Yak hat

This is the first hat i ever knitted. It was made with "Shokay" 100%
Tibetan yak fiber. This all started when someone told me that yak
fiber was one of the softest and warmest fibers you could get, but
you couldn't get it because of the extreme pain in the ass it is to
gather. Yaks cannot be shaven and must be combed to gather fiber.
Apparently a couple of harvard grads noticed the demand for fiber,
yet an abundance of very poor Tibetan yak farmers. So they started
the shokay yarn company and here we go!

This stuff costs $32 for 3.5oz of worsted weight yarn. The hat ended
up using 1.5oz of yarn, so i am quite happy with the overall cost. The
hat is warm, and extremely soft. It seems a little delicate though,
there are lots of "pills" that form on the surface with wear.

The pattern was made from several generic hat patterns i found. cast
on 8, every other row tbl on all end stitches on each of the 4
needles until cap fits head, knit until its long enough.

The KMFDM scarf

This scarf was made by sarah for a friend of ours. Call me impressed! The pattern was made using an album cover photo and automatic pattern generation software. it was cleaned up by hand. The end result is a really really nice looking font! I cant believe how nice it turned out.

I-cord bikini

I didnt personally knit this project,miainly because i dont wear many bikinis :) my wonderful friend Sarah did (pictured). using the I-cord I made in the lego knitting machine.

The pattern was based on a generic bikini pattern. its very difficult to work "yarn" this large as far as increases and decreases go. Every thing you do is very very visible. But the overall effect is really great! nothing looks quite so nice as a custom fitted bikini, and the fuzzy wool look makes it all the more awesome. Here is sarahs pattern:

1st cup:
Temporary CO 15 sts (Leave a long enough tail to tie between the cups)
Row 1-10: St. st. starting with Knits
Row 11: K2tog tbl, K11, K2tog
Row 12: P13
Row 13: K2tog tbl, K9, K2tog
Row 14: P11
Row 15: K2tog tbl, K7, K2tog
Row 16: P9
Row 17: K2tog tbl, K5, K2tog
Row 18: P7
Row 19: K2tog tbl, K3, k2tog
Row 20: P5
Row 21: K2tog tbl, K1, k2tog
Row 22: P3
Row 23: K3tog
Pull end through remaining stitch (Leave long tail to tie around the neck)

2nd cup:
Temporary CO 15 sts (Leave a long enough tail to tie between the cups)
Row 1-9: St. st. starting with Purls
Row 10: K2tog tbl, K11, K2tog
Row 11: P13
Row 12: K2tog tbl, K9, K2tog
Row 13: P11
Row 14: K2tog tbl, K7, K2tog
Row 15: P9
Row 16: K2tog tbl, K5, K2tog
Row 17: P7
Row 18: K2tog tbl, K3, k2tog
Row 19: P5
Row 20: K2tog tbl, K1, k2tog
Row 21: P3
Row 22: K3tog
Pull end through remaining stitch (Leave long tail to tie around the neck)

Cut a piece of I-cord long enough to tie around ribs; this will bow in the back. Run this piece through the temporary cast on loops on both cups. Slip out the original cast on tails so that they end up between the cups and bow tie together.

Bottoms:
Temporary CO 27 sts
Work 7 rows in St. st.
BO 3 stitches at the beg of next 2 rows
Cont in St. st., dec 1 st at beg and end of every row for 8 rows (either K2tog or P2tog)
Work 12 rows in St. st.
Work 13 rows in St. st., inc 1 st at beg and end of every row **(A)
Work 13 rows in St. st., inc 1 st at beg and end of knit rows only **(B)
** Depending on the size you need, adjust the number of inc rows (either fewer A rows and more B rows, or vice versa. This pattern fits my body, and I have wide hips, so periodically check the piece to see if it will fit appropriately.)
Work 7 rows in St. st.
Leave stitches on the needle and cut the I-cord leaving enough length to seam the front and back together at the side.

Cut a long enough piece of I-cord to tie around the hips and run this piece through the stitches on the needle and the temporary CO stitches. Slide out the CO tail and use to seam the other side.

560ft of i-cord

Finally! I got through the entire massive bag of yarn i had. The little lego knitting machine held up for the lot of it! I believe this is "sport" weight yarn. its pretty thin. The three balls of yarn weigh:

Red-260g
Green-274g
Blue-212g

For a total of ~750g(26oz, 1lb 10oz)

16" of cord weighs 1.8 grams, giving me 560ft of cord. Amazingly, this is roughly 8,300ft of input yarn!

At its peak run, towards the end of minor optimizations, the lego knitter could knit 1 foot of yarn in 1.8 seconds. Thats theoreticly only about 4 hours of runtime, in reality it was closer to 10 hours over the last couple weeks.

now... to see if my idea for knitting this works....

UPDATE:


Some test swatches. The gauge for knititng this "yarn" is:

4x4"

#13 9x15
#15 8.5x14
#19 7x12