Category Archives: Uncategorized

Door 8 – Is it worth it?

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When I first moved to London, I used to order my – up until then favourite – yarn brand in Germany. It’s Lana Grossa and they do have very nice things. I used mainly their Merino range Cool Wool which comes in a variety of thickness and great colours. But are the high delivery costs really worth it?

So I went to John Lewis and bought some Debbie Bliss Rialto and realised that this is just as soft 🙂 The colour range is more limited and has more subtle shades, maybe a bit too “grown up” for my children projects.

This year, I thought I should  buy a bit cheaper, especially if I knit something for the shop to be able to reduce the prices. But I realised quickly that cheap Merino is actually not as soft as the slightly more expensive brands, so I have to say: Yes, it is worth it!

So I am back to Debbie Bliss, still missing a bit the Lana Grossa Cool Wool though.

It was about time…

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IMG_1243bigMay I present the first item knitted by my daughter!

It was about time, as she turned 4 this Monday 🙂

For a long time she was happy to knit with me holding and guiding her hands but lately she often picked my knitting up to continue on her own…… not really to my delight as sometimes I really struggled to get the needles back out of the gordian knot

She has also started to refuse my help when she actually knitted with my permission.

Anyway, my sister got her a knitting fork for her birthday and some very colourful thick yarn.

She started immediately, still in her pyamas, unable to eat her birthday breakfast…. and did not stop until the hairband/bow was finished.

As everyone admired her in nursery, she then made three for her teachers the next morning which were all very appreciated.
But today she informed me that she is done with knitting and that I can continue with the half finished hairband on her fork which she had already promised to make for an other teacher …

Anyway, I got the chance to take a few pictures when she was working and I think it is really a great tool to get started as it is even simpler than a knitting doll.

And as even the teacher were impressed by her skills and the knitting fork, we are invited to show them how to knit (me with two needles, her with the fork), once to only her group but then also during the Friday assembly.

I guess a good way to advertise my knitting classes :)They will all send their mummies to my classes.

Anyway, it made me think about my first steps as a knitter. I do not really remember who showed me first or when. I remember a skirt for a doll knitted in primary school. It grew bigger and bigger as I just couldn’t stop. And there was a vest for myself. My sister made a jumper for herself and I wanted to do the same but my mum suggested a sleeveless version as I was still only in primary school.

 

a little twist

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Since quite a while now I wanted to knit a moebius scarf. A moebius band seams so simple, just take a strip of paper, give it a half twist and glue the ends together. Doesn’t sound very interesting, isn’t it. But I had an eyeopening moment which I would like to share.

So here is my first trial, just a simple stripy infinity scarf. I have used a provisional cast on and grafted the (twisted) ends together.

moebius band

moebius band

I am very pleased with it, I love the colours, especially when wrapped around my neck.

Nice scarf but I still didn’t quite get all the fuss about the moebius and how to cast on when knit in the round. I stupidly thought that just twisting your cast on row would end up in a moebius but when I decided to knit one in the round too, I realised immediately that twisting the first round would get me nowhere.

So I did some research and found Cat Bordhis Moebius Cast on here

As I only really wanted to try out how it works (without following a complicate pattern) I made a mini cowl

mini cowl

mini cowl

The cast on row is actually in the center, I added a few rows in red in the end to make the moebius twist more visible.

Making this little piece really opened my eyes, I finally understood (a bit) how the moebius band works, there is no inside or outside, no front, no back. It is really an amazing structure. And the cast on is incredibly clever too. I will definitely knit another moebius soon, maybe following a pattern for something really pretty. Well, at least I will put it on my never ending list.

Maybe all scientists should knit a moebius once in their life as it would really help them to understand the structure. I am now picturing my old chemistry professors sitting there and knitting… 🙂

 

Check it out

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I have been really busy the last couple of days and have actually been working on the rest of this blog. I have created a few new pages where you can find pictures of my knitting sorted in categories. I haven’t quite finished yet but please check them out.

I am also working on my knitting class. We are already half way through (and didn’t get as far as I had planned it). But I just thought that I should actually go back to my roots as a teacher, so I will prepare a fun (hopefully) quiz as a form of recap rather than just always ask questions and answer them myself in the end.

And as I will have to slim down the program a bit, I have decided to show them only one increase and one decrease and I am now wondering which increase to chose. I can not really tell which one is the easiest. I think my first increase was  M1L or M1R or maybe both together (which would make sense) and i only got to know KFB when I have started to follow English patterns where it seems to appear quite often. So is it seen as the easiest way of increasing the number of stitches? In any case, we are in England, so I should chose the most common way of increasing in English patterns if I am only going to show one way for now.

Any thoughts on that from other knitters are more than welcome.