Hey hey hey,
Just letting you know that I finished that jumper just after my last post. It took me ages to block it then attach the sleeves, but it has now been sent off (with a note to my sister-in-law allowing her to re-gift it if it doesn’t fit). Today is my niece’s Birthday, I don’t know if the parcel has arrived yet but I’m excited and nervous to hear whether it fits.

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

Just a little update on my attempt to make a jumper for my niece which duplicates one of her favourites, but in a larger size.

I have now finished the body and hood of the jumper, meaning all I have to do now is make the sleeves, sew them in and weave in the ends. And block it of course. So here is what I have done so far, in its pre-blocked state. I’ll block the body and sleeves separately.

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

The other day I told you how I have been asked to duplicate a favourite jumper of my niece’s in a larger size. I hope to send it to her by her Birthday, February 6. I’m taking this adventure seriously, so seriously that it has a code name: Project Awesome Auntie. Also, I was so excited that I bought this printable cotton (which has already arrived!) so that I can make a tag for the jumper saying something cute (and maybe with some washing instructions for my sister-in-law). I have made some headway on Project Awesome Auntie, and I’d like to share with you my progress.

I started my pattern planning by looking at the pattern upon which I’m basing my jumper (this one). I printed out a picture of the jumper I’m trying to copy, then I changed the pattern to match it.  Here are some pictures of this process:

Because of the large number of colours I’m using, including four different shades of pink, I numbered all the balls so I knew which order I meant to knit them in.

Then, I did a tension swatch, which I blocked then compared to the given tension. It came out almost perfectly to tension. This made it quite annoying when I had got a fair way through knitting the jumper and it looked too small. I’m semi-confident now that I’ll be able to get it to the desired size through blocking. I’ll get to why I think my tension is off in a little while.

So yesterday I went to some friends’ shack by the beach and spent the night there. Thankfully my friends are fairly uninteresting so I was able to get plenty of knitting done without pesky conversation getting in the way (just kidding, friends *shifty sideways glance*). I’ve made heaps of progress. Here is the jumper as of now:

I’m pretty happy with it so far, but like I said, my tension is off. There are two possible explanations that I can see for this:

1. I knit my tension swatch flat and most of the jumper is knit in the round. I have read before that if you are knitting in the round, you should do your swatch in the round. From my experience, there isn’t much difference between the tension of circular and flat knitting. Furthermore, I don’t think it would make much difference, since so many patterns are knit partly flat, partly in the round, without changing needle size. However, I’m basing this on observation, I’ve never actually directly compared the tension of circular and flat knitting. 
2. This is what I think is the culprit. I recently found out that I have been knitting wrong. I wound the yarn the wrong way around the needle when both knitting and purling. This led to twisted stitches, and therefore twisted finished objects (for ravelers, see here to see the conversation in which I learned of my error). To be honest, I saw good points to my unusual method of knitting, but I changed to the usual style to avoid twisted FOs. HOWEVER, my brother got me for Christmas the iconic book, Knitting Without Tears, by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I love my brother. In this book, Zimmerman recommends that you twist your stitches for ribbing, to create a more elastic fabric. I jumped at the chance to get back to my roots, and I twisted the ribbed stitches on my niece’s jumper. Why would that make a difference, you ask? Premise one: I think twisting stitches does shrink your tension a little. Premise two: I’ve observed that when I knit a stocking stitch swatch with a garter stitch border, my tension comes out much looser than if I didn’t do the border. This demonstrates to me that the stitch type surrounding a piece of knitting affects the tension of said piece of knitting. Therefore, conclusion: the ribbing was knitted tighter, therefore the stocking stitch was knitted tighter. I apologise to non-knitters here, as I’m sure that most of what I’m saying only makes sense to knitters. 

Like I said, I think the tension will be righted, at least mostly, by blocking. Also, once I realised the jumper was on the small side, I started to deliberately knit a little looser. I’m glad I chose to knit a size which is on the larger side for my niece.

So tune in next time for the next update on Project Awesome Auntie!

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

Evening, peeps. It has been a long time, hasn’t it? Well I hope to blog more often from now on, as I have a year off of studying, so I plan to start an Etsy shop! But this post isn’t about that, this post is about my newest knitting adventure!

I visited my darling niece and nephew over Christmas and my sister-in-law asked me to knit a copy of a hoodie my niece loves but is growing out of. This sounds to me like awesome fun. I decided to share my adventure in duplicating a jumper for a few reasons. Firstly, I hope it is interesting. Secondly, I hope it gives people some tips and inspiration in trying to imitate their own favourite styles. Thirdly, I’m sure my failures will be amusing to readers.

So let me introduce you to the original jumper. Ta-da:

As you can see, it’s very cute. The first stage of the process was finding yarn. The original pattern is made in an acrylic yarn, so that was what I was looking for. While I was up in the big smoke to visit the family, I lost my mum in the middle of town and found a craft shop. Despite all the shopping I had already done on that trip and the luggage weight limit, I could NOT resist the unusually cheap Polly yarn at Lincraft. I bought 12 balls of yarn that day. 6 different colours. Despite the huge amount of yarn, the observant of you will notice that the jumper I’m replicating is made of 7 colours. Well, well, well. A few days ago, back home, I received a $10 voucher from Spotlight (VIP membership. worth it.). Of course I promptly headed to my local shop and went nuts, spending 10 cents after the voucher (that’s right, I’m a big spender). SO MUCH STUFF was at clearance prices, so I managed to get, among other things, two balls of acrylic yarn in a very pale pink, which was perfect as the final colour for the jumper.

The next stage was finding a pattern, preferably a free one. The design feature I was most worried about was the ribbed edging around the hood, and the way it overlaps to button at the front. Therefore, when I was looking for a pattern upon which to base my version of this jumper, this was the feature I most wanted instructions for. I decided upon using this pattern as a model for my niece’s jumper. Of course I will need to change my jumper a lot in order to make it match the original. I have now printed out a photo of my niece’s jumper and the pattern. Now for the fun part. I’ll let you know how it goes. Peace out,

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

I forgot to say something in my last post. My second ever blog post talked about how I bought a couple of jumpers from the op shop to unravel (frog) for cheap yarn. Well, I’ve completed two projects made from some of that yarn. The first one was this baby jumpsuit:

I based it largely on a jumpsuit pattern from this book, but I added the frills and embroidery based on a couple of patterns from this book. It turned out a bit more clowny than I would have liked, but I’m pretty happy with it.

The other pattern, made from the same yarn, was this awesome free one, which I made for my cousin. The frogged yarn in question yarn was only used for the chain, as you can see:

That was all. Hope you enjoy my finished objects,

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

Hiatus. That sure is a funny word. After I wrote that last blog post I realsied I wouldn’t have time to write any more for a long time because I had to write a thesis for that pesky degree that I’m doing. Now that that’s done (and I’m pretty hopeful about getting a good result) I can focus on another of my loves: knitting.

So last time I posted, I said I had heaps of news and then I only told you one new thing, and that was that I had entered a beanie into a local agricultural show. Well, the show was held a week ago and guess what…I won! First prize in the hand-knitted beanie division, with a cash prize of $2AUD.  Here’s proof of my win:

The show was actually a bigger deal than I thought it would be. I rocked up for about 40 minutes not long before closing time. In fact they had already stopped bothering selling tickets and I got in for free. I scoped out the hall which held my exhibit. There were only about 4 entries competing for the same prize as me but there were HEAPS of entries in total. Lots of hand-knitting, crochet, machine-knitting, patchwork, eggs, produce, flowers and miscellaneous stuff like vegetable scultpures, and decorated egg diorama-thingies. And when I went up to get my prize, there were several old ladies waiting in line with me who had entered about 20 objects and had won with most of them.  Career show-knitters. Not that you actually make any money if the prizes are all two bucks. I felt kind of little with my single entry against all those seasoned enterers. But I was SO proud. I even framed my first prize certificate. A very encouraging experience.

Second piece of news: I finished (AGES ago) that shawl I was making for my mum. I still haven’t blocked it, but here it is in its pre-blocked state:

I hope it will make a nice tablecloth for my mum for Christmas.

Next piece of news: I HAVE A SPINNING WHEEL!!!!! During the data collection of my Honours experiment, I was waiting for guinea pigs (of the human variety) to arrive and I was idly looking through gumtree, a free classifieds site that I totally love because it’s how I got my great job as a babysitter. There were about 3 spinning wheels for sale in my area. The cheapest one just happened to be about 3 minutes drive from my house and I bought it! It’s an Ashford Traditional, and here it is:

Isn’t it lovely? I had originally planned for a friend to teach me but while waiting for a time for her to come over, I figured out how to do it myself, with the help of Youtube, Joy of Handspinning, Spinning Daily, Spindle and Wheel, Bella Online and a bunch of other great sites. And while I was writing this blog post I ordered The Intentional Spinner with DVD included as a treat for myself. I’ve even already dyed some yarn with food colouring following a Youtube tutorial and I’ve knitted some marled yarn I span into premie baby booties for Birthline, a great local pregnancy and baby charity. The fibre I’ve been using is raw alpaca fleece which I’ve been washing at home and drying on an old window screen. I then pick it by hand and card it with some small carders I bought on eBay from the seller woolbothy in the UK (I highly recommend him).

I’m in the process of spinning enough wool for socks. I’m plying the yarn using Navajo plying, which is a method of making a 3-ply yarn from a single thread. I’m also collecting calendula petals from my garden. I’m drying them on my windowsill and I plan to dye the yarn using them. The problem I have at the moment is I can’t seem to find any alum, which is a metal (or mineral? Excuse my ignorance) with many uses, one of which is as a mordant for getting the colour of natural dyes into fibre. At the moment I’m trying to stew some alfoil in vinegar (I got this idea from a website) but honestly I’m not too confident about that working. My other option is to dye the yarn in pots made from metals which are mordants like iron or tin, but I’m a cheapskate and scoping out pots made from those materials sounds annoying. I definitely want to try it at some point though, but maybe not for this project.

Next news: I just finished my first original pattern that was worthy of being written down. It’s a beanie for a relative for Christmas with an intarsia fish on it. I’m not entirely happy with the finished product (it turned out too short for my liking, but still wearable) so I’ll make a few adjusments before I post a pattern online.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

It has been a while since I’ve posted on here, and since I’ve posted, several REALLY exciting fibre-related things have happened to me!  But I’ll partial out all my great news post by post.  Currently, I am sitting in my lab waiting for human guinea pigs to do my experiment.  So briefly, here is my first piece of news: I’m entering a knitted piece into a show.

Towards the end of last year when I realised I was getting good at knitting, I told myself it would be nice to knit a really special shawl to enter into the Royal Adelaide Horticultural Show of this year, which takes place in September.  I soon realised that knitting a stitch-perfect shawl and filling out all the paperwork was not a great idea in my Honurs year of uni.  Fact is, I get distracted enough by knitting as it is.  So I threw that idea out the window.  Then, about two or three weeks ago I was working at my parents’ shop, which sells feed for farm animals.  Someone had left some booklets about the Strathalbyn (or as the cool kids like me call it, “Strath”) Agricultural Show.  Looking briefly through it I found that the show, as they often do, would be judging handknitted work alongside the jams and sheep and such.  I decided to enter the knitted beanie division.  I figured a beanie is much less work than a shawl.  I think the idea is that people will enter more than one item because the entry fee is about as much as the cost of processing the cheque for it, but I didn’t want to overload myself.  After I finished the shawl I was making for my mum (I’ll tell you about that in a later entry) I got to work on my show beanie.  I chose this amazing beanie pattern to make. As it’s my first entry and I’m still a newbie, I didn’t want something too complicated so that I could do it well, but not something so simple that I couldn’t get away with slightly off tension here and there (how can they see with sequins in their eyes?).  I also didn’t want something too conventional in case another competitor entered something very similar, against which my piece could be compared.  I chose the Lotus Hat pattern because at first glance I thought it was some fancy work with cables and lace.  When I actually sat down to do it, I found that it was a deceptively simple and enjoyable lace pattern.  The bits that I thought were cables turned out to be made by the arrangement of k2togs and ssks.  On the advice of a friend who is a seasoned show-knitter, I chose a woolen yarn (a hand-me-down from a deceased estate) because the tension is apparently more even compared to acrylic.  The yarn is bulky, which is just a little thicker than the worsted weight suggested, so I did a tension swatch on one needle size smaller than suggested.  This came out a tiny bit small, but I decided to stick with that needle size. 

Actually knitting the beanie only took a couple of days, as beanies do.  I am still not sure on my choice of needle size.  It was a bit of a strain on my hands.  The fabric turned out crisp, which I think looks and feels lovely and shows up the lace well, but I don’t know if the judges will see it that way, they might have preferred it fluffier.  I especially like in the lace pattern the fact that there are yos on every row, rather than a yo, k, yo, k arrangement which seems more standard.  It means the holes are separated by a single thread rather than two threads twisted over each other.

And here is the finished product:

So I’ve sent away my entry form and the hat will be delivered closer to the show date.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.  I guess the most important thing is I’m happy with the finished result.  It’s definitely something that I’ll wear.

I shall return,

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

As well as being a proud knitter and a proud vegetarian, the Knitted Kitten is a proud Catholic.  Whatever your spiritual views, I hope you’ll read and appreciate my reflection on knitting.

I wrote this in my prayer book while I was planning a lesson for children who were preparing for the sacrament of confirmation.  The lesson was on being a thoughtful and prayerful person and I wanted to show the kids that you could find prayer in anything, so I wrote a prayer (more of a reflection, really) about knitting, and I asked them in the lesson to write a prayer about something in which they found joy.  So here is my reflection, it’s no great piece of literature but I hope you’ll appreciate its sentiments.

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

I remember my year 6 and 7 teacher telling me this, and I’ve heard it a bit lately: Doodling helps you pay better attention.  I doodle, lots, and always have.  In second semester of last year I cut out the middle man and sticky taped a blank piece of paper to my lecture pad, and by the end of the year it was covered in pictures of wombats, love hearts and horses.  I was reminded of how much I doodle last night when I went to a postgraduate expo with two of my friends and they kept looking at my notepad and laughing.  One of them I went to high school with and I used to amuse her to no end with random drawings (and also whispering to her, writing notes and drawing on her stuff).  She said after the expo that she forgot how distracting it was to sit next to me during talks.  Distracting for her, maybe.  But apparently for me, doodling helps one retain information better.  Here’s an article that talks about a specific study about that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/27/doodling-doodles-boring-meetings-concentration.  The theory behind why doodling helps is also intersting.  They think that doodling is good because it prevents you from daydreaming, which is bad.

This knowledge makes me feel happier about knitting while I’m supposed to be listening.  After all, the principle is the same: It’s busy work for your hands but it doesn’t use up too much brain space to concentrate on.  Both doodling and knitting would help you not to daydream.  I’m quite addicted to knitting.  Unless I have to, I probably wouldn’t go more than…three hours without knitting at least a little.  As my friends have got used to me knitting, I’ve brought knitting out at more and more inappropriate situations (at restaurants, out to pubs on a Saturday night…).  And as I get more comfortable with more people, the knitting also comes out.  I’m doing my Honours year in psychology this year.  I’d say it took about the fifth meeting with my supervisor, his PhD students and we lowly Honours students for my knitting to come out.  I must say they were very impressed with the sock I finished that meeting (so was I, it was my first sock).  I even knit during class, when it’s not something for marks.  For you see, while I agree that knitting may help me retain information, it would have to be basic knitting like stocking stitch.  Anything that involves memory for a sequence of different stitches or, God forbid, actually reading from a pattern, I believe would actually be distracting.  And also, I don’t think knitting or doodling necessarily helps you pay attention.  You have to want to be paying attention as well. Otherwise, you’ll happily give over the free part of your brain to also concentrate on your doodling or knitting.

So I make few apologies for my knitting during lectures, meetings and certain social occasions.  It makes me a better listener, or at least, that can be my excuse.  You’re welcome to it also.

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting

This post isn’t about my frog, as much as he is cute and I love his slimy head.  This post is about frogging.  Frogging in knitting is where a large section of knitting is unravelled (on purpose).  It can be heartbreaking, like when you realise you’ve made a mistake way way back and have to frog a whole lot of work to fix it (as I had to do last week with my shawl when I dropped a stitch and didn’t notice).  It can also be an awesomely cheap way to get yarn, by frogging an old knitted piece to turn it into something else.  I like frogging for this purpose, because I’m a little bit green.

So anyways, I was first introduced to the idea of re-using yarn like this while perusing the great pattern book Aware Knits by Vickie Howell and Adrienne Armstrong.  They unravelled an op-shop jumper, dyed the yarn with natural dyes then turned it into baby booties and adorable pilchers.  I am super attracted to the idea of frogging for repurposing because in general I am extremely cheap and I like that I’m not using up new resources.  The downside is that you have to unravel a project that either you or someone else has worked very hard to make.  I had always wanted to try it though.

The other day I took the plunge and bought two jumpers for frogging.  I’m going to turn them into baby clothes.  YOU CAN’T JUST PICK ANY GARMENT.  I won’t explain how to pick a suitable frogging garment, because Neauveau Fiber Art gives an awesome explanation, so look there instead. The first jumper I chose, which I have already started frogging, is this purple jumper.

It is made of a cotton-like yarn which I guess is about the thickness of 4ply wool.  The jumper itself is quite unappealing to me.  It is either from or inspired by the late 80s – early 90s.  It has bare underarms and slits at the shoulders so they poke out (actually, bare shoulders on long-sleeved tops seem to be becoming fashionable, but they’re not my cup of tea).  I told myself I’d only frog something ugly, or else I’d feel guilty.  However, purple is my favourite colour and this is a nice shade.

The other garment I bought to frog was this jacket (apologies for the bad photography.  Please ignore the unmade bed).

I’m torn (pun not intended but welcomed) about frogging this one.  It is actually a nice and functional jacket.  However, it is a size 18, which means it doesn’t fit me and would have to go back to the op shop if I choose not to frog it.  It is also grey, and I’m not a huge fan of how winter clothes mostly come in grey, black and brown.  It also has awesome big buttons which could have a bunch of other uses.  The yarn is bulky weight which means it would be quick to knit, and grey is a nice unisex colour for babies.  I’m leaning towards frogging, but opinions are welcomed.

The good thing about these two garments is they both have tags on them and were therefore not home-made.  The purple one is Di Moda and the grey one is Target.  That makes me think they were likely made on a machine which means I’m probably not unravelling someone’s time-consuming hand-knitting work.  It’s also comforting that they’re not one-of-a-kind.  In total they cost me $17, which is much cheaper than buying the same amount of yarn, plus I got buttons with it and the money went to charity.

I’m sure frogging garments to repurpose the yarn will be great fun and finally a way to get cheap yarn!  I’m super excited about it, but I still have other projects planned, including the shawl I’m currently working on, before I start re-knitting the frogged yarn.  I’ll keep you posted.

The Knitted Kitten

Kat

This post was posted in Knitting