I took a short break from the rather large stole to try my hand at knitting the ipod cozy from Sskeins. While it was a fairly small project (started it on Sunday and finished it yesterday) it contained a lot of firsts for me.

First time knitting in the round on double pointed needles - which wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. First time creating a buttonhole (two in fact!) which also was fairly painless - and included my first attempt at a cable cast-on which was a bit confusing at first but hooray for those videos at knittinghelp.com. First time to do a partial bind-off when I got to the top and continued making the flap. I liked the little pocket that this lady added to her ipod cozy so it was also my first time to create a pocket and sew it on.

And since I just have an ipod mini and I knitted it a little large I decided to make this my first felting experience. It was also my first blocking experience since all I've made up to this point have been scarfy things where the size didn't matter. Yes a lot of firsts. Including Zola's first photographs with my knitting.

I've actually had requests for photos with the hedgehog and knitting. But I worry about the yarn snagging on her quills or getting wrapped around her tiny legs and cutting off circulation (this is a serious issue with hedgehogs). But since I had felted (and shaved) it this was the perfect thing for her to model with.

Then I noticed how gross her little feet were, promptly put her in half an inch of warm water in the tub to soak, then scrubbed them with an old toothbrush and a dab of baby shampoo. Hedgehogs love running on their wheels at night. But they love to poop and pee while they run. Getting it all over their feet. So I have to scrub those little hedgehog feet pretty often. The fact that I have to do this once a week at the very least does not diminish the usual hedgehog post bath sleepy grumpy cuddle time. So she was generally grumpy and sleepy in my direction until she finally curled up and fell asleep. Giving me time to finish my photos.

Here are details on the cozy:

Knit using Brown Sheep Company's Lamb's Pride in Fuchsia, Pine Tree Green, and Sun Yellow. The original ipod cozy pattern is from SskeinS, the idea for the pocket is from City Knitter, and the striping pattern (4 yellow- 2 green - 4 yellow) is based on Stitch N Bitch's Cricket Cellphone cozy pattern.

I created the pocket by separately casting-on 15 stitches in the yellow, re-creating a 4-2-4 stripe, binding it off, and just sewing it to the front underneath the end of the flap. The little front pocket is the perfect size for the remote control I use for my ipod. I don't use the apple in-ear headphones (I despise in-ear headphones my ears just pop those suckers right out) and the foldup headphones I use are about the size of the ipod itself. You can see them propping up the cozy in the first photo up there.

I made the flap a bit longer than the sskeins pattern and added a buttonhole to it rather than use velcro...because I didn't have any. The button is a spare from the cute pink raincoat I got for christmas. I usually just lose the extra buttons so at least I know where this one is.

Like I said before, since this was for a mini and since I'd made it a bit larger than the pattern called for anyway I decided to try my hand at this felting thing by putting the finished cozy in a pillowcase with a pair of jeans and washing it in hot water about three times. The yellow stitches didn't felt completely so stitches can still be seen but I was worried that it was going to get too small if I washed it again. From what I've read the lighter yarns are a lot harder to felt. I blocked it using an old cellphone that's about the same size as my ipod mini. After it was dry (hooray for dry desert air it was just overnight) I thought it was a bit fuzzy I found a disposable razor and shaved it. I know that sounds totally insane but it really helped it look a lot nicer.

And it has a nifty buttonhole in the top for the remote/headphone cord. I'm very proud.

There are many many more photos in the photo journal.

Comments

Posted by: Luka at April 6, 2005 7:18 AM

Posted by: robin at April 26, 2005 9:22 PM

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