The Knitters Thread

picju96

Hi all,

I've been lurking on this thread for a while and have loved some of the things you all make, so talented! I'm a novice knitter teaching myself as I go along. So far I've made a few scarfs, a couple of tea cosies and some toys. Anyway, my mum found some Sirdar Dune in a charity shop the other day and the shop wanted 50p for 6 balls! So of course she bought it for me. But now I'm stuck with what to do with it. Does anyone have any patterns they recommend/will let me see/borrow?

Thanks in advance,

Julia

Mumof2_2

Hi Julia, have you joined Ravelry.com? If not, I suggest you do so (it's free :j) and then once joined do a search on the yarn and it will come up with some pattern ideas for the particular sort you have.

Warning - Ravelry is VERY addictive :cool::cool::cool:

meritaten

I totally agree about needle size! I think if you double the size of the needle you can halve the number of stitches and it will be much quicker to knit! with really chunky wool a snood should only take an evening - and it MUST be soft and drapable! I would aquire a pair of size 12 needles or at the very minimum size 10 if you cannot get 12 twelves, then knit a tension square and you can work out from that whether a) it will be soft enough, b)how many stitches you will require to achieve the right size.

onthebreadline

Sorry had been a long day, you did mention it was Ultra Mega Chunky, which sounds the perfect yarn for the item you are knitting.

A little confused though, you say you are doing rib at the edges? does this mean the first few rows and the last few rows, only you mention you are using a circular needle.

To check tension, cast on stitches, say 15 - 20 (with your type of yarn) and knit about 4 inches. You then take a measuring tape, measure 2 inches across, (and count how many stitch that is), you then again measure downwards 2 inches and this time count the number of rows in 2 inches. You then have your tension. You know know (EG 10 stitches across and 10 rows down equals 2 inches square) You now know how to work out (eg you want your scarf 8 inches across, so that will be 10 stitches x 4 = 40 stitches, and you want the length - say for example 40 inches, so you know 10 rows equal 2 inches, so you need to knit 200 rows. I hope you can follow this, as I think I have quite a meal of it!!!!!

Oh, and Ultra Mega Chunky, is quite a bit thicker than just ordinary Chunky, so the yarn and pattern you have do not match. A bit like using ozs instead of gms in baking and expecting the cake to turn out the right size.

Hope you manage to sort this out, as there is nothing better, when you have finished your garment and it turns out as expected.

Best of luck.

Diflower

Hi, I've used Sirdar denim ultra, it's lovely, lovely soft wool:)
The ball band says 10mm needles and that's what I used; I made neckwarmer-type things for several people a couple of years ago. It's not cheap but it is really nice, some of them I used half Wendy mode chunky to make it a bit cheaper (2 rows of stripes of each one).

I know it's annoying but it's good practice, I'd honestly undo it and start again with 10mm needles. It will be lovely when it's done:)

meritaten

can I just say that by using the larger needles and less stitches - it will knit up so much faster and you will not mind having to re-knit as you will see it 'growing' right before your eyes!
I bet most of us did the exact same thing when first starting out! I know I have!

skintchick

Aww thank you all. I can now se where it says it all on the label! I thought chunky and mega chunky would be similar but I'll get bigger needles and in the meantime work on something else.

I did buy some lovely king cole galaxy yarn today (cream with sequins) to make headbands with, I haave the right size needle (4) and have tried a tensions square BUT while it measures 10cms across which is right, the height (number of rows) is only 7cms. So how do I rectify that?

And does anyone have any nice headband patterns?

I'm hoping I'll get better as I go along - with snoods and scarves I can do it by eye and change the pattern as I go along but I know when I get onto cardigans and stuff like that then I will need it to be right.

Oh, and what is blocking please? THe lady in the shop said she never does it.

Thanks!!

(And I will look at that other thread now too).

Mikazaru

Those christmas knits for the bunting are lovely, I'm always surprised what can be done in knitting.

It's getting a bit windy here so I hope everyone further north is all right and it doesn't get too bad.

I've been knitting a scarf for a last minute secret santa, I changed the owl pattern from a jumper and did a row of these at the bottom and was just going to knit the pattern from the top down for the owls at the other end, but as it's cabling it won't work will it? Or will it be fine if I cable the opposite way? I didn't think about it till I got there and now I've confused myself thinking about it so much

Mikazaru

picju96 wrote: »

Anyway, my mum found some Sirdar Dune in a charity shop the other day and the shop wanted 50p for 6 balls! So of course she bought it for me. But now I'm stuck with what to do with it. Does anyone have any patterns they recommend/will let me see/borrow?

Having looked on Ravelry it looks like it's good for scarves, shawls and there are a few tops/jackets on there aswell.

meanmarie

Mikazaru....maybe the easiest thing to do would be to do the owl bit as at beginning of scarf as a new piece of knitting and then graft or Kitchener stitch it to the first piece.....does that make sense to you???

Marie