Knitting – Page 12 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Thockies, i

Recently, I bought some lovely vegetable dyed Finn sheep yarn from Leena Riihelä in Finland; her company is Riihivilla. She blogs and writes in both Finnish and English. Her service, communication, packaging, colors and yarns are fabulous! She also designs mittens and other items, and sells complete kits with enough yarn to complete the project.

I chose her purple colorway, dyed with cochineal and Japanese indigo, which consists of three skeins in three colors. Two of the colors are solid, a rather deep wine rather than violet, and they are different in shade so that when knitted, there will be definite color contrasts. The third skein is multicolor, and ranges in violets to the reds of the solid skeins. Together, the three are very attractive and coordinate well. My plan for them is to make socks, but I want something that will help set the colors up to be seen and appreciated. Because these colors are so beautiful and the yarn is so nice, they definitely need something special to show them off!

My first inclination was to pull out some white sock yarn close to the Finn in weight, but the white was a very bright white, and rather harsh a contrast as far as I was concerned. I thought maybe black, but that was too grim. Other considerations were a warm cream color or a heathery grey, such as found in natural sheep wool colors. As I’ve been spinning for years, I rummaged through my handspun stash, singles and plied, and came across a large ball of 2-ply in a light grey.

The ball I’d wound the yarn into was falling apart, so I decided to rewind it into new, tidy balls. This is when I realized that the yarn as it was would not work. For a while, I was into making very fine, very softly spun yarn, to ply together with the goal of cobweb or lace weight yarn, and this yarn is representative of that time period. Rewinding it into new balls brought out the fact the yarn was weak – the spin too soft – and it would break apart – really, just slide apart – as I was rewinding it.

Given the time it takes to spin up yarn, I decided to recycle it by plying it into a 4-ply with a tighter twist, and a lot of knots. I can always weave in ends where I untie the knots. The result is a very twisty, fine 4-ply which is about the same width as the Finn. As I write this, the final skein (185 yds) is soaking in warm water with hair rinse before it is hung to dry and set the new twist.

Meantime, as the grey yarn dries, I plan to design a sock which will show off each of the three colors in a stripey way, with a pattern of some variety in there using the grey yarn.

Susie’s Hat

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I’ve managed to make two hats! One is Checkerboard without the pompom, and more in the shape of a beanie. The other one is Susie’s Hat, which I designed for my sister-in-law for a Christmas present.

Pretty productive, if I do say so myself. And still a few more on the needles!

Casting On in Knitting: A Survey of Varieties

Personally, I never seem to be able to master the long-tail method of casting on – the one that is wrapped around the thumb and index finger in a Y-shape. I have my own method that I’ve done forever, yet never have seen duplicated on YouTube. I wrap the yarn on my left thumb, and knit a stitch with the needle in my right hand – this is my version of the long-tail. And it is very nice and stretchy. However, the cast-on by Alasdair Post-Quinn made the Y-shaped long-tail cast-on sensible because of the two different colors being used. I may actually be able to do it now!

Given this, I know that I have found a lot of videos on YouTube for casting on before knitting. Being somewhat encyclopedic in my approach to things, I decided that this post would be a collection of the different ones on YouTube I found to be especially useful.

Traditional Long Tail Cast-On

Long Tail Tubular Cast-On for 1×1 and 2×2 Ribbing by Ysolda Teague

Stretchy Knitted Cast-On Using a Crochet Hook from the Scarlet Zebra

Estonian Cast-On for Knitting Socks with Nancy Bush

Channel Island Cast-On by Oftroy

Double Knitting Cast-On with Alasdair Post-Quinn

German Twisted Cast-On with Lucy Neatby

And these are just a few! In particular, I highly recommend that you connect with Oftroy on YouTube. She has oodles of videos about cast-ons and different ways to do it – braided, multi-colored, whatever – and her videos are very watchable. She blogs here. Lucy Neatby’s YouTube channel has some unusual videos, such as on knitting based on Navajo plying (used in spinning), and a very tidy bobble. She is not a prolific video-maker, but her stuff is very clear and solid.

What would we do without the internet and YouTube??? There is sooooooo much to learn and share!

Double Knitting

In the past few months I’ve given thought to double knitting, which is the creation of mirrored patterns on a double layer of fabric. I’ve found some patterns that really have caught my attention. What really got me more interested was one called Cheesehands, by Julia Mueller. I really like the design – it’s a small project – and I have someone in mind who likes warm hands.

It also has a matching hat, so the temptation to knit is there! The pattern is quite cheerful, I think, and certainly worth the effort of learning double knitting.

Also, if you like gloves, Julia Mueller has incredible patterns, from whimsical to classical. Her other items include socks and hats. Check her stuff out on Ravelry. Her cable and twisted stitches are different and intriguing.

The current edition of the Twist Collective has a lot of gorgeous patterns, and a hat called Four Winds by Alasdair Post-Quinn.

The article he wrote about double knitting is quite good. What is even better are the videos embedded within. These videos enhance reading about the whole process, including his incredible cast-on that allows the knitter to begin knitting immediately. For me, the long-tail cast-on like this has always been confusing. For some reason, it makes sense here. (My long tail is very different. I think it is easier. Maybe I’ll film it one day.)

Here are the three videos in the article.

Double Knitting Cast-On

Double Knitting – Regular and Twisted Stitch

Double Knit Decreases

Interestingly, when getting the links on YouTube for Alasdair’s videos, I found that there are quite a few from the Twist Collective which I plan to check out.

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In the meantime, I plan to finish a few hats and a shawl and a sleeve before I take on double knitting. And paint a few pictures. And prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday.

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Addendum: I lied. I started playing with double knitting. Here is a link with some good tutorials: Golden Apples.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

This has been quite a busy time period since my last posting. Since then I have been knitting a number of hats, and writing up patterns. I even won a free copy of a pattern, and that has been a fun project as well – but to do the author justice, I will devote a separate post with pictures, once I am done with it.

Anyway, here is the new hat pattern: Checkerboard.

This hat is made out of Dale of Norway’s Falk, which is a wool yarn with a lot of bounce, is comfortable to wear, reasonably priced, and comes in a lot of different colors. If you are allergic to wool, or find it uncomfortable, a washable wool may be a good substitute.

I designed this hat to use up leftovers of yarn, as well as to have something to do with some color in it. Lately, I have been knitting a lot of textured patterns, enjoying the challenges and the pleasures of seeing a hat grow in texture, rather than color, which has been my historical preference. You wouldn’t believe that, seeing the patterns here, but it really is the truth!

Checkerboard is a very good project for the knitter who is ready to try stranded knitting. The 4×4 squares of color don’t require much work when it comes to knitting them up – they are really easy to do because you don’t have to count stitches. Instead, you just watch the colors. Row counting – well, most of us can count 4 rows of stockinette.

If you are a beginning stranded knitter, remember one very simple thing: carry the unused yarn loosely across the back of the knitting. This is very easily accomplished by periodically stretching out your knitting on the right needle as you go along.

Enjoy!