Crochet and knitting

KT421 · Dec 2, 2022

I don't know if anyone here is into crochet and/or knitting, but I make amigurumi (crochet stuffed animals) for my kids.

I don't have many pictures on my phone, and I'm not willing to go dig through the toybox to find them right now, but I will post them as I do find them. I've made a dragon, a t-rex, a pteranodon, and a phoenix, and I have a standing request for a kraken.

Behold: Boblin the Goblin

Jehos · Dec 2, 2022

Love it! Somewhere I still have an Ars biker that draccy made for me years ago.

timezon3 · Dec 3, 2022

I just finished this hooded pullover for my brother's partner. I'll give it to him when I see him for Christmas, though it's not really a Christmas gift, I've just been on a many-year project to knit sweaters for a bunch of important people in my life. Already done: my parents, my wife, and my grandmother (passed last year). My brother is next on the list. I'm thinking of doing a two-tone saddle shouldered sweater with a shawl collar, but I'll run it by him before starting. The other option I'll give him is a dude sweater if that's what he wants.

linnen · Dec 4, 2022

Orange-ing because I will likely get some inspiration from this thread.

One project I have queued I will post a pic once I get far enough to show something to the group. One change I will make to the pattern is to add a gold embroidery thread to the marron yarn to accent it in the pattern.

Scifigod · Dec 4, 2022

That goblin is seriously adorable.

How long does something like that sweater take to make?

timezon3 · Dec 5, 2022

A sweater is a serious time commitment on the order of 50+ hours. This one took me a couple of years, though there were long stretches where I put it aside for a couple months at a time. I'm not a particularly fast knitter, and I don't like to knit for more than an hour at a time (not to mention having a full time job), but no matter what, a sweater is a serious project. I can maybe knock out a hat in worsted in a week if I'm diligent about it.

rtrefz · Dec 5, 2022

I'm a beginning knitter (made a scarf and a hat. Currently working on a shawl kit). My wife is a voracious knitter! She's pointing me towards a sweater next, which I'm not sure about.

Scifigod · Dec 5, 2022

That is a serious commitment but the results are clearly worth it.

doraemon · Dec 5, 2022

I'm a really slow knitter, only knowing how to knit, purl, and make ribbing. I can't even knit in the round (yet), but I've made a few HP scarves along the way for Christmas presents. Those took me about 25 hours each (just basic stripes and some tassels, knit flat and then stitched up the side). If I ever tried a sweater, it'd probably take me a few hundred hours.

timezon3 · Dec 5, 2022

It's totally possible to go for a sweater soon after learning to knit. I did a few hats and then jumped for a sweater, and this thing is still my piece de resistance. I entered it in the NC State Fair and got an honorable mention ribbon. (In case you don't recognize it, it's a copy of the Dude's sweater from The Big Lebowski. My avatar here is the Dudist symbol.) This probably did take 100+ hours; color work in ribbing is a bear of a technique.

I'm also big into HP which has lots of great knitting opportunities. My wife wanted a custom Hogwarts scarf and basically drew up what she wanted, and I made it. Now we live in Florida and it never gets used.

And of course a quidditch sweater for myself.

You can do a whole lot with basic stuff in knitting. Once you can knit, purl, k2tog, and mk1, you're pretty much good to go for regular garments. The other thing that's really handy is math so you can check your gauge and adjust as needed. On my dude sweater, my gauge was way different from the pattern author's, so I had to recalculate a lot of stuff, but it's just algebra. Other really handy thing is learning to read the fabric and understand how stitches are created and join together. That's helpful for fixing (or hiding) mistakes.

Carhole · Dec 5, 2022

*Nods to the crowd of OG 3D printers. Nice filaments!

paintivore · Dec 7, 2022

I love knitting and also spinning. (Um, spinning yarn out of fluff, not the exercise bike thing.) I also used to crochet a lot, and I was way faster at crochet than I've ever been at knitting, but a couple of wrist injuries have made crochet problematic, though I keep thinking about trying to re-learn to crochet with my right hand.

This is from last year, but this is the last finished thing that I really loved. This was super rumpled after just finishing it on Christmas eve for my then 3-year-old grandson, sized to still fit him this winter. I was worried that the colorwork would be permanently wonky since I used superwash wool, but there was no way I was going to inflict a hand-wash sweater on my daughter and SIL who have two kids under the age of 5. But after being worn and washed a bunch it's fluffed up nicely and doesn't have bits of the darker yarn peeking through anymore.

timezon3 · Dec 7, 2022

Super cute dinosaur pattern!

rtrefz · Dec 7, 2022

I love it!

paintivore · Dec 7, 2022

Carhole said:
*Nods to the crowd of OG 3D printers. Nice filaments!

I hadn't thought of it in that context, but it totally is. I can make my own filament, too! The ball is unplied yarn spun out of the wool that's lurking at the top of the photo, 3 strands of singles wound together for plying, and the rectangles are samples I knit up to decide what I wanted to do with that wool. Left is 3 ply yarn in two different needle sizes (I decided on the smaller needle size, which I sincerely hope I wrote down somewhere for when I finish the spinning) and on the right is a 2 ply where I tried doing a lace thing, but it mostly served as further reinforcement that lace is kind of not for me. That tiny rectangle took me a week to knit, and even though it's the simplest lace possible I managed to screw it up in multiple places

2022-10-09-falkland-plying ball and samples-r.jpg

doraemon · Dec 7, 2022

That looks so impressive. I've never met someone who spins yarn. I remember a book I read as a kid, "At Home Around the World," which had a picture of someone in Ecuador who would spin yarn as she was walking down the street. In that case, it was a necessity because everyone made their own clothes, using wool from sheep they raised.

rtrefz · Dec 7, 2022

Do you use a spinning wheel, or a drop spindle?

paintivore · Dec 7, 2022

It really is easier than it sounds. You can make yarn with nothing but a stick, and that's probably how people first figured out how to do it, though it's slow process. It speeds up a lot if you add a weight to the stick, which gets you a spindle. I learned on spindles -- I really wanted to learn to spin and couldn't afford a spinning wheel. I eventually got a wheel, but I still use spindles, too. They're really convenient and portable, and they can be made for really cheap. (All but one of my spindles are made of a wooden toy car wheel stuck onto a dowel.) I learned from Youtube videos (though there are definitely some videos out there with terrible advice that I had to un-learn later), from reading the spinning forums on Ravelry, and from books (Abby Franquemont's Respect the Spindle was probably the most helpful early on.)

I'm kind of wandering way off the topic of the thread, but while I'm nerding out about spinning and spindles, there's a really great and freely (and legally) downloadable book called The Art of Prehistoric Textile Making by Karina Grömer that has a huge amount of information about the development of textile processes in central Europe. I have the print version, which I don't think is available anymore. It's scholarly but not dry, and has tons of pictures.
(edit: typos)

rtrefz · Dec 7, 2022

Cool!

There used to be a SCA event in my area at a sheep farm which went over the entire process (maybe not shearing the sheep) of making yarn. I never made it, but I wish I did.

timezon3 · Dec 8, 2022

Very cool, I've not tried spinning, but I wouldn't mind trying it sometime, especially if I knew the person who had the sheep.

Jehos · Dec 8, 2022

My mom had a spinning wheel when I was a kid. It's definitely not hard, I remember us helping do the carding brushes.

timezon3 · Dec 13, 2022

Just finished this scarf for a friend. It's the Urban Lace Infinity Scarf free pattern. Pretty easy beginners lace stuff. I don't really like lace knitting, but this was not too bad. I got the yarn while on vacation in Alaska.

tie · Dec 23, 2022

I love crocheting amigurumi. I'm missing photos of some of my favorite projects, but here's a bunch anyway:

tie · Dec 23, 2022

Part 2:

tie · Dec 23, 2022

Part 3:

KT421 · Jan 8, 2023

"Mommy, I want a pokeball for bulbasaur that opens and closes."

Three hours later...

I freehanded this, and I didn't bother with mundanities such as gauging the different yarns first, so the white part is smaller than the red part. Also I'm preeeeeety sure I missed a row on the white one. And I meant to create a closure for it with a large black button, but I could not find the buttons so a) no closure on this one, and b) I guess I'm going to Michael's soon.

For my own notes as much as anything:

Make 2, in white and red. They're half spheres, worked in rounds.
sc 6 in a magic circle
Inc in all 6
(sc 1, inc) x6
(sc 2, inc) x6
(sc 3, inc) x6
(sc 4, inc) x6
sc in each (4 rounds)

In one of them (I picked the red because it was already in my hand):
switch to black yarn:
dc around. Around 4 stitches before the halfway point, pass the hook through the rim of the white half at the top of each dc and yarn over the black thread through it. Do this 8 times. Then continue regular dc until you come back to the front. sc and slip stitch to finish.
(this was fiddly. Maybe just sew the white part on later.)

Add a button or something? And a loop for the button to go through? idk

doraemon · Jan 8, 2023

That also highlights something about any knitting project (or frankly, any project) one does: no one knows where the flaws are quite as well as you do. $:\$

Tie, those boobies in particularly are so gosh darn cute! Thanks for sharing pics.

Diabolical · Jan 9, 2023

I quite literally started teaching myself to knit about 45 minutes ago. It took about 35 of those minutes to figure out how to get the second stitch when casting on. But I did get it. Eventually. It took several interconnected “ooooooh, do it that way” light bulb moments, but I cast on 10 stitches in a row shortly there after. It looked like shit, but I was pretty damn ecstatic. Now, pause for a few minutes, lunch, and then again!

:biggreen:

doraemon · Jan 9, 2023

Yeah, as you knit more, your fingers start remembering via muscle memory. It doesn't take long to develop, too.

Diabolical · Jan 9, 2023

By the end of the night I felt pretty good. Finally got a row of 20 stitches cast on with only one that looked wonky. I figure this is my knitting life for a bit, ~~mastering~~ learning (let’s not get ahead of ourselves, self!) the hand motions and maintaining tension in the right places with my fingers (you want my pinky to do what?!).

timezon3 · Jan 9, 2023

There are myriad ways to tension and it's pretty much up to you to figure out what works for you. Personally, I wrap it once around my ring finger. Are you learning right handed or left handed? It's worth trying both, and once you've got one down, it's worth learning the other, too. One of my favorite techniques is two-handed colorwork (one color in each hand). But it's worth trying both early on to see which seems easier or more natural to you. Also, what needles are you using? Some expert knitters like metal needles because they can knit faster - the yarn just flies off those needles. As a beginner I definitely recommend wooden needles, as they're less slippery. I remember as a beginner I was terrified of my stitches falling off the needles, which resulted in me knitting way too tight. As you get the hang of it you'll relax and lighten up a bit and your stitches will flow easier. Good luck, and have fun!

doraemon · Jan 10, 2023

My first time knitting, I was really young, maybe still in elementary school, when my grandma showed me a basic knit stitch. I was using bamboo skewers and the coarse string used for wrapping pastry boxes, so it would always snag on all the splinters. Quickly got bored and didn't take up knitting again until I was working. Having proper needles makes it so much nicer to knit. Grandma used lacquered wood needles, IIRC, probably because it had just enough friction for the stitches to stay put. She never aimed for fast knitting, though. Fastest knitting acquaintance I saw was knitting with metal needles, in the round, and would knit while watching a movie.

timezon3 · Jan 10, 2023

Yeah, I prefer the lacquered wood needles as well, it's a good balance between sticky and slippery. I have a couple bamboo ones that are fine, but they're actual knitting needles, not skewers, I can't imagine that went well! I don't like metal. I only mentioned it because the aluminum things are sometimes the cheapest there are so that's what beginners end up with, but I don't really think they're good starter needles. Early on, I bought a set of interchangeable circular needles, in lacquered wood, from sizes 4 to 10 and have not needed to buy much else for needles since then. Something like that is a great purchase for someone getting into the craft.

Diabolical · Jan 10, 2023

Yeah, I’m feeling like I need something a bit grippier than the aluminum ones that came with the little kit I bought. I feel like I can’t take my eyes off them for a second or else stitches come flying off the needle in short order! I finally feel like I’m getting into a bit of groove, and commercial on the podcast do I risk it? Yes…. Damn! Damn and blast!

I also have some hooks in a different kit as well, but I want to focus on this first.

timezon3 · Jan 10, 2023

Yeah, I thought that might be the case. My first "learn to knit" kit (from walmart or something) also came with aluminum needles and it's only in retrospect that I realized that made it a little harder than it needed to be. This is the set I have and I like them a lot. You can knit flat or in the round on them. They're basically the only needles I use. If you need extended sizes, they can be purchased individually, but sizes 4-10 cover a lot of ground. You may eventually need some double pointed needles, but even there, I tend to prefer to just use the circulars instead, and loop out the excess cord.

doraemon · Jan 10, 2023

I never could get the hang of using circular needles, probably because I need to have enough stitches to begin with so it can slide easily around (never thought of looping out the excess cord).

The skewers obviously did not work very well, but when all you want is to keep a kid entertained until she's bored again, it worked.

rtrefz · Jan 10, 2023

I'm very lucky that my wife is obsessed with knitting, and she's excited for me to start the habit, so she got me a set of wooden circular needles. I also find metal needles way too slippery. As a bonus, you can take an emery board (or sandpaper) to a wooden needle if it develops a rough patch.

A quick word of warning about circular needles: get in the habit of checking the connectors. Having a needle come loose part way through a row is not fun at all!

Finally, I'm a big fan of the sheep and stitch tutorials on youtube. Not only does she show the techniques, she also goes over what can go wrong (and shows examples).

timezon3 · Jan 10, 2023

doraemon said:
(never thought of looping out the excess cord).

There's a technique called "magic loop knitting" where you split the stitches carefully across the needles and then have a space in a certain specific way or something, but I don't adhere to that, I just wing it. If I need to knit a small number of stitches in the round, I usually have two loops of excess cord hanging out, and three divisions of stitches (one set on each needle, plus one on a section of the cord), which becomes two as I knit them. Then I split the larger set again, just kind of on an ad-hoc basis. This also helps avoid getting a column of looser stitches because of regularly having a split there. Doing this kind of approximates knitting on DPNs, without the terror of dropping the thing and having all the needles fly out. I'm not a fan of DPNs.

tritriagain · Jan 10, 2023

I've been knitting and crocheting for about 20 years now. For knitting, I'm almost exclusively on circular needles. I just magic loop my socks, gloves, and sleeves. There is some satisfaction to mastering the double points. My current socks are on them.

I also prefer metal needles. I'm a tosser and it's smoother. Don't know if that actually true, but I like it

Unless I have an intricate pattern such as lace. Then wood is the way to go.

And I second sheep and stitch tutorials. They are my go to when I can't figure something out.

Diabolical · Jan 13, 2023

Cast on, a dozen stitches, just practicing the motion. Good, good…
Start on the first row. Good to go.. yep, caught that one from slipping off the needle...
gets to the end of the row
Wait. That’s not right. What is going on? What do I do now?
checks tutorial
Ah yes, and then that (double clicks to back up a minute or so)..
stops paying attention to the needles - unravel-y mess ensues

Ah.
Well. Yes.
I guess it’s time to go to work.

Crochet and knitting

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