Knitting: How to knit a wrapped stitch

As I mentioned in some other posts I have made several videos lately ahbout various knitting hacks. This one is about knitting wrapped stitches. In socks, when you knit the peasant or boomerang heel, you end up with wrapped stitches all over the heel. Some with one wrap, but most with two wraps. When I first learned about it I found it fairly confusing and wished I could have seen in a video how someone does this. So I decided to make my own video about this.
I will add the links to the videos to my patterns as well, so that when people are looking for how to knit something they can just click on the link in my pattern and see how it goes. This way I do not have to check all the time whether the videos that I have used from others will still work, as sometimes they just leave YouTube. I've had that several times myself when I wanted to access a video that was mentioned in a pattern and I simply couldn't go there and had to look for another.

So here is the video:

I hope you enjoyed my video!

I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, ask a question or ask me to make another tutorial video.

Knitting: How to cast on a toe-up sock

Recently I made yet another video, I made several because of a toe-up sock pattern I'm going to publish soon. I made these videos because I have seen many links to various YouTube tutorial videos in patterns that couldn't be found anymore on YouTube, so I figured I'd make them myself and add them to my patterns, so that I'm sure that they will simply be there when people click on the link of a video.

I hope you enjoyed my video!

I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, ask a question or ask me to make another tutorial video.

Knitting: How to wrap a stitch

Recently I made a video about how to wrap a stitch. This is because I have written out my toe-up sock pattern and would like to show people how wrapping a stitch works. So I've put it on YouTube, and will share it on this post, so anyone can see how it is done.

I hope you enjoyed my video!

I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, ask a question or ask me to make another tutorial video.

Knitting: How to make a stitch

Recently I made a short video on how to make a new stitch in between 2 existing stitches. It is hardly visible in the finished work. This is my favourite way of increasing.

I hope you enjoyed my video!

I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment, ask a question or ask me to make another tutorial video.

Knitting: wristlets

Quite a few years ago I purchased the book: "Knitting lingerie style" by the designer Joan McGowan-Michael. I have knit several of the garments in there and will continue with quite a few more. Last week I was at a festival and had quite a bit of time to knit or so between my workshops. So I went for the wristlets in the book. The pattern is described as knit flat and then sew the back of it together. I don't like sewing knitwear so where I can I knit in the round, as I have done with these as well. It made it a very quick and easy knit. I also knit them the way I knit socks, 2 at the same time, in the round on a circular needle. I spend a bit of time here and there between kids and workshops over the space of 2 days and then they were done. On the top picture you see the outside and on the bottom picture the inside of the wristlets. I am very pleased with how they turned out. 

Here is the link to my ravelry page on the wristlest: Wristlets on Ravelry

I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings. Feel free to comment or ask a question. I'd love to hear from you.


Have a great day!

Knitting: Alyce Tee by Joan McGowan-Michael

On 21 May 2016 I cast on the stitches to knit my Alyce Tee. I had been looking at the pattern designed by Joan McGowan-Michael for a while already. I had also decided which yarn I was going to use for it. But then the task arose to find the yarn. I had bought it a couple of years ago with the intention to make some summer tops with it but due to moving internationally and such had not gotten round to doing that yet. I had an idea of where it could be, but that meant digging a bit into my storage area, which I am not a big fan of. So I postponed a little.

To the right you see the design of Joan McGowan-Michael. Here is a link to the page on her website Alyce - White Lies Designs
And here is a link to the ravelry page of the same design: Alyce - Ravelry

I totally fell in love with the design once I had run into it. But then, as most of the design of Joan, this Tee is just gorgeous. I have knit quite a few of the designs of Joan in the meantime and she does write out the patterns really well and they are very easy to follow. Joan is one of my favourite designers. Actually one of her designs was the reason I picked up knitting again 12 years ago after having had a break of about 18 years.

The yarn that I decided to use for this project is from Schachenmayr Nomotta. It is a yarn that is in the meantime unfortunately discontinued. It is Cotton Linen Stripes and it knits up so nicely. I just love it. I only have it stashed 2 times. Once in violet - which I am using for this project - and once in blue. The blue will be for another summer project which is also a design by Joan. You can see a picture of the yarn on the left.

On the right you see the beginning of my knitting, which is after 1 full round of the pattern repeat. It is very easy to knit this leaf pattern.

When I started knitting the pattern I simply followed the pattern without too much thought as I wanted this top finished really fast. But while knitting certain parts, I realised too late how they would have been better knit up differently. The lace ladder pattern is knit separately from a certain point, but I would have preferred it if it had been knit with short rows continuously together with the shaping of the front armholes. The way it is now makes it really hard to sew the pieces together from the front arm hole shaping and the lace and ladder pattern together as the lace and ladder pattern contains many more stitches than the armhole shaping. It would require quite a bit of calculating and such, but it certainly can be done and would make it look nicer and be easier to connect the 2 parts. Now it starts to pull a bit and leave a hole where the two parts are separated.





After sewing it together it doesn't look too bad, but I still do not like the way it crumbles together more than I prefer. Especially on my right side. I certainly do like the top and am quite happy with having made it. The yarn feels very comfortable, so I'm sure this wil lend up being one of my favourite tops. The lace knitting makes it very suitable for summer.

Here you see the finished garment front and back. I expect it to look even better after blocking, but I really wanted to show the pictures of my top.

I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings. Feel free to comment or ask a question. I'd love to hear from you.

Have a wonderful day!

Knitting: apple

Recently I was asked to knit an apple for one of my children.
While I was knitting it I got a bit worried that it wouldn't look as good as I would like it to look. I followed a pattern by Susie Johns. By the time it was done I was very pleasantly surprised as it looked very good.
The one that I knit it for has used it for its purpose as that was only short lived as it had something to do with her course work.
So now it has been handed to my youngest children so that they can play with it in their kitchen and shop :-) Multi purpose apple :-)


Here is a picture. It knits up really fast :-)

I used Womens Institute Unique Yorkshire yarn from Hobbycraft. This is a 100% wool yarn, as I prefer to work with 100% wool yarns, as this makes felting and needle felting at the end really easy to do.

Making the stalk was very very easy. It was a 3 stitch i-cord and it knit up really fast and easily.

Adding it to the apple was once again super easy. The stalk created the indents at the top and bottom as I left the thread very long, so that I could use a doll making needle to stick it completely through to the bottom and go back and forth a few times, while leaving a little brown visible at the bottom, so that is really looked very much like a real apple.

It was such fun to do!

I've made photo's from various sides of the apple, so you can see how it turned out. I knit it in the round as I really do not like sewing projects up, so I'll knit a project in such a was that I can knit or crochet as much as possible together before resorting to the needles. As this was a project that was with 2 colours and in the round I twisted the yarn around each other all the time. On the photo to the left you can see how this ended up having a really cool effect. Through the green you see the red, as it is twisted round all the time. You also see some green through the red. I found that that gave the apple a much more natural apple effect than just having a part red and a part green. Apples don't have that :-)

Quite pleased with the result all round :-)

Knitting: Marin the horse

In 2014 I joined a test knit of Linda Dawkins for the Marin the Horse pattern. I finished one of them, as was the plan, but then one of my other children wanted to have a horse like that as well, which was quite understandable as it is a very cute horse. So I started making the other one, but then family issues happened, so I didn't manage to finish it. It ended up in a box due to moving short after that. Upon arrival in our house we found it to be left in an appalling state by our tenant, so it stayed in a box. Only recently I ended up being able to take it out and finish it.

The first picture is of the first horse. The second one of the horse I finished last weekend. I have use Hjertegarn Incawool for these 2 projects, these are self striping yarns and they give a lovely look to the treasured softies :-)

Through this link you can buy the pattern if you would like: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/marin-the-spring-horse

Here you can see the blog post of Linda about the pattern of the horse: http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/2014/04/marin-spring-horse-pattern-finished.html

Knitting: Celtic earth hat Test knit

On 24 January I was invited to join a test knit. This time for a hat, the Celtic earth hat. It has been designed by Linda Dawkins, also known as mamma4earth. It looks really nice and it should knit up really fast and easily.
I have looked through my stash and found a fitting yarn that will do nicely. Not the nicest of colours, but just nice.

On 26 January I cast on and I finished it on the 27th. It was a very straightforward and easy pattern to knit. When it goes on sale I recommend getting it and making this hat for as many family members as would like to have one LOL

Finished, laying flat on the table.

On a child's head :-)

As said child immediately confiscated it, I have in the meantime cast on another one for myself, as I really like the hat and want one for myself as well.

This one will be in a blue and white yarn. I really like this yarn.

Here is the link to the blog post of Linda about this hat:
http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/2016/01/celtic-earth-hat-test-knit.html

And here you can find her on Ravelry.com:
http://www.ravelry.com/people/mamma4earth

Knitting: Toe-up sock pattern

I have recently started writing out the way I make toe-up socks. I am not finished with it yet, as I need to check the lay-out, spelling and such. 
After I have finished with that all I will have to find a few test knitters to see whether I wrote it all out understandably. For me it is all clear cut and such as I knit them regularly, but for others it may not be so easy to follow. So test knitters are very useful. I will try to find some on Ravelry as there are test knitters groups there.

Once I am fully done with writing it all out I will put the pattern on Ravelry and post the link to my blog for all who are interested in this pattern. 

Knitting: Shark test knit

Linda Dawkins asked me to Jon in a test knit for her latest pattern. As I love her patterns I was ever so pleased to be able to test it. The start date is 21 August and it has to be finished by 1 September. I managed to finish it by 31 August, so just in time.

Here is the link to the Ravelry page on which the pattern is:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/finn-the-shark

Here are some pictures of my shark.