Pattern Recommendation: Persikkavaahto by Liisa Pohjalainen

I don't have great pictures of this one, but for good reason: I made it and immediately started to wear it. There was perhaps a 2-second delay between sewing in the ends (only two!) and putting it on.

Persikkavaahto is a great way to start learning lifelines and lace decreases, and it's free! It's knit in the round, meaning that it's all knit, yarn-overs, and decreases. Here's me making my way through:

Right before fall, so I was excited to wear this to the pumpkin patch!

I used cotton yarns I'd gotten from a second-hand store. They're perfect for this, as they're not heat-retaining like wool, so it made for a light hat to keep my hair under control in the fall! (For more on yarn fibre types, see my post on the subject.) However, I didn't have enough of just one of the yarns, so I mussed about and added stripes instead of going one-colour, just carrying the yarn up inside the hat.

Already on! 

I still wear this hat. Cotton is durable and easily-washed, which is great when you drop your hat in the corn maze... and when you wear it nearly every day!

Lessons Learned: Illusion Knitting

I have known of illusion knitting for a while and was fascinated since I saw a photo of a crazy Hagrid illusion knit by Steve Plummer. (The pattern's on Ravelry!) But the technique was too intimidating for me. I put it off until I found a brilliant Instructable on the subject, and realised it was far simpler than I had expected!

For those of you who don't know what illusion knitting is, I suggest seeing Steve's pattern first, since it's far more impressive. Illusion knitting looks like plain stripes when viewed from the front, but when viewed from the side it creates a picture. While seemingly magic, this is a simple knit/purl technique. Not only that but in a project like a scarf one can carry the yarn up the side, making it a simple process to change colours.

To start one needs a simple chart of a design. I wanted a project for my violin teacher, so I chose a pattern of a treble clef. This is actually a pattern for crochet filet! Amazingly, these charts work for illusion knitting as well, as will any block-based chart with two colours.

I followed the instructable, feeling very unsure. Surely this couldn't be as simple as they made it out to be? But as things worked up I found myself amazed at what was coming off my needles. Look at this!

Straight on.

From the side. 

Once I finished I used a steamer to block the acrylic. Here's a look at the pinning, with the back of the item. The pattern's a little more obvious on the reverse.

My messy craft area in the background. Pinning is a little harder, but I used my ironing board's stripes to get it straight.

Here's the final product, taken at an angle. I adore the way it turned out. Not only that, but my violin teacher loved it!

The only space big enough to get a photo was next to my kitchen, so pardon the mess. But look how cool this is!

In future, I'm thinking of doing a wall-hanging, because the back-side is hidden. It would be so cool to watch it change as you walked past. Of course, I could have stitched a backing on, but as it was a scarf I figured this was fine.

I encourage anyone interested to at least try a small swatch. It's addicting once you start. The only complaint I had was the constant counting, but every other row is a straight knit, so it really wasn't that bad.

Improvement Notes:

Knitting is a constant learning process. These are my notes to help me grow and improve my skills - feel free to ignore, or learn with me!
At the time I made this, I was pretty much unaware stitch markers existed. Next time, I'd definitely be marking my stitches to make the counting easier.

Lessons Learned: Double-Pointed Needles

Knitting in the round sounds like such a daunting skill to learn. I remember psyching myself up to do my first pair of socks, but I used a circular needle then. I didn't want any of my stitches falling off the needles!

But eventually, I bought a set of double-pointed needles (DPNs, to the knitting crowd) and braced myself for what I was certain was going to be a disaster. It turns out, after casting on, I was able to figure things out just fine, and cast-on was simple after I learned a few tricks.

I started with an extremely simple, small pattern. I wanted something with no new stitches, tiny enough that I could finish it without using extreme amounts of yarn, time, or patience. Knowing I'd probably mess up and frog the whole thing several times, I didn't want to mourn huge amounts of progress lost every time I had to frog again.

My eventual choice was one of the cacti from Lucille Randall's Quick and Easy Cacti. Simple 1x1 rib stitch seemed easy enough, but the in-the-round construction gave me a chance to try out my new needles!

Here are my tips for working with DPNs:

• The easiest mistake to make is to twist up your cast-on between stitches, leaving you with an odd Mobius strip once you're done. My way around this was to cast all the stitches onto one needle. Then I slipped the stitches onto their various needles, evening them out, but I could easily see if I twisted anything before joining in the round. Another way to do the same thing is to cast onto a circular needle of the same size, then slip onto your DPNs. 
• Tighten your stitches after you switch needles. Don't tighten after the first stitch -- it won't hold by itself. Knit two stitches, then tighten the first and the second. The second stitch will hold the tension of the first in place. If you don't watch your tension at the needle changes, there tends to be an odd gap. Sometimes, depending on needle size, there's a gap no matter what you do, in which case blocking helps to even your tension. 
• Knit stitches and purl stitches don't need to be altered each round to achieve stockinette stitch. In other words, one can knit in the round and have a lovely stockinette without ever switching to purl stitch. Reading the pattern, I was very confused when I reached the second round and it didn't start my ribbing with a purl stitch. I ended up re-casting on when I kept trying to start with a purl, getting confused when I ended up with a seed stitch instead! But it turned out I was just not trusting my pattern enough. 

I did end up changing my cactus toward the end; I wanted a more lengthy top, and by this time I was feeling confident, so I did gradual decreases. Here's my little cactus when I finished stuffing it with yarn scraps.

Cute, round, and palm-sized.

I decided he needed a pot to seem quite right, and grabbed a bottle-cap and some twine. After a little super-glue, I had a perfect pincushion!

Pinny is always ready when I need him.

Lessons Learned: How To Block

Often I start projects with no real idea of how much work they're going to be. The Showoff pair I did was a definite example; I thought I was going for something easy, they thought they were going for something... not.

Let's begin by stating I had recently gotten eye surgery that made me really light-sensitive. It was difficult for me to open my eyes for more than a split second at a time. This was a problem, considering I'd recently made it all the way through my favourite radio show, couldn't watch telly or read, and was thus bored out of my mind. 

"I can do the knit stitch without looking!" I thought, "I'm sure I could do a simple pattern, if I printed it so it wasn't on a screen, and just caught glimpses of it in the half-second I can open my eyes!"

Of course, that wasn't a bad idea. Nope, not at all! It was brilliant. Inspired. 

Finding the pattern had me in tears -- both from pain and the unexpected, uncontrollable eye-watering that was a side-effect of looking at any type of light. But eventually I found a pattern for some giant yarn that I'd had in my stash for ages (Logic: It's easier to see if it's bigger!) and I cast on.

I made a mistake.

I cast on again. 

I made a mistake. 

I cast on again. 

Repeat about 20 times and you have the riveting and inspiring creative process of my first attempt. I did eventually finish it that day -- it's a very quick knit once one manages to actually start it. The pattern is excellent, by the way! It's free on Ravelry here. 

However, my final product didn't look brilliant. It was the yarn, more than the simple lace, that made it look decent. Here's a photograph I took with my just-out-of-surgery eyes. 

Fantastic, I know.

If you squint you can see the lace diamonds, and the edging is some kind of lattice. It's fine, but the sparkly yarns are what gives it an edge when wrapped around one's shoulders. Something about the lace wasn't working.

I was undaunted. I was going to make an absolutely incredible second shawl, and it was going to be amazing, and now that I had discovered that I could knit while semi-impaired, I was going to do so. Once again picking up my giant knitting needles and some stash yarn, I went at it again.

Please go back to the bit where I cast on. Repeat the previous scenario. Look, I am never going to give anyone advice to do this after they just had their eyes operated on, it's a bad idea. I dropped a stitch almost at the end, gave up, and had to re-knit the whole thing the next day.

And then I had done it. 

I feel that I should explain my enthusiasm at the end; I was thrilled with myself, I had conquered knitting -- albeit with many bad attempts to begin -- and now was working on a second shawl, and I was incredible, I was a superhero -- 

Then I cast off, and I was a complete and utter failure.

Look at the piece above. Do you see that yarn? For those unfamiliar with gauge, or yarn types, it is probably nothing special, but let me assure you that is a very bulky yarn, quite thick, made up of a netting, or mesh. It was a thrift store purchase, and I was lucky to find two colours that went well together. Thanks to the thickness of the yarn, it somewhat holds its shape -- not great, but not horrible either.

Cut to the current yarn - another charity shop purchase, a soft orange acrylic yarn that wasn't as thick as the previous one. It didn't hold shape at all. Rather than a soft lace-and-mesh, what I got was a sad, curled-in-on-itself lump. It didn't look like anything.

I blinked at it (granted, I couldn't do much other than blink in those days) and immediately reached for my computer, despite the pain shooting through my eyeballs. Dear Google and Ravelry, what have I done?!

Answer: I hadn't blocked. Lace requires blocking.

What is blocking, you ask? Well, it's a process by which you set the yarn into its shape. With wools and cotton, often this just means getting it wet, pinning it out into shape, and then letting it dry. With acrylic, it's a little different.

Acrylic yarns aren't natural fibres so wet-dry blocking won't set them. Heat can set them, but heat can also melt acrylic yarn. The best advice I was able to find was to use a steamer to block acrylic. Here's the general concept:

Acrylic yarns are made of tiny bits of acrylic fibre. One doesn't want to melt those fibres together, or you just get a lump of plastic and not a lovely soft yarn at all. What you want to do is carefully heat it just enough for those fibres to stick to each other in shape, just barely, without losing their softness and texture. Steam is hot, but it doesn't have the pressure of a basic iron, and the puffing air helps keep the yarn light. 

My biggest piece of advice: test a bit of yarn first. I tried different ways to hold the steamer: super close and super hot, super close and cooler, far away and super hot, far away and cooler. I found that my less-hot setting with the steamer close to the yarn gave me a nice texture.

Then came the pinning process. Anyone who blocks will tell you this is the least-fun part of blocking. Taking your finished piece off the blocking mats/towels is so satisfying, but pinning it out is tedious. Here's my shawl pinned into shape, with my first experience of blocking.

Not perfect, but you can see the shape of the lace!

The blocking pins should be holding the fabric open so the lace holes and shapes are visible. At this point, one uses the steamer to coax the yarn into holding that shape for good. The great bit about blocking acrylic is that normally it holds its blocking for life because the fibres are actually fused slightly in that way. Cotton and wool items generally need re-blocked every so often.

Finally, once it had cooled entirely, I took the pins out and tried it on a mannequin. 

You can see the pattern!

Finally, I had a shawl! I actually preferred this yarn to the previous one - it looked much neater and more open. I now block all of my acrylic knits this way, lace or no. It gives the stitches definition and helps even any wonky tension!

If you want more instructions on acrylic blocking, G's Crafts 'n Things has a great blog post on the subject, with some excellent pictures of the before-after effects on lace! I'd definitely recommend checking it out. 

Pattern Recommendation: Blueberry Waffle Socks by Sandy Turner

My mother taught me to knit when I was very young -- I think I started younger than five, though the precise timing eludes me. However, it got rather lost in the midst of growing up, and it wasn't until university that I picked it up again with a serious intent to use it. At that point, I decided I needed a goal, and what better goal than socks? They're classic.

“One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

However, once I had a goal, I realised I also had a problem. Which pattern to choose? Ravelry is full of so many sock patterns, and all of them seemed so complex in so many ways! I needed something easy, something that would stretch if I sized it wrong, something that was beginner-friendly.

It turns out, that's not easy to find. After trying several patterns and nearly giving up in despair,  I finally found Sandy Turner's Blueberry Waffle Socks. Thank heaven for the Internet Archive, because this is an amazing pattern. Not only is it stretchy enough to give some leeway for those who struggle with size, it's got simple, step-by-step instructions for those who have never done a sock before, including how to turn the heel and do a gusset.

I had to show off when I finished my first pair!

Improvement Notes:

Knitting is a constant learning process. These are my notes to help me grow and improve my skills - feel free to ignore, or learn with me!

There's a great explanation of the gusset here, which helped me figure out what I was doing. Also, there's an excellent tip for avoiding gusset holes here on youtube, which should save you from adding buttons like I did. 

Today's Knit: Cable Capable

Cable knits always look incredible. It's a simple way to take a piece and give it a... well, twist. When first learning how to cable, I did it with a cable needle, which is how most people learn. However, cable knitting with a needle is time-consuming, and when I found a guide to knitting cables without a needle online, I immediately decided I wanted to learn!

There are so many videos showing how to cable without a needle, so I'm not going to make one. However, once you've had a look at how to do it, here's a wonderful pattern to practice on! I created it for my own practice, so it's simple enough to learn on. The instructions are for cabling with a needle, so even if you've decided to go with the classic technique, it will work.

Cable Capable is a scarf knit from side to side, lengthwise. It's got a lace window option, for more advanced knitters, but it's not necessary for beginners. More importantly, it's got loads and loads of beautiful cables!

Use the code BloggerC and get 50% off the price on my Ravelry store!

Improvement Notes:

Knitting is a constant learning process. These are my notes to help me grow and improve my skills - feel free to ignore, or learn with me!

The next time I make this scarf, I'm going to use a different bind-off. As one may see, I used the classic bind-off on this piece (right side of the scarf) and I don't like how it flattened the edge, instead of showing off the ribbing. In future, I intend to use a binding that can draw the ribbing out. 

Pattern is also available at my Etsy store!