Toe-up cable booties

I made these earlier in the summer.  After successfully and easily finishing my 2-coloured sock, I wanted to try something else. I saw someone's toe-up sock (I'm sorry, I don't remember which blog it was), and I thought to myself, why not?

Sorry for the bad picture. Anyways, notice the weird bumps near the toe? Since I did a cast-on where the toes were, I found I had to knit over very loosely at the beginning so that my loops would eventually be able to be stretched over 24 pegs (I started at 12).  This could also be because the yarn didn't have a lot of give. I had extra baby yarn so I had to triple (or was it quadruple) knit with the loom.

This is different from a toe-down sock where you would stitch your sock closed at the toes.

I find the 24-peg loom pretty ugly for these cables; I guess big gauge socks are pretty ugly... but I guess using this loom would be okay for booties. 

What's in your yarn bag?

I finally finished crocheting my yarn stash bag and have slowly been transferring my yarn stash into it.



I've been practicing herringbone, as you can see. Not pictured: a dozen type of cables and a mesh t-shirt on looms, and a crochet sweater I need to start.

Youtube Round-Up Comes Back for Some More!

I'm back! Long story short, a break from the internet became an even longer affair after those Olympics set in...and then the Paralympics.  I turned into a total sports zombie (even though I promised myself that I wouldn't go nuts during the Olympics again). Crazy sport-nut that I am, I was in bliss for a while.

Anyway, onto the links!  Today I go back to the basics! I love Isela Phelps.  Her videos are great, and they're pretty short, too!

• Simple Crochet Bind Off
• Basic Bind Off
• Knit stitch (the normal one, not that e-wrap one)

Zig-Zag Spring Hat Pattern

Here is my pattern, finally! It's ridiculously easy!  I saw a beret by Debbie Stoller (Stitch Nation) in Vogue Knitting.  I changed it by doing the first section as a k2tog instead of an ssk, but that's the only difference I made.  Unless you increase your stitches off the loom, or make wedges, it is difficult to make a beret, so it is just a toque. Sorry if I'm not very accurate; I really like to be flexible with patterns and therefore, I don't have any row numbers for hats. You can adjust if you want it to be a beanie (which is shorter).

41 or 40 peg loom (Knifty Knitter/ Michaels/ Wal-Mart brand does just fine)

Some people still have the 41-peg knifty knitter looms, but this pattern works best on any multiple of 4 (so you can also do it on a 36 peg loom).  For the 41 peg loom, the last peg should be purled.


Yarn size and gauge don't really matter, but I used Red Heart Super Saver Yarn and doubled it up.  You just need a fairly thick yarn (5 and up, or doubling up yarns) for the 41-peg loom. I broke the pattern down into 4 parts.

Stitches you need to know:

Knit (k) - normal stockinette stitch. Do not use e-wrap (twisted stockinette) stitch

Purl (p) - if you do not know how to do this stitch, please see this past post of Youtube compilations

Knit 2 together (k2tog) - In the pattern, for the first repeat of the ladder slanting to the right, your first k2tog occurs on peg 4.  To do this, take the loop off of peg 3, and then put it on top of peg 4. Yarn over peg 3 and knit together as 1 on peg 4.

Slip slip knit (ssk) - ssk - slip slip knit. This is weird in loom knitting because you don't have to do anything (whereas you have to slip the two stitches off the left needle, but I digress).  To make a ladder slant to the left, you take the loop off peg 3, and put it above the loop on peg 2, which will now have 2 stitches.  Knit those together as 1, and yarn over peg 3.

Yarn over (yo) - this is mentioned in combination with the k2tog and ssk. You do a yo before a k2tog. Basically bring the working yarn in front of the empty peg (because you moved the stitch to the next stitch for a k2tog) very loosely.  Do not e-wrap. You do a yarn over after the ssk has occu


PATTERN:

CO: 
Use whatever you like. I love the cable cast on for hats, because it looks like a thin line from afar and is stretchy. A long-tail cast on is a bit thick, but it also works nicely and is elastic.

Rib stitch
Row 1: *p2, k2
repeat row 1 until 1" is knitted

Ladder slant to the right
Row 1: *p1, k1, yo, k2tog, repeat *
Row 2: *p1, k3, repeat *
Repeat row 1 and 2 until you have knitted 4" for a beanie, or 4 1/2" for a regular hat

Ladder slant to the left
Row 1: *p1, ssk, yo, k1, repeat *
Row 2: *p1, k3, repeat *
Repeat row 1 and 2 until you have knitted 6" for a beanie (or even less, if you like them really short), or 6 1/2" for a regular hat

Decrease
Because the second half of the hat uses ssk I did a decrease using ssk instead of k2tog.  I didn't touch the purl stitches and only decreased on the knit stitches trying to maintain the pattern of the hat. After doing the amount wanted, bind off and weave in ends.

If you are having trouble, please read more.

Weekend Youtube Roundup

Finally! I was supposed to finish this post two days ago, whoops! My excuse is that it was my birthday.  Anyways, most of these posts are new videos that go along with articles from loom knitters circle! These are great, especially Bethany Dailey's bind off/cast off comparison.

Today's videos will show you:

• Chain lace stitch
• Bind off / cast off comparison for loom knitting
• slip one knit one pass over slipped stitch

Clever looms

No picture today, folks.  I know, it's sad.  I miss my digital camera too.

This is an old-timer, before high speed internet type of post.  If you are shocked, proceed to look at my past blog posts instead and enjoy.


Question: Have you built a loom before?
Answer: No, but I really want to build one.  You see, I live in Canada.  Okay, I will admit that living in Canada has nothing to do with anything.  I'm really lazy to find out if there are stores that I can go to buy finer gauge looms than a knifty knitter or any of its cousins.  It's on my summer bucket list.  Seeing that I'm making a small profit from knitting stuff for people, this is a very BIG possibility, because I want to be able to change my knitting gauge.  The knitting gauge depends on the space between your pegs.

Question:  Why would you want to make your own loom?
Answer: The main reason is because I do not have any change to spare.  Any money goes towards my education.  Also, I am curious.  I want to know how to build one.  My dad once built my mom a huge weaving loom just for her to make one afghan.  He won't be helping me, but I guess history has a case of repeating itself....except this is a knitting loom.  Save your money, folks! You can save so much money by making your own looms.  Most of the time you will have the materials, or you can go out and buy the materials for a fraction of the price.

Question:  Will you post your looms if you make them?
Answer: Of course I will. I will make them this summer for sure.  However, they may be really bad.  I've never been good at hands-on stuff except for knitting and painting.  I just can't think in 3D. But never say never! I have never been motivated to build stuff (especially for school projects; I just didn't understand why I needed to build the Globe Theatre while studying Shakespeare).  I honestly cannot tape popsicle stitcks together to make a fence in a model. It's that sad.  What I'm trying to say is, I'm here to encourage everyone to try it at least once!


I've found two very useful sites to build looms.

Adjustable looms/circular-looms/double-rakes:
This is the most CLEVER way to make looms I've ever seen in my life.  This is more like what I would do, because I am not that great with tools.  For a finer gauge loom, you need real rubber bands (for example, the ones for hair - they don't pull your hair out like the elastic bands you get with groceries), pick-up stitcks, and spacer beads.  I am so impressed.  She also has adjustable looms, which I think would be great for berets.  The only way I know how to make berets with knifty knitters are to increase stitches off of your loom or make wedges and sew them together.  This is a quick fix!  Increases or decreases will look neater, especially if you want to do a drastic decrease. As soon as I have enough money I'm going to go buy these items.  I think I can pick them all up at the local dollar store.

I also have to put out a blurb, because she does great Harry Potter stuff.  Honestly, that was the reason I learned how to knit.  Go Ravenclaw!

Standard wooden looms:
This is if you want to make looms similar to those found on knittingboard.com.  This is the standard double rake loom (as opposed to the newest all-n-one loom, which looks amazing and makes me salivate, if that is possible).  It's a rustic site, but it goes step by step.  I will probably be doing this when summer time actually hits (July).


Happy looming!  If you don't know how far you need to space your pegs check out loom knitting help here.

Brioche stitch revisited

There's nothing I like more than the brioche stitch.  It's nice and thick; so very sturdy.  I know I posted a video about the two-colour brioche stitch tutorial on youtube, but I wanted to show how the stitch would look with one colour.

It's not a very good picture, I know.  The digital camera is not with me for the moment, which disappoints me.

Anyways, its a very pretty stitch, and the video does a good job of explaining how to do the stitch.  You do the steps the same way as with 2 yarns, except you are repeating the second-half round with the same yarn.

Also, I was looking up more information about the brioche stitch and found this site which is dedicated to the stitch and its various forms.  Check it out! If you've done the stitch, trying the different variations should be easy.

UPDATE 04/12/13: I have added a tutorial that will hopefully help you work brioche here

Weekday Youtube Linkage III

Woo! After a blogging mini-break, I am ready to start up again! This weekend consisted of me doing the daisy stitch on needles and wondering how to transpose it on a loom.  I'm really close to figuring it out, but it still doesn't look exactly right.  It's definitely much more easy to do it on needles though.

Anyway, this week you will learn:

• Little bow stitch (Isela Phelps is great!) - Mariposita stitch
• Rib stitch for double knitting on long looms
• Creating a triangle shawl with GoodKnitKisses

Socks on Saturday

I used to be scared of non-hat projects.  I've made a headband, a gazillion hats, a few scarves. Lately I've just been experimenting with patterns and lace, but I decided I needed to make other things

I actually made these socks a few weeks ago. I googled up a few different patterns, and looked for what people had to say on loom knitting socks. As you can see, it went pretty well. Using a knitting loom only took me a few hours to make one sock.

These are not the ideal yarns to use, but I just wanted to see how easy it was to make a sock.

Despite the fact that this is bulky, I can see myself knitting more socks in the future.

I don't care what non-loomers say.  Socks on looms are RIDICULOUSLY easy.  You are knitting in the round, and the only thing you have to learn how to do is short rows, where you knit part of the loom for a few rows before joining them up.  You can use the zig-zag stitch or kitchener stitch to sew up the toe and voila! A sock!

Finer gauge looms will look even more amazing, but these looms will save you time rather than knitting with double pointed needles.  I actually found this really fun.  Scarves can get annoying at times, unless you're double knitting.

Also, yes I haven't threaded my work to finish because I'm probably going to frog them to do other stuff/experiments (nothing that has anything to do with hats or headbands, of course).

Weekday Youtube Linkage II

I have been remiss on these video posts! These are the easiest posts I make!

Today you will find:

• How to knit a twisted keyhole scarf (very fashionable)
• Two-colour brioche stitch on the round loom!
• Slip with yarn in front (sl wyif)

I tried out the brioche stitch, and I absolutely love it. Every time I see using two colours in a project, I immediately turn all nerdy and think about how great it would look if I knit it in Harry Potter colours (blue and bronze for me - GO RAVENCLAW!), and I see myself getting broke in the near future.

Right side

wrong side - still looking good nonetheless

Onto those links!

Stitch guide open AND Lace hat preview - patterns coming soon

WOO! I started the basic stitch guide (look for it as a link on your right!) The first page I did talks about the difference between the two knit stitches loomers use; the twisted stockinette and stockinette (normal).  Yeah, I know people know, but I just wanted to reiterate the stuff that's already been said.  It takes a bit of time for me to write these things and take pictures, so I don't know how long it'll take me to do the other ones.

Also...

I have 2 lace knitting patterns I will post! I debated the second hat, because it's so pretty...and I forgot how I did the pattern. I still don't remember one row, so I will be posting that one second!

Anyway, these 2 patterns will be coming your way soon, loom knitters! I knitted them both on the 41-peg loom, but they are easily able to be done (and more symmetrical) on the 40-peg looms. Apparently no one is able to fit into anything I make on a 36-peg loom unless you want your ears smashed, or have the hat zooming off your head.

Zig-zag Spring hat

I don't know why, but this is such a simple hat, and this pattern really gets to me. I really love it for its simplicity, and I hope you love it too!

Intricate lace hat
I am bad at names, maybe I should start posting pictures on my twitter and asking people what I should name these things.  This name is deceptive because it's a ridiculously easy hat to knit.

Lace tip - getting your yarn overs to look like regular knitting

So I've been experimenting with lace lately. Well, no, not lately. I started knitting with needles and crocheting too, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  I tried to mention in my last post about getting really nice yarn overs.  So here I have a sample of knitting that has a regular yarn over that one would get with needle knitting, and the e-wrap yarn over commonly done in loom knitting.  There isn't much of a difference, but I think the e-wrap yarn over looks a little more messy (the knot is at the side, whereas a normal yarn over creates a nice twist) and is slightly smaller when you are making eyelets.

There are reasons why I do my yarn overs that are initially e-wrap instead of just laying the yarn in front of the peg. For one, they are loose and easy to knit, whereas just laying the yarn in front of the peg may become too tight. Even if you leave space and do it loosely, the more you knit, the more you pull on the working yarn, so it's easier to just leave it as an e-wrap and unravel it later on.  This method provides the cleanest looking eyelets, and it doesn't take long at all! If you want your loom knitting to look like needle knitting, this is it.

I hope this tip helps!  Proceed onto the pictures for your perusal.

Lace tips..coming soon... with pics

I know I have non-English people reading my site (Hiya!) so I will post some pictures soon.

I've really been experimenting with lace. I've also found some quick tips that I may be able to post over Easter weekend.

Firstly, when you're making eyelets, whether you're doing ssk (decrease to left) or k2tog (decrease to right), and then doing your yarn overs (yo) for lace, the yo is an e-wrap.  When they tell you to knit over the peg that you e-wrapped the row before, you should unravel the e-wrap and knit it over like a flat stockinette stitch, I've noticed that if you don't do this, your eyelets don't look like they're knitted together.

Weekday Youtube Linkage

I see that people like my links to youtube videos! I do take some time searching for these.

Today, learn how to:

• pick up a dropped knit stitch
• pick up a dropped purl stitch
• knit 1 colour on 1 side for double knitting

Let's get to it!

Woven herringbone

I was so stressed this week. I was also trying to transpose the daisy stitch to the loom but couldn't for the life of me figure it out. So I tried something easier and ta dah! I just transposed the stitch from the Knitting on the Net stitch database




Woven Herringbone: Multiple of 4 + 2
Row 1: k2, *sl2 wyif; rep from *
Row 2: k1, *sl2 wyif, k2; rep from *, end k1
Row 3: sl2 wyif, *k2, sl2 wyif; rep from *
Row 4: k3, *sl2 wyif, k2; rep from *, end last rep k1 instead of k2
Rows 5-12: Rep row 1-4 twice
Row 13: Rep row 3
Rep 14: Rep row 2
Row 15: Rep row 1
Row 16: Rep row 4
Rows 17-24: Reps row 13-16 twice


NOTE:  To do sl wyif, slip stitch with yarn in front, lift the peg in which you are supposed to be slipping your stitch, and bring the working yarn behind the peg, and then put your stitch back on the peg.


It's a pretty dense pattern, and if anyone needs help, I'll post pics in 2 weeks.

Lace Saturday

With the emergence of Spring I've switched to practicing lace knits. This is one of the latest ones I've tried. Unfortunately I couldn't find my biggest loom so I could only practice one column.



People said the patten was easy on ravelry. I honestly thought it was confusing because the pdf was messy, and went back and forth. The underlined words made it hard to read. Can you guess I'm not good at chem labs? I would be the equivalent of Ron in potions class. I persevered though as you see.

Check out the link and try it yourself. Tell me how it goes!

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wavy-feather-lace-stole-loom-knit

Pass it along Sunday

I was looking through some links, and found this post from Anne Bipes ages ago. It's great!

Using a lifeline so that when you frog it, you'll still have your knit pieces up to a certain point.  I wish I thought of this before - especially when knitting large pieces of work like scarves and shawls.

Check it out!

http://loomknittingblog.blogspot.ca/2007/08/using-lifeline.html

Saturday Youtube Link Tag

I don't think I could keep this up every Saturday, but maybe every other weekend would be sufficient. Anyways, here are some simple youtube videos that I think can be very useful when you're starting out!  I haven't found a short and simple tutorial about the stockinette stitch, which is a shame though. Anyways, check out the full page to view my commentary.

• Decreasing for hats with a 36-peg loom, so you won't have vulgar bunching atop your head
• Chain cast-on - it's simple and quick - you can use them on round or rectangular looms
• Purl stitches

Lace again

I've been practicing some lace patterns because of the unusually warm march weather.



I really hate the cast on I did for this lace sample. I like how it is scalloped but I really dislike the loose loops. I haven't figured out which cast on I like for lace yet.  Anyway, this design is actually Isela Phelp's fern lace pattern, so view the full post to see the video on how to do it.  If you try it, make sure to tell me how yours worked out! I used a Knifty Knitter, so it wouldn't look as good as a loom with a smaller gauge.

What is this?

What do you think this is? Why it's a 2x2 rib knit sideways! I really don't know why it's sideways, but it's part of my winter hat, which is unfortunately useless in the warm weather we have been experiencing in the last week.  I knitted this a couple of weeks ago using non-worsted yarn (I don't know if there's a term for that). This is less complex compared to the cable knit hats I made for my mom and sister, but it's so comfortable and simple.

Spring is near... Or here already!

It was so warm earlier this week, I could open my windows without fearing a cold! It felt like spring, although spring has less to do with temperature and more to do with the equinox... although it is technically "spring" if you're a climatologist (I watch the weather channel too much, but I digress)

So I started knitting a lace scarf. It's been busy so I haven't had time to think of a design, so I used a free lion yarn pattern again. It's quite easy, you just need to know k2tog and yo.

I made a few mistakes I didn't catch too far into knitting that I couldn't frog it, so I kept on going. The times when I could catch them, I messed up going backwards to fix it. I'm not used to the e-wrap because the twisted stockinette is a stitch I quite despise.

My greatest mistake was slipping the stitch at the ends when turning. I realized this too late, but I won't make the mistake again! I love the nice braid that comes with slipping a stitch but the garter stitch needs to be done on both ends to prevent curling. It's a lace pattern so the curling isn't as noticeable. I still haven't weaved in the ends yet, but it is nearly 1 am.

Double knitting on the long loom

Since I just got a long loom, I've been playing around. I tried out a free pattern from lion brand yarn and double knitting is great! Too bad this is acrylic yarn - I wish I had more buttery, rich yarns. I will be posting a long tail cast on tutorial for double knitting soon!

Hello world!

It's my day off school today, and I've decided to learn how to do double knits on looms. I'm also looking up different cast-on methods for long looms.  As school makes me busy, I hope I can post fairly regularly, because there are a great number of links out in the world, which have been useful to me. I hope to do that weekly, at least!

So my story for loom knitting? My aunt bought me a loom set, I tried it out, thought that e-wrap stitches (twisted stockinette) were the fugliest thing in the world. I found that normal knit stitches and purl stitches can make a lot of beautiful patterns, and here I am today. I shall be posting things I have made, and my mistakes with them (I've made a lot) later!