crocheting and knitting

[cahn]

I have had this draft for a while and I guess I should post it??

Knitting:

-So, um, yeah, knitting. It's... really fun! I can see why everyone loves it. Now that I've actually got the rhythm of it (which I never did when I tried fifteen years back) I find it extremely soothing. Unfortunately it is really tough on my hands, rather more so than crochet -- I think partially because the motions tend to be a little smaller than crochet? but probably also because I am probably doing something weird with my posture when knitting that I need to fix. So anyway unless/until I can fix that, I have to keep knitting at a minimum.

-ugh it's such a pain to fix (or rip back) knitting mistakes! This is a bad combination with my short attention span, both in terms of making a ton of mistakes in general and in terms of wanting to play with learning to do new things with knitting which I then promptly mess up. In principle I know that I should be putting in lifelines everywhere. In practice, being a careless sort of person, I think maybe I just won't make anything right now where mistakes matter that much :P

Crocheting:

-I've got 15 out of 19 of the hexagons I was crocheting last time I talked about crocheting, and I have, err, 21 out of 100 squares done of the hue shift blanket I'm making for A. (Two of which were done during my parents' visit.) The hexagons will definitely get done because I love working on it so much; the hue shift blanket will take forever because it's much less fun -- partially because it's almost entirely single crochet back loop, which I have decided I'm not fond of, but mostly because for some reason I keep ending up with one too many or one too few stitches, so I have to count every single row until near the end of the square (ugh) and even with counting I still end up wrong and I've had to rip back substantial work in most of the squares at this point. (why so hard?? idk why I can't do it right!) For a while I was seriously thinking it might actually be quicker to knit the whole thing, except for that annoying bit about it being harder on my hands. But every time I finish a square I'm pleased by how it's coming along, so there's that.

-But I took a substantial break from both of those to work on baby blankets -- two of my friends are having babies. One of them it was going to be really convenient if I could finish by the time school starts, so I was focusing mostly on that. (The other mother isn't due until Christmas, so I feel like I have more time for that one :) )

random thoughts on blankets and yarn:

-...Mostly this whole baby-blanket thing is convincing me that thistleingrey is right that it's a good idea to gift hats rather than blankets. :P Blankets take a long time and I haven't got the hang of what I need to think about when selecting a pattern and yarn, so the one blanket ended up kind of small and the other one will be super duper heavy, whoops.

-One of the blankets (the small one I just finished) I made with some gradient cotton-acrylic yarn (fingering-weight) I bought on a whim because it was so pretty -- this is the first time I've crocheted with even partial cotton and, as thistleingrey warned me, it is quite hard on my hands. I made it to the end of the blanket, but I guess it's good to know I should not be getting a whole lot of this yarn in the future :P (it's so pretty though!)



-My late mother-in-law knitted blankets (fairly large blankets, too! significantly larger than either of my baby blankets are going to be) for each of her grandkids when they were born, and while I knew it was a labor of love before, I have a whole new appreciation for it now that I know how to knit <3 I wish I could tell her that! A. and I call his a "blanket hug."

-as mildred_of_midgard warned, so it has come to pass: I've started looking around and getting more interested in more expensive fancier yarn :P But, perhaps fortunately for my pocketbook, I can't buy any of it yet because I have all these other projects to do first! (And while I am totally up for starting another new project -- see also very short attention span -- we don't have any more room for yarn until I use some of this up :P
unless I throw out some of the kids toys
which honestly probably needs to be done anyway)

(but, like, if you have recs for yarn that's, oh, I'm mostly looking in the $10-$15/100g region, but let's say below $25/100g, especially fingering-weight, I'm not saying I wouldn't maybe sneak out some toys and buy some anyway be interested)

Comments

[allmyfansquees]

I'm so delighted to hear about your various crafting projects! I've pretty much completed the crochet hexagon blanket (although I've cheated and downsized it to 12 hexagons for a blanket for a new forthcoming nibling). I'm now just swapping out colours to try and get the placement I want before I commit to stitching them all together! It did take at least three tries to nail down the pattern (round 19 was a PITA for some reason) but once I did it was such a pleasure to make those. If I get hold of some more wool the right size I might tackle a full-size version for myself :D

(And I am also very interested to see if anybody has recs for pretty, not-too-expensive yarn...)

[cahn]

Ohhhh that's so great! I would love to see a pic of yours if possible! (but I know pics are hard to do on DW so no pressure :) ) Also once you stitch it together I'd love to know if you have any tips, I don't have a lot of practice in that so I'm kind of dreading that part.

I didn't find round 19 any worse than the others, but I did keep making mistakes on random rounds (different ones each time, but often because I'd forget one of the extra fpdcs when it was (fpdc, ch 2, fpdc)) -- eventually I got tired of ripping back and just figured out a way to fix them and kept going, so if you look closely I think almost every single hexagon is not fully 6-fold symmetric :) But it definitely went a lot faster after the first several, and I reeeeeally like making these :D I'm so glad you are enjoying it too!

[allmyfansquees]

So this is very (VERY) late but this is hopefully a link to three measly photos of the final (unblocked and thus rather messy) blanket. Thankfully it did get finished in time as the nibling arrived early, as seems to be standard for my sister, though after her second baby she has firmly declined the option to test the theory with a third!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RDcTCErq3sTGCwxi9

I went with mattress stitch to join them and the result was pretty much invisible, though I did, inevitably, mess up some of the joins where I forgot I was working with hexagons instead of squares...

[cahn]

Oh gooooorgeous, thank you for coming back and linking me!! What yarn did you use? I bet your sister loved it <3 ETA: And CONGRATULATIONS to your sister of course!!

...and lol to being very late, I am even later because I STILL have not finished mine. I have actually had the very last hex on the hook for literally months now, partially because I keep getting distracted by other projects but I know really because I'm trying to delay the moment when I have to figure out joining :P :)

[thistleingrey]

For my part I went to hats so that I'd definitely finish before the baby arrived, heh--I'm fine with deadlines for work, but I didn't want them for crafting (and sometimes babies are early, etc.).

The pic is really pretty!

Do you find that you "read" the stitches for crochet and/or knit, if you look back at the prior row, or is it more a matter of counting? It took me forever to read knitting (multiple years), which made checking slower and harder and thus meant bigger mistakes, more ripping back.

[cahn]

Thank you! Ha, yeah, this deadline was... not my favorite :)

Hmm, I think for crochet I read the stitches or try to, generally speaking -- I don't like counting very much, and so I will try to read stitches as much as I can, and figure out patterns/what the designer has in mind, to avoid having to count so much :) Although with big swathes of the same stitch, sometimes I'm not good at detecting whether I've put in an extra stitch or skipped a stitch unless I count (and only then can I go back and be like, oh, right), which is part of what's so frustrating about the hue shift blanket, because it's almost allllll back loop single crochet so there's no way really to figure out from any sort of patterning what's going on. That being said, I am realizing that my general mode of failure for this one is missing one at the end, soooo if I'm careful there maybe I'm okay -- I just finished a square where I didn't have to frog, yay!

For knit I'm not nearly so good at reading stitches. I can tell the difference between knit and purl on the previous row now, but that's about it.

[thistleingrey]

Makes sense--I do some probable-intention visual lumping, too. Those coilless pins (like safety pins but with a rounded bulb shape at the non-pointed/fastener end, no coil) that come with some clothing make good stitch markers, I find, or one can buy them specifically. Sometimes I use them to mark a stitch near (not at) the beginning of a particular row/round so that I won't have to recount everything repeatedly, or to mark "here are 20 stitches" or even 50, interval-wise. It takes a few extra seconds to remove them again, but that's usually faster than recounting, for me! (Near but not at beg/rnd so that I can see more easily which row is actually marked--sometimes the edge stitch stretches a bit on a flat piece.) I mark incr/decr intervals for sleeves this way, especially, or Reason's cardigans would be complete wrecks. :)

[cahn]

ohhhhhh! Stitch markers at useful intervals at the beginning/ends/set-intervals of rounds! What a ridiculously brilliant idea, thank you! :D

[thistleingrey]

Happy to pass it on from others' suggestions--I didn't think of it myself, heh.

[mildred_of_midgard]

The yarn expert I'm married to says she first needs the answers to these follow up questions:

1. What kind of fiber? Wool? Cotton? Acrylic? Other?

2. What kind of pattern? Solid, variegated, gradient?

And then she can rec you things.

She says her favorite yarn, if you want merino, is Malabrigo. It's very light, so sock weight is very light fingering weight, and if you want regular fingering weight, buy the sport weight. She says the texture is the softest wool ever. It's not cheap, but it's not outrageous, approximately in your price range.

But for more specific recs, she needs more data. ;)

-ugh it's such a pain to fix (or rip back) knitting mistakes!

Hahaha I hear this ALL the time!

Anyway, I've been wondering how your yarn crafts were going, and I'm glad for the update. :)

[cahn]

:D Thank you, mildred's wife! <3

1. Not cotton (which tears up my hands) and not pure acrylic (which I have enough of already), unless you know of a nice fingering-weight gradient acrylic that has a reasonably long color change and doesn't have a sparkly polyester bit that runs through it? (I've been using Hobbii's Moonlight/Universe and I really like it, and the color changes are just right in length, but it is a bit sparkly even for me.)

So, I think that leaves... wool, merino wool, alpaca?? maybe like bamboo or tencel, idk?? (I'm okay with blends with acrylic or whatever... for now ;) )

Also, I have a fairly large preference for things that can be washed in a washing machine :P I am willing to get stuff that is hand-wash only, but it will restrict what I can make from it -- I am not making socks from non-superwash wool because I will 100% forget and put them in the washing machine. But a shawl or blanket, maybe...

2. Gradients forever!! But I also love the kind — I think it’s called tonal — where it's a solid color but it sort of varies around that color, if you know what I mean? And variegated too! Uniform solid colors are the least interesting to me -- but I do have some patterns that need something along those lines. So, all of the above :D

3. I have seen references to Malabrigo online! It looks really pretty. It's good to know you like it and it is going up on my list (...there's a shawl I've been eyeing that would look really pretty in Malabrigo, hmmm). Thank you for the info about the weight!

[mildred_of_midgard]

The yarn consultant says:

So, there's Whirl, by Scheepjes, which is a fingering weight cotton/acrylic blend with super long colour changes, no sparkles (and slides more easily than cotton bc of the acrylic, so may be easier on your hands) It costs about 28-30 dollars, but comes in a 1000 m ball, which is enough to make a good sized shawl or even a top, depending on the size. They also have a wool version, but other than that i don't know of many yarns that are fingering+gradient.
https://www.scheepjes.com/en/whirl-817/

In case you really don't want cotton, there's this one https://www.scheepjes.com/en/our-tribe-2545/ (some are semi-solid or tonal, some gradient, some solid, click on each colour to see how it works up). I would browse around the Scheepjes website bc their yarns are pretty good and most are cheap, and they also have lots of free crochet patterns etc

As an alternative to acrylic you can use an acrylic/nylon blend. It's about the same price and much softer:
https://www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/sirdar-snuggly-4-ply-50g-all-colours
https://www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/sirdar-snuggly-baby-crofter-4-ply-all-colours


Fyberspates has a superwash line and their semi-solid colours are really nice. Slightly more expensive than Malabrigo, but it's actually a fingering weight rather than light fingering, and maybe sturdier (4 ply = fingering in the UK):

https://www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/fyberspates-vivacious-4-ply-sunshine-604-100

I don't use bamboo or alpaca, so I don't really know, sorry.

Other resources:

ravelry.com (lots of resources, free patterns etc)

https://yarnsub.com/

woolwarehouse.co.uk (prices are good even w/ shipping from the UK, great selection)

Good prices, lots of choices (but read the reviews for each yarn):
https://www.knitpicks.com/

[cahn]

Oh my goodness, these are just gorgeous, thank you!! That Fyberspates and Our Tribe are both wow. I am going to have to get some of both of those <3 (I think I'd actually seen Our Tribe before as the recommended yarn for a pattern I was interested in, but that was back when I was being really cheap because I didn't know what I was doing :D ) And Whirl looks lovely too!

I did not know acrylic/nylon was softer than just acrylic! I am ALL ABOUT soft :D

Also some of that knitpicks yarn is really pretty, though I see what you mean about reading the reviews :P

Thank you so much!! This will keep me busy for a while :DDDD

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yay, she's glad you like! Btw, she was disappointed that you didn't want cotton, because that is her favorite and her specialty, and I said, "Well, how do you keep it from tearing up your hands?" and she said, "Your friend is probably using [...] kind of cotton yarn, and she should be using [...] kind, because [...]."

And I said, "Can you write all that down? Cause that went whooosh! through my brain."

And she wrote it on the white board on the fridge, and I will take a picture and email it to you because that's easier than typing it all up. ;)

[lokifan]

Oh, the blanket's so pretty!

[cahn]

Thank you!!