FO: Second in the Round

Mr Ford had some wise words to say on the subject and no, it isn’t that my knitting is available in any colour as long as it’s black.  I love colour so much.  (You may have noticed).  No, Mr Ford said this:

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

Isn’t that true?  Whilst we all have to recognise that we have limits, a humble action that isn’t so popular anymore, there are also many times and things where all that is holding us back is fear.  Perhaps that fear is often fear of failure, fear of not being good enough.

And when you do step over that threshold, it’s so liberating.  Look I’ve just done something that I never thought was possible!

Comfort zones may be comfortable but they can hold us back.  We need to realise that very fine balance in our minds, between knowing where our genuine limits and skills lie and knowing when we need to push a little further and step out into the unknown.  I guess otherwise we wouldn’t learn, we wouldn’t ever experience anything new.

This is me stepping out into the unknown, casting on stitches, in an act of hope and trust, in the round and dreaming up my own pattern as I go.  I had inspiration from the wine bottle covers (isn’t that a lovely idea?) you see on Ravelry and wanted to create a going-away present for a friend who is going to hotter climes.

As you might expect from me, I don’t exactly plan my patterns, I just knit with an idea in mind which evolves slightly over the duration and sometimes the yarn, the stitches, life takes me to a slightly different destination.  When I look at the finished article then there are things that I would do differently next time, little adjustments that come with hindsight and the FO in your hands.

I wanted bold colours and none that would clash with another on an outfit, no pinks or reds for example.  Neither did I want the usual regular stripes, it can look a little twee and uniform so I knitted the green stripes half the size of the grey ones.  I borrowed the decreases from my baby socks to bring in the neck and the stocking stitch ruffle at the top was inspired by a sampler in one of my knitting books.  The bottom I knit with double strands, one of each colour, in garter stitch to give a nice solid base which was also flat enough for the bottle to stand up.  I use the centre of a flower as the basis for the shaping.  When I attached it, it just so happened to make the ridged edge like the bottom of a drinks can!  I quite liked that little homage to modern drink containers as I had already planned on joining my strap with little amphora handles, the old and the new.  I used i-cord to start the strap, again using two strands of yarn for strength, but because obviously I joined them in different directions they do look slightly different.  I’d have to work on this another time, not sure how though.  Then I switched to garter stitch, slipping the first stitch of the row to make a more even finish, for the strap.  It ended up a little too stretchy so next time I would use seed stitch instead.

I judged the amount of stitches I needed to cast on by slipping that sample of knitting in the round I did the other week over the bottle and seeing whether that needed to be looser or tighter.  Then I just worked to the height of the bottle.  The strap is actually a little harder to gauge as it goes on forever it seems and my attention span is limited, just remember not to measure it off yourself but to roughly the proportions of the wearer (I’m a lot shorter than most folks anyway).

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FO: First and Third in the Round

You remember that I showed you the other day that I’d managed to do some knitting in the round, on DPNs?  Well that little test was just that, a little test that was never going to be something but it gave the confidence to try a something, a proper knitting pattern.  Now the most obvious application for DPN knitting is socks, a something that I never even dreamt that I’d be able to conquer some day.

Knitting socks terrifies me.  It’s not just knitting in the round, it’s all the sizing and shaping that really scares me.  How do I work out the perfect number of stitches to go around my calf?  And then does it have to go in and out with the highly unfashionable shaping of my calf?  And how do you get a handknit sock to fit properly?  Drooping socks are hideous to wear. There’s a lot to worry about with socks even if you can master the appropriate knitting technique and I thought even that was beyond me.

The problem is I’ve never known anyone knit or wear homemade socks.  Well, no, I lie.  My maternal grandmother knit us a collection of handknit bedsocks which endured our entire childhood even though she died when I was very little.  Just bedsocks though and the expectations of bedsocks are entirely different of course.  You don’t have to walk in them and it doesn’t really matter if they fall down or off in the night.  Which they did.  Despite the fact that they had the most ridiculously tight cast on imaginable.  Which was another reason we hated them.  Mine were pink, my brother’s were blue.  Classic.

But blogging has introduced me to other knitters, knitters of appreciable talents, knitters who make and wear socks, for example Susan B Anderson who was the one who induced me to try knitting in the round in the first place.  It’s nice to have proof.

So once I’d made that first tube of knitting and I’d eyed up all my proofs, I decided that I should make some socks.  Now, unusually, I did apply a certain degree of common sense to this and felt that I should start with a wee pair of socks first, try out the techniques in miniature first before even starting on a me-sized sock.

Fortunately having formed this idea, a knitting magazine came out with a free baby sock kit.  I don’t buy knitting magazines very often, although I am a sucker for free bamboo needles, but this was perfect, absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately the victim I had in mind for this brand new adventure was a Boy Bump so as the supplied yarns were a bit too girly I found some other yarns that I had received free some other time and that needed using on a small-scale project and I skipped the slightly frilly edge to the cuff, I don’t reckon that most folks would have thought it very boy-ish.

The hardest bit was the mysterious and complicated w&t, an alien term and technique which although I had never encountered before in a pattern, I knew to dread.  w&t stands for wrap and turn and on the first sock I went in rather blind and ignorant which didn’t exactly help the shaping.  I had to research some videos online (I would of course credit them if I could remember which ones I used!) and the second sock went a lot better.  No holes!  I proudly texted my husband to this effect.  Who replied ‘O-K’.  Thanks, try to remember what a w&t is, dear, it is very important!  Then I had a second look and despite not having any holes in those dreaded w&ts, I had somehow ended up with one giant hole on the side of the sock!  Not so good.  I’m not sure how that happened.  If anyone has any expert advice then I’d very gratefully receive it!  Fortunately judicious darning has solved all such problems.

The first sock was finished as per the pattern with Kitchener stitch (or grafting) which is supposed to be ‘invisible’.  Hmm, maybe I need to work on that technique too!  The second I was inspired by seeing something about a three-needle cast off so I invented the two-needle cast off.  It may be well-known to other knitters but if not then I claim the credit for that one!  I’m not entirely sure which came up better.

What surprises me most is that they actually look like socks, you know, proper socks.  I’m rather impressed (if that’s not too big-headed to claim).  I love how the little heels formed, I love those magical processes in knitting which transform something so simple into something so effective.  I also love the alternating colours rows, it’s not actually that fiddly to work either.

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So my first pair of socks ever!  And why they’re the first and third project I’d worked in the round?  I have a limited attention span.  After completing the first sock I went off and worked on something else which I will share with you another day.

A Picture of Confidence

OK, now that might not look like a lot, photographs never do when you have a decided idea fixed in your head, do they?  But bear with me, I will explain.

I am a knitter of limited ability, it’s the maths usually and I am currently under ban from attempting garments (my husband got fed up of counting for me and there was a notable disaster).  There were other things too that I knew that I could never do, they would always be beyond me.

Well my confidence is growing.  Do you remember that spotty hot water bottle cover?  Well that was knitted on circular needles.  Yes, I know, circular, in the round!  I started reading a new knitting magazine back along which for some reason just works for me and has really built up my confidence to try new things.  Then of course there’s been Ravelry which is like a smorgasbord of amazing projects and ideas that just make you itch to try them out.  The other nice thing about Ravelry is seeing pictures of other people’s work, their FOs (finished objects as apposed to UFOs).  For someone who struggles to see their work in any positive way, it’s been a fascinating realisation that actually not everyone’s knitting is ‘perfect’.  (No offense intended of course!).  Pleasantly reassuring.  There are knitty and crafty bloggers too who have introduced me to other new ideas, making it all seem so realistically easy.  Naturally as your confidence grows so too does that spark that says ‘well I could have a go at that too’ instead of the Voice that says ‘don’t be stupid, you can’t do that’.

So when I saw this post on Susan B Anderson’s blog, that crazy little confident spark poked me and said ‘why don’t you have a go’.  Now circulars are one thing but DPNs?!  To knit in the round on double-pointed needles you need your work suspended on at least three needles whilst working with a fourth.  Yes, four needles in all.  This requires the yarn/hand/brain coordination of a higher species than me.  You then have to go in circles which is liable to make my brain (if there is one up there) dizzy.  And confused.  Very confused.  I think I’ve tried before and got myself in a right stressed out tizz.

So why would I listen to the little spark when the Voice knows so much better (it always does)?

I did though, I listened.  I took that little spark and I made that (that being the contents of the photo above).  It might not look much but that my friends is a picture of confidence.  Thank you for being part of my journey.

Seeing Spots

It’s taken a little while, I lose my knitting buzz every so often, most of the time it’s because I’m too tired to concentrate and for yarn wrestling but I’ve finished my latest project.

I found it in a new knitting magazine called Knit Now and it’s a hot water bottle cover designed by Brenda Castiel called Jelly Bean.  Now I may have limited skills but I did make a few alterations to the colour scheme and I chose to knit in DK acrylic from my stash as it was the same tension.

Instead of the funky bold colours in the pattern, I knitted it up in a two colour scheme, purple and red.  The colours I want in my bedroom!  I’ve never seen a hot water bottle cover knitted up from the bottom before either, most of the patterns I’ve seen rely on a sort of envelope/cushion opening about halfway up the back and I’ve knitted two of those before.

Oh and it was knitted in the round.  Yes, in the round!  This is the very first project that I’ve knitted in the round so that was a little bit scary.  I did twist it but it doesn’t really notice because of the drawstring opening, or at least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.  I found the first section of ribbing particularly difficult but I do struggle with 1×1 rib anyhow, my head can’t keep up with that quick a pattern change unfortunately and it has a little wonky patch on the neck too but thankfully on the first half where it’s hidden under the roll back.  But then I’ve never kidded myself that I’m a first class knitter!

So apart from these wee technical hitches (oh, and two small holes either side of the ‘neck’ where I picked up the stitches but they were easily darned) that were entirely of my own making I’m sure, how did it turn out?

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What do you think?