Tips 'n' Tricks: Logo Embroidery

As promised, I give you the brief tutorial on how I stitched the logo onto my Red Wings Winter Classic hat. What follows are instructions on how to use satin stitch to create a logo on a knitted garment. This is just How I Did It, not necessarily How It Should Be Done.



Once I found the logo I wanted to use, I printed it and cut it out. I then laid it face down on a piece of felt and traced around the entire outline. Your logo should look backwards when you're done. I used a felt tip pen and I ended up with badly stained fingers. The felt I had did not absorb the ink like I thought it would. Proceed with caution. (The little D in the corner was just a test of the pen on the felt)



I then tacked the piece of felt to the inside of hat. Note that my hat is lined and upside down in the photo above. Be sure to orient/mount your felt piece properly. Obsession in this area is not taken lightly. I took a few pins and poked them straight through both pieces at key points to make sure I had the right position on the stripe of my hat.



Before I started stitching, I wanted to think about how to orient the stitches around the logo. I knew that keeping the 'stitches' as short as possible was ideal. I also wanted to use only one length of yarn to fill in the spaces of the logo. (If you're working a larger piece, that may not be possible and you may have to divide and conquer. But then again, in that case, this technique may not be your best option.) My first attempt is on the left and you can see - in the second sketch - where I changed the orientation of the stitches at the bottom of the logo.



I decided to start with a small piece of the logo, the skinny bar running up the middle of the logo. I made sure I had good lighting and got to it. Don't try to thread enough yarn onto your needle for the whole logo. You'll end up having to walk across the room to pull it all through. Use about 3-5 feet of yarn at a time. Pull your needle and yarn through leaving a 2 inch tail. As you work your stitches, catch the tail on the backside to seal it in.

The trick to the technique is to make sure your needle goes vertically through both pieces of fabric and then pull through. Don't, don't, DON'T (did I emphasize that enough? Don't.) try to push the needle down and back up in one move like you would when sewing fabric. You'll end up with a badly puckered logo.

To get the right location on where to bring the needle back up, I used a combination of poking the needle through to line up with the lines drawn on the felt and 'eye-balling-it' from the front. I'll admit that throughout the process, I ended up sewing either inside or outside the lines a lot to matchup better on the front side. Remember, no one's going to see if you stayed within the lines on your felt backing, but everyone will see the right side of the logo. 

Another tip is to ignore individual stitches in the knitted fabric. Instead, think of it as being a solid piece. Take the the photo below for example. There is about a one stitch width between the two embroidered lines, however, there's not a single continuous column of stitches separating them. There are actually two reasons for this. One, because I knit the hat in the round, my stitches slanted slightly to the left. It's a factor of how I knit and the yarn, but that's a different discussion. The other reason - and this would be a bigger issue if my stitch columns didn't slant - is because wrapping a bunch of yarn around a single column of stitches would inevitably pucker and leave gaps on either side. I made sure to be very exact with my stitch placement and definitely split stitches if necessary.



As you continue to work your way around the logo, you can remove the pins tacking the felt to the inside of the hat. At this point (above) you can see the first two (from left) vertical lines of the logo. If you look closely at what is the center line of the logo above, you can see the top half of it is not as wide as the bottom. If something like this happens, you can correct it in two ways. One, you could pick your stitches out individually. It's not as bad as it might seem, the felt backing helps as does a blunt needle. Just be patient. Your other option is to go back over your work with more stitches to better flesh out the design. I didn't actually do that in this spot (I didn't mind so much that vertical line) but I did in plenty of others.



For the sharp point at the lower left of my logo I switched from tiny vertical stitches to a few sort of 'outline' stitches to bring it to a sharp point. Unfortunately the best thing I can suggest here is a bit of trial and error to see what works for you. The whole bottom line of the logo is where I stitched over a lot as described above to get the right shape.

Once you're done and your logo looks beautiful - and it will - just tack your loose ends down on the inside and finish up your hat.

How to Hide Yarn From Your Spouse in 7 Easy Steps

Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-Ply, Natural

Step 1: Make enormous yarn purchase using personal bank account direct deduction through Paypal.


Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-Ply, Oatmeal

Step 2: Have enormous yarn purchase delivered to work. Dodge questions from co-workers about contest of package.


Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-Ply, Medium Sheeps Gray

Step 3: Plan to arrive home from work well in advance of spouse. Allow enough time to complete all steps as well as normal spousal duties like making dinner, so as not to arouse suspicion.


Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-Ply, Dark Sheeps Gray

Step 4: Procure giant storage bag(s). Raid spouse's stash if necessary.



Step 5: Place yarn into giant storage bags, lay on top of to remove as much air as possible and store in rarely used bed drawer. Make sure bed drawer is on your side of the bed.



Step 6: (optional) Place laundry basket and other random bedroom object in front of rarely used bed drawer.

Step 7: Discard any and all incriminating shipping materials. Burn if necessary.

Unfortunately for me, I messed up on step 3 and my wife got home as I was in the middle of the process. I had one bag done and stupidly tried to hide the rest, tossing a sweatshirt over the box. She walked into the bedroom and said, "What's in the box?"

Damn.

All told, that's 40 skeins of Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-Ply. 8,400 yards / 10 pounds / 4 sweaters worth (or more) of yarn. And I only paid $135 shipped. Can you say bargain?

Tips 'n' Tricks: Mattress Stitch

In the process of seaming my Ravelmpic Vest, I discovered a neat little trick I'd like to share with all of you. I have a few of these rattling around in my brain, so I'll start a series called Tips 'n' Tricks.

This trick assumes you already know how to do mattress stitch. If you don't, there's a great tutorial at Mochimochi Land. This tip will work for all three techniques that Anna describes.

First, seam up your sides until your work looks like this. Don't go too far before proceeding or you might have a tough time snugging up the stitches.



Grab hold of the top strand of yarn connecting the two sides and...



...pull! Watch as your little floats disappear and bring the two sides nicely together.



Now all you have to do is follow that long strand back to the seam to find where to insert your needle (pssst ... you insert it in the same place where the strand is coming out of the seam)



If you just pull on the very end of your seaming yarn, your top float disappears along with the others and it's really difficult to find where to re-insert your needle.



This trick is also available in a Flickr set, click here to begin.

Cuppa Sock Anyone?

Mmmmm, looks pretty tasty to me! I finally finished the heel* on one of my Cat in the Hood socks last night, so I decided to reward myself with half an FO and sew up the top hem.

I wanted to use as much of this yarn as possible, however, when I held the sock up to my leg, it looked like it was going to hit my leg at the bottom of my calf. So, I chose a hem top instead of a straight up cast off to avoid any calf shaping. Plus, I personally think it's more stretchy than a traditional cast off. Finally, this allowed me to guarantee the sock would end with a brown stripe. I was concerned about the sock looking too yellow since it ended up so bright. I think it turned out nicely balanced.

So what's with the pint glass? So glad you asked! I've sewn a hem top once before on one of my Carbonite Socks and it was kind of a bitch to do holding such a floppy material in my hands. Inspiration struck about a week ago when I realized that a pint glass was about the right diameter to hold the sock open enough to see the stitches as well as a hard surface to use the needle against.

I stuffed the sock into the glass and then pulled it back over the top for about 5 inches. Then I flipped enough of the sock up - one 'stripe width' - so that none of the facing yellow stitches would show at the top of the sock and began sewing. I made sure to sew the live stitches to the last row of yellow stitches on the leg to avoid any color confrontation (yes, I just coined that phrase) on the outside of the sock. Also, it should be noted that I placed the stitches on a piece of scrap yarn rather than leaving them on DPNs so the sock would hug the glass smoothly.

Then, following a wonderful tutorial** by TechKnitter, I slid the needle into the first live stitch purl-wise and tacked it to the corresponding stitch on the leg. Since I knit the socks in k2p2 rib, I ended up sewing purl stitches to knit stitches and vice-versa, no big deal. Click on the pictures to see more detail.

After that I just worked my way around with the glass keeping the sock stretched well enough that I didn't sew any stitches too tightly. You can see that the resulting hem does not pull in as tightly as the rest of the sock, but rest assured that it stretches out just as well.

Finally, I leave you with an Ode on a Grecian Sock Urn. :-)

*I ended up using this tutorial to work an afterthought heel, which worked SO much better than simply working another 'toe' for a heel. I guess I have fat ankles. The first attempt resulted in a sock that was stretched so tightly, I was afraid my skin would start oozing through the stitches like play-doh.

**She doesn't explicitly explain sewing shut live stitches, but the concept is the same.

How to make a center pull ball

This came about from a thread on knittinghelp.com. I mentioned how I create a center pull ball of yarn without using a store-bought yarn winder, so I thought I would put together a photo tutorial for those who wanted to see how. Here goes:

Start off by putting 6 inches of your yarn into the center of a paper towel tube. I prefer a paper towel tube over a toilet paper tube because the length gives you something substantial to hold on to.


Next, hold the yarn against the tube with your thumb.


Begin winding the yarn perpendicularly around the tube. Go slowly with the first few wraps, these will lock in the yarn tail that you were holding down with your thumb.


Once you have a few wraps established so the yarn is secure on the tube (about 10 wraps) begin winding the yarn around the tube at an angle.

Once you have another 10 wraps at an angle, turn the tube 1/4 turn and begin wrapping again at the same angle.


After you have these two sets of wraps done, you can begin to slowly turn the tube while you continue to wrap. This will form a more uniform ball than if you continue to wrap multiple times in the same place.


As your ball begins to grow, you can shape it by changing where you place your wraps. If you wrap the yarn slightly away from the tube, a "corner" will form and the ball will begin to take on a cylindrical shape. Keep wrapping the yarn near the "corner" to keep that shape. If you move the yarn closer to the tube, your ball will end up rounder and be less likely to stay put as you pull the yarn from the center.


When your ball is a big as you want it or your yarn is gone, fish the yarn tail out of the tube and lay it on the outside of the ball. I find this helps to keep the tail in order; if you leave it in the tube as you pull the ball off, it falls into the center of the ball and you have to fish it out of the yarn instead of a nice smooth paper tube.


All that's left is to slide the ball off the tube and you're ready to go!