Book Reveiw: Tips for Knitters

There's a stack of sewing and knitting book that I have amassed over this year that might be a little helpful for anyone doing similar crafty things to myself.

Tips for Knitters by Debbie Bliss is a great book for any level of knitter as it has instructions for the most basic aspect of knitting (knit and purl stitches) all the way through to advanced (and rather scary) decorative lace borders.

The book is in full colour with clear well defined pictures of what the instructions should produce. The instructions themselves are clear and concise. The beginning of each section and at the start of each technique has a small paragraph introducing it and giving a bit of explanation as to the qualities if it and why it is used.

It includes a section on yarns and fibres and here is where I tend to get annoyed with the vendetta that the entire knitting community seemingly has against acrylic and other man made fibres. Aside from that there is good, easy to understand descriptions of the most commonly used natural fibres as well as weights and textures. (I like acrylic as it is cheap and can be found in brighter colours than natural fibres, but I tell people that it is good as it is completely vegan and no animals were even involved in the making of it... sorry to any vegans offended by this)

I bought my copy from Mandors in Glasgow for around £8.99 but it can be found on amazon here and sometimes in larger bookshops

Products of a productive week

I made the skirt and mini cape that I was talking about in the last post.

I love it bits I'm not entirely sure that the pattern in G&LB is correct. The only usable clear picture they have with a model wearing it is useless as she is sitting down! grrrr.

 Here's a quick reminder of the fabric used (just in case you missed its cupcakey awesomeness).

And here's the finished skirt

It's also fully lined. This adds to the volume and protects the seams from fraying.

The minicape

Front

 Back

 Inside

It is finished enough to wear but still needs to be given a going over with an iron to set the shape and the small gap at the back of the neck stitched up.

Can you tell I had fun arranging the ribbons for the pictures?

I'm now on the hunt for translations for the patterns in the Japanese G&LB vol 37 (autumn 2010) specifically the BABY, Angelic Pretty and Peace Now patterns if anybody knows of a website or even has translated them I would be very grateful for a link or message.

Knives Chau scarf update: 1.39m so far (that's about a yard and a half for the people who don't use metric)

Fabulous Fabric

It has taken me some time this year to get  started on my projects for the summer but now that I have time and the materials I can get a move on with making stuff and blogging about it

A little while ago I got the urge to make clothes and began to look at fabrics in shops. Two weeks ago I bought some from Mandors.

 Isn't it just all cupcakey and awesome! (measuring tape is in cm) I have a pattern for a skirt and mini cape from the English version of the Gothic and Lolita bible (winter '09) by innocent world and mille fleurs and I'm going to use this fabric for it. If I'm careful with the pattern placement then I should have a fair amount of fabric left over to make accessories with!

I never realised Ikea did fabrics until last week when my sister sent me to buy some for her she wanted two in particular Britten Nummer and Charlotta Teckning.

Measuring tapes are in cm to give an idea of the size of those prints as they're HUUUUGE.

to finish off does anybody have any ideas what to do with these they are all 54x54cm (21in) squares that I have had in a drawer since last year.

Any ideas would be a help.

New toy!

I got a new bit of kit in the post today.
A flower loom!

it's from clover and the instuctions are a little confusing (read: not there) for the more complex bits like borders for the square and hexagonal looms.
all that aside the results so far are really pretty (I'll post some pictures when when I have made some more)

 Picture update!
I have a pile of these somwhere but I accdentally invoked murphy's law by looking for them so theres not as many pictures as I would like.

these were made with DK weight yarm on the largest circular loom the mesuring tapes are in inches at the top and centimeters at the bottom to give an idea of proportion.

these were done on the medium circular loom the one in the middle is made from aran weight yarn and the others are made from curling ribbon.

Knitting

Theres an image missing at the moment as I can't find the scaf to take a picture of.

I got a Beta!(A dyslexic beta but a beta at any rate, β) So any mistakes that would have been are probably now gone, but if you do see anything don't be afraid to point it out or offer ways of wording that would make more sense. 

Knitting is a very big part of my fascination with cute things.  

Despite the fact that I have only been knitting since last June my love/hate (lol) affair with knitting began when I was very small. My mum has been knitting since she was younger than me and decided that my big sister and I were going to learn how to knit, never mind that we were barely old enough to understand what we were doing. Making bulky knitted bookmarks (I remember a purse! β) that are more suited to holding a book open than marking the place obviously had very little appeal for a child who had yet to start reading books that required the use of a bookmark (yes, I was that young!) so I just stopped knitting. There was probably a bit of jealousy in there too as my sister was learning the second type of knit stitch(purl) when I was struggling with just plain knit stitch. 

Several years later this was attempted again but instead of chunky bookmarks it was this (knitting with two strands is a little too complex for an 8-year-old)
(picture goes here)

In April/May last year I saw a ball of bright red wool hiding in a cupboard and decided I wanted a huge long scarf in that colour. So I convinced mum to let me buy two 100g balls of red wool from a charity shop, (she was very hesitant when I showed her the colour), lend me a pair of needles and show me how to knit.

And it all went downhill from there.

In the time since completing the giant red scarf I have knitted and knitted and produced a whole load of stuff.

Such as...

Another scarf but this time with one ball and in green

A beret, 

yet another scarf,

A blanket with a Tetris design,
this took months to do

Accessories for Lolita outfits!

or just generally cute stuff

I even had a table at D-con with my sister selling these accessories!

I have started a scarf styled after the one worn by Knives Chau in the Scott Pilgrim series

 

It’s taking a while...

Mug Hugs
This particular design is my favourite but there are many other patterns that I have seen.

Then, I found a super quick knit online a couple of weeks ago
here's a pile of them

Knitting is not only a fun thing to do but it keeps my hands busy and I can do it while reading, either online on my kindle or a magazine. I don't recommend knitting while reading a print book, can you say lost page? Perhaps you could knit one of the chunky bookmarks that put me off knitting all that time ago to keep your page :p it's also good for stress relief in that it gives you time to calm down and think about things or it can also distract you from the problems that are bothering you at that particular moment in time.

If anybody has any questions about patterns, yarns and needles I’ll answer them to the best of my ability.

One last thing: Ravelry. To all knitters (and crocheters): if you are on here tell me! If you are not on Ravelry then get an account and then tell me! (I'm shirotuskino here too) It’s free to join and has a large number of free patterns but there are some that you need to pay for.