Math lesson

Gray Mohair

I had one very fat ball of gray synthetic mohair yarn. I used size 8 needles and cast on 20 stitches. Then I knit garter stitch for five feet. This made a wonderful fashionable scarf for either a man or woman. It was just what I needed for the staff Christmas party. It took about two hours to knit.

Since I still had half a ball left, I decided to knit another scarf from the same yarn. This time I cast on 24 stitches and knit for five feet. I am sending this scarf to my Dad. Gray mohair is classic and fashionable look for either men or women. The best thing about this scarf is that it looks homemade.

Wooden Needles

I can't believe I have never used wooden needles before. Today I bought some at Urban Yarns in Vancouver. There was an array of different types but I bought the least expensive ones. They are made by the River John Needle Company in Nova Scotia and only cost $10.95. I love how they feel.

I wanted to try out some other needles for our knitting group so I went to A Touch of Wool on Dunbar and bought some short plastic ones of different colours. They were a bit less expensive than the wooden ones. The main thing was that I checked to see that the ends are pointy enough. I have one pair of needles at home that are not pointy and it is very difficult to knit with them. I don't want sharp points but very blunt or dull points are impossible.

Knitting with pencils

My friend has an idea for knitting with pencils. She put the wool around the pencils and cast on. We don't have enough pairs of needles today. Pencils are not bad but I like needles better. The most important thing is to make sure that your knitting is loose.

Knitting with Dog Fur

Connie has a scarf made from the fur of her dog. The dog is a Samoyed, with long white fur. Every year she combs and brushes out the undercoat. She saved the wool and washed it. She found a woman to spin the fur into yarn. The dog fur was mixed with some wool to make it stronger. Sheep's wool makes a strong yarn and the dog fur makes it soft. Connie had another scarf made of all dog's fur and in some places the yarn broke.

Connie's scarf is furry and white, soft as a kitten. She wore her scarf like a shawl and she also wore a necklace made out of Swarovski crystal from Austria. She looked fantastic!

Pull from the Centre

Don't ask about the 'nb nb' post. It is not a special knitting term. Somehow the computer at work had a glitch as I was posting and now it can't be deleted.

I had bought some large balls of yarn from Zellers and had to wind them off into smaller balls today for our knitting group. There was some general discussion about how to wind a ball of wool, and then Connie remarked that my balls had wool coming from the centre. She seemed to think that was better than the other way where the ball bounces around and unravels as you knit.

I held up my left thumb and secured the end of the wool in my left hand, holding it in with my 3 smaller fingers. Then I started to wind the wool coming from the large ball around my thumb gradually turning my thumb back and forth and winding the wool around at different angles to create a well-balanced small ball of yarn. The original end comes out of the centre. The nice thing is that you can put an elastic around the outside of the ball and keep it all together.

Pearls

Using one of the ideas mentionned in my last post, my daughter completed a super skinny scarf, 2 and 1/2 inches wide, knit with size 9 needles, in light lime green camel hair wool. Very loopy. Then she trimmed the ends with dangles of pearls, which we bought to trim her costume last fall. It will be a gift for a friend and only took one evening to make.

This scarf can be worn as a belt or a necktie, very fancy. The pearls were bought at the fabric store and come by the yard sewn onto a narrow ribbon.

Collecting the Patterns

I am knitting a little here and there and sticking to the most simple patterns. So when I saw this I knew it was for me.

The Blue Blog, Patterns with Beginner Scarves shows the best little scarves to make with no training. Great for introducing children and hesitant adults to knitting.

Here is the site to learn about socks! My daughter wants to make a pair of socks. I think it is too difficult.

I've already made a couple of scarves getting ready for this Christmas. My daughter is knitting some too. Since the nubbly wool is all the rage and you can use large needles, size 10, mostly, it takes no time at all.

I knit a trangle scarf from a shimmery blue green shiny ribbon stuff and dropped a few stitches near the end when I was unpicking my casting off. Too early I decided. The dropped stitches unraveled down several rows and across. This shiny yarn doesn't catch at all. I had to unravel the whole scarf and start over. Amazingly it only took a couple of days to reknit. Since I only knit about one hour a day that is not much.