Knit, Crochet and Natter 4 - Yarning into Spring

[lazylinguist]

A thread for knitters, crocheters and woollly crafters in general. All welcome, including total newbies! Previous thread here

We're going to Northumberland in May, hopefully if the easing of lockdown happens as planned my parents can join us too.

Have fun lazy!

The patch has just arrived. They've left the felt around it though 🙄 so now I need to try and get as close as possible without nicking a stitch round the edge!

There's a little note enclosed that says use either the fabric glue or hot knife method to remove it so I'll be youtube-ing after work. Good job it's not actually for someone who's waiting for it

Well, I'm sitting in a sunny little square with a huge peanut butter cookie, the best decaf flat white I've ever tasted and a bag of lovely yarn.

Amazingly it turns out the lovely yarn shop owner is currently doing a KAL (with her regular customers and members of their Zoom knit group, which she's invited me to join) of the very same jumper I'm about to make . Weird coincidence! So she showed me her WIP and photos of some of the others, which resulted in me totally changing my mind about which yarn and going for dk rather than aran, and in completely different colours.

Sounds wonderful! I'm so jealous

Ooh - that's so soon, @NiceCardigan - not surprised you're looking forward to it! Northumberland is so beautiful, @tizwozliz. I'd really like to go again- it's not too far for us.

@lucysmam - what a pain about the patch! It does look really nice though.

Here's my haul, including yet more needles and a big, fat crochet hook for the scraps basket!

Ooh, lovely colours Lazy! And how brilliant is it that you can join in the KAL too if you want?

I know! She's just sent me the linns to the normal knitting group Zoom and the KAL zoom. Much as I've had great yarn and service from Wool Warehouse, it was so nice to be able to look at and touch (after sanitising hands!) the yarn and get some advice in person. The aran would have been really bulky, and the dk is softer and cheaper!

On the downside... this pattern requires umpteen needle sizes, dpns, different circ lengths etc, and I'm realising that with using dk I'm going to need to adjust needle sizes. Already on my second swatch afger first came up much too small!

It sounds like you've had a nice day lazy.

I'm just looking for a youtube tutorial for the fabric glue method to stop the edge stitching unravelling when I cut out the patch but not having much luck. & I don't have a hot knife to use 🤔 Thinking cap on!

That sounds really tricky, @lucysmam! I'm afraid I haven't got a clue about how to do that.

I've cast on my jumper and knitted two rows of the cc (it's a top down pattern). I really like the green colour!

Could you heat a knife or scissors with a lighter? If it's just to stop it unravelling you're only trying to melt the ends of the edge together like you do with shoe laces or paracord aren't you?

lazy I love the West Yorkshire spinners colour lab! So I heartily approve of the yarn choices. I bought the multicoloured striped one which is what I made my mum’s cushion cover in. I have one multicoloured ball left but bought one each of the colours.

lucysmam I assume that is an actual craft item and not just heating a vegetable knife over the hob?

🤦‍♀️ My phone is being an arse! The picture of the bloody dogs was not meant to be attached, I pressed delete 🙄 I’ll stop messing up the thread... Or I’ll try to anyway!

Me neither.

The Etsy seller says the easiest way is a little bit of fray-stop or similar around the edges, front and back, then trim round it.

I either have Pritt, PVA, Gorilla glue, or superglue. I may have some shoe goo upstairs. 🤷‍♀️ Think I'll go for PVA & hope I don't nick a thread 🤞

I didn't see the posts below lazy when I replied 🙄

Flavia I could! I have some new craft knives actually so could use one of those & just wipe over the blade before I cut.

InTheNight, it is! I've never heard of one before today. I had a quick look on ebay wondering if they were cheap & might be a useful investment. They don't look to be cheap!

The dogs are sweet; the one on the left looks as though he/she was ready to bolt as soon as the photo was taken

Lovely yarn lazy I spent a long time in John Lewis looking but didn’t choose anything this time. I get stressed by too many WIPs so need to finish something first before buying more.

I like the accidental dogs InTheNight

lucysmam if you do end up buying one, it’ll be one of those that you end buying patches for everything to get your use out of it. There must be a work around.

The one on the left is our older dog. She doesn’t like having her photo taken and like every big sister has to disagree with being made to sit next to her younger sibling (I’m an older sister so I don’t say that to offend). She’s the good one! Although she’s MN’s most hated - the dreaded cockapoo

I'll try Flavia's suggestion of a heated knife, on a corner of the felt, in the morning. Hopefully it'll work well enough. & dd won't mind if the edges aren't perfect.

Can you cut some of the extra off and practice on that?

Holding it over a candle with tweezers might work, it would be more accurate than a lighter but it would be definitely something you'd want to practice first!

@lazylinguist I love your colour choices! They go really well together! It was my DS's first taster session at nursery this morning so afterwards we went into town and had chippy at the park and a play! I went into my local fabric/yarn shop and it was lovely to have a browse! I was almost annoyed I couldn't think of anything I needed new yarn for haha! And we're going away mon-fri in June to Norfolk, just a haven/caravan holiday as I know my DS's will love it!

@lucysmam how bloody annoying! I also think heating up something metal and using that along the edges will seal the edges well! You'll be wanting your DD to wear this all day every day the labour of love it's been 😂 on the plus side I think the patch came out looking really good!

@InTheNightWeWillWish the dogs are adorable! I'm always happy to see the random pup pop up on thread 😍 especially labs, my fav!

Loving the accidental dogs!

I've already learnt some new things in the Goldwing jumper pattern. Invisible increases and German short rows - haven't started the latter yet, but I've just watched a video on it. Off for a long walk in the mountains this afternoon, so I hope I'll be compos mentis enough to deal with German short rows this eveninng! I think the Goldwing KAL Zoom is this evening, but I'm not sure whether to join that, as they started a while bacck and are all miles ahead of me!

You should give it a go! After all, starting a while ago doesn't necessarily mean they're all way ahead and they might have useful tips

I'm still working on my lace weight t-shirt WIP and I just remembered yesterday I'd bought sharp lace needles in the same size and wow, I swear its taking me half the time to do a row. I'd been using knit pro zing and they're so blunt in comparison. I love the ethos of knit pro and the social responsibility but I knit so much faster with lace tips...

This.Bird.Knits has a pattern sale at the moment and I've just bought the pattern on her homepage thisbirdknits.com/ it's a mix of weights and lace and colourwork so it's right up my street and I have stash yarn that will be good for it

I think I will give it a go, Flavia - but it will have to be next Thursday, as I wasn't back in time from my walk in the mountains today. I'm aching all over, a bit sleepy after a pile of very restorative beef and pearl barley stew and very much in need of a shower! I didn't know there were special needles for lace knitting!

I didn't have the energy to concentrate on German short rows this evening, so I decided to make a start on the scraps basket (even though it breaks my new rule of only having 3 WIPs ). It's quite fun, though it took a bit of getting used to how tightly/loosely to crochet in order to bring 4 strands of dk through a loop at once with a big hook! Anyway, here's the beginning of the base.