Fetching on Knitty - Clarity on Thumb, I Hope

Alice was having problems with my instructions for making the opening for the thumb and emailed me for some help (by the way, it's so cool that people other than Sandy and my sister are reading this blog).  So I quickly whipped up this video.  It was a quick knit - I went straight into the thumb opening after only one cable and a few rounds of the 4k1p pattern; on the real one, the piece would be bigger than the one I have on the video.

After seeing the video, I'm pretty sure that I'll have to make another one since some of the shots were out of frame - the camera was lower than I had thought.  

Pretty in Punk Review

To tell you the truth, the cover was the reason why I bought this knitting book.  The mohawk hat looked like a challenge especially with the intarsia union jack.  The hat pattern is the signature pattern from the two author's online knitting store, knit-head.com.  The book, Pretty in Punk, is what I see is progressing in knitting - the move to fun, patterns that appeals to younger knitters or young at heart knitters (I'm one of the latter).  No longer is knitting about dull scarfs and sweaters. 

The two authors, Alyce Benevides and Jaqueline Milles, probably started  knitting like all of us with a simple stockinette scarf pattern.  But their creativity and resourcefullness lead them to create pieces that they wanted to wear, and in this case it was punk and a bit of goth.

Initially, I had thought that I would tackle the mohawk hat for my first attempt at intarisa, but after skimming the pattern and realizing I had no idea what intarsia entailed, I decided on the wrist band.

Not bad for my first attempt at knitting with colour.  The book is a good one with lots of interesting patterns.  The only thing is that it was lacking in instructions and pictures on how to do some of the skills.  I had to use the good-ol internet to learn how to intarsia.  This is deffinately not a beginner book.  I would say intermediate or for the beginner that wants a challenge (again, I am the latter).

It's Roll-Up-The-Rim Time!

Roll Up the Rim season is here!  It seems that it came a little earlier than usual, but I'm not complaining.  It started last Saturday when I spotted a woman crossing the street carrying the distinctive red and yellow rollup cup from Tim Horton's.  I stopped my car, rolled down my window and asked her if it was indeed a rollup cup.  she confirmed it and added that she wouldn't of gotten an extra large coffee otherwise.  Sandy was in the car with me and instead of sharing in the joy of the rollup season, she just looked over at me and said, "you're such a loser."  But no, she is wrong, I am a winner, we all are winners because it's Roll-Up-The-Rim Season!

Center Pull Ball - Power Version!

Yup, it was inevitable that power tools would make it's way into knitting (especially when I knit).  This is my way of making a center pull ball of yarn - it's the manly way.  You can do it the old fashion way, by hand, or you can buy one of those mechanical yarn winders.  But if you have a drinking straw and a power drill, you can wind yarn faster and have fun doing it.

This is what you'll need:

1. power drill - doesn't have to be an impact driver like the one I have; any power drill will do - 

variable speed would be a plus.

2. drinking straw - I used one of the straws you get when you buy bubble tea cuz it's big.

3. something to connect the straw to the drill - I used a connector piece that came with my drill that lets it connect to 

different screwdriver heads (and a bubble tea straw, as you can see here).

so basically I took the connector piece, wrapped some electrical tape around it so that it would make a tight fit in the straw.  Then I poked a hole in the straw using a knitting needle (in hindsight I should have poked the hole a little bit closer to one end of the straw).  Feed the yarn through the hole and down one end of the straw - if you poked the hole closer to one end, this part will be easy since you can probably thread the yarn through.  I needed to use a 

needle.  With the yarn sticking out the one end, connect the straw to the connector piece and attach the whole thing to your drill.  Now the fun part!  Let'R rip!  You might want to go slowly at first though.  Try not to pull too tightly on the yarn as you're winding it - this will make it easier to pull it off the straw when you're done.

And there you go, a center pull ball of yarn - looks kinda like a football.

Center Pull Ball of Yarn

I found this cool site - KnittingHelp.com.  So obvious, why didn't I think of typing this into google earlier?  It's a great site because it has videos!  I've tried to make some videos of me knitting, but I keep making knitting mistakes whenever I'm taping.  Anyway, KnittingHelp.com has videos of basic knitting techniques as well as more advanced techniques like initersia - something I gotta try one day.

The most useful skill, I think, is to create a center pull ball of yarn.  Sure the yarn you get from 

the store is already center pulled but it's a pretty big and loose ball.  Somehow, I usually manage to create a tangled mess when I try to knit directly from an untouched, straight from the store, ball of yarn.  Rewinding the yarn into a small, snuggly wound ball help minimize tangles.  A bonus in all of this is that you can buy more yarn since the yarn balls are so much smaller!