Knitting confidence

Another finished item to report. I've made my Mam a hat for mothers day. Not sure how long it's going to be until my family get fed up of me making them things...but I'm still thinking it's nice to get something that you know someone has worked on, over numerous hours, with just you in mind.

At some point last year I made my Dad a chunky black hat with earflaps. I keep getting reports that my Mam keeps wearing it, and that she wishes the earflaps had a button on them so she could fasten them under her chin. I've never seen her actually wearing it, but the pictures in my head are horrific!! I decided that I'd make her one which is a tad more feminine and fulfills her earflap/chin fastening requirements - not to mention improving the pictures in my head....

So, after I mooch around Ravelry (it's been a while since I looked anywhere else!) I found the perfect pattern in 18 Seconds Before Sunrise. It has lovely cables, earflaps, i-cord chin ties. Perfect! Well, almost perfect...

...there was one thing about the pattern that I definitely wanted to change - the cables were all in stocking stitch, even though they extended from partial cables. I decided that I wanted to continue the stocking stitch, as well as the reverse stocking stitch, down through the earflap so that it looked seamless.

Once I read the pattern, I discovered that the hat was created first, then the earflaps added as a kind of afterthought and the stitches picked up. I instantly decided that I did like the sound of that and wanted to knit it all in one go as one piece.

It took me a while to work out how to achieve both of my pattern changes. I wasn't sure how to go about earflap inclusions - knit the earflaps from the top down on a provisional cast on and graft it onto the main hat? knit the hat top down and just continue on with the earflaps? knit the earflaps bottom up and join them to the hat on the cast-on row? That last one is actually the way I did it. I then had to look up and learn how to make the increases in the right directions so that the earflaps grew wider from the i-cord in an neat way. This tutorial was spot on: www.knittinghelp.com/videos/increases, I used the M1L and M1R. Worked brilliantly.

I know it's not brain surgery, but I was chuffed with myself to discover that I actually have the skills to do this. Then I thought about it some more and I realised that I do seem to do it quite a lot - just small scale stuff, but I often tweak patterns. Almost without thinking. The whole thing reminds me of a conversation I had with my Mam a few months after I started knitting. She's knitted forever but was stunned that I could make up my own patterns (my first knitted things were made up designs, it took me a while to build up the confidence to follow a pattern). She has always followed a pattern to the letter, never made any changes or improvements, wouldn't dream of it. It kinda surprises me that she thinks like that.

Anyway, I've wittered on far more than I meant to. Just wanted to log that I was chuffed with myself - for future reference. Oh, as well as to show my finished mothers day hat!

Christmas knitting - revised priority list

I've been trying to stop myself aimlessly browsing the web (ravelry) and actually get some knitting done! Because of this, I am actually making some progress. It's taken me a while to work out what to make for some gifts but things are finally coming together. This is my new priority list and progress so far (more for me than for anyone reading this...)

1. Cable comfort throw. I got a call from Yarn last week to say that the rest of the yarn I needed had finally arrived. I got straight to work and have finished a second strip, just one more to go! Although...I have, due to my scrappy notes and a lack of checking) managed to make the two I've already done different lengths (d'oh) so am trying to decide whether I'm going to frog a bit of one, or add extra to the other. I'll decide when the third strip is at the critical point - I'm sure this will help me to see the potential size finished throw, and whether or not it needs the extra length. [60% done]
   
   
2. Sweater bag. Christmas gift for one of my nieces. It's coming along nicely and I'm enjoying the pattern and the Cashmerino yarn I'm using for it. The size 6.5mm needles are getting a little tiresome, but mainly because I have a few projects on the go on that size. Not sure how that happened. [25% done]
   
   
3. You Don't Know Our Women Hat and Cabled Fingerless Mitts for my other niece. I ummed and arred about making a bag, but couldn't find anything I thought she'd like. I've decided on a safe bet for now and will make something more interesting for her in the future (and I'm better at knitting). The hat's done! Only took a few evenings to do, and I'm about to make a start on the mitts). [30% done]
   
   
4. Skull Illusion Scarf [x2] and matching hats (not found suitable pattern yet, may improvise). I saw the skull illusion scarf and knew instantly I had to make it!! We've decided to give my boyfriends kids their hats for Christmas, together with the matching scarf. I really can't wait to see these develop. I'll have to get the yarn sorted out first though. [0% done]
5. Santa hat. I want to make myself a santa hat for Christmas morning. Hopefully this will be a quick knit, but if I don't get time for it, so be it.
6. Three Pay It Forward (PIF) gifts. I have one PIFer, need two more! I have lots of ideas, and an itch to get going, but I'm not going to make a start until Christmas is over.
   
7. My poncho has been relegated all the way down here. I pick it up now and then. It'll get there.

There are sooooo many other things I want to make too! (...and sooo many things to finish that aren't on that list).Ravelry has not helped, it just fills my head to bursting point with new idea's and favourite patterns. It seems to be taking me forever to finish things! ...although, that said, I'm really chuffed with the progress I've made - both finished item-wise, and knitting technique-wise.

Progress! Finished hat for me (no. 3 on the priority list)

I love chunky knitting. It's taken me just over an hour to make and finish a chunky hat for me :o)



I've made it in Sirdar Bigga, using a pattern I've knit before. I've also made it in green...as I thought it would be a good contrast to my dark purple coat. I'm not used to wearing coloured hats - I'm a black hat kind of person, that's if I wear a hat at all. Where does my common sense/normal taste go when I knit myself something like this... I hope I'm going to wear it!

A finished item - Pink Girlie hat

I’m really chuffed with myself for finishing the hat. All I need to do is finish off the loose ends, but that won’t take long. So here it is...


...I like it, it looks good…but it’s just crying out for these...


...much better :)

I’ve really enjoyed making this, I’m so pleased it’s worked out as well as it has.

As I said in my previous post, I’ve had to master two thing to make this, three if you count using circular needles for anything other than messsing around and seeing how they work, but I’m not going to count that.

1. Cables

I decided to have a go at doing cables because I wanted the hat to be quite ribby, and cables were an ideal way of making it a little bit more interesting. I did what any modern knitter does when faced with having to learn something new, I Googled it. I found lots of sites that gave instructions for plain twisted cables, but I wanted to keep the rib space between the twists. It took a while to find a site that covered what I needed and was easy to understand, in the end two sites gave me the most help, this one http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/2005/11/technickety_how_to_unvent_a_si.html and another one which I haven’t bookmarked and can’t seem to lay my hands on just now. These, together with some time spent just trying things out and seeing what happened...

…helped me get to grips and understand how it all worked. I knew exactly what I wanted the hat to look like, and luckly, it looks *exactly* like the picture I had in my head.

2. Three needle cast-off (or bind-off as some seem to say)

I have to admit that this seemed like quite a daunting term but I knew I wanted to try it as it saved sewing, and reports said that it makes a neat seam. Perfect. Again I Googled and found lots of people keen to share how to do this technique, and more than that, they said it was easy. I found this site to be very clear and understandable http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2005/12/one_bassackward.php, it has great pictures and commentary.

It turns out that three needle cast-off *is* really easy! Not only is this method neat from the right-side, but from the wrong side too...

I still need to do the matching leg warmers but I’m going to give my hands a break and work on my orange jumper for a bit which is on 12mm needles. Thinking about, I couldn’t start them even if I wanted to because I’m waiting for the double pointed needles I need for them to arrive.