Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I'm curious

For any knitters who read this blog-what is your favorite knitting needles to use and why?

For myself, I'm liking the circular needle for a variety of reasons.

Knitting in the round-no seams, very little sewing.
Knitting afghans in one piece-you can get a ton of stitches on a circular, especially the longer ones and you don't misplace a needle because they're attached to each other.
You can use two of them to knit small things in the round, there are a couple of websites that show how to do this, including doing socks. I still like my dpn for socks and one day might finish the ones I have on the needles but for a change of pace, doing them on two circulars is interesting.

I think I'm going to end up getting sets of circulars in different lengths. I do like the bamboo ones because the stitches don't slip off the needles as badly as they do on the aluminum circulars or straight ones. I don't think I'd get bamboo in straight needles, I'd be too afraid i'd break them but the circulars are nice.

One other thing, how are the rosewood needles to knit on? I don't think I could ever afford to get any but I am curious how they knit and might get a pair just to see.

This is just me being curious, I hang around cats too much, LOL.

Two more Moebius scarves

These are still on the needles so you can't see a lot of detail but you can see how the needles double over on themselves when you get the twist in the scarf. This is what makes the first round so difficult to do but if you persevere the rest of the scarf goes just like knitting anything else.

The fun fur one is being done in garter (k 1 rnd, p 1 rnd) since the yarn is the focus of the scarf rather than the stitch and the other one is being done in k2, p2 ribbing.



I've put the scarves down for now since I'm trying to get the feather and fan baby afghan going, hopefully this time will be the charm, then maybe I can post pics of it on the needles.

Monday, February 27, 2006

To knitters who are intimidated by the seamless Moebius

Don't be. if you've only been knitting a short while you should still be able to do one. The hardest part about the whole thing is establishing the twist then knitting the first round. After that it's pretty much routine knitting. Just make sure you use some kind of marker at your beg/end so you don't get lost.

If you've been knitting a long time, it's time to try one of these things. If you aren't sure of yourself just get some old cheap yarn out of your stash that you can practice on, get your needles out and go. I promise you won't be disappointed. As long as you do an easy stitch that looks the same on both sides-such as some kind of ribbing or seed stitch (difficult patterns could be tried later, after you get used to the technique)-then your scarf will look good. Unless you want half the scarf to look like reverse stockinette and the other half stockinette anyway.

I've got another one on another pair of needles. I decided I wanted to see what one would look like done in fun fur so I picked up two balls of LB Fun Fur in Sandstone and some RH Soft Baby in white. The white, while adding an interesting contrast to the fur, also helps me to see my stitches better. I'm doing a garter stitch (k 1 rnd, p 1 rnd) since the fun fur basically covers up the stitch detail anyway. I'm on the first purl round and it's looking really interesting, I'll post a pic when I get around my digicam so you can see what it looks like on the needles.

That gives me an idea for a future project-a tute with pics to make it easier to learn this technique but that's far into the future.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Finished

I finished my first practice knit Moebius scarf. I didn't make it very wide, I was just practicing to see what it would look like. I used some old yarn so I'm not going to take a picture of it.

It does get much easier after you suffer through getting the Moebius twist in and then do the first round, it's just a matter of knitting it to the width you want then BO and tie off. I ended up doing some of the stitches wrong in the very beginning because I wasn't watching what I was doing so I just used it as a learning experience for my next one, which I've already started.

It's going to be in RH Soft Baby and I'm using the same needles. I'm going to try something a bit different-I'm going to make it a K2 P2 ribbing and make it wide enough to use as a head covering. With the lighter weight yarn it should be useful with spring approaching and the need for heavier scarves and headwear diminishes.

Maybe I can finish it before Easter and use if for an Easter head covering, the colors are also good for easter as well as babies-soft pastels.

We'll see, I just hope I don't screw up on the stitches this time.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Some thoughts on the knit Moebius

*It's easier than the directions would have you to think.
*I wouldn't use less than a 29" length circular needle, size is irrelevant, that would depend on what you want your stitches to look like.
*If you can tough out establishing your Moebius and knitting the first round then you've got it made.
*A marker between the first and last stitch is ESSENTIAL, otherwise you would not know where the beginning/ending of your round is.

One of the sites I looked at about this said that it was easier than it would appear and that's right, it's just a bit difficult to knit with your circular doubled over on itself as if it was still in the package. Once you get past this then the rest is easy, you just knit your pattern (whatever it is) until it's the width you want it to be then end it.

You just have to pick up your needles and start knitting, not letting the first couple of rounds frustrate you. I would not recommend a beginner knitter try this until they get more experience under their belt.

Trying something I've never tried before

No, it isn't anything terribly exciting, I'm trying a knitting style I've never tried before-knitting a Moebius Scarf

Anyone knows what a Moebius strip is-a circle with only one side and one edge because it's been put together with a half-twist. I'm doing this scarf in the round with no seams to join. The technique is unusual and the first round is/will be a little slow and difficult, I just hope I can keep all my stitches on the needle as I go around.

Anyway, more on this when I get further than just starting, I'm not even halfway around the first round yet.

Editing to add: I found this person's instructions to be slightly easier to follow so I'm doing it this way, it's a bit faster and easier to get to the bottom strands.

I'm still not sure which stitch pattern I'm going to try when I get this first round done but I'm leaning towards the seed stitch which will look the same on both sides and is very easy to do, even if you are a beginner knitter, which I'm not, I just never tried this before. I also will need to dig out a safety pin to use for a marker when the time comes.

More later.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Very nearly done

With my roses afghan. I have 7 more rounds of border to crochet, then I can send it off to its recipient.

This is a picture of it before I started the border, it's bigger than me and will be quite a bit bigger with 9 rounds of border on it. That's the way she wanted it so that's the way she'll get it, I hope she likes it because I think it's the prettiest one I've done of the two I've done and this lady will have both of them.


Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Finished

I finished Joseph's Big Blue Star (AKA Beth's Little Star)

This is the lady who gave me the yarn I made it with, without her it probably wouldn't have been made:



This is Joseph, enjoying it:



I also finished the Newsboy Cap:



The little cross pin was a gift from my secret pal, I thought it looked kinda cool there.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Getting back into a knitting groove

I'd really like to knit more and as soon as I finish my roses afghan I think I will pick up the knitting again, I do have several pairs of socks I should finish.

Meanwhile, to get back into the groove I found a neat knitters forum. It seems to have just started so anyone out there reading this and you're a knitter come by and have a look-see, they're just as friendly as Crochetville.

I'm also working on a pair of double strand slippers which shouldn't take too long, I had to frog the first one back because it was too small-I'm using 10-1/2 needles and they used 8 so I was making them smaller just in case. Anyway, I'm glad I had a pretty long tail on my cast-on row so all I had to do was frog back to the first cast-on st and add on the number of sts called for in the first size. Looks like this might be more like it. The pictures of their slippers look kinda plain but I'm using a sportweight in white held together with RHSS in Bikini which will make some wild looking slippers-will post pictures as soon as I finish and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, back to my knitting.

Almost finished

I'm making another beret, this one out of LB Homespun. It's for a friend of mine who's been going through cancer treatments and has lost all her hair. She liked the beret I was wearing so I asked if she wanted one and she said she did. I'm using a partial skein of a light purple that I had on hand and while it's a PITA to crochet with the hat will be soft on her head.

Will post pics when I'm done, I only have the last dec rnd then the band.

And while I'm talking about hats for others, my nephew David asked me to make him a black beret and send it to him. Didn't know my beret pattern would be so popular ;)

Friday, February 10, 2006

Joseph's Big Blue Star

Well, it will be a big blue star when I'm done, I'm only just about at the end of the first one ounce skein but it looks like I just might have enough yarn to make a fair size afghan. I know the farther out I get the more yarn it takes but it really doesn't take all that much for this type of pattern so I should have a nice size blanket if I use all seven skeins.

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Thursday, February 09, 2006

I shouldn't be starting any more projects...

Yes, there's a 'but' in there. An older friend of mine from church gave me 7 one ounce skeins of really pretty light blue baby yarn because she found out her great-grandbaby was a girl instead of a boy. I finally figured out what I'm going to try to make from it-a Beth's Little Star. I hope that will be enough, it'll be more like receiving blanket weight since the yarn called for is RHWW. I'm using an H hook and it's looking really good.

I did change the way the center is done, I don't like the center hole that her instructions leave and there's other crocheters at Crochetville haven't made it because of that. What I did different was to make 14 dc + the beg ch-3 for 15 dc. Then I just make the shells of round two in 5 of the dc and skip 2 dc between them then go from there like the pattern is written-it works just as well and the afghan lays nice and flat. The only difference in looks is that the center is round instead of pentagonal and I can live with that.

Anyway, I'll have pics of it up when I'm finished, I guess I can call it Joseph's Big Blue Star ;)

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Couple of wristwarmers

I made these using the wristwarmer pattern from Hip Vintage Crochet. It's really easy and lends itself to be altered if I'm using a different yarn than called for.

The first is one I made using chenille yarn, thank you, Amber. The second is just some grey yarn I got from a friend at church. I really had to alter the pattern some for the chenille one.



I would NOT recommend that a beginner try this pattern with chenille yarn, the stitches are very hard to see, beginning it and ending it is a major PITA, but worth it for the soft texture. If a beginner wants to try this pattern then I would recommend regular WW.


Friday, February 03, 2006

Two more hats

I did say I'd get pictures up of the Flapper hat and the other beret as soon as I could.

Pay no attention to the model, the hats are supposed to be the stars anyway.

The Flapper-top and side view:



The blue beret:



Enjoy.