Archive for September 2009
Starting to Knit: Starting, Starting, Starting, Starting….
September 27, 2009 | 
Author 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.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Interesting Fact about Andrea and Andreea
Andrea Wong is known for her gread DVDs on the Portuguese style of knitting and travels to teach it as well. I did a wikipedia search for the phrase “portuguese knitting” and got a surprise. In the list of results was an entry for the word “andrea”, stating that in the Romanian language it actually means “knitting needle”! How about that. The Romanian version of the name Andrea is spelled “Andreea” so as to distinguish it, but it doesn’t mean knitting needle in that spelling.
Small world of words.
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Fast Peruvian Knitting Video
This is a curious technique. It looked worth trying. I had heard that in Peruvian knitting style the yarn was put around the neck, but not here, and I haven’t found any more info on that. You might want to look at this and give it a try. I experimented with it myself and find it seems like a fast variant of English throwing. I’m not crazy about it. The problem I had was in keeping the working yarn where I needed it near the tip of my middle finger, and I also found I needed to use my right hand to tension the yarn around the right needle tip when pulling the loop through.
What I love about the Portuguese style is that it keeps the tension on the yarn automatically, and I don’t need to balance the working strand on my finger. This answered the first big problem I had when I was just learning to knit, where I felt like I needed to be an octopus or have suckers on my fingers to control the yarn. I honestly wanted a third arm to handle the working yarn. I even thought of running the working yarn through a stack of books to keep it where I wanted it. And I even gave up on knitting briefly, and then I found exactly what I wanted in the Portuguese style.
Again, I’ve heard that there is a Peruvian style that is much like or the same as Portuguese, so this may be just another style they have down there. If you know of any video of the yarn-around-the-neck style they use in Peru (that isn’t done in this video), please let me know.
Thanks for stopping by. – Eric
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Cool New Idea for Portuguese Knitting Pin/Hook: Make a Knitting Pendant
I was talking to my cousin Leigh about knitting one day and she mentioned she had not yet tried Portuguese Knitting (PK) yet, not having decided what to do about the pin/hook situation. She lives in hot, humid Tampa and doesn’t tend to wear garments that have much fabric up high where one would pin the PK pin for the yarn. So I suggested she use the little sock hanger idea, maybe from a short chain around her neck or a choker or such.
So today I tried that myself and it works great. Maybe better than a regular pin in that the chain I’m using has a set of beads on it that give it a little weight. So with the yarn on the sock hanger (you could use a j-hook or something more decorative, even make it a jewelry-like pendant) it kind of is suspended in the air, and hangs there on the weight of the beads as I knit. It seems to keep a nice, light tension on the working yarn.
I’ve seen Andrea on her DVD where you can hear the yarn vibrate almost like a guitar string as she flips it with her thumb. I get that as well, but when I knit with a hook or pin sitting in a fixed position on my shirt or vest there is no give or springiness to keep tension on the yarn in a flexible, self-adjusting way. I have to keep the work at the right distance and watch how I’m keeping my yarn tensioned with my right hand and arms. With the hook on a chain with beads for a little weight the tension is “managed” nicely for me by the springiness in the setup.
The one problem I’ve had with Portuguese style is that my knit stitches were always rather tight. I would have to deliberately pull the loops I was creating a bit more to open them up as I formed them. THIS HAS BEEN SOLVED by this trick with the hook on a weighted chain. I just did a few rounds on my speed practice swatch and find that now I must be sure I don’t give an extra pull when making a knit stitch or it’s too loose. Now my knit and purl stitches are all evenly tensioned and I can slide my stitches on my needles. I feel normal now. See #4 below on how to change the tension.
Here’s a picture of my first setup:
And it occurs to me that with a sock hanger you could use the second hook for a second color for color work knitting. And they are cheap! Not elegant, but cheap.
That said, I fashioned one that is more wearable as a pendant/necklace (see below). The possibliites are endless but the weight of the pendant is important, I find (see below). You could do one with a nice sterling j-hook and some cool beads on either side, or in anticipation of two color work, two hooks with beads keeping them apart.
There are a lot of nice j-hooks at www.silverenchantments.com and other places.
By the way, last night I was knitting with the sock hanger in the placket opening of my golf shirt. Turns out I wore the shirt to bed and woke up with the hanger still in place! I also accidentally wore it out to a restaurant. Oops. I think the pendant hooks necklace will be a lot less strange looking.
Notes added late 9-21-09:
More on the Portuguese knitting pendant idea:
A great thing about the knitting pendant is that as long as the pendant or beads are kept hanging in mid-air the tension on the yarn and your stitches is kept pretty much constant. I also find that the little bit of bounce from when you flick the yarn over the needle helps to advance the working yarn as you knit.
If you want something more elegant you can easily make a pendant or add a j-hook to something you have on a chain. I found an old rune pendant that I have and added a j-hook that I bought at Michael’s. It weighs 14 grams – I have a small digital fisherman’s scale I use for weighing balls of yarn. The beaded necklace you saw with the sock hanger on weighs 15 grams.
Here’s the one I made with a metal pendant:
The rune on the pendant means "completion" - good for knitting.
IMPORTANT: You can experiment and see what weight produces the best tension for you. I tried a pendant weighing thirty grams and found it made my knit stitch tension to tight again. Twenty grams also made knit stitches tighter than I like on bamboo with acrylic yarn but might be okay on metal needles.
After more research I’ve found the critical elements are:
1. Pendant weight of about 15 grams. Mine is 14 grams.
2. Chain/cord length of 24 inches.
3. When knitting, keep the angle between the cord and your yarn between about 150 degrees and 170 degrees, meaning its closer to a flat angle as you work so the weight of the pendant can have full effect and “bounce”. This keeps your loops on your needle tips and draws the loops on the needles closed.
UPDATE:
4. If your resulting tension is too tight, as it tends to be for me on knit stitches, allow the pendant to be closer to your chest (let it hang lower so the angle is smaller, more toward 90-120 degrees). This will reduce the pull on the yarn. If your tension is too loose, keep the pendant higher in the air and this will effectively increase the pull a little to tighten up the loops. Totally adjustable tension!
Remember that this tool will aid you in moderating your tension. For knit stitches you will allow the pendant to hang a bit lower, and that will loosen them up. For purl stitches you would pull out a bit more to lift the pendant and increase the relative tension a tiny bit over the knit stitch. With mixed stitches it doesn’t seem to matter. So the pendant won’t fix your tension without a little involvement from you. It gives you a way to moderate it. If the yarn is on a pin or around your neck you don’t have much range to apply more or less tension. The pendant acts like a spring so you can “cushion” your tension on the knit stitches in particular. Pulling it out more on the purl side will make it more akin to a pin, using up the springiness. Relaxing the pendant will reduce the tension on the knit stitches. Practice before you do any serious project.
On that note you might want to make a pendant set with easily removed charms or such so you can vary the weight as you experiment to find the right weight. If you don’t have a digital scale note that for reference a USA nickel weighs approximately five grams.
And here is my version for stranded knitting:
This is what I made for fair isle work.
I don’t have the exact weight of the pendant but it felt about the same as my single strand version. Worked great. Those are carnelian beads. If you make one with such beads be aware that with all the bouncing that over time the wire cord you use will wear through and the strand is likely to break, so this is not necessarily the best design unless you want to periodically restring your necklace to prevent surprises.
Added 10-13-09: And here’s a budget version you can make. I bought a pair of flipflops to day and they came on this plastic clip. It could be used in a similar way. Just hang it on a chain or string with a loop to keep it centered. You will need to add some weight though, as this is very light. Here’s the pic:
Flip-flop sandal clip from store.
(May I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog as often update it with new discoveries, as I have above in this post about the Portuguese knitting pendant.)
- Eric
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Posted in Products and Tools, Techniques, Updated Since Posted | 
Tags: knitting pendant, Portuguese Knitting, tools | 
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What Am I Going to Do with All These Needles?
As you see in another post I tried sharpening the bamboo knitting needles, single pointers, that I ordered from China, and which turned out to be about half defectively dull. It was a great success, but now I have fifteen pair of needles and I don’t want them to get all mixed up.
So, looking around the web for cases I found a link that lists about 30 different ways to make a case for needles. And can you imagine my surprise that one of the ways is – yes – knitting one? Durr.
Yes, not with pockets, but rather a simple rectangle of knitting that you skewer at intervals with your different pairs of needles, then roll up. Pretty cool.
So I went to the local Joann’s looking for yarn. First I tried some thick and quick but it was too thick. This being the fall holiday season, all the autumn colored stuff is in stock and I found some Red Heart acrylic worsted in a multi-colored skein called Falling Leaves that is beautiful. Yes, it’s just acrylic, but it’s also just a needle case. And the colors are really fun to work with. I really like the jewel tones, and it’s fun to watch the progression of the colors as they mix and pool and stripe variously.
For a pattern, some of the suggestions were to make cables and stick the needles through the cable holes but I wanted this to be nearly mindless knitting in case I need something to take to a knitting circle so I’m doing it in a basket weave that is about seven stitches by seven rows on my #10 bamboo 14 inch needles I just sharpened. The pattern is two sided and won’t curl up on me. But I’m thinking I may switch to another pattern for a sampler effect.
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Welcome to New Knitters, All Knitters, Male Knitters, and BTW, Try The Portuguese Knitting Style
Hello! My aim with this blog is to share useful tips and discoveries I make as I learn more and more about knitting. I’m a guy, so I urge guys to knit and everyone to nudge the men they know to learn to knit.
May I recommend you browse for articles in the SITE MAP tab above. It’s the easiest way to get the most out of this site.
And if you like what you see, remember to SIGN UP for updates in the box in the right column. You will get an email when I post a new article.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Portuguese Knitting, Techniques | Tags: knitting pendant, portugal, Portuguese Knitting | 3 Comments »
I Sharpened My Bamboo Knitting Needles
You may remember I bought some cheap knitting needles from China and was going to send them back. About half of them were so dull I literally could not knit with them. Well, I kept dragging my feet, not wanting to spend about 20.00 USD to send them back, wondering if they would really be refunded as promised, and finally decided to just try and sharpen the dull ones.
It turned out to be really easy to sharpen them with a sanding disk on my drill, the polish and buff the tips with fine steel wool. Now they are exactly as sharp as I prefer my needles, which is sharper than even good bamboo needles come, and I am happily knitting away at a knitting needle case with a pair of them.
If you do this – many a handy guy will be tempted – I just used the standard sanding disk that came with the disk for my hand drill. I kept the needle at a sharp angle, almost parallel with the surface, and made sure the new tip had the proper taper of about an inch. When it was right, I refined the tip on a piece of sandpaper held in my hand. Then I buffed the sanded taper with 00 steel wool and finally polished it with 0000 extra fine steel wool.
I don’t think a pencil sharpener will work for this as they are meant for soft pine wood and bamboo is hard. Power tools to the rescue!
UPDATE: After some use I found that the tips still had remnant groves from the sanding with the disk, and so the steel wool was not enough to smooth them out. So I took some 138 grit sandpaper and twisted the tips in that for a bit and found it smoothed them out great. I had to readjust the tips again as they got sharper in this process, but it shows you can sharpen and dull up your bamboo tips as you need.
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Portuguese Knitting Tip: How Not to Knit Under Your Nose
One oddity about Portuguese Knitting (PK) is that as you knit you use up the yarn coming from your pin or from your neck. Gradually your WIP rises and rises and ends up closer and closer to your face and you have to pause to pull more yarn into the space between you and your needles. We would rather keep the work flowing smoothly and at a comfortable distance. So as you practice PK you will want to spend some time focusing on how to advance your working yarn.
One thing I do is build in a little tug with my left thumb while I’m flicking the yarn over the needle. In my right hand I control the yarn by going under my index finger, over my middle finger, under my ring finger and over and fully around my pinkie to help keep the tension. When I need to advance the yarn just lifting my pinkie up a bit loosens the brakes on the strand and if I do this when I tug with my left thumb it works out fine.
Experiment and practice and you will find a way that works for you to make your PK flow smoother.
If you need videos on PK check out the links I have in the Information box on the right. Thanks for stopping by.
- Eric
Learn to avoid the dreaded Portuguese Tug-o-War!
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