# The Attic Community Workshop

## Entries tagged with project

### Pictures from the 4/27 Cross-Stitch/Embroidery on Paper Workshop!

  
  
Sunday I hosted an Attic workshop for people interested in learning to cross-stitch, or people who just wanted to sew on something different than conventional cloth. It was a lot of fun, and we made some pretty cool things!   
  
I'll definitely be doing this again at some point, whether as another workshop with a designated "project" like this one or as a "sewing circle" type thing - the Attic has a whole box of supplies including embroidery floss and canvas for us to keep using. :D  
  
**(Pictures under the cut! )**  
Thank you to jetts for taking photos!

### paper crafts!

As you'll have gathered if you've been reading the posts on this blog over the past couple of weeks, the Attic had a _Secret Santa_ -esque holiday gift exchange! Here are some photos from the creation of my final gift to my recipient, our lovely president:   
  
  
  
I also made some origami boxes using this tutorial and embroidered on the tops -   
  
  
  
I'd like to keep working on my book-binding and miniature-making (and sewing on paper) skills in the future, so if anyone else would be interested in a workshop where we did a project like these ones together let me know!

### Fiber photos

  
  
Left: undyed roving from Isis Yarns, spun worsted. Right: the same dyed roving, spun woolen. Note the difference in floof!  
  
  
Close-up on the yarn.   
  
**memnus** winds off his spoils from Knit Fit.  
  


### Scalemaille, extended weave scale, feathermaille

(Click on images to enlarge.) 

There are several fabrics or chain weaves referred to as "scale mail", including scales sewed or riveted onto a backing. The weaves I'm referring to here all have the scales as an integral component - each scale is structurally load-bearing and the rings alone will not hold the piece together.

The most common scale weave has each scale linked directly to the scales above and below. This is a straightforward pattern to knit, but the resulting fabric has some properties I don't particularly like. It has a strong curl toward the back of the fabric, and very little flexibility to bend toward the front. The scales along the edges also tend to rest differently than scales in the middle, or get out of alignment with each other. 

To try to fix those problems, I moved to smaller rings and added an extra row of rings between each two rows of scales. Now, each scale is linked to the three rings above and three rings below. This requires three times as many rings as regular scale, so nearly three times as much time to knit, but the resulting fabric is much more flexible. It still has a curl toward the back due to the shape of the scales, but is more forgiving of being bent against it. 

Even with smaller rings, the extended weave drapes farther than common scale, enough so that gaps become visible in the fabric. To cover those, I replace the rings directly above the scales with smaller scales. The openings in the scales are smaller than the rings, so this contracts the weave slightly, but hides the openings nicely. The smaller scales also give an opportunity to add color more subtly than in the larger pattern. I call this weave feathermaille.

### Project Report: Woodworking~!

My goal this year has been to teach myself to use the scroll saw I bought when I was 12 (long story, awesome parents) - it's been going fairly well, though right now I'm storing it at my family's workshop out in Carnation/Duvall, so I don't get out there to make things as much as I'd like! As the space grows I want to see the Attic become a space where we can do woodshop-y things, but for now I have plenty of other projects better suited to our beautifully-carpeted space. :3   
  
The very first project I did with my scroll saw back in May was a set of small pine bird ornaments:   
  
  
  
which I then stained using food coloring:   
  
  
  
and strung into a garland as a gift for my grandmother. I have another set of seahorse ornaments that I still need to stain - I might end up giving them away in exchange for donations to the Attic, or tucking them into holiday cards.   
  
My current big super-intimidating project doesn't look like much right now:   
  
  
  
This is one side of a 13x13" box I am making for my cubby at the Attic. I started in July and so far have about 3/4 of the first panel finished. It's fun to do something ambitious, though, and it's a great learning experience. I can't wait to have it completed and ready to put to use (and show off :P)!   
  
\- Kristin Leigh

### Project report: socks!

  
  
This summer called for ankle socks! Seattle summers are not so hot that wearing wool socks is a bad idea, so I started on a pair of small and unmatched socks. (I meant to do that. Mostly.)  
  
The pattern for these is a truncated, slightly modified version of Clara Parkes' Stepping-Stones from A Knitter's Book of Socks.1 The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock mediumweight, knit on US1.5 DPNs. I dyed the gold/orange/blue colorway myself. The blue is a skein from a bag of STR mill ends and happened to match the blue highlights in the gold.  
  
Unusually for me, I barely changed the pattern except to shorten the cuffs and extend the stranded heel through the heel turn for more strength. That didn't quite turn out as expected with the square heel--there were gaps at the decreases that needed filling--but would work beautifully with a trapezoidal short row heel turn.   
  
My favorite parts: The broken rib pattern gives a bit of knitting and visual interest while staying simple. It is also great for self-striping or variegated yarns, as the purl bumps break up the stripes a little. The heel, worked stranded in 1x1 checks, has even more reinforcement than the s1/k1 slipstitch heel and is closer in gauge to standard stockinette.   
  
Verdict: simple and reasonably engaging. Will knit again with further heel mod.   
  


1\. Do you like fiber? Do you want to know about the requirements for yarn that make for good socks? Buy this book. It has materials science in it and talks about stuff like the effect of the modulus of elasticity of the fiber on the finished sock. It is an engineer's sock book that is entirely accessible to non-engineers.