Making Jeny’s Stretchy Slip Knot Cast On with Lumpy Yarns

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Tasha

Or, how to make it easier in any yarn.

I love this cast on*; how easily it stretches and bounces back right along with the knitting, how invisible it is (it’s like whatever pattern you’re knitting just appears fully formed, without a visually different edge), and the bonus that since it only uses one end, you don’t have to worry about starting with a long enough tail.

But it’s notoriously difficult to do with uneven or thick-and-thin yarns, since the yarn has to be able to slide easily past itself to make the required shape. Or does it … My knitting students were having a hard time with this cast-on, even in a relatively smooth yarn, which got me wondering if I could figure out a trick that would help keep the yarn moving. I decided to try it with my first handspun project (a thick and thin yarn if there ever was one). And I did figure it out! It may have helped that I was stuck on an airplane at the time without too much else to do … It turns out that there’s one place that the yarn gets hung up on itself, and if you can get past that, you can do this cast on in a lumpy yarn too! I’ll show you how below.

First, a quick review of what makes a slip knot, since that’s the structure this whole cast on is based on—you’ll essentially make one slip knot after another. First of all, you need a loop.

I’m going to show you using a bit smoother yarn—otherwise it would be hard to see what’s going on. This is “Sheridan” from Mountain Meadow Wool—yummy!

Next you need another loop, and to put that second loop through the first one. Remember that the ends must cross each other for the loops to stay in place. So, you can either make a second loop in the bottom strand of the first loop and bring it through the top, or make a loop in the top strand and push it up through the bottom, which is what I’ve done below.

Tighten it up by pulling the second loop through until the first loop closes around it. If you’ve made a successful slip knot, it will go away if you pull on both ends of the yarn.

Put this first knot on a needle, and you’re ready for the cast on. I like to put the working end of the yarn (not the short tail) around my thumb, and hold the end with the last two fingers of my hand, as shown below. (There are other hand positions and motions that work perfectly well to make this cast on, these are the ones I use.)

To make the first loop, I use the needle to scoop up the strand nearest me around the thumb, moving from the bottom up.

Leaving this first loop on the thumb, I use the rest of my hand to bring a second strand of yarn over the needle, making the second loop.

I used to think that looping this strand one direction vs. the other over the needle might make it easier to pull the yarn through in the last step. That might be true, but it also (of course, silly me) determines which way your first round of stitches sit on the needle. Chances are you want them as shown below, so wrap the yarn starting at the front and moving to the back. If you’re a “combination” knitter or you learned in a tradition that knits through the back of the stitch, you’ll find your stitches ready to go if you wrap the yarn the other way, starting at the back and moving to the front.

In either case, now we have two loops on the needle. We want to move the first loop over the second one, so that it makes a collar around the base of the second loop, just like in the first slip knot we made without the needle. To do this, I use my thumb to lift the first loop up and over the tip of needle, and then let it go.

In the instructions I’ve seen before, the next step is to hold the new loop against the top of the needle, and pull on the end of the yarn so the collar around it tightens up. Sometimes this works great, but if your yarn has any resistance to sliding along itself, it will probably get caught up, stop short, and cause you to curse, tug on all the ends available, and try again.

The reason the yarn gets caught easily is that there’s one place in its path where it has to loop quickly around itself, making almost like a little knot (indicated by the arrow below).

What I found was that if I pull the yarn through this tight place first, I can then pull on the end and the stitch will tighten up smoothly, even in my lumpy handspun!

I take hold of the outside of that little loop-de-loop, and pull it out, so that the collar starts to form around the bottom of the new loop on the needle.

I’ve found that it works best if I get the new loop pretty snug, right up against the stitch before it on the needle, and the collar almost snug as well. Then with it set up, I hold the new loop against the needle and pull on the yarn end to finish the new stitch.

Although this undoubtedly adds a step, to me it’s totally worth it, since I can now use a whole lot more yarns with one of my favorite cast ons. And I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a slightly more complex but smooth process, rather than cursing and tugging on the yarn every few stitches because it keeps getting stuck.

*One of the many bonuses of going to a workshop with Cat Bordhi in person, is that she tells you all kinds of cool little tricks, and that’s where I first learned about this cast on. The original post about it on Jeny’s blog is here, she links both to her own video of the steps, and to another one which uses different motions. If you’d prefer not to hold the yarn around your thumb, there’s also a variation using two needles demonstrated by Tillybuddy on YouTube here.

Happy knitting!

Simple Textures

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Tasha

Here’s what I made with that first batch of my handspun yarn. And how to make something similar yourself, if you’re interested!

I really wanted something simple, that would let the (ahem, very thick-and-than-thin) nature of the yarn shine through. But, I’m not a knitter who’s happy with endless rounds of stockinette. No offense to those that are, but I just need a little something pattern-wise to keep my brain engaged, and let me see that I’m making progress.

My gut-instinct guess was that I’d have enough yarn to make a small but substantial cowl. Of course, there’s no label on my handspun to let me know the yardage, but I was able to estimate how much knitting I could get from the yarn pretty successfully. I knit a swatch in my pattern, measured the dimensions, and weighed it, so I knew about how many square inches of knitting I could get from a certain amount of yarn by weight. Then I weighed all the yarn I had, and used that number to figure out about how many square inches of total knitting I could make from it in this pattern. I tried on a cowl I had, and estimated how big it would need to be to comfortably fit over one’s head, and how tall I would ideally want it, and arrived at a compromise number to cast on.

The finished cowl is 25″ around, and 7″ tall, which turned out to be plenty big! At my gauge of 2.5 stitches/inch, I cast on 64 stitches. I used Jeny’s Stretchy Slipknot Cast On. (In this yarn—yes really! More about that here.) I did two rows (or maybe three? Forgot to write that down …) of plain knitting to make a little roll at the bottom, then switched to my pattern; alternating blocks of four knit and four purls stitches, and switching them after 4 rounds.

Of course you could use another simple pattern for the body of the cowl. Just make sure that the total of your pattern repeat (in my case 8 stitches) divides evenly into the number of stitches you cast on.

When I was getting near my estimated total height, and at the end of a pattern repeat, I knit a couple more plain rows, and then bound off, using Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind-off. I ended up using almost every bit of the yarn, which was definitely my intent!

I almost never buy yarn this chunky, so it seemed like the whole thing took about 5 seconds to knit. In reality, it took parts of two days of traveling, and it was done! So far, it seems like spinning is actually speeding up my production of finished knitted items, if that’s possible. I actually have another finished handspun thing that just needs photos … and this one is off to live with someone dear to me, hopefully it will keep her neck warm this winter!

In the meantime, I hope this is helpful if you’re looking for something to make with a special bit of
thicker yarn, whether made by you or not!

The End of the Yarn

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Tasha

My knitting students inspired this post. I do explain in class what to do when your skein of yarn runs out and you need to add more, but it’s a little tricky to visualize without actually cutting the yarn, and easy to forget when you get home and you’re left alone with an internet full of confusing videos … so here you go! These are my favorite, simple, fairly foolproof methods. The first one works with practically any yarn, any project, any time, and the second one makes a totally seamless join in any feltable yarn.

Personally, if I can’t felt the ends together (see below), I almost always just leave the tails, and I don’t mind sewing them in later. There are lots of methods for weaving in the tails as you go, by wrapping the new yarn over/under/with the old yarn, and most of them work just fine. You may find one that you love. But, you don’t need to do any of them. Leaving the tails to work in later is perfectly good. And if you’re still thinking about how to knit, you don’t need anything more complicated going on when you get to the end of a skein.

So, just stop knitting when you have about 6 inches of yarn left unknitted. Pick up your new ball of yarn (mine is purple) and, leaving another tail of the same length, start knitting with it. The stitches on either side of the tails will probably be a little loose, but you can cinch them up later to match their neighbors when you weave in the tails, so don’t worry about it for now. If you like, you can tie the two ends together into a slipknot to keep things neat while you’re working on the rest. That’s it!

As long as we’re talking about joining yarn ends, I wanted to include my very favorite method, which takes advantage of the felting properties of wool to join two lengths of yarn without any tails left at all.

Untwist and fluff out a couple of inches on both ends. The first key to this method is to get the fibers as separated as possible. Just like in any other felting, fuzzy, loose fibers will attach to whatever is next to them, and fibers that are already joined or clumped will attach mainly to each other.

The second key to this method is to mix the fibers from the two ends together thoroughly before you start rubbing them. You want as many places for them to meld as possible, so move the strands around so that all the ones from one end are not on the same side.

Add just a little moisture (I usually use spit unless water happens to be handy). The fibers should be barely damp. Squeeze the join lightly between your hands, and start rolling it back and forth. You want to agitate the fibers together without disturbing their orientation.

Small areas like this felt very quickly. The join is done when you can pull gently on it from both sides and the fibers don’t slip. It’s possible to go too far, so that your little felted area becomes noticeably stiffer than the rest of the yarn, so stop when it’s holding together.

Other than with non-felting yarns (superwash, plant fibers, silk, synthetics etc.) the only time I wouldn’t use this method is if a slight difference in yarn texture will be noticeable in the knitting, like in a very smooth or shiny yarn. A felted join is basically invisible in fuzzy singles, and it also works well with textured and handspun yarns, as well as your more “standard” multi-ply wool yarns like Cascade 220 (shown here, you can see the felted join in the bind off near my thumb below). And, if for any reason the felted method doesn’t work or you don’t like how it looks, you can always cut it off and go back to the first method.

Happy joining!

Sweet Coriolis Socks

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Tasha

Hello everyone! So, I knit some more sweet tomato heel socks over our last couple of times on the road. After making a few pairs using thicker-than-normal sock yarn, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about using the “real” stuff. But as it turned out, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the tiny neat stitches appear one after the other, and it didn’t bother me that it took a little longer.

I divided the yarn by weight, thinking that way I could make both socks from the toe up, stop when I ran out of yarn, and they’d end up pretty much the same length. But, I threw in enough experimenting that my yarn usage wasn’t the same at all on the second sock … I should have known that would happen! Next time I’ll either make both at the same time, or, if after the first heel I want to try something different for the next one, I’ll wait to finish the legs until I see how much yarn is left.

Another thing I learned while making this pair is that for my feet and legs, 425 yards of fairly standard sock yarn will make a boot sock, tall enough to overlap leggings, but not tall enough to reach over my calf. As far as I know, no force on Earth will keep socks of this length up, unless they have something that provides more friction than a leg to hold on to. I like wearing these, in fact they’re my favorite socks right now. However, having substantial leftover yarn drives me crazy, and next time I’d like to get enough to make knee socks, so maybe I’ll look for two smaller skeins, or a really long one.

If you’d like to make a similar sock, or see the knit-nerd details about the two heels and what I’ve learned about fitting sweet tomato heels so far, all that is on Ravelry.

This pattern is the “Sweet Coriolis Socks” from Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Socks ebook. She also recommended this yarn in a workshop I took, it’s Mountain Colors Crazyfoot. This particular color (“Chinook”) called my name at Purl in the Pines. I liked working with this yarn, although a fair amount of blue-green dye bled off in the first washing. We’ll see how they hold up!

Cat Bordhi is one of my knitting heroines, and I know variations of this pattern have appeared in several of her books, so I was excited to try it. Although I like how the finished socks look, my brain and this pattern weren’t quite in harmony. I never really got into a flow with the coriolis ribbing, and I kept having to check to make sure I was in the right spot. And, the experiments I tried with the heels threw off the expected path for the coriolis band at the hinge of the foot, especially on the second sock, where it got lost for a while. If you’re still experimenting with the fit of your heel/foot, I’d recommend sticking with a pattern that holds steady on top of the foot, until you figure things out and can do some calculating ahead of time.

I’m getting really close to a great fit with this heel, and I liked the padded variation I tried this time a lot. Still, I’m thinking I may knit some non-sweet-tomato socks for my next pair, if for no other reason than to get some perspective on the different heel techniques … there’s always more to learn, which is what keeps me knitting!

Make Your Own Tiny Hand-Knit Cover Buttons

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Tasha

These are the buttons I made for my Talamh sweater. I found some factory-made buttons covered with knit fabric in my button stash as I was starting the sweater, and the idea stuck. When I finished the sweater, I knew I wanted buttons covered in my yarn, so I made some. Afterwards, it occurred to me that I might have been reinventing the wheel here, but searching Google and Ravelry turned up nothing like these, so here are the directions! At the end of the post I’ll also include some links to other ideas I did find, in case these aren’t quite your style. As always, click on any of the photos to enlarge for a closer look.

Knitting the Cover

Pick your buttons to go inside the knitted cover first. They should be a little smaller than you want the finished button to be, and ideally a similar color to the yarn you’re using to cover them.

These buttons are knit in the round from the center out. Since they are tiny, there are only a few rounds before you decrease, and secure the knitting to the button.

You want the button fabric to be tight, so that it will be sturdy and the button underneath won’t show through. Use a much smaller needle than you usually would with the yarn (even if your yarn is thicker). Here I used size 1 needles, after using size 4 with the same yarn for the sweater. I’ve illustrated using double points, but of course you could use two circulars or a magic loop if you prefer.

Start by casting on four stitches, using Judy’s Magic Cast On, or another method that starts seamlessly from the middle (this one from Cat Bordhi is also good).

If you increase 4 stitches per round, it makes a flat circle of knitting. I learned this from Daniel Yuhas’ book, Knitting from the Center Out. Since a flat circle is my goal here, I knit into the front and back of each stitch, for 8 total stitches in the next round. (If you aren’t sure how to knit front and back, otherwise known as kfb, just Google it—more tutorials than you’ll ever need will pop up.)

Increase 4 stitches again in the next round (ie: knit into the front and back of one stitch, knit one stitch, repeat those two actions around). At this point I switched some stitches onto a third needle, to keep my little circle from getting too stretched out where the needles join.

Since my button is tiny, I only needed one more round of increasing 4 (knit front and back, knit 2, repeat around, for a total of 16 stitches) to reach the size of my button. You can compare the amount of knitting you have to your buttons, but it can be hard to judge without finishing. Luckily, these only take a few minutes to make, so it’s easy to try another one if the first one isn’t quite right.

When the button is the size you want, start decreasing, so that the knitted fabric will cup around the edges of the button smoothly. If your button is bigger and/or thicker, you may want a plain round before you start to decrease, but for these little guys I found it made the cover too baggy for the button, so I went straight from an increase round to a decrease round.

I did one round of knit 2 together, knit 1, repeat. You can see how the cover begins to puff up in the middle as the edges draw in.

On the next round, I knit every 2 stitches together, until there were 5 stitches left. If you have a lot more stitches, it may take a couple more rounds of decreasing. You also want there to be enough fabric on the back of the button so that you can pull these few stitches together at the center back.

When you have just a few stitches left, cut the yarn, thread the end on a sewing needle, and pass it through the remaining stitches.

Knitting Meets Button

At this point the actual knitting part is done. There are a couple more tricks I want to show you as we sew it together, to make the button come out really nice.

First, before you start to cinch up the knitting around the button, take the sewing needle from the end you finished knitting with, and thread it on the end left from casting on.

Open out the little circle so the inside of it is clearly visible. Use the center yarn tail to cinch up the first stitches from the cast on, if necessary. Then sew around in a little spiral, starting near the center, piercing just the backs of the knitted stitches (use a sharp needle). This secures the tail, and adds a little extra cohesion to the stitches that will be the button front.

When your spiral is done, trim the inside tail, and thread the outside/last knitted with tail back on the sewing needle.

Place the button in the middle of the circle, and draw the edges up with the remaining tail.

Pull the last stitches tight together in the center back, which hopefully will snug the whole cover nicely around the button. If it’s too loose or too tight, just start again, make another one with modifications.

Once your cover fits your button, secure it by taking a stitch through one hole in the button, out to the front side.

Then take a stitch back, aiming to enter the knitted fabric in the same place you came out (so as not to leave a stitch on the surface) but angle the needle so it goes through a different hole in the button. You’re putting a loop of yarn through the button itself, to secure the knitting in place.

I think this technique would also work with shank buttons, you would just want to take a few stitches around/through the shank instead.

Lastly, I stitched around the edges of the back side of the button, adding a little more yarn and securing the stitches there.

Tada! A tiny knitted covered button, ready to go.

I sewed these on using a variation of my usual technique (I updated the photos on that post just this week, and love how they came out): sewing through the yarn on the back of the button rather than through the button itself.

I’d love to try making some bigger buttons using this techinique, too.

More Ideas

As if that weren’t enough, when doing research for this post I stumbled on a few other fun things. Actually, I fell down a bit of a rabbit-hole of cool ideas for DIY covered buttons, both for sewing and knitting, and another post is probably coming soon. In the meantime …

Kate Davies has a lovely clear tutorial for yarn-wrapped buttons that come out looking sweet.

What about embroidering a design with your yarn on fabric, and then covering a button with that? There’s a tutorial here on The Purl Bee.

There’s always traditional thread-button techniques, like these from Threads Magazine. Full disclosure: I long ago tried and failed to make sturdy buttons using similar techniques, but I’m pretty sure it was user error.

You could also knit a circle from the bottom up, rather than from the center out, increasing and decreasing at the sides, and then gather it over a button or use a commercial button form. There’s an example on Knit Darling here. She uses a cover button kit, and rightly points out that those don’t work in small sizes with thick fabrics. I think you could gather a smaller size over a regular button and secure it something like the second part of my technique (but I haven’t tried this yet to be sure).

Not that there aren’t beautiful buttons out there, but especially during this season when we’re surrounded by encouragement to over-consumption, I just love the idea of putting the final touches on a project myself, made with bits and pieces I have around the house. Here’s wishing you all a restful, creative December!

Me-Knit Blue Sweater with Lace

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Tasha

Plus some tips for finishing hand knits.

First things first: stop press! I finished the sweater which I started knitting in Me-Made-May this year! Between times when I made a real effort to work on it at least an hour a day while on the road, and times when I was back at home and pretty much ignoring it completely, it averaged out to just about 6 months start to finish. And I’m fine with that, I mean, it’s hand-knitting an entire sweater.

An entire sweater which I’m pretty much totally in love with. This is the Talamh pattern by Carol Feller. I wanted a pattern with some lace, but also some edgyness, some modernity, and I thought the lace pattern she used really fit the bill. I added the wide lace section to the center back (it looks awesome, right?) but otherwise actually made fewer changes than I normally do when I’m knitting someone else’s pattern. If you’re interested, I decided to keep those notes on Ravelry this time, feel free to check them out!

In this space, aside from how pleased I am with this project, I thought I’d share a bit about finishing, specifically sewing in a ribbon for stabilization around the neck (which totally saved this sweater!) and how I “weave in” yarn ends.

Adding grosgrain ribbon

As I was blocking this sweater (basically just getting it wet, stretching the lace out a bit, and smoothing out bumps before letting it dry) I decided to try putting it over my dress form (if it’s good enough for Kate Davies, it’s good enough for me!). But the sweater kept slipping down, and, rather than pin it up every inch or so, I decided to let it dry flat. Well, after it was dry and I tried it on in front of the mirror, the same thing happened. The join between the body and the sleeves is a bit low anyway (my fault, and one of only two things I’d probably change if I make a sweater like this again). As the neckline stretched wider, the underarms and the whole rest of the sweater sagged downward until it looked fairly ridiculous, at which point I’d tug the neck up again. Clearly, the loose-ish ribbing at the top was not enough to hold the rest of the sweater in place.

I had stabilized various parts of other sweaters with ribbon before, and it occurred to me that I could try it here. I opened the drawer where I keep bits of ribbon, and there were two lovely grosgrain sections, probably salvaged from recycled sweaters, that both almost matched perfectly! And each was a width to fit under part of the ribbing on the sweater. Call it good karma for using up this yarn I’ve had for ages, or proof that if you save the good stuff, it does actually come in handy later.

Pinning the sweater inside out on my dress form to hold it in place, I shaped the ribbon around the curves and steamed it lightly to match them.

Note that in order to curve nicely like this, you need authentic grosgrain ribbon, the kind with the bumpy edges, where the thick yarns in it are free to move a bit. “Grosgrain” ribbon from your local big box store often has tight edges, which are fine for straight sections, but won’t curve worth a darn.

I bought sewing thread to match my yarn as closely as possible, and sewed the ribbon on with tiny whip stitches, at the edge where the ribbing meets the first plain knitting section. After trying on the sweater to check that it was working, I put it back on the dress form inside out, and sewed around the top edge of the ribbon as well. If you do this, don’t pull the sewing stitches too tight, just try to keep the ribbon softly snug to the sweater, and not to distort the knitting.

This worked so well! Like magic, my sweater now stays in place, just where I want it, and the ribbon is basically invisible from the outside.

Finishing yarn ends

There were quite a lot of ends in this sweater, mostly because I’ve had this yarn for over a decade (!). Part of that time was before I knew how to deal with moths, and the outside of a few of the skeins got rather munched early on, leading to extra breaks in the yarn, and weak places that I decided to treat the same as breaks (ie, not use them, and leave the tails to work in later). I usually tie the ends or the break/place I don’t want to use into a slipknot, just to keep a little tension on the yarn as I’m knitting around it.

I’m sure there are other good methods for burying yarn ends, this is mine. Keeping the tail going in the direction it was headed, I take a short stitch, then a tiny back stitch to anchor the thread, followed by a tunneling of the yarn along the back of the existing stitches.

Don’t pull tightly, or you’ll pucker the knitted fabric. Leave enough yarn tail so that as the sweater stretches, the tail can move without catching or distorting anything.

Maybe my best tip is to use a needle with a big enough eye to hold the yarn, but a very sharp tip, making it easy to pierce just the backs of stitches, and keep the yarn tails out of sight. My absolute favorite are “Chenille” needles from John James, available at fine sewing and embroidery stores.

With each end, take one short stitch, catching just the back of the knitting stitches:

Followed by a tiny backstitch, which functions like a knot to keep the yarn in place. I start just behind where the last stitch ended, and then continue skimming along the backs of the knitting stitches for the length of the needle. In a stockinette fabric like this, the purl “bumps” make handy diagonals, good directions to hide yarn without it showing on the outside.

If you’re particularly worried about this part of the knitting getting stress or pulling out, (or your yarn is slippery) you could take another short stitch and back stitch, then the long burying stitch. That should hold it!

If at any point you’re unsure if a stitch might be showing on the public side, just check. One good thing about stitches is that they’re reversible.

Note that the ends should go in opposite directions, at least with the first short stitch. Take them in the direction they’d pull from if you kept knitting, so that the two ends cross, rather than pull away from each other.

On garment edges, a good place to bury ends is often along columns of ribbing.

When you’re finished, trim the ends so that enough remains on the back for the end to stay there, and not poke through to the front.

That’s about it for now. Just in case you’re wondering, I did make those matching buttons, and I’ll post about them soon too. I hope this is helpful, and just let me know if you have more knitting/finishing questions!

Me-Made-May’14 Thoughts and Drawings

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Tasha

Hello, all! I’ve been keeping up with my pledge for Me-Made-May’14; wearing, and drawing, and working on some sweater. You can see some of my sketches and sweater progress on Flickr. I think it’s fun to check out the whole MMM’14 group and see what everyone is wearing.

Also, in case you missed it, my thoughts for sewing/dressing in May were on ‘So, Zo …’ this past week! Along with a bunch of other people’s from around the world. One thing we mostly seem to agree on: spring is a time for layers, and a good pair of pants! Check it out …

Happy Sunday!

A Hedgehog Anemone Hat

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Tasha

Plus, another way to fluff up knitted tendrils.

I know—what?? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please bear with me for a minute.

First, the hat. This is one of Cat Bordhi’s designs, the Arctic Anemone Hat. It just looked SO fun to knit, I really wanted to make one. But I couldn’t see myself wearing it . . . I could see my mom wearing it, though. She loves all kinds of sea creatures, hedgehogs, and plants with unusual spiny pods—so it definitely fits her aesthetic. I had planned it as a surprise, but it ended up being so much better that I told her (when she was thinking about knitting one); I got to ask her what color she wanted, and get her to try it on as I went, and consult her about design details. We decided to make the tendrils a little shorter, more like hedgehog quills, which I think went well with the grey color.

This was such a win-win. The hat was every bit as fun to make as I thought it would be, from the moebius band (yes you can knit a moebius strip—from the inside out) to making the tendrils, it was a blast. And, my mom loves it! It looks so cute on her, too. Actually, it looked really cute on every single one of my relatives who tried it on. I knit this hat mainly on our Thanksgiving trip, so all my relations saw it in progress, and wanted to try it on when I finished. However, Mom hates having her picture taken almost as much as she likes unusual creatures, so I decided to photograph the hat in the natural environment.

The only reason I got it back for long enough to photograph it at all, is that Cat’s directions suggest you use a superwash wool (one that’s been treated so that it won’t felt) and fluff up the tendrils by running it through the dryer. I have a dryer, and mom doesn’t. This definitely worked.

Before:

After:

But after fluffing, I began to wonder if there was another way to do it. I’m a fan of untreated wool, and I wondered if I could get some tendrils to fluff up by steaming them. After all, what’s happening in the dryer is: dampness, heat, and agitation. I tried it out on a sample, knit with organic, not-superwash wool yarn. This worked too!

Before:

After:

It might not produce quite the fluffiness of the dryer method (keep in mind that the yarn I used was also not as thick), but it wonder if the tendrils would continue to fluff up a bit with washing and wear? I got the best results by using my iron—not touching the tendrils, but holding it above them and putting on lots of steam for a few seconds. Then I picked up the sample, and, holding it upside down, gently scrunched and shuffled the tendrils around. I decided on upside-down because the tendrils tended to wilt downwards with all the steam. It also seemed to help some that were reluctant to fluff up if I sprayed them with a little water from my plant/laundry mister, then steamed and scrunched.

At least with my sample, it would have required a nearly impossible amount of effort to felt anything using the steam, and gentle fluffing. However, wool + water (usually much more than this) + heat + agitation does = felt, so be advised. I would agitate the base of the hat as little as possible while it’s steamy, just concentrate on moving the tendrils around and scrunching them up.

One more note: in honor of knitting more lately, and knitting something that was so fun without even changing the pattern very much at all, I have finally decided to stop lurking Ravelry and using it only as the world’s absolute best pattern search (you can be shocked, I don’t blame you). I’ve gone back and posted some of my favorite knitted projects from the past few years, whatever I could think of that I still had and/or had pictures of, and there are a few more of those still to add. I even posted a few yarns from my stash that might find a better home. If you’re on Ravelry too, come and say hi, I’m FrenchToastTasha.

Even if not, happy making! I suggest making something that’s just plain fun to create, at least every once in a while.

Convertible Knitted and Felted Mittens

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Tasha

In which I remodel my mittens to make them better than ever, and show you how to calculate shrinkage when felting your knitting.

My friend Tom once commented that many of my clothes have stories behind them, and these mittens are no exception! In fact, I’m going to tone it down here, story-wise, and stick to only the most interesting and relevant of the many angles I could go for.

A Very Short History of the Original Mittens

I started knitting these as my take-along project on our trip to Italy in February of 2010. I knitted the main parts from yarns that we dyed the first time I ever did natural dyeing, with my grandmother and a bunch of dear family members in 2008. (I’m telling you, I’m skipping a lot of stories here). My goal was glove fingers for finer dexterity, that could also be covered by a mitten flip-top for extra warmth. Typically for me, I consulted a few patterns, but didn’t end up really using any of them. I didn’t have enough purple for the fingers and the flap, and because I love purple and green together (one of my favorite color combos for the hats) I decided to get green yarn. No one else was impressed with this decision, and I can now admit that one of my students at the time probably put it best when she said they looked like “dead fingers.” So, moving on, when I discovered that they were too slippery to drive in, I sewed on a bunch of patches from faux suede samples in different colors. Ignoring whether or not this made the green fingers look any better, and also the fact that all the fingers had come out too short after felting, I wore them all the time, all over the place, skiing, shoveling snow, etc., through last winter. By the end of that season, one of the fingers had developed a rather large (and cold) hole in the end.

A Plan for New and Improved Mittens

When I got them out this fall for the season, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do more than just fix the hole. You see, if I was going to fix the hole, it made way more sense to knit on a little more finger, so that it would be actually the right length. And, it would be ridiculous to do that for only one finger. And, if I did it for the rest of the fingers, I would either have more green fingers or an even more ridiculous color mash-up than before. I decided to start over on the fingers, and this time, do the math.

As fate would have it, last winter I sent my blog friend Alessa some American patterns, and she sent me some yarn and other lovely stuff from Germany (these mittens really are more full of stories than average, even for me). Thanks Alessa! One skein of the yarn (on the left below) was a lovely variegated purple in 100% alpaca. Alpaca felts like a dream, and is just as soft felted as not. I saw it in my yarn bin and knew it would be perfect for new fingers.

Is that not the most-awesome-looking tin of chocolate?

How to Calculate Shrinkage for Felting Knitting

Lots of times I tell my students that knitting can either be all math; full of charts, calculations, and exact numbers of stitches, or no math at all; flowing along and decreasing when it looks right to you. In my mind, the happiest mix is somewhere in the middle. When you’re felting, it really helps to have a least a little math, which comes from making a sample in your intended yarn and measuring how much it shrinks, especially if you need it to come out a certain size. (I neglected to do this for the first fingers, and you saw how that went.)

I started out with a tighter gauge, then decided to increase my needle size, because looser knitting will felt faster (you can see from the before and after that it also affects the percentage of shrinkage). I’m using two strands of the yarn since it was fairly fine, and I wanted the fingers to be nice and thick and warm when finished. You don’t have to take a photo, but do measure and draw around your sample. Also make a note of how many stitches are in your sample, they will disappear into the felted texture and you won’t be able to tell later. (This is about the smallest sample that will give you an accurate idea.)

Before felting:

After felting: (As usual, click on the pictures to enlarge if you wish.)

Here’s the math part, it’s not too scary: divide the felted measurement by the unfelted measurement, to get the percent of the original measurement after shrinking. F/U = % I did this across my various measurements and got an average of 79% for the width, 84% for the height. I wanted both, because I had noticed when felting the fingers the first time that they wanted to shrink more in height than in width, no matter how I stretched them out, which meant that I had not added enough extra knitting in that dimension.

Now that you have your percentage, apply it like this (there was algebra involved but I did it for you): the unfelted measurement (the one you want so that you know how much to knit before it shrinks) equals the felted measurement (how big you want it to end up) divided by your percentage of shrinkage (.79 or .84 in my example). U = F/% Clear as mud? Try it, you’ll see what I mean. You end up with a number a bit bigger than the felted/finished number you put in. You can check it by putting it back in the first formula and see if you get the right percentage.

For my finished/felted measurements, I used the width of the previous fingers (by now chopped off), which I liked, and measured the height of my fingers sticking out of the mittens, adding a little extra for the thick knitted fabric to go over the top. I calculated the unfelted measurements, then used the gauge from my sample to figure out how many stitches to use for each finger. You can’t have a fraction of a stitch, so round up or down, whichever is closer or you want to err on the side of. I knit until each finger was about the calculated unfelted height, erring on the side of a bit extra at the top, which turned out to be a good idea!

Just in case, I made one finger as test (the index finger on the right below) and felted it before knitting the others. It came out great.

Even though the old fingers were felted on, I was able to snip the green stitches and pull them out, leaving the purple ones which I could pick up and knit from. It helped that the palms never got totally felted.

Other Improvements

The thumbs were too short as well, plus worn mostly through in one spot from gripping. And having only one layer of knitting (the part between the thumb and palm where the stitches tend to stretch open no less) meant that my thumbs were sometimes cold. I fixed all that. At this point, there was no stopping. Since the thumbs were somewhat loose, I decided to knit inner layers for them. I thought that I might need to slash the top of the mitten flap and extend it too, but after felting the fingers, it fit snugly over them, which would be warm, and I could add a bit of ribbing on the palm side for a little more length and to help hold the flap down. Neither of these new additions would be felted, and both were small, so this was the no-math part. I made adjustments visually, pulling something out if it didn’t seem right, and tried on the thumbs a lot to fit the shape to my hand.

This may be hard to believe, but according to my notes, the wool I used for the new ribbing is the same as the original flap and thumb! So it has definitely faded with sun and wear and washing. Fortunately I like both colors.

A Minor Miracle of Purple Suede

Finally, I needed something for grip on the fingers and palms. (I’m telling this story whole, it’s a good one.) I want to be able to drive and grab ski poles and my keys, etc., and I didn’t want to go back to the multicolored bits of Ultrasuede. I briefly considered using some light green suede elbow patches I got along with a sweater for recycling . . . and was fortunately dissuaded by friends. What I ideally wanted was something that would match the mittens.

Almost on a whim, I dropped into a rather old-school shop downtown, which sells saddles and leather and a few seemingly random bolts of blanket wool and skeins of rug yarn. I remembered that the last time I was there, over a decade ago, they had a bin of leather and suede scraps, and I thought if they still did, I might be able to find something close. I was the only one in the little shop, not too long before closing, and the woman working said that no, they didn’t have any scraps. I had the mittens with me, I showed her what I wanted to do. Suede and leather started at half a hide for $24, there were black and green and red . . . and at the end of the rack, four smaller, scrappier pieces, all in dusky, slightly mottled shades of purple. Not just purple, four distinct purples that each were so exactly what I needed that they looked like they were dyed to coordinate with the mittens, and left on the end of the rack by magic. “Oh,” she said, “You could use those! They’re $9 each. We sold all the red, all the black . . .” Hardly believing my good fortune, I picked the color I liked best out of the thicker two (two were quite thin), paid for it, and practically skipped down the street towards my car. A few times, when I’ve been intensely searching for a supply I cannot find, probably which doesn’t exist, I’ve dreamt that I went into a shop and found exactly that thing, only to wake up disappointed. This is the only time, so far, it’s ever happened in my waking life. I have a rather large piece of somewhat smelly purple suede left in my studio to prove it!

I love love love these mittens. I finished sewing on the suede over our family Thanksgiving trip, and just in time too, when we got back our town had a major cold snap, not getting above freezing at any time for over a week, unlike our usual mountain cold nights but mild days. I’ve worn these cross-country skiing, I wore them to art walk downtown at night (during the below-freezing week), shoveling snow, driving, and never one cold finger have I had! Felted alpaca is like little down blankets for your fingers. I can easily wriggle my fingers out of the mitten top for fine tasks without using the other hand. Having placed the suede patches where the wear was on the old fingers, plus the part of my palm that I use when I grip things—surprise!—they are in the perfect spots. I recommend the inside of the thumb especially.

If you want to make your own version, I’d start with a glove pattern you like. Either refer to a flip-top mitten pattern, or make up the flap as you go (Basically: I picked up sts across the back of the hand, cast on across the front and did a few rounds of short rows for a curved shape, joined everything into a round and knit, decreasing following the shape of the fingers underneath).

I realize that I haven’t talked about the actual felting, in fact that felting is probably the thing I know the most about that appears the least on this blog. Maybe I’ll do something about that in 2014.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about making mittens or felting in general, feel free to let me know!

Happy Solstice, everyone!

Update: How to Fix a Small Hole in Knit Fabric

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Tasha

When I published this post about fixing small holes in sweaters and other knit clothes, I realized I didn’t really have pictures of repairing a hole in the middle of the fabric, not near a seam, and I said I’d add some if the opportunity came up.

Well, it did. One of the lovely things when word gets out that you work with a certain material (in this case recycled cashmere garments) is that every now and then, someone just gives you some. The best thing about this as far as I’m concerned, better than the free stuff, is that I have absolutely no obligation to use the donated items for business purposes unless I want to. Therefore, when someone gives me not-yet-felted cashmere sleep pants (thank you thank you Lauren!) I get to yell “Cashmere SLEEP PANTS!” try them on immediately, and wear them myself!

They also had one small hole, a perfect example to fix. It was perfect but, um, fuzzy and a little hard to see (who’d have thought, right, fuzzy cashmere?) so I also snipped a hole in my sample from the how to pick up a dropped stitch in knitting post, fixed it, and included those pictures as well. Click on the link above to see the updated post.

Here’s to enjoying the materials life gives you! And happy mending!

Tasha Miller Griffith

Sustainability and Belonging through Textiles

Category Archives: Knitting—Loops of Thread