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 š
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:
āCarpe Diemā 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:
āCarpe Diemā 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 š
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 CapitĆ”n 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 CapitĆ”n 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:
āCarpe Diemā 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 thatās (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:
āCarpe Diemā Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Adapting patterns: The Ordinary Knitter - episode 19
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Welcome to The Ordinary Knitter, the knitting podcast thatās (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.
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.
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 thatās (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.
This 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.
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.
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.
This 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.