Personalizing the Knitting

 

One of the greatest things about being a knitter, apart from the taking of raw materials and making something useful/beautiful/creative, is that it allows you to show a little of your personality in what you do. 

If you love that sweater you saw but truly find that pale pink is not your color, you can knit it yourself in neon green, or purple, or red, and make it your own.

Take a simple pattern and add embellishments and you create something new and uniquely yours. So let's take a simple pattern for fingerless mitts and dress them up a little.  Let's experiment with yarn and needles!

Like many knitters, I have a small (ok, not that small) collection of odds and ends of yarn that seem too much to just throw away, but too little to do much with.  I have partial balls of yarn used to make sweaters, blankets, lace shawls, half used up crochet cotton from knitting doilies, ends of sock yarn.....all waiting to be turned into something different, or used as "waste yarn" to hold stitches.  Most of it is without labels or even a vague recollection of what I used the yarn for originally.  Let's grab a couple of things out of my collection and see where it takes me.

Large Knitted Flowers for Mitts with a Twist - a starting off point.

Step One -  Find some yarn you like to go with your mitts.  In this case I picked out a striped,  loosely twisted wool.

Step Two - decide on needles.  I knit the mitts on US 8 needles, so I used those.

Step Three - start knitting!

Using a cable cast on (the cast on edge is going to show and I like the almost slipped stitch look the cabled cast on gives) cast on 40 stitches making sure you leave yourself a generous tail (about 9 inches) for sewing up later.

Rows 1-5 Knit Across all Stitches.

Row 6 - K2tog across (20 stitches)

Rows 7 and 9  Knit Across all Stitches

Row 8 - K2tog across (10 stitches)

Row 10 - K2tog across (5 stitches)

Cut yarn leaving a 9 inch tail and thread onto a darning needle.  Slip all 5 stitches onto that yarn and pull tight.  It will look like this :



Starting the opposite end to where your cast on tail is sitting, roll the piece around your thumb, forming a flower like shape.  You can play with it a bit to get the flower looking the way you want.  Once you are happy with the shape of your flower, tack petals into place using your cast on and cast off tails , drawing both through the bottom of the flower and leave hanging like this :


Grab your mitt and decide where you want your flower.  Using those tails sew the flower to the mitt, I take them through on either side of a twisted knit stitch and tie them with a knot on the inside of the mitt, then weave the ends up or down the same stitch line.

For smaller flowers you could use fingering weight yarn, or even crochet cotton!

Really Small Flower -

Cast on 20 stitches using Pearle Cotton (size 8 on US 1 needles in this case.)

Knit 3 rows
K2tog across (10 Stitches)
K2tog across (5 stitches)

Complete as with Large Flower.

Two of the pink ones are following the Large Flower Pattern, worked on US 0 needles all the purple and the smaller pink one  follow the Really Small Flower Pattern., also on a US 0 needle.

The small ones look really good in groups of three or more. (In my opinion!)

You don't have to limit yourself to putting these on mitts - they also work on hats, headbands, as gift tag adornments and according to at least one teenager in my life, on jewelry.

An Almost Blank Canvas - or Ribbed Mitts with a Twist Free Pattern

Super quick and easy fingerless mitts knit up in a hurry. Each pair takes approximately 50 grams of worsted weight yarn, you can get multiple pairs out of a single ball of worsted weight wool, which makes them an economical gift. The pattern is simple enough to serve as a blank canvas for your creativity...Want stripes? Add some! Buttons? Bows? Embroidery? Knitted Flowers? The possibilities are endless, and with the stretch of the ribbing ensuring a custom, not too snug, fit for most hand sizes.

Materials : Ella Rae Classic Heathers (219 yrds to 200g) color 122

                   US 8 (5mm) circular needle (16 inches) or Double Points

                   Stitch Markers, waste yarn, sewing needle to weave in ends

Gauge : 20 stitches and  24 rows per 4 inches 

Abbreviations : KTBL - knit through the back loop of the stitch, creating a twisted knit.

                          P - purl

                          Lifted Increase - pick up the bar between the stitch just worked on your right hand needle and the stitch yet to be worked on your left hand needle, twist while placing on your left hand needle to be worked to minimize holes.

Cuff/Hand :

Cast on 32 stitches using either a long tail or cabled cast on and join to work in the round being careful not to twist. Place stitch marker, if desired to denote beginning of the round. (I don't, I use the tail of my cast on to tell me when I am at the beginning on the cuff and the thumb gusset when I reach the hand but your mileage may vary.)

Work in *kbtl 1, p1* for 4 inches (or 24 rounds if you are a round counter!)

Thumb Gusset :

At the beginning of the next round, after your start of round marker if you are using it, make one stitch by lifting the bar between the needles and purling it, place marker to denote edge of thumb gusset. 

Round 1: Purl thumb stitch, slip marker, complete the rest of the round in pattern.

Round 2 : Make one lifted increase as a knit stitch, purl 1, make one lifted increase as a knit stitch, slip marker work rest of round in pattern.

Round 3: KTBL1, P1, KTBL1, slip marker, work rest of round in pattern.

Round 4: Make one lifted increase as a purl stitch, ktbl, p1, ktbl, make one lifted increase as a purl stitch.

Continue in this manner, alternating making knits and purls, until you have 13 stitches before the marker, ending having completed a "work as stitches present themselves" round. On the next round slip thumb stitches to waste yarn to hold until hand is completed. Rejoin hand stitches to continue working in the round.

Work in *ktbl 1, p1* for 2 inches (or 12 rounds)

Cast off in ktbl1, p1 pattern, or use your favorite stretchy bind off.

Thumb:

Place stitches from waste yarn using 5mm (US 8) needles, pick up one stitch from the "crotch" of the

thumb and knit it, work in ktbl1, p1 rib for 5 rounds. Bind off in pattern, loosely.

Weave in your ends, using the thumb thread to tighten up any gap, and clip.

Make a second mitt to match the first.

Dress them up or leave them plain, it is up to you!

                                                     

Playing with Yarn

For the past couple of weeks I have been playing around with some yarn that was in my stash and pouring over Ravelry looking for patterns for all the knitworthy people on my holiday list.

Ravelry, as the users know, is filled with wonderful ideas and patterns but none of them quite suited my mood, or yarn supply.  Some were ever so close, but not quite.  Some missed the mark entirely.  Of course I did what any reasonable knitter would do at that point.....cast on for a throw blanket for my own living room!

Which did nothing to warm the heads, feet and hearts of the people I want to knit for.

In defense of the cast on though, it is a variation on a standard Log Cabin Blanket - knit in sport weight yarn from my stash - which means miles and miles of boring garter stitch and I am playing a serious game of yarn chicken!  Tons of garter stitch knitting also means that I keep grabbing other yarns and playing with swatches and color arrangements. Most years I have a collection of sticky notes taped to my desk, telling me what I knit and how I knit it.  When the sticky notes take over I look at them and sigh a sorrowful sigh about how one day they could have grown up to be patterns.

This year will be different.

This year they will be patterns, and you can get them here!