Firstly, I wanted to say thankyou to everybody who took the time to take the survey – hopefully it wasn’t too harrowing recalling those repressed memories times when you naively approached a quaint looking yarn store, looking for a crochet hook…

There were 704 responses to the survey in all, and I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the results were of interest or not.

The vast majority of respondees (512/704) were ‘bi-craftual’, able to both knit and crochet to at least some degree, whilst there were 112 sole hookers and 86 people that were capable only of wielding pointy sticks in pairs. You want that in a graph? OK (though I mustn’t do too many of these otherwise I will get drunk on the power of the visual aid…) Let’s start with a venn diagram:

It is important to note at this point that answers to this and all questions may be skewed slightly.  This is an open blog, and anyone is free to visit and all were free to take part in the survey, however Google Analytics shows that all of the significant volume of new traffic were coming from crochet blogs and crocheting groups on message boards such as Ravelry (more of which, later), so there should be strong representation of the crocheting community present in the results – that is no bad thing at all, but may not be representative of the general balance of those that tend to favour one craft over the other, which brings us on to the next statistic. [...]

Behold the Harlequilt Socks, in as highly saturated a combination of colours as Kaffe Fasett ever did conceive.

I am extremely happy with how these entrelac socks have turned out, but I am glad that they are finally complete.  I did feel the project started to drag on a bit after about the fifth entrelac row of each respective sock, and actually found myself counting down until the end of the entrelac portion square by square, seeing the new task of turning the heel as a refreshing new task before sprint-knitting through the rows of stockinette to a short row toe.

This project is my first flirtation with entrelac, and thought the technique is quite engaging, the novelty of picking up stitches for each square wore off after the first sock.  Entrelac is not difficult. If you can knit, purl, decrease and pick up stitches, then you can do entrelac.  Once the foundation row of triangles have been completed, the structure is revealed and you suddenly have an epiphany over the logic of the technique, and it all falls quickly into place.  Entrelac is just stockinette stitch knitted in small blocks.  In this case, very small blocks. Entrelac isn’t time consuming because of complexities of this form of knitting, but because, when working in 6-stitch blocks such as the ones in this pattern,  you have to pick up a stitch for every twelve you knit.  You also have to turn your work every six stitches.  You spend more time turning your work than you do actually knitting, so an ability to knit backwards can be a great time-saver, though if you are like me getting the yarn set up in a position that makes backwards-knitting comfortable takes just as long again…

Despite the time-intensive knitting that I found these socks represented, I do not regret the added effort needed to complete them.  They are probably the brightest and boldest socks that I will ever make, and Craig has been asking over their progression every day or two and declared them to be ‘the best socks I have ever knit’ when I was only a third of the way into the first one.  I started each sock at the same point in the colour progression of the yarn, and I am overjoyed at how well my tension behaved during relaxing knitting sessions in front of the TV in the evenings, through discussions whilst on lunch break and whilst knitting under stress. Each rectangle corresponds perfectly with its partner on the neighbouring sock, matching from the socks of the cuff, through the heel and to the tip of each toe.

 

The yarn threw up some interesting effects, too.  Many of the stripes of this colourway change shade at a distinct and straight line, but at some colour junctions the new shade creeps in, making a wavy, patterned edge as you can see in the stockinette foot portion.  Whilst knitting the socks it started to become apparent that all of the solid colours were lining up at the front of the sock and these intermediate waves of broken colour were all pooling at the back.  What’s more, at the point where my 2×1 ribbing stopped to begin the foundation triangles, the yarn changed to a bright fuschia for the decrease round, before swiftly changing again, which give the impression of a line of little overhand stitches joining the ribbed cuff to the main body of the sock:

I didn’t like this at first, but as the lines of rectangles began to build like a patchwork quilt, with the appearance of little ’stitches’ where one colour would show through the decrease stitches that bind each tile to the next, I thought that these little chance quirks that came about because of the union of this particular yarn and this pattern were quite charming, and so suggested the name ‘Harlequilt’.

I am often reading on the forums of Ravelry crocheters bemoaning the bias in the fibre world that seemingly results in crochet being seen by some to be a lesser craft to knitting. To be honest, I haven’t noticed it that much myself, but as I have been told in reply ‘ah, but you are primarily a knitter therefore you are not sensitive to the jibes and comments’. This may be true, though in general I have seen good support of both crafts (which is not to say that I think they both receive the same amount of coverage – as far as I can tell there are more knitters than crocheters on ravelry and other such gathering places for fibre enthusiasts, so I’d assume that the greater number of patterns, etc for knitting is a direct reflection of that – but am I right in those assumptions?

As for my own feelings on the matter – I think that there is plenty of room in the fibre-crafts world for both past-times. I learned to crochet only shortly after (a couple of weeks, maybe) learning how to knit. I have definitely advanced further in my knitting than my crochet in that time. I prefer the fluid fabric of my knitting for most item, but I appreciate the rigidity of crochet can benefit the construction of many garments such as hats. The popularity of Japanese pop-culture and the amigurumi explosion also gives good support to crochet being king of the soft toy castle, but in general I prefer the smooth surface of stockinette and the manipulations of knitted lace and cables to the fabrics generated by crochet in many instances. This is not craft snobbery, and I do not look down on crochet, it is just a personal preference of aesthetics and form, and I think that must be separated away from the idea of a craft bias. An amigarumi maker may extoll the virtues of their craft in the formation of their adorably cute creations, but again this isn’t snobbery against knitted forms, just the personal preference of one way of creating a fabric for a specific function over another.

I am still confused about to what extent members of the knitting community do ‘look down’ on crochet as a craft, and how keenly this is felt by crocheters, so I have written out this short and completely anonymous survey to hopefully just break the surface of opinion. As it is completely anonymous (the clicks are registered as numbers and nothing more) you can be totally honest, so if you are a knitter that hates crochet, vent your frustration with a click. Conversely, if you are a crocheter that thinks that knitted things are soooo 2005, and hate the way crochet is treated, anonymous clicking awaits.

If you have any comments to make that aren’t covered by the survey, please feel free to leave them in the comments section, though obviously if you fill out the field with your name, then that is less anonymous – though this still cannot be linked with your poll results. I’ll close this on the 8th of February, and by then hopefully there will be enough results to make a fancy graph or two…

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The survey is now closed.  There were 704 (!) responses in total. I shall try and make a few graphs and publish the full results tomorrow, as it will take me a while to compile the information.  Thanks to all that took part

Yes, yes, you wouldn’t think it if you saw me bobbing around now, but when I was younger (much younger) I used to have ballet lessons, and I studied dance at university. ‘Entrelacé‘ was variously purred, sometimes barked (depending on if that day’s teacher was a cat or a dog – she could be both depending on what mood you caught her in) as an instruction in those classes.  My very limited GCSE French would demystify this term to the less grandiose ‘interlace’; Entre-lacé = to inter-lace, to interweave.

In a roundabout way, this brings us to my new adventure in knitting techniques – entrelac – an interweaving pattern of slanted knitted sections that give the appearance of basketwork on the diagonal.  An almost 3D effect of puffed up quilted diamonds.

Of course, if you are going to swathe any part of your anatomy in a patchwork of diamond motifs, why not take inspiration from the jesters of old and turn yourself into a member of the commedia dell’arte and make like a harlequin?  And who’s going to better provide you with that riot of colour but Lord 37 Colours Is Never Enough, Kaffe Fasset.

So, armed with what is not exactly the subtlest of yarns I embarked upon my crusade to make the world most caustic-looking socks.  A pair of  ’oh, no mummy, make that lady’s jeans a bit longest, the slight raising of the hem as she walks – it burns my eyes!‘ pair of foot coverings.  The shade above is aptly named ‘zany’ and the resulting socks will hopefully not disappoint in reflecting that moniker:

As diamond after diamond slowly climb in tiers towards the next adventure of ‘my first heel flap’ I have to admit that I am looking forward to the stockinette foot portion, which I am sure will zoom by and set me with a bit of respite, ready for another slowly progressing interweaving of diamonds and a second harlequin’s sock.
The Annetrelac sock pattern is available to purchase from interweave knits

You know that someone has their finger on the pulse of modern style and taste when the reference Cliff Richard lyrics in their post titles.

The knitted vine you see below is my attempt to stem the slow, sad destruction of my faithful aural friends – my ear buds (or ear buddies, as I prefer to think of them).

These headphones have been my companions for many years now.  They have outlived portable CD players, 1st generation iPod nanos and are now on to their second iPod.  They have filled my head with such nonsense as the Flight of the Conchords, and played the complete catalogues of Simon and Garfunkel and David Bowie more times than they’d probably care to relate.  They have also played hundreds and hundreds of hours of audiobooks as I have knitted and travelled over these past two years.  So, it is probably no wonder that they look a little shabby by now.

Actually, they’ve had a few scrapes recently.  Firstly, I foolishly had them dangling from my handbag when I went to visit someone with a new kitten.  The kitten either absolutely loved them or was furious with their  presence in the house – I couldn’t quite tell among the frenzies ball of activity that the cat and headphones soon became.  Not long afterwards, possibly prompted by the recent feline-trauma, the earphones tried to commit suicide by wrapping themselves around the roller of a high-powered vacuum cleaner.  With bare wires in places, the casing sheared off in others, the wires were patched up with electrical tape and love, but the headphones go their revenge.  During one of their bids to join the graveyard of electrical accessories, the hard plastic casing that shields where the main wire divides into two cracked and part of it was lost, leaving a razor edge that Gillette could only wish they could get on their blades – any one of the 20 now compulsory on any ’shaving system’.

This piece of plastic seeks to cause daly damage to anyone still wishing to traumatise these headphones with their bad taste in music from the 70s, and that person is, invariably, me.
So, I am knitting these headphones an iCord wire cosy in a bid to stop, or at least slow, the destruction.  The headphones get to approach their retirement years in snug comfort, and my hands are now safe from that piece of vengeful plastic.

I have, for the first time, taken a lover. Formally monogamous, I thought it was time to expand my horizons and explore as yet un-tapped possibilities. Sure, I know that I always have the security of what awaits me at home, but what about those times away from home, when you’re feeling lonely?

Meet my part-time project:

This is my travelling project. A small, mindless project for which I need no instructions, to carry around whenever I am travelling or have an appointment that may involve lot of waiting around. So, the progress bar will probably creep up rather slowly for this project, but I am looking forward to the day I finish and block this gorgeous yarn.

And from something new, to something revisited. Before Christmas I started a ‘Red Emperor’ stole, which I laid aside to get my Christmas gift knitting done, looking forward to commencing it in the new year.

This was the first complex lace pattern I had ever attempted, so it presented a bit of a challenge of confidence. The lace knitting was extremely enjoyable, but the further I knit, the more aware I became of how different the lace looked to that in the pictures of the pattern. It’s not that the knitting was wrong, or the pattern incorrectly written, but rather that the stole pictured must have been blocked to within an inch of breaking to make it the requisite length, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that to the most gorgeous of yarn I have ever used, or how it would then behave (the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn being as springy a yarn as I have ever seen). I have left it aside for a couple of weeks to think about it, but when I returned to the project this afternoon, someone else had moved in on the scene….
Destined for the frog pond, indeed. I think I can find a new, better pattern for this yarn, so I am going to spend the evening slowly unravelling and re-winding the yarn whilst contemplating how this yarn shall be re-purposed.

I have spent a lot of time next to the sea, relatively speaking.  Stood atop the cliffs of The Isle of Sheppey, in Kent, I was a literal stone’s throw away from the wide open ocean, and the exotic lands of, er, France and Holland, beyond.  This does not make me a willing sea-farer, though.  Far from it.  Looking out to the seemingly endless ocean fills me with a sense of foreboding, making me realise how small and insignificant one person really is.  I have a fear of water in any large volume, though I could swim (note ‘could‘ swim – this is not a mistake in my use of tenses…  You know when they say that once you learn to swim you can never forget?  They lie. I swear, I tried so hard to regain that magical skill that might help prevent drowning, but no amount of willpower, bravery or panicked flailing of limbs would aid the prevention of a slow-sinking Mimi, dragged beneath by what she assumes was her bottom.)  Boats are no better – twice I have crossed the channel by ferry, and each time I was piteously seasick.  A scurvy sea-dog I am not.

Still, sailors are cute, right?  I mean, the uniforms have a sort of fun campness about them.  I have a little navy sweater with a striped navy and white shirt underneath, a little bow at the neck.  Yes, I am that person.  Is it just a navy jumper and shirt or fancy dress? The genius is in the ambiguity.  What might just tip it over the edge, though, would be a little navy sailors scarf…

So what is a sailor’s scarf and how does it differ from a standard scarf?  Well, for one it smells of salt and has bits of seaweed strewn around it, I’d guess. More importantly, though, it sports a narrow middle section, only 2″ or so wide, which fits around the neck, the two ends of a more standard width resting across the chest.  Why would this shape benefit a sea-farin’ man?  I have no idea.  I have extensively researched (read: had a quick Google) and I can’t find reasons why this might be advantageous to someone battling the vicious winds up deck.  To give less fabric – and so less protection – to the neck, which might seem to be the area which a scarf was best fit to save from the wind, seems counter-intuitive, but then my sea-bourne credentials are less than inspiring, so what would I know?  Clearly, the most important function of this scarf is that it is irresistibly cute.

Ooh, I am so very giddily excited to see my name and website address in print on a piece I wrote for the current Issue 22 of Yarn Forward, on sale from a couple of days ago (January 15th). It’s a two-page article on how to measure and make a pair of sock blockers to exactly work with the dimensions of your feet and give a professional finish to your sock knitting without having to spend a vast amount of money on pre-made ones in generic sizes.

I’m very happy with the way the article came out and how my pictures look in print, and hopefully the article carries over a little of the occasional humour and informativeness of the blog, prompting a wave of perfectly presented hand-knit socks all across the land…

I thought I would take a few minutes today to answer a question that cropped up after my last blog post about working with Rowan bamboo tape and working out a way to join the yarns without having to weave the ends in after the event, namely, would the two ends pull apart if you tugged them?

As last night was the favourite TV night at Monkey Towers (Question Time, followed by This Week, all washed down with a bottle of Blue Nun, or, as it happens, a little Southern Comfort and Coke) I had a couple of hours to go pattern surfing and commit the bamboo tape to a pair of needles and a future as something lovely.

I decided upon a sailors scarf for the springtime – not too bulky around the collar part, but enough in the silky cool bamboo to keep any breeze off of the chest when worn with an open necked cardigan, or something similar.  (How I long for the warmth of days when this is the only required precaution against the occasional intemperate breeze…)

Anyway, the first join between the remnant lengths of yarn was only a few yards into the frankenstein ball I had threaded together, the second occurring about 8 inches into the scarf.  I had no issues when reaching the joined areas where the two lengths of yarn had come together.  I was careful not to tug the two yarns apart as I was approaching the join, but I had fed the new length of yarn a good 4 or 5 inches into the working yarn to ensure that the  join was secure and ran over 8 or so stitches.  Once the first stitch has been made with the ‘doubled’ section of yarn it anchors both the inner and outer yarns together and the join is very secure – much like when you ‘knit in’ a new length of yarn, but with the added security of one strand being inside the other.  It is also makes quite a subtle join:

The first join is in the narrower neck portion of the scarf, but I’m having a little trouble locating where it is as it is in the seed stitch area making it hard to find, but wherever it is it is well hidden and secure.  A close up view of a row of stitches shows how both yarns are knitted together, one inside the other, negating the need to weave the ends in once the project is finished:

A couple of things I have thought about since joining the yarns and starting the project now strike me as worth noting:

• There is less chance of inadvertently pulling the two lengths of yarn apart before you reach the join if you put the ‘new’ length of yarn inside the old, rather than the other way around
• If the yarn is of an adequately loose weave and you could find a needle that was both fine enough to pass through the weave whilst threaded with the yarn and yet posses an eye that will accommodate the bulk of the yarn, it would negate the need to use a piece of sewing thread to anchor the yarn to the needle (I don’t actually have a needle that will work for in this instance, so that is purely hypothetical.

I’m really enjoying working with the bamboo tape – it behaves very differently in stockinette stitch compared to its properties in moss stitch.  The ‘flat’ construction is all but impossible to discern in stockinette stitch, whereas it is more apparent in the raised edges and bumps of moss stitch.  I don’t feel that my stitches are as evenly formed working with the tape yarn, but I do not dislike the effect.  Some rows seem to have more twist in them, some stand slightly proud of the knitting, but with the slight sheen it almost gives the impression of raw silk.

I am trying to have a good think about what I can make with some Rowan Bamboo Tape yarn. I have a full skein weighing 50g, plus a few remnants which weigh just over 50g when combined, so the equivalent of two full skeins.

I have never worked with a tape or ribbon yarn before, so I am eager to find out how it behaves on the needles – how easy it is to find a comfortable passage into the stitches with the right needle, and whether the yarn should be kept flat at all costs or allowed to twist as I knit it. I have absolutely no idea what I might make with the yarn as yet, but I am eager to get experimenting. First, though, I wanted to join the remnant lengths together to form a single length of yarn, so I never had a web of ends to weave in after the fact, which I am worried would wriggle free like oiled tagliatelli after the fact, anyway.

I thought about sewing them together, but settled on making a join that is something like a russian join, in that it requires threading one yarn into the other using a needle to give a continuous length of yarn, but it works a little differently. I have uploaded a brief video below.

Giantmonk’s new fair-isle tanktop slid off of the needles yesterday. His new (very fashionable) tanktop was a quick and easy knit, though as I had never knit such a thing, nor had I ever seen instructions for a tank top, it was very much and exercise in improvisation. It was soon quite obvious that Giantmnonk is not made to, shall we say, ’standard’ proportions. Narrow, far back shoulders and a rather rotund cuddly tum, this tank top is tailored to fit.  It is haute couture.

At 130 stitches around, Giantmonk’s tanktop ended up a perfect fit, with a very wide v-neck and small arm-holes positioned far back, where a Giantmonk’s shoulders tend to be, Giantmonk says that his new pullover is ‘very comfy and warm’.

I’ve been doing a spot of spring cleaning around the blog, adding to the project gallery a number of finished knits that I had forgotten to include in the run-up to Christmas.  I also thought it was about time that I got myself some nifty little progress bars to log my progress on current projects (see sidebar on left) and as it seemed only right to test them out straight away I started a quick project for my good chum Giantmonk, who is sometimes a little cold around his tummy, and who asked for a cuddly tank top.

It’s currently 85% complete, and Giantmonk is checking the blog every 5 minutes or so to see if the bar has crept up by any percenae, so I best go and work out how on earth to knit the ribbing around the neck, as I have never knit something like this before and I am just going to cross my fingers, improvise, and hope for the best.

Ladies and gentlemen please be seated, for Flossie Bear is about to make her debut:

Standing at roughly 40cm tall and as cuddly as a cloud, Flossie is complete.  I actually finished the project on Wednesday, with only her little face left to embroider yesterday evening.  I chose to embroider her features rather than use intarsia as I thought I might get a neater finish that way, my intarsia work leaving something to be desired… Also this allowed me to play around with the spacing and placement of the features before committing her to a face she was going to have to live with and which I was going to have to look at.

The most significant deviation from the cuddling bear Flossie was intended as, though, is that she was created with a buttoned envelope style opening in the back, to allow a hot water bottle to be used inside.  As local temperatures dropped to around -19ºc last night, she needs some inner warmth to keep from freezing, and to warm up this Eskimimi’s town-centre igloo.

If you were to peek inside the envelope opening, you wouldn’t find the stark rubberiness of a hot water bottle, though.  No, this Flossie comes with extra comfort – she comes with extra cuddleability. This Flossie, you see, has more than one level of cosiness. Inside her fair-isle knitted exterior she has a plush lining made with a soft fleece baby blanket, hand-sewn into a double-layered covering, which is stuffed lightly with a fine layer of polyfill.

I got the idea of using polyfill from my favourite store-bought hot water bottle cosy, which in the shape of bagpuss.  He (Bagpuss) is similarly stuffed, and the insulating properties of the materials used help to stop the very hot bottle from causing discomfort, giving a beautifully warm heat rather than an exceptionally hot one.  As my other half described it when he gave Flossie a test cuddle ‘it’s like warm cake.’ The padded inner layers also helps keep Flossie at the perfect temperature for a lot longer, as the insulation helps to control the release of heat.  Of course, Flossie’s padded interior also makes her extremely squishy, and being squishy is her other main function.

I’m extremely happy with this project.  As Flossie was made from acrylic scraps and polyfill leftover from other projects, and uses a hot water bottle and buttons I already owned, the only expenditure on this project was for the fleece baby blanket which I picked up for 2 for £1 at the local pound shop, so she came in at a bargainous price and used up some of the acrylic scraps I have been saving for such a rainy (or, more accurately snowy) day.

I love knitting stitch dictionaries.  They are perhaps my greatest knitting weakness.  I can spend (literally) hours leafing through the same pages over and over before beginning a new projects, armed with a selection of sticky-tab page-markers as I whittle down what I think will ‘work’, first marking about 20 or so for further consideration, maybe picking five of these, then going back over the book and falling in love another 20 stitches I didn’t even notice the first time around, rinse and repeat.

So, when I noticed that the Harmony Guide series had a new book in town, and it just so happened to concentrate on my new found love of colourwork stitches, I was clicking my way through the appropriate Amazon pages within a heartbeat.

I then waited, and waited.  I know today is only the 7th of January, and we are experiencing some exceptional weather conditions, but I ordered the book last year, and it was supposed to arrive by the next working day.  Finally though, the book arrived.

There is so much I love about this book.  It is clear, well photographed and uncluttered.  The designs are clearly charted.  The book begs to be flicked through, then orders you to make a cup of tea and then flicked through again.  The edition distributed in the U.K. has a ‘u’ in the title.  Great stuff.

It isn’t perfect, though.  Like the other Harmony guides I own it seems to suffer from a lack of organisation.  The Harmony guides start off in a logical manner – the easiest stitches of the particular type being categorised coming first.  A simple openwork pattern begins the guide to lace.  A progression from garter stitch, to stockinette, reverse stockinette and k1, p1 rib gets the Knit and Purl guide off to an obvious start, and so it is with the colourwork guide.  Single dots on a plain background, placed one stitch apart.  Single dots on a plain background placed two stitches apart, two coloured stitches on a plain… you get the idea.  This very quickly ascends a learning curve into more complex patterns – bands of motifs, various snowflake designs of Norweigan colourwork, intarsia designs, but, inexplicably, possibly the simplest colourwork technique of them all – evenly proportioned stripes, isn’t found until page 200.

There also doesn’t seem to be (or at least I can not discern) any logic to the groupings of stitch examples.  Examples of snowflake designs are scattered throughout the publication, instead of being grouped together, traditional Fair Isle motifs are inter-spaced by designs that used four or more colours per row (shudder).  At least the publishers sought to keep the letters of the alphabet together and in the traditional order.

Once you get used to the idea that you will have to look through the entire guide each time you are searching for something though, you start to regard this as a pleasurable pursuit rather than a chore standing between you and your latest project, and that’s what I am about to do.  I have a good friend waiting to help choose some colours and motifs for his new sweater…

Checking Ravlery when I switched on my laptop this morning (as much for it’s warming powers on my thighs this on this cold, snowy day as anything else) I had a PM from Alabama Whirly to say that I was nominated for…

How cool is that?  It took me a while to find the awards, and then to look through them as there are around 30 categories each full of amazing, funny and disastrous projects, patterns and posts.  I have been nominated for my Goldfish Hot Water Bottle cover in the Best Personal Pattern category:

This is such a lovely thing to have woken up to, I am extremely excited and touched that somebody thought to nominate one of my projects, it was totally unexpected!  I’m off to finish voting in all of the various categories now and then I had better have a shower and get dressed (I know my priorities!)