just knitting a handy guide for all hand knitters!
Double knitting - two sleeves at once
I use a lot of stripes in my knitting to inject some colour into toddlers’ jumpers.
I made a sage green jumper, but decided to include stripes in the sleeves - especially as I didn’t think I’d got quite enough green wool!
I wasn’t sure quite how many stripes would be required to make the wool last out, so I decided to knit both sleeves at once to make sure they match up.
This meant using two ends of wool - as you can see in the photo. As I’ only had one ball left of each colour, I pulled out the second end from the middle and knited one sleeve with each end of yarn using the same needles.
There’s no time saving, but it was nice to get both sleeves
I use a lot of stripes in my knitting to inject some colour into toddlers’ jumpers.
I made a sage green jumper, but decided to include stripes in the sleeves - especially as I didn’t think I’d got quite enough green wool!
I wasn’t sure quite how many stripes would be required to make the wool last out, so I decided to knit both sleeves at once to make sure they match up.
This meant using two ends of wool - as you can see in the photo. As I’ only had one ball left of each colour, I pulled out the second end from the middle and knited one sleeve with each end of yarn using the same needles.
There’s no time saving, but it was nice to get both sleeves
Please pass on your own tips to: jollyfineknits@hotmail.com
Using self-striping yarn
There’s a lot of this about - I’m using an Adriafil multi-colour merino wool which is great fun. However, I’m not sure whether to try to make both fronts of a cardigan ‘match’ in the stripes or not to worry about it. There seem to be both viewpoints expressed on ravelry.com regarding socks, with most people not caring if the socks come out differently. But is a cardigan a different case? If you DO care about matching, it means you have to discard some yarn before knitting the second front in order to start knitting from exactly the same point in the colour sequence. This seems a bit of a waste... Any views?
Doing the Continental
Just when you start to think of yourself as an expert knitter, you find out that others do it completely differently and maybe better! I’ve been looking at the so-called continental style of knitting which claims to be faster than ‘English’ knitting. There are demos on youtube and knittinghelp.com - basically the difference is that you hold the yarn in the left hand and use the point of the right needle to ‘pick’ the yarn through the stitch on your left. I tried this at 3am when I got up with insomnia, and found it quite easy except that I could not keep the yarn smoothly flowing across my left hand. I will have to try again in daylight, and not on a half-finished jumper where I played havoc with the tension!
Casting on
I’ve never used the thumb method to cast on. However, I have developed my own technique which I think makes a neat edge.
I don’t use the tail end method either - I’m sure I would not be able to guess how much yarn to allocate for this, so I would rather work straight from the ball.
Using what is sometimes called the knitted cast on, beyond the second stitch this is what I do differently: insert the right hand needle behind the whole stitch on your left (that is, not through the loop). Does anyone else do this?
There’s a lot of this about - I’m using an Adriafil multi-colour merino wool which is great fun. However, I’m not sure whether to try to make both fronts of a cardigan ‘match’ in the stripes or not to worry about it. There seem to be both viewpoints expressed on ravelry.com regarding socks, with most people not caring if the socks come out differently. But is a cardigan a different case? If you DO care about matching, it means you have to discard some yarn before knitting the second front in order to start knitting from exactly the same point in the colour sequence. This seems a bit of a waste... Any views?
Doing the Continental
Just when you start to think of yourself as an expert knitter, you find out that others do it completely differently and maybe better! I’ve been looking at the so-called continental style of knitting which claims to be faster than ‘English’ knitting. There are demos on youtube and knittinghelp.com - basically the difference is that you hold the yarn in the left hand and use the point of the right needle to ‘pick’ the yarn through the stitch on your left. I tried this at 3am when I got up with insomnia, and found it quite easy except that I could not keep the yarn smoothly flowing across my left hand. I will have to try again in daylight, and not on a half-finished jumper where I played havoc with the tension!
Casting on
I’ve never used the thumb method to cast on. However, I have developed my own technique which I think makes a neat edge.
I don’t use the tail end method either - I’m sure I would not be able to guess how much yarn to allocate for this, so I would rather work straight from the ball.
Using what is sometimes called the knitted cast on, beyond the second stitch this is what I do differently: insert the right hand needle behind the whole stitch on your left (that is, not through the loop). Does anyone else do this?
Experimenting is fun - knit your own way!