Magic Loop how to.

Magic loop is used if you're doing small circumference knitting on needles with a longer cord. I prefer magic loop for knitting socks, and while I have short circulars for doing hats I like using magic loop for hats too.

First order of business is to cast on an amount of stitches:

Slide the stitches back so that they are on the cord between the two needles:


Look at the stitches to determine where the middle of your stitches would be (or count them if you like, that also works well)


Expose the cord in the spot you determined to be the middle:


Pull that section of the cord out, pushing the stitches down to either side of the cord:


And pull all the stitches down towards the needle tips. You will now have two little rows of stitches on either side, joined on the end where the cord is hanging out and open on the end where the needle tips are.



Hold the needles so that the needle in the back is the one that has your working yarn dangling off it - so the last stitch you cast on. You will pull this needle tip out of the stitches so that the stitches are all hanging out on the cord:


You are now ready to pick up your newly freed back needle tip and use it to knit into the first stitch on your front needle (that first stitch on your front needle being the first one you cast on) - before you knit the stitch, have a quick look at your knitting and make sure that your cast on edges are both sitting straight with now twists anywhere.


Knit your first stitch:


at this point, your needles should look like this:


Knit to the end of your row:


And pull the right needle free, at which point you'll find that you know have a circle of knitting sitting on your needle and on the cord, joined at either end:


Turn the knitting around so that the needle with the stitches on it is again at the back, and the cord is closest to you:


Pull on the cord on the left of your work to bring the dangling needle point back up into the stitches that are currently sitting on the cord:


You are now again ready to pull that back needle forward, moving the stitches on to the cord as you're doing so,


You've now knit half of one round, and your knit stitches are sitting on the cord with the working yarn dangling from them


Use the free dangling needle to knit into the row of stitches


Once you reach the end of this row, you will have completed one round.

If you'd like to see big pictures showing exactly where all parts of the needles are, the tutorial over at Knitting Daily is pretty good.


You can do the magic loop method on a 32 inch circular, but it is generally easier to use a longer cord. If you're new to circular needles - the length is measured needle tip to needle tip.

gathered cowl

I bought some Patons Bamboo Angora (55% bamboo, 35% wool,10% angora) a few months ago without any clear plan as to what I would make with it. I really am trying to be better about this and ask myself "and knit what with this?" when I think that I just HAVE TO HAVE some or the other yarn.

The Bamboo Angora is super soft and fuzzy and drapes wonderfully. The drape probably makes it less than great for a cowl and after I finished knitting this project I thought that cables probably would have been a better choice in order to provide some structure to the yarn.

Because the yarn is so incredibly soft I wanted it up by my face and touching my neck. Because I have 4 balls of this it was not quite enough for a scarf, but a bit too much for a cowl. I looked through my stitch dictionary and chose a pattern that looked like it would use up more yarn to make the same amount of fabric and settled on the gathered stitch.



Gathered Stitch:
Cast on an even number of stitches
Knit until you have three garter ridges,
next row, knit every stitch front and back
knit in stockinette for a section (I did 6 rows)
next row, knit two together throughout the row
repeat the whole thing.

I cast on 120 using size 8 needles and paid no attention at all to gauge(gauge? what's that? who cares!) I knit and knit and knit until I used up almost all of the yarn and thought that there would not be enough yarn to do another section of gathered stitch, then I cast off loosely using just plain simple cast off since I could tell the thing was pretty wide.

It turned out to be slightly wider than I anticipated. It's not quite wide enough that you could pull it over your shoulders, which is a pity, and it hangs pretty loosely and far away from the neck. Because the fabric is so limp, I mean drapes so well, it doesn't want to sit up by your neck.

On the last cast off stitch I made a small loop of single crochet and then added a cool vintage button to the other side of the cowl so that you can button it around your neck if it gets a bit nippy. This works ok, but is probably a better solution for something that is pure wool that is a bit stiffer and would stand up some.



After I wore the cowl for a little I admitted to myself that I would like it better if it was smaller all round. We made a quick trip to Michael's (it's a large crafts store, mom) where I bought some stretchy cord that is intended for making beaded bracelets.I ran this elastic cord through my top rows of garter and immediately liked the whole thing better - of course now the button is way too close to the loop and executes a choke hold on you. It will have to be moved over a little.



I will be running the elastic cord through all the other garter sections to try and give the whole thing structre. If it's still rather limp I think I might take drastic measure and see about lightly felting it in the sink. The idea is that the wool and angora would felt up a bit and the bamboo of course would not. This would possible also help with the small issue of inhaling microscopic bits of green angora while wearing this.



I will update on what I ended up doing to this. It is the exact same shade of green as my eyes, but I am also considering starting an Etsy shop to sell some hand-knits and if all else fails, I'll see if maybe somebody else would like to buy it! Ha!

Story of a shawl.

First, the hanks of yarn were wound into center pull balls on my ballwinder, to facilitate the knitting process



One of the hanks met Gogo and felt pretty nervous. I told the yarn not to worry, and that I would protect it.



Then, the yarn became the cast on row for the shawl, and when the shawl was big enough to behave itself, it got to come with the visit Mr. Husband in the hospital. The shawl felt pretty silly and got on Mr. Husband's head.



The shawl and I looked out the hospital room window and were both pretty impressed with how high up we were (4th floor! wow, that's 3rd floor for you non-Americans)



The shawl had to have some emergency surgery, but the presence of a crochet hook in my handbag made the whole thing as painless as doing surgery on a black, fingering weight shawl can be.



The shawl then had a little rest on the hospital window sill and contemplated how much larger it was than when we first arrived.



To celebrate Mr. Husband getting out of the hospital, we decided to have sushi. The shawl got to come with to sushi, and got to meet the waitresses. (The shawl got to go back about three weeks later, and the waitresses were pretty impressed with how much larger the shawl got)



The shawl accompanied me to work and hung out on my desk and met some of my coworkers. The shawl was pretty impressed with how square my cubicle is.



The shawl was pulled back a bit after I realized I really should have started the lace part already, and while off the needles, the shawl posed on Mr. Husband (check out that nephrectomy scar, the shawl and I were both pretty impressed by how much of a badass Mr. Husband is. )



With the lace part growing steadily, and Mr. Husband back in the hospital, the shawl and I went to visit and the shawl behaved much better this time around.



Earlier today, the shawl was completed and decided to pretend like it was a kitty and try to make Mr. Husband feel better. Mr. Husband was not really amused and said the shawl was too hot.



Right now, the shawl is blocking on my bed, although this picture was taken before Gogo and Elsie realized that there is something new and unusual on the bed for them to lie down on.



Thanks to my models, Mr. Shawl and Mr. Husband. I love you both! (Mr. hubs gave me permission to feature his pictures here)

This shawl: Icarus by Miriam Felton
This yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine - not quite 100g worth.

I made yarn!

And not Kool-aid florescent practice yarn either, but honest to goodness pretty two ply that actually has enough yardage that I could knit something out of it. I finished it yesterday and took it with to the hospital to show husband, and then today, I considered taking it with again just to keep it on my lap while driving and pet it during the day.

Lots of pictures:







Can't wait to make more!

Handspun!

This is my very first handspun on my Ashford Traditional Double Drive:


I'm not sure what it is, but it's pretty course. It's the first fiber I ever bought. The lady at my LYS said she thought it was Corriedale and that it's good for beginners to use something with lots of crimp. I think I disagree. It wasn't fun to spin at all.

Second hand spun: blue faced leicester from Blue Goose Glen. I wanted to just experiment with what it would be like to spin roving that was dyed in blocks of colour - since there are so many on Etsy.com, but I really didn't want to buy it and then not like it.

First I dyed a bit of the roving using Kool-Aid



It was a pretty cool experience. I glance over some dyeing directions online and took to the kitchen hoping for the best. I mixed up some Kool-aid with water, dumped it on different sections, wrapped the whole thing in clingfilm and then stuck it in the microwave for 6 or so minutes.

Then I let it cool (so as to not felt it when I rinse it out), then washed it several times to try and get the sickening child-birthday-party smell out of it, then let it dry. The next day I spun it into a single, trying to not mix colours at all - I think I was pretty successful there.

After spinning up a single, I decided against plying it with something else (like undyed BFL) and instead had a quick look on youtube to see how to Navajo ply. I practiced Navajo plying on the scratchy first spun single and then did this one, resulting in the YARN seen below.



Yarn! I made actual yarn. I felt like Tom Hanks in Cast Away when he makes fire and stand on the beach going "I made fire!". I wanted to jump up and go "I made yarn!" but the cats were napping, so I kept quiet and just smiled in a gloating way.

Last night when I got home from the hospital where husband is currently staying I had some superwash merino roving waiting for me and immediately started spinning. I think I'm getting much more consistent and that I'm putting a reasonable amount of twist in now.




I can't wait to actually finish spinning and ply it up and then knit something out of it. The roving is Mocha Java from Fiber Optic on Etsy.

What a very very fabulous invention

It's a swift, and it's my new best friend. here it is spinning away on the next hank of yarn for the old shale stole for my mom.

I received a hank of Kauni Effektgarn en beige in the mail today, and when my husband saw it, he said "good thing you got the swift, since I'm not holding that".

The hank of Kauni is a monster.


Here is it swallowing my cellphone

And here is it intimidating my cats.

(this photograph made me realize that my curtains really could use a trip through the dryer to de-hair them, that or I should shave Elsie too)


With the swift however, it will be such an easy peasy conversion to a center pull ball.



I've admired this Revontuli knit by Wolligkeiten on Ravely for quite some time, and now that I have this yarn, I can reproduce it. I'm excited.
This photograph is from Wolligkeiten's flicker photostream and is her property and I am borrowing it to show how lovely her shawl is and will put it back if she needs me to. It's one of the first things I ever faved on ravely. I love it.