The latest adventure in my knitting odyssey has been learning how to knit stripes. I've found You Tube an invaluable resource in seeing how things are done and I've been avidly watching videos on knitting stripes without tying or cutting the yarn.
I tried a couple of small things for practise. This one is a very cute little mouse from the book Knitted Toy Tales: Irresistible Characters for All Ages by Laura Long. The challenge is that you knit it from the nose down so there's quite a bit of shaping (which I recently discovered was a fancy name for making the knitting bigger or smaller) right from the off. I was very pleased with my candy stripes and my tiny ears. I even dug out a crochet book (still working on that particular skill) to remind me how to make a chain for the mouse's tail.
The second stripey knit was this little purse from How to Knit by Fiona Watt.
As this is an Usborne Art Ideas book, I'm assuming it is meant for kids, but I thought it contained a number of cute little patterns. Over-aged teenage goth that I am, I went for red and black stripes with a cute little black bat button for decoration. The purse actually fastens with a press stud underneath. I got the stripes and wrapping the yarn part down, but dropped a few stitches and knitted a bit when it should have been purled, but otherwise it turned out okay.
Both projects are knitted with Rowan pure wool DK on 4mm needles. It would appear I have turned into a wool snob already and am shunning arcylic, although I had to settle for some 50% merino for my latest stripey project. This is a three stripe piece and I feel a bit surrounded by my wool. I'll put it up on the blog when I'm done, assuming I'm not too tangled up...
Melx
No comments:
Post a Comment