Knitted Engine

Happy New Year, hope this finds you knitting something exciting.  This is a bit of old news really from July, 2011 but I really wanted to share this because I love it when artist take on a project, especially this one, that has so many learning opportunities with it.  Believe it or not this is a BMW knitted engine with a bit of crochet.  Now if that isn’t enough to make your jaw drop there is more………it was to help show how knitting and crocheting are similar to engineering.  For me that is a huge jaw dropping WOWWWIE and a YIPPPEEE SKIPPPPEEEEE, of course I will not be claiming anytime soon that I am a Knitting Engineer but come on like me you secretly are thinking YES, why yes I am, hehehehehe.  Ok enough of my typing here, please visit Knitted Engine at Keep & Share to see the pictures and to read about this fabulous project.

Copyright Infringement

I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about this subject yet again because of a recent event in a group that I belong to.  Yes one of the members decided to completely copy a pattern and email it to everyone.  I have talked until I am blue in the face about this to them but no one seems to really get the picture so I thought I will just keep on talking about this and if just one person “sees the light” then it will be worth it.  I have heard it explained so many different ways but since I am a pretty direct person I thought why change.

When you participate and by that I mean you are either the giver or the taker, both are wrong.  You are STEALING yes downright breaking the law thievery (not sure that is a word) and most who are participating think it is “ok” because they are making it for the church bazaar ??????????  I am not a church goer but I’m pretty sure that stealing from others is very much frowned upon.  Plus how would you feel if it was your pattern ?  Say you did all the work, wrote it out, worked it out and you were selling the pattern to save money for a college fund, a new roof, gas money, grocery money, to help your child, or just extra money ?  Yes I’ve heard it all, “well the pattern is so expensive I want to get my moneys worth” or the ever popular “I can’t afford it” and to that I say REALLY ?  It’s sad but true, most have 2 homes a winter home and a summer home which I am not faulting them for working hard and getting that luxury but I want them to know that pattern creators are working hard also and deserve to get compensated for it.

How would one feel if I came into your home and took $5.00, not much right ?  Well then I came back and took ten more $5.00 bills ($50.00)because my friends like $5.00 and I want to be nice right ?  Well now those ten friends told five of their friends that at your house there are $5.00 bills(we are now up to $250.00 + $50.00 + $5.00 for a total of $305.00 so far)  and go ahead and show up and take some and so on and so on.   It all adds up very quickly.  One final note here and I will get off my soap box, do you or would you work for free ?  If not then please do not participate in copyright thievery, there are plently of free patterns to use without stealing.

Samhain/Halloween Knitting

With Samhain just around the corner, wanted to gather a few links that certainly will help
make this holiday much more fun, but of course alot of us would wear it all year round. First
on my list is the Jackyll & Hide and yes I have made one that my teen just loves. Next we have Bokaclava. Also made this one and it sits in my shop right now. Both of these patterns will certainly get the teens either wanting to knit OR wanting to get into the spirit of Halloween. Although Bokaclava looks a little intimidating knitting wise, I say give it a try and you will be surprised at how well written the pattern is.

How about some Batsy Mittens to go along with Hallowig and to keep your neck from being bitten try Marleys Ghost Scarf now you have a complete Samhain/Hallowwen costume HA. If you don’t like that one, how about Witchy Hands, the list is endless.

Get started now, you don’t want to be without a cool costume. Happy Samhain, Halloween.

Felting

I love to felt things, especially hats but when we decided to start getting a bit more water conscious we gave away (yes I know should of thought about this) the 2 year old washer and invested in a front loader washing machine.  Now I must admit it does save us $50.00 per month but keep in mind with that high figure we have our own well and 7 people living in one place.  Anyway I soon discovered that trying to felt in my new water saver machine SUCKS, yes I said it.  So then I came up with the bright idea to take it to the local laundromat…..bad idea on so many levels.  Next I thought I can just “hand” felt it.  Ok some of you may be so good at this “hand” felting, me I’m old and honestly do not really want to put that much effort into it to get it to felt.  I have been looking for well over 6 months for a used washer with no luck so we found a clearance one that has a middle agitator and OMG yes I will now be able to felt.  It is set up out in our garage and will only be used to felt with.  Yes I will have to carry hot water to it but no biggie, I would much rather carry out a couple of buckets of water than try to hand felt.

If you have never tried felting, please be sure of the following and yes these are important because you could end up clogging up your pipes and breaking your washer.

1.  Access to hot water

2.  Washing Machine with an agitator, front loader will not felt properly.

3.  A large bag, pillowcase, or zippered bag.  ***you need to put the piece you will be felting inside, if you do not do this all the little pieces of wool will go down your drain or even worse right into your washing machine which will cause many many problems and you could be banned from felting ever again (hahahahaha)

4.  Small amount of soap.  Do not use a large amount of soap, a teaspoon of dry soap and just a squirt or two of liquid soap will do the trick.

5.  Throw in the washer with your bagged piece, tennis balls, tennis shoes, bath tub toys, a couple of towels or anything that can safely get wet.  You need it to basically help “rough up ” your piece so it can felt.

6.  Every type of yarn felts differently.  Colors do matter, some will felt faster than others so be sure to check your piece after the first 20 minutes.

Word of warning and I will put it in caps :  FELTING IS ADDICTING SO FELT WITH CAUTION……yes I do want to felt everything

Blocking Boards or Mats

At one time or another you will either want to or have to block something and yes I got to that point. Because I would much rather spend more money on yarn (I know you are so surprised by that statement) I am always on the look out for getting the most bang for my dollar, which led me to one heck of a deal for a Blocking mat. I happened to see some exercise equipment and there it was, High Imapact interlocking flooring that looked EXACTLY like the same material as a blocking mat that I saw online at Knitpicks and I honestly sort of just passed it off as this was $22.oo and I knew the Knitpicks blocking mat was only $19.99. One thing led to another and I waited too long and did not luckily order the Knitpicks set, but ran over to Big 5 and picked up the $22.00 set, afterall it was a knitting emergency.

It worked perfectly and I went back and picked up another set and I got to thinking about this and yes I did spend more money BUT the KnitPicks blocking set only has a total of 9 square feet, 9 – 12 inch blocks and the set I picked up has….4 – 24 inch blocks. Yes you get much more for your money if you do invest in the interlocking mats, you get more square footage for your dollar: Knitpicks cost approx $2.22 per square foot plus whatever the shipping cost is and the Big 5 set cost approx $1.37 per square foot but remember now you are NOT getting as much square footage with the Knitpicks = 9 square feet and the Big 5 set = 16 square feet almost double. Now one could argue that with the smaller set you can make more shapes but for me instead of having to keep track of 9 pieces, I keep track of only 4 and because of the size I can easily block a nice size scarf using the 4 blocks (8 feet long X 24 inches wide) and with the knit picks set you would have to hope that your scarf or wrap is a little less that 12 inches wide to get 8 feet. I am overly happy with the cheaper set and yes I did pick up some “T” pins.

Toe Up Sock Part 2 The Heel

The following is a very simple heel for a sock. The purpose of this is to give you confidence on knitting a sock. Once you master it, you will certainly want to try other ways to make heels.

Heel: We are only going to need Half of your stitches that you have on your needle (this does not matter what the total number is, you will only need half to work with for a heel). So for now forget about half the stitches, just make sure they are secure and won’t be falling off of the needles as we will need them later.
Count the number of stitches you have and mulitply that number by 35. Subtract that number from your half number of stitches. Here is a sample of the math for your heel:
Total stitches 44 divided by 2 = 22 22 multiply by 35 = 7.70 22 subtract 8 = 4 Round up or down to make sure you will have an even number left. Grab a piece of paper and make vertical marks, same number as half your stitches and for this sample that number would be 22. Now circle the MIDDLE 8 stitches on that paper. Keep in mind you will NOT EVER be doing anything with these middle stitches except for knitting or purling them. We are now ready to WRAP.

How to wrap a stitch, Knit side: put your yarn in the front, slip the next stitch from your left needle on to your right needle. put your yarn in the back, slip the stitch that you just put on your right needle BACK to your left needle. Turn you are now read to do a purl row and TAA DAA it’s a wrap.

How to wrap a stitch Purl side: put your yarn in the back, slip the next stitch from your left needle on to your right needle. put your yarn in the front, slip the stitch that you just put on your right needle BACK to your left needle. Turn you are now read to do a knit row and TAA DAA it’s a wrap.

About now you are wondering WHY did I make marks on the paper, why thanks for asking it is to keep track of what stitches you need to wrap and have wrapped.

!! circle 8 stitches !!

Remember the stitches you have circled will never be wrapped and the stitches that are on either side of your circled number MUST be wrapped. So let’s get started. We Start to wrap from the outside in so to speak. Look at your paper to determine how many stitches you need to knit or purl for the heel. Knit across your stitches (our sample would be knit 11 stitches) wrap the next stitch MARK IT ON YOUR PAPER THAT YOU WRAPPED IT, turn. Purl across the necessary stitches, wrap the next stitch and MARK IT ON YOUR PAPER THAT YOU WRAPPED IT, turn. Once you have wrapped the stitch think of it as out of commission, meaning at this time you will not be doing anything else with that stitch once you wrap it. So your next row would be: knit 10 stitches, wrap next stitch, MARK YOUR PAPER, turn. Purl 8 stitches, wrap next stitch, MARK YOUR PAPER etc. Continue in this manner until all the necessary stitches are wrapped and you should end with a purl row. Now we will do an “off with their heads” part.

We have basically put those wrapped stitches out of commission and we now need to put them back in commission, or the best way I can explain it is to pull off the head. Still referring to your paper as a guide, we are now going to be putting them back in commission from the INSIDE OUT. Knit across the next 8 stitches, take a look at the next stitch, you should see a horizontal looking stitch, which is what we did when we wrapped in the previous row, with your right needle, pull that horizontal part up onto the left needle. Insert your right needle thru the regular and the horizontal part and knit. Wrap the next stitch and MARK IT ON YOUR PAPER. Purl across 9 stitches,
pull the head off the next stitch, insert purlwise thru both and purl, wrap the next stitch and MARK IT ON YOUR PAPER. Continue in this manner until you have put all the stitches back in commission. I can not stress it enough, USE YOUR PIECE OF PAPER to keep track of the heel stitches.

You are now done with your heel, WHEW !!!!!

Toe Up Sock Part 1

Here is my easy to follow instructions for a toe up sock. Several people, including myself, have used these instructions with no problem. If you happen to have a question, please feel free to contact me using the contact form.

Materials needed:
Sock Yarn (approx 400 yds for a regular foot, you will need more yardage for a larger size foot like men sizes)
Double Pointed Needles size 0 to 3 (this depends on your knitting style some us knit tight or loose so use the size that agrees with your knitting style)
****Keep track of our number of rows so that you can make your other sock****

Cast on 8 stitches, Knit across. Take a look at the bottom, we are now going to
use another needle to pick up those stitches across the bottom. Insert your needle
yo and pull thru. Continue across the BOTTOM until you have 8 more stitches on the
2nd needle. WHEW, we are now ready to get started with our sock.

Look at your needles, you have 8 on one and 8 on the other, to complete a row you will
be knitting across both needles. We are now ready to learn how to increase. There are various ways to increase but this is about the easiest method, knit in the front of the stitch do not remove from the needle, now knit in the back of that very same stitch and now remove it from your needle. This creates a very nice increase. Back to our needles.

*Knit the first stitch, increase in the next stitch, knit until you have only 2 stitches on your needle, increase in the next stitch, knit the last stitch.* repeat from * to * for the other needle. Now that wasn’t so bad. Now just knit the stitches for one round keeping in mind that one round means you knit everything on the first needle and then the second needle. Continue to do one increase round and one knit round until your knitting fits across your 4 toes and just above your little toe. DO NOT increase too much, if your knitting fits across ALL your toes your sock will be too big, remember you want it to fit across your 4 toes and just about your little toe. Now we are going to just knit every round until your knitting, when tried on, reaches the FRONT of your ankle bone. We are now ready to do the heel. This involves a little math.

Knitting Help

Did you ever think that there would be help at your fingertips ? No waiting to go to a yarn shop, phone a friend, or waiting until the next morning to call the person that taught you how to knit because there is Knitting Help with videos. Just about everything you may have a question about is right there in the “videos” section and it is backed up with written words, just in case you prefer that. Yes if you are like me and usually your Friday/Saturday nights are spent staying up late catching up on episodes of your favorite shows and working on projects, which once in awhile there will be a little something that has slipped my mind how to do. Now with Knitting Help, doesn’t matter what time it is, just go on over to the site, do a little search for what you need and taa daa watch the video and you can get back to your project.

I also noticed that now you can watch in either “English” or “Continental” style, most of us use that style and if you don’t please watch both because it may help you to see exactly what you need to accomplish with a technique. There are 10, yes TEN different methods of bind off, yes I feel like this was done just for me as I am constantly forgetting which bind off is best for this or that. So get on over there and take a quick look to see if they have something for you.

Thanksgiving Knitting

Fall is my favorite time of year, I love all the beautiful browns,reds, and yellows that appear as Mother Nature gets ready to sleep for the winter. I decided to do a little search for patterns related to that and found quite a bit of very inventive stuff here that I hope you will enjoy.

First on the list is Sexy Turkey now who can do without this. Personally I think this is pretty interesting and if you think about it, very creative and because I love turkey, going to give this one a Yipppeee Skipppeee. For the younger crowd Jive Turkey Baby Hat would make a great gift and what baby could not pull this off, wearing a turkey hat is cute.

Tiny Turkey cute cute cute, would make a great starter for a table centerpiece. Turkey finger puppet for kids of all ages and I can just vision having these at each place setting for a Thanksgiving to remember.

These are just a few of the many Thanksgiving knitting patterns that can be found online. So have good turkey day, and enjoy.

Skelton Details

****Link to the following website is not recommended for children****

I am always on the look out for new and unusual things to share with you because it really does show you just how far you can push your skills. Just in time for Halloween I proudly introduce The Art of Ben Cuevas The details in this piece of knitted art is just amazing.

Please do take a look thru his blog as there is more very detailed “medical” related art and there is a bit of nudity so if you are faint of heart or have younger ones, use caution. There is even a knitted jock strap, heart, brain, thyroid and more.