The Knitters Thread

dandy-candy

Orkneystar that is really beautiful!

mrs-moneypenny

looks lovely OS very delicate looking pattern

iQueen

kitsandkofebyknitbag on Ebay is selling 2 x 50g of Regia, mostly discontinued collours, some marl, some landscape stripes, some stretch, at £8.20 + FREE postage. She gives the dye #, so you can usually search Google Images for >regia sock yarn ####< and see a knitted sample/sock, to get an idea of long/short colour runs.

Also Purple Linda is selling at £3.95 a 50g ball.

(My stash has just grown by several balls. Blush.)

AND REGIA IS STILL GUARANTEED FOR 10 YEARS!

sashanut

Hi all:j

Hope someone can help me with this problem please. I decided to quickly(!) make a few pairs of fingerless gloves as pressies & also bust my stash a bit:D

However, i'm having trouble working out what yarn to use & don't have much time to do gauge swatches & the like!! The pattern is US & calls for 80-100yds of worsted weight wool yarn, from which she made the gloves & a hat.

From the pattern 'The gloves shown are knit with abt 80 yds of Merino Worsted 3-ply'. Needles are US 7 or 4.5mm gauge 5 sts per inch

I've got a conversion chart - standard yarn weights off ravelry, but worsted seems to be 10-ply with 9wpi whatever that means!! Hope someone can help or at least give me an idea, I'm running out of time:eek: TIA if you can help:D

LadyDee

sashanut wrote: »

Hi all:j

Hope someone can help me with this problem please. I decided to quickly(!) make a few pairs of fingerless gloves as pressies & also bust my stash a bit:D

However, i'm having trouble working out what yarn to use & don't have much time to do gauge swatches & the like!! The pattern is US & calls for 80-100yds of worsted weight wool yarn, from which she made the gloves & a hat.

From the pattern 'The gloves shown are knit with abt 80 yds of Merino Worsted 3-ply'. Needles are US 7 or 4.5mm gauge 5 sts per inch

I've got a conversion chart - standard yarn weights off ravelry, but worsted seems to be 10-ply with 9wpi whatever that means!! Hope someone can help or at least give me an idea, I'm running out of time:eek: TIA if you can help:D

This the conversion chart I work with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarn_weight

I'm actually about to start some fingerless mittens - a free pattern on Ravelry http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/kellie-fingerless-gloves

The 9wpi means 9 wraps per inch on the needle size stated, i.e. holding a needle and end of yarn against it, wrap the yarn around the needle pushing each wrap up to the one before and count how many wraps there are in an inch. Don't know if that explains it very well?

sashanut

:DBrilliant LadyDee thanks so much for the help - I'm sure I will be able to figure it out from that:j:j:j

iQueen

sashanut wrote: »

Hi all:j

Hope someone can help me with this problem please. I decided to quickly(!) make a few pairs of fingerless gloves as pressies & also bust my stash a bit:D

However, i'm having trouble working out what yarn to use & don't have much time to do gauge swatches & the like!! The pattern is US & calls for 80-100yds of worsted weight wool yarn, from which she made the gloves & a hat.

From the pattern 'The gloves shown are knit with abt 80 yds of Merino Worsted 3-ply'. Needles are US 7 or 4.5mm gauge 5 sts per inch

I've got a conversion chart - standard yarn weights off ravelry, but worsted seems to be 10-ply with 9wpi whatever that means!! Hope someone can help or at least give me an idea, I'm running out of time:eek: TIA if you can help:D

Those B Americans cause no end of knitting/crochet problems, trying to standardise yarn weights!

When using US patterns, the best guide (usually) is to go by the needle size and gauge/tension.

Worsted weight is complicated. It is roughly equal to our Aran weight - hence 4.5mm needles and a tension of around 19sts X 25 rows = 4inch/10cm square on swatch.

Plies don't really count much these days. When we only had real wool yarns, a ply was a standard thickness (possibly still is in Australia and NZ) and we knew the weight of yarn by their number. Nowadays, we can buy DK (supposed to be 8ply) and 4ply yarn which is made of a single ply!

US Worsted Weight originally (and still, in some cases) meant wool that was combed before spinning. This meant the yarn was slightly finer than a similar yarn that was simply prepared by carding. (In carding wool fibres are smoothed out a bit - still a bit mixed up in direction. In combing, the fibres are really smoothed out and pretty parallel = smoother, stronger, better quality yarn and fabric.)

Another point to consider with gloves, hats and definitely socks, is that they may be knitted on a size smaller needles than usual for the a particular yarn weight, to provide a denser, warmer fabric, which is more windproof, but take into consideration that this can make the fabric less comfortable to wear - too stiff, less drape etc.

WPI (wraps per inch) is term usually used by hand-spinners to roughly work out the weight/size of the yarn they are spinning. Yarn can be wound around anything - a ruler is good, book, small box , block of wood, or noster pin, and the number of wraps is counted for a measured inch. It is extremely inaccurate because different people wrap the yarn at different tensions! So, unless you start hand-spinning, forget it! Swatching is the most accurate test for knitters.

In the case of your mitts, UK Aran should be fine, if it is reasonable quality, with some wool in it. Otherwise, if your stash is DK, look for a similar free pattern on Ravelry, for DK.

Hope this helps you a bit. (Just waiting for my angora yarn to arrive for a pair of Susie Rogers' Reading Mitts (DK), for DD1. )

Good luck!

balletshoes

Hello lovely knitters,

I'm looking for some advice please - my mum is an avid knitter, these days its mostly baby/toddler cardis and sweaters which she then hands in to the charity shops etc, its her hobby and always has been.

She uses rigid needles, not wood ones though, but I thought about getting her a set of circular needles as part of her Christmas pressie.

As she only uses wool and only knits small items, which would be best, wood or acrylic tips? Or is it just a matter of preference and theres really no difference?

Thanks for any advice (I don't have a clue :cool:).

azzabazza

balletshoes wrote: »

Hello lovely knitters,

I'm looking for some advice please - my mum is an avid knitter, these days its mostly baby/toddler cardis and sweaters which she then hands in to the charity shops etc, its her hobby and always has been.

She uses rigid needles, not wood ones though, but I thought about getting her a set of circular needles as part of her Christmas pressie.

As she only uses wool and only knits small items, which would be best, wood or acrylic tips? Or is it just a matter of preference and theres really no difference?



Thanks for any advice (I don't have a clue :cool:).

A lovely idea but knitting needles can be very personal to an individual! I personally converted to Bamboo needles several years ago. I have tried to convert a friend plus my sister who detest them!

As she only knits small items she may not have a use for circular needles. I have a few sets of very old circular needles in the main sizes but I use them very rarely.

Sorry I can't be more helpful!

iQueen

balletshoes wrote: »

Hello lovely knitters,

I'm looking for some advice please - my mum is an avid knitter, these days its mostly baby/toddler cardis and sweaters which she then hands in to the charity shops etc, its her hobby and always has been.

She uses rigid needles, not wood ones though, but I thought about getting her a set of circular needles as part of her Christmas pressie.

As she only uses wool and only knits small items, which would be best, wood or acrylic tips? Or is it just a matter of preference and theres really no difference?

Thanks for any advice (I don't have a clue :cool:).

I think that's a great idea!

After sixty years of knitting on straights and DPNs, I have just converted to circulars instead of straights - still use DPNs for socks! And during the past week I have learned to knit Continental style (yarn comes from the left). Talk about old dogs and new tricks!

I have always preferred metal needles, so my growing collection of modern circulars (much more flexible cables than the old originals!) have metal tips. You can get tips in metal, woods, acrylic and combinations of materials. I would buy the same material that your Mum uses normally. However, you can buy a Nova Pro Starter set with 3 sets of tips, each in a different material + 2 cables.

I have found that knitting on modern circulars is completely different from, and much more comfortable, than using straights. There is no strain at all on the arms and shoulders. If you knit a sweater or cardigan or shawl or blanket, the weight is not on the needles, it is in your lap.

I've just finished knitting for my expected grandchild and all of it on modern circulars, either back and forth, like straights, or in the round for hats. I knitted a blanket too - 400g of Chunky, without a twinge, and much faster than on straights. I love them!

Needle tips come in 2 lengths: 13cm for garments and slightly shorter for the shortest cable, for hats, sleeves etc, in the round - the short cable makes it impossible to get the longer tips together to knit. If your Mum is open to learning the Magic Loop technique, she would be ablt to do without the shortest cable ans shorter tips.

It is much better value to buy the Interchangeable circulars, because you only need 2 or 3 different length cables and you just change the tips as necessary. Tips range from 2mm to 15mm-ish, so your Mum probably won't need them all.

I buy my cables and needles, post free, from Wool Stack on Ebay. The seller is very helpful - her contact number is at the bottom of her listings. I rang her recently when I bought a circular and tips for a friend. She can explain anything you need to know, if you wish.