New podcast review - The Crochet Circle

I just discovered episode three of a brand new podcast (late to the launch again but better late than never!) and I am absolutely smitten. It's "The Crochet Circle Podcast" and it's British, like me, and focuses on crochet with a little bit of knitting on the side - which describes my crafting preferences perfectly.

I smile to myself while listening to how giddy and happy the two hosts are - Lynne Rowe and Fay Dashper-Hughes.  Lynne is a crochet and knitting designer, teacher, pattern checker and copy editor and has even published her own craft books. Fay is a new but extremely enthusiastic crocheter and knitter and has just set up her own company selling carefully sourced products for crochet and knitting.

I had a bit of a binge listening session at the weekend to catch up. They already feel like two dear friends to me and I just want to chip in with my own little anecdote and add to the conversation. So I've joined their new Ravelry group The Crochet Circle Podcast so that I can do exactly this. I'm not on Ravelry as much as I should. It's like a rabbit warren, it draws me in and then I wonder where all that time went....

Their yarn stashes are fabulously named the "Yarn Palace" and the "Wool Nest". Fay likes to shop but Lynne is frugal like myself. Fay is a bad influence on Lynne. Listening to Fay is starting to influence my shopping habits too!   

Both ladies by pure coincidence come from a waste management background and one aim of the podcast is to promote sustainable crochet practices of Reduce Reuse Recycle. Yay! I'm a huge fan of sustainability too.

The kind of things you're going to hear on the Crochet Circle Podcast are: interviews with British yarn industry folk and crochet and knitting groups, tips and tricks to improve and simplify crochet and reviews of crochet magazines and books and yarn.  They have a Crochet Yay and Crochet Nay section which is particularly hilarious and there is a WIP wall where they list out their works in progress for all to hear.

Fay kindly provided me with the images for this blog post. I mainly use my own images as you know. Thank you very much Fay!

Here's the link to the podcast. Have a little listen and if you like what you hear why not join the Ravelry group too? I'll catch up with you there!

How to fix lace mistakes

I have been knitting outdoors boy scout camping in the gorgeous Texas Hill Country and drinking earl grey tea from my charity store enamel tea cup and saucer. It has been a very busy week and I really needed it. Ah bliss!

 

 

 

I am really enjoying this pattern Nurmilintu by Heidi Alander. It's made up of alternating sections of garter stitch and charted lace. The yarn feels good and the tones are pleasing. It's Cascade Heritage 150 Paints - sale yarn purchased in the summer in Yarn Durango, Colorado.
 

I thought I could manage the lace sections without stitch markers. I'll just wing it I thought. I can do it. I often go without a stitch marker in crochet, the one that you usually put in at the beginning of a row when working in the round. I like a little challenge.

 

However, I messed up A LOT. So in went the stitch markers. And then even with these little handy guides sitting on my needles at 9 stitch pattern repeat intervals I messed up. I'd forget a yarn over or not make a note of my row when I put my work down. And then I'd have to go back. But as you may well know, taking back a lace pattern is not straightforward!

 

I worked out that it's easier to take back a little section between stitch markers, turning the work to it's wrong side to see the stitches more clearly. But there must be online guidance for this. Ta dah - I just found an amazing resource on The Twist Collective A knitter's guide to fixing mistakes. Part 1 is Minor Blunders with a whole load of useful info. Part 2 is Average Gaffes dealing with mistakes in cable and colorwork.

And then I found an excellent video on the Craftsy blog with Laura Nelkin How to fix lace knitting mistakes showing how to make a missing yarn over and work a forgotten decrease on the next row.

 

Obviously the easiest way to fix a mistake is not to make it in the first place and here is a great article from Poststitchbox with five ways to count your rows when knitting. I'm a fan of pink highlighter tape personally. What's your preferred method of keeping track?

 

 

Crafting in the great outdoors

My usual blogging time is early Saturday morning while my kids are just waking up and my hubby is out on an early ride with his bike club but last weekend we were camping making the most of the glorious spring weather in Texas. Of course a WIP came too, as it always does. I am working on the extremely cute bobble vine jacket by Edie Eckman with the last of my bargain Cascade Alpaca Lana D'Oro stash yarn.

I love crafting outdoors with my dog by my side in a beautiful peaceful setting accompanied by the sound of nature. I've even taken it so far to entice friends to learn to crochet while camping with us when I needed my teaching hours for my crochet certificates - a captive audience. Poor things. Read my post The Joy of Crafting with others for photographic evidence.

I thought I'd peruse the web for others fond of knitting and crochet in the great outdoors.

What are the best outdoor projects?

I found some extremely sensible advice on the Knitpicks Blog:  3 favorite projects for the great outdoors These are #1 portable socks, #2 modular projects such as squares for a blanket and #3 finishing off. 

Where is a good place to crochet outdoors?

Rachel Choi of the CrochetSpot blog suggest a number of good places to crochet outdoors in her article 6 fun places to crochet outside. Love it!

Knit some camping accessories 

Actually found a book about knitting projects specifically for camping. How fun! Check out In the Woods: 20 Projects for the Great Outdoors by Shannon Okey.

Crochet a camping adventure

Yes I do have this book, a Christmas gift from one who knows me well. It's adorable. Let's Go Camping!: Crochet Your Own Adventure by Kate Bruning  Reminiscent of vintage camping memorabilia, create a nostalgic collection of crochet projects encompassing all aspects of outdoor life ranging from vintage caravans and ice cream trucks, to tents and teepees with all the camping paraphernalia of sleeping bags, backpacks and a log fire, as well as mountain and forest scenery.

A date for your diary - World Wide Knit in Public Day

This started in 2005 and WWKIP Day is unique, in that it’s the largest knitter run event in the world. Each local event is put together by volunteers. It's coming up on Saturday 18th June and here are all the details about how to get involved.

 

Hope you're now feeling inspired to take your yarn projects outside! Let me know if you do! 

 

How to untangle yarn [try it yourself or find a yarn wrangler]

Every now and then a yarn-related story will hit the mainstream news, be shared around social media and become a topic of conversation even amongst your non-yarny friends. How fun! In late December, the Wall Street Journal published "Knitters with hopelessly knotted yarn call 'Detanglers' for help".

"Many knitters find their craft a tranquil and even meditative pastime - until knots and tangles in their yarn send them into a fury. But for one group of fanatics, there is nothing more satisfying than a hopelessly tangled web. Daphne of Melbourne, Australia, once paid about $50 on eBay for a 25-pound box of snarled yarn, simply for the pleasure of untangling it."

I loved reading this article and was already aware of the therapeutic benefits of untangling yarn for some. However at the time of reading I thought I'm not one of those silly people who would ever get my yarn in a tangle. I'm far too careful.

But last month I was merrily winding a skein of expensive lace weight yarn on my swift and ball winder. I've never worked with lace weight yarn before I realize. Then the yarn breaks and I start a new ball. And then it breaks again. And in one of those rather vacant moments I just decide rather than start a new ball I'll wind on top of the ball and all will be well. Later when I start to crochet with the yarn the ball collapses leaving me with the worst tangle I've ever witnessed (see above). Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I now realize I should have wound my yarn very slowly because lace weight yarn is so very delicate. And winding a ball on top of a ball was just downright silliness that I will not repeat.

Anyway I decided I would see if detangling was relaxing for me and found the following tips on what to do:

Jessie Rayot from Jessie at Home has a helpful photo tutorial that I rather like on how to untangle yarn. Katrin Kania gives tips on how to untangle yarn using your swift how to untangle a skein of yarn I particularly love Katrin's instruction on how to calculate the time required:

"To get an estimation of how long it will take you, make a wild guess. Then multiply the time of your wild guess by two - that's the pessimistic wild guess. Now multiply that by ten, and you have an estimate."

I spent several evenings on my untangling project and I can report that it was very absorbing. But now it has been put aside, still on my swift, looking just as tangled as when I started. Perhaps I will need to bring in a Yarn Wrangler from the Knot a Problem group on Ravelry. Roving Crafters describe how to get the experts involved in their article: never fear the yarn wranglers are here

Getting a little better all the time [crochet and knit tutorial links]

I have completed making swatch samples for my Craft Yarn Council knitting 1 certificate. Hurray! Other yarn projects have taken a back seat for a while but that's OK because rotating projects are entirely acceptable for yarn addicted people such as ourselves. I love how learning to teach makes you learn new techniques and improve your existing ones. I've learnt "european" knitting, cable cast on, feather and fan stitch and also discovered what I should improve.

I've realized that my purl stitch is far looser than my knit stitch working on the first two swatches which call for 5" garter stitch squares in knit and purl. My purl swatch is simply sloppy requiring far fewer stitches than my neat knitted candidate. But according to one of my proficient knitting friends (she can knit Fox Paws without assistance) this is not unusual and can be fixed. A quick online search led to a solution. Hurray for Ysolda Teague!

We all love to learn new techniques so I thought I'd share a few online resources for this. My list is a tad biased towards crochet since my return to knitting is very recent:

Knitting designer, Ysolda Teague, has a collection of excellent photo tutorials on her Technique Thursday page. This is where I found out how to make my purl stitches tighter.
 
At knitting designers Tin Can Knits, 2016 is the Year to Learn Something New and they even have a hashtag #TCKnewtricksKAL How fun!

Blogger, designer and teacher Marie Segares of Underground Crafter has a great archive on her blog Tips Tuesdays the most recent being how to join your first (or next) CAL (crochet along) - always a great way to improve your skills!

Blogger, writer and crocheter Kathryn Vercillo of Crochet Concupiscence provides very clear photo tutorials of crochet stitches and also gives a link to other crochet tutorials if you'd like more!

Craft media company Interweave gives free crochet tips articles on it's online store including making amigurumi, sizing your afghans etc

New York store and online resource for "needlecrafters of every ilk" Purl Soho provides both knit tutorials and crochet tutorials on their beautifully presented site.

I know this is just a tiny selection (and I haven't even delved into the world of video tutorials), so I'd love to hear from you if you have a particular favorite place to learn new techniques online. Just let me know in the comments section below!

Are you bistitchual?

I think the term bistitchual is rather fabulous. It's defined along with a great example in the Urban Dictionary as:

 

The ability to create stitches in two crafts, e.g. knitting and crocheting.

 

Alena is bistitchual; she can both crochet and knit.
Penelope is not bistitchual; she can only knit.

 

I am one of the 49% of crocheters who also knit* and it's time for me to devote a little more time to improving my knitting skills now that the holiday gift-making is a distant memory.

I am embarking on the Craft Yarn Council's first knitting certificate. Hurrah! It's a six month long distance-learning course and my career in the yarn industry really began when I started my first CYC crochet certificate almost two years ago. Back then I didn't plan to actually get a job teaching crochet at that time. Read about it in my earlier post "How my crochet career began".

 

I have run a knitting and crochet workshop at my local yarn store every Friday afternoon for the last 16 months. I certainly knitted more frequently than crocheted in my younger years. The height of my knitting prowess was a sweater with a multicolored intarsia countryside scene (so twee!). In short, I'm not a beginner. Pattern support is the most common requirements at the workshop and I am pretty good at deciphering the symbols. However, having gained so much knowledge undertaking my two crochet certificates I feel that I have a duty to my knitting attendees to up my game to the same level. I want to be able to talk authoritatively about knitting best practice in the same way as I can for crochet and I know that the certificate will do this for me.

I just received details of my assignments today and my master teacher is the knit and crochet guru Edie Eckman. I own two of her books and I am totally in awe of her skills. I am so excited and albeit rather nervous about having her assess my work. Better get stitching!

*The State of Specialty NeedleArts Survey 2013, National Needlearts Association (TNNA)

Ladybird ladybird fly away home

Made another gift, this time for the daughter of one of my mommy friends (the recipient of an amigurumi pig). I very much like the quick turnaround of these small projects especially since my only two WIPs are large: joining and edging of charity lapghan #10 and my son's ripple blanket. I reckon I can finish at least one blanket on our upcoming road-trip to Colorado.

Anyway, searched on Ravelry for ladybirds and found this cute pattern. It's knitting again by the wonderful @deadlyknitshade http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lovely-knitted-ladybird But then I had to embellish it with crochet eyes and my husband said "where are it's legs?" so ta dah my ladybird also has legs.

And the recipient of the ladybird built her a home. Here it is. Sweet!

Holiday projects - part 3

Socks are a small portable project which nonetheless take some time to complete. I did try crocheting socks last year but they were too chunky for my liking. And since the yarn store weekly workshop I run is mainly knitters with the odd crocheter turning up, I have regained some of my former enthusiasm for knitting. I have lost a former sock project which I took girl scout camping but fortunately had extra double point needles and more tweed KnitPicks sock yarn so began again. I've only ever made one pair of knitted socks before thinking socks with a cable would be a good idea and they aren't wonderful and I don't like the color of the yarn much but I do still wear them. There really is nothing like a pair of hand-knitted socks. They are a joy and an indulgence. Scotland was unseasonably cold and damp this summer so this spurred me on. I chose the more simple sock pattern sans cable from the one of my all time favorite books "The Gentle Art of Knitting" by Jane Brocket.

School holidays begin

I have been neglecting the blog because we had a very busy last week at school, the kids are now off for the long long summer holiday and my husband's sister has been visiting from England. I did however teach our visitor to knit (I'd got her started a few years back so she opted to refresh those skills rather than try crochet). I bought her a pair of size 7 bamboo straight needles (easier for beginners than circular) and flecked moss green yarn from the sale bins on my workshop day at the yarn store so she could go home with a scarf just begun.  Here is her practice piece.

Baubles for workshop

Made some holiday ornaments for the store since the holiday season is almost upon us.

Patterns are on Ravelry:

Christmas Holiday Garland by Annoo Crochet

Christmas Lights by Amalia Samios

Had to make crochet and knitted versions because now I'm running the workshop myself supporting both knitters and hookers!