Hello there!
This post is a bit knit-centred, but I also worked on some crochet WIPs.
Crochet & Knitting
I did not work on my crafts this week as much as I expected because I was tired a lot. Can we have more sunlight while retaining the snow, please?
Finished objects
I am super proud (and super mad; see the last section) of my only finished item.
Wobbly Hat
The Wobbly Hat, aka my first knitted hat, is done~! I was trying it on as I was going, and when the brim reached the size that looked okay, I stopped. No counting, no stress.
As I didn’t have any pattern to follow, I wondered how to do the decreases because I did NOT want to cinch the top from all the stitches. So I just worked two knits or two purls together, giving me a narrower ribbing, and then I was knitting one knit and one purl together. After a few rounds, I cut the yarn tail, weaved it through the few remaining stitches on the needle and cinched it. I think it looks neat this way.
It would be better with better tension, but that’s in the future.
Works in progress
The Ugly blanket
I did not work on this blanket at all; as it’s getting bigger, I cannot work on it at my desk. I also did not have the mood for it. Either I was well rested and could focus on something that needed the focus, or I was too dead to crochet anything. Let’s hope for some middle ground the following week.
Foxy the Squirrel
I finished Foxy’s head and his ears. So far, so good; no issues with the pattern.
Traveling Afghan
I wanted to knit cables because they look so cool. And thanks to some online explanations, I figured cables were so easy, so I had to try them.
Easier said than done. The technique itself is trivial, but how it is written in instructions is confusing. Following a chart? Not a chance; I have no idea how to interpret those lines and why they are in different colours? Following a written instruction? Possible. But I failed miserably. I was able to do the cables, but then there was “knit the knits and purl the purls”. Like… knit the knits that are on the side I am working on or the previous side? So if I finished with a knit stitch, should I start with a knit stitch even though it looks like a purl stitch when working on the other side? I did not know and had no one to ask for help. Now, I know it means if I finish with a knit, I need to purl, basically keeping the texture the same.
So I abandoned that project and went looking for something llama-friendly. And I found the Traveling Afghan. The squares are nice; some are intimidating right now, but I am determined to learn. And failing is learning. Of course, I started with the square #18, which contains cables.
And I am proud to say it’s finished! Just that one square. Still, despite the twisted stitches catastrophe (explained below), I am proud of it.
There is something new I didn’t know and couldn’t figure out. How the heck can I fix the edge stitches? I can ladder down and fix everything (didn’t try cables, though), but the edge stitches were impossible. I had to frog it, pick up the stitches and re-do about five rows. Now I know that fixing the edge stitches is easier done separately from the other stitches. I purled five stitches instead of knitted, and I laddered down and untangled all five, and I couldn’t reconstruct them in garter stitch. I was too ambitious for my skill level. But that’s fine. At least I learned how to frog a few rows with cables.
There are no instructions for binding off, so I made up my own version. I did something a bit unusual, maybe? At first, I slipped two stitches on the right needle and then put the first one over the second one and off the needle. Rinse and repeat. The bind-off was too tight for the square. So I frogged that and used my crochet hook to add another loop of yarn. I slipped the first stitch on my hook purl-wise and then went into the next stitch that was chilling on my left needle and made a crochet slip stitch. Pull one loop from the working yarn through the stitch on the left needle PW, pull that loop through the loop on the hook, and repeat. The bind-off is stretchy and with a neat crochet edge. Right now, I plan to do a crochet border around the squares and then apply some join-as-you-go method.
Acquisition
After getting cheap DPNs from Amazon, I tried knitting out and decided I wanted to continue. As an engineer, I know that your tools are essential for your work and the joy you get from working on a project.
I was somewhat frustrated by DPNs. I wanted to belong to the DPNs club (because they are so much more versatile!), but I don’t. It was very fiddly even with 4+1 needles, and I was worried that I might poke my eye because sometimes you need to zoom in to see the stitches properly. And with ten sharp ends flying around, the probability of something happening goes up. For me. If you enjoy working with DPNs, that’s great, and I envy you a bit, but that’s all.
So I looked around and found the Chiaogoo brand. Yep, I am going exactly where you think I am going. I bought it.
One Youtuber uses them all the time, and I don’t want to say her name because what I am going to say next might sound bad - but I don’t see it that way.
She has been using the Chiaogoo needles for years and still praises them, which would be good in itself, but she is a complainer. Is something odd going on in a pattern? She tells us. The pattern is not well formatted, and some guidance or a schema is missing? She complains. And that’s fine; she does not trash anyone, just pointing out missing stuff in a bit more dramatic way.
So, when she praised Chiaogoo, I was in. Well, of course, I did more research on it, and the internet kinda agrees with her. Some even said - they are expensive; do you really need THAT level of quality? My answer was - YES. Do I plan on opening a business? No. Do I plan on making super complex lacework? No. Well, not in the nearest future; I can’t even do basic stitches properly. I want high-quality tools for whatever I am doing.
This is aligned with Adam Savage’s advice - buy the cheapest tool you can, and if you keep using it, buy the best one. I’ve been following that even before I heard him say it. My fav crochet hooks are from a cheap set from Amazon, although I had to buy a few Addis because I needed bigger sizes.
Anyway, long explanation, but I think it’s a good idea to have a reason for a 300€ purchase.
I bought the complete set of Twist Red Lace 7500-C and also Twist Red Shorties 7230-M.
I finished the wobbly hat with the Lace using a magic loop, and it was a breeze. I LOVE those needles. They don’t unscrew, the cable is not curling, and the tips are sharper than the DPNs set I had before. But it’s not too sharp to be dangerous. I also did the cable square with those needles, and still the same story; they are a great tool. Absolutely worth the money so far. If they break in the next month, sure, I will rant about it.
I have yet to try the Shorties. But when I opened the package, I was on a call, and I squeaked, “they are so adorableeee”. My poor coworker had no idea why I thought the all-purpose cluster we talked about would be cute in any way. Yep. I couldn’t stop myself. They are so tiny, ideal for small projects. I bought this set because one of my NYRs is to knit socks, and sure thing, I could do that using the magic loop and the Lace set, BUT the Lace set starts at 2.75mm, and I wanted something smaller for socks, hence the Shorties.
Is that all? Hell no. The shopping spree continues. When I was working on the Ozzy hat, I had a hard time seeing the stitches with artificial light coming from the ceiling. And that caused a few headaches. So I bought a neck light. This one was worth it. You can change the light’s warmth and intensity for each “leg”, so you can have one turned off and the other shining like crazy. It’s comfy, USB-charged and feels sturdy enough to last a bit.
Now, that’s all. I don’t have buyer’s remorse, which tells me it was a good purchase. I had some remorse over the mountain of yarn I ordered last year, but I’ll work through it. No skein will be in vain.
Yarny chit-chat: Can I count myself as a beginner in knitting? The disaster explanation
When I was little, my grandmother took like two minutes to show me how to knit. Then I spent a weekend trying it out. My stitches were so tight it was impossible to get into them, so instead of knitting, I was fighting my needles a lot.
To this day, I remember a cast-on method that does not resemble anything I saw online; it’s some sort of a mix-up of long-tail and simple CO.
But I never made any progress from that. I made a Slytherin scarf that took me more than a year; it was about 130 stitches across and about a million rows. My stitches were so tight, so I could work only a few rows at a time. I hated knitting, and I just wanted to finish the scarf and be done with it.
A few years after that, I tried to look online for some information about knitting. But I only saw English knitting, and I was not too fond of throwing because that’s not how I did that. So for a while, I thought I was doing something only me and grandma knew, and we were doing it wrong.
A friend taught me to crochet, and the history repeated itself. My stitches were tight, and it hurt getting into them. But I was taught on amigurumi, where stitches have to be at least a bit tighter so that stuffing does not show up through the holes. I liked the crochet process because I was making something 3D, so I stuck with it. And then, I looked online for more information, and the world opened for me. I stopped being so crazy with tension; I was able to make drapey things with bigger hooks and amigurumi with loose tension as well. It took me a while to find the balance between “my hands hurt” and “the amigurumi stitches look good and tight”.
Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. But that’s how I circled back to knitting, knowing that getting into stitches does not need to be painful. And I was willing to learn the throwing technique I saw everywhere. But I stumbled upon more tutorials and found there are many styles. The important part was - I could keep the yarn in my left hand. So, I learned the stitches again and went on my merry way to start the wobbly hat. So, where is the disaster?
My muscle memory from the scarf is wrong. I re-learned the knit stitch correctly, but I twisted my purls, and I did not notice because no tutorial mentions this might happen or how to spot it. I saw that when fixing up stitches a few rows down - there were knit stitches in different positions. And I never knew which way to put them back on the left needle. The whole Wobbly hat and the Cable square have twisted purls, I ingrained that into my muscle memory, and now I need to unlearn that. FML.
But I will do that. It’s not something that cannot be fixed; it will just take time and focus.
See you in the next post ~