Tag: Video Tutorials

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Show Me

Last week I shared a video with you on how to create a provisional cast-on using a crochet foundation chain. I showed you how to work the chain, pick up your knitted stitches from it and how easily it comes undone when you want to get rid of it. I also explained why you end up with one fewer stitch than you cast on when you’re picking up from a provisional cast-on.

That video is now on my YouTube channel as Provisional Cast-on Part 1 of 3, along with Part 2 which is a short video showing you how to crochet the provisional cast-on directly onto the knitting needle, thus avoiding the step of picking up the stitches from the foundation chain.

Provisional Cast-on Part 3 of 3 is a how-not-to video! This shows you why it’s a bad idea to just work a regular knitted cast-on in waste yarn and then change to your main yarn. Basically, it’s a right royal pain to undo when you come to free your stitches from the provisional cast-on! In my video I have to unpick the waste yarn bit by bit and even snip it with scissors to get it out (I did put my knitting needle into the stitches I wanted first before doing this).

I’m really surprised to see that even though these videos only made it onto my Youtube channel yesterday (there was a delay because my caption software decided to sulk and not work for a few days), they’ve already had some views!

Why did I do three videos on the same thing – especially since one of them was “don’t do it this way”?

Well, I’ve been talking about Rhiannon Hap Shawl being relaunched recently and last week I talked about it starting with a provisional cast-on and how to do it. I remembered that one time a number of years ago I was making something that needed a provisional cast-on, but I hadn’t done one in ages. I thought I just needed to cast on in my usual way with the waste yarn and it wasn’t until I came to undo the waste yarn (after knitting quite a lot!) that I remembered this wasn’t the way to do it. I had a lot of stitches to deal with and I wasn’t as experienced as I am now, so wasn’t able to get around the issue as I did in the Part 3 video, by putting the stitches I wanted on the knitting needle first, then slowly unpicking and snipping the waste yarn to get rid of it. So what did I end up doing back then? I ripped the whole thing out, went to look up how to do a provisional cast-on properly and started again from the beginning. If you’re going to knit Rhiannon or any other pattern with a provisional cast-on, I want you to be able to avoid this stress! I’ve added a link for Part 1 of the video to my pattern pages as well for this reason.

If there’s a knitting technique or stitch you would like to see a video of, let me know! Sometimes seeing something done and being talked through it at the same time can make all the difference. By the way, did you know ‘Show Me‘ is a brilliant song from My Fair Lady? If you didn’t, have a listen, it’s great!

Do you remember me telling you about Elinor Hap Shawl, that I’ve been knitting a new sample for? I finished the edging! Quite a lot of that was down to my lovely wife doing the driving for a couple of long distance trips this week which enabled me to knit in the car. Though I have to say the concrete on the M54 is not a lovely surface when you’re knitting lace!! I’m going to share an unblocked photo of it here, and video the blocking process using my hap stretcher so you can see how it works. With any luck I’ll get that recorded for next week. The actual colour is somewhere in-between these two photos!

Elizabeth from Sew Woolly sent me a lovely thing she’d read in a book last night and it’s perfect to share with you while we’re talking about lace knitting:

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. Marie Curie

This is surely the motto of designers who work in knitted lace. It can only be faith alone that drives them, because before it is stretched and blocked, lace in progress often resembles Chinese noodles.

I will reserve judgement on my lace in progress until the magic of blocking has worked its charms.

I have no idea which book this comes from, but it’s very true. Lace knitting only reveals its beauty when it’s been blocked. This is partly why I start my lace knitting workshop with a demonstration of blocking a knitted lace swatch: it’s dry by the end of the workshop and it’s really clear to folk how different it looks at the end than it did at the start!

I’ll also let you into a secret regarding designing with lace: that’s why designers swatch a lot! We’ll knit a small sample of a stitch pattern (though not too small!) and block it to see what it will really look like. It also helps us try out different yarns and needle sizes to see what is the best combination of stitch/yarn/needle for what we’re trying to achieve.

The new design I’m working on now isn’t lace and it isn’t a hap shawl! It’s stranded knitting (often called Fair Isle) which I haven’t used in a design for a while and I’m really enjoying playing with the charts and planning it. It’s an accessory for the home rather than a garment and it’s small enough to be a good piece for people trying out stranded knitting for the first time. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you in a couple of months time!

I made an exciting discovery in the garden the other day. As well as the one nibbled broad bean plant that is hanging on for dear life in the veg patch, there are two French bean plants on the other side of the currant bushes. (Please excuse the weeds!)

I had forgotten we had planted the seeds near canes that are permanently in place to stop us treading on our rhubarb while it tries to establish itself, and the beans have grown, twisting round each other before finding one of the canes (how do they do that?!) and making their way up it! I’m hopeful that they’ll survive long enough that we’ll get flowers and some beans from these. I still need to pick the blackcurrants and redcurrants and the rest of the gooseberries, but I haven’t been able to find time to do it yet. I think we may need a small chest freezer for all this fruit if I can’t turn it into jam, jelly or crumbles quickly enough!

That’s all from me today. Take care and, if you get a chance, do something that makes you happy this week. K x

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And, breathe…

Last week I finished by promising to tell you about the spinning and baking I’ve been doing, as well as how the workshops went and all about next month’s knit-a-long!

Let’s start with the workshops. It was probably the longest amount of time I had (a) been on my feet and (b) spoken for, in over three and a half years. In other words, since I left the classroom!

Five hours of workshops went SO fast. Not just for me, but also for the lovely knitters who were there. In both the morning and afternoon sessions phrases such as “It’s not that time already, is it?!”, “I’ve never known two and a half hours go so quickly” and “Really? Only 10 minutes left? No!” could be heard. (Of course, because we were all so focused I completely missed the opportunity to take any photographs of their progress. Must do better next time!).

Lots was learnt, including the magic that is mattress stitch as part of the Finishing Techniques workshop. I love seeing the faces of knitters during this process. Most don’t believe they won’t be able to see the lime green yarn they are seaming their grey squares with, and when it proves to be true, it’s just a delight. Also we unpicked why different types of decrease are used and the importance of mirrored decreases to make your project look balanced.

The Introduction to Sock Knitting in the afternoon went even faster than I had anticipated, and everyone turned a heel successfully. I had an email yesterday from one of the attendees that made me so happy and I’m going to share part of it with you (with her permission):

“Thanks a million for all your guidance on Saturday. Just learning to knit on 4 needles was great, but to become a wool engineer apprentice and turn a heel was brilliant!”

Yvonne

We didn’t manage to get the graft done at the toe, however, so I promised to record a video showing how this is done and I have now uploaded this to my social media platforms. I wanted to get this up as soon as I could for my workshop attendees, but now I also need to add closed captions to the video.

This is the third little techniques video I have recorded and put on Facebook etc and this morning it occurred to me that they should really be on my website too. So, the Knitting Tuition page now has a new section: Free Video Tutorials! I’ll get the captions done on the toe graft video before uploading that one, but there are two others you can have a look at already. It will give you a little flavour of my Craftucation courses as well (though none of the videos are duplicated from there).

A still shot from a short knitting techniques video. My hands are holding needles and yarn with a multicoloured shawl in progress underneath them. The knitting is resting on a wooden desk with a coaster partly in view to the left.

Another addition to the website today is a section for next month’s Knit-A-Long! We are knitting Calon Cariad together, a lovely shawl whose name means ‘The Heart of Love’. We begin on February 11th with a Cast-On Party on Zoom at 7pm!! We’ll run the KAL over five weeks and there will be prizes 🎁. If you want to join in, the click ‘going’ on the KAL event and/or the KAL Cast-on Party event on my Facebook page, or just send me a message! All the details are here.

There are even kits available – I’m especially fond of the Erika Knight Wool Local which knits up beautifully in this pattern.

In other news, I have finished the scarf sample for Small Acts and that just needs blocking and photographing properly. I’m aiming to get the pattern out by the weekend. If you’re a subscriber look out for an extra (short) email with a discount code!

A large mid-indigo blue scarf lies in a heap on an oatmeal coloured carpet. There are two large mirrored cables running up the centre, flanked by two small mirrored cables at the sides. In between the cables are columns of moss stitch and the scarf has a narrow garter stitch edging.

Spinning is fun at the moment and I have starting on my second batch of Colours of Cambria fibre (this colour way is ‘Coast’). I wanted to create fairly regular repeats of the colours but I am not confident at judging the quantity when dividing the fibre into sections, so I came up with another approach. I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes. I spin one colour from the sequence during that time and when the timer goes off, I stop and break that colour, ready to start with the next one when I spin again. Not only is this hopefully going to give me some good stripes/blocks of colour in the yarn, it also encourages me to spin more on a daily basis, even when I am busy, as 15 minutes can usually be slotted in somewhere!

An overhead shot of a bobbin on the spinning wheel. There is some soft green fibre at the bottom of the image waiting to be spun next. On the bobbin can be seen two shades of blue, a golden yellow and a little of the green. The yarn is spun quite finely.

I made the sourdough bagels that I have been wanting to try for a while. They weren’t as hard as I had anticipated, but I do think I over-baked them a little. It was a good taste, and nicely chewy, but a little too crunchy/firm on the outside. Next time, check five minutes sooner!

Eight uncooked bagels sit on a dark grey baking sheet waiting to be boiled before baking.
Cooked bagels on a cooling rack with the bamboo kitchen worktop visible behind. Four bagels are fully visible, with two partially shown on the left and one on the right. They are dark golden brown in colour with lighter centres.

We even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Little Orme where we saw the largest group of Seals I’ve ever seen there. They looked so happy and relaxed on the beach and were chatting away to each other quite a lot! It made us relax too, and even though there were quite a few people up there on Sunday (some even had telephoto lenses and tripods for their cameras, so the word about the seals must have got about), it was really peaceful. We sat on a bench and ate a little homemade picnic, all wrapped up against the wind and it was lovely. The perfect balance to the ‘business’ of the day before.

A pebble beach covered with 30-40 seals as well as some larger stones and big rocks. Seen from the cliff edge above with a bit of the sea-glass coloured sea visible on the right and the cliff wall on the far side of beach showing at the top of the picture.

Take care, stay warm and do more of what makes you happy, K x