I gave myself a break yesterday and knitted another strawberry. I’ve been trying really hard to knit this shawl but I still have a ball and a half of wool to go. I’m knitting it on carbon fibre needles which I bought after two different cable needles came to sticky ends. I think the cable snapped on one and just popped out of the needle on the other. It’s a 3.5mm needle.
Ideally it would be finished now. Now is the perfect time to wear it. The only reason I’m knitting it is because I love my Almina shawl (finished in 2020) but, as I think I’ve said before, it’s a bit heavy to take out of the house. I kind of fancied making another one I could put in my bag and use a bit like a cardigan. (I’m too scared to make a cardigan). I knitted it over xmas and new year, and it’s grown a lot, but it’s still not there. Gah. Soon.
Also, my eyesight is all over the place. Better to knit it without glasses or contact lenses at the moment. If I wear contact lenses then I have to wear glasses to fix my vision for close up work. I’ve become one of those people who can only see a menu if someone holds it up the other side of the restaurant. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean. I went out with a friend last week and the restaurant was so dark, I used the torch on my phone. Ten minutes later a couple came in and sat on the table next to us. Unprompted, one of them did the same thing. Vindication.
I’m not sure what’s going on at the moment. Time spent making things (well… knitting) doesn’t feel quite right. I keep feeling like I ought to be doing something else. Even reading, actually. Hard to relax. That said, my boss is pregnant so I should probably knit something for her, so… best figure out what.
(Sorry this isn’t a very exciting post, but one day, maybe I’ll be glad to look back and think ‘Yep, this shawl that you are currently wearing and looking fabulous in, really did take a long time. Do not make another one.)
I made a mouse! This is only small, but saints alive, it took a long time. He must’ve had about 8 different faces.
I almost gave up (and err… took his head off to make a rabbit 🙊) but in the end I refused to be beaten. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t get his nose and mouth right. I almost left the mouth off, but I gave it one last try, and that was the one that stuck. Looking on Ravelry, I think a few other people have had trouble too. It’s not hard to do technically, but it is hard to make it look cute for some reason. I think perhaps I didn’t pad his cheeks enough, so his face is a bit pointy.
Here he is in my hand for scale. You can’t see clearly but I stitched a tiny white highlight in each eye. I’ve seen some of the brilliant Japanese knitters on Instagram do this, and I was desperate for anything that would make his face work, so I copied them. It’s not bad actually. Might do it again if I make another toy.
For the photoshoot I got out some odds and ends I made a while ago. A little basket, a toadstool, a strawberry and some acorns. I don’t know why I knit these things, but sometimes, I can’t help myself. Actually, I really like the patterns for the strawberry and the method for constructing the mushroom. The pattern is from Shinocraft – for the acorns too. Even just looking at that toadstool makes me want to knit another one. Or a radish. What is wrong with me?
In the meantime I’m still making a shawl that I thought I’d have finished by now. (Oof, just looking at previous posts – I started this shawl In February.) It’s okay, but a bit of a slog. I’m also knitting it on a cable needle and I the cable snapped, which wasn’t the greatest. I thought about unravelling the whole thing, but actually, I would like the finished shawl. In the end I managed to pick up about 200 stitches and get them onto another needle. I’m tempted to move into the ribbed portion of the shawl now, just to get it done. We’ll see.
Last night I was chatting to a friend who has started doing crewel work, but with silks rather than wool. I ended up showing her my tatting, (I’ve known her for about 18 years, not sure why this hasn’t come up before) and she loved the idea of it—so much so, she was going to look it up and buy a shuttle. I had a little panic that I wouldn’t remember how to do it, as it’s been so long, but luckily it’s all still there. I should probably start doing it again. I miss it.
A while ago, I tried to knit a unicorn, for a friend’s newborn baby. I knitted his head, and added different colour threads for his hair (which took a while). Then decided it just wouldn’t work, so knitted a bear instead.
But after a while I knitted the head a body too, just to see – still no clothes – and he sat in the yarn bowl, naked for a while.
Then, Julie released a pattern for a horse/unicorn/donkey, which was just what I needed, but a bit too late. This prompted me to make him a T-shirt. And once I’d done that, it wasn’t that much harder to finish him off properly:
Actually, I really like him, after all that!
He’s got pretty solid / robust ears, as originally they were made to withstand a baby pulling them about, and a little tail, which I’m too lazy to photograph. In the end, I think he worked out pretty well. Poor thing.
Now I’m trying to decide if I should actually give him to the intended recipient after all. She was so kind about the bear, and said that it was the perfect size for a newborn – the only thing he had that was the right size to hold. (The bear didn’t have any buttons on his clothes, in case you’re worried.)
In the spirit of tidying up, I also finally made the light grey elephant a dress. I can’t even remember when I knitted her she’s been waiting so long. Now I just need to force her onto someone who may appreciate her. (You can really see why Etsy took off as a business, right?) I have a horrible feeling I’ve given a knitted toy to anyone who may want one. Maybe it’s finally time to knit something else. Or knit neater and sell them for charity, maybe.
Anyway. Tidier. Fewer naked animals lolling about in the heat. Can only be a good thing… I think?
I know. These photos are never going to make me an influencer, but I guess I’ll have to live with that. I darned my socks! I was a bit annoyed when they got a hole to be honest, as it felt like I’d only had them for 5 minutes. But according to the internet, I finished these in May 2021, which is not a bad life for a pair of socks. I wear these a lot at home.
I assumed I’d make a hash of fixing them, but actually, I didn’t do too badly. I used this video to help. It’s good. I knitted a patch because, as much as I love all the woven visibly-mended stuff, I didn’t think it would be strong enough for a heel.
Actually, that patch above is a preemptive one, as the yarn is wearing thin. It’s the second patch of the day. The first was to cover this hole:
It was a huge hole. Also a huge pain, as I had to add stitches to widen the patch as I went, because it started at the narrow end of the heel. The blue thing peeking through is a massage roller ball. Not that good for massaging muscles, but does ok as a darning egg in a pinch.
I don’t love the left and right edge stitches being a little bigger on both of these, but they’re slipped so they get a wee bit baggy. I assume they’ll tighten up when the socks are washed. Things that seem good about this:
You’re supposed to knit the patch with a smaller needle, so the stitches are naturally a bit more dense, which seems like a good thing
The original wool should felt itself into the patch as it’s worn and washed, so that should make it stronger too
So that’s that. i thought I’d hate doing it, but actually I enjoyed it. Not sure why.
In other news, I need to make another duckling. We had guests on Saturday, and the duckling was quickly adopted by K, 5. It came to the park with us, down the slide, on the roundabout and back again. Come hometime there were pleas from K and apologies from parents. I offered to make K a ducking of her own. “How long will it take? A day? Ok, we’ll come round tomorrow”.
I’ve been wondering about Claire Garland’s patterns for ages. For a long time she wrote patterns for more realistic animal knits, like this bunny. But, I’m a lazy knitter and the patterns always looked a bit tricky for me – also, what would I do with the finished article? (What do I do with anything I knit though, aside from foist it on people?) Anyway.
You may have seen Claire’s work more recently, because she made a frog pattern, which India Crawford then knitted and used in a stop-frame animation, which she posted on Instagram. Suddenly Instagram was awash with actually rather lovely knitted froggies. (And the animations are brilliant).
So, while everyone was knitting frogs, I thought it was finally time to knit the lucky ducking.
Saints alive, it’s a cute pattern! Look at it!
Full disclosure though, this one was without feet for about 2 weeks. I just wasn’t keen – they didn’t look as neat as they should.
Here is the duck when it was literally footloose, but probably not fancy free ^.
I shouldn’t take photos when the light is terrible – not sure where the focus is here, but never mind. It’s knitted in sock yarn, on 2.75mm needles. I also stitched the eyes, because although I do have safety eyes the head is so small the stems on the eyes would bash into each other. So I might buy some beads to use and knit another one. I think a bit of reflection in a black beady eye would be nice.
It’s a quick knit, if you don’t dither about over the feet. There’s a bunch of ‘wrap and turns’ which I’d not done before, but overall, it’s not hard, and it’s explained clearly. This one fits in the palm of my hand.
I’m still working on the shawl in the background, and I’m still not that sure about it. But never mind. Also I’m making a pair of socks, in Felici which…
I mean, look at that! Honestly. Put some effort in. I chopped it out, and rejoined the colour in the right place. I’m not in love with this colour combo, but I do like Felici sock yarn when it’s knitted up (soft, machine washable, hardwearing). So when the yarn is on offer, I buy the least worst combinations. Anyway. There you have it.
What year is it? I didn’t call this blog ‘occasional crafter’ for nothing. That said, it’s not like I don’t always have some project on the go, it’s just that often it doesn’t feel momentous enough to mention. No matter. These projects are still not momentous, but perhaps an un-momentous life isn’t a bad one. Anyway. Here we are.
In my last post (2021!) I’d made a grey dress for the pink elephant. I decided it didn’t suit her and made her an entirely new yellow one instead:
Much better. I gave her to a friend as a leaving gift and she seemed to like her, so all good. And I gave the grey dress she was wearing to the bear. Feels like that worked? It needs the little cardigan to lift it, colourwise, I think.
…flicks back through photos – Oh! And I put that dress on a dark grey elephant, mostly for this photo – looks like it’s desaturated, but it’s not, obviously:
I made her a new, more colourful dress, but I’ll post a picture of that another time; I think that’s enough elephant pics for now. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been making a bear, for a new baby:
I finished him off and popped him in the post yesterday. I’m hoping he’ll arrive today…
The dungarees ended up taking much longer than I’d hoped as I unpicked them in part and reknitted them. You’ll see (if you’re a knitter) on the left and right of the bib on the chest, there are diagonal rows of knit-2-together and SSK, which should mirror eachother nicely and flow in a nice line. Yet again I’d got them a stitch out, so the line was broken on the bib. The only way I could solve it was:
on the right, place a stitch marker 2 stitches to the right of the SSK
on the left, place a stitch marker 2 stitches to the left of the 2tog
when casting off k1/p1, work up to the marker and then stop
Annnd once I’d done that I was still a stitch out. That’s when I realised I wasn’t casting off the final stitch on the right – the first past the marker. (Don’t worry, these notes are more for me than you, unless you’re about to knit these dungarees). Anyway. It was worth fixing, despite the fact it almost made me late. If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well, etc etc. I decided to sew all the clothes onto this chap too – I don’t normally, but thought I’d be extra cautious and remove all the buttons this time as it’s for a baby.
I’m also working on a lighter shawl. I still absolutely love the Almina shawl I made in 2020 – honestly, I really love that thing. But it’s still a bit heavy to take out of the house. (That said, it’s getting softer and more flexible with all the wear it gets at home). I also like having a project I can pick up and put down easily without having to think about. So I’m making Rosi – you can see it in the background of ^ that photo.
I’m still in 2 minds about it, to be honest. Not the pattern, but the yarn choice. Weirdly, it’s the same colour, almost, as the bear:
But the bear is in Cascade 220 Heathers – Doeskin Heather (8012), and I splashed out on some De Rerum Natura Ulysse (Poivre et Sel) for the shawl. Now I’m wondering if it’s *too* lightweight. Or if the needle is a bit big. I dunno. I’m sure it’ll be fine. We’ll see. I’m not sure this picture helps actually, but here it is, on its own.
I also noticed that the socks I made back in 2021 have got holes in the soles now. This is really sad actually, because I like those socks. Which means of course, that I’ll have to try and darn them. I’ll let you know how that pans out, but don’t hold your breath.
So that’s where we’re at. I’ve spared you the other socks I’ve made inbetween. If you’re still out there, I hope you’re well. Have a great weekend, see you soon?
I’ve had this week off work. Inexplicably I’ve made:
• 1 loaf of sourdough bread (routine) • 1 loaf of stilton and pecan bread (to have with some butternut squash soup I’d made previously) • 1 loaf of malted wholemeal bread (to use up the flour before it goes out of date) • 1 batch of oat biscuits (to feed someone who wanted something sweet, and we didn’t have anything ready made) • 1 malt loaf (sweet, not bread – because I like it, and I finally bought another jar of malt extract recently.)
Actually, it’s not really inexplicable, is it? I’ve just explic’d it.
Some of it is now in the freezer. The stilton and pecan loaf of was honestly the biggest loaf of bread I’ve ever seen. It’s nice – surprisingly light, but absolutely enormous, and frankly, not a picture to look at. I would make it again, but I’d halve the recipe. It was from the Paul Hollywood ‘How to bake’ book (£0.99p Kindle deal ages ago)- but if you google it, you’ll find the entire recipe online, should you fancy making it too. Goes well with soup.
It’s been ages since I last posted here. I’d just started making an elephant in my last post.
I went from not liking this yarn to loving it again. It’s really soft. Probably not that robust for toys, but actually just makes toys that feel like they’ve been loved forever. This elephant is a really lovely size too.
I started out with a t-shirt and pinafore. Also in Krea Deluxe. Then for some reason (and this happens a lot) decided that wasn’t the right outfit. So I made her a dress instead:
And actually, I’m not sure it’s better now I look at it. She’s also really hard to photograph. Lovely in real life, but just doesn’t come across that well in pictures.
I think the issue I have with this yarn (aside from it being a bit splitty) is that it doesn’t feel like it sews up that well. Probably better if you’re knitting in the round, maybe. But still the best range of colours.
I’d also just finished another pair of mismatched socks last time I posted. I’d bought 3 colours of Cascade Heritage yarn: purple, red and coral. They were an odd colour choice to be honest, but I just liked them when they were all together. And you get a lot of yarn for your money, and 3 colours gives you a lot of choices about what to do with it.
I used the same stitch count as before, and the same pattern from Winwick Mum. I think each of the stripes is 7 rows, but the rest of the lengths/rows I just made up as I went along. I held up sock 1 to measure it against other socks I’d made as I went, and sock 2 to sock 1 to get them the same. Lazy bones.
They came out really nicely actually. I’m not keen on the jagged look of the coral colour at the start of the heal, so maybe I’d change that in another pair, but overall I’m pleased with them.
And they do actually look like a pair. We’ll see how they wash though. The socks I made in Drops sock yarn have really felted – or actually one has. One was striper than the other, and the one with the big block of red (and less stripes) has felted lot in the wash. I’ve been chucking them in the machine rather than hand washing them, because… well, see lazy bones comment above. If you’re curious, the best ones in the wash are the KnitPicks Felici self-striping ones. They’ve kept their shape and colour and haven’t felted at all. They’re also really soft. I just wish they did more colours I like.
I also made two small bunnies for two parents to be, at the request of someone from work. They asked me how long they take to knit, and I decided I’d keep a note this time, as people often ask. Turns out I’m a poor note taker. I’m already a distracted knitter – I’ll often stop after a row or two to google something, stare out of the window or just generally faff about. So trying to time myself was a bit of a minefield. This is roughly what I got:
Body: 71 mins Arm: 21 mins x 2 = 42 mins Foot: 40 mins x 2 = 80 mins Ear: 28 mins x 2 = 56 mins Head: 53 mins
Roughly 5 hours? That’s just to knit the rabbit. Then there’s sewing up, and making the clothes. Which I completely forgot to count.
I’m a slow knitter though. Not really sure how long it would take a quick knitter. These are knitted in Cascade 220 wool, held with Kidsilk Haze for the fluff. Then the t-shirts are Krea Deluxe cotton, and the Schachenmayr Catania Denim Originals (152) for the dungarees.
And yep, that is a different t-shirt than shown in the first pic. I swapped one out as there was too much blue with the dungarees. I was pleased with these. I really like the fluff, actually. Also, that Cascade 220 is pretty robust. Makes for quite a solid rabbit when it’s knitted on 2.75mm needles. I think I made the grey t-shirt on 2.5mm needles, so it wasn’t too big. (The blue one was a bit big).
This week I’ve also knitted a dress and 2 cardigans for larger rabbits. Mainly because I decided I didn’t like the ones I’d made previously. These are for rabbits still waiting to be gifted, after, what… 2 years, I think. Pandemics eh?
I’m sitting in the garden. It looks like it’s going to rain any minute, but actually it’s quite nice. The birds are singing, and aside from that it’s quiet and fresh. I’ve just made tomorrow night’s dinner and there’s a plum clafoutis in the oven too. Actually, I tasted half a plum while I was prepping it, and it was completely tasteless, so we’ll see. Might sound like an episode of the good life, but we’re not there yet.
I’m still in sock and gardening mode at the moment. (Although I’m also making a pink elephant.) After the woolly-wholesomeness of my last socks, I fancied knitting socks in a really bright colour. So I bought some Cascade Heritage yarn which seems to get good reviews – and actually, is quite cheap for the amount you get in a skein.
I started the stripy one first. Then, we went to see friends (finally!) and I thought it would be good to take something easy and mindless with me, so I prepped the second sock. Sometimes I like knitting while I’m talking. In the end it was such a joy to see them, and to sit in their beautiful garden, I didn’t knit much. But I carried on with the simpler sock when I got back. I was intending to make a corresponding pair for each, but now I’m not so sure…
Originally, I was going to reverse the stripes on the stripy one. Thinner at the top, wider apart at the bottom. But now I’m thinking I could just make another 2 socks using the same yarn in any way I fancy and mix and match them. If they all use the same colours, who’s to say they’re not a pair? Plus, I’ll only wear them at home anyway, so does it matter? Not really. So I’m using these as ‘trying it out’ socks and knitting whatever I feel like. I’ve got a hunch I’d prefer this yarn on a smaller needle, actually. We’ll see about that.
Last summer I made some bunnies for the children of friends abroad. I have no idea when I’ll get to see them and hand the bunnies over. The kids’ll probably be fully grown at this rate. But a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to reknit their clothes. Just suddenly decided I didn’t like them. I was going to knit them in the Krea Deluxe cotton I bought – but it’s so splitty! The colours are absolutely beautiful, and it’s organic cotton yarn, but it really does split and if you’re knitting on small gauge needles you’re forever picking up the single strand of thread that gets left behind. So I put the clothes on pause. Then inexplicably decided to knit a pink elephant with the yarn instead.
How this is different to knitting clothes, I haven’t worked out. But the beauty of a hobby is the option to abandon all logic and/or quality control when you feel like it and just get on with things.
This project bag is lovely – a xmas gift from the friend I mentioned earlier.
If you’re the sort of person who might make the elephant pattern using the Krea Deluxe yarn and wonder if the yarn is strong enough to take the weight of curling up the trunk, the answer is no. It took 5 attempts at sewing that up before it did what it was supposed to. Krea didn’t cut it, nor did some random (what I thought was strong) yarn I found in the drawer. Eventually I used a bright red yarn – maybe a cotton glace? Luckily it’s true – you can’t see the thread you use to sew up mattress stitch. It does get buried in the stitches themselves. And now the head is done, she’s quite nice. I’m making an elephant with shoes on. I haven’t made an animal with shoes in ages. We’ll see from the finished article if there was a reason for that I’ve forgotten.
I’m a bit soggy. Just come in from the garden where it’s started to rain. But you can practically hear the happy sighs of the plants as their leaves stretch out in satisfaction. I’m really enjoying the garden at the moment. Everything’s coming back to life. I took a risk and planted out 2 small sunflower seedlings. I’ve been bringing them in each night for the past week or so. I hope they’re ok out there tonight. I think I might plant a couple more just in case.
I also planted some bleeding hearts the other week – which are doing really well, and some phlox this week. Fingers crossed for them. They’re all from bare roots I got in the post.
My dad (a master gardener) gave me 3 of his bonsai. Obviously bonsai are little trees – that’s literally the point. So of course they drop their leaves in the winter. But I’ve been waiting anxiously for them to sprout again. I’m happy to report all is well. The larch is as larchy as the day it arrived, the ginko (“It’ll never make a decent bonsai but if you want it, you can have it?”) has some wee ginko leaves and the 40+ year old chestnut grown from a conker has sprouted and is doing very well too.
I planted anemones in the winter. They’ve been amazing all spring – red ones, white ones and these blue/purple ones. Actually. All the anemones everywhere have been amazing all spring. I planted different types at different times, but didn’t really register that they were all anemones.
These little ones have been great. They open their petals when the sun comes out. Watching them open up each day and raise their faces to the sun was like having a little heard of pets.
Once I realised the small blue ones were also anemones I realised the white flowers in the woods were anemones too. Good year for anemones all round. I try to go for a walk every morning before work, and seeing the woods coming back to life has been really nice. It’s full of bluebells at the moment. And the field is full of oilseed rape.
I feel incredibly lucky to’ve had access to the outside over this last year.
I’ve been knitting too. I completely finished one sock, and while I was sewing up the toes, got distracted (mentioning no names…). This meant I lost my place and screwed it up. I guess I could’ve saved it but I was so annoyed I unravelled the toes, then the foot, then the heel and then the entire sock. A meltdown. A lot of swearing. I guess that’s frustration with the whole world manifesting in one sock.
Whatever. I started again. Realised I actually like knitting really boring socks.
I like it when you get past the cuff – which I do on DPNs – and on to the relaxing joy of just round n’ round with a circular needle. No need to count. No need to concentrate. Do when you’re watching TV, having a meeting, waiting for the kettle to boil. Like more productive worry beads. I like this picture above. A little knitted campfire.
Can you believe it? I bought the grey because I wanted to use up the yellow and orange. And then I ran out of grey! I didn’t think it was a good idea to buy more, so I ended up improvising. Maybe the next pair will match? Who knows. I’ve started a new pair now. They’re actually stripy and in different yarn. I’ll write more about them next time.
Someone I know also mentioned she’d really like a rabbit. She can knit. Probably better than me. But I said yes anyway. It was nice of her to ask.
I used Cascade 220 yarn (‘antique heather’) and the kidsilk haze – which I’d only used once before on a smaller rabbit. I like the extra bit of fluff. Seems to work quite well. The face of this one intimidated me a bit. It’s a big responsibility giving something a face. Sometimes you need to wait till you’re ready. And actually, this one was right first time.
Here she is. It’s quite hard to photograph bunnies actually, as their eyes are quite far back on their heads. Trust me, in real life she’s got a nice face. Something about her feels quite old fashioned. Not sure why. She’s been given away digitally but not physically yet. The recipient (who is in the process of moving house, hence the delay) seems super happy, so that’s nice. It’s nice when people like the things you make. And you can’t give something a face and not become attached to it, so y’know. You want it to go to a nice home.
I made 3 other bunnies last year. I’ve inexplicably decided I don’t like their clothes, so will remake them over the next few months. They’re for friends abroad. I guess I won’t see them for a while so there’s plenty of time to get things right.
Rewind / unwind / unpick / unravel / frog / begin again (Michael Finnegan). Just to give you a heads up, from the way things are going, these are the future titles of the next few blog posts. I’m just about to frog the sock again. Which is a shame actually, but also doesn’t matter.
After my last post I decided to start again, in grey. This time the cuff took forever because I did 2×2 twisted rib stitch, which is tighter than regular rib and so barely stretched across the needles. I like twisted rib stitch, but is it worth the hassle of trying to squeeze your way through every stitch? Maybe not for a sock. Weirdly, it stays stretched out once you’ve knit it, or it does for me. When I’ve done regular 2×2 rib it sort of sucks itself in and only stretches when you wear it. Twisted rib seems to stay stretched out. Wait – this photo will show you what I mean, twisted rib on the left, regular rib on the right.
Just me, or the same for everyone? Or actually, is it just this yearn? Anyway, once I got past the cuff I thought I’d make life easy and do some plain knitting. And then I thought maybe I should do some colour work after all. I know I said I don’t really like knitting colourwork, but everyone else’s socks on Instagram look really great – and… bleurgh. There you go.
This is an awful photo but I actually really like the sharpness of colour changes in knitting. I don’t think people make much use of it – often people try and soften the edges or try and create organic shapes in colourwork, but there’s something really nice about embracing the fact that slabs of colour just look good. So I went with colour blocks of 4 stitches. This is good because, 1) counting to 4 is easy to remember 2) carrying the other colour over 4 stitches is fine, you don’t need to do any weird ‘catching the float‘ techniques, which I know I’ll forget to do and then risk a flappy thread that’ll catch and break.
Somehow, I did pretty well with this. Usually, because I’m a tight knitter, the fabric gets really pinched when I knit in more than one colour. No matter how hard I try to keep the floats loose. But I think I did ok this time. Or maybe not.
I switched back to grey, measured it against the well fitting stripy sock and decided it was time to do the heel. I did an ok job with the heel itself, and for me, a decent job of picking up the stitches to get the whole sock back on the needle.
But here’s the thing. It just doesn’t fit well. I pulled it on to check the heel, and the colourwork section is just too tight. I can get it on alrightish, but it’s a slight squeeze every time. I would suggest if you’re (I’m) going to do this, and you don’t want to go up a needle size – which is what a lot of people do with colourwork, but I don’t want to do – then you’ll just have to add more stitches to account for the tightness of the floats. The yarn also shrinks ever so slightly in the wash too – even though it is listed machine washable at 30 degrees. If I did finish the sock it wouldn’t take long before I couldn’t wear it at all. So, I’ll unravel it and try again.
Who says knitting isn’t a cheap hobby? I’ve been using these same balls of yarn for entertainment for literally weeks. Maybe one day I’ll even get a functioning pair of socks out of them too.
I’m assuming someone’s written extensively about the fact you need to account for all this if you’re knitting colourwork socks, but never mind. Experience is a great teacher, as they say (when they’re being polite about the fact you’ve just screwed something up needlessly).
In more productive news, I knitted the bear a blue t-shirt. I think it’s better. Same as the rabbit in the previous post – which, it turns out, is loved.
So that’s where we’re at this week. A few steps forward in knowledge, and a lot of rows back in knitting.
Occasional Crafter 