Tag Archives: knitting in the round

Christm-ish

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So, I went back and forth for a while about what color to get to finish off the kid’s sweater. And, while I was leaning toward the nice light green, or a neutral oatmeal/gray, they were adamant that they wanted RED.

I managed to talk them down from RED red, to this nice shade of “Black Cherry.” Not necessarily what I would have picked, but, hey, it’s not my sweater.

It took a while for the yarn to show up, so I haven’t gotten far, but I’ll be honest, I like it more than I thought I would. I figured the red + green would look so Christmassy, that I wouldn’t like it, but I’ve surprised myself that I don’t hate it.

(Would I have preferred not running out of green yarn to begin with? Yes. Would I have picked another color if it had been up to me? Yes. But, such is life with a preschooler.)

What new color combinations have you tried recently?

I’ve Made A Huge Mistake

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OK, not huge. But I’ve definitely underestimated how much yarn I would use for this sweater.

To be fair, I also underestimated how big this sweater was going to be, so it only goes to figure that I’d underestimate the amount of yarn that I’d need. (My kid is 4. I’m pretty sure this will fit them when they’re 12.)

I’ve got maybe a full skein left in total, and I’ve used probably 2-ish skeins already. And, since I’m barely 3 inches into the body and only at elbow-level on the sleeves, I can’t imagine that one skein will be enough to finish up.

To make sure I’m using my yarn as evenly as possible, I had the brilliant idea to work the body from one skein, then work the sleeves from opposite ends of a second skein at the same time. While this might make a lot of sense from a theoretical standpoint, it’s proving to be more trouble than I expected. The amount of time I spend carefully organizing my yarn and untangling it is getting a little out of hand. But, I’ve made my choice, and I don’t feel like going back on my plan.

Anyway, I’m going to have to go get more of this yarn… and I think I’ve got two choices:

  1. Buy the same color, and hope the dye lots are close enough. (I bought the original yarn maybe 10 years ago, so there’s no chance that I will find the same dye lot).
  2. Go for a different color for a two-tone sweater. And, if I go this way, what color should I pick? Play it safe with brown or gray? Go wild with a bright contrasting color? Or monochromatic with a different shade of green?

What would you do?

Tutorial: Reading a Chart in the Round

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Last week, I talked about the basics of reading a chart.  Today, I’m going to talk about reading a chart while knitting in the round.

*Gasp* What?!  Charts!?  And circular needles?! That’s just too much!  I can’t even!  (Sorry… I’m feeling a little dramatic this morning)

No, it’s not difficult!  It’s actually pretty simple.

So remember this chart from last week?  This is a chart that’s been written so that you can work it flat (ie, back and forth).laura-chart-c-plainI’ve modified it to now be read in the round.  Can you spot the differences (It’s like a sad, grown-up version of the puzzles in the back of Highlights magazine)?laura-chart-c-in-the-roundThe first big difference (that I’m sure you spotted), is that all the row numbers are lined up along the right side of the chart.  laura-chart-c-in-the-round-detailsThat’s because when you knit in the round, you’re always traveling in the same direction (from right to left).  When you knit flat, you knit back and forth, so the row numbers are arranged on alternate sides.  But, the same rule applies no matter how you’re knitting- you start knitting from the side of the row with the number, and work away.laura-chart-c-in-the-round-knitting-directionThe second big difference is in they key:laura-chart-c-in-the-round-details-2It looks like there’s a whole bunch of information missing, when you compare this chart to the “knit flat” chart.  But, in fact, you’re not missing any information!  This is because when you knit in the round, every row is a RS row!  So, it’s just implied that (in this case) a white square is a knit stitch on the RS and a gray square is a purl.

Simple!

What’s your favorite kind of pattern?