I am terrible at blogging.

I quite often think about short posts that I could make, but don’t have pictures ready for them so I don’t bother. I usually think of my blog in the evening when it is too dark or I am too tired to take good pictures. So maybe I should just abandon that idea and post pictures when I have them and words when I have those.

I am working on a dress to wear to the wedding of some very good friends, near the end of June. The dress is Bayeux and I have been wanting to make it forever. I am using Three Irish Girls Velvet sock in Sproutling, from the Sharon days, and have finished the crochet pieces. I am halfway to the sleeve split on the knitted top part, and it is slow going. You would think that all that stockinette after the new-to-me crocheting would be easy, but I was getting gauge with my square needles and the joins on those really slow me down. I have tried a couple of other needles, and am now using my trusty old bamboo Hiya Hiya’s with the 60″ cables, which are much faster, although the cable is long and annoying.

I hope to have progress photos to add in the next few days!

Size really doesn’t matter. I promise.

I am a loose knitter. When I write a pattern, I include the size of needle that I used to knit the sample, because that is what designers do. It doesn’t make sense to suggest an arbitrary size of needle, that may or may not work for someone to get gauge with. It makes sense to list what worked for me.

A lot of people don’t knit loosely, and when they read the needle size that I used, they get worried. I get pm’s on Ravelry asking politely whether the size listed was a typo. I get questions about whether or not the item will come out extremely small, on that size of needles?

I see posts on Ravelry about swatching, and whether it is even worth trying a smaller needle when gauge can’t be achieved because who knits that weight of yarn on that size of needles?

Let me tell you. When it comes to knitting needles, SIZE DOESN’T MATTER. What matters, when following a pattern, is getting gauge. Gauge means how many stitches and rows are worked within a given measurement, and it is important to match the gauge intended by the designer if you would like your finished object to resemble the one that caught your eye in the pattern pictures. When you are wearing your finished socks/sweater/hat/ pants, no one is going to come up to you to admire the size of needles that you used. They will admire the way the finished item looks, because THAT is what matters.

So don’t let needle size worry you. If it hurts your hands to use the specific needles that you need to achieve gauge with your chosen yarn, then yes, walk away. But I can’t think of any other reason to get hung up on needle size.

Carry on, brave knitter! Use the yarn that you like and the tools that you need, and if it happens that someone makes fun of how small your needles are, you have two options. You could make a witty comment about the size of the boat not being important, it’s the motion of the ocean, or you could poke them with the needle. Those small ones are sharp!

Trisha

Well, who needs a fancy blog, anyway.

Hello! I started this blog a while ago now, but didn’t get to work on it while we had family in town visiting. In my mind, this page looks bright, clean, unique and interesting, with pretty thumbnails down the side that link you to my pattern pages on Ravelry, with Buy It Now buttons conveniently located and button shaped underneath each one.

Somehow though, I cannot figure out how to do that, so I will just get to posting while I try to figure that out. I am going to have to ask my kids for help. They are, like all kids, so much better at this stuff than I am.

Anyway, todays post is about stitch markers. How and when to use them in knitting. There are a lot of types of stitch markers out there, and the only way to know which type you prefer is to try a bunch, but make sure that they are smooth and won’t catch on the knitting. You don’t want the fabric looking fuzzy or torn because of a sharp angle on the markers you use. If you don’t know which type to try first, let me recommend this type from Fripperies and Bibelots, which are also available from my favorite online yarn store, Smitten Yarns.

My mum was here this weekend, and was doing a top secret test knit, so I can’t tell you much about it, but I can tell you this. My mum is a newish knitter. She took it up in November this past year, and has since knit an impressive number of dish cloths, in various patterns and types, but she had yet to knit lace, and has mostly knit with cotton. She has been able to crochet ever since I can remember, but doesn’t do much of it. The pattern she was knitting this weekend had 2 patterned rounds which, other than the fact that there were no yarn overs to create holes, were pretty much lace rounds, and a bunch of rest, or all knit, rounds. At the end of the first of these patterned rounds, she found that she had the wrong number of stitches left to complete the last repeat, and so together, we looked back at the round to find the problem. Of course we found it right at the beginning, and she had to tink back. I realized then that I should have offered her some stitch markers, because if she had been marking off each repeat, she would have known sooner that she had made a mistake. So I gave her the markers, she kept on knitting, and so did I. A while later, I looked down to see that 2 of her markers were on the table in front of her, and the other 9 were on her needles. I asked why, and she said because she hadn’t gotten to where they go yet. I was confused, because I knew that she had completed 2 more patterned rounds since I had given them to her, and that they had been placed at one time. It turned out that she was placing the markers on each patterned round, and removing them during the next round, which was all knit. She didn’t think that she needed them then, because there was no need to count.

A lot of you will already know this, but some of you might not. Usually, stitch markers can be placed to divide the repeats of your stitch pattern, and then left there until the project is done. If there are 11 stitches to your repeat, you want them to be the same 11 stitches all the time, so that it all lines up. (There are of course exceptions to this, but those will be explained in the pattern that you are following.)

Another thing that often stumps beginner knitters is that the markers do not add to your stitch count. They don’t become stitches themselves, they don’t get worked into the fabric where they will stay for all time. They are simply slid from the left needle to the right, as they are reached, and the knitting continues.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion that is out there about these useful tools.

Happy knitting!

Trisha

Hello and thanks for stopping by!

Hello my friends, and thanks for coming by to check out my new blog. I have been thinking of doing this for a while, and let me tell you, I do not speak blog. I am not so sure that I am setting this up the way I think I am. But over time, this will all work out ok, and you will be able to read about what I am up to, with the knitting, designing, and whatever else I feel like writing about. You will also be able to follow links to buy my patterns. Please let me know if you find things that aren’t working. I promise to talk about more interesting things next time!