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I have a dumb question about knitting for stuffed animals. I have a number of patterns to make perfect spheres and have done a couple successfully, but now I want to make a sort of squashed sphere or ovoid-type shape - does that make sense? The toy I'm making is going to be more Japanese-style cute and needs a head wider than it is tall (like hello kitty). What I'm trying right now is using the pattern for a sphere but adding a bunch of stitches in the front and back and then increasing/decreasing only on the sides and ignoring the added stitches (just knitting them). Is there an easier way to do it, or some trick I don't know about? I'm mainly self-taught and am working on adapting patterns and inventing my own so I can sell stuff without angry internet persons coming after me.
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Feb 10, 2011 00:27
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| # ¿ May 31, 2024 08:17 |
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Hmmmm, dog sweaters are expensive, considering it's a tube with holes. ta-da! ZOOM AND ENHANCE FOR TEXTURE:  All in all really easy, measured dog from collar to tail and around the chest, checked the gauge of the yarn and made a tube with holes. Next time I need to reinforce the armholes though, they tend to stretch.
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Apr 21, 2013 20:38
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Zratha posted:I knit both continental style AND left handed, so it's like backwards backwards. I tried several times to learn English style, then I tried Continental, then I tried left handed English, and finally, here we are. It is the only way that I was ever able to really get it, but I am extremely left-handed. I'm self-taught and ambidextrous so I usually don't turn my work ever - it took some learning about the "theory" of knitting I guess but understanding that a purl is just a knit from the other side helped a lot. I have no idea why that isn't the first thing everybody learns but whatever.
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Sep 6, 2013 04:39
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The old grannies at the ones near me want to buy overpriced bland food and get lovely about my tattoos. They also seem to enjoy telling me that I'm "doing it wrong" constantly and trying to give me remedial classes. I'm 3/4s of the way through a sweater, lady, I'm not doing it wrong I'm just knitting LEFT-HANDED. >
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Sep 27, 2013 03:13
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Pucklynn posted:You have no idea how badly I want you to mail me that yarn so that I can untangle it for you. I live to untangle yarn in ways that are probably not healthy. Oh jesus I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I spent a good chunk of a 17-hour train ride happily disentangling and balling up a huge skein. I thought there was something wrong with me, doesn't stuff like that make you a witch or something?
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Sep 28, 2013 03:16
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450 ought to be more than enough, I'm doing some socks in fingering and it takes 350yds of that. Those are gonna be some comfy loving socks  you should use the extra yarn to make a 3rd one in case one gets a hole!
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Sep 29, 2013 04:30
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So I just learned the slingshot cast on and I feel like a GODDAMNED WIZARD now when casting on. I only knew the awful one where you work every stitch twice and it takes forever and looks awful so now all I want to do is sit in public and cast things onto needles. Oh this? Just making stitches with my thumb and a single needle, nbd.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:52
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I actually bought a sock pattern from this site for my first pair, they had really helpful instructions and a picture of a sock done with each section in different yarn so you could see how it all fits together.( Warning, their yarn is loving adorable so browse that site with caution. ) Honestly socks are piss-easy once you figure out what's going on, I like them more than hats now and they chew up way more yarn in less time. I've been offering oddball socks to my friends to use up spare balls and they've all been really excited about the idea of Handmade Socks and are giving me way too much credit for making them. ed: does the sweater curse apply to socks, too? I've heard conflicting reports 
fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 03:59
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Guys guys guys guys guys. Guys. I MADE SOCKS   (ignore the seaming on the left one, I decided to get really drunk before finishing it and forgot to redistribute stitches before reducing ((( )
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Oct 28, 2013 01:36
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Jumping in on the dpn discussion, I use them in various lengths for everything, there's a relatively-local company called brittany birch that makes wooden needles with very high friction if you're like me and tend to fire stitches off the end constantly. They give you five so you can use four to knit and the fifth is for
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Oct 31, 2013 03:52
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Probably not super helpful but I just assume a certain level of attrition and buy several sets  but then I really love wood/bamboo
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Nov 8, 2013 01:39
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Does anyone know of a good simple pattern for gloves with fingers? There's all of 3 on knitty and they all have a bunch of colorwork. Failing that I'll just make something up, do finger gloves take about the same amt of yarn as a pair of socks probably?
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Nov 8, 2013 20:33
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wodan22 posted:Much Thanks Dead Cow and Anne Whately. I think I figured out at least that part due to your explanations. Still dreading that heel turn and gusset bit, but hopefully I'll figure it out. Don't be scared of short rows, it's just turning the work without finishing what you were doing and coming back to it later. Once you have them down you can do really cool stuff in three dimensions too. For picking up stitches for gussets I recommend dropping all the needles you're not using and using one hand to manually twist the fabric to get the needle through to pick up stitches, if that makes any sense. edit: Jollity Farm posted:This is the pattern I'm making Christmas presents from. It's quite simple, although I personally found that the gloves were too small when I used the suggested size of needle, so I went up to 3mm and 3.5mm instead. But you may disagree. Awesome, thank you. I'm going to try to tailor this one, I think. My boyfriend has Marfan's and told me rather glumly the other day that he's never owned a pair of gloves that fit his hands, so his christmas gift should be pretty easy if I can get my head around the gauge changes and stuff. fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Nov 10, 2013 |
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Nov 10, 2013 02:12
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Phishi posted:Socks? Slippers? Shawl? You could use big yarn and do knit/purl patterns so it can really be felt. 
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Dec 12, 2013 04:54
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Peppercat posted:I apologize if this has been asked before, but is there a weaving thread on SA? I didn't see one in the DIY/Hobbies, but thought I'd ask just in case. On the topic of weaving- is there a site for weavers/weaving that is the equivalent of Ravelry or something similar? I bought a rigid heddle loom and I'd love to find a website for inspiration/patterns/etc. Thanks for any/all suggestions/help! Ravelry is for weavers too, at least yarn weaving and loom knitting. If you're using one of those big room filling ones (I dunno what heddle means) I'm not sure though edit: here are some useful tags for woven patterns: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/search#view=thumbs&sort=completed&tag-list=handwoven http://www.ravelry.com/projects/search#sort=completed&tag-list=loom&view=thumbs And there seems to be a handweaving.net fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Dec 25, 2013 |
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Dec 25, 2013 22:19
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Friendly advice if you tend to stock up on wool yarn and not use it for a long time - moths got into mine and rendered a bunch of stuff unusable. Remember to put cedar balls or other bits of cedar in your yarn stash the same way you would in your sweater storage. On the other hand it's a good reason to buy new yarn / not procrastinate in the future.
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Jan 5, 2014 22:27
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evelynevvie posted:Hi knitters! I've been teaching myself to knit for a few months. I am a babby and dont know anything about yarn and I need a little bit of help. I recently chose some Lion Brand Homespun yarn. It's mostly acrylic but its very soft and i fell in love with the color (mixed berry). I'm not sure if I got a bad skein, or if this yarn is just awful. The thickness keeps changing from bulky to super skinny to super super puffy. It is kind of fuzzy which is fine, but the huge texture changes are making me nuts. Is this normal? I have several big name craft stores nearby but no LYS's. One thing that might help with homespun (I loving hate that stuff ugh) is to every so often let your work suspend from the yarn and just spin in the air for awhile - I find homespun espeically tends to build up twist which makes it get thinner and thinner as you go along. If the piece is too big to hang like that you can secure the ball and spin that.
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May 20, 2014 04:25
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Despite this, and the variation in thickness, and the fact that i think it usually looks far better in the skeins than when actually knitted....I still keep buying it. I'm working on quite a collection of patterns that I think I can use it with, but I might resort to just hanging the skeins in my house or something. I have this going on with Brooklyn Tweed Shelter. I hate the pretentiousness of the stuff, the massive amount of vegetation in it, the fact that it breaks if you look at it mean, it's infuriating to work with but I CAN'T STOP BUYING IT because the finished stuff once it's worked up looks so amazing. I'm working my way through a fisherman's sweater right now in a sort of rasberry jam looking colorway and the cables pop so hard and beautifully it'd make you cry. You can cable in pretty much any colorway because of that.
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Jul 13, 2014 20:28
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Dante Logos posted:So here's a scarf that I have been working on. I am a total newbie at this, but I wanted to make something nice for a lady friend. All I have been doing is alternating between knit and purl with dropping the first stitch in a row but I have no clue how I got these raised rows. It would be awesome if I was doing it in purpose but I don't know what I am doing or how to replicate it. Any pro knitters in the know? And should I keep going or unravel it? I've done it a couple times already so I can live with it. Those are purls; a purl seen from the back is a knit, and vice versa. You were doing purl rows on the front instead of the back. By dropping every first stitch do you mean slipping? If you were dropping the stitch entirely you would have one less stitch every row and your scarf would be tapering to a triangle. Slipping the first stitch means moving it to the other needle without doing anything to it; it'll make the edges of most scarves look nicer. As for unraveling it that's entirely up to you; I'm not going to shame your scarf on the internet and insist you destroy it due to gross offence it has rendered me. 
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Oct 6, 2014 02:14
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Dante Logos posted:Well, it involves less offense on the internet and more due to the fact that this is supposed to be a gift. I don't want to give something that is all In my experience, most people will be so flattered that you made them a thing with your own two hands they won't care even if it looks horrible. I made a pair of practice socks when I was learning how to turn a heel, and made a really crappy pair of thick socks out of random scraps of acrylic and gave them to a friend of mine with many caveats about how lovely they were going to be, and his mom is now convinced I want to marry him because of the amazing socks I MADE BY HAND for him omg she is totally in love with you.
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Oct 6, 2014 02:27
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left_unattended posted:LOL I appreciate the sacrifice! Seriously, thanks for that My roommate has a 2 and a half year old but I didn't want to have to explain why she was walking in on me measuring her child's head circumference. I felt creepy enough the time I knit the kid a hat and ended up buying a grapefruit to block it on. I was standing in the supermarket squeezing grapfruits and trying to figure out which was the closest in size to an infant's skull and felt like a serial killer
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Nov 30, 2014 22:31
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You can also just go ahead and let it felt - I did that with some socks that I was wearing with shoes a lot, and it only progressed to a certain point, then kinda like a callous it just decided it was sturdy enough and stayed as it was.
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Jul 8, 2015 00:29
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Valdara posted:Ok. Now I know what to do with all my sock yarn samples. I don't know why MAKING loving SOCKS didn't occur to me. I kept trying to think of tiny projects that only need a bit of yarn instead of lumping them all together into the ugliest socks imaginable. I also made a sweater that's supposed to be in chunky by holding scrap sock yarn double and using size 10 needles. Done in no time and looks absolutely insanely colorful and SQUISHY because of the two strands.
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Jul 14, 2015 05:45
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:I just did my first steek last week. I really like your colors! What is that going to be? I see where you're steeking and I can't picture in my head what would go there
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Oct 10, 2015 04:11
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left_unattended posted:Double posting, but: Purl through the back and wrap the yarn the wrong way. I think that should stop the next row from twisting but I'd have to actually do it to make sure.
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Dec 12, 2015 23:13
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left_unattended posted:Why is every row purled? It's like garter the hard way. I actually purl faster than I knit, I sometimes turn sweaters inside out and work them that way but I'm weird. Realizing that knit on the outside == purl on the inside was a revelation for me
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Oct 3, 2017 01:54
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I managed to get into a class for the Edinburgh Yarn Fest, which is pretty amazing considering how fast it sells out and the time difference! Too bad literally all the colorwork filled instantly but I got a drop spinning seminar anyway.
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Oct 14, 2017 21:56
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I'd also make sure to start with *cheap* yarn in a fairly pale color so you can see what you're doing. Striped or multicolored yarn is great because each stitch will sometimes be a different color so you can clearly see what you're doing (or get even more confused, everyone is different!). I've never been able to figure out techniques from videos, if you're having issues the people at the yarn store may be willing to demonstrate stuff in person. Personally I was taught the knit stitch by my mom, accidentally taught myself to purl, then went off on my own special journey of doing backwards purls and knitting through the back loop without ever turning the work around. This worked fine for me for a long time but made patterns difficult to read so I switched to a more normal method but there's all kinds of ways of doing it, you could even try learning both continental and British (or whatever it's called) and see what setup is easiest for you. Basically right now everyone's giving you all kinds of info to think about but sitting down and trying it is the best way to figure out what works, so you're on the right track already
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Oct 22, 2017 19:56
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The trick to fair isle / stranded is you need to be a really relaxed knitter - a lot of people just knit everything real tight. I switched to pretty much entirely wood needles and not worrying about stuff slipping around or falling off seems to have made it easier to keep everything loose.
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Oct 23, 2017 02:01
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Croisquessein posted:Got some wooden needles, I'll give it another go. But how to you keep the tension while knitting loosely? Sticky yarn will help a lot, shetland is basically designed for stranding, so is anything with a 'halo' like mohair. If the yarn sticks to itself it'll stay more or less where you lay it as you move the stitch along. I started moving my hands very far away from each other on the needles, so instead of choked up on the yarn where the actual knitting is happening, slide them way down to the other end of the needle, like where you would hold chopsticks. It feels really weird at first. I don't even really worry about tension so I'm not super helpful, but if you can practice letting go of the yarn entirely as you make the stitch you'll be surprised how well it goes without pulling on the strand (stick the needle into the loop, wind the yarn around, then let the yarn go and pull it through the loop). Eventually you'll get to where you're controlling tension with the needles, instead of your fingers directly, if that makes sense. If a loop is particularly wonky here or there you can give it a tug after the stitch is done. If you can keep one strand of yarn slack it's easier to do with two (I hold both at once but I barely hold them, I'm just lifting to where I can 'grab' the right one with the tip of the needle). This is just my personal method, I almost never touch the actual yarn, I try to manipulate it with the needles as much as possible, it makes things way more consistent. ed: sorry, looks like you were talking about floats! Drop the strand you're not using entirely. When you pick it back up don't pull at all, loop it on the needle and let go. The wood will help the needle hang onto it while you do the stitch. fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Oct 24, 2017 |
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Oct 24, 2017 06:53
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Steek it. 
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Feb 17, 2018 06:10
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| # ¿ May 31, 2024 08:17 |
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fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Mar 4, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2020 01:22
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