What kind of “knitted yarn” are you talking about? Both wool and polyester are yarns that can be knitted to make sweaters. Polyester is a lousy yarn for knitting: the fabric knitted from it is not warm in cold weather, and in warmer weather, it quickly becomes sweaty and damp. Like its synthetic counterparts, it is dirt cheap, which is why virtually every cheap sweater you see in the shops is made of some kind of man-made fibre.
I’d suggest you join Ravelry, and spend 6 months or so in the Yarns section, studying all the different fibres, constructions, weights, blends, and drafting methods and how these influence each yarn’s qualities, dyeability, fulling/growth, draping, etc., etc. Spend some time learning from others on the Yarn and Fibre Forum, even ask a few questions. Discover and follow Rav yarnies like Clara Parkes. Take in a handspinning class. KNIT SOMETHING.
Most of my tricks depend on one thing: taking the yarn from the centre of the ball, instead of the outside –
Admittedly, sometimes it takes a bit more fishing about than this video shows. However, using the yarn from the centre-out means the ball stays in one place and isn’t bouncing around the floor.
So, we have our wool sitting nicely, in one place, not gathering dirt and cat-hair.
Most of my colourwork is in the Fair Isle vein: 2 colours in each row/round. For this, I hold one yarn in my right hand, and the other yarn in my left hand – usually the dominant colour in my right hand as I am a British-style knitter:
This allows me to keep one ball on my left-hand side, and the other on my right-hand side – so they can’t get twisted up.
On the rare occasions where I use more than 2 colours per row/round, I have a few different techniques.
if the 3 (or more) colours are used in roughly equal amounts and/or regularly across the row/round, I usually just work across/around with 2, using the two-handed technique above, and slipping the stitches to be worked in the other colours; then, I work the other colour(s) across/around, slipping the stitches in the first two.
if the colours are not very equally or regularly used across/around, then I use a knitting thimble.
Prym knitting thimble.
if I’m using a lot of colours in very irregular amounts, it’s usually intarsia or ‘picture’ knitting. Then, I wind a metre or so of each colour onto a yarn bobbin, which can hang at the back of the work wherever that colour is needed:
I do not like the knitting thimble as I’m a fairly tight knitter and find Continental knitting (yarn in the left hand) lends itself to lots of annoying dropped stitches, but needs must. I have been known to combine techniques, e.g., two-handed knitting with a thimble when working with one dominant colour (right hand) and 2 or more non-dominant colours (left hand).
You can use these yarns for arm-knitting too, but that’s a different topic.
You can, of course, use these huge needles with finer yarns: it produces a lacier effect. Here’s a video showing how to knit your own hammock, suspended on giant needles:
The other main form of extreme knitting is multi-strand knitting. In this, multiple balls, skeins, hanks of yarn are worked together as one – again on the giant needles. Here’s Rachel John knitting a mattress with 1,000 yarns on a pair of sharpened trees:
A third form of extreme knitting gets very little press. Extreme miniature knitting:
The image above is an Aran vest by Althea Crome, the designer for the movie Coraline. She produces 1:12 miniatures on 0.25mm diameter steel pins, using fine silk embroidery thread at around 3 stitches to the millimetre (80 sts/inch)!! OR LESS!!!
Because people nowadays are incapable of critical thinking.
Until about the 1980s, fibre crafts – knitting, crochet, weaving – were part of the curriculum in primary schools around the world. Boys learned, as well as girls. Many would have learned to card and spin fleece at home from an early age. Unfortunately, this practice disappeared in many countries. The last people to have gone through it are middle-aged, 40s+. Some are amongst the recent resurgence of interest in the fibre arts.
With the disappearance of fibre crafts from schools, so too did the simple knowledge that “older women” knit and crochet because they – and their brothers – learned to knit and crochet as very young children.
I am, I believe, not yet an “old” woman at 52, 53 later this year. I have been knitting for 48–49 years, and crocheting for 47–48 years.
The few remaining critical thinkers among you will have observed from the above that I have been knitting and crocheting since I was a very young child. Not an “older woman”.
Moreover, I was taught to knit by my 30-something FATHER. Not an “older woman”.
Look at the size of those hands. His wedding ring was the size of a toddler’s bracelet.
He taught me to knit AFTERteaching my younger brother, also not an “older woman”.
My uncle Victor, of whom I have written occasionally, was a mining engineer who began his career in the 1950s. At the time, there was a great push to explore uninhabited regions of the world for possibly useful minerals. Uncle Victor travelled to places that no human had ever set foot in, and certainly no Westerner. Having lived in some of the most inhospitable regions on the planet – places of extreme cold, heat, humidity, and low-oxygen environments – he was one of a number of people invited by NASA in the 1960s to consult on and provide physiologuical data for the Apollo program. He met Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong when they were mere hopefuls.
Why do I mention this? Well, Uncle Victor’s amazing career was made possible not by his academic knowledge of mining engineering and geology, or his experience. It was made possible because he knew how to knit, sew, and cook from childhood. He didn’t need to rely on a woman or an extensive support network to sew on his buttons, darn his socks, or make his dinner, so his employers could send him into regions where there were no women or support networks.
at the crown, with a few stitches which you increase, or
at the brim, gradually decreasing the stitches.
You may also knit the hat as a flat rectangle, sewing the sides together and sewing across the top edge. This produces a square-edged hat, which may be worn in either orientation:
It is also possible to work a hat from one side, using short-rows with increases and decreases to the other side: designer Woolly Wormhead has explored this construction, and almost every other possible construction too.
Another possibility is to knit a hat in segments. The best example of this is the Fool’s Gold jester cap, which is the basis for my Borg Queen, or I Are A Pwincess Now:
There are other, more complex constructions (grins evilly) too.
BUT EVERY SINGLE ONE CAN BE KNIT ON CIRCULAR NEEDLES.
I use circs almost exclusively in preference to straights (‘normal’ single-pointed needles). This is because I have relatively short forearms and large biceps, and most straights are too long and either get stuck against my upper arms or whack them with every stitch. I’m in knitting for the pleasure, not the pain.
Circs can be used for small tubular projects like hats or socks by
selecting a short cable
using two circs:
using a technique such as Magic Loop:
The latter two techniques can be used to work a hat from the crown down, starting with a few stitches, or when reducing the number of stitches for a brim-up hat.
For other constructions, a circ can be used just the same way that a pair of straights are used. Just knit a row, then swap the left and right needle-tips to the right and left hand respectively, and repeat.
PS: the foregoing works for socks, gloves, mitts, mittens, sweaters, scarves, trousers, toys, cushions, blankets, and everything that you can possibly imagine knitting.
These are some hats that I’ve designed. All were knit from the bottom up and in the round, usually on double-pointed needles as that is my preference, but they could equally be knit on a circular needles.
The first row, and the last two on the right in the second row, involve reducing the number of stitches towards the end. The number of stitches at the end varies: Fluxions reduces to 6 stitches; Maquereau varies between 16 and 24 stitches according to head-size. For ‘reduction’ hats like these, the usual method* of finishing is to cut the yarn leaving a tail 6–10 cm long, thread the tail through the remaining stitches, cinch tight, and secure inside. The threading can be done with sewing (tapestry) needle, or you can use the knitting needles to ‘knit’ each of the stitches off, flicking the yarn tail through each.
Tiny Teddy and Shadow Pets have no reduction. The top of such hats could be sewn together using mattress stitch after binding off. However, the samples I worked for Tiny Teddy and Shadow Pets were closed using a 3-Needle Bind-Off** and an I-cord Bind-Off respectively. The instructions, iirc, were respectively Kitchener Stitch***, and mattress stitch with a separate i-cord sewn on afterwards.
These are two basic hat types. There are others – the ‘reducing’ hats can be worked top down, by increasing the number of stitches: this completely avoids having to sew/finish the hat. Some hat designers, like Woolly Wormhead, use very unusual construction methods which you just have to follow blindly, as it were: they WILL work, promise! Most patterns will give you reasonably detailed instructions for finishing, especially if it’s an unusual method.
If you’ve knitted a flat piece of knitting and want to turn it into a hat… the simplest way is to use mattress stitch. Sorry. You could crochet it together, too.
You’ll notice I give a lot of YouTube videos as examples. YouTube is a fantastic resource for knitters: you can generally find just about any knitting stitch, style, tip or technique there.
* – The pi hat (last on the right, bottom row) is completed by continuing the remaining stitches as an i-cord, to which the tassel is tied.
** – Ideal for ensuring your Pussy Hat’s ears stay perky.
*** – I personally recommend the knitted Kitchener stitch, as I only have Magic Disappearing tapestry needles. Also I hate sewing.
In many countries, knitting is (or used to be) taught to all children; and historically, all children were involved in wool preparation, including carding and spinning.
Many men involved in fishing or sheep farming were knitters, as often, were soldiers.
My father (below) taught me to knit, and his lacework was something to behold.
In addition to Yarnsub, you can look up the pattern on Ravelry. Click on ‘yarn ideas’ or ‘projects’ to see what other people have used to make this pattern.
This has the advantage that you can see what the pattern looks like made up in the different yarns, and read the crafters’ notes – some of which can be extremely helpful in making your choice.
Ultimately, the yarn you use will have an impact on the finished product. Cotton will make a heavy blanket, and may ‘grow’ when it’s washed. Acrylic can be soft and easy-care, but can look threadbare and thin after a few washes. Non-superwash wools can felt! You’ll need to swatch and launder to ensure you get the same gauge as the pattern and the feel you want – sometimes more than once.
I grew up in a house with no TV. Shocking, yes? We also had no phone. GASP. There were lots of other things we didn’t have – mains water and central heating, for example, but it’s the TV I’m concentrating on here. I only got to watch the goggle box in other people’s houses, and that rarely: people in those days still switched the TV off when visitors came, to facilitate conversation. Those without TVs switched off the ‘wireless’ – as radios were known – and those without wireless put their books/knitting/embroidery down, or removed their wellies/aprons, depending on the time of day.
However, when I was about 9, we got our first TV, a black and white model in a beautiful, possibly fake wood surround, with a big dial for tuning into the channels. There were four channels, none providing more than 8 hours of programming a day. Actually, there were only four channels because we lived near enough to the border with Northern Ireland to get their 3 channels (BBC1 & 2 and UTV). We were lots more swanky than our compatriots further south, who only got RTE. Not RTE1, 2, etc. – it was the only channel then.
I became almost instantly obsessed. I absorbed TV into my bones, memorising cast lists, story lines, directors, production companies – I was a walking IMDB. But my most favouritest thing ever was the Saturday matinee. Every Saturday, one of the channels put on an afternoon movie, usually a black and white classic. There was also usually a Sunday matinee, but they weren’t quite so good: too many musicals, and from different eras. They were great family watching, but oh, the Saturday matinee knocked them all into a cocked hat. On Saturdays, square-jawed men in hats traded cigarettes and incomprehensible quips with sultry, sassy women in suits or negligee, in train stations and piano bars. Cynics and losers sacrificed themselves for love and honour, heroes and heroines self-destructed from their darker passions, life was lived against a backdrop of swelling piano and strings, and the Dame ruled them all.
The Dame wasn’t always a beauty, or a brain. She wasn’t innocent, or evil. What she was, was confident. She knew herself, and was happy with it. She put on no airs, put up no pretences, suffered no fools. Tough and tender by parts, she went after her goals, and even if she failed, you knew she’d be okay. There were many takes on the Dame – Katharine Hepburn’s tomboy athleticism, Bette Davis’ brittle sharpness, Barbara Stanwyck’s hardness, Ava Gardner’s voluptuousness – but the epitome was the wonderful Lauren Bacall. Perhaps because Betty, as she was known to her friends, seems to have sashayed the walk in real life too, her performances have a multi-layered authenticity that other dames simply don’t match. They’re too sweet, too venal, too remote. Even as a teen in To Have and Have Not, Bacall exudes the BTDTBTTS attitude of a woman who knows she can handle whatever comes her way.
Bacall was an inveterate knitter herself, often photographed with a WIP on movie sets and in private life.
And so, to knitting. Normally I like to outline where my inspiration comes from, but in this instance, it’s all a bit … nebulous. I like Bacall, but I can’t say she was the direct inspiration. I’m a big fan of monochrome, tessellation, and fitted clothing, but again, these didn’t call to me. Knit Now put out a call with a theme of budget knitting. That didn’t call to me either! Sheesh, I do nothing BUT budget knitting! Somehow, though, the various elements fermented away at the back of my brain until a couple of days before the call was due, and then it was all, “how do I want to look when I’m strapped for cash? FABulous, that’s how. How can I look fabulous? Try for classy rather than runway. Who’s classy? Lauren Bacall. What’s she worn that’s particularly classy? well, that houndstooth suit in The Big Sleep is kind of iconic…” and so on. Lots of Google image searches for the structure of the kind of sexy-but-not-sexy clothes Bacall wore, trying to pin down an appropriate shape.
The Dame Pullover grew, rather than sprang fully formed into my mind. I think it’s a style that’ll grow on people too. It’s smart enough for the office, elegant enough for cocktails, and, yes, classy enough for everything from a church jumble sale to the Aspen ski slopes. I love it more than is seemly for its creator – I should be more modest about these things, and I usually am, I think – but this is perhaps my favourite pattern of those I’ve produced to date, and I design only what impassions me. The nipped waist, the Vikkel braid borders, the pointless wee buttons on the polo neck make my toes curl with joy.
The fact that it’s also the first and, so far, only pattern of mine that’s gone through tech editing with no issues is just the whistle to my pucker…
And here’s the sub. Spot the statutory misspelling that escaped me! And the novel design element that I forgot to take notes on, and then couldn’t reproduce for the sample… I’m making a lot of use of my Kindle Fire, a slim Targus stylus, and an app called SketchBookX Express to produce my sketches these days. Find an image, import it, put a layer on top and ‘trace over’ the image, then delete the image and save the tracing. It’s pretty much what the cool kids have always done with Photoshop, but for me, the touchscreen beats the mouse any day. This technique should work as well on any touch-enabled screen, though I can’t recommend software for individual platforms.
Well, new-ish. The Offspring year-end class project was on WWII, specifically the evacuation of children. The final day of the project involved them living as children being evacuated, beginning with them being delivered to the “evacuation centre” in the morning, in period costume, and being issued with their ration cards and gas mask (previously created in lessons).
The Offspring decided he needed me to knit him a proper flat cap, sooo…. He already has one, from Cheryl Andres’ Inishmore Cap pattern, but could we find it? So I made another, in some Aranweight natural Herdwick I have lying around. No biggie. He also wanted an authentic vest -preferrably Fair Isle, the picky varmint – but I said nay. I’m not making a Fair Isle vest in under a week. Instead I put him in his old Bam-bam vest (a modified Sherwood by Angela Hahn), banking on Aran-ish patterns being sufficiently common by the 1940s. I made this for him when he was about 4, but with added length in hopes it would last a while. He’s now 10 1/2, so it worked – although the collar is a bit on the tight side. It does look a bit skimpy, but we were going for the impoverished inner-city rapscallion look anyway. Ahem.
At the end of the day, parents were asked to collect their children (their own children, mind) in period costume as their evacuation foster parents. Now my wardrobe is severely lacking in utility frocks, but I looked up how to do Victory rolls in my hair. Sadly, I do not have 1940s hairspray either, so this was a bit of a flop. They just about stayed in at the front, so I wore a headscarf a al Rosie the Rivetter to cover the rest. My frilliest blouse, baggiest workman denims and wellies, and I was a Land Army gel! I thoroughly mortified the poor child by marching in as “Captain Bagshot”, checking teeth and muscles on the ‘malnourished city boys and gels’, and demanding to know what each of them knew about ploughing and calving before making my choice.
Asante sana Squash banana, as they say, or: My work as a mother is done…
New finished project!
thornmaiden.com 