Posts Tagged ‘scarf’
Fast Knit “Manly” Geometric Hat and Scarf but She Likes It, Too – Free Pattern
November 22, 2011 | 
Author This is easy and relatively fast to knit and looks good on both sides, so it’s basically reversible. When I finished the scarf (at work) a couple of people wanted one, including women, so it’s not just for men. I designed it for a male friend of mine and he clearly liked it. The pattern deters curling edges, and the extra thick yarn and simple pattern makes it fast to knit. I used Lion Brand Woolease Thick and Quick in Charcoal color.
The pattern is a geometric grid that has narrow parts alternating with wider parts, both vertically and horizontally. I if you know something about knitting you can use this as a basis for other designs with this thickness yarn. I am using it to do some cabled hats for gifts to match scarves I made last year. Be aware that cables pull in more side to side and make a piece a little smaller.
This hat I designed to go with the scarf fits me “not tight” and I have a large head and almost covers my ears. If you need a hat smaller, take out 8 stitches around leaving 48 loops for a smaller hat, and remove 5-8 rows for a shorter hat.
For a variation of this hat with faux cables see the picture and link below. It looks nice also.
Materials and tools:
Scarf: 10.5 straight needles.
Yarn: two skeins Lion Brand Woolease Thick and Quick (106 yd/97 m), or equivalent size 6 yarn.
Hat: 10.5 circular needles, 24 -36 inch length or whatever works for you.
Yarn: Less than one skein of the above selected yarn.
7 or 8 stitch markers. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Patterns | 
Tags: hat, knit, knitted hat, Knitting, Lion Brand, man's hat, man's scarf, scarf, Thick and Quick | 
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Solving Knitter’s Block: When Nothing Will Let You Knit It.
I stopped by Gail Knits, the LYS near my home looking for inspiration. I just finished by Christmas gift blitz of six scarves and two shawls in three weeks (all on superbulky yarn and or large needles, so don’t be that amazed) and want to knit something for myself. I’ve been eyeing a leaf lace pattern for a scarf, but try and try again I keep messing up, not liking the yarn, not liking the pattern, wanting to change the pattern and not getting it right, and ripping everything out about ten times by now. Something was wrong. I had what I’ll call “knitter’s block”. Nothing would cooperate: not my hands, not the yarn, not the pattern. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in The Knitting Experience | Tags: acrylic, acrylic yarn, alpaca, alpaca scarf, artificial yarn, being real, cascade yarn, chicken nuggets, christmas gifts, dying wool, eco alpaca, eco duo, fake yarn, Gail Knits, hand spun yarn, knitter's block, Knitting, knitting lace, lace, lace leaf pattern, las vegas, mdf, natural dyes, plastic flowers, real friends, real purpose, reversible cable scarf, reversible scarf, scarf, single ply yarn, vinyl flooring, wool blend, wool yarn, yarn | No Comments »
A Bunch of Scarves, Some Cable Knit, and a Shawl
Like so many of us I am finishing a few gifts I started late for Christmas. I didn’t really get the knitting bug for gifts until a week into December and managed to bang out four scarves and a shawl in time to ship and arrive before the 25th.
I did a soft, girly, garter stitch scarf for my grand-niece Rei in Vermont. She is all of 7 years old and just the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen. The scarf is made with some downy mini-bouclee yarn that is mostly white with a shifting of colors over it in pink, blue and green. No pic, sorry.
I made a simple shawl for my mom, who is all of 89 years old. You may know how it is when the right colors of yarn just announce themselves, “I’m for her” and you don’t have to think. I did this one in Homespun Tudor, which is a nice light mix of soft greens, aqua, lavender, gold, and rose. It was perfect for her. Just another garter stitch piece because I had to mail it asap. I was able to finish it in three days, with a total of 8900 stitches or so. I put a crochet chain fringe on it that I tend to favor for such things, as it looks really nice, but you also can’t do a cut fringe in this yarn as it just frizzes out.
Here’s a pic of Mom looking at me on the TV as we were doing our now annual Google video Christmas chat. I highly recommend it. This is the second year we’ve done it and Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Projects | Tags: black scarf, cable knit, cable knit scarf, cables, Casting on (knitting), Christmas, Christmas gift, Crafts, garter stitch scarf, garter stitch shawl, Google video chat, Jimmy Beans, Knitting, Knitting needle, leaf lace pattern, oatmeal yarn, piano scarf, scarf, shawl, Thick and Quick, Vermont, yarn | No Comments »
Knit A Scarf – Fast!
I made this scarf recently for a gift and it turned out great. This is a squishy, loose-knit scarf and the pattern is reversible, and looks good for a man or woman depending on the color you use. You may be able to finish it in three hours or less.
There is another, newer free pattern with a hat here http://knitforbrains.net/patterns/fast-knit-manly-geometric-hat-and-scarf-but-she-likes-it-too-free-pattern/ and a Faux Cable hat here http://knitforbrains.net/?p=960
By the way, sorry I haven’t posted much lately here. I grew a handlebar moustache this summer (2010) and have been doing a lot of blogging for that at www.handlebarmoustachelife.com. Take a look.
For this scarf use just one skein of Lion Brand Thick and Quick Yarn or another yarn just as thick and long (108 yards or 98 meters) – or even multiple strands of Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: Arts, Casting on (knitting), christmas gift idea, Crafts, dragon, dragon scale, dragon scale knitting pattern, dragon scale scarf, easy scarf pattern, knit a scarf, knit a scarf fast, Knitting, Knitting and Crochet, knitting pattern, Lion Brand, Pattern, Portuguese Knitting, scarf, Wool-ease, yarn | No Comments »
How to Rev Up Your Knitting Again
Sometimes when you’ve been knitting a lot you get to a point were you just don’t want to do it, but you’ve got three or six or nine projects sitting around and all that time and money invested, and you know you enjoy knitting. So why can’t you knit now and what can you do about it?
Well, sometimes we just need a break. You need something different for a while. Really, your brain and psyche and spirit do need variety. Yes, some people can knit until the cows come home, but remember everyone is different. You know about how people with different Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in The Knitting Experience | Tags: alpaca, boredom, hat, Knitting, scarf, yarn | No Comments »
How I Turned a Scarf into a Ball of Yarn
I know that’s backwards, but I couldn’t resist.
I got my ball winder from knitpics.com the other day and it’s pretty cool. Very affordable at just 19.99. I didn’t have any skeins I wanted to ball up yet so I turned its fury on a scarf I crocheted back in May before I decided to get into knitting. It was the bulky Wool-ease in a sort of oatmeal color. The scarf didn’t excite me, just done in alternating rows of dc done in the back loop. It had an interesting accordion like texture but seeing it was 105 degrees outside I was not too attached to it. I decided to canibalize it for a cossack hat and so threw it to the hungry ball winder.
The top of the winder has a sort of notch to hold the start of the yarn but it’s not cut right for a bulky yarn. Once I got it started it made short work of the scarf. I held it to the floor with a foot and just wound away. The ball winder is designed to put more distance between the turns of the yarn than I would have thought. As you can see in the picture it’s not closely wound. So the ball was bigger than perhaps necessary, and being bulky yarn it turned into a ball that was a little too large for the winder to finish.
It was crochet; it had to be destroyed.
.
So now I have a very cool ball of yarn to turn “reinyarnate” into a hat. (Read about technique below…)
Proof of Reinyarnation
There is a bit of a technique to using a ball winder. One thing I find is that if I don’t control the incoming yarn it will flop about a lot and the ball will be kind of loose and larger when done. So what I do is take a small piece of fabric and hold it loosely around the strand of yarn so that it keeps a very mild tension on the line. This produces a somewhat smaller ball and deters the yarn from tangling in the wire yarn guide.
Another thing I do is put the source skein or ball in a shoebox or paper bag on the floor. Backing up a bit: I clamp my ball winder to the back of a chair and put the source yarn on the floor below it. So with the source in a bag or box it won’t travel all over the room.
And sometimes I will put the source on a vertical paper towel holder if I can get the rod through the ball/skein easily. This helps more with oblong skeins you buy at craft stores as when they are being unwound they can flop about a lot in the bag or box. Don’t expect them to actually turn on the towel holder, and at a certain point you will have to deal with the last bit of yarn flopping about oddly anyway.
I find the ball winder very handy, and use it to rewind balls for projects that I’m restarting, or when I’m done with part of a ball, as the ball becomes squishy when you pull from the center and it’s nice to put it back in good order for storage or further use. And you can in many cases, of course, rewind and rip out at the same time, straight back to the ball.
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Posted in Products and Tools, Updated Since Posted | Tags: ball winder, Crafts, crochet, Fiber art, Knitting, scarf, yarn | No Comments »
Eastern European Knitting, a.k.a Combined Knitting?
Last Sunday I went to my nearest local yarn/knitting shop, Gails Knits, to take advantage of their summer sale and bought yarn for my first project, the cabled scarf with seed stitch border you see in the page header (That’s a pic from the book – I haven’t started the scarf yet, but I did pick red. ) and as I was checking out I told Gail about the Portuguese Knitting DVD and how much I liked the style. I showed her the basics, and she in turn showed me her style, which is eastern european knitting (EEK). Apparently, it’s pretty rare. She said there was an article some years ago in a knitting magazine that listed the top ten styles of knitting, and it was number 9.
It turns out it is a bit faster than Portuguese knitting, seemingly having one less step in that you don’t have to flick the yarn over the needle. That’s not a big chore, but when I was watching Gail demonstrate it she was amazingly fast. I’ll have links to videos and pages here soon. It’s a variant of continental knitting, a pick style, and is quite worthwhile.
I’m still practicing but I did find that it wasn’t so great for a bulky yarn. I am doing a cossack hat from the Folk Hats book by Vicki Square and even with my nice and pointy new Options Nickel Plated circulars didn’t work so well on the thick, bulky Wool-ease yarn by Lion Brand when using EEK. I couldn’t catch the yarn and pull it through. So I tried the Portuguese knitting and it was much easier.
That’s interesting and handy to know. Now we have more tools with which to knit. I’ve learned one should choose carefully from knitting style, yarn material, yarn thickness, needle material and pattern. When I started out I would never have thought it mattered.
Here’s what the hat will look like when done:
The cossack hat in the book.
The hat is from Folk Hats by Vicki Square, pages 88-90. This one uses a bouclet yarn which seems to emulate shearling. I may do one with black later. For now I’m just re-using the yarn from the crochet scarf I killed playing with my new ball winder.
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Posted in Projects, Techniques | Tags: ball winder, combined knitting, cossack, crochet, eastern european knitting, Gail Knits, hat, knit, reincarknitting, scarf | No Comments »
