I don’t really know what to call this: is it a stitch, a pattern, a stitch pattern? I’m really only knitting in stockinette – knit a row, purl a row – but adding a hitch.
Haleigh loves her new fingerless mitts
On a circular needle cast on the required number of stitches (yes it is a secret to be revealed later) Knit one row with color A (in this case the blue). Slide all the stitches to the other end of the needle and purl with color B ( in this case the red).
I knit these yesterday for my 7 year old niece. These mitts are the size we will make in the class I’m teaching at Shepherd’s Harvest in May.
Fingerless mitts make it easy to throw a big softball!
I have been having fun with a new knitting pattern I’m developing. I’m not going to say that I’m the only one who has thought of it, but I haven’t seen it before. The concept is very simple:
using two different colors of yarn, knit one row on a circular needle. Then slide the stitches back to the other side/end of the needle, and purl with the other color. Repeat these two rows. The result is a very fun ribbon like fabric.
One of the projects I knit with this technique is a pair of fingerless mitts:
fingerless mitts
And the good news is!!! I will be teaching a class at Shepherd’s Harvest and we will be knitting these mitts.
I love Shepherd’s Harvest! It is such a good way to start the summer. . . lots of vendors selling yarn, roving, and finished items are available too. Lots of animals to pet and food to eat. I’ sharing a booth with Gale Woods and will be selling my original patterns. I’ll have lots of samples there too. I’m hoping to have a shawl pattern in this style of knitting too. My mom is test knitting the pattern for me. Hope to see you there! Look for me in the middle of Barn C.
This picture is a bit old. . . it was taken Thanksgiving 2010. We cooked greens for our family get together and needed a way to keep them warm on the car ride to my brother’s house. Aha! Grab that old cap I knit about 10 years ago. It worked perfectly!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. So much to be grateful for this year! – new roof, new old car that runs better than the last old car – old dog still bouncing around the house and lots of family and friends!
And of course lots of knitting projects!
Here is the progress I’ve been making on my latest freeform jacket!
tons of fun and loving these fall colors.
I’ve been having so much fun with twined knitting! A Swedish tradition often used for mittens, socks, hats and the sleeves of leather jackets/coats.
These neck cuffs knit up so fast and were so fun! I used two 100% wool yarns; one black and one variegated.
I think I did these on a U.S. size 9 or 10 circular needle. Cast on about 90 stitches or so (something to give me 20 – 22 inches around). Then began knitting 1 stitch black, 1 stitch variegated. This work is sort of like Fair Isle because you are always carrying one of the yarns but there is one big diference – how you carry the yarn. On the first row when switching yarns every stitch, I carried the new yarn on top. On the 2nd row I carried the yarns under.
For the Reddish most blurry neck muffler/cuff, I knit every other stitch in different color, always wrapping one way on one row and one way on the other row. One side looks like stripes and the other side looks like a bunch of braids piled on top of each other.
For the Blue/purple/black one I moved the stitches over to create a chevron look instead of stripes. Really the possibilities are endless. I have found working with one solid and one variegated yarn creates the most dynamic piece. It is fun to watch the colors in the variegated yarns develop into a pattern.
(pardon the quality of the photos. I sold the items before I looked at these photos and now I find they are all blurry).
Twined knit, 100% wool neck warmerHand knit, twined knitting, inside or is it the outside, neck cufftwined knit neck warmertwined knit neck warmer - is it the inside or the outside?
Twined Knitting is often done with one ball of yarn, using two strands, one pulling from the outside and one from the inside. I knit a pair of mittens this way and found that untwisting the balls in this way is meditative. And a break from knitting to rest my wrists and elbows.
I knit these mitts in black and added beads.
When I used two balls (two different colors) the yarn also gets twisted but if I alternate the direction of the twist on every row (one row carrying over, the next row carrying under) the yarn untwists itself.
There is a great tutorial on twined knitting here.
I have a great collection of mitten and sock pattern books that I love to page through and look at the designs. Sometimes I crave a small knitting project in color work but I don’t want to spend the time it takes to knit a pair of mittens or socks. . . so I came up with a great idea.
Fulled coasters in Fair Isle knitting!!
Knit and Fulled Coaster #7
Thinking that the fulling would prevent the dreaded stockinette roll I was sadly mistaken. Taking a different approach, I knit the second one starting with 3 stitches, increasing each side to approx 30 stitches wide, then decreasing each side down to three stitches. I ended up with a square coaster that didn’t roll. For some reason working the color pattern on the diagonal resulted in flat coasters! COOL!
I had odd amounts of 100% wool yarn from Gale Woods Farm that worked out great; the worsted weight worked up really fast, the wool fulled easily and I could use up my odd amounts. I knit these on size 9 needles and fulled them in the washing machine.
It was a little tricky changing the orientation of the designs. If the design was set in a diamond already it was easy to knit the Fair Isle and work the increases and decreases without worry. But a few of these I had to rechart to keep my place while knitting and shaping.
It was also a fun way to see how the pattern looks when different colors became the foreground or background.
These coasters are the same design but the colors are reversed.
I’m going to remember this. Next time I knit a big project using color work, I will first knit a few coasters while experimenting with the color.
After much consideration and reading lots of replies. . . I’ve decided it to call it. . .
Hannah’s Lace Shawl
I’ve gotten many wonderful responses to my request for naming help – 23 to be exact – which led me on the great google search: are any of them being used or seem inappropriate?
Most of them came up with either the name of a business, web site, pattern name or person. oh what to do what to do!?!?
I’ll just keep experimenting and one morning I will wake up and have the perfect name!
After much consideration and reading lots of replies. . . I’ve decided it to call it. . .
Hannah’s Lace Shawl
It has already been a week since Yarnover, and Hop, Stitch, and Jump! I planned on blogging right away about the fabulous time I had and the new friends I made but I find that an entire week has lapsed.
I spend last Friday taking class with Cookie A. and Lucy Neatby. 3 Kittens Needle Arts and Steven Be’s collaborated on 2 days of great workshops and lots of fun evening events! I can’t thank them enough for a fun filled weekend.
But today’s message is really about needing a name for a new pattern I’ve written.
It is a lovely lace shawl, 10 stitch pattern repeats around. (read, easy to remember). And the bottom is scalloped with a 24 stitch repeat pattern. (also not too hard to get finger memory going on)
Here are photos of my niece, Hannah, modelling the three that I knit. I used 3 different fibers, the White one knit from a cone of weaver’s linen. . .the natural white one is knit in 3 ply super merino from Wool2dye4. . . and the blue one is Bamboo from South West Trading Company..
Send me a name suggestion and I’ll send you a free pdf of the pattern as soon as it is completed!
I’m really really going to blog more this week and show all my samples from the 18 (yes 18) hours of knitting classes I took last weekend.
I was rooting around in my yarn boxes the other day and found this sweater that I knit TEN years ago! The poor thing needed one sleeve sewn in and the collar knit. Lucikly there was a partial skein of each of the yarns left in the box with the sweater so I could knit the collar.
I must have been planning for the future when designing this because it fits me now. This would look so great on the slopes . . . if only I were a skier!
I have a book of charts titled “Charted Peasant Designs from Saxon Transylvania” and spend many an hour looking through the charts in awe. These birds always attracted me and now I find I’ve knit them into a sweater! I totally forgot about this sweater. . . hard to believe.
The sweater is knit in the round and armholes are steeked. The yarn is Plymouth Galway.
I also love that curly cue “S” design. The shoulders have two stripes of this “S”design on the front and the back.
It also runs up the sides of the body and the sides of the sleeves. I knit the sleeves in the round and worked the increases on each side of the stripe. Makes a good looking sleeve!
One of my indulgences in life is to get and read the Sunday NY times newspaper.
The magazine section on Feb 7th featured a photo portfolio of Olympian hieghts by RyanMcGinley that was awesome.
Photos of skiers, snowboarders and skaters as they are airborn AND wearing knits.
Check it out.
