I know you’ve been dying to know how my handspun yarn knitted, so here’s the little rectangle I made:
Here’s the other side:
And here’s a close up:
I still can’t do the cast off so it doesn’t pull and seem tight compared to the rest of it. I plan to felt this piece when I get the chance, by hand, not in the washer. This is another piece I’ve made specifically for felting, I promised Nada I’d make a piece with the pencil roving to see how it felted:
It’s quite chunky:
Another piece I made recently turned out really nice, the colours and shine are gorgeous:
This has a really nice texture:
When you open the yarn out, it’s actually a kind of netting, I bought it with felting in mind before I could knit:
I’ll show the photos when the top pieces have been felted.
I haven’t had chance to do any felting at all recently. With working on the Wet Felting workshop and trying to work out all the details for outside tutors, not to mention having to move the entire contents of my kitchen into the living room, I’ve barely had time to sit down with a cup of tea! Last week during a well deserved tea break (Russian Caravan) I thought I’d look up some How to Knit videos. I’ve been wanting to learn how to knit for ages. I have tried in the past, but always found it hard to keep the stitches loose enough to force the needles through 🙂 I don’t even know how many videos I watched about casting on, but none of them made sense, it was like watching close-up magic or something ‘so you get this, you do this, and … shazam!’ I almost gave up, but then I found Kristen ‘GoodKnitKisses’ and her How to knit videos. This is the Beginner’s Cast on Video:
I did it first time. I couldn’t believe it! So then I watched the ‘How to Knit’ video. That took a few tries for me to feel like I’d got the hang of it, maybe if I hadn’t used some synthetic version of thick and thin pencil riving, I might have been better 🙂 So, being a ‘master knitter’ now, I thought I’d make myself some needles out of dowelling:
Then I went hunting for something to use, and found a bag of raw Jacob I carded not so long ago. I made it into rolags and spun it on my drop spindle. The next day, I knitted it up straight from the spindle. Luckily GoodKnitKisses has a casting off video too. I’m not sure I did the last stitch right, but it isn’t coming undone, so I must have. I was really pleased with my knitting:
I had an electrician in the other morning, so while all the electric was off, I found some spare ends of white wools and mixed fibre batts and started some thick, nobbly yarn for my next knitting attempt:
If you want to start learning how to knit, I would definitely recommend those videos!
While I was sick I didn’t do any felting. I just didn’t have the energy. I have been knitting and reading cheesy books.
This is the knitting:
It is a shawl. I have been knitting it on and off for a year. I am a slow knitter. I got the idea at an “Art in the Park” event. Someone had a bunch of similar ones for sale. You knit, knit knit and every so far you add in two fancy yarns. I am not sure how long it should be. I think I will make it really long so I can throw it over my shoulder. That might take another couple of years.
The other thing I did was reach some “bad” novels. You know the guilty pleasure kind. They are the Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels. They are not deep reading but they are great fun to read. I read 8 in the last 2 weeks.
I am feeling much better now and hope to get back to some felting soon.
Here’s the other side:
And here’s a close up:
I still can’t do the cast off so it doesn’t pull and seem tight compared to the rest of it. I plan to felt this piece when I get the chance, by hand, not in the washer. This is another piece I’ve made specifically for felting, I promised Nada I’d make a piece with the pencil roving to see how it felted:
It’s quite chunky:
Another piece I made recently turned out really nice, the colours and shine are gorgeous:
This has a really nice texture:
When you open the yarn out, it’s actually a kind of netting, I bought it with felting in mind before I could knit:
I’ll show the photos when the top pieces have been felted.
