Knit for Brains dot Net

Hello! My aim with this blog is to share useful tips and discoveries I make as I learn to knit. I’m a guy, so I urge guys to knit and everyone to nudge the men they know to learn to knit.

And to support that, especially for anyone who thinks knitting is hard, please try the Portuguese knitting method. It’s easy to master and fast. When I get going I can do a stitch a second. I have a few posts here about it under Techniques, but no basic instructions, so check out the youtube videos.

Again, Portuguese style knitting is VERY easy to learn. It’s easy to control the yarn, and purling is so easy it’s a sin. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day I was looking for baskets and bins to store yarn and knitting projects at the 99.99 cent store (yes they raised the price by almost a penny!) and found this Never Not Knitting Page-a-day calendar by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the “Yarn Harlot” for, yes, just 99.99 cents! Retail was 12.95.

I’ve been doing a little experimentation and designing for some minor pattern ideas that involved doing some i-cords, but they required a DPN of a certain size that I didn’t own. I popped in at Joann’s with one of my trusty 40% off coupons that blessedly rain from the sky these days and browsed the needle aisle. (By the way, do sign up for their email coupons at knitpicks.com)

A set of 4 Clover DPNs in the size 11 I was looking for would set me back about 12$ before the discount. That’s a lot to spend on an experiment, I thought, especially since I don’t use DPNs for anything, having nice sets of Options nickel and acrylic Zephyr circular needles. they have a nice taper at both ends…. Wait a second.

And there I realized I have all the DPNs I need. Without a cable these neat knitpicks.com circular needles sets can double for DPNs for my i-cord needs. they are a bit short for real DPN projects, but again, I don’t need them for that. So use your Options! Whether nickel plated tips, the  Zephyr acrylics or the Harmony wood needles, make use of your resources!

Saved my coupon, saved my money. End of story.

You can easily knit past the threaded holes when they are playing left needle.

Below are two videos sent to me by my penpal Larisa. She knits socks using 5 crochet hooks instead of DPNs and it’s pretty fast. Very cool idea. I hope you can pick up the idea from the videos. I bet of you could keep track you could do patterns with this method. The videos require Quicktime to be installed on your computer. The video will take a couple minutes to download.

Fast sock knitting with crochet hooks.

Hook Knitting Detail Video

In my previous post about recycling yarn I stated that I didn’t like the process of hunting for the source sweater at a thrift shop, and I’m sticking with that opinion. You will not find me giving but a cursory glance at the sweaters there when I’m there for something else. It’s just too much effort for too little result. I have better things to do with that time.

I did however realize that recycling a new sweater from some inexpensive shop such as Ross or Marshalls is a great option. I was there shopping for the holidays last month and was lured to the men’s sweater rack. One thing I was confident of was that I would not be disappointed by finding a great sweater that had been ruined by washing and felting/fulling. While there were not a lot of colors and fibers that I wanted I did find one that is perfect.

A lot of nice yarn for just $20. Maybe I'll make a scarf and socks.

It’s a gray sweater in what I believe is sport weight, 45% lambswool. 40% modal, 10% nylon and 5% cashmere. I hunted up an extra large one to get the most yarn. It weighs 495 grams. The yarn is a mix of light and dark gray called Iron Heather, so it has a tweedy look. It has all the right kinds of seams – not serged.

And of course, Max my cat has to become involved in every knitting project.

The only odd thing is that it has a design on the front in intarsia, but that shouldn’t be a problem to unravel around.

The intarsia desing reminds me of a turtle for some reason.

Outside the sweater you can see Max approving of the cashmere content. Inside the sweater you can see the intarsia work. It didn't say it was this hand knitted. Do they have machines that can do intarsia?

I will give you an update when I get around to taking this sweater apart and unraveling it.

Well, my laziness about my knitting projects and supplies has come to a head. I don’t have much yarn my any standards. After all, I’ve only been knitting for a few months, but I never really got a good set up to keep my yarn and now I’ve had enough of the mess and have finally got it managed. I’ve been the sort that had a bag of yarn or stuff from the store and just used that to store the supplies in. The bags and balls of yarn were all over the place, mostly all over the dining table and surrounding area. Here’s what it looked like.

A little blurry, a lot messy.

I’d wanted a cabinet of some sort to keep it all in but didn’t want to invest in another piece of furniture, and I didn’t want some junky piece from a thrift store. Looking for a gift for my mother for Christmas I found myself at Target, in the far back corner where the closet organizing stuff is, and ran across their Sterilite plastic storage chests. I bought one with three drawers and one with five (both were the same size, but the second had four small drawers and one large) for under $25 and went home to tackle the monster.

As you can see by the before and after pictures it made a big difference. I can actually eat at my dining table without having to move yarn and knitting first.

Yes! The Yarn has been conquered.

The wool is in the wool drawers, the blends and other sorts of yarn are all in their own drawers, and the various tools and needles all have their places. My great knitpicks.com ball winder is put away, my crochet needles are separate from the knitting needles. The many started projects are in appropriate drawers in stead of lying all over the place accusing me of what I’m guilty of (neglect, distraction and indecision), and I have my sanity back. Some of it.

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(Be sure to see part 2 of this topic at this link)

Well, I made a trip to our local Savers Thrift Department store to look for decent wool sweaters from which to recycle the yarn. I thought this would be a great, economical way to obtain several skeins worth of yarn for just about $6. In general, I do believe recycling yarn can be a worthwhile endeavor, but I don’t think it’s for me. The reality of the hunt is not worth the result, which today resulted in more awareness than wool.

First thing I did was examine the 20 feet of men’s sweaters. Feeling along the edges of them for something that might be wool, as well as looking for sweaters that are mostly a solid color I discovered a few things about the sweater search that I don’t care for.

1. I don’t want to spend an hour pawing through hundreds of used sweaters. My time is worth more. On top of that I partially reinjured my mostly healed sprained finger sliding sweaters around on over-burdened racks.
2. Many of the sweaters are not solids, so you can’t get long runs of yarn out of them.
3. Some of them are sewn from cut steeks and can’t be unraveled in continuous strands.
4. Precious few haven’t been partially felted. I don’t know if Savers is washing these or the previous owners are the monster yarn murderers. Even one short wash will make the strands look very second hand, and I don’t want a new garment to look pre-owned from the get go. Also, a bit of felting will make it harder to pull out the stitches.
5. Some have stains. Do I want to spend $X on dry cleaning it before I cannibalize it? Not unless it’s a great looking yarn. Great looking yarn is very rare in situation.
6. Few of them are colors I want to work with. Do I really need that much DK weight, red yarn in 60% lambswool, 20% acrylic and 20% angora rabbit? It was almost the only one I found that wasn’t partially felted and had any potential. Do I know anyone who wants a bunch of socks made from this? I certainly don’t.

In the end I went up to the check out with a smallish women’s sweater in a bulky roving-type yarn that was dark gray and black mix. It was 20 percent alpaca, 70 percent wool and 10 percent acrylic, with cotton embroidery and the right kind of seams. I thought I could maybe get some yarn for a decent hat and scarf out of it. I waited a rather long time in line, observing the checker struggle four times trying to get the card swiper to work for a customer ahead of me, as well as other complications with the people in line. Having had this time to reflect on the whole, slummy experience, I turned around, put the sweater back where I found it and left empty-handed but with an armful of awareness.

Recycling yarn is more akin to hand-me-down-ism than you realize. You don’t have much of a choice. You have to decide if you want to make anything from what you do find that is decent. Do you like the color and the yarn? Will anyone else. It was kind of depressing to think I might get stuck with some yarn I don’t love and am not inspired by, and then drag myself through a project I know I’m going to want to give away, knowing it’s not just a gift, it’s getting rid of the stuff. I don’t want to give that kind of vibe to others, and I don’t want to keep it, a souvenir of the dismal fate of so many sweaters and a disappointing search.

You may have much better luck and spirit about yarn recycling that I do. To me though, after what I saw today, it’s more akin to picking at a trash heap than finding treasure. I want to feel better about the process of finding the yarn and its condition. I also prefer not to feel like I’m knitting in a compromise due to poverty. I can afford yarn, and even if I make the effort buy it cheaper online, at least it’s not what to me would feel like reclaimed junk.

Be sure to see part 2 of this topic at this link

You can get some great things at thrift stores. My favorite chair and a marble topped occasional table came from there, and a couple of vests I have. And I did have one super sweater find a couple of years ago, before I ever considered knitting: a fair isle sweater in 100% alpaca, NEW, in colors I love, for just $7. It is one of my cherished possessions. Here it is:

The suggested retail for this brand of 100% alpaca sweater was $150 for a solid color, and this one is multicolor fair isle. Maybe $250?

Well, as an Aries I guess I had to get used to the idea of time and slowness. Knitting is giving me an opportunity to see things unfold over time, even the planning and re-planning of projects. Usually I’m kind of impatient and don’t see the process of things. Somehow I expect them to just happen fast, but they don’t.

1. I have my red scarf planned and barely started. It’s a complicated pattern I’ve mentioned before, but I’m not excited about doing a scarf as I keep getting distracted.

2. I’ve been positioning myself for my first pair of socks, and have determined that I will do them toe up, magic loop, and have picked a pattern – mostly. I still have to order the yarn. I’m going for sport weight for a bit of a faster knit, but I also want to try a pair in worsted as the yarn is also cheaper – and I have some to use up. For the pattern I’m going to use the Serpentine pattern from Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson, but I need to modify the pattern for a taller sock, so that is delaying me. Socks are complicated! So many choices.

3. Another project is the Notting Hill cabled vest I ordered the pattern for from Interweave. I also sent for 10 balls of Dougherty yarn for it from knitpicks.com’s that is a blend of middle greens in their wool Shamrock line. Great price. The yarn just came today so now I have one project with a clear path and target. Nothing to figure out. Whew.

Notting Hill Vest from Interweave

4. Then I thought up a project for use in knitting itself, inspired by my cousin Leigh. She knits with her yarn sitting in an appropriate piece of her Hull pottery collection. I have a Hull & Sons chair, but I don’t have any Hull pottery or anything else.

One of Leigh's Hull Knitting Pots

I’ve been using Tupperware equivalents. So I decided I would knit myself some bowls and full them (like felting). So far I think I will double knit them so they have tougher walls to hold their shape, but I am yet to decide on a design, size or shape. I’ll have something for two-at-a-time socks that will hold two balls and the socks, and others for various projects, yarn and wip contained together. But probably not for the whole vest.

I paid $5 for this beauty. It's actually pretty comfortable.

I’m going to use mostly Lion Brand Fisherman’s wool worsted weight because I keep getting coupons for Joann’s to get 40% off and don’t really need much else – and they are big skeins for $9 before discount. I’m going there today to get a couple. Maybe I’ll buy some cheap craft felt or foam sheets to plan my bowl structure.

5. I also had begun a roll-up knitting needle holder but I’m not thrilled with how it’s turning out. It was to be in a multi colored acrylic yarn – didn’t care about that as it’s just for utility. But now I do care and have decided to make a sort of quiver with felted/fulled wool, and I think I’ll do a set of felted/fulled tags to keep the pairs paired rather than everything mixed up.

And then there are all the other exciting things I’m discovering: 6. I want to do a few videos on some things to show how the techniques are done in Portuguese knitting style, and 7. I have a new idea for a method that is derived from entrelac that I need to test. 8. I would also like to try stranded knitting.

One thing at a time. What? One thing at a time. What? One thing at a time. What?

• Turning a corner (crazyauntpurl.com)
• Two Directions (seemingly) At The Same Time? (timesunion.com)
• Too stupid to know better…. (momblognetwork.com)

A video posted on youtube by aephemera

“A quick little tutorial on making “plarn” -- plastic yarn made from grocery bags. You can crochet or knit with it to make environmentally responsible upcycled trashion items. Woohoo! Visit http://www.aephemera.net to check out the blog that this video is to be featured in.”

Wow! I just experimented with doing two-color, fair isle knitting with the Portuguese style and it works great! Easier than I thought. I’ve seen Andrea Wong’s sock video where she demonstrates fair isle knitting on socks, but she does the second color English style, which I don’t like and it would just slow me down. If you are good at English then that might work, but you know me…

I tried it with my Portuguese knitting pendant that I invented, but with two hooks, and it worked great. No slowdown, just as fast as if I were doing just the one strand Portuguese style, and I found it was as easy to do right side and wrong side. I had seen another video on fair isle for socks using two knitting pins, but I think it was also socks and was done wrong side only…? I was afraid the yarn would tangle or something because i was turning the work but it took care of itself and I had no problems.

Anyway, I was so excited I went and bought a web cam so I can do a video of it. I will do it this weekend and post it here via youtube, so make a note to come back!

Now I need a fair isle project. I think I’ll go for a vest of some sort.

I started into knitting a few months ago, teaching myself from books and videos. You would think by now that I would have knitted more than more than the one, simple Cossack hat from the Folk Hats book. No. And even that I just finished last week.

I’m an Aries. We are starters. The beginning is all important to us. Sometimes it is more important than anything that comes after the beginning, which is why completing things is a challenge. Oddly enough, we are also into speed and can be impatient. Patience and focus are important lessons for me. I’ve tended to be impatient with myself for not completing what I’ve started. So knitting is an interesting situation for me. It’s challenging me to understand my process, to understand the process that is learning, as well as the process of knitting itself.
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