The Knitters Thread

headachesrus

Kaz2904 wrote: »

Please tell me that I will eventually get this so%^&*g technique or my sister has wasted £4ish on a pattern which I will never knit up.
Am so unbelievably peed off with myself right now because I can't follow the simplest instructions

I do sympathise, I consider myself an accomplished knitter, but I have great difficulties with other methods of casting on (just love my thumb method). I'm making a hat scarf and mitt set now which has a long tail cast on, and each time I have to check you tube as to how to do it.

Are you on ravelry? They have lots of tips for provisional cast on. I think I managed it once by crocheting a chain, and then knitting into each loop, and when I had finished the piece, undoing the crochet, but make sure you practice it first on a little piece, because there would be nothing worse than finishing and discovering you can't undo the provisional.

Alternatively, just do an ordinary cast on, and then when its time to unpick the provision, just knit onto it - what's the worse that can happen?

Kaz2904

Thanks Nanny, that tutorial is the one which had me stumped yesterday evening. I had some lovely stitches cast on but the yarn between my hand and the balls of wool were so impossibly twisted that by the time I had 192 st cast on, it would have been unusable.
It has been suggested that I could do a normal cast on in waste yarn and knit a couple of rows then knit into them and unravel it from the bottom.
I'll have a play with it tomorrow.

Mrs_P_Pincher

Can anyone help me please with a technique for joining balls of yarn? I usually just knot the two ends together and lose the knot in a seam, but I am now knitting a baby blanket and that technique just won't cut it. Not sure what to do...

Mrs P P

headachesrus

You could spit splice them together if the yarn contains a good percentage of wool, wet both ends and rub together in your palms and they will felt together, or if you can't do this, I just start knitting with the new yarn at the beginning of a row, keep your tension nice and tight, and just sew the ends in when you have finished.

Kaz2904

Have just seen a linky towards doing a long tail cast on from ravelry. It shows you how to do this with scrap yarn too so that you end up with a provisional. I did a long tail cast on for my last cardigan so I will give this a bash tomorrow evening before work and hope for the best. I'm sure I can cope with that somehow

moo2moo

Have finished my first ever pair of socks.

The end result is v. ugly but my eldest likes them. Definately don't like the yarn but made the mistake of buying 8 balls from the same dye lot in a sale.

Have decided to make a shawl, specifically this shawl which will be interesting considering I've never knitted anything bigger than a hat before. Figured I'd make this from yarn in my stash rather than spend £15 on the ball of silk I've fallen for from The Natural Dye Studio. That way if I really screw up I won't be overly disappointed and if it goes well I'll knit another in something I like.

Meanwhile I have two UFOs to get on with so I'm going to finish one of them before I make a start on this. Otherwise I'm going to end up with a cupboard full of half done things. Funny thing is now I've had a bit of practice my knitting has got faster and neater and the cabled hot water bottle cover I put on one side as being a bit complicated is flying along at a rapid rate... mostly because the needles are enormous compared to the sock needles I've been using for the past couple of weeks.

NannyJanny

Kaz2904 wrote: »

Have just seen a linky towards doing a long tail cast on from ravelry. It shows you how to do this with scrap yarn too so that you end up with a provisional. I did a long tail cast on for my last cardigan so I will give this a bash tomorrow evening before work and hope for the best. I'm sure I can cope with that somehow

I like the look of this method! Will try it next time.:T

VJsmum

Mrs_P_Pincher wrote: »

Can anyone help me please with a technique for joining balls of yarn? I usually just knot the two ends together and lose the knot in a seam, but I am now knitting a baby blanket and that technique just won't cut it. Not sure what to do...

Mrs P P

Can't you wind them into the knitting - like you would if doing fairisle. I'll try to explain - hold the two tail ends together at the wrong side, knit in to a stitch with your new yarn and hold the tail ends vertically and the yarn will go behind, drop them for the next stitch and the yarn will go over them, repeat for a few stitches until it is woven in. YOu may have to tighten the new yarn a little.

Not sure i've explained it well, but HTH

noorani

I just wondered if anyone could put this bit of knitting pattern into english for me, as I am not sure I am understanding it correctly.

cast off for armhole each side on every other row: 4 sts 1-1-1-1-2-2 times, 2 sts 0-1-2-4-4-6 times and 1 st 2-3-4-4-4-4 times = 74-76-78-80-82-84 sts

I'm doing the second size and I would say I'm still a novice knitter, as I made a top once when I was a teenager and that's about it and that was quite a long time ago. (Had a bit of help then, lol).

I think it's the 'other row' bit that is confusing me.

Thanks, if anyone can help.

VJsmum

noorani wrote: »

I just wondered if anyone could put this bit of knitting pattern into english for me, as I am not sure I am understanding it correctly.

cast off for armhole each side on every other row: 4 sts 1-1-1-1-2-2 times, 2 sts 0-1-2-4-4-6 times and 1 st 2-3-4-4-4-4 times = 74-76-78-80-82-84 sts

I'm doing the second size and I would say I'm still a novice knitter, as I made a top once when I was a teenager and that's about it and that was quite a long time ago. (Had a bit of help then, lol).

I think it's the 'other row' bit that is confusing me.

Thanks, if anyone can help.

I presume its the back or front of something (rather than a sleeve)

Row 1, cast of 4 stitches each end
Row 2 pattern as normal
Row 3 cast off 2 stitches each end
Row 4 Pattern as normal
Row 5 Cast off 1 stitch each end
Row 6 Pattern as normal
Row 7 cast off 1 stitch each end
ROw 8 Pattern
Row 9 cast off 1 stitch each end

You should have cast off 18 stitches altogether for your size

HTH