Knit, Crochet and Natter 8: Keep Calm and Carry Yarn!

[crazyjinglist]

A thread for woolly crafters. All welcome, from total beginners to experts!

Previous thread here

Oh no @tizwozliz!!! Whenever i find a "ball" like that DS1 practically fights me for it. He loves untangling yarn

I agree that mattress stitch is magic! I hate the thought of sewing things together, then when I actually do it remember it's not that bad at all.

I did do lessons, I went to a finishing knits class

Excellent- I should definitely find myself one of those!

Hmmph My mitten is too small. I'm going to frog it and make the next size up. Clearly my hands aren't as dainty as I thought!

Having dropped the yarn bomb of nalbinding, heh heh heh....

Also in its favour, it doesn't have patterns. So what you've got, is a thing that you can roll up and stuff in your pocket, and that you just make up a design for till it fits.
What is not to like????

(We lost internets for 8 hours today so I went and made 12 jars of marmalade instead, and knitted about a dozen rows of the Murder Of Crows sweater.)

12 jars of Marmalade? Yum!!! I've never made jam/marmalade. I'd love to try one day. Nalbinding looks interesting. I really need to finish some WIPs first though.

I'm currently switching between these 2. A C2C blanket for DS1, I only started it in 2018
And a raised ripple rainbow blanket which is so pretty.

Ooh, I love homemade marmalade, it's so much better than stuff you can buy, very jealous of your 12 jars MrsRussell

Those are lovely CrochetBug!

Hi, there! May I join you please? I'm very much a beginner with crochet, but starting to experiment with making actual things rather than just playing about. I'm currently 8 hexagons into a cowl scarf that needs 18 of them and determinedly ignoring the fact that I have no idea how to join them to together (pattern just says 'use your favourite method'). I'm sure I'll work it out!

Nice colours @CrochetBug!

Jam making is on my list of things to do when I get my new life in the countryside along with tending my kitchen garden and a small menagerie of animals

I’ve done my crochet homework and uploaded the photo for the teacher to check. I’m not sure what we are doing next week - can’t wait!

Welcome Quantum - the hexagons are coming along great!

Welcome QuantumButterfly! That's such a cop out on patterns when they do that! At least a YouTube link to a suggested technique would be helpful in the info at the start rather than not even giving you the name of a technique you can Google. Those look great, lovely colours!

Oh, those are good NiceCardigan! You could use them for coasters now

We've just come back from the art gallery in Falmouth where they had some amazing textile stuff - very fiddly embroidery called things like "Patience" completed in lockdown, big quilts and things.
(We went to see the amazing automata, which are brilliant, but the textiles are cool too.)

Thinking now I need a knitting automata ;-)
The Junior Engineer made me a spinning machine out of Lego but I can't share a photo cos all the photos I have, have got him in them demonstrating them.

Crochetbug you can send DS1 here and he untangle my many projects. The raised ripple blanket is lovely, is that one of your patterns?

Quantum welcome. I think the favoured stitch by most pattern designers is mattress stitch.

MrsRussell not meaning to our you… but are you Paddington Bear?

MrsRussell that should be out you 🙄

@InTheNightWeWillWish maybe....

(Seriously, I am AMAZED. I bought a kilo of Seville oranges for £1.99 and 2x kilos of granulated sugar. I have 12 jars of really very, very good marmalade. You couldn't buy 12 jars of good marmalade for a fiver.)

For some reason the Murder Mittens I just finished didn't attach - fingerless gloves with ravens on. These are mine, for once....

Thanks for the welcome! Hexagon count is now 12 - I’m about to start colour 3 (cream), and will Google mattress stitch - thanks inthenight.

I’m so thrilled to finally be creating something with yarn. My mum is an exceptionally talented knitter and I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s tried to teach me. I’ve always felt so awful that I wouldn’t be able to carry that skill forward a generation, but I just couldn’t seem to get it. I don’t know why, but crochet just sticks in my brain differently - it makes sense. It’s not just a joy, it’s also, in an odd way, a relief.

@CrochetBug does your ds also find woven in ends and frog old projects 🤔🤔 I can see a money making venture in his future! I'd definitely add myself to the list 🤣

What a pain about your mitten @crazyjinglist! Hopefully, now you've done one, a second then third won't take tooooo long!

Dd2 was eyeing up seville oranges on the market this morning, but I said no this time. They were massive & I decided not to take my trolley so would have had to carry them home. Maybe I should have said "sod it, yeah!".

I treated myself to a new 5.5mm knit pro waves hook earlier. Dd2's face was a picture when one of the ladies in the yarn shop asked if she'd tried crocheting & went on to tell dd how, at 70yo, she wished she'd tried to master it 🤣 Dd2 doesn't really talk to anyone & sometimes it's comical.

I didn't know you can use mattress stitch on crochet too, it really is magic

@lucysmam he loves doing that too

Welcome to the newcomers.

@QuantumWeatherButterfly your hexagons are very neat. I would suggest mattress stitch, or the flat slip stitch join. I can't knit either. Well I can, badly. I just need to practise and find a way to hold the yarn that's comfy. But I'm lazy and can't be bothered to practise (practice? I can never remember.)

I realised after 2 rows of the C2C that I was using a very similar shade of turquoise, but in aran not dk . Asked DS if he was still happy or if he'd rather I frog and re do. Luckily he said it's fine so it's just got 2 random slightly thicker rows

He should sell those services @CrochetBug!

I got this yarn for Christmas - I really need to use it before next Christmas.

I’m going to crochet the Mystic lanterns blanket with it.

Those colours are gorgeous SDTG

The problem with having 415,540,980 projects on the go at any one time is that nothing ever gets finished. I’m going to try and focus on finishing a project this week, I think my best bet is the Tunisian crochet cowl. I’m about halfway through the cowl so hopefully if I can get some time this week I can actually complete something. I do need to read my mystery book though too!

I meant to also say…

MrsRussell did it take you a while to learn to knit with paws? Do you have to have special knitting needles? Do your needles not get sticky with marmalade?

Well @InTheNightWeWillWish as you may remember I live with Mr and Mrs Brown, so they do help an awful lot!
Also, I can keep the WIPs under my hat, which is always a good thing as my paws are never idle.

Mmmmmarmalade! Lovely projects everyone - @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius that yarn looks fabulous - lovely jewel-like colours. I don't know the Mystic Lanterns blanket but the name sounds like it would be perfect for that yarn!

Well, the upside of my having to frog my tiny mitten is that it's made me finally try out the magic loop method, because the sizes on the mittens are basically just achieved just by going up or down a needle size, and I don't happen to have the right size dpns for the next size up. Well... what a revelation! Kicking myself for not having tried magic loop years ago!

Jealous of that gorgeous yarn, STDG!

Hexagon count is up to 16. Two more cream to go. I've found a good video of mattress stitch, so I hope to start joining later today.

Can anyone advise me on what colour to use when joining two sections of different colours? Lighter or darker, or doesn't it really matter?