Yarn

Challenge Yourself

stargrace February 16, 2016 0Comment

I tried for years (unsuccessfully) to teach myself to knit. I could do the basic stitch, but I couldn’t purl and I had no idea how increases or decreases worked. I kept at it off and on over the years, never progressing past flat scarf / blanket like objects, until September 2015 when it just all suddenly clicked. In that short amount of time I moved from knitting flat blankets to doing socks, lace, hats, and other items. One thing I try to do as I progress through my knitting is teach myself new techniques, and to challenge myself.

Learning these techniques is always much easier if you have someone else trying to learn it with you, someone you can ping ideas off of. When a friend suggested we start up a KAL together, I was ecstatic. I found some great videos on YouTube about this particular entrelac scarf, and before the day was out, we had learned this new technique. It’s not the most professional looking piece, but I really love the way the colours shift.

We then discovered a downside. Knitting entrelac, especially on a scarf, is very boring. The pattern is not complicated enough to be interesting but not easy enough to be mindless (so that you can do other things, like watching TV). I’ve got the squares down but still need to pay attention and look at the instructions for the left and right triangles. Plus I’m doing mine in fingering weight yarn, with two extra repeats. Lovely? Sure, but I am having a difficult time keeping myself interested in the piece, and that doesn’t bode well.

Still, we learned something new, and that’s awesome. Not every new stitch or project has to be something you love to the moon and back. On occasion you’re going to try a technique only to find that it just isn’t the one for you.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Sock Madness Forever

stargrace February 4, 2016 0Comment

One of the most satisfying things I ever knit was my first pair of socks. Then the second pair of socks, and the first sock to my third pair. They can be customized so many ways, with so many different parts, it’s a great way to learn new techniques. Once you’ve made one sock the “parts” of a sock rarely change. How you decide to knit them will. There’s a cuff, a leg, a heel, sometimes a gusset, a foot, and a toe. You can knit them cuff down, toe up, two at a time, add beads, zippers, lace.. the sky really is the limit to these versatile items.

That’s how I found myself looking into the ‘Sock Madness Forever‘ group on Ravelry. Their group details read:

Sock Madness is an international sock knitting competition based loosely on the basketball competition known as March Madness. There are 7 rounds of patterns. The first pattern is reasonably straightforward and as the rounds progress the socks become increasingly more complex in design.

Every registered competitor who completes a pair of socks in round 1 will be placed on a team with approximately 40 players per team. It is announced ahead of each round how many will proceed to the next pattern/round. By the 7th pattern there will be one member from each team left to battle it out.

I decided to sign up – and I’m incredibly excited. I know I’m still a new knitter, and I may not be as fast as others on the team, but I’ve put those details into my registration email and hopefully I get sorted appropriately. There are so many members that it can be hard to catch a lot of the chatter, but I am not going to let that deter me. I believe this is the 10th year that the competition has taken place, and that is pretty amazing. There’s already a ‘warm up sock’ pattern posted, a sock called ‘Mad Mix‘ and it’s supposed to look like a hot mess, using up bits and pieces of other sock yarns. I haven’t decided if I’ll warm up using this sock pattern yet, as I do have a few other WIP I’d like to complete, but we’ll see. The group also has quite a few rules, but they really help out when it comes to the competition.

This week I’ve also started my first adventures into spinning yarn from fiber,  but that’s a post for another day!

Getting Started With Spinning

stargrace January 28, 2016 0Comment

This week I have taken a little break from knitting and swapped over to crochet. I’m not very good at crochet, but I know that takes practice. I’m working on a small amigurumi baby unicorn that you can find on Ravelry, and while I’ve been working on it I’ve also been reading up on spinning and everything that’s entailed with that.

Ever since I started knitting I have envied the yarns I saw spun up and hand dyed. Beautiful skeins with a homemade quality to them. Some obviously better than others, but that comes from time and practice in your craft, like any other.

When I first started getting interested in crochet I purchased a top whirl drop spindle, but I have yet to use it. With my new found love of knitting and all things fibre I decided to pick it up again. If I enjoy it as much as I think I might, my “end goal” is to save up for a spinning wheel. My LYS (local yarn store) sells a few models, and I’ve been looking into what I may potentially want in a wheel. I will probably stay away from second hand wheels as I’m not versed enough on what to look for in a smooth working spinning wheel.

They can be quite pricey. The one I’m looking at ranges at around $450 and it’s a beginner model. Then you have to figure out whether you want single or double treadle. This article here went into a lot of the particulars and gave me a better idea of what was involved.

Before I even think of buying a wheel I want to try out the drop spindle, and so that’s how I ended up buying a few things of roving combed top. The first one I purchased is corriedale (that’s the sheep it comes from), which is supposed to be a good starting wool because of the long draft. Draft is the section of yarn you pull out away from the bunch to spin. The braid is not dyed, and is a combination of grey / white.

I also bought a second type, this one merino dyed in a crab apple red. Merino is much harder to spin for a beginner, and even more so on a drop spindle. The draft is very short. That being said it’s also an incredibly nice fiber and I’m really looking forward to experimenting and practicing with both.

A lot of people think that spinning your own yarn is cheaper than buying yarn – but it comes down to around the same price or even more. One thing to keep in mind is that it takes a lot more ‘hobby time’ to prepare / spin / knit yarn rather than just knitting it, so you may be getting more “value” out of your money if you do the whole process yourself. That’s what I’m hoping to do. If you have any good fibre suppliers that you want to share (especially those in Canada) please don’t hesitate to let me know! For now I’m still stumbling around getting myself familiar with the price ranges and terms.

Finding Inspiration

stargrace January 21, 2016 0Comment

Sometimes there are so many pattern options on Ravelry that you’ll spend hours combing through them instead of working on your projects. If you’ve got the winter blues (or you’re just feeling poorly) this can be even more apparent. This week I’ve been struggling to figure out what I want to work on next. Since I’m such a new knitter (I’ve been knitting since September 2015) there are lots of techniques that I haven’t mastered and lots of projects that are still too difficult for me. I’ve been feeling my way around trying to find the ‘best for me’ learning path, but it can be a frustrating experience. Take double knitting as an example. No matter how many times I practice I seem to get all wrapped up in the technicalities of it and by row 19 I’ve messed up so much that the original image is too hard to figure out. Frustrating, right?

I’ve got three WIP on the go right now. One is my second BKAL sock, the ones that are rainbow. I finished the first one last week and I adore it. The second is my baby blanket that I’ve been working off and on for the past few months. It’s an easy pattern but I get bored of it. The third project is my 2016 Sherwood MKAL which I love, but I have been feeling a bit lethargic so I put it aside in order to prevent mistakes. I’m almost up to the chart knitting portion and I’m excited for it but I’m also scared. It will be the first time I’ve attempted to read a lace chart pattern, and while they don’t look that complicated, I’m sure it’s very easy to make mistakes.

My queue is pretty barren too. I’ve got a newborn vertebrae in there that I’d like to knit with felici, along with the hue shift afghan but I don’t want to start that until my baby blanket is done. I’ve never knit mitered squares before, and I know I have a learning process to go through. I also have a simple shawl on there in the hopes of using up my Cascade Yarn kid seta, and I have the skywalker shawl in there which I’m hoping to do with a new batch of shadow lace from knitpicks that I bought from someone who was destashing – if it ever gets here. Mail has been a bit persnickety lately.

I also found someone who was destashing some hiyahiya interchangeable bamboo needles in the small size, and I decided to snag those while I could. I don’t expect that they’ll get here for some time yet (I’m not even sure if they’ve been sent at the time of this post) but I know I just need to learn some patience.

In the meantime I completed a quick headband this week while I took a short break from everything else. What inspires you when you’re feeling under the weather? What motivates you to pick up the needles and keep going on a project that may be putting you to sleep? Do you spend more time browsing patterns and FO on Ravelry and Instagram or do you discipline yourself into getting those projects done? Let me know!

Thursday: What’s on your needles?

stargrace January 14, 2016 0Comment

 Like I mentioned in my last post, it’s easy to feel motivated when January rolls around. There’s so many KALs and projects just starting out and of course we’re all flashing our stash and making unreasonable goals (which is half of the fun). I find it harder to keep knitting projects going throughout the rest of the year. This year I’m knitting from my stash and I have a handful of WIP. I’m working on a MKAL shawl hosted by Sherwood Knits and I’m half way through the second clue. I hope to finish it up tomorrow just in time for the next one.

I’m also working on vanilla socks, hosted by the beginner’s knit-along group that I belong to. I’m almost done the first sock and I’ve been making them on 9″ circulars to try them out vs. DPN. So far I’m a huge fan. The third project I’m working on is also hosted by the beginner’s knit-along group, and that’s my BKAL blanket where we complete one square a month and then stitch them together. This months square is completed, so it’s not a WIP or on my needles any more, but it was until recently (it’s the picture featured in this post). The final project I’m working on is the Pine Forest Baby Blanket in a bright sunshine yellow. I also have enough yarn to make a second in a sky blue, and I’m hoping to gift them. The blankets are so soft and smushy it’s tempting to just keep them for myself. I enjoy having multiple projects on the go but on that same note you want to make sure that you don’t get overwhelmed. It’s easy to feel like you’re ‘falling behind’ and setting up goals that you can obtain and that won’t frustrate you is important. I had a double knit afghan on my to-do list but found that learning the skill on top of all of the other knitting that I wanted to get done was just frustrating me instead of giving me joy. For now I’ve set that project aside, and I’ll pick it up again when I’m feeling more confident about it. Double knitting is an intense technique, and as a beginner (yes, I still consider myself a beginner) I just found it overwhelming. I did manage to get to row 17/45 before I messed up beyond repair, but it didn’t relax me like my other knitting projects do, even the MKAL shawl is not so bad.

So what do you have on your needles this week? Let me know in comments!