K3tog: ILx Knitting 3

Looks deformed, I assure you, it isn't. :-)

so... knitting! i want to learn.

I cant wear sweaters

It is a particularly nice fall/winter activity. I recommend a basic scarf to start (by the end of the scarf, you'll be comfortable with the process, will have learned to fix some kinds of screw-ups, and will have evened out your stitching tension) and then moving on to a hat knitted in the round--so fun and quick and good to give as gifts!

quincie OTM - I'd only add, make sure you start with yarn you like the feel of, something springy and mostly wool or acrylic if you are allergic to wool (easier to work with than cotton, linen, bamboo, rayon) in a worsted weight. I found it easier to see the stitches with a medium toned heathered yarn (vs. a solid dark or solid light color). Scarves are great, because your gauge just doesn't matter so much.

There are so many instructional videos you can find on-line, and Ravelry.com is a great resource.

My newest favorite trick: using needle-felting for joins! I've generally done Russian joins, but always ended up with ends poking out still. Also I was recently working with a yarn that just couldn't felt (microspun acrylic). You can still set things up like a Russian join (cut back 1/2 the strands on each end for about 2", hook the ends around each other like interlocking Js) but instead of spit and friction felting, you lay the yarn on a piece of foam and poke the daylights out of it with a barbed needle. Forces the fibers to interlock securely and keeps the yarn size the same plus no ends whatsoever to deal with for finishing.

Elmo, buy the Debbie Stoller book. Quite funny and instructive. And DEFINITELY check out youtube!

I've been making a shitload of hats. For charity (in Japan). Almost all of'em stranded hats cause that's how I like to roll (or rather knit). lolol

I have also been buying tons of cheap (sheep?) patterns/books on ebay. And now I am trying my luck at buying good yarn at cheap prices.

The more I knit, the less I feel a good knitter. I definitely want to do lots of sweaters. Feel one isn't a proper knitter unless you've done a dozen sweatahs. :-)

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6006/6006685134_c28614db44_m.jpg

I am also trying to pick out colours for stranded hats. Not easy.

I'm sure someone said 'nupps'. I'm thinking of starting a shawl with nupps and just found a way of doing them which looks so much easier than p7tog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSIzYLbasHY

putting link here so I can remember it. Seriously, come back delicious, I am no good at having a cloud based bunch of networks anymore. What do you lot use?

(Thinking of doing Annis - looks a bit more interesting to knit than Citron, although that is wuvvly too).

Nupps are actually quite easy but ONLY if you do them SUPER SUPER SUPER SUUUUPER loose. Before I didn't get it, but then I did a one day course and have come to realize there's noy much to it.

First attempts at intarsia and duplicate stitch, turned out okay:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6069/6117850197_294cce45b0.jpg

I should maybe add - that's fingering weight yarn on 4s, will fit a newborn to maybe 3 month old. Totally tiny!

Ok! Knitting! I have figured out how to cast on, knit, and purl. Sort of. Still figuring out the tension issue. Started with some YouTube vids and had a bit of a tutorial today from my mom (hooray, Mom!).

Hooray Elmo! I think it's great fun, and you get useful stuff out of it.

Yay, elmo! YouTube can help a lot, and if one video doesn't explain a certain stitch or technique, there are plenty of other videos that might.

Jaq, that is too cute. I took an intarsia class with Lucy Neatby and bought her DVDs. I really should watch them some time.

Thanks t.r.! I could see it working much better if I weren't changing from garter stitch to stockinette between the white and blue. At first, I had the totally misguided idea I could change color for just a single stitch, like cross-stitch, and tried to do a mix of intarsia and stranded - which was crazy-making.

The next thing I want to try is some Extreme Double-Knitting. I've got the book pre-ordered after seeing some of the finished stuff in Interweave.

My friends at the yarn shop are really into the Extreme Double-Knitting guy so I am going to have to check it out sooner or later.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6154/6137149665_59c26cf15e.jpg

FINALLY finished my second blanket. NEVER again will I knit a stranded blanket. BORING. BUt I have to say I do like the end result. Still needs fabric backing.

I did my first colorwork type thing. Whattt? It's a Latvian braid, y'all.
I remember my knitting guru telling me about a person who did stranded colorwork by picking color A up and putting color B down...every time she changed colors. Didn't even try holding them in the same hand. (This crazoid was the LYS owner in Cruces actually.) I thought this was fucking crazy. But...that is what I did for this Latvian braid. I have become the thing that I judged.
It has made me stoked to do it the propah way, tho. Double-fisting the yarn, yes? Maybe...soon.

I might as well show it to you all, it is a hat by my #1 pattern design crush (crush on both him and his rad androgynous patterns) <3Stephen West<3

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/655/westward.jpg

I also tried crocheting the other day. Like five minutes of trying. It was like the time I tried to teach myself COntinental knitting...meaning it was brief & half-assed. Is crocheting an edging on a knitted thing significantly different than crocheting to make a crocheted item?

yes, imo, as long as it's a simple edge.

i was single crocheting edgings years before i could fathom how to crochet.

Just showing off my first continental colourwork project, finished this just over a week ago - totoro headband! The chart makes it a bit taller than my head, but I bet I can get away with it when the weather turns colder.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6162/6174948970_cf7b3cc401.jpg

This was surprisingly fun! Once I figured out how to weave the floats on each hand, there were no problems and it worked up really quickly. The yarn never tangled, and it was so... simple! No idea now how people could do colourwork with both yarns in the same hand (I tried a while back, and the balls tangled ridiculously). Now more confident about working a colourwork yoke in the Cityscape cardie (if I ever don't get distracted and start other projects that is).

And now I've started a shawl in some ridiculously beautiful yarn from Spitalfields city farm wool and sheep festival a few months ago.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6151/6184526412_eec4d149b6.jpg

If there's not enough yarn, I have a 'spring greens' colourway that I am thinking of substituting in for a section or two. I am adding in a few extra reps as I've gone down needle size substantially so this will prob be the case.

Sweet - I love the Totoro! Did you make the chart? I've been lots of double-knitting (just got the Extreme Double-knitting advance pdf so yay even more colors to sort out how to hold) using modified cross-stitch charts and making a few of my own.

I was haunted by the idea of alternating this bright pink/purple/blue/teal yarn with black and finally worked it up in a baby surprise jacket. Really pleased how it turned out: http://www.etsy.com/listing/83452968/optic-striped-black-berry-baby-surprise

Little blue penguins need sweaters knitted! http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/10/call_for_knitted_sweaters_for.html

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6179/6175986315_366103d265.jpg

I did a Totoro as well. Really fun. I hold both yarns in my one hand. The trick is to keep it consistent. I loooove doing stranded work. :-)

I want to chime in on the bsj. I wanted to scream I hated it her, way back when you were raving about Z. Then I knit a bsj. Then another. Now I'm going to do another one. lol.

BTW my granny was in awe of my knitting skills: the fact I knit so consistent, blind,... Who isn't able to knit blind? I mean, shit, I need to watch my gazillion series. :-)

i can only knit without looking if it's plain stockinette but often find that i slipped stitches and have to fix them the next row. can one do colorwork without continental knitting? i'm impressed with how fast you all seem to learn but i am stuck with one color only. i could probably do intarsia if i tried.

i just finished a cowl from one of the brooklyn tweed shelter collections. (i hate those pictures he has but they are nice things). i just gotta block it. it's good yarn but breaky. there is a break somewhere in the middle of my cables that i can't find. i think the yarn is sticky enough that it won't slip out though.

Jacquard just suits me so well. I absolutely love it. Hence why I crank out those stranded hats in no time. Lol. I should try intarsia. Then again I mainly do seamless.

I have to look, though I can get away with glancing at the tv every once in awhile if I'm knitting garter. And I can pay attention to Mr. Jaq reading to me as long as I don't have to count - so I always have something with a non-challenging pattern going.

Have finally totally mastered the continental purl, I think from doing a huge amount of double-knitting which is basically k1p1 forever and ever. What superpitching said about the yarn just laying exactly right is otm, but I couldn't see that happening before because I was using my left index finger to lift the yarn over the left needle. The trick is using the right needle action and a dip of the left to put the yarn to the front - it stays draped over the left index finger that way AND lays exactly above the stitch you're going to purl into. Put the right needle in the stitch, twitch the left index to the right and down, catch the yarn with the right needle tip and swoop up your purl stitch.

I started a knitting group at work and have been writing up simple patterns - garter stitch scarf, grandma's favorite square, and last week we did simple mittens. It's a fun couple of hours and I bring all my knitting toys for people to play with. I start the projects off and we pass them around with everyone doing a couple of rows to get the feel for what's going on.

So I put a scarf aside and now I can't remember what the fuck the stitch pattern is. I have 29 stitches cast on, the row finished before I quit goes P1, then K2 P2 for the rest of the row.

I think this was supposed to be a broken rib pattern? Gah, so frustrating.

Well k2 p2 certainly sounds like a rib.

Yeah, but there are 29 stitches, so I don't knowhow that worked. I think maybe it is Row 1: K, Row 2: K2 P2, last stitch P?

I'll take it back to the yarn shop where they told me the pattern (which I failed to write down, duh) and ask them to refresh my memory, I guess!

Your hypothesis sounds good to me. You'll be putting a seam in down that edge?

sounds like maybe some type of double rib but i forgot how to do that. i think that might have been like k2, p1 though

Oh hang on, it's a scarf, so no seam. I'd do a few rows and see what happens, unless it's mohair or something, that you can't unravel.

I tried a couple of rows and f'ed up the pattern, so I'm gonna just chill on it until I can take it to one of those magical people who can look at knitting and figure out exactly what the hell is going on.

But anyway, I really want to finish this damn scarf for Mr. Quincie so I can move on to making this cowl neck warmer thingie with yarn from my colleagues very own alpacas!

Broken rib pattern:

Works over multiples of two plus one.

Row one: Knit.

Row two: Purl one (knit one, purl one) across.

Is that it?

Although yours would be
R1: Knit
R2: P1 (K2, P2) across

and that works because 29 is a multiple of 4 +1

That's what I tried, but maybe it was R2: (K2, P2) but always end with a P2 stitch as the last stitch on the row? I seem to remember the ladies saying something about always ending on a _ stitch at the end of the row. Would that basically result in the same idea?

My brain is not good at figuring out patterns of the knitting type :(

If you can't wait until you get to the shop, you could send me a picture, and maybe I can tell what is going on.

Oh I love and am envious that you can just look at stuff and figure it out! It probably seems very obvious to you, but I have a hard time figuring out pattern intricacies (maths not my strong suit, obv).

I will try to find my camera so I can post!

I'm making a hat out of tosh dk. I have never used madelinetosh yarns before but the colors are so beautiful it's making me sigh like a dandy. Would love to make a whole cardigan out of it someday.

Guys after making four bsjs I can safely say: Overrated. Never really liked her style. Now even less

Guess I even go against the flow in knitting. Lol

what are bsjs?!

i love the madelinetosh yarns! i am almost done with a cardigan from it but i took a break beccause i came to an annoying part that involves picking up stitches, ew. i'm working on a quince and co pattern. it's the cardigan called anastasia. i think it's too short so i started the sleeves and will use whatever is leftover to make it longer. fast on 10.5 needles and no button band to pick up.

i also have a hat i made of madelinetosh vintage last year, it's so soft after being machine washed a few times and feels very durable

I want to see that madelinetosh yarn in person - the colors look amazing online! I'm in a hat knitting frenzy right now, trying to get 6 done by 11/17 and now have a rotten ache in my right elbow with 3 more to go. No more custom orders for awhile after this one - I've got one sleeve left to finish on the Snowden Becker Agatha cardigan and want to wear it NOW. (I'm making the sleeves full length and tapered in rather than belled - in midnight heather alpaca, dark dark blue heathered with black and purple and deep green.)

My friend M at my LYS loooooooooooooves madelinetosh so now they stock some. I bought some bright bright yellow (Edison Bulb) yesterday. I can't decide whether to pair it with blue or hot pink to make a scarf.

bsjs = Baby Surpise?

Surprise rather

what are bsjs?!

baby surprise jackets. i really think it's completely overrated.