How much money have you spent on yarn you knitted into sweaters you never wear? How much time have you spent knitting, or fixing mistakes, only to stuff your finished sweaters out of sight forever? Perhaps one was a wrong style for your body shape, another was a wrong color for your complexion or your latest pattern had misleading photography. [...]
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Do you get nervous when faced with 300 cast on stitches? How many times do you count them? A massive first row or round of pattern stitches can be daunting. What if you run out of stitches or have leftovers at the end of the round? Where on earth in those 300 stitches did you make a knitting mistake? Let’s whittle that monster round down to size. [...] How can good knitting go bad despite every stitch being perfect? Even if you’re a master knitter who can turn yarn into any size, shape, or style of garment you please, how come you can’t wear those luscious things coming off your needles? It’s nothing wrong with the knitting. This knitting mistake is not knowing which styles enhance what’s best about your unique body shape. Do yours enhance what’s worst? Ouch! [...] Two things happen when your knitting gauge is too loose. One is critical as it determines how large your finished garment or project turns out. The other may or may not be critical as your fabric itself will change from what your pattern expects. How much too big is big? How will fabric behave if it’s looser than expected? [...] Did you ever design a sweater? How about a complicated Aran sweater full of cables? Here’s my inspiration: celebrating this year’s one-hundredth anniversary of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s birth. Here’s some desperation: knitting a sleeve that would fit Popeye the Sailor Man or Alley Oop. Have you seen their forearms? Yikes! [...] Did you ever fix a mistake in your knitting, then knit many more rows before you notice your fix isn’t so great? You now have three choices. A) Ignore the goof, because maybe it won’t be seen by a casual passerby. B) Fix it by laddering down a column of stitches to repair the goof, then reknit the column up with a crochet hook. Or C) rip everything out back to the error and redo. Which repair method did this knitting mistake take? [...] Cables can be such fun–until you make a knitting mistake. Maybe you crossed one the wrong way and didn’t notice until you knitted rounds and rounds on top of the mistake. Maybe you forget to cross one at all. Do you rip out all your work? Ignore the mistake and hope no one notices? Here’s a better way you might try, complete with a video. [...] The best knitters are fine matchmakers. Whether through intuition, luck or skill, they introduce a lovely yarn to an eligible pattern and what happens? Magic! How can you do the same so you never have another ruined sweater come off your needles? Let’s learn some wooing tricks so we avoid another knitting mistake. [...] There are two ways your knitting gauge can be all wrong–the number of stitches per inch and/or the number of rows per inch. Wrong gauge spells disaster for your sweater, no matter how well you knit each stitch. What do you do to fix your gauge so your project isn’t ruined from the get go? [...] Are you a knitter who can’t knit a pattern without changing something? Me, too. Perhaps the original designer’s urge to create a new pattern rubs off on us as we knit. Lots of people have made The Little Flower Doily by Bad Cat Designs out of all kinds of yarn. Most used the original edging of big crocheted loops that block out like airy petals. Nice, but here’s what I did different. [...] |
Helpful Links
Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Cast On Video Tutorial Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off Photo Tutorial TECHknitting Sweater Knitting Pattern Generator Meg Swansen explains Elizabeth's Percentage System on Math4Knitters podcast Knitmore Girls podcast on ratios #78 Knitmore Girls podcast on sizing, fit and ease Brass Needles podcast Episode 48 with Gail Carriger's segment on sweater sleeves (about 7 minutes in) Brass Needles podcast Episode 49 with Gail Carriger's segment on sweater necklines (almost 9 minutes in) Fabulous Crochet Designer Vashti Braha Start Knitting Socks for Soldiers  
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