Adapting patterns: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 19

adapting patterns
The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Adapting patterns: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 19
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, the knitting podcast that’s (mostly) about the projects. This week: adapting patterns, planning the next few projects (to stave off coma as I knitted 2 1/2 inches of 2×2 rib) and why is everyone talking about Christmas already? I know the music is all over the place in this episode: I had to record while I had a chance as it’s still summer holidays, so I did things a bit differently and then couldn’t get Audacity to play ball, so sorry if it’s left you disorientated. My bad.

Ft knitting patterns:

Ft knitting videos:

Ft knitters:

Adapting patterns

adapting patterns
A not very good photo of badly-fitting improvised bedsocks

Once upon a time I wouldn’t have dreamt of straying from a pattern. Patterns gave me security and designers were gods and goddesses who had been inducted into dark arts I could never hope to understand.

Looking at my project page though it looks like I first started improvising three years ago with a pair of bedsocks for my son. Perhaps there’s a difference between completely winging it without a pattern at all, and adapting patterns that you know essentially work. I’m fairly sure that I felt equal to improvising these socks as I’d knitted a couple of pairs of socks and understood the anatomy of the item I was knitting and I think that’s key. You need to understand how the elements of an item connect, what’s necessary to the item functioning correctly (arms in the right place, neckholes you can actually get a head through, that sort of thing) and have a good idea of the finished dimensions. This last one is what stops me completely improvising a jumper. I dread anyone being presented with the comedy home-made jumper that would better fit an orang utan or a tellytubby, but once you have tried and tested dimensions you can start tinkering with everything else.

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Museum on the Move: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 18

The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Museum on the Move: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 18
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Episode 18: Museum on the Move

Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, the knitting podcast that’s (mostly) about the projects. This week: starting a new jumper and finishing the old one, Museum on the Move, dyeing yarn, and the village showdown. Apologies for continued hiss and buzz. I’ve even brought in a teenager to solve the problem but we’re still struggling. Thank you for gritting your teeth and listening even so.

Ft knitting patterns:

Ft knitters:

Museum on the Move:

Museum on the MoveThis was great fun. The museum bus takes an exhibitions to all sorts of venues in Herefordshire, and at the moment it features Wool on Wheels. This exhibition was on display at Hereford Museum, but rather dramatically asbestos was found in the building a while ago so the museum and the library, which shares the building, have been closed for weeks. Rather than shut away the displays, they were put onto the Museum on the Move bus and are now touring the county. Since I spoke to the staff, it’s been confirmed that the bus will be back at Grange Court on Friday 9th September.

If you’re interested in booking the bus please follow this link to Herefordshire Council’s website.

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Dyeing yarn: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 17

produce bags
The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Dyeing yarn: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 17
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Episode 17: Dyeing yarn

Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, the knitting podcast that’s (mostly) about the projects. This week: village show entries, finally wearing the Evening Shrug, knitted knockers and dyeing yarn. I can confirm that the Berroco Lawrence sweater is a free Ravelry download – the link below goes to the pattern page on Ravelry. The featured image this week is of me looking like Lady Muck, wearing the shrug. I have another one taken fromn the front but I look like Jemma Snooty Cow (St Trinian’s, anyone?) so I daren’t share it.

Ft knitting patterns:

Ft knitting sites:

Ft knitting blogs:

Dyeing yarn:

DS and I have been planning to do this for a while, but I was putting it off til the summer holidays for obvious reasons. Last night was the ideal opportunity to get it underway. You can leave the yarn to soak from half an hour to overnight – I prefer overnight as I don’t get asked every 90 seconds if it’s been half an hour yet. I’m sure there are other ways of doing this with food colouring but this method looked pretty straightforward to follow. Here we are going through the first stages and maybe I should just confirm that nothing was slaughtered to get to the final image:

When I recorded the pod, we were waiting for the yarn to cool after its second zapping so that we could rinse it til the water ran clear then leave it to dry. I don’t want to drop any spoilers – after all, it’s a whole fortnight to wait to hear how it went – but when using a tutorial from eight years ago bear in mind that microwaves might be just a teensy weensy bit more powerful these days so maybe adjust the zapping time. Suffice to say, white vinegar is on next week’s shopping list, and I’m getting baleful looks from my son. Ouch.

Music credit:

“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

TAAT: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 16

TAAT
The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
TAAT: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 16
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Episode 16: TAAT

Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: knitting socks TAAT (two at a time) – one ball of yarn or two? Budapest (inevitably), finishing the forethought/afterthought heel socks, learning to knit in a group (and knitting for charity), and knitting spotting. Or spotting knitting. Here’s the invitation to knit in public that I couldn’t resist yesterday (twice):

TAAT

Ft knitting patterns:

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Ft Twitter accounts:

TAAT

TAATHere are The Socks, with their lime green toes, box construction and forethought heel. I’m now on the cuff so very much on the home straight and back in my comfort zone. For quite a while now I’ve knitted socks TAAT – two at a time. No second sock syndrome, no judging whether socks are exactly the same length and when you’re finished, you’re finished. I cast on with Judy’s Magic Cast On, which lends itself perfectly to two at a time on magic loop, and they look like a little bikini til the tow is well established. In a recent podcast, Staci Perry cautions against using a single ball of yarn to knit socks two at a time, but that’s what I always do. Personally I’d get way more tangled with two balls of yarn and have never had sock yarn splitting, but as with so much in knitting it’s down to your preferences.

I’m looking forward to the teaching morning at the next Knit & Knatter (see what we did there?) at Grange Court, Leominster, on Wednesday 10th August at 10am. See you there?

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Forethought heel: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 15

forethought heel
The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Forethought heel: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 15
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Episode 15: Forethought heel

Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: putting in a forethought heel (or Ever Wish You Hadn’t Started Something?), replacing broken needles, knitting for animals, and why you should never leave it to the last minute to block a gift. Btw here’s the Feathertail Glider in her knitted pouch.

Ft knitting patterns:

Ft knitting videos:

Ft knitting tutorial pages:

forethought heel
Arrr!

Is there a Knit Like a Pirate Day? If so I’m sorted:

 

 

 

Forethought heels

forethought heel
Sort of ready to roll with the heels

I can’t tell you how many times I wished I’d never started this! I was fine til I got to the point where I would normally start the Fleegle heel and then I started to feel a bit insecure, as my sock didn’t look like it usually does. I ploughed on until I realised it was really hard to measure on my husband as the sock didn’t have the usual heel space and I couldn’t tell how far up the leg I was. I was well out of my comfort zone by this point and decided to just put in the heel. As in ‘just give your cat this pill’. What a total nightmare. Suffice to say I don’t understand why anyone would put themselves through all that faffarsing about for what looks to me (so far) to be very little gain. The proof of this particular pudding will be putting the sock on the royal tootsies, but it’s not quite ready for that yet. I’ll report back.

The featured photo at the top of this post shows the lifeline going into the second sock pre-heel yarn. The first sock (on the right) has its first lifeline in place and heel yarn knitted in. The photo here shows that all done and the stitches on stitch holders as i went about things in a very tortuous and garbled manner.

No pod next week as I’ll be gadding about abroad neglecting my maternal and wifely duties.

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Afterthought heel: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 14

The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Afterthought heel: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 14
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Episode 14: Afterthought heel

Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: project vs process knitting, holiday knitting, the afterthought heel, knitted summer hats and a gift for my aunt. By the way, I’ven given up on iTunes. I gave it another really good go last week but it’s just too involved for a complete non-Apple user (I’m a non-Windows user too – Linux all the way for me!). I’ve also tinkered with different themes for the website, but for now this is as good as it gets.

Ft knitting patterns:

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Ft knitting tutorial pages:

Afterthought heel

afterthought heelIt turns out that what I thought was an afterthought heel is in fact a forethought heel. I recommend Louise Tilbrook’s blog post and tutorial (that last link above) for explaining the difference between afterthought and forethought heels. Essentially a forethought heel (but what usually leaps to mind when you think of an afterthought heel) is one that you mark with scrap yarn as you go along, marking the place of the heel while still mid-sock, so you re in fact planning it with forethought. A true afterthought heel is one that you pick up for when you’ve completed the sock, having made or left no mark at all to indicate its place as you’ve knitted your tube sock.

As I explain in the pod, I can’t see how a true afterthought heel sock works when you need to know where to start knitting the pattern all round the leg, which I usually do need to know. This makes me think that a forethought heel will be better this time and it gets me used to the whole thing, then I can try a true afterthought heel on socks for my son.

 

Music credit:

“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Three needle bind off: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 13

three needle bind off
The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Three needle bind off: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 13
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Episode 13: Three needle bind off

Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, a knitting podcast discussing projects, yarns and patterns. This week: knitting with children, measuring for camisoles, an interview with my husband about socks, knitting a present for my cousin. I’m part way through organising iTunes, by the way. I now have an Apple ID, but couldn’t get any further when i last tried. I’ll have another go and report back.

Ft knitting patterns:

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Ft knitting tutorial pages:

Three needle bind off

three needle bind offThis was a completely new one on me. I used a standard bind off for years, which made for some pretty squeaky socks in the early days of ‘proper’ knitting. Then I discovered Jeni’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off which changed everything. But that was it, the sum total of my bind off knowledge. This week I’ve doubled my repertoire with not only Russian or lace bind off, but three needle bind off too. Strictly speaking it’s more of a grafting stitch than a bind off, and I was using it to graft the two halves of my shrug. Often when I learn a new stitch it’s completely incomprehensible at first, I’m watching YouTube videos frame by frame and I can’t understand how anyone ever gets the hang of it then bingo, the penny drops and I’m away. This time I didn’t have to go through the ‘duh?’ stage and just zoomed away with it from the off. The result is a very satisyingly neat seam, but none the less a seam. I’d hoped the TNBO would be invisible, like mattress stitch, but it is what it is and that won’t stop me wearing the finished article.

So now I’m project-free, once I’ve woven in ends and blocked the shrug. What should I knit next?

 

 

Shrug construction: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 12

The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Shrug construction: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 12
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Episode 12: Shrug construction

Welcome to episode 12 of The Ordinary Knitter. This week: Ding Dong the socks are done!, (more) birthday present knitting, shrug construction, camisoles and sports weight yarn. Realise I still haven’t sorted out the layout issues or steeled myself to tussle with iTunes. Quite honestly, I think I’d rather tidy my 7 year old’s bedroom. Which I have to do after this.

Ft knitting patterns:

Ft knitting videos:

Ft knitting yarns:

Shrug Construction

shrug constructionThat there is half a shrug, the Purl Soho Evening Shrug (the pattern is now mysteriously offline). I’ve shown the wrong side as you get a clearer idea of the construction. The point of the V is where the sleeve sits in the armpit and the flat piece forms half the back. I haven’t tried it on yet but rest assured I will, to make sure it does actually reach the middle of my back.

I’ve decided not to be a maverick and do it in one piece (I seriously considered it) but instead follow the recommendation in he pattern and graft the two pieces with the three needle bind off. This is a new technique for me, but the PlanetPurl video makes it look doable.

 

Sports Weight Yarn

I’m looking at 5ply for camisole patterns, and it seems to be more popular in the States than it is here. I have found some though, and am now sorely tempted, not least because it’s very affordable and of course camisoles don’t use a vast amount of yarn. I’m very tempted by both Debbie Bliss Eco Baby Cotton and Debbie Bliss Eco Baby Cotton Prints, the latter in a lovely fresh green and white colourway and the former, pfff, can’t decide. You could pick four colours at random and they’d all go together.

My knitting list:

  1. Birthday cloth
  2. Finish shrug
  3. Camisole
  4. Socks?

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WWKIP: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 11

WWKIP
The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
WWKIP: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 11
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Episode 11: WWKIP

Welcome to episode 11 of The Ordinary Knitter. This week: WWKIP, knitting camisoles, an interview with Alison from my knitting group, monotonous socks, knitting newsletters and new babies (if you see what I mean – I don’t knit babies or newsletters). I have by and large sorted out the crackly interview problem; for anyone gripped by this sort of thing it was to do with buffering, which I think means my phone was trying to do too many things at once and the mp3 came off worst.

Nightmare layout issues! I’ll try to sort them out, but for now please just pity me.

WWKIP:

WWKIPHere I am sitting at the pub knitting. We took a video too but it wasn’t very exciting. Mine’s a Guinness.

Ryelands Wool

WWKIP
Not Lady BaaBaa

These are not the sheep I mention in the pod! But they make my point very well: Ryelands wool was so important to Leominster in the middle ages that sheep references pop up all over the place (and not just because we’re near Wales, nudge nudge wink wink baa baa). These lovely ladies were part of an exhibition at Pembridge church last year. This is the Wikipedia entry about Ryelands sheep. According to that, Queen Elizabeth I would have stockings made only from Leominster wool (or ‘Lemster’ as it was then – god knows what happened to the spelling).

 

Alison’s baby jacket

WWKIPAs we’re being rude about the pattern I won’t link to it. WWKIPLeft is the front of the little jacket, featuring the double-breasted design that drew Alison to the pattern. It’s hard to imagine the jacket with big buttons. If you expand the image you’ll see Alison chose very cute blue buttons with a smiley face on them. To the right is the back and The Vent. What you can’t see is a double line of rib going up underneath each flap of the vent – that’s what I exclaim over in the interview. I think the moral of this story is go for a vent only if you’re very sure what you’re doing.

Ft knitting newsletters:

 

Knitting ethics: The Ordinary Knitter – episode 10

The Ordinary Knitter Podcast
Knitting
Knitting ethics: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 10
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Episode 10: Knitting ethics

Welcome to episode 10 of The Ordinary Knitter. This week: knitting ethics, dropping stitches all over the place, happy yarn events and an interview with friend and fellow knitter Caroline. As usual I’m struggling with sound issues – this time it’s the voice recorder I used for the interview – but I think unplugging my computer’s speakers has solved the general background hum and hiss.

Ft knitting patterns:

Ft yarn

Ft knitting podcasts:

Knitting ethics

This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek title, but it does have a serious element. Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade discussed in episode 125 of her podcast the People Tree book Slow Fashion the ethics of the projects we knit. As I listened I realised that although I’m very aware of the ethics of many elements of my life and business and base many of my choices on a desire to do the best by everyone involved, I hadn’t considered the ethics of the yarn I buy. It put me in mind of an article I read on the ethics of encouraging knitters to knit such ultimately useless items as the Innocent smoothie bottle hats. Read this from My Life in Knitwear and let me know what you think. Personally I think it makes a great deal of sense.

Here’s a quick shufty at what’s on the needles:

knitting ethics
School Run Socks in Cherry Regia 4ply

These are the socks I’m knitting for my husband. They look very long but that’s just accentuated because the leg hasn’t got very far in that photo. The heel looks pointy in the photo but fits nicely IRL. Fortunately in this photo you can’t see the dropped stitches I’ve bodged on the sole!

 

 

knitting ethics
The left arm of the Evening Shrug, which looks ridiculously huge in the photo.

I’m wondering if I took this failure to lose weight thing a bit far when I chose which size to make. I wanted a relaxed fit and I do indeed have one – I particularly dislike tight sleeves – but it isn’t quite as ridiculously too big as it looks in the photo. I think perspective is shoving its oar in. The two stripes are lifelines. I particularly love the turquoise one and am now plotting something nice to wear in an eye-popping orange-and-turquoise combination. I don’t usually do loud or clashing colours but I just love these two together.

 

 

 

Music credit:

“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/