Free Knitting Patterns, Instructions, Projects & Designs.

I had a blast making Hannah Fettig’s Bird’s Nest Pincushion to celebrate my friend Adrienne’s birthday.

Though the pattern calls for DK weight yarn, I wanted the nest to have a fairly solid structure to it. Also, I wanted the eggs to have a tight fabric to keep the fiberfill from showing. I chose worsted weight yarns, and knit them on the needle size from the pattern.

Both yarns are souveniers of the Great Portland Yarn Crawl a couple of weeks ago. Kilcarra of Donegal Aran Tweed came from Dublin Bay and lends a twiggy look to the nest. Some luscious Shi Bui Merino Alpaca from Knit Purl  has just the right blue shades for eggs. (Expect to see the Shi Bui again in some future design – I fell in love it!)

The nest is knitted in a delightful cable pattern. Once it was complete, I looked around for a way to block it so it would have a flat bottom when done. Voila! A juice glass was just the ticket to make it the right size around. I added a cereal bowl …

 And Ta-Da! The nest has a nice flat bottom (which I wish I could relate to) and sits flat, rather than rocking around.

I hope Adrienne likes her nest. She’s a fantastic seamstress, so it should be useful as a pincushion as she sews. If not,  she can always decorate a tree with it!

  If you want to check out Hannah’s book “Closely Knit”, you can find it here.

Abraham Lincoln once wrote, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter. I did not have the time to write a short one.” The book review that follows is long, but I couldn’t seem to pare it down any further without skipping some of  the book’s great qualities.

Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland

I love sweaters that incorporate ethnic designs, so I was pleased to read “Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland”. The author, Donna Druchunas, walks you through all the steps and techniques required to design sweaters, and some smaller practice projects, with an ethnic flair. She clearly explains how to use color and texture stitch patterns from Lithuania, Iceland and Ireland in your designs.

Right from the introduction, I liked Druchunas’s approach. In a concise yet friendly manner she explains why she uses certain sweater styles, rather than others. This means you’ll end up with a sweater that is flattering rather than too boxy.

She goes on to cover some knitting basics: how to determine your sweater’s size, and how to knit in the round, including the two circular needles and the magic loop methods. This chapter makes a good primer for the beginning knitter and a nice reference for those with more experience. I’ve knitted sweaters before using short rows to shape the shoulders. But I learned something new in her description of short-row shaping for a sweater back. That said, I wished for more information on how to know whether to use this technique prior to starting the design process. Druchunas says that some body types like this adjustment, but I’d like to know what types those are.

I love the book’s format. The chapters on Lithuania, Iceland and Ireland include interesting facts about the origins of knitting in each region. Druchunas presents a variety stitch patterns from each – color ones from Lithuania and Iceland, and textures and cables for the Irish Aran tradition. Then there is a practice project and sweater project. Every project includes wonderful step-by-step instructions. You fill in the blanks on the worksheets and end up with your own design, customized for the fit and stitch patterns you’ve chosen.

I wanted to test out the book’s methodology. I chose the Fingerless Gloves project from the chapter on Lithuania. From making a gauge swatch to adjusting the stitch pattern to knitting the gloves, I found it very easy to make my own customized gloves. All I had to do was fill in the blanks on the worksheets. Each worksheet lays the foundation to make an entire pattern – painlessly.

The project was so logically presented, my confidence is boosted for making a sweater next. The only hard part will be choosing from among all the lovely stitch patterns!

If you’re interested in buying “Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland”, you can find it here on Amazon. Donna Druchunas’s  web site, Sheep To Shawl, describes the other books she’s written.

I’ve been looking forward to finishing the Fingerless Gloves from the book I’ll be reviewing in a few days. I had a great time knitting them, in part because the author has a really neat way of guiding you through the design process. Here’s my creation, based on the project guidelines in the book.

I made the ribbing extra long to keep my wrists warm as I take photos. I also crocheted a little border around the thumbholes to give them a bit of extra support.

These will be living in my camera bag so they’ll be at hand when I go out on cool mornings to shoot wildlife (we’re talking pictures) and flowers.

I used odds and ends from my stash. The yarn smorgasbord includes Knit Picks Merino Style and Swish DK, Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash, and a smidge of Rowan’s RYC Cashsoft DK.

[Many thanks to hubby Steve who once again patiently played the part of knitwear photographer for the shot of me in my gloves!]

I recently took a class in Continental knitting. Having learned the English  method, I was jealous of the speedy, smooth stitching my Continental friends were doing. I was determined to change my throwing ways to picking.

So, I learned the Continental style like five minutes ago. And I’m starting a new project – perfect time to switch knitting techniques, right? Oh, yeah, brilliant idea. My new fingerless gloves project  involves ribbing. And double-pointed needles. And striping.

Somewhere there is a  Knitters’ Big Book of No-No’s prescribing tenets like 1. Thou Shalt Not Start the New Method until You’ve Practiced A Lot. 2. Thou Shall Start With a Simple Project 3. A Simple Project Shall Not Consist of DPNs and A Glove of Many Colors, and finally, 4. Thou Shalt Not Resort to Mixing in English Stitches Even If Thou Becomest Miffed and Frustrated.

So far I have turned blue because I concentrate so hard I forget to breathe. I’ve had to break out a box of kleenex (although, to be fair, some of the tears may be residual from watching “Marley and Me”). I’ve created stitches so tight that and tense the fabric is one big pucker. I’ve broken all the rules in the Knitters’ Big Book of No-No’s.

I’m on row 4.

Remember that picture of the yarns as seen through the Teleidoscope? You don’t?? Ok, to refresh your memory here it is:

Here are how the colors came together in the actual swatch:

The swatch is my launching point for making fingerless gloves from a book I’ll be reviewing later in the month.  The book walks the knitter through all aspects of planning and designing her own projects. Now that I have a color combination that I like and gauge from my swatch, I’ll follow the author’s simple worksheets to create fingerless gloves just the way I want them.  I can hardly wait to get started!

As I knitted Jared Flood’s Koolhaas Hat I wanted to break out into all sorts of Discovery Channel-like descriptions…”A Marvel of Modern Engineering”… “Structural Design at its Best”…

One of my favorite things about making Koolhaas was getting to the top. As I arrived at the decreases that shape the top of the hat, it started to dawn on my how brilliant Jared’s design is.

If you’d like to read Jared’s fascinating post about how his Koolhaas design evolved, you can find it here.

As I wandered around Stitches West, a lot of people asked me about my bag. It’s the Floral Gathering Sac by Pam Allen, and was one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever worked on. The design is so unusual and pretty!

The original pattern does not call for felting, but I wanted a good sturdy bag without having to line it. I swatched and came up with a gauge that’d give me the size bag I wanted. I used good ol’ Cascade 220. Because I wanted the maximum detail, I knitted it single strand on #8 needles. This gave me the crisp points and lines necessary to keep the motifs’ delicate feel.

 The other good thing about felting was that I had done very little intarsia before. Which means I had some wonky stitches where the colors met. I threw the bag in the washing machine and Voila! Wonky stitches magically disappeared.

196 mitered squares and 26 balls of Boku later, and the Make It Mitered Afghan is finally done!

All I can say is, I’m really glad I wove in all those ends as I went along. Let’s see, 196 squares times 2 ends each, plus 2 ends each ball of yarn, plus a couple for the crochet edge and we’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 ends. That’s enough to make a grown woman cry. All that weaving went much faster once my friend taught me how to knit the ends in. (Check out my Tips & Techniques page for a YouTube link for this).

Ok, I’m making this project sound all tedious, but it really wasn’t. I loved working on it, especially while my husband watched baseball. (You may remember, it was going to be the Major League Afghan, now it’ll have to be the Super Bowl Blankie). I took my time – about a year. That way, I picked it up when I felt like it. By about oh, square 53 or so,  I had the pattern down, so it was relaxing.

The crochet edge provided yet another learning experience. I ripped it out a couple of times before discovering that the hook needed to be a couple of sizes smaller that the knitting needles (US7) I used.

Jimmy D immediately laid claim to the afghan. “Mine. Just try taking it away from me. Remember what I did to the vet? You could be next, lady.”

Ah, the Vicious Attack Cat mellows out…

Many thanks to hubbie Steve for his help with the photos. If you want to make this project, the pattern is from Creative Knitting, November 2007.

Taking Jared Flood (brooklyntweed) ‘s workshop on his wonderful KoolHaas Hat pattern reminded me a little bit of summer camp. I remember as a kid being all excited about learning some new craft – making popsicle stick recipe holders or plastic lanyards.

Fast forward, er, a bunch of years. Here we were, eagerly sitting around tables with our materials in front of us – in the grownup version it was yarn and needles – being taught the basics of travelling stitches. Jared showed us how to work his cables without a cable needle. It’s awkward at first, and I think I untwisted some of the twisted stitches when I couldn’t hang onto them. But it’s much faster than having to use the cable needle for every twisted stitch all the way around the hat. Jared is a terrific teacher – he is enthusiastic and explains things well.

I’ve been busy doing some other projects, like the never-ending Make It Mitered Afgan. So here’s the Koolhaas Hat so far.

If you’re interested in seeing how to make cables without a cable needle, and you don’t happen to have Jared handy to show you (boo-hoo), you might like to check out Episode 15 of Let’s Knit2gether.

I love Eunny Jang’s beautiful Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I’m making it out of Rowan Felted Tweed, which I also love. I worried that the yarn would be too scratchy, but as I knit along it seems to get softer. Maybe it’s just my hands growing numb!

Eunny is one of my absolute faborite designers. What an imaginative brain she has! Here are the pieces of the cardigan, ready for assembly once my friend Alana at NeverNotKnitting shows me how! I just can’t wrap my head around how the arms attach to the body. So for now, here are pieces of Yoke.

This summer my friend Adrienne and I worked on The Knitting Guild Association‘s Master Knitting Program- Level I. For those of you who don’t know about it, it’s a course – sort of like a big fun test – in three levels. You knit swatches, answer questions, write essays and create patterns on the road to becoming a Master Knitter. Your material is reviewed by a committee and you’re sent feedback with the idea of correcting mistakes before you advance to the next level.

So what’s the point, you ask? For me, the goal was to learn about what I didn’t know. Which turned out to be a lot. The program walks you through the basics, researching each kind of knitting technique as you go. You answer questions as you swatch – finding the answers is like a treasure hunt. (Or like pulling teeth, depending on your mood…)  There are so many things I do by default when I knit. I rarely venture away from the same old cast on, for instance. The program taught me to really think about what kind of cast on would be best for the project at hand. Or what kind of increase would suit a sweater design. Or how I can avoid tension problems (not the psychological type, though). You get the picture.

Adrienne and I worked on Level 1. There were 16 swatches and a hat to knit. You’ll see that each has a little tag tied onto it – every tag lists information on how the swatch was made and the references used in learning how to make it.

Here’s my Mountain o’ Swatches:

So, you do all the work, put all the little swatches and all the pages each in their own sleeve, all tidy-like, stick them in a binder, and ship it off.

Once in a long while someone passes the course on the first try. I was definately not one of them. Neither was Adrienne. We both had some questions that we had to answer more thoroughly. Adrienne had a couple of swatches to re-knit.

It was a source of some mirth around the LYS that I had to re-knit the hat project from the Master Knitters program. Kinda ironic that the Swatch Queen had her work rejected because she got the gauge wrong! Here you can see the finished (2″ too big) hat. And the sad little beginnings of the re-do.

(I can hardly wait to wear this hat around town. I’ll keep the tag, for that Minnie Pearl effect. It’s the perfect foil for the goofy icord.)

The committee members who review the Master Knitter’s work are very kind. They are profuse with their compliments, and kind with their criticisms. When we re-submitted the portions of our projects that needed improvement, we both passed. It felt great!

If you want to read more about the Master Knitting program, you can find The Knitting Guild Association on the web. The TKGA Group on Ravelry is a terrific source of help for those learning about the program or needing help completing it. (There you can also throw congratulatory confetti if so moved . )

Kari’s scarf is done. Hooray! I enjoyed everything about this project. The Cables & Lace Rib pattern is from knit1 Magazine‘s Winter 2007 issue. I love that the pattern is reversible, with both sides being pretty.

Just as the name suggests, one side features cables with lace ribs on the other.

Call me fashion backward, but it took me a while to get used to brown being such a popular color. Now I love it! I used Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash. I always admired Mission Falls’ 1824 Wool, and am so glad they came out with this great DK weight in the same fiber. It’s soft, holds the stitch definition well and drapes nicely. It comes in so many beautiful colors, I’m tempted to start right in on another project. Another scarf? A nice top? (Daydreaming away….) Ok, back to the scarf…  I used US#5 needles for the project, and it ended up being 6″x71″.

   Merry Christmas and lots of love to Kari!