruffles (optional)

I used my mom's interchangeable circular needle kit, which worked out really well when I needed to switch between knitting waist and legs.

These were made for about 74 cm waist and 97 cm hips

BODY
Cast on 210 sts and knit in 1x1 rib for 11 cm (~26 rounds)
After this start expanding to 226 sts: add 4 sts evenly every 4 rounds, by knitting 2 through 1; make sure to follow the pattern of the rib to make it blend in
I knitted the body for a total length of 20 cm, and the shorts sit somewhere in the vicinity of my upper hips.  If you want them to sit higher (such as on your waist), knit an extra 4-5 cm.
Split the stitches on yarn holders as follows:  leg (45 sts), crotch (21 sts), other leg (45 sts); put the back (115 sts) on straight needles.
Continue the rib stitch back and forth over the back as follows:

• knit a full row; when you turn over, knit the first 7 stitches and put them onto the leg stitch holder (you will not touch these again for now), 
• then continue the row; when you get to the end, turn over, knit the first 7 stitches, and put them on the other holder, then finish the row (minus those first 7 stitches, of course).  Each row should be 7 stitches shorter than the previous.  
• Do this 8 times (59 sts left); 
• the next two rows, take away 8 sts each; 
• the two following rows, take away 11 sts.  You should be left with 21 sts. (If not, fidget with your numbers to make it so)

Bind off these 21 sts.  Do not bother with the Kitchener st as described in the original pattern.  It comes out hideous in rib knit (or at least the way I did it...)

CROTCH
Put the 21 crotch sts from the holder onto the needles and rib back and forth until you have ~11 cm.  I actually added 1 st on each edge (=23), so I could do neat edging,* then right before I finished, I knitted 2 together on each edge to take them away again. (*By that I mean, take off the first st and purl the last st of every row).
Bind off these 21 sts and sew together with the leftover 21 sts from back.

LEGS
Put the sts from one leg holder onto a short circular needle, and pick up 30 sts along crotch edge for a total of 122 beautiful leg sts.  Knit in the round in rib until the leg is as long as you want it (or as long as you still have yarn).
To finish, you can bind off loosely in rib.  Or, you can add glorious ruffles, like mine:
Knit all sts of the last row (no more rib!).  Switch to a fine weight yarn, but keep the same gauge needles.  Mine is a mystery yarn that came from a sweater.
{Knit one round; Next round: knit 1, yarn over - all around}x3
This will exponentially increase your sts from 122 to 488.  I hope you have patience.
Knit one last row, then bind off.

Add a longish ribbon around the waist (just pull it in and out in between stitches at regular intervals).

Ta-da!

My first commission!

I finished my first Etsy commission today!  It's a pair of really cute Lock&Key wristwarmers, in mossy green with gold ribbon.  My customer has been really great about feedback on what she wanted, and we finally have the end result - "Judy's Secret"

Here's an abbreviated pattern for those of you who'd like to make their own:

You'll need worsted wt yarn, size 7 DPNs, and a stitch holder or piece of waste yarn.

1.  Cast-on 32 sts

2.  Knit in 1x1 rib for 17-20 rounds (or whatever length you want from the wrist up)

3.  Thumb gusset:  at the beginning of the round, add 1 st by knitting 2 through 1, every other round for 16 rounds; that'll give you 8 thumb sts.  The way I did mine was to always branch the added stitch off the original "column" that started the additions (refer figure on the bottom of the post).  That way it looks nice and neat.  Always add new stitches to the right of this column for one wristwarmer, and to the left for the other.  Knit another 4 rounds for a total of 20 thumb gusset rounds.

4.  Take off thumb sts on a holder; rejoin the round for the hand and knit another 7-10 rounds in 1x1 rib.  Bind off the top in rib.

5.  Put the 8 thumb sts back on three DPN's and pick up 2 sts where the thumb joins the hand (total 10 thumb sts).  Knit for 4 rounds and bind off in rib.

6.  Add whatever ribbons and charms you like, et voila!

Etsy

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first crafty blog post.  I've decided to do this mainly for two reasons:  one, that I've been making a few more things lately, and wanted to share the process, the results, and maybe some tips with you; and two, that I've reopened my Etsy, and wanted to have a record of the sorts of things I am capable of doing for everyone's perusal.

To celebrate both the opening of Etsy and my new blog, you can use the code "cheers" to get a 10% discount on your purchases from my shop!  Neat, huh?

I'm pretty busy with Dickens Fair lately, but I'll try to make some new posts in the next few days.