I'm Back and Less Shitty

I haven't posted anything here in six months, probably because I've been busy posting incredibly filtered Instagram photos every hour or so. At the risk of sounding like a cottage cheese ball, a lot has changed. I am a better knitter, well at least I think so today, and I am more interested in living a better life. The latter has ultimately led me to various activities and a lot of culling, some of which may appear on these pages and may well not be knitting related in the obvious sense. What I mean by that is that the act of creating something has led me to try out other creative acts and experiences, some I have felt like sharing. It's funny how enjoying something or feeling the benefits of putting in some thought or physical effort can make you want to share it with others..or try and convert them...or bore them rigid. Basically, I make and do loads of shit these days and everyone is going to know about it.

A New Hope

The knitting bug is back in full force. I am officially addicted to yarn. All it takes is a sweet DK or nice charcoal fleck and I'm ready again. This time, I'm serious as Rhythm is a Dancer.

To fill the bits of time between loading the oven and eating dinner, or those between not sleeping and pretending to sleep, I have taken to trying out test patches of stitch patterns. I've also managed a bit of crochet after a particularly frustrating video tutorial (that I won't link to) made by a woman not-so-naturally-gifted in the audio visual department. Anyway, all that led to this..

garter rib, pinstripe, honeycomb stitch

..and it's gone back in the bag to make way for, wait for it..The Jumper. That's right, I'm going to make a jumper. I have ludicrous visions of me wearing said jumper, pristine of knit, perfect of fit, reluctant to wash, batting away compliments as if it was as easy as lighting a cigarette. I know I'm in for a much harsher reality, even half a row into the knit, but let's try.

The pattern I'm using is one from the lionbrand website and I chose it because it's free, I could follow the instructions and it doesn't require circular needles or have any fancy cabling. The required basic skill set includes only knitting, purling, decreasing and sewing. I'll worry about my shocking edges when I get there.

I've bought my materials, an online order from Wool Warehouse that arrived on my doorstep within 36 hours via regular post and even came with some free pom pom making rings. What service! They also have a great selection and if they added Cascade yarn to their site, I'd never go anywhere else for yarn again.

So, no one talk to me, i'll probably be counting or knitting backwards for the foreseeable future.

Er Wait.. Oh...My..Freakin..God.I'm.Knitting.DoubleSidedInTwoColours!

Side 1

Just a quick note before I start punching the bed in sweater hell.

I was messing around with two colours of yarn recently and started a pot stand pattern in the Tech Knits book. It's a double strand cast on so you basically just cast on stitches as normal but holding two colours of thread together as if they were one. Note: The cast on stitches need to alternate in colour. I cast on 70 stitches in total.

Row 1: Knit the first stitch which is, say green, using only the green yarn to wrap the needle. Bring both the green and blue yarn to the front as if preparing to purl, then purl the next stitch (blue) using only the blue yarn. Move the working yarns to the back of the work again is if preparing to knit, then knit the next stitch (green) using only the green yarn. Keep doing this to the last stitch, which you should purl.

Side 2

If you follow these instructions should they make any sense whatsoever, you will notice that you are basically purling one side of the work in one colour and knitting the other side in the other colour AT THE SAME TIME. It's magnificent, and it works so well so easily.

For Row 2: Do the same but reverse the stitches i.e. Purl the knits and knit the Purls.

Edit: Keep repeating rows one and two until you're ready to cast off.

Cross Stitch - takes bloody ages!

I'm having a break from cross stitch. It's wonderful, fun and good results come easily if you use all the tips on offer on the web, but results are slow and I just got a new piano that I already love dearly and am excited to get home to at night.

Piano and cat

In light of this, I've picked up the needles again in quieter times, as even piano practise has to stop to allow the practise to sink into your finger muscles (finger muscles?). Well, for me it does.

I'm currently practising garter rib on a fully loaded needle and have decided to turn it into a pillow when it's big enough.

Garter rib.

How to:

Cast on a multiple of 8 stitches plus 4 extra stitches.

Row 1: knit 4, *purl 4, knit 4 repeat from * to end.  (in English, just knit 4 purl 4 alternately to the end!)

Row 2: purl to the end

Repeat the above two rows until the piece is as big as you want it.

Uniformity - Mega Stress (but temporary)

Spoiler Alert! Tip: You just have to knit and knit and knit..

So, following a few oblong/rhombus shaped practice samplers using the videos in my last post, I got the basics in from Abakhan. This included a random selection of yarn chosen purely by colour - a super chunky cream, a fine green, a very fine pink mohair and couple of shades of brown. I also picked up a variety of needles; some resin, some plastic, some bamboo, some circle needles, and made sure they were the correct sizes for the yarn I had chosen.

Hint - If you look at the label on the yarn, it will show you which gauge/size of needle would work with it.

I started by matching a brown yarn to some 5mm needles and cast on cocky as anything. I soon realised I was dropping stitches (missing them out), picking up several stitches (miraculously creating extra stitches), twisting stitches and splitting stitches (where you pierce the stitch rather than work around it). My samplers basically look like shit - as you can see.

Bad knitting

My problem was uniformity of the stitches and controlling the tension of the working yarn (attached to the ball). After a quick Google, it seemed all I had to do was practice and knit as much as possible. Great.

My next move was possibly the best I could've made to improve the quality of my kitting; I picked up the chunky yarn and size 10 circular needles I'd bought (needles connected with a 80cm wire) and I cast on as many stitches as I could fit on there, didn't count them, and knit every row. It was hard going as the wool was difficult to work with, the plastic needles weren't slippy enough for me and I'm pretty sure it gave me arthritis, but I kept going. When I'd hit the third ball of yarn I called it quits for a while, purely to give my knuckles a rest. It looked like this after one skein and three skeins:

One Skein

Three Skeins

It still looks like that. However, when I picked up the finer yarn and standard needles and started knitting in stockinette (One row of knit stitch, one row of purl stitch ad infinitum), it came out perfect, or as perfect as I can expect it to be. Tension sorted.

Yeah!