Assorted Knitting Things I Love

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Why do I love knitting?

I love all the beautiful colours in which yarns come.  Sometimes when I am walking around the yarn warehouse surrounded by thousands of balls of yarn of various colours and fibres it is just the colours of the yarn that call out to me.  Diamond yarn has a 100% silk lace weight yarn that the first time I saw it sitting on the warehouse shelf I knew I had to have it just for the colour.  It was a multicoloured blue, yellow and black that was just so striking. I didn’t know what I would do with it but I needed to have that yarn.  Luckily many of my customers agreed with me but I bet most of them had an idea what they would do with  it when they bought it.  I don’t need to know what I am going to do with I just need to have that colour.

I love all the different fibres that you can get.  The Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Aran (unfortunately now discontinued, but we still have some in the store) is just so soft that I had to make something out of it.  It was the one when people asked for the softest yarn that  I directed them to.  Right now the Madeline Tosh sock for it’s colours and softness is one of my favourite yarns. It is 100% merino with a nice twist.

I love that sock yarn knits up magically into a pattern.  Sometimes you just have to keep knitting to see what will come up next.  People who don’t knit think you are so talented when it is really the yarn dyers who are so talented.

I love the click and feel of the needles as the yarn slides along them. A great pair of needles is essential to my knitting enjoyment.  The yarn has to move quickly and smoothly, no pushing or bunching allowed.  My needle of choice at the moment are Hiya Hiya circulars even when I am not knitting  in the round.  I like the short needle length that you get with a circular and that you can scrunch everything up onto the cable when you  want to put your project in a bag and not worry about the stitches falling off.

I love working on a pattern and seeing it slowly take shape.  I usually am impatient to finish the project so I can see how it will look but  I often stop and just look and feel the item I am working on and think this all started as a ball of yarn and now look at it. It seems almost magical the way the yarn twists and turns to make all the stitches in a pattern.

I also love that knitting requires you to sit down and just be.

To follow or to forge out on your own

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When you start knitting something do you follow all the directions to a tee or do you put in little touches of your own?  I think a knitting pattern is like a recipe.  Some recipes you have to follow pretty closely or your cake will fall, others have a little more leeway and you can leave out those ingredients you don’t like (onions- yuck!) or add in more spices if you like a little more zing.  With a knitting pattern, it is the same for me as in cooking.  There are the more complicated patterns with which you have to be pretty careful and follow every direction for the item to come out with the proper design and shape.  There are others where there is more leeway and you can add in stitches you like or change the shaping to your preference.  I like to make my sweaters longer so I always add length before starting my shaping but I will follow the stitch pattern if it is say a lace pattern.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t add a couple knit stitches here or there if I think that it will make the pattern look nicer.  Sometimes I can’t quite figure out which way a pattern is supposed to be done and try it a couple ways and end up with something I find more to my liking.  Then there are some knitting projects that I just look at patterns to find out general information like how many stitches have other people used to make a mitten with a similar gauge yarn or what is the pattern stitch they used to get a specific look but then use a different yarn and needle size.  So go ahead and experiment when you do your next project but make sure you write down what you have done or when you go to make that second sock or mitt you may not remember exactly what you did or if someone says ” I love that! Can you give me the pattern?” you won’t have to go back and  try and figure exactly what it is that you did.  Remember knitting is supposed to be something you do that gives you pleasure not something you need to fret over so go ahead and have some fun with your knitting.

Try it you might like it

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How often do you avoid trying something because it might be too hard or you might not like it?  You never know you may love it.  Some of us are naturally more adventuresome than others and are willing to try almost anything but there are others of us who just get stuck in a rut and stick with what is comfortable.  I do this in my knitting as well as in other things in life – same old recipes, same stores… I usually like to stick to small knitting projects socks, hats fingerless gloves – all usually with not too much pattern so I can do it without paying attention.

Recently I started a cable knit sweater pattern.  Initially I thought I don’t really want to do this.  There are 4 different cables to figure out, keep track of and count.  The one cable has 28 stitches in it.  Besides if I start it I may never finish it.  Well, I dove in and had to rip out the first rows a few times but now I have the hang of the pattern and I can actually watch TV while doing it.  I am enjoying the challenge of something new and it looks really nice.

So maybe we all need to try something new, whether it be in knitting or or other areas of our life.  Hmm… maybe I should try…

One week left to knit

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Only a week left  to knit those Christmas presents. I still have some cowls and boot toppers to do but should be able to get all my knitting done in time for Christmas.  Once those are done, I have a few projects lined up, the main one being a cable knit sweater for my son.

At the store, the ruffled scarf yarn continues to be popular with some nice new additions.  Katia has a few new one ball scarf yarns out.  Sophia is a fun shaggy looking scarf in some nice bright colours.  Marilyn is another scarf yarn and has strands that hang down and make a sophisticated looking scarf.   Toledo is very  soft and has a chenille-like edge.

The Madeline Tosh yarn continues to be a favorite and we still have lots of colours in the sock yarn while the DK is a little more limited with only 4 colours left.

For anyone looking for a special last minute Christmas gift, we have one set of the limited edition Knitter’s Pride interchangeable knitting needles left.  It comes in a nice box so it is easy to wrap.

Welcome to Rose’s Fine Yarns’ Knitters Corner.

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Welcome to Rose’s Fine Yarns’ Knitters Corner. This is where we will keep you up to date on what is new at Rose’s Fine Yarns and let you know what is on our needles.  Any new trends or exciting yarn you can find out about here in Knitters Corner.

Now that Christmas is fast approaching I am working on lots of knitting projects.  I have just fininshed off some Bergere de France Opal socks and they turned out great. On my needles ( one set anyway)  I am working on a loose cable cowl in Diamond Mulberry Merino and so far it looks very luxurious.  I am hoping it turns out well and I can make a few as Christmas presents.  Boot toppers are another big item this season and luckly they knit up quickly so there will be a few pairs of those under the tree as well.  Any leftover yarn I will be using to make up some fingerless gloves.  I haven’t figured out who to make it for, but there is a great fish hat by Thelma Egberts on Ravelry that I would like to make if I have time.