Wednesday

Quick Tip: Get the Wrinkles Out of a Stretched Artist's Canvas

I discovered a quick way to get wrinkles out of an artist's canvas that has been stretched, gessoed and even had light layer of paint applied.

I'd bought a bunch of canvases at the 1 cent sale at Aaron Brothers that had been sitting around for a while. I pulled a 12" x 36" canvas out to paint today and noticed it had some wrinkles and sags in one of the corners. I hoped they'd work themselves out, but after putting on a light undercoat of paint they became even more visible.

Fortunately it's a warm sunny day today so I took the canvas outside, turned it so that the stretcher bars were facing up & sprayed the whole thing with a light mist of water. It was well saturated, but not dripping. I laid it on a table, again with the stretcher bars facing up, and within about 10 minutes the wrinkles were gone. I was afraid the gesso & paint might prevent the canvas from shrinking to fit, but it wasn't a problem.

Easy fix. For a change....

Sunday

Free Pattern for Knit Slouchy Hat

Thanks to some helpful comments on Ravelry I've updated my free Slouchy Hat Pattern and thought I'd post the new pattern here. I hadn't looked at the pattern in years, and when I recently did the crown shaping instructions made absolutely no sense. Hopefully these improvements work....

I saw a similar hat in one of my favorite hat books:

It's in the book as number 0450, The Sloppy Joe, Designed by Woolly Wormhead. The book doesn't have patterns (athough as I just checked her site, the original pattern is available to here for £2.50, and would have saved me all sorts of time had I thought then to look for it....) But even so, the yarn I had didn't require the same size needles. And I didn't want an i-cord tag at the top. And I wanted a 2 x 2 rib band. All that said, the book is hugely inspirational and one I highly recommend for the "I need an idea" section of your knitting library.

If you're on Ravelry you can  download the pattern here. If not you can just print this page.


 EASY SLOUCHY HAT


Twisted Sisters Jazz Handpaint, 1 skein each color 60 & 69

#6 Needles Double Pointed Needles

Gauge: 4” = 20 stitches and 24 rows

CO 96
For entire hat do 2 row stripes alternating colors 60 and 69.
Work 2 x 2 rib for 1 1/2”
Increase 8 stitches. (104 stitches)
Work stockinette until 9 1/2” from beginning.

Crown
On the next round (work 24 sts, k2tog) 4 times. [100 sts]
Work one round even.
Shape crown as described below.
Round 1: *Work 8, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [90 sts remain]
Round 2: Work even
Round 3: *Work 7, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [80 sts remain]
Round 4: Work even
Round 5: *Work 6, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [70 sts remain]
Round 6: Work even
Round 7: *Work 5, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [60 sts remain]
Round 8: Work even
Round 9: *Work 4, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [50 sts remain]
Round 10: Work even
Round 11: *Work 3, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [40 sts remain]
Round 12: Work even
Round 13: *Work 2, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [30 sts remain]
Round 14: Work even
Round 15: *Work 1, k2tog. Repeat from * around. [20 sts remain]
Round 16: Work even
Round 17: *K2tog. Repeat from * around. [10 sts remain]

Finishing
Cut yarn, leaving a generous tail. Draw tail through remaining stitches on the needle. Pull gently to close hole. Weave in tail. Weave in ends.
Updated 4/15/12