Finishing the Hat, part 2

And we're done!!

Finishing the Hat, part 1

Here's the penultimate video in this hat series.  I made two this morning, but to avoid frustration, I'll post the second one tomorrow!

One thing I'm not sure I made clear is that depending on the number of stitches in your project, after a decrease round or two you may have to rearrange your stitches so that you again have an even number of stitches on each needle.  I find it easier to do this before working a round, but you can do it as you go along too.

Steam Blocking Knitting, part 3 (video 2)

And the second one:

Steam Blocking Knitting, part 2 (video 1)

The first of the videos I shot yesterday:

Steam Blocking Knitting: part 1

Well, it seems I just can't stop making videos now, LOL!  Actually, I've been meaning to do these for quite a while, and yesterday morning I had the perfect combination of some knitting waiting to be blocked, some time to make a video and a non-cloudy sky!

Blocking and finishing are the two most common things people ask me about re: knitting.  I've often been surprised at the mildly shocked reaction I sometimes get when I talk about steam blocking.  Maybe it's unorthodox - I don't know.  But I figure if it's OK to iron my pants and shirts, it should be OK to do my knitting too, albeit in a modified way.  And I do seem to remember Jared Flood admitting on his blog quite a few years ago that he irons his knits.

I've been steam blocking my knitting with my iron exclusively for the last three years or so.  Before that I used to pin my pieces onto a blocking board to the required finished measurements and spritz them with water, then leave them til they dried.  However, depending on the fabric, I did sometimes use steam.   What finally tipped the balance for me is a lovely cream-colored sweater I pin-blocked that got rust stains in the selvedge from the pins :-(  I bought some stainless steel pins that were supposed to be made for blocking, but they were so thick and dull from the get-go that they didn't want to go through my knitting and into my board.  So I just defaulted to steam.

Most of my knitting is done with natural fibers (and among those, mostly wool and cotton).  If I do use a yarn with synthetic, it's generally a small percentage.  So bear that in mind if you try out this technique.  I probably wouldn't do this on a 100% synthetic yarn.  (That's not true - I'd try it, but I'd be extremely careful not to melt anything.)  That said, I've steam blocked sweaters I made from Rowan All Seasons Cotton, which is 60% cotton and 40% acrylic.  As always, if there's any doubt, try it out on a swatch first.

I really love steam blocking for a lot of reasons:
     * it's fast
     * I don't forfeit a lot of space to drying knit pieces
     * a lot of times I get a better finish with steaming than with spray blocking
     * I don't have to worry about my soaking wet knitting stretching out 
     * I can block my work as I go along, to give me an idea of the finished fabric

So if you've never done it before, go ahead and try it out!  It's not as scary as it seems!  You can steam block to your finished measurements just like you can when pinning out a wet piece.  If you're scared to do it on a sweater, try it out on something like a scarf that doesn't have to keep specified proportions.

And now, after that lengthy introduction, here are today's videos:



EDIT:  Urrrrgh!  I waited ALL day for the videos to "process,"  and this morning they STILL won't load onto Blogger.  REALLY tired of checking to see if they're ready yet!  So I'm going to publish them here through the back door, by posting them separately in two posts to follow.

But here are the before and after blocking photos, and a picture of the piece I'm working on:

A Post on DPNs

Circular knitting on DPNs is a little different than with a circular needle, so I made a video showing some things to keep in mind.   I mention having the work on 3 or 4 needles, but you can certainly have your work distributed on any number of needles greater than 3 - you'd just need to buy more sets of needles, since DPNs usually come in sets of 5.

I've been having a little trouble with YouTube the last few days because somehow I ended up with 2 accounts.  (I think Google automatically made me a new YouTube account a while ago which is linked to Google+)  All the videos I've posted before this one are on my old "channel" but this one posted to the new "channel."  I'm hoping to figure out a way to consolidate them, but I don't have a whole lot of extra time to deal with it right now, so I just wanted to let you all know!

Cheaters Sometimes Prosper

Here's the second video I made yesterday while starting my hat.  This one is even less rehearsed than the first, but I think you'll get the idea. Just imagine we're in your living room having a conversation.  Feel free to offer me a cup of coffee.  Or some cake :-)

Here I show you how to fix a twist in your first row rather than have to rip the whole thing out and start over.  When you're new to knitting, it's easy to think that everything has to be done right.  But there are lots of things that can be fixed on the go, and this is one of those things. 

What I didn't mention in the video is that this only works when you do it on your very first row.  If you knit past the first row with a twist in your work, you will end up with a mobius, which is a whole different (and sometimes desirable) thing.

Hat Tricks - finally!!

I promised some beginner hat-knitting tips weeks ago, and today I finally got around to making the first video!  Sorry it took so long - my schedule has been more full than usual lately, but I think things are slowly getting back to normal.

The tips I'm planning on showing can be used for any knitting in the round, but I'm making another of the Mock Rib Watch Cap.  I really love the style, and it's a free pattern.  I also found it very concise and easy to follow for a beginner - great if this is your first hat in the round.

Bear in mind that, like all my videos, this is completely off the cuff - rehearsing and editing are for sissies, LOL!  Actually, they're for people with more know-how and better equipment than me ;-)  But I do know a thing or two about knitting, so I hope you'll be lenient.

Also:  pay no mind to the ambulance sirens in the background!  A fact of city life!