Oolong knits

There are essentially two types of knitters (or if you prefer two ways any knitter can choose to knit): the creative knitter and the pattern knitter. The pattern knitter: follows patterns to the letter,  uses swatches in order to "get gauge", that is, to choose the needles to use in order to obtain the gauge that is recommended in the pattern, and hence the correct size of the knitted object. The creative knitter: prefers to create his/her own patterns,  may use written patterns to get inspired or learn, but won't follow them to the letter,  will use swatches in order to obtain gauge and be able to calculate how many stitches to work in order to obtain the desired size.  For the pattern knitter, pattern books and leaflets, together with the Internet, are enough. There is no need to buy a reference book because when a new technique shows up on a pattern, all the pattern knitter needs to do is to google it or look it up on YouTube in order to find a good h...

Note: this post is an errata to the post 4 stitches . Before I wrote the aforementioned post, I had spent some time playing with needles and yarn, and I had convinced myself that there are only 4 stitches. But then, I bought a very nice reference book, that I highly recommend, "The principles of knitting" by June Hemmons Hiatt, an amazing tour-de-force of a book, that teaches almost everything there is to know about knitting (and when I say almost, I'm not giving the book enough credit, it is quite a challenge to find a technique that is not explained in it). I actually wouldn't need such a complete book to find out that I was wrong, but the thing is Hiatt doesn't just explain the how's, she also explains the why's. So her book is amazing in helping the reader make sense of things. In this case, it helped me realize that what I previously thought were two different ways of doing the same, namely making a twisted stitch, are actually ways of getting two d...

Elizabeth Zimmermann is like a goddess in the knitting world. You should know that the main reason for this is that she appeared on American TV at a time when there were not many TV channels and everyone watched the same programs. So that pretty much means everyone who appeared on TV at the time has made history (you can say she is to knitting, what Julia Child is to cooking). Nowadays, if you show up on TV, you only get to be famous for 15 minutes, how unfair... That said, I don't want to minimize how brilliant and worthy of her reputation she is. Her philosophy was that knitting was simple enough ("Knitting without tears", the title of her most famous book, sums it up) and there are (almost) no set rules. Every knitter should be free to go along, improvising and adapting methods and instructions, as better suits him. She was an amazingly bright woman, who discovered (or rediscovered) methods and techniques to simplify knitting, promoted knitting in the round taking ...

Moebius cowls are a classic. I'm having a try at my first one right now. I do apologize for the awful picture... You can't even see it is a Moebius! You'll just have to trust me. There are a few ways to do them. Vertical : Start with a provisional cast-on and the number of stitches that correspond to the desire width. Knit to the desired length with a reversible stitch (the right and wrong side must be identical). Finish off by joining the first and last rows using Kitchener stitch. The trick here is that before you join the two rows, you twist them, so that the right side is joined with the wrong side, making a Moebius strip. Horizontal (in the round): Cast-on using Cat Bordhi's Moebius cast-on. Knit to the desired width with a reversible stitch. Bind-off as usual. I'm using the horizontal method, and this very simple, beautiful pattern: Posie Moebius. Here is what you should be aware when using the Moebius cast-on. A Moebius strip has a ...

On my previous post I've talked about pooling, an effect that can occur when using variegated yarn. In this post I'm going to talk about a completely different problem that can occur when using hand-made variegated yarns. I'll call it inconsistent colouring , and I've come across it recently while knitting the sweater I've mentioned in my previous post, as a justification to write about knitting-unrelated subjects. After working on this sweater for months, I've frogged it . I admit it, this was traumatic experience. The reason I've frogged it was that when I was close to finishing the sweater I realized I had areas of different colour and I didn't like the overall effect. So this post is a warning if you're planning on doing something with this type of yarns. Some hand-made variegated yarn is only suitable for small projects (or colour knitting) that require a few skeins, but not projects, like a man's sweater that may require as much as 8 or...