The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: Alistair on September 18, 2012, 01:23:39 pm
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Ok, got the hang of it, which side is the front, the outside or the inside?
If I'm doing a cable and I want to take a stitch to the front then this goes on the outside, and to the back the inside of the work?
Think I'm right, but just spent 2 hours knitting a cuff and don't want to get it wrong now
It's a long cuff, it's getting doubled over on itself, why am I making excuses for my slow knitting, I'm a bloke, it's hard knitting when you don't have the genes inbuilt ;D
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are you doing stocking stitch or rib?
If stocking stitch then the side with the Vs is the front. If it's rib you can choose which side is the front, inside or out, just stick to it. Will we be getting piccies of the finished cuff?
Dans
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I'm doing twisted rib, ive got it all wrong, the inside is the face, if I ever finish it I'll post picked of my mittens,
They're blue
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I knitted a jumper in the round. It started out with double rib, so I picked which side was the wrong side and knitted in all the yarn tails. Then when it changed to stocking stitch further down, the wrong side became the right side, cos I didn't check first, so I had to pull out all the tails and sew them in the other side when I'd finished it.
So even with the genes built-in it still goes wrong sometimes ;)
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I'm a bloke, it's hard knitting when you don't have the genes inbuilt ;D
No reason why a bloke shouldn't knit. Sailors used to knit when they were at sea to give them something to do in the evenings. No excuse either. ;)
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Alistair you could become the next Kaffe Fassett ;D
Sally
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:excited:
Finished one
Photo to follow
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woohoo, look forward to the piccie!
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thank you all whom helped
i just need to make another niow
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Well done...
Did you keep the same size needles all the way through?
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Yay, very good :thumbsup: :knit:
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Yup, all on 5mm circulars
Chuffed :excited:
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Chuffed :excited:
As well you should be! :thumbsup: Bet you'll have the other side done in no time!
Dans
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That looks good. no wonder you are chuffed. Well done :thumbsup:
Sally
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Alistair, I'm very impressed. Keep up the good work.
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Good on yer Alistair :thumbsup: They look very warm and comfy. :knit: :excited:
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My wife doesn't want them :roflanim:
They're not fingerless, and that's what she wanted....
Should've listened but didn't like usual, ah well started a new pair now, without fingers
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Defo fingerless :knit: - can't feel what your doing otherwise :thumbsup:
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Oh no! After all that work! Could you 'convert' the pair you've made to be fingerless?
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or it could be a ready made xmas present for someone :innocent:
Dans
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Or even the start of your stock for when you go semi professional. ;D
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I use fingerless too - but there are times when you need a covering ! Someone will be grateful for them - possibly even your wife if we get another long cold winter... ;)
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Ready made Xmas present me thinks, thanks for your support, not sure I'm fast enough to go semi professional, they'd let me see now, they'd have to retail at about two hundred pounds if I was going to charge for my time, any takers?
They are blue, that's got be worth a premium?
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Charging for your time? :roflanim: :roflanim: Whatever made you think you could charge for your time? Not a living wage anyway. I'd probably still be doing it if you could. I reckoned on working for £1 an hour when I was a weaver/knitter and that was only 18 years ago. I could earn about three times that for washing up in a kitchen.
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Thats a great pair of mitts. I'm very jealous I've never tried round needles? ( not heard of them :dunce: )
Should look into this I think as your mitts look great, gonna have to try to knit a pair to match my hat once it is finished :knit:
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Mammyshaz, I am knitting a jumper on circular pins and kind of wouldn't do it any other way - too much stiching up! :knit: :knit:
When I do socks, gloves or sleeves, I do them on 4 or 5 straight pins; I can't manage the very short circular pins, the straight part isn't long enough for the way I hold and use my needles.
So if you do have a go, I'd suggest you try on something larger first to see if you like circular pins at all. If you try it with socks or gloves first you may not like it and never try the larger ones. And if you do like it and want to try it for socks or gloves, I've got a wee circular pin somewhere you are very welcome to have (if I can find where I've hurled it in disgust... :roflanim:)
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I'm totally addicted to it now, it's really absorbing.
Mammyshaz, thanks for the comments, I think I said earlier I'm using something called the magic loop way of doing it, unlike Sally I just couldn't get the hang of having 4 needles on the go (and I did try when I found the ones Id mislaid) and a cable needle and some wool, so I gave up with that, so it might be worth doing a search on magic loop knitting, took me a day and mud
H help from on here :thumbsup: to get the hang of it.
Basic pattern for those is 5mm circulars, cast on 34 stitches, k1 back, p1 (twisted rib) for 2inches, then increase to 38 stitches and off you go for 20 rows in your chosen pattern, form thumb hole in rows 21and 22 and hen continue to row 49 decrease in for next 5 rows do dec stitch dec p dec stitches dec and then close it together.
That's the worst pattern I've ever seen, sorry
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I'm really going to need to research this circular knitting. First stop,mum, sgphe has knitted for years. Wish mum in law was still here, I miss her so much. She taught me lots with knitting :love:
Thanks for the offer Sally.
I did inherit my grandma's needles when she couldn't do it anymore. There is a tight 'u' shaped needle. Is this a round/circular. If so, then I already have one :excited: , if not then I'd love to try yours. Must look up what I'm getting into :roflanim:
If there is no stitching together ,I'm all for learning. I HATE the stitching up ::) . MIL took my last two knitted cardigans and stitched them up for me, she was so fed up of waiting to see the finished products :roflanim:
Now look what you've done alistair! Nothing will get done for months now, with learning all these new skills :excited:
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Yes, Alistair, you've started something now. I'd never heard of magic loop knitting despite having knitted for more years than I want to think about, so I just watched a video on youtube. Now I want to have a go. Anything to avoid sewing up. I have even knitted the body of cardigans in one piece up to the armholes to avoid the need for seams.
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If I'm on the right lines this should show you circular needles
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=circular+needles&aq=f&sugexp=chrome,mod%3D0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=KMNkUP7EAcSn0AXpooDgBA&biw=1639&bih=812&sei=K8NkUIW2LOTC0QWOvYHYBg (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=circular+needles&aq=f&sugexp=chrome,mod%3D0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=KMNkUP7EAcSn0AXpooDgBA&biw=1639&bih=812&sei=K8NkUIW2LOTC0QWOvYHYBg)
I'm in love with knitting on circulars, even knitting a shawl flat but using the circulars as it gives more space for the stitches.
Have been told that you can't knit socks on circulars because of the heel. Anyone know more about that? DPNs scare me.
Dans
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Yes, lots of circulars, Dans! Yes you could call them U-shaped when small, Mammyshaz, circular when longer :D
DPNs aren't a bit scary - just have a go, Dans! The trick is to use ones that are short enough but not too short - I prefer 6-8" ones for socks, preferably bamboo rather than metal - and to use at least 4 if not 5 so you're not all working round tight corners. And to not wear a woolly jumper while knitting with them in case you catch the end of one in the jumper you're wearing :D (Fleecewife gave me that tip - and she's right!) In terms of not getting a big gap where you move from pin to pin, there are two tactics. I just knit across the next 3-4 stitches each row, so my DPNs keep moving around the tube row by row, or jaykay reckons if you tighten the second stitch on each pin, that keeps it neat. (I haven't tried that yet, will do on the next tube I knit.)
I do hourglass heels, so that I can drop them out and replace them if they get too holey / undarnable (or so lumpy with darning they're not comfortable any more.) For the heel itself you would need to use short needles as you knit that bit back and forth, then rejoin when the heel is shaped. So if you preferred, you could knit the whole sock except the heel itself on circulars. If you like gusset heels, I'm not sure - jaykay would know, I've seen her knitting socks on circulars; mind on that occasion she was doing both socks together (toe up) so she could just keep knitting up the legs till her yarn was used up, which is a different thing again! :D
In the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, which is my bible for socks, they talk about a technique where you knit the heel afterwards. You knit the sock as a tube, then open it up at the heel, knit the hourglass heel and join it in with kitchener stitch. If you really hate DPNs, you could consider that?
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DPNs scare me.
Dans
Dans, DPNS scared me too until last year. I tried to make socks and wasn't getting on very well as I kept stabbing myself. After some advice on here I persevered and this was the end result.
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=20862.0 (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=20862.0)
I do as Sally does and knit across 3 or 4 stitches on the next needle too so that the 'end' keeps moving round. You can't seen an obvious starting place that way.
the other Sally
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Magic loop needs long, like 16" circulars, th longer the better, the only things I've found difficult at first are making sure you pull the right cable back, cos if you don't all the stitches I fall off and it's easily done, and also at first the laddering at the join jaykay is right you just tighten into the second stitch and it goes away
Can't see any reason why you couldn't do socks this way? It's just the same st the end of the day?
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On the mittens v. fingerless gloves debate. My sister-in-law made me a pair of fingerless gloves which have a little "hood" that you tuck over your fingers and secure with a button on the back of the hand, thus turning them into mittens. They are fab! WIll post a pic if anyone can't make any sense of my description. They will be great for those chilly mornings up the yard sorting out ponies and sheep! :cold:
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I made my builder stepfather a pair of those. They weren't difficult. I made fingerless mitts then picked up stitches along the back and knitted the tops using the mittens pattern.
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I do hourglass heels, so that I can drop them out and replace them if they get too holey / undarnable (or so lumpy with darning they're not comfortable any more.) For the heel itself you would need to use short needles as you knit that bit back and forth, then rejoin when the heel is shaped. So if you preferred, you could knit the whole sock except the heel itself on circulars. If you like gusset heels, I'm not sure - jaykay would know, I've seen her knitting socks on circulars; mind on that occasion she was doing both socks together (toe up) so she could just keep knitting up the legs till her yarn was used up, which is a different thing again! :D
Sally, I'd be very interested to hear more about that hourglass heel. I am just about to finish the second sock of my very first pair and I am quite chuffed with myself (even my mum, a very experienced knitter, never tried socks on DPNs), these have gusset heel and I love the look of them, quite precise and neat; however OH would like socks too and at the rate he destroys socks (and any other clothing item ::)) I'm not sure I want to spend time and efforts if he'll kill the heels too soon. So, the hourglass type sounds ideal, so then I can set him up to fix his own socks when darning is not an option anymore :innocent:
I have never tried knitting in the round but I have a lovely cardigan pattern (found on Ravelry, it's called B.O.B. Cardigan) that I want to try when I find the right wool for it. I'm happy to try anything and I have to say, DPNs are actually ok. It only takes a wee bit of adjustments where/how to hold the lot and then you are off.
I'm sure one could make socks in the round if you make heel-less socks (i.e., a tube), I've seen folks knitting those and they are quite comfy (tried myself), problem is, I find the stitches stretch quite a bit in the heel and it folds sometimes awkwardly at the front of your foot, so not the prettiest socks to wear when going out. I used mine as bed socks 8)