Steeking (aka setting your knitting up to be cut, in order to turn a knitted-in-the-round piece into a flat piece, for example to open up the front of a cardigan) tends to scare otherwise bold and courageous people. It feels vaguely wrong to take a pair of scissors to your knitting.Really, it shouldn't. Honestly. It used to scare me, until I tried it a few times, at which point I thought, "Is that all?" The secret is this: *whispers* Knitting doesn't especially mind being cut vertically. (Cut Continue Reading
Search Results for: Steek
Cutting a steek, and blocking your knitting
(I know, I promised part two of previous post. But a stinking cold has interfered. It's coming.) So, the knitted blog header is knitted. Just need to crochet some flowers for its edge. I thought I'd share a few photos of the knitting/steeking/blocking process with you, though, because not so very long ago words such as 'steek' terrified me, and words such as 'blocking' confused me, and I want to prove to anyone similarly anxious that like pretty much anything in knitting, it's not actually Continue Reading
Craft With Style(craft)
Hello again, my Fine Fibrous Friends. Speaking of fibrous, it's been a blissfully yarny time of late. For the first time since covid trampled on everyone's plans with all the malevolent energy of an overtired toddler, we've had a proper face-to-face meet-up of the Stylecraft Blogstars. Stylecraft did their utmost to keep things Zooming along during the pandemic, but... it wasn't the same. Absolutely not Stylecraft's fault at all. They did their very best. Stoopid covid. Anyway, the weekend Continue Reading
Pride Comes Before A Fall: Here’s The Pride.
Hello, my Fine Fibrous Friends. First, may I apologize for accidentally giving the false impression last post that I was injured or ill. The knitting-in-bed-with-a-view photo was purely to show off the self-indulgent bliss of our brief jaunt to the Brecon Beacons. And the throwaway comment about the universe's capacity for dumping excrement on one's world was because I'm a cynical old aardvark. At the time of typing, all was well on the distant and weird Planet Twisted, even though we've got Continue Reading
Snail Porridge
A hundred hearty hellos to you, my Fine Fibrous Friends. I've chattered here lately about the cardigan design commissioned by Novita yarns. At the risk of triggering yarny catastrophe via sheer hubris, I'm pleased with the result. It's a combination of stranded colourwork, gentle-shaping-without-messing-up-the-motifs, and four (four! FOUR!) steeks. For those of you who were asking about an English-language version of the pattern, I've been told that three months after it's published in Finnish Continue Reading
In Which The Universe Laughs Heartily At My Expense
Hello my Fine Fibrous Friends, and thank you for your kindness in response to my last post. Your words have been a comfort. Seriously. Meanwhile, this week's life lesson has been, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. Also, WHEN YOU'RE IN A HOLE, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY RECONSIDER YOUR URGE TO DIG. With a side order of, TRUST THE DILIGENT WORK YOU'VE PUT INTO DESIGNING AND DON'T MAKE STUPID IMPULSIVE DECISIONS LATE AT NIGHT. Would you like to see details of my humiliation? Of course you would. This blog Continue Reading
Finishing School
(And yes, there will be more about nålbinding in a future post...) In the meantime, shall we have a book review? Sixth & Spring has just published Finishing School, A Master Class For Knitters, by Deborah Newton. Yes, I was given this book for free, so clearly you can't trust a word I say. But whilst I turn down most of the books I'm offered for review (it's tough, being a yarny blogger), I jumped at this one because it plays to one of my biggest weaknesses. Finishing is not my Continue Reading
To The Mill, Again.
Twice a year, the Stylecraft Blogstars meet at Stylecraft's beautiful old mill in West Yorkshire for a weekend of yarn, chatter, food, wine, friendship, scenery, and news. Yeah, the experience really is exactly as gruelling as it sounds. Our scheduled meetup in February was postponed due to snow. (PLEASE STOP LAUGHING, Canadian/Scandinavian readers - our eccentric little country is ill-equipped to cope with frozen water.) Instead, we met in March. I took my camera so that you could come Continue Reading
A Thing
I've finished knitting a thing. It's a big thing. 110cm (43") square, to be precise. You're looking at 123 500 stitches which, it's fair to say, took a good while to complete. It's made of Jamieson's of Shetland Spindrift, and it weighs in at 500 grams. That's a kilometre of yarn. It was knitted in the round with a steek, which I then cut. (Steeks aren't as scary as folk think, I promise. Here's a quick how-to.) I used 3mm needles for the stranded work, then 2.5mm needles for the Continue Reading
Winter. With Yarn.
Hello, dear knitters and crocheters, and runners, and my mum, and people who inexplicably landed here whilst searching for a blog about oxyacetylene welding. Come and sit with me beside the fire, because it's way too cold out there. I hope you've brought your yarn. (No, please don't start oxyacetylene welding in my sitting room. The blog you're looking for is that way. --> ) I've been reading about all sorts of bonkers meteorological shenanigans lately, from brain-melting heat in Continue Reading