7 Reasons to Wind your Own Balls

When I was a newbie knitter working on my first real project, I made the mistake of trusting a store-bought center-pull skein.  I was at least 3/4 of the way finished with the simple black shawl I was making, when I came across a devastating knot in the skein.  Since I'd been pulling yarn from the middle, the outside of the skein lost more and more of its structure until it collapsed on itself, resulting in a three-hour super frustrating question to untangle the knot without having to cut the yarn.  Three hours of my life that I will never get back!  So here are all the reasons why I wind my own balls.

1. To discover any knots.  Fresh-from-the-store balls of yarn can have egregious imperfections hidden in their many yards.  KnitPicks is famous for tying knots into their Charisma line at the wrong color change!  Going over every inch of the yarn with my own two hands gives me the chance to correct these mistakes before I've even cast on.
2. To get to know your yarn.  Does it have any random slubs or other unplanned bumps in the road?  Does it shed?  Are the individual strands rougher than the larger ball?  This is your opportunity to learn about your yarn before working with it.
3. The LYS's swift is always in use.  Always.  Who has time to wait for someone else to wind their latest 21-ball purchase when I could be casting on?
4. Swifts make an annoying creaky sound.  Not to mention the cost.  I'd rather spend my money on yarn, thank you very much.
5. Winding is cathartic.  You get into a rhythm, just like with knitting.  Wrapping and wrapping and wrapping a single strand of yarn over and over again.  Excellent mindless entertainment.
6. Just enjoy the feel of it.  Yarn, glorious yarn, flowing through your hands.  Feel free to fantasize about all the wonderful projects you could make with it.
7. You can wind anywhere.  On an airplane.  In the car.  On your couch, bed, or toilet.  Okay, maybe not the toilet.  But it's portable if you're not tied down by a swift.  You don't have to wait until you get home or until the LYS's swift finally frees up.  You're that much closer to starting your project.

Bonus reason: You're completely in charge of the tension.  Your ball won't be so tight that it kills your yarn, and it won't be so loose as to risk tangling.

So how do I do it?  I'll show you how to wind perfect center-pull balls by hand in my next post!

55 Free Patterns to Knit Before I Die

Ravelry has this function called the Queue.  It's a place to store all the patterns for things you want to make.  Or things that look really cool.  Or things that are really unique.  Or...  You get the point.  It's a lineup, a place to turn to for inspiration when you're not sure what you want to knit next, and a place to hold all those patterns that you know you'll get to some day.  Maybe you won't get to them; maybe you have QBLE, queue beyond life expectancy.  If you knit every day for the rest of your life, would you be able to get through all the projects in your queue?

I have a queue as well, but sometimes it fails me.  Sometimes I just don't have the right yarn.  There's also the issue of a lot of the patterns in there being far too expensive for my knitting budget.  How can I spend $7 on a pattern?!  That's, like, a skein of yarn or two packages of beads.

So here I have made up a super-queue, a knitting bucket list, to give myself (and hopefully you) some inspiration when my queue just doesn't do it for me.

1. Clapotis - a classic, well-known scarf/wrap/shawl thing that everyone but me seems to have made.  
2. Triangle Entrelac Shawl - who doesn't love a little entrelac in the morning?
3. Vortex Shawl - circular shawl that just wows me every time I see it
4. Glitz at the Ritz - an elegant beaded shawlette
5. Creoso - lace and cables in a unique heavy shawlette
6. Budding Shawlette - another chance to play with lace and beads, this time in a flower motif
7. Begonia Swirl - did I mention I like lace?
8. Elly - just one more, I swear
9. Estuary - two different lace patterns flow together in this water-inspired shawlette
10. Good Day Sunshine - Estonian lace shawlette with serious points
11. Sagrantino Shawl - 20 lace hectagons knit up and sewn together into a shawl
12. Bamboo Wedding Shawl - elegant rectangles of lace interlock in a rectangular shawl.
13. Strips and Stripes - colorwork scarf that plays with horizontal and vertical striping
14. Padma "Pashmina" Wrap - giant lace wrap brimming with elegance
15. Diagonale - laceweight stole
16. Colorplay - a rainbow scarf with fringe on both ends, the best in LGBT knit fashion
17. Pilsener Zigzag Scarf - unique zigzag lace pattern
18. Cerus Scarf - all linen stitch, all the time.
19. Starry Night - beads and lace in a dark blue, lightweight scarf
20. Wishing Cowl - long cabled cowl
21. Fillan Cowl - short cabled cowl
22. Cloche Divine - I don't even wear cloche hats, and I want to make this one
23. Once Upon a Tam - lace tam modeled after a hat from Once Upon a Time
24. Rosalina - cables, lace, and beads, oh my!
25. Pinwheel Beret - brioche in two colors on a slouchy hat
26. Alokananda Beret - stunning cabled beret
27. Rylands Cabled Hat - cabled in an entirely different way
28. Cafe Au Lait Tam - faux-cabled beret
29. Nottingham Hat - a completely different faux-cabled look
30. As the Leaves Begin to Fall - colorwork hat with leaves motif
31. Undergrowth - a completely different colorwork hat with a flower motif at the top
32. Shapely Boyfriend - everybody's got one of these simple cardigans but me
33. Wayside Lace Cardigan - it's knitting sideways!
34. Cadence - boat neck pullover with a lace pattern around the top
35. Pretty Mallory - raglan pullover with lace sleeves
36. Sequoia - shawl-collared vest in a heavy worsted yarn
37. Rose Trellis Shawl Vest - drapey vest with a lace pattern
38. Firelight - cabled vest
39. Thrummed Mittens - you know you want some of these toasty puppies
40. Yummy Mummy Wristwarmers - deliciously cabled fingering weight fingerless gloves
41. Magic Mirror - cabled mittens
42. Citadel Mittens - stockinette and reverse stockinette spell out the pattern in these mittens
43. Rubber Duck Socks - the ultimate in colorwork socks
44. Solstice Socks - mismatched socks that play with the different phases of the sun and moon
45. Basket Weave Rib Socks - unisex socks with an interesting texture
46. Free Bees - fun socks with lace bees 
47. Moon Socks - mmm, slippers
48. A Blanket for Seriously Cold People - giant squooshy bulky weight blanket made entirely of ribbing.
49. Norma - a lovely lace throw blanket
50. Modern Log Cabin Blanket - a bit of an updated look to a classic construction
51. Summer Leaves Throw - lacy summer afghan
52. Fancy Mug Cozy - everyone needs a mug cozy, might as well make it fancy
53. Elephant - isn't his little trunk adorable?
54. Texture Bite - the perfect little teddy bear
55. Catnip Bunny - our furry friends need a little love, too

And if you're a more visual person, I've also compiled all these patterns onto a Pinterest board!  

That's NOT What She Said

A youtube video has gone viral in the knitting community this week.  Have you seen it?  The ladies at Loops Knitting in Tulsa, OK, call it "Said no knitter ever."

Hilarious!  The best one for me was "Honey, can you clean out my yarn stash for me?  Just throw away whatever you think I don't need."  No knitter would EVER say something like that.

A couple I might add:

• I love finding cat hair in my yarn.  It's like my cat is part of my knitting now.
• Qiviut isn't that expensive.
• I'm tired of knitting in my favorite colors.  Got anything in neon orange?
• Uggh, Ravelry is such a waste of time!
• Knitting is boring.  I think I'll take up crochet instead.  

Twist and Shout

Sometimes, knitters make mistakes.  I know, I know, we don't want to admit it.  We think maybe we can drink it away.  Maybe no one will notice, or only the really advanced knitters will notice, and they'll be too polite to mention it.

I made a mistake.

Knitting along, watching television, I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing.   Perhaps I set my knitting down in the middle of a round and forgot where I was when I picked it back up.  Either way, something terrible happened.  I forgot to twist a cable.  Uggh, just look at it:

Do you see it?

Maybe you don't see it.  But I do!  It's right there, a big patch of stockinette that should be twisted into a cable, like its neighbor a few stitches down.

And as you can see, I didn't notice it until I was already 6 rounds further along.  I'd already made another cable before I noticed this one, sitting there grinning with its ugly, untwisted face.  What was a girl to do?  I could have ripped back those 6 rows, but it would have been nearly impossibly to pick up the lace panels that are having a jolly day between the cables.  If I'd put in a lifeline, like a smart knitter, it wouldn't have been a problem.  I am not a smart knitter.

I could have ripped the entire hat out, then gone and cried for a little while.  But I didn't want to do that, either.  

So I got brave.  Using a technique demonstrated by the Yarn Harlot, I slipped just the offending cable panel off my needles.

Whoa!  That's crazy!  Why would you purposefully slip stitches off the needle?

Nine precarious stitches.  Just these.  The stitches that are surrounding it on the needle are safe because they're still on the needle.  But these nine stitches are about to be shaken to their core.

Oh the humanity!  

I ripped them back 7 rows, just far enough to properly twist the cable.  Then I used a couple DPNs and worked those stitches like their own little mini rounds using the yarn from each respective round (that kind of looks like awful green spaghetti in that picture).

If I had the hat with me (I'm travelling for work again), I would show you the after-picture.  It worked!  I fixed the cable, finished the hat, and it's beautifully Spring-esque.  Don't let your mistakes hold you back, knitters.  If I can fix this unsightly cable without too much wine, you can certainly correct your knitting mishaps!

Edit: Check out the finished hat!

Ten Things I Would Rather Do Than Weave in Ends

I signed up for a Reddit hat swap in r/knitting a month or so ago, and the person I'm sending to has her heart set on a fair isle hat.  That's cool, I like fair isle.  The hat, based off the DIY Fair Isle Hat pattern by Meg Myers, was really interesting to knit.  I had a chance to flex my creative fingers as I used five different colors of yarn rather than a solid and a variegated, and I also modified part of the pattern so that the top would be a flat square because my partner specifically asked for the hat not to be a beanie.  

It was fun, I have a lot of leftover yarn to play with, all is well.  Except.  Except the inside of the hat.  It's full of loose ends that require weaving in.  I count at least 23.

What a mess!

Uggh.  It's my least favorite thing to do.  I mean, really, I hate weaving in ends and generally go out of my way to avoid it by knitting things in one piece rather than seaming, limiting colors or using creative joins to switch between colors, or simply knotting yarn together and leaving the ends to hang out in any item that's for my personal use.  But none of those are options this time around.

Top Ten Things I'd Rather Do Than Weave in Ends:

1. Donate blood
2. Stare at the wall
3. Pick at hangnails
4. Give my cat a bath
5. Scrub away the grit that builds up behind the toilet
6. Sigh at my yarn stash and dream of other projects
7. Write something for my actual job
8. Drink
9. Rant
10. Pay someone very much money to do it for me

I have another week to finish this up and ship it out (deadline is May 1), so I guess I'll just have to suck it up and get it done.  But I really don't want to.  

FO Friday: Royal Tenor Cami

As promised, I'm gonna show you what I made with that purple linen while I was away, my version of the Razor Cami.  It's pretty.  It fits.  It... can't be worn on its own because it's rather see-through.  But I love it, and I hope you do too.

Just as I expected, my slightly large gauge resulted in a S/M size, just right for me.  The straps might be a little bit long, but I prefer to have extra room in the armpits, and since I'll have to wear another cami under this one anyhow that's even better.  

Props to the designer, Katie Marcus.  Her pattern was easy to follow, and I'll never be able to express my full gratitude for designers who give their work away for free.  

The best part about this FO is that it has really strong memories attached to it.  The lace is knit together with the ringing chords of the choruses, the sweet sound of the quartets, the laughter that accompanied the Open Division contestants, and all the excitement of taking the stage for the first time.  Every time I wear this cami, I'm going to remember the people I met, the songs we sang, the late nights and friendship and fun.  

How to Become Lifelong Friends with a Knitter

If you read my last post, you know my chorus went to Regional Competition last weekend.  Awesome job, Sound Harmony!  We had a fabulous debut, and I'm really proud of the sound and energy that we produced on that stage with such a small group.  Check out these beautiful, smiling faces:

Thank goodness for knitting, though, because I did a lot of sitting.  All together, I sat through a 6-hour drive from Seattle to Spokane, 26 quartet performances, 23 chorus performances, a couple of hours worth of judge deliberations, intermissions, and setup breaks, and a 5-hour drive back home.  On Friday, I'll reveal my wonderful creation from all that knitting.

Today, though, I want to tell you how I made crafting friends while at this competition.  Are you ready to hear my method?  Here's what I did:  I held knitting in my hands.

Well, okay, so that's not exactly all that I did.  At one point during a break, to keep myself pumped up about the next quartet, I spotted someone knitting and yelled out, "What up, my Knittah!?"

My chorus promptly disowned me.

I'm not ashamed, though.  Every knitter knows the best way to make a knitter friend:

• Approach knitter, knitting in public.  
• Say, "Hi, what are you working on?" 
• "Can I touch it?"  
• "Is that wool?"  
• "Wanna see what I've been knitting?"

It's foolproof.  We all love that connection.  Anytime I bump into a knitter in the wild, it's as though we've been crafting together our whole lives.  And really, we have.