Flagel Knitting Files

Just finished watching the leadership debate for the BC May 14 election.  Well that was something to behold; time to move on to something more serious. When we last left off with finishing skills casting/binding off and sewing together had been discussed.  These are both huge topics whose surface has barely been scratched in my ramblings.  Do use the internet to help fill in gaps in your understanding.  Getting these two skills down will really help you improve the final look of your finished project. To round out this discussion I want to talk about adding a button band and how to hide all the loose ends.  The button band is created by a process called picking up stitches, a technique used to added knitted work to a piece that is already been completed.  So if you are adding a sleeve, collar, heel of a sock, ear flap, fingers on a glove or in our case a button band, you use this technique.  The added part is knit in a different direction and...

This week Paul purchased and installed the Apple tv to our widescreen television.  Since I'm out on a limb here with regard to what it really does, let me let Wikipedia explain it:  " Apple TV is a digital media receiver developed and sold by Apple Inc.  It is a small form factor network appliance designed to play digital content from iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Flickr, iCloud, MLB.tv, MBA League, NHL Game Center and any Mac OS X or Windows computer running iTunes on an enhanced-definition or high definition widescreen television."   (Clear right??) It's magic for me is allowing me to search for podcasts or videos relating to knitting.  This weekend I've spent a certain amount of time checking out what's out there.  I can say right now:  1)  Apple tv is awesome, even I can operate it (after Paul took the time to give me a brief tutorial, but then I find if I'm motivated, it is possible for me to learn new tricks)...

While I slept last night my blog pageviews passed the 20,000 mark.  Considering the number was not quite 6,000 pageviews last October and 10,000 in December this is no small feat (at least IMHO)! There are a few lessons I've learned along the way: Pick the title of the post well.  If it is succinct and accurate even I can find what I'm looking for quickly so others should be able to do so as well. Select topics for posts that have wide interest.  When I wrote the post about yarn winders and yarn swifts I had no idea how interested people would be.  It is the second most read post I've ever written and says nothing about either of these yarn tools.  (BTW The Dachshund  remains #1 by a very large margin.)  The unusual uses for knitting seem to be very popular and are viewed regularly.   Yarn taxidermy , Sci Fi in Yarn  and the U 900  posts are all big draws. It helps to have over 200 posts out there in cyberspace.  One is...

So even though I was otherwise distracted there were two projects I was able to complete recently.  Both were relatively simple and small, which seems to have suited my distracted mind. First, the waffles are done.  As you know, I simply converted the waffle stitch into the "real" knitted thing.  But I thought they looked a bit sad on the plate all by themselves so I made two small breakfast sausage and three strawberries to go along with them.  (Yes, I know there's only two in the photo.  I made the third and packaged the entire meal up for shipping without taking a new photo.  I am like that sometimes.)  The sausage and strawberry patterns come from Susie Johns' 20  Knitted Fast Food , and her  20 Knitted Fruit respectively.  The sausage yarn came from Zellers just as they were closing down.  For my non-Canadian readers, Zellers will soon be replaced with Target stores from the U.S.  Sock yarn that is very slightly variega...

You might have noticed my posts have been a bit scarce recently, and you would be absolutely correct.  I thought I'd spend a bit of time bringing you up to date before we get back to the topic of knitting. First there was Mike, the cat.  Take a look at the photos and pay particular attention to his front paws.  He's had what the veterinarian calls a benign (it was tested) neoplasms.  Essentially, he had a growth of skin and muscle, that as you can see from the photos, did grow rather quickly.  He was fine up until recently when he started limping on that foot.  So off he went to have it removed. See the lump on the left paw June 5, 2012.  It had grown to about 3 times that size Lump free and fur clipped on the left Everything went swell during the surgery.  The unnecessary part was removed and since he was under general anesthetic we had his teeth cleaned as well.  He came home with one of those collars around his nec...

If one is going to choose to attend a great knitting conference, Vogue Knitting Live (VKL) would arguably be near the top of the list.  VKL has been held in New York City and Chicago as early as 2011, but this is the first time they have ventured into the Pacific Northwest, where according to the editor in chief, ". . . we know there are more knitters in Seattle than any city in the United States. . ."  Perhaps that is said about every region they visit, but it is still nice to hear. Tena and I decided to take in VKL last weekend.  We took Friday off and managed to outlet shop our way down to Bellevue's Meydenbauer Convention Center. (This is where the actual event was held.)  This Convention Center was the perfect size, big enough to allow for just over 60 vendors, a stage, fitting station and lounge, yet small enough to not intimidate.  We found our favorite local designer, Alexa Ludeman, right away on Saturday morning to say hello, but Alexa was busy signin...

Once you finally have all the pieces of your knitted project off the needles (see Binding or Casting Off Techniques ) it is time to sew them together.  As I mentioned earlier, this is the part that can really make or break a piece.   It might look something like this: A sweater generally off the needles except for the neckline In the photo above, you can see the left sleeve is ready be inserted into place. It also appears the shoulders are either already sewn together or more than likely the entire body was knit from the back to the front.  (One should start the putting-together process with the shoulders so that the front and back are align.)   But you'll notice several finishing touches are left to do, for example, the entire left side seam of the sweater needs work and the right side seam is left undone as well.  So how do we go from above to this? A well-finished sweater Most knitting pattern designers believe you should know how to do this...

An annoyance with most knitting patterns is they can be a bit light on sharing how to finish a project.  Sure it is easy enough to prepare all the pieces, but when it comes to putting the pieces together most patterns say something like:  "Bind off leaving a XX length tail.  Use this tail to sew together with the right sides facing."  Recently the Yarn Harlot had a rather lengthy post about the amount of detail a pattern designer needs to actually put in a pattern.  Click here to see about this in a rather strangely named post,  Shades of Grey .  She then goes on the next day to talk about how recipe books and knitting patterns are pretty similar. Both require a certain basic knowledge; for example, a cook needs to know the difference between saute, simmer, and fry, etc. in order to use a cookbook.  Perhaps it is appropriate to expect the same type of basic knowledge from knitters as well. The first time you attempt to sew a finished piece tog...