Don’t Be a Yarn Snob

 

I define a snob not as someone who has expensive things but someone who looks down on others for not having the same expensive designer labels as they do.

Unfortunately, I am seeing more and more in the yarn world, crafters looking down on other crafters who use acrylic yarn. To the point where they say I don’t want to wear plastic. This makes me smile because I wonder how much of their clothing is 100% cotton or wool.

I have found this disdain for acrylics to be rude but after a recent trip to England I wonder how much it excludes people from the so-called community? I went into one yarn shop and looked in the window of another; both in small towns and they were both mostly selling manmade fibers. They were obviously catering to what crafters wanted. (Yes, there is the reverse argument that people buy what is available even if they would prefer something else.) And not only what crafters wanted but what the locals wanted. One of the shops did have a very small selection of hand dyed yarn and yarn from local sheep and I’m guessing that this was for the tourist market.

Manmade fibers are reasonably priced, easy to care for and softer than many “natural” yarns. They fit the need for people who want to craft but do not have the budget or wish to work with fancy hand dyed wool.

So next time you show utter contempt for people who use acrylics, consider those who are hearing that statement and how your superiority is telling them they are not welcome in the “community”.

Vacation Knitting

 

When talking about all my WIPs I said I had so many because of extra cast ons for an upcoming trip. We are now home from that trip; so how did I do?

I started three projects specifically to take away with me and I kept it to those three. One project was for the plane journey. I probably could have finished it during the trip but I wanted to make sure I still had an easy project for the return journey so I didn’t pick it up again until near the end. I should add here that the reason I had prepared three projects before leaving is that there was one trip where none of my projects worked out and I ended up not knitting, so I wanted to make sure I wasn’t in that position again.

I did work on the other two projects but knitting only took place in the evenings and not during the day. I decided I was not going to carry a bag with me when I was out and about. And that turned out to be a good decision as many museums were searching bags. In the future I think I can stuff a small project into a jacket pocket.

What I have learnt from this is that preparing projects before hand is a good idea. A hat on circular needles is just right for a plane journey and three projects is the right amount as this gives choice.

There was one item of souvenir shopping. We spent a few days in the Cotswolds and my sister and I went to a small yarn shop. She purchased some fun yarn and has already crocheted a hat. I purchased some sock yarn that had been had dyed by the shop owner which I thought was an appropriate souvenir.

 

An Extra Cast On

Remember the extra cast ons for an up coming trip and finishing a garment before the WIP Along start? Somehow that wasn’t enough to keep my hands occupied and I added in a crochet hat.

I’ve been crocheting the same hat pattern whenever I’ve been in the car and have ignored the monthly suggestions in the hat group. Until this month. The crochet hat caught my eye and I had yarn that would look great, so on the hook it went. (It is unwieldy to write about crochet in the same terms as knitting as there aren’t good equivalents for on the needles and cast on and cast off.)

The hat is a free pattern, but I did make some changes. Firstly in relation to my gauge I did not complete all the increases. Then the leaf pattern was not distributed evenly around the hat. I guess the designer increased to the number of stitches she thought was necessary and then just had extra stitches between the last and first leaf. I thought this was a bit odd and as I didn’t increase to the full number of stitches it was easy to add one extra stitch before the pattern.

Other crocheters said that the hat was a bit short and added extra rows. I was trying to guess how much length the leaves added so I worked two extra rows before the pattern but then needed just one row after instead of two.

I am happy with the outcome and have enough yarn to make another in the same colours, so this might be my new two-coloured hat.

 

 

Even The Buttons Were From Stash

I am really happy to show off my latest finish. This is yarn I have had in my stash since 2015. Yarn from a subscription box that I purchased extra yarn and still didn’t use. I had a few ideas but nothing was quite right. This year I haven’t been adding to stash and I want to use older yarn first. This is nearly my oldest yarn so a decision had to be made. I don’t know when I first came across this pattern, it was published in 2022, but it was written for the weight of yarn I had and the amount.

I started it before a vacation so that I would have something easy to work on but after the vacation there were many weeks when I didn’t work on it at all. But after my mini finish-all-the projects this was the main project left so it got most of my attention and then with the WIP along coming up I wanted it to be completely finished before that start date.

The garment is knitted bottom up with the sleeves joined at the yoke and the button band built in. So when all the knitting is finished you just have to sew the underarm seams. (And sew in the ends and block of course.) But there was the pesky subject of buttons. I needed seven and I really wasn’t looking forward to searching for the right ones. I checked my button jar just in case and couldn’t believe that I had seven buttons all the same and in a matching colour.

The pattern is from Drops and the yarn is from The Verdant Gryphon who are no longer dying.

 

Why All the WIPs?

 

I know this will sound strange but I am disappointed that I still have so many projects on the go, even if I can justify them all.

At the end of August when I finished the third pair of socks I had just one active project and I really liked the feeling of that being the only project to work on. But active is the operative word as I still had four blankets and a car project. So one active project translates to six projects in total. And it’s not the total number of projects that are the problem but the never ending blanket projects that are skewing the numbers.

I have worked many mysteries but I am not enjoying the year long aspect of the blankets. But at least when they are finished they will not be replaced by new projects. My plan is to work a certain number of rows every day so that I don’t get bored but still get them finished. I also want to complete all the squares for my mitred square blanket so that I have just the borders to work on in the new year.

Then my works in progress will truly be active projects.

Finish All the WIPs

 

It’s that time of year, the annual finish all your projects Along.

In previous years I have used this as an impetus to finish projects so that I can cast on all the things in January. But this year I didn’t want to start everything and in June I had my solo finish everything challenge. I was pretty successful at that and started the second half of the year with seven projects, four of which are long term blanket projects.

So here we are approaching the final quarter of the year and how many projects do I have? Before answering that question, I have to qualify the number by saying that I have an upcoming trip and I started all the projects I want to take to make sure they work.  And I’m glad I did because I restarted the easy project.

These extra cast ons have resulted in my having nine projects. Ack, sounds so many but four of them don’t count, of course. Two are year-long blankets with part of the pattern being released monthly and there is the blanket from new leftovers and finally a hat that stays in the car.

Of the remaining five projects, I have the mitred square blanket, a cardigan, and the three projects started for vacation knitting. And there is no reason why I shouldn’t get these five finished by the end of the year. My oldest non-blanket project was started on 19 August this year so you can see that I do not have old WIPs.

In theory I should finish the year-long blankets by the end of the year. I mean, that is the point of them. But there were a couple of hiccoughs. One blanket I was working in two colours and then I changed my mind and wanted it in just one colour but wasn’t sure if I had enough. I haven’t frogged anything as I want to work a complete strip in one colour to see how much yarn is used. Having got behind, my plans to catch up have not been followed. I was up to date with the other blanket and then I used the needle for a new project.

Although nine sounds like a lot it is better than the fourteen projects at this time last year. 

 

Knitting by Any Other Name is Still Knitting

 

I have been knitting for a very long time – not only because I am old but also because I started at a very young age.

There was no internet, and if there were books I was not aware of them, so anything I (and others like me) learnt about knitting was from our mothers and grandmothers. However you held your needles and yarn, you were knitting.

The age of the internet has put a name on everything so now it is not just knitting or knitting with your yarn in left or right hand. It is throwing or flicking or lever or cottage or eastern or eastern crossed or uncrossed or any of the myriad of made up names – usually made up by the people who did not grow up in the areas where this was the normal way of knitting. For them it was just knitting albeit in their native language.

Another name that has started to appear more often is the Finchley Graft. Which is a fancy name for grafting two edges together from the reverse side. I do this all the time on my socks and didn’t know that it had a special name. (It doesn’t need one.) And should it be named after me or all the other people who have worked it out for themselves? Grafting is where you create an extra row of stitches to join two pieces together. Toes of socks being the most common but also tops of mittens and recently I grafted the underarms of a cardigan. I am not going to go into the exact details of how to graft but very very basically you go into the first stitch on the front needle knitwise and the second stitch purlwise then you go into the first stitch on the back needle purlwise and the second stitch knitwise. Well, when you are doing this “new way of grafting for people who hate grafting” you go into the stitches on the back needle first knitwise and the second stitch purlwise then you go into the first stitch on the front needle purlwise and the second stitch knitwise. So what is the difference? There isn’t because you are creating a row of stitches. So why have knitters been convinced that this is the “new” method? All I can see on the demonstrations is that they are putting the darning needle through a back stitch and then the front stitch before pulling the yarn through and slipping stitch off the needle. Instructions for grafting from the right side usually have each move separate.And you can break down the Finchley method into separate moves the same as you can combine moves in right side grafting.

But, although I think there is nothing magical about this method, knitters are being told it is easier, so they just assume it is and forge ahead. Which is a good thing. Just don’t tell me this is not grafting.

Third Pair Finished

 I achieved my goal of finishing three pairs of socks in August. 

 

 

There is not a challenge in August as that month is for finishing all your sock projects. So I cast on an extra July pair at the end of July to knit in August even though I already had a pair to finish in August. The new cast on fit the July challenge of literature and my personal challenge of already having the pattern (D’Artagnan by Caoua Coffee.), the yarn used was purchased in a sale (no surprise) and is from Alexandra the Art of Yarn. It was a nightmare to wind as the yarn was threaded inside itself so that I ended up winding by hand so that I could thread the yarn under and over itself. And then when I started knitting the dye came off on my hands. I continued with the knitting and dealt with the dye problem when blocking.

When I had finished both socks, I filled a bucket with very hot water, added vinegar and then the socks – no agitation! No dye came out of the socks so then I added the remaining yarn to the bucket (still as a ball) and no dye came out of that. I then soaked them in a wool wash and still no dye was released so I am hopeful that the dye is now set and will not transfer.

Although I completed three pairs of socks, in August the actual knitting amounted to two socks. The other two pairs were both 75% complete and this pair was 50% complete at 1 August.

Even though I used a dark yarn, I am pleased with how these came out.