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April 5, 2011
Just finished this headband for a friend. It’s a simple ribbed stitch (14 stitches, knit one purl one) until the headband is long enough to fit around the head. The flower I got out of a crochet and knit flower how-to book; it’s the same book I got the last flower out of. Super easy, super cute.
Happy Knitting!
April 2, 2011
If you’re not already on and/or familiar with etsy.com and ravelry.com, I’d highly encourage you to check these two sites out! They’re a wealth of craft information, and it’s amazing to see what others have created. Ravelry often has free patterns, too, and super cute ideas from which to draw inspiration.
Here are the links:
Unfortunately for ravelry you need to sign up, but it’s free and totally worth it. If I’m currently unaware of any other great craft sites, let me know in the comments!
April 2, 2011
Sorry for the recent absence. I had spring break this last month and a ton of homework, which prevented me from knitting as much as I would like. Also, I just took home a bunch of my projects (without taking pictures, naturally. |:) so I’m going to have to wait to post pictures until I finish a headband I’m making for a friend.
On the upside, I recently learned how to tunisian crochet! I don’t recall mentioning it before… It’s a type of crochet that involves a needle that looks like the love-child of a knitting needle and crochet hook. Here’s a link to a picture of one. Youtube is peppered with illustration videos, which makes it really easy to learn this new type of… knitting? Crocheting? It’s not quite either… like I said: love child.
Anyway, for anyone who’s looking for a new unique craft, this is really easy to learn, and the needle/crochet/thingy costs around $5. I made my mom a dishcloth for my first project, and the thing I liked about it was the cloth was thick, but didn’t seem like it was going to stretch out too much.
Try it and let me know what you think.
Ooh, I’ve had a thought. You know what would be awesome? A knitting library where you could check out different needles for projects. How annoying is it to have a pattern that calls for size 11 needles, and all you have is 10? I think I’m on to something…
Anyway, as always, Happy Knitting!
March 14, 2011
Hello everyone! (if anyone is reading this…)
This is the headband I made for a friend of mine who will be traveling to South Africa with me next January (along with 24 other students). I borrowed a friend’s “100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet” book, which has been amazing. I’ll upload a photo of the other flower I made. Right now I’m trying to use up the yarn I have (which is a TON), and I only have gray, blue, and red with me right now, so you’ll probably be seeing a lot of those colors for a while.
This headband was really easy to make. It’s just a double moss stitch. Here’s the pattern:
Cast on 16 stiches.
Row 1, 2: *knit one purl one, repeat from * across
Row 3, 4: *Purl one knit one, repeat from * across.
Repeat this pattern until the headband is the appropriate length, cast off, and sew the ends together. I can’t give the details on the flower because I don’t own the pattern, and it would be complicated to explain anyway. But I would highly recommend finding flower patterns online (learn to crochet first, if you can’t already, because I’ve found that a majority of the flower patters out there are crochet). Flowers usually take an hour or two to complete, and they look very impressive on hats, headbands, and scarves.
Happy Knitting!
March 7, 2011
Sorry the picture is so blurry, but taking pictures via photobooth on my MacBook is the best I can do at the moment.
I got the idea to knit tea cozies from a friend. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but I want to try some more colors and patterns, and maybe add some ornaments. I haven’t decided if I want to post the pattern yet… I’ll make a few more and see if I feel like sharing (and take some better photos so you can see the detail). For now, I’m sure you guys can figure out how to make your own, even without the cable stitches.
I’m also hoping to finish two more headbands this week. (Anyone notice how the general shape of my projects is staying the same?)
I still haven’t picked a charity. I like the idea of just knitting a bunch of squares and sending them off to someone to make a blanket, but the problem with that is having to know what type of yarn I’m using (wool vs. acrylic) and most of my yarn doesn’t have the original tags… er… wrappings. Or whatever those paper things around skeins of yarn are called.
Anyway, I hope you all are making good progress on your projects!
February 27, 2011
I have a new idea I’m hoping to implement soon! I was thinking in church today– Oh! Confession. I knit in church. Okay, that may not seem like the most santified activity to do while listening to the pastor talk about starving children, but hear me out!
I was thinking in church today, “I like knitting. I like knitting things for people. I hate it when people don’t use the things I knit for them. I wish I could make things for people who will use them. I have all this yarn I don’t know what to do with. What should I make? I should make a headband. Why am I making a headband? Who needs a headband? Who can I make hats for…” It seriously took me that long to ask myself, “Why don’t I make hats for charities?” I have a ton of yarn at my house that I have no idea what to do with. So hopefully, very soon, I will pick some charities to send hats to! I’m hoping to either make blankets and hats for babies, or cute hats for cancer patients. Here are some sites I found:
http://www.knit-a-square.com/index.html
http://www.hatboxfoundation.org/
I’ll be searching for more organizations and hopefully adding to the list! If you guys have any suggestions for me, please let me know. Also, I would encourage those of you who knit to find an organization to bless with your ability!
Happy knitting!
February 21, 2011
I am often been asked when knitting in class, “what are you making?” I always want to go back to those people after I’ve finished a project and show them since, by asking, they obviously wanted to know. This my way of doing exactly that.
I started this headband (well, continued, since I had about four rows already on a needle) during my 9:05 class on Friday, and finished it halfway through my 1:55 class that afternoon. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
For this project I just used a blue worsted acrylic (bleh, I know. It’s definitely lower-quality than I like to use, but hey, it’s a great color and I need to use it up). I cast on 17 stitches, and knit 1 purl 1 across on each row. Because of the uneven number of stiches, this created the bumpy look, or the moss stitch (also known as the seed stitch). I just made the headband long enough to fit around my head.
The ornament is a Pastel Luxury teal blush “yarn #095″ (not sure what that means). I had never worked with this type of yarn before; it’s kind of like the furry yarn used to accent projects, but there are little colored cotton ball type things on it, which actually made it hard to work with but very cute when finished. I ended up crocheting this part of the project. I chained 3 stitches and joined to form a loop. I crocheted inside the loop until it was full, and then just added stitches around the outside of the circle until the ornament was a good size for the headband. Sorry for the terrible instructions on this part, but I wasn’t really paying attention to how I was making the ornament because the yarn was hard to see stitches in, and I making it in a very nonsensical way. Some day I’ll make ornamental flowers and post how I did it.
Overall I’m very happy with how this headband turned out. I’m going to try and design some more and hopefully have pictures up soon.
February 10, 2011
If you need a cute and easy hat within, say, an afternoon, then I have the pattern for you. Allowing that you have the appropriate yarn (chunky), needle size (13), and ability (this involves knitting, purling, and decreasing), this hat can take as little as two hours to make.
The only downside I found was that it required size 13 circular needles, which I don’t have. However, as long as you don’t mind having a seam in the back of the hat, this problem is easily fixed. For those of you with size thirteen circular needles, here’s the pattern.
However, if are like me and don’t own every needle size and type made under the sun, here’s what to do when working with straight size 13 needles. I made this hat with Lion Brand detroit blue super chunky (6) yarn and size 13 straight needles.
Instructions: Cast on 36 stitches and knit 2 rows. Continue each following instruction across an entire row, unless otherwise specified (i.e. knit = knit one entire row)
purl, knit, purl, knit
knit, purl, knit
knit, purl, knit, purl
purl, knit, purl
purl, knit, purl, knit
knit, purl, knit, purl,
purl, knit, purl,
Piece should measure approximately 6″ when slightly stretched. If not, purl and knit one more row each and decrease as follows:
*P4, p2 tog, repeat from * across row (30 sts)
*K3, k2 tog, repeat from * across row (24 sts)
*P2, p2 tog, repeat from * across row (18 sts)
*K1, k2 tog, repeat from * across row (12 sts)
*K2 tog, repeat from * across row (6 sts)
Cut yarn, leaving 9” tail and thread tapestry needle, draw needle through remaining 6 stitches. Pull tightly, turn inside out, sew seam, and wear!
NOTE: I do not own this pattern and give full credit to “The Yarn Princess.” Check out her blog for more fun patterns and knitting info!
February 6, 2011
I thought people might get a kick out of this. See? Knitters can be quite scandalous.
February 6, 2011
If the above statement is true (and I believe it is), then my initial blog post should be to explain the purpose of this blog.
Hopefully at regular intervals for the rest of the semester (and beyond, depending on whether or not my desire to continue to post persists), I will be trying out different knitting and crocheting projects, and write about my reaction to the pattern. Intermixed with the photos, patterns, and responses will be posts about college-life musings, and hopefully some articles about eating healthy in a college cafeteria. Discussing knitting and eating healthy on the same blog may seem like an awkward combination, but since I am passionate about both, and this is a place for me to write about whatever suits my fancy, I am going to “give it a go.”
Because discussing knitting projects is the primary function of this blog, in this first post I will show a project I finished for my sister at the beginning of the school year. I haven’t completed anything I’m particularly proud of lately, but hopefully that will change within the next few weeks.
For this hat, I used Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton, mustard yellow. I can’t remember the exact size of the needles, but I’m fairly certain they were size 9. The hat turned out better than I expected. I used a different type of yarn than the pattern called for, but I think it turned out great. I made it in a black and blue as well, both with different thickness of yarn, and they turned out well, too.
The pattern can be found here.
NOTE: I do not own this pattern and give full credit to Natalie Larson. Check out her Ravelry account and other cute patterns here!
AFTER THOUGHT: I would give this hat a medium-difficulty range, because it requires a basic knowledge of knitting stitches, plus the use of a third needle, and some translation if you’re working with straight needles instead of circular, like I was.
