In which I find out more things about fiber arts

[cahn]

Crocheting:I am still crocheting. A lot. Because it turns out that I have a lot of time in the day where I need something mindless to do with my fingers (both online meetings and while E. is practicing, which requires me to be close by and reasonably focused on what she is doing because I have to be ready to intervene at any moment to stave off an emotional outburst, but this doesn't require me to be doing anything with my hands). My kids think this is a great development and have started requesting either things I should work on or the end product of things I'm working on.

I have gotten super obsessed with this blanket pattern:


Only it takes forever for me to make one of the big motifs (about a week if I work on it pretty diligently) and I want to make 19 motifs for the blanket soo... we'll see if I've got enough staying power to finish. I've got 5 right now (3 big, 2 small). It's not really very mindless because there's a lot of pattern-following, so it also takes quite a bit more time-that-doesn't-count-as-spare, alas, but it's getting a bit more automatic at this point. On the other hand now my textiles spare time / mental energy is going towards learning knitting (see below) so this week I got nothing done on it.

(Also, lurker person, I've got the fox you linked me to in the queue to make for E for Christmas if I don't get to it before then! :D )

Knitting: So... yeah, I (re)learned how to knit last week :P Partially because mildred_of_midgard informed me that her wife said there was a way to hold knitting differently that made more sense to a crocheter, and then google and youtube searches provided me with continental knitting, so yay! But also because I kept looking longingly at the drape on sweaters and socks and shawls and thinking, gosh, I wish I could do that, and then I've lusted after the knitted version of the hue shift blanket ever since antisoppist showed off the one she made, so honestly I kind of learned how to knit so I could (someday) make it, though at my current level it will take a while until I can handle a "real" project. (I'm crocheting the crochet version, which is fun and which has the appeal that I may actually someday finish it, but which doesn't drape nearly as nicely. Though, heh, A., who does not care about such things as drape, has already claimed the end-product for himself, even though it is all of 10% done. Fortunately this one can be done as relatively "mindless.")

I had legit forgot everything I knew about knitting, so it was like learning it for the first time, basically. (I am also pretty sure continental knitting was not the kind Family Friend taught me but it definitely seems rather easier to me.)

My thoughts on knitting, having tried it unsuccessfully before but with rather more success this time:

-yeah, okay, I see how knitting is addictive. When I learned it before I was definitely not in the headspace for it and now I am -- although I think the real issue is that the thing that actually makes it addictive is the sort of soothing repetitive motion, and when I learned before I am pretty sure I never got to the point where I could do the soothing repetitive motion reliably.

-The thing that allowed me to get there was learning through googling and youtube videos, honestly -- because although it was of course nice to learn from a live person (and for many things live person is better), youtube videos are great because I don't have to be asking the live person every five minutes, "so how do you do this thing again?" and also "can you show me the hand motion for that again? Okay, now very slowly? Can you show me that ten times at half speed? Okay, now I'm going to try it myself. Can you show me while I do it alongside you? Ten times?" Which I think I was not willing to do to poor Family Friend, but man is that a good way to learn how to do something.

-I do feel like knitting is sort of an acquired taste, though, compared to crochet? like i had to suffer through the "omg you mean I have to learn how to cast on before I can even do any knitting?" and the "my stitches are too tight and I can't knit with them any more" and "how do you get the stitches through this needle anyway?" ("I need a hook!") and "wait, what do you mean there is this bind off thing too??" and "now my stitches are too loose" and "somehow my knit 1 purl 1s are becoming a complete disaster and I have 150% the number of stitches I did before" [note to self for future reference: this is because you didn't put the yarn forward enough when you purl] before I could actually start to find it relaxing and enjoyable, and I remember this from last time too (except that I quit before I got to the point where it actually was enjoyable). And even now I feel like I keep making lots of mistakes that I don't know how to fix and I've unraveled things multiple times because I'm just like "this has gone hopelessly wrong." Whereas crochet was much more of an immediate gratification "hey look I'm producing a piece of fabric already and actually kind of liking the process, and when mistakes happen I can kind of figure out why and how to fix them, often even without watching a ton of youtube videos."

-though yeah, maybe socks was a bit ambitious for a first project, what can I say, crochet made me ambitious, I guess. (Also I don't need any hats or scarves, and all the blankets I want to make, I wanted to figure out how to knit properly before I made them, so socks was really kind of the next thing to do. Because who cares if my socks are super lumpy, right?)

-lol, when I learned how to bind off I was like "this would be a lot easier to do with a crochet hook" and then I tried it and it WAS a lot easier :P Cast on too :P

-how does anyone knit with kids around?? Crochet there's only one loop to keep track of, and so when I get interrupted constantly or my child decides he wants to pull out several rounds of yarn (gaaaah) it's easy to pick the single loop back up and put it back on the hook, and when both kids decide to interrupt me constantly I can figure out where I stopped or pull out stitches until I figure it out. And when I make mistakes it's easy to rip out until I get to that point. I suppose once one knows what one is doing in knitting it is easier to know where one stopped and how to pick up stitches and such, but I don't know what I'm doing at all well enough right now. I do love it (and the fabric that knitting makes! oooooh so drapey) but I think I might not be able to handle doing anything that's not both super tiny and where I'm okay with making a ton of mistakes until the kids at least get old enough they're not interrupting me every two stitches.

Comments

[luzula]

Oooh, the blanket pattern is very pretty!

I tried knitting maybe fifteen years ago, but since I was at that time also working on my dissertation and playing computer games, I got a terrible overload on my hands and basically could not use them at all for a while, they were so painful and stiff. So I swore off knitting and computer games.

[allmyfansquees]

oh WOW - do you have a link to that crochet blanket pattern? That's amazing!

[cahn]

It's such a great pattern. :D

Ugh, yeah, I can see how all of this could be hard on my hands, though so far it hasn't been so bad. Knitting seems a bit harder than crocheting so far, I think in large part because I don't know how to do it efficiently, but I think also because for the same kind of yarn the stitches are smaller and there are more of them and one sort of does them faster.

[cahn]

Haha I woke up this morning and was like, "Whoops, I forgot to put a link to the pattern in the post!" So I have, and here it is:
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/coral-story-blanket

It is SUCH a cool pattern, and also not nearly as hard as it looks, as you can see by the fact that two-months-crocheter me can do it and have it look pretty good! (I mean, my crocheting isn't perfect at all, but the front post construction and taking pictures from a distance smooths over my errors :) ) I found the instructions to be excellent -- just be aware that there are two sets of English instructions, and only one of them has pictures, and the pictures are extremely useful :) Also counting is really useful -- if you don't count with this pattern it's hard to find mistakes until a couple of rounds later, ask me how I know...

Uh, and also a) don't use worsted weight for a fingering pattern like I did the first time, although I expect you know better :) (I've seen other people use DK and apparently it works -- I used a light fingering yarn above and I didn't quite make gauge, so I think fingering-to-sport is probably actually the sweet spot, unlike what the pattern says) and b) the greater contrast between the two colors you use (if you don't use the recommended yarn), the better. (Though I can say that my kids have discovered that doing the pattern in worsted weight, while it doesn't work very well visually, makes an excellent soft frisbee!)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Partially because [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard informed me that her wife said there was a way to hold knitting differently that made more sense to a crocheter

She is happy to hear it! And also wishes you luck. :)

She also says to let you know that to get more drape out of crochet, the thinner the yarn, the better.

(I had such a huge grin on my face when reading this post, because it took me back in time 6 years to when "drape" as a noun became part of my vocabulary, through her. She also laughed when I told her.)

Good luck and have fun!

[ase]

Because who cares if my socks are super lumpy, right?

Your feet might when you put them on! :-)

Crochet has some interesting applications these days. For example, these crotchet test tubes, sep funnels, and other chemistry equipment just crossed my dash today. Wild.

[ase]

I definitely empathize with that. When I had a job that was mostly micropipetting, I actively steered away from hobbies that would use my hands (and wrists) even more.

[sophia_sol]

wow, that blanket you're working on is absolutely gorgeous!

I'm personally much more of a knitter than a crocheter, though I'm not really much of either. I like fibre arts for something mindless to do with my hands -- and I find knitting extremely soothing to do, but not crochet. I recently picked knitting up again, and started working on a sweater. I zoomed through the whole stockinette torso section but now I've reached the part where I have to like, read a pattern and do complicated things, from armpit up, and now I'm stymied :P

[allmyfansquees]

Thank you very much - I'm definitely going to tackle that as soon as I can get some appropriate wool (I definitely try to wing it most of the time so it's good to know ahead of time that it's a bad idea)! My 3yo niece might enjoy a soft frisbee - or rather her parents and their living room will definitely prefer it given the various minor incidents that took place during lockdown...

[rosefox]

Those crocheted tiles are absolutely gorgeous! I'm so impressed. I can't crochet to save my life. I've tried and tried. The wrist thing just doesn't go for me. (I'm not good at continental knitting either—I can do it, but English works better for my hands.)

The first time I tried knitting, I taught myself using metal needles and cheap acrylic yarn, and I pulled all my stitches far too tight because I didn't know you weren't supposed to do that, so wedging the needle into a stitch was difficult and annoying. I made myself a pair of slippers and they weren't stretchy (because cheap acrylic and too-tight stitches!) and I didn't know how to make them stretchy. I hated it. I gave up.

Years and years later, after hanging out with a knitter friend and also going through treatment for forearm tendinitis and learning a lot about how to relax my hand and arm muscles while doing finicky things, I tried again with better needles and better yarn and better yarn tension and a better understanding of how to make it all go. It made a world of difference and I fell absolutely in love with knitting from that point on.

So I agree that knitting is an acquired taste, but I think having good teachers and materials helps one acquire it quite a bit faster!

Some projects are much easier to put down in the middle than others. I would not categorize socks as easy to put down. Maybe someone you know needs some washcloths?

[thistleingrey]

Binding off crochet-style: totally, for some edges. (Depends on how tight/loose the bindoff needs to be.) I've done that a bunch, and it is great.

I stick the needles way up above the active stitches, but yes, it's less childproof a thing, heh. Socks are okay for putting down, IMO--for the ones with a pattern-motif I just use tally marks and stitch markers so that my brain doesn't have to hold as much of it (and then confuse it, inevitably).

Also, yay for trying things and figuring them out!

Maybe A. can help to make part of the afghan. :)

[cahn]

*nods* That makes sense! Of course in my case crocheting is keeping me from surfing the interwebs quite as much (which is what I used to do while E was practicing), which may actually help my wrists on average... :)

[cahn]

Heh, there is that!

Here's a pic I took of the "frisbee" with the very beginning of the one I made in light fingering (click to see a larger version):


You can see that it is still nice-looking and I'm still glad I made it (especially since the kids have fun with it), but it loses some detail and just doesn't look as cool as the other piece where the tonal difference between the two yarns, and the thinner yarn, really makes it pop. Also I think the color changes were a little too fast in that yarn, although I like the color changes a lot so I don't mind that as much :)

[cahn]

Thank her for me! (And thank you for passing it on!) I'm really happy that she led me to a way that knitting could work for me :)

She also says to let you know that to get more drape out of crochet, the thinner the yarn, the better.

Ohhhhhh! I was really wanting to make a sweater someday but was sort of thinking this was not in the cards because of lack of crochet drape, and there's no way I could knit a sweater anytime soon, but. Hm. Now I'm thinking :)

(I had such a huge grin on my face when reading this post, because it took me back in time 6 years to when "drape" as a noun became part of my vocabulary, through her. She also laughed when I told her.)

Lol! Yep, was not part of my vocabulary before this :)

[cahn]

That is super cute! :D

Hee! Well, the lumpy parts seem to mostly be on the sides, so... maybe it's okay? :) I guess I'll find out whenever I finish! (I'm also super slow, so who knows when that will be!)

[cahn]

Thank you! It's an amazing design, I feel like the designer is a genius.

It's so interesting how people feel about knitting vs. crochet! I find crochet more soothing to do myself at this point, but I expect it's at least partially because I still am sort of lost with knitting. But it's funny, I learned both crochet and knitting originally so that I could have something mindless to do with my hands (and I do use them for that primarily), but I keep being interested in these patterns that aren't very mindless...

I am super impressed that you can knit a sweater! I think it would take me years to get to that point. (Possibly also years to actually knit the sweater :) )

[cahn]

Thank you! It looks super complicated but it's actually a pretty easy design, as crochet goes. But I get the wrist thing not working... I'm kind of surprised that my wrists will handle it, which they seem to be more-or-less okay with so far.

ahhhh lol your knitting story feels so familiar to me!

I pulled all my stitches far too tight because I didn't know you weren't supposed to do that, so wedging the needle into a stitch was difficult and annoying.

ahahahaha this was totally me!

I agree with you about good teachers and materials -- Family Friend, while a good knitter and a good friend, was maybe not the best teacher, and the first time around I had also obtained some kind of weird plastic needles that I am realizing now were probably too big for my yarn (if I'm remembering correctly). And youtube is great for me because if the way one person explains things doesn't work for me, I can just jump to someone else :)

Ha, if I were sensible I suppose I would have made washcloths instead of socks :) but I have worked myself into a corner where I need to use up some yarn before I buy more, buuuut I don't have any cotton yarn. Of course this is a problem with an easy solution; I should just break my self-imposed ban and just go buy some :)

[cahn]

:D Figuring out things is fun! Now if I can only complete things, heh.

I think I've now got to the point where I can put the socks down and not get hopelessly confused as to which way they go, so that's progress... and I've been trying to put the knitting away reliably -- A. won't unravel things if they're not directly in his path, but if I leave it on the couch I think it's just too much temptation for him.

(I laughed ruefully at your confidence in me re: pattern motifs -- the socks I'm doing have no pattern except a garter stitch on the top, and I screwed that up because I didn't realize the difference between "rounds" and "the half round that you knit for magic loop" *facepalm* so the top is now a reverse stockinette instead of a garter stitch :) So, uh, I suspect I have a ways to go before pattern motifs are a thing I can do :) On the bright side, now I know what that means...)

Ooooh, yeah, I should ask A. to help me :) Though I showed him how to do single crochet and he did a few stitches with a lot of help and then decided he wasn't nearly as interested, hee. He still likes chain stitches, though...

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, the hexagon blanket tiles look really cool!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ohhhhhh! I was really wanting to make a sweater someday but was sort of thinking this was not in the cards because of lack of crochet drape, and there's no way I could knit a sweater anytime soon, but. Hm. Now I'm thinking :)

She's definitely crocheted a few cardigans and been satisfied with the results. She says to tell you it takes a long time with thin yarn, but is still faster than knitting.

[allmyfansquees]

Thank you - the photo is super helpful! I've already got itchy fingers just looking at how pretty that pattern is so I might make a start with the yarn I've got and donate the result to my niece ^^; And then once I have the thinner wool make a start on tiles for a blanket for my mum. It really is gorgeous, and I absolutely see what you mean about the colour popping with the paler, one-tone wool. I remember your initial post about crochet so it's lovely to see what you're making already!

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, being tempted by complicated patterns that look beautiful despite wanting to knit/crochet only mindless things is a very relatable mood! the problem is that I also want to make things that I will actually use, and I don't actually need endless unpatterned scarves or dishcloths or whatever :P

I wouldn't say that I can knit a sweater yet as I haven't proved I can finish one....! And tbh I first learned to knit 15 years ago and it took me this long to try one, so. But fingers crossed I get through it! I will definitely be posting bragging pictures to my dw if I manage :D

[cahn]

*nods* That was me! The instant I saw someone's rendition of the pattern I was like "WANT. MUST DO WITH ANY YARN AVAILABLE!" I was really lucky it turned out to be much easier than it looked, otherwise I think I could have ended up really frustrated :)

Would love to see yours when you get around to it!

[cahn]

Ha! Excellent, especially because, omg, I know i'm not doing it very quickly as these things go but I feel like knitting is sooooo sloooow. I should... probably finish up some of these projects hanging around before I buy more yarn, but I shall investigate further! Thank her for me!

[cahn]

Yessss this is me! This is how I ended up knitting socks, which are not very mindless for me at this point, in fact definitely quite a bit outside my comfort zone or really adequate skill level (lol, looking at the sock makes me laugh, it's such a mess), because I was like, I really would not use an additional scarf or a hat... But I can always use more socks!

...I really don't need any more blankets either, but if it's sufficiently pretty and comfortable I will probably use it, which I can't say about more scarves.

I look forward to your bragging pics! :D

[cahn]

Thank you! :D They're actually not that hard to do (although they do require some carefulness if one doesn't want to keep ripping out rounds of work... ask me how I know :) )

[thistleingrey]

I tend to find low-key pattern socks easier to keep track of than stockinette-only ones, in terms of counting rows so that there are two the same size (magic loop is not for me, so two-at-a-time isn't either).

Reason was a big fan of crochet chains at A.'s approx age and now she's making a dumpling kitty, so it could happen. :)

[cahn]

*looks at your comment*
*looks somewhat guiltily at single sock on needles, with no row counting taking place at all*

Though it probably doesn't really matter because there are enough other problems with the sock (it actually looks like it might end up in the shape of a sock, which I'm pretty pleased about, but other than that it... is pretty clearly a first knitting project) that if/when I get around to making another, it will probably match better in size if the number of rows are different, hee. Though I can see how low-key patterns would be easier to keep track of, now that you've explained.

Why not magic loop, just out of curiosity? (I had read someone years ago -- have no idea where at this juncture, I wasn't knitting then -- could have been on DW? -- who was very emphatic about magic loop, and I vaguely remembered that and so am trying it out with the current project. Though I am just doing one sock at a time :) )

A. spent some time today making crochet chains, so I will cross my fingers :)

[thistleingrey]

Heh, row count only because yarn can stretch, and yes, sometimes it's an advantage to go by fabric and not rows!

Magic loop is too much extra stuff in my way somehow and a lot of sliding stitches extra along needle/cord lengths. Two short circs are okay; one very short circ is sometimes okay (not if there's a lot of k2tog/k3tog, sl 2 psso, or ssk/sssk); dpns are better for me, honestly. Some people really like it because they knit loosely and it helps to reduce laddering.

Go, A. :)

[cahn]

Ah, that makes sense. I am kind of getting the feeling myself that now that my knitting is getting a bit more of a rhythm and therefore speed, I'm spending as much time sliding around stitches as I am knitting...