In Stitches: Slouchy Beanie

Arjan modeling his new hat beautifully

Here you can see the decreasing K2togs forming a spiral pattern.

I've gotten back into knitting again, having taken a break over the summer. Last year I learnt how to knit a simple beanie on straight needles by, essentially, knitting a rectangle of pattern and then joining the edges to form the hat. This year I got some circular needles from my mum (cheers Loz!) and I decided to try out some things on them.
The first thing I thought of was a better beanie pattern! On the circular needles it is so easy, every row is a 'right-side' row and there are no seams on the finished product.

I started with casting on 80 stitches on my 6.5mm circular needles and began with a knit 2, purl 2 ribbing. Once the ribbing is as long as you want it, just knit, knit knit! You can work out where the 'end of a row' is by finding the tail end of the yarn and following the stitches up (I hope this makes some kind of sense) or to make life easier you can use a stitch marker of some kind!
When you've reached a length about 1 inch shorter than the top of your head (you can measure this by trying on your hat-in-progress and seeing if it's big enough) you need to start decreasing stitches.
You should have 80 to start with:
On the first round knit 8 then knit 2 tog (K2tog), repeat.
Then do a normal round of knitting all stitches.
Next knit 7 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
Knit 6 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
Knit 5 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
Knit 4 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
Knit 3 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
Knit 2 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
Knit 1 then K2tog, repeat.
Knit all stitches.
K2tog, repeat.

(If all has gone well) You should end up with 8 stitches at this point, you now want to cut a good tail of yarn and join all of these stitches together by passing the tail through all of them, using a tapestry needle. You can then turn the hat inside out, tie a good knot in the end of the tail and trim it/weave in the end. And voila! You can admire your newly created slouchy beanie!

I hope this has made some vague kind of sense, it may be that only people with at least a basic knowledge of knitting can muddle through and work out what I'm trying to get at, but hey ho! Give it a try and comment if you find a problem.

In Stitches: Socks

I've recently gotten back into knitting whilst watching telly. I think I was spurred into it by the sudden change in weather that we had a couple of weeks ago (although we're now getting an indian summer) and I picked up a couple of pieces I'd started earlier in the year.
As a relatively inexperienced knitter, I didn't stray far from simple beany hats, scarves and... well that's pretty much it, but then I got a little more confident and decided I wanted to try something a little more testing. When I first found my mother-in-law's double pointed needles I was a little terrified at the prospect of so many pokey bits at once, but my mum suggested looking up a sock tutorial and giving it a go.
I perused the web for something simple enough and not completely daunting and came across this tutorial called Silver's Sock Class. I had a read through and was pleasantly surprised at how clearly everything was laid out, there were pictures, colour coordinated stitch numbers and needle by needle instructions.
I decided that Arjan would be the lucky owner of sock test run #1 and let him pick out some yarn for it. He went with an alternating white/grey/black and, with needles in hand, I went boldly into the unknown!

The first few rounds were hell, I won't lie. I was being stabbed left, right and centre and had an almost overwhelming urge to throw the whole thing across the room and cry. But I soldiered on and after a while began to get the hang of manoeuvring this point here and turning that point there to obtain the minimum wounds.
Now don't ask me what yarn weight I was using, I still have no idea how to work that out if I don't have the packaging in front of me, so I went with the sock weight instructions as I would rather the sock were a little too big than a little too small.
I don't remember how long it took me to complete sock #1, but I remember being fairly obsessive with it as I was terrified of putting it down and not being able to find where I was again.
When it was finished I was amazed at how sock like it was! There were no unsightly holes, lumps or bumps and more importantly, like Cinderella with her glass slipper, it fit Arjan perfectly!

After the stress of completing sock #1, I started sock #2 but then decided I needed a break to recuperate.... and didn't pick up my needles again for the next 6 months.
As previously mentioned, I decided to start knitting again a couple of weeks ago and, fearing that I had forgotten how to knit, I picked up an unfinished circle scarf with a simple knit 3, purl 3 pattern to ease myself back into it.
Upon the completion of the scarf (which may well feature in a post sometime soon) I knew it was time to pick up the tiny ring of ribbing that was the start of sock #2's ankle.
It went swimmingly! There were only a couple of incidents when I sat questioning the universe why I had done this to myself, but they were fleeting and before I knew it, I was grafting the toe of sock #2!
Nervously, I took both socks in hand and held them heel to heel and lo and behold, they were the same size!!

I had done the impossible (for me anyway) and created, with my own two hands, a pair of socks! I am so proud of myself, I feel like I could knit socks for an army!
Because I used thicker yarn, these are lovely, chunky, toasty socks and I think I'll buy some of those little sticky-pad-things for the sole so they're like slipper socks. Anyway, here they are modelled beautifully by their new owner!

Ankle ribbing 

Here you can see the diagonal line of decreasing stitches for the toe 

In Stitches: Cable Workshop

Today my mum, our friend, Elaine and I went to a cable knitting workshop at a yarn shop in York. The overall aim of the workshop was to make a cushion cover out of patches of different cable patterns (although there is a second part to this course that I won't be able to attend in which the cover is completed).
It was really good fun! There was us three and three other women and the girl running the course, who was lovely!
We just had to bring our own 4mm needles and then we were able to choose 4 balls of yarn to work with, amazingly they had two grey-browns and 2 muted blues that work perfectly with the room my parents just had decorated at home, so I grabbed those quick!
We were then given cable needles and print outs of 8 patterns and worded instructions.

We started with simple S and Z cables, then moved on to things a little more complicated like braids and honeycomb.

S-spin cable

 my yarns 

The first half of a diamond pattern (see the navy blue on the sample cushion)

Braid cable (it looks like plaits in your hair) 

 The sample cushion made by our instructor 

(s-spin, braid, honeycomb, diamond, z-spin, stockinette stitch, X's & O's, owls, moving cables)

S-spin cable

Owl cables

Yes, Owls! 

Noughts and Crosses 

Diamond Cable

As you can see, we only did small amounts of each patch during the workshop, so this is a work in progress! I'm hoping to finish this pretty soon, it's really satisfying work and I feel really proud of myself for creating such cool and difficult patterns! So, I will keep you posted and let you know when it's done!

We did the workshop at the wonderful Knit & Stitch and I'm hoping I'll be able to attend another soon.

In Stitches

Today I have not been a happy bunny (as my mum would say).
It started last night with shivers and nausea as I was trying to fall asleep and today it took all I had to just have some breakfast and a bath. So, I got in a fresh pair of jammies and back to bed with my current knitting project and a bunch of episodes of Modern Family to catch up on.

This is a circle scarf I started for myself back in October(?) but had to put on hold: a) because I ran out of yarn and b) because I had a whole family to make Christmas presents for!
It's currently about 1.8m long and 8cm wide (relaxed, 17cm when stretched) and I plan on knitting till I'm out of wool again then simply sewing it together.
I wanted a really long circle I could wind around my neck a good few times to layer it up for extra warmth as I already have a very wide, but short, cowl scarf that gets a little breezy.
I found this Saskia yarn in Wibra, the dutch equivalent of a Pound Land (sort of) for €1 and I really liked this fun, bright red. Yes, it's 100% acrylic but it's not scratchy (a pet hate of mine with scarves) and, most importantly, cheap!

I began this before I had done much experimentation with stitches and so it's just a basic 3 knit, 3 purl rib, but this means it's perfect for beginners to try. It's easy as there's no real pattern to follow, you can make it as wide and long as you like and you can play with the stitches for different size ribbing, plus because it's quite narrow you can see it grow pretty quickly which is always satisfying!

(top tip: want to remove that annoyingly beautiful nail polish you spent hours on the day before? Have a hot bath and it peels right off!)

I started by casting on 30 stitches using size 4 needles, not sure exactly what weight yarn this is (I threw out the labels) and I'm not great at following instructions for what needles you should use with what yarn etc, I just play around and make some swatches until I find what I like!
This seems to be working out ok so far and doesn't take much thought so it's perfect to do in front of the TV. I'll make another post when it's finished so you can see how it turns out.

I realised before I even started writing this post that for anyone who doesn't knit, this may be akin to me reading 'Power Tools Weekly', both boring and confusing, but I sincerely urge anyone who is not already a Stitch Bitch to give it a try! I think I may also try my hand at some very basic tutorials for absolute beginners just in case anyone has been inspired by this, so keep an eye out in the coming weeks.

I'm going back to my family home in York, UK, in a weeks time and whilst I'm there my mum and I are going to a knitting workshop where we'll learn how to make cable knit cushion covers! I am both excited and terrified for this as I have been put off by how complicated cable knitting looks, but not wanting to look like a complete novice in the class, I decided to test it out with surprising results! (here is a webcam picture I took just to show my mum, I was very pleased with myself)

Anyway, I'm going to crawl back in to my pit of self-pity now with a mug of tea and more Modern Family. I'm having to pity myself because Arjan is not here to do it for me (how rude), he has gone to a local radio station to talk about a night he is putting on this week for his old band, and will no doubt come back drunk in a few hours so it's best to just wait up for him, he'd wake me up if I was asleep anyway!