Five knitting things that please me

The first time someone suggests you should learn to knit you may be baffled. People still do that? Do I look like I’m eighty? Etc etc. Put aside all your prejudices and try knitting on for size because there are many things to please you.

At least… if you’re me.

One: Rows and rows of stockinette.

It’s one of the most basic stitches. On straight needles it’s knit one row, purl the next, but when you’re knitting in the round (like I almost always do)? It’s just knit stitch over and over. People complain about the miles of stockinette some projects have and even I have been known to gripe, but let’s face it: this is what knitting is all about. Anything else is gravy.

Note to new knitters: gravy is a metaphor. Do not attempt to apply gravy to your stockinette.

Miles and miles and miles and miles and

Two: Blindingly complicated lace patterns.

Yes, I like to jump through the extremes.

Lace is sometimes to complicated it hardly looks like knitting any more, but even the hardest is much easier than it looks. It’s all just knitting, purling, increasing, decreasing. There may be about a thousand variations of those things before you even get to the ridiculous ones like p5tog tbl (purl five together through the back loop, and no I have never seen this on an actual pattern yet) but even a nupp is just knits and yarn overs and a decrease.

The hardest part is the counting. Seriously, I can do fiddly lace if I use roughly 5,405 stitch markers so that I don’t have to figure out where the heck I am in the pattern.

Three: Casting on.

Once again there are many ways to cast on, but I’m not talking about the technicalities. I’m talking about that moment where you’re done one project and moving on to the next. That moment where you have come to the end of the second sock and seek out a new pattern to start.

Or, if you’re more like me, that moment halfway through a project when you think you’ll scream if you have to do one more bobble so end up casting on something else to keep you sane.

It’s the thrill of the new and the thrill of the familiar all wrapped up into one, and I love it.

Four: Nupps.

I hate them. Really, really hate them. Yet the sense of triumph at mastering something so fiddly and ridiculous is overwhelming. I still fondle the nupps of my Damask shawl regularly. At present it is pinned up on my desk at work to stare at happily until it’s spring and I can wear it again.

Got to love/hate a good nupp.

 

Nupps, for me, signify that moment of realising I can knit well. Not just get by, not just churn out a few simple things. I can do something difficult and I can, after a few attempts, do it well. That negates the hate a bit.

Five: Frogging a project.

This may sound counter-intuitive. What’s so fun and satisfying about ripping back a project until it’s nothing but a ball of yarn once more? Doesn’t that mean defeat, resignation, sadness?

Yes, maybe. Or maybe it’s one of my abandoned projects languishing in my drawer for three years before I get it out and now I have a ‘new’ skein of bright red merino/silk sock yarn to play with again.

Ta-dah!

Besides, I’m a process knitter. I may love most of my finished objects but certainly not all of them.

What are your favourite knitting things, folks?

Last Day to Win!

If you haven’t already listened to episode two of the Knitter Nerd podcast, go do so. Also, comment on the post with one of Diane Martini’s gorgeous patterns and you could win one of them from me.

A reminder of how lovely they are:

From Diane Martini’s Designer Page. © rantini 2015

I’m personally making the Marigny sweater as soon as I can find the right yarn for it, but she has some lovely things to choose from.

You can also use the code polo2015 on any of her patterns this month for 25% off. What a bargain.

Knitter Nerd Podcast Episode 1

Here it is! The Knitter Nerd Podcast, the real episode one.

Thank you again to those who supported my Kickstarter campaign; you are the reason I have this new microphone. I love you all, and anyone who listens to it.

So without further ado…

If you want to download it, click here for your options.

Show Notes

Yes, I said I would post this on Saturday but I ended up out of the house most of the day buying hand-knit things of glory and wonder. I will let you know more about that on Wednesday.

Find my friend Sophie’s blog here, and blame her for this knitting obsession.

Kniterary is my Local Yarn Store.

Find the Nerd Underground comic reviews and podcast over here.

Look at the baby cardigan I made.

See a picture on Instagram of the dreadlock hat.

Apparently I’m not being trolled; the Yarn Harlot says ‘nupps’ rhymes with ‘soups’.

See my book reviews here.

Here’s the Welcome to Night Vale book. Review will come Friday, but will be on my Goodreads tomorrow.

Some good comics for you:

Rat Queens

Tet

Lumberjanes

We(l)come Back

No, I’m not a Boom! Studios fangirl. Why do you ask?

Oh, and as a note – the pictures of the Faroese shawl will have to wait. I’m hoping to get photos this week, but I couldn’t wear it on Saturday. It was too cold, I needed all the layers and the shawl is too unwieldy to go beneath a coat.

Go see Christopher Sebela’s adventures in the Clown Motel here.

The New Beginning for the Knitter Nerd

I’ve known it all along: knitters are awesome people.

Not only that, but people are awesome people; not everyone who pledge toward my Kickstarter campaign is a knitter. Some are people I know, some are strangers, all of you have made my year.

This blog is so important to me. Not only because it allows me to vent all the knitting thoughts I have in my head on a day to day basis, but because I can reach out and connect with knitters. One of my main goals with improving The Knitter Nerd is finding a way to connect more with you awesome folks to prove none of us are shouting into the void. We’re all a bunch of knitters and nerds and we’re not alone.

That’s the biggest, most important lesson the internet has taught me. As a scared and lonely teenager I retreated into an online world and I have never looked back. Not once. I found my girlfriend here, I found friends here, and I found that no matter how weird people said I was back then I was among likeminded people as soon as I heard that dial-up tone.

Knitting has been a similar experience for me. Since I joined Sophie’s Stitch ‘n’ Bitch in 2010 during a period of very boring unemployment I realized that knitters are lovely. They are accepting, kind people of all types and they will whole-heartedly pull you into their midst, thrusting skeins of pretty things at you until you’re past saving.

If I sound sappy, forgive me. I am overwhelmed by the kindness I have seen in the past two months. You’ll see the rewards start to roll out this month so keep an eye out for that. There will be more changes to the site over the next three months and I’m very excited to show you guys what’s happening.

(Note: if you come by here and see the site is a bit wonky, don’t mind it. It’s having a little spruce up this month and I do these things by trial and error.)

Thank you everyone who helped me out with this big step up, and thanks for the support of everyone else who reads and comments on this blog. You are all treasures.

Knitting in music videos

Someone on Twitter shared this link with me. I don’t know how they found me since they aren’t following me or anything but I’m glad they did because this made me laugh a lot.

It’s a video of a small knitted character going about her life and dreaming she’s a flesh person.

Yeah.

Do you know of any other music videos that feature knitting? I’m so amused.

Turns Out I Just Wanted Socks.

Why is this surprising to me (or anyone)?

At my LYS last Thursday I browsed the shelves looking for inspiration and I came across a couple of interesting skeins of yarn. I gawped, I bounced, and I purchased them immediately. She’s moving buildings in a few weeks so there was the added fun of getting it at a discount.

To no one’s shock it’s sock yarn. Did I just… forget that I live for socks? That socks are the happiest of all knitting? That there’s nothing like churning out a vanilla sock in a few days?

It’s Opal Sockenwolle Handgefärbt which is a lot of fun to say – though my senior school German is probably lacking on the pronunciation front. The Australien skein (top) had a lovely chunk of purple snuggled in the middle and I couldn’t resist it. The Afrika one is more muted and less busy. Both have that satisfying soft scratchiness that all the best sock yarns should have.

Since Martina was busy I wound both up before I’d even paid for them and cast on with the Australien one.

One of the best things about sock yarn is how the colours look so different in the skein than in the cake, and then different again in the sock. To my surprise the Australien colourway spirals when you knit with it. It’s clown barf for sure but it’s muted, fun clown-barf so I enjoy it thoroughly.

Yesterday was a day off so after heading to the farmer’s market and hanging with a good friend I settled down to watch some Green Wing and knit the sock while doing big belly laughs at their ridiculous antics. With 2.75mm needles I’m making quick progress. As of this morning I’m already finished with the heel flap and ready to turn it.

After the all-encompassing lethargy and apathy of the last week this is so much fun. Turns out my knitting funks don’t last very long at all.

I’m Just Really Bored of My Projects

Sometimes I am so intense about my projects that I can’t focus on anything else. Sometimes I’m only excited at a normal human level without risk of brain implosion, and those are the best times because I can still function.

But sometimes I look at my projects and all I can think is ‘meh’.

At the moment (as ever) I have roughly eleventy thousand projects on the needles. I have no idea of the precise number or what they are because I flit between them all the time. Some people like to focus on one project at a time and that’s great if it works for you! Yet beyond the occasional exception, it isn’t the way I work.

My little sister is giving birth in about ten weeks to another boy. I am most of the way through a blanket for him (meh) and about halfway through a cardigan for him (meh). These are the two projects I’m working on most often because babies tend to come to a schedule, give or take a week. I need to get these sent off as soon as possible.

Yet… I just… it’s so boring. I can’t take it any more. I want to knit socks. I want to knit all the socks.

To avoid this burn out I’ve put both the projects aside and I’m crocheting a bib for him out of some leftover yarn. It’s not at all functional but decorative is okay at this point, and it may end up having an elephant on it because why not?

How do you avoid burn out on important projects?

In Pursuit of Distraction

I’ve got a good thing going at work these days.

Earlier I mentioned that I have been crocheting covers for the chair’s armrests at work since they’re a little bedraggled. My chair is bright and cheerful in green and yellow acrylic (complete with a little flower) and it’s catching on.

First a co-worker crocheted her own for one of her arm-rests. Then people started asking me to make them for their chairs.

However much I like my co-workers, I don’t mass-produce even these things for free. As a result I’m getting a cup of coffee and a snack for every arm-cover that I make. It’s great. I drink a cup of decaff every morning (and quite often another later in the day) and it is how I let my brain know to get going, even if I can’t drink the caffeine. The snack is just a bonus.

So far I’ve finished two other sets and I’m about to start a third. It’s a great way to get the hang of new stitches and to play around with patterns. I’ve figured out a way to crochet it so it stays on itself without having to crouch on the floor and tie it on.

I love crochet for how adaptable it is. Even more, I love it for how many free coffees it’s getting me!

Geeky Pattern Collective: Terry Pratchett Edition

I can’t remember whether I read Terry Pratchett or J.R.R. Tolkein first. Between them they were the catalyst for my jump into the world of fantasy and though one had his tongue more firmly in his cheek than the other, both inspired me more than any other author had before.

Terry Pratchett was not only an excellent author but an excellent man. His books helped my Dad realise how much he and I have in common, and has helped grow our excellent relationship. Discworld was funny and it was fun, but it was also enlightening and helped me look at our own world in a new (and more critical) way. Terry Pratchett was – and will continue to be – a huge inspiration to me.

So here are some patterns I’ve found that do him justice.

Rattus Mortei

by Henneke Sieben

“Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields…
NO, YOU CAN’T RIDE A CAT. WHO EVER HEARD OF THE DEATH OF RATS RIDING A CAT? THE DEATH OF RATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG.
Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves…
DON’T ASK ME I DON’T KNOW. SOME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE.
…fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze…
RIGHT, AND THE DEATH OF FLEAS CAN RIDE IT TOO. THAT WAY YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.
…awaiting the clockwork of the seasons.
METAPHORICALLY.” – Reaper Man

–

Mini Discworld

by Anxo Cunningham

“The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world.” – The Light Fantastic

–

Flynn the Swamp Dragon

by Steph Conley

 

“It’s a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s also a bloody great hot flying thing.” – Guards! Guards!

–

Bloody Stupid Johnson

by Sarah Lilly

“It’s got three keyboards and a hundred extra knobs, including twelve with
‘?’ on them.” – Men at Arms

Can you do random?

There are people who need a generator to do random stripes.

I understand the impulse to make the randomness as attractive as possible and a generator is impartial, but that’s not how I do things. My randomness is less uniform.

From here.

When I want to be random in my knitting I just… go. I pick up my needles (or hook) and my yarn and I see where it takes me. I’m not saying this is a better way to do it – sometimes it turns out looking like the knitted equivalent of the brown sludge from mixing too many colours of paint together – but that’s how I get the most enjoyment out of my yarn.

In all honesty I struggle with following patterns. Not because I can’t do it but because I have the constant impulse to deviate and find out what would happen if I did this, or maybe that.

As a result my random stripes are rather less balanced. Take my linen stitch cowl; I started with a vague idea in mind that would make it quite regular in the stripes which would fade in and out of one another. However, the yarn didn’t agree with me and now I’m knitting whatever combination of rows happens each time I get to my marker.

It works for me. I know there’s a risk it’ll end up looking a little weird but the yarn and the stitch means it’s relatively unlikely. Either way I’ll be wearing it since the yarn is soft and drapes so well the colours are becoming almost secondary.

Can you do random stripes when you’re knitting or do you need some kind of guide for it? I’m interested to see what others do.