Snapped needles: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 29
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. My name is Heather and I’m @theordknitter on Twitter, @theordinaryknitter on Instagram and @ordinaryknitting on Ravelry. This week: snapped needles *again*, new yarn, Ivy, The Woolpack charity knitting group, and a new Twitter hour, #sksitandknit run by Simply Knitting magazine. I’m not feeling very well today so the podcast is a little more low-key than usual, all a bit disappointing as I’m going out with friends tonight, a rare occurrence and one I’m determined to enjoy!
Snapped needles are the most disappointing thing, and it’s been too flipping frequent lately. I say in the podcast that I was putting the needle onto the cable but I think I was actually tightening it up, and SNAP! Gone. So annoying. Since I snapped a needle in the summer – the same 3.5mm KnitPro Symfonie size – I was so careful to support the whole shaft of the needle when I attached it to the cable and not overtighten. I think instead I undertightened it and had to keep screwing it back up properly, and it was on one of those times that it went pop. I was so relieved that in the end KnitPro had sent me a pair of needles as a replacement after the first one broke and not just the one.
I’m going to ask for metal needles from now on for anything 4mm and thinner. I’ve broken bamboo 2mm+ DPNs before so clearly I just can’t be trusted with slim needles in anything breakable! I’m interested in the Nova set, but for now will just ask for a couple of small sizes, well, maybe four: 3mm, 3.25, 3.5 and 3.75. Just for starters…
Knitted baubles: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 28
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: knitted baubles, To the Sea is finished, Stitch Fiddle, charity knitting, Ivy by Glenna C, wrap tops and the joy of Crocs. A longer episode this week as I’m in rambling, reflective mode. This time we were uninterrupted by social media alerts, small boys or large husbands, always a bonus.
Ft knitting patterns:
To the Sea (don’t be fooled by the date of the project – that was v1, which met a sticky end)
Look at these lumpy horrors! Have you ever lain in bed in the morning, knowing you have to get up, not wanting to, and fantasising about breaking a leg or something so that you can loll about doing nothing for a few weeks? No? Just me? Oh well. I’m not claiming a broken leg is a walk in the park and a slipped disc certainly had its moments (I remember the victory, after a month, of being able to put my socks on all by myself), but I won’t deny I loved being able to sit and knit for three weeks, while listening to podcasts. It was sheer bliss.
I had just acquired 55 Christmas Balls to Knit by Arne & Carlos from the library, and set to. The knitting itself went well and I started developing personalised designs for family and friends. They make lovely teacher presents; children can come up with design ideas and a colour scheme, even if they can’t do the actual knitting. It was the stuffing that let me down. I’ve taken a tip from an Instagrammer (I’m so sorry not to credit by name but the conversation was ages ago and I just can’t remember who it was) and will this year be knitting them over a polystyrene ball. I’ll let you know how it goes…
Teaching children knitting: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 27
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: teaching children knitting, Hallowe’en apple cozy, Cats in Hats, the weekly To the Sea bulletin, the KnitBit and #stashwednesday. The buzz is back, did you notice? I blame it on the half term gremlins. And that interesting rattle snake sound in the background at one point? Well, that was @scotlandteam on Instagram announcing the full squad for this autumn’s internationals – please don’t judge 😀
I tried to sort this out in a smart, elegant way, but I failed. Instead here’s a photo of my chart – click on it to bring up a full size image. The horizontal depth is up to you – I shrunk it for the wavy-mouthed one this time.
STOP PRESS! Since posting this originally I have discovered Stitch Fiddle! Proper charts are now available:
Teaching children knitting
My son has asked several times to learn to knit and I’ve always been happy to show him (well, apart from that time Andy Murray was playing a crunch match, that was naff timing), but teaching children knitting is not something I consider myself to be good at. Imagine how we’ve got on lately learning to tie shoelaces – no, on second thoughts, don’t.
His problem (apart from having me as a mum) is that after inserting right needle into stitch on left needle and wrapping yarn round, he then brings the needles to parallel like rugby posts. He does it every time and it leads to all sorts of problems.
The little girl I mention in the pod is a couple of years older than him, so I’m optimistic she’ll have more fine motor control. I’m taking chunky yarn, big needles and low expectations – if she comes away with a 4″ long scarf 15 st wide and more scarf than hole I’ll feel we’ve achieved something.
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: free yarn, socktober, knitted poppies and the regular weekly bulletin on To the Sea. All with a knitted chicken thrown in for good measure, and stick around right to the very end for an ‘ooops’ moment. Apologies that I seem to have a ssssnake in my microphone, not sure what’s going on with that, and seem to get completely distracted in part two, sorry. It might have been the siren call of the giant chocolate bar on my desk.
Yes, really. Completely and totally free and with free shipping too. I feel mildly guilty, but I hope gushing about Knitshop has made up a little for my avarice. I’m a Knitshop customer of long-standing and receive its newsletter, which is where I saw this offer. I’m delighted to have the 50g skein of Susan Crawford Vintage Cotton and I know I’ll use it. It feels like a real treat so thank you Knitshop, thanks a million.
I’m planning to use the yarn to fangle myself a hair net of some description. I know, how incredibly shaming to admit that to the world, but it would be for night time use. Clearly it will drive my husband wild with desire, but we’ll both just have to cope!
Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: my first 25 episodes!, progress on To the Sea, knitting sleeves two at a time, and knitted food. I’m delighted to have made it to my first quarter century of episodes and hope you’re enjoying the podcast as much as I am.
Btw last week I promised I would share the URL of the tiny knitted stockings for Christmas bunting. The UK Hand Knitting Association responded to my Twitter request and pointed me here: http://ukhandknitting.com/knitting-for-charity/charity-knitting-patterns Sadly the PDF download turns out to be blank – for me at least – so I have gone back to the UKHKA to ask for help on this.
Don’t forget Aldi is selling yarn again. There’s a huge ball of black Aran in my local Aldi which sings its siren song to me every time I pass through trying to focus on carrots and sausages, as well as some beautiful DK shades. It’s relatively inexpensive good bulk yarn. I love my LYS but I tend to go there when I need something quite specific.
This book is Knitted Fast Food by Susie Johns. I think it was a present from my mother. It’s one of those knitting books that lures you in to the lovely pictures but that hasn’t yet resulted in any knitted items. Many of them are quite involved – noodles, prawns, sushi. The finished articles all look fantastic but I suspect there’s lots of making up. Even so, I’d like to have a go at a couple of the projects as stocking fillers. I’d like to think some of the projects can be completed in an evening – famous last words. Depending on your point of view these projects are either a great stashbuster or a marvellous reason to stock up on a range of very useful DK colours. Isn’t is surprising what we can convince ourselves of in the name of making gifts?!
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Halloween knitting: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 24
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: progress on To the Sea version 2, halloween knitting, being the needle diva and yarn is back in Aldi, squeee! Please forgive my coldy voice and the slight jumps in volume. I had to keep stopping to cough for Britain so the sound has ended up a bit lumpy. I went to add the link to the mini stockings for bunting, but the link now goes to a 404 error message, so I can’t share it. I’ve asked for an updated URL so I’ll share that when I get it. Apologies for ending rather abruptly but I was fading fast. I’ll be fighting fit next week 😀
We’re a few weeks away yet, but knitted items don’t happen overnight so it’s probably time to get orange yarn on the needles. I’m very keen on these little guys for halloween knitting – apple cosies. Whether they get taken ot school or just sit in the fruit bowl, they’re cheerful and not remotely scary. I’m the hallowe’en grinch and don’t go in for all the ‘fun’ and games, far less allow my children to go trick or treating (it seems very demanding and rather rude) but I’m happy to knock out a few of these. The orange aran yarn was from Tiger last year, and I have enough for a couple more cosies.
I charted out my own face and will do a couple more different faces. If they work out okay I’ll happily share the charts.
Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: knitting hats – from despair to delight with Rosi Garmandia’s Capitán Hat, casting on squillions of stitches and joining to knit in the round without twisting, successful socks and the ultimate motivation to lose weight. Please forgive my thick voice today.
Hats must be one of the most popular items to knit. They make great presents (who doesn’t want warm head and ears in the winter?), knitting hats is a quick (dare I say, last minute,) exercise, they’re stashbusters and they’re infinitely customisable. I made a couple a very very long time ago, before I understood about yarn weights (hard to believe I thought it didn’t matter but I really was completely and utterly ignorant to begin with) and they turned out rather odd. No surprise there then.
Because I’m so fussy about hats I haven’t made one for myself, but really that’s precisely the reason I should do it as I can tweak it as I want. When I lost my one and only woolly hat last winter I resolved to knit a replacement, and the Capitán Hat was my choice. I’ve since made one for my son (without the extra set of cables) in an amusingly loud colourway and I’m thinking about a cream one for my mother as it would suit her and I have cream chunky yarn left from the skein I bought for the details on the ladybird hat. I’m really thrilled to have found a style that suits me, but I’d like to have a go at some of the other designs I found too. I think I can add knitting hats to knitting socks as something of a weakness. Guess what everyone’s getting for Christmas??
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: Knits for Children and their Teddies, Soul Garden Socks and the virtues of the fleegle heel, setting yourself knitting targets and flying along with the Capitan hat.
You can’t see it, but these Soul Garden Socks have a fleegle heel
Looking at my Ravelry history, the first time I used the fleegle heel was in May 2013 when I embarked on over-the-knee socks as a birthday present for a friend of mine. It wasn’t there to stay at that stage though as I went on to knit other socks that didn’t use it, but by October that year it was my firm favourite – probably because having used it I then went back to the other method for different socks and found it just didn’t compare.
What do I love about the Fleegle heel? Two main things I think. Firstly I like the shape it gives and secondly there’s no picking up. I never found that really worked out as well as I wanted, and it’s left me with a residual feeling that I’m a bit crap at picking up, no matter what sort of item I’m knitting. It’s a satisfying method to use, and once you get your confidence in knowing where the gap is, you’re away. I don’t need to count any more as the gap is now so obvious to me.
The finished sock looks neat and the heel shape fits my husband. I can’t see any reason to change away from it. It’s the polar opposite of the afterthought/forethought heel I tried a few months ago – no fuss, nice shape. Try it if you haven’t yet, and let me know what you think.
Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: Prince Charles on wool, finishing THAT jumper and THAT hat, which project next for myself, and knitting slouchy socks for my daughter. I hope the sound is okay for you – please let me know if it’s too quiet. Turning down the recording volume makes a huge difference to the hiss, but I hope we haven’t turned it down too far. Oh and I met Prince Charles once, and he made a condom joke.
Worsted Weight Sock Recipe by Hippie Chick Knits – I’ve looked and looked and can’t find this pattern on the web. I wonder where it came from and just how long ago I downloaded the PDF?
Dr Who jumper – based on Lawrence but heavily modified.
Slouchy socks:
Just past the bikini stage
My daughter was given a pair of slouchy socks by a friend of hers last Christmas, and has worn them so much they have holes in them. To my astonishment she voluntarily sewed up some of the holes the other night – she’s even worse at sewing than I am so you could have knocked me over with a feather. I’ve just finished a couple of projects, and as you do as you weave in ends and mattress stitch seams (well,as I do), I planned my next projects. I wanted to make some more slouchy socks for DD and had a decorative scheme in mind, so I cast on last night and they’re going well. Being in aran yarn on a needle much larger than I usually use for socks they’re speeding along. If they turn out well (and she actually wears them, not guaranteed with a teenager) I’ll do another pair in stranded colourwork. I have a pattern for DK boot socks but they’re knitted cuff down, which gives me the shivers. I should probably do them though and not become too entrenched in my sock kniting comfort zone.
Cast on and bind off: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 20
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, the knitting podcast that’s (mostly) about the projects. This week: using technology, pick up and knit, a little (ha!) project for my mother-in-law and choosing your cast on and bind off with care. Particularly dire sound quality in this episode – next week I may record from a duvet fortress, so let’s hope there isn’t a heatwave.
Early socks with rigidly bound-off cuffs that had my daughter asking if the next pair could “be a bit more stretchy”
This is the first step of any project and although there are myriad techniques to choose from I bet most of us stick to a couple for the majority of our projects. Usually I learn a new cast on or bind off only because a project stipulates it or because I’m looking for (or to avoid) a particular finish, but those are the minority of cases.
My standard cast on is Jeny’s stretchy slipknot technique, and for socks/cuffs/necks/hats I’ll use her Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off and on anything that won’t look good with the frilled finish that leaves I’ll use the Russian Bind-Off. This is huge progress from my early projects that had circulation-stopping sock cuffs.
A recent discovery has been three needle bind off. When you have live stitches to seam (or can arrange matters so that you can do it that way) this is a very elegant bind off with no guesswork or judgment involved. Just make sure you do it the right way round and don’t leave yourself with Cyberman shoulders. You can get away with that when you’re nearly eight, but it’s harder to pull of in your 40s.
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. My name is Heather and I’m @theordknitter on Twitter, @theordinaryknitter on Instagram and @ordinaryknitting on Ravelry. This week: snapped needles *again*, new yarn, Ivy, The Woolpack charity knitting group, and a new Twitter hour, #sksitandknit run by Simply Knitting magazine. I’m not feeling very well today so the podcast is a little more low-key than usual, all a bit disappointing as I’m going out with friends tonight, a rare occurrence and one I’m determined to enjoy!
Snapped needles are the most disappointing thing, and it’s been too flipping frequent lately. I say in the podcast that I was putting the needle onto the cable but I think I was actually tightening it up, and SNAP! Gone. So annoying. Since I snapped a needle in the summer – the same 3.5mm KnitPro Symfonie size – I was so careful to support the whole shaft of the needle when I attached it to the cable and not overtighten. I think instead I undertightened it and had to keep screwing it back up properly, and it was on one of those times that it went pop. I was so relieved that in the end KnitPro had sent me a pair of needles as a replacement after the first one broke and not just the one.
My son has asked several times to learn to knit and I’ve always been happy to show him (well, apart from that time Andy Murray was playing a crunch match, that was naff timing), but teaching children knitting is not something I consider myself to be good at. Imagine how we’ve got on lately learning to tie shoelaces – no, on second thoughts, don’t.
Yes, really. Completely and totally free and with free shipping too. I feel mildly guilty, but I hope gushing about 
This book is Knitted Fast Food by Susie Johns. I think it was a present from my mother. It’s one of those knitting books that lures you in to the lovely pictures but that hasn’t yet resulted in any knitted items. Many of them are quite involved – noodles, prawns, sushi. The finished articles all look fantastic but I suspect there’s lots of making up. Even so, I’d like to have a go at a couple of the projects as stocking fillers. I’d like to think some of the projects can be completed in an evening – famous last words. Depending on your point of view these projects are either a great stashbuster or a marvellous reason to stock up on a range of very useful DK colours. Isn’t is surprising what we can convince ourselves of in the name of making gifts?!
We’re a few weeks away yet, but knitted items don’t happen overnight so it’s probably time to get orange yarn on the needles. I’m very keen on these little guys for halloween knitting – apple cosies. Whether they get taken ot school or just sit in the fruit bowl, they’re cheerful and not remotely scary. I’m the hallowe’en grinch and don’t go in for all the ‘fun’ and games, far less allow my children to go trick or treating (it seems very demanding and rather rude) but I’m happy to knock out a few of these. The orange aran yarn was from Tiger last year, and I have enough for a couple more cosies.
