Taking up needlework again?
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I have a ton of potential projects packed away in boxes and am trying to decide what to tackle next. I get this hankering about once a year or so, work on some stuff, and then move on to something else. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I used to do a ton of cross stitch when I rode the train to/from work. Ended up giving away most of those finished pieces because I had nowhere to hang them after I inherited all the art from my Mom's condo. I still have a ton of kits (a couple started but most untouched). Some of them are quite detailed and I'm not sure if these old eyes are up to the challenge.
In recent years I've mostly been crocheting afghans, scarves, and some tote bags and other accessories. I know how to knit but never developed great technique and control of tension, so my knit items never looked as good as my crocheted ones. But I haven't touched knitting needles in 50 years, so maybe it's time to give that a go again. I bought some fingering weight yarn that was on sale and now am trying to figure out what to do with it.
I've seen @AdagioM 's brioche work and I 'm intrigued but I'm not sure my technical skills are up to it.
There's part of me that thinks I should get rid of all this stuff and check it off my bucket list without actually tackling any of it....Steve posted that article a while back and I'm trying to incorporate the strategy into my life. So far it's going pretty well!
How about you? Got anything you need to jettison from your life? Or, finished any projects and checked them off the list?
I need encouragement both ways....
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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@wtg Knitting: Do you carry your yarn in your right hand (English style) or in your left like when you crochet? If you don’t carry it in your left hand, you might try that to try to have more even tension since you know how to do that with crochet.
Brioche knitting is fun but it’s a different rhythm that regular knitting. It’s easier to learn brioche (and pretty much any knitting technique) with a bigger yarn; I recommend worsted weight for new brioche knitters.
I have a couple free teaching patterns on my website. Easiest is this scarf knit flat with bulky yarn, Brioche Entree
And brioche knit in the round, Petite Brioche.
Both have videos to go with them.
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I knit continental style. All the knitters I knew when I was growing up were Lithuanian, and they all knit that way!
Mom was such an avid knitter (she'd churn a sweater out in a week or two) that I was swimming in sweaters and didn't have much incentive to improve my knitting technique.
I knit stitches fairly evenly, but for whatever reason my purling is wonky so my stockinette stitch is not pretty. I've done OK with Aran patterns. There's so much going on even if it isn't perfect, it can still look ok!
Maybe I need to try knitting in the round and learn how to steek. I saw your tutorial and may give that a try just for grins.
Thanks for the links to the patterns! I'm sure I have some bulky yarn somewhere in my vast stash and I can at least give the scarf a try.
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Knitting: Do you carry your yarn in your right hand (English style) or in your left like when you crochet? If you don’t carry it in your left hand, you might try that to try to have more even tension since you know how to do that with crochet.
Brioche knitting is fun but it’s a different rhythm that regular knitting. It’s easier to learn brioche (and pretty much any knitting technique) with a bigger yarn; I recommend worsted weight for new brioche knitters.
I have a couple free teaching patterns on my website.
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Oooh, Lithuanian knitters! I’m wondering if you knit Eastern Combined or Eastern Uncrossed; either would make your purls a bit different. Do your knit stitches have crossed legs at the bottom, or open V’s? Look up both Eastern Combined and Eastern Uncrossed and see if that helps. (Or send me a picture of a swatch…)
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@AdagioM - It's been decades since I picked up knitting needles. I looked at a bunch of videos and was trying to remember what I do. I found this video, and what I do is one of these two methods but for the life of me I don't remember which one! At first I thought for certain that it was Russian but then as I watched it a few more times, I wasn't so sure and thought it could be the German.
Link to videoI'm in the process of re-organizing my craft stuff in the basement, and as soon as I find my box of knitting needles I'll do a swatch and see which way feels more comfortable. And I have to find a video for how to cast on. My mom had what all her knitter friends called an unconventional way of casting on. She learned from the left-handed maid who worked in her home when she was growing up, and after Mom did the initial cast-on she would reverse all the stitches, probably compensating in some way for her instructor's left-handed method. Anyway, I may as well start fresh since my memory of things learned in the past seems a bit dim...
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I was looking at Bernard's website a while back and he had a link to this woman's site. I really like this pattern for a crocheted slipper, something I could use myself or give away. Plus it's so easy and super fast.
Here's her blog post:
https://auntekristy.blogspot.com/2016/03/free-crochet-pattern-ahh-spa-slippers_26.html
And here's the printable pattern:
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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I taught myself to knit in high school from a book and apparently learned the purl stitch backwards - like I was wrapping the yarn the wrong way around the needle, which gave my stockinette stitch this weird twisted look -- it sounds kind of like what adagio is talking about above. It took me years to figure out what was wrong but once I learned it the right way, my knitting looked so much better. That said, I haven't knitted anything in like 20 years either so I'm not one to give advice here, LOL!
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@Lisa Yes. It’s not wrong, it’s just different. You just have to know which way your stitch is mounted, and know which way to stick your needle in on the following row.
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One of my unfinished cross stitch projects. Christmas Tumte. It's most of the way there.
There are four more in the series: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Tumten. I just have the graphs for those; they weren't kits with floss and fabric. Maybe I'll throw them on Etsy.
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Great video about various cast-on methods. I had no idea!!
Link to videoHaving access to video tutorials makes learning new and different techniques so easy....
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The other unfinished piece I have stashed away.
What the finished product looks like:
This is what I have done:
Gulp.
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Those are lovely!
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I've done a number of needle arts over the years--crocheting, crewel embroidery, cross-stitch, sewing--but I never got really good at any of them. (This is a metaphor for my life.) Knitting was beyond me, though. Somehow, a single crochet hook is easier for me to handle and, more importantly, crochet stitches are more intuitive for me in terms of shaping the item into something three-dimensional.
There's a yarn shop a couple of blocks from the new house and I have a yen to start a new project after I finish unpacking. (So not any time soon.) It will probably be a scarf and hat, since I've moved to the Great White North and making gloves and mittens scares me.
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Oh - you’ve moved! Which means your project must be done! If you mentioned it somewhere I must have missed it.
How did it all go? What do you think so far?
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@wtg said in Taking up needlework again?:
I was looking at Bernard's website a while back and he had a link to this woman's site. I really like this pattern for a crocheted slipper, something I could use myself or give away. Plus it's so easy and super fast.
Here's her blog post:
https://auntekristy.blogspot.com/2016/03/free-crochet-pattern-ahh-spa-slippers_26.html
And here's the printable pattern:
First slipper socks:
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Nice! and they fit!
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Once I figured out the pattern it was no problem to customize the fit as I crocheted. Also, because of how they're worked, it's easy to make the heel a different color. I think that could be kind of cute. It's a great way to use up smaller quantities of yarn that I have in my stash that I originally bought for hats and scarves or that are left over from other projects. Trying to clean house, ya know!
I plan to make a bunch of these slippers and donate them to the gift shop at the senior home where my Mom used to live. I'd like to be able to tag them with some kind of sizing information. I've been calling friends to ask them for their foot measurements and shoe size so I have some idea of what size they are once I finish them.
@AdagioM - I still plan to try out knitting again. I've located the knitting needles, which is an important first step!
Stay tuned...
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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@wtg This might be helpful for you: a table of standard sizes for knitting socks. Slippers should be similar.
