Knitrospective - 5 tips I wish I knew when I started knitting

I was taught to knit by my grandmother when I was quite young. I was given a pair of straight needles, much too long for my little hands, and squeaky acrylic yarn. The stitches were cast on for me, way too tightly and I was shown how to do the knit stitch. I was told just to knit and then had the piece bound off for me when I was done. The knitting always turned out a weird shape, had dropped stitches, or extra stitches and was a boring garter strip.

Given these early experiences it took me a while after that before I went back to knitting for myself. Inspired by an urge to be creative and use my hands to make things.

I went back to basics and taught myself, by reading blogs and magazines, searching for how to's on You Tube and watching knitting podcasts.

Over time I was able to teach myself a lot, but when I look back on when I started knitting seriously, I wish I had known the following key tips:

1. A slip knot is not required to cast on, in fact knots should mostly be avoided in knitting

2. A tight cast on is caused by the lack of space between each cast on stitch, not the size of the stitch

3. Tinking back or ripping out is not failure, it is correcting a mistake you will not be happy with in the finished item
4.Choose a project you want to knit and practice on that as it is much more rewarding than a random strip or square
5. Use nice yarn and nice needles, as this is a key part of the process and adds to the Beginners should be taught to knit with good yarn and nice needles - because we should be sharing the joy and love that we have for our craft!

Polwarth Yarn

I have purchased some 100% Polwarth yarn for the shop. I have found as a knitter in Australia most of the yarn that is readily available is either Merino or labelled as just "wool". Part of the appeal of moving into dyeing my own yarn is that I can experiment with yarn compositions, combine my own colours and knit with yarn that I have never knit with before (after all I do need to sample the yarn first!!). Hopefully as I develop my shop I can expand my bases to include interesting breeds and blends, expand my own knitting experience and be able to make it accessible to other crafters.

Here is a little summary of exactly what Polwarth is:

• developed in Victoria (Australia) in 1880s
• bred from one-quarter Lincoln and three-quarters Merino
• they have long, soft, fine wool and also are a good meat sheep

I began to work with it this weekend, dyeing up my first batch. I am excited to see how the finished yarn turns out, how it feels, looks and knits up.

Set up Shop

The set up show e-course finished at the end of October. It was an information packed month of daily emails and interesting discussions on Facebook.

I have learned a lot and gained encouragement and confidence.

A big thing that stuck in my mind from doing the course was that your business will never be finished or perfect, so I have decided to stop preparing and today I opened my shop (you can click on the tab at the top of the page and go there now for a look!).

It is a big leap of faith. Will anyone like my colourways? Will anyone choose to spend their hard earned money to buy my yarn? Have I properly figured out my shipping methods? Are all the elements of my shop set up? I guess only time will tell.

A new phase of learning and development now starts and I am excited to see where it takes me.

Rest Day and Course Progress

Today is the second "rest day" of the Set up Shop e-course. We are two-thirds of the way through and I am enjoying the process of taking time each day to focus on an aspect of my new venture.

We have covered off a lot of topics including: branding, product descriptions, packaging, postage, pricing, photography, shop about page and policies, order systems, and financial records.

I have made a little progress every day, getting all the details sorted out. Some days of the course I have felt quite comfortable with, like setting up an organisation system for emails and financial recording - I was able to get these sections done quickly and without much thought. Other topics have taken multiple days, numerous drafts and much more thought.

Today I wrote a template for the product descriptions for the shop. I am also going to keep a separate file that contains a description of each colourway. I can then combine these two files to use when I list a yarn.

Another thing I tackled today was designing my ball bands. I have gone fairly basic, using my passioned flower image on the left hand side and incorporating all the details in the white space on the right. Not sure that this will be the final version, but I'm happy with what I have been able to come up with (you will have to wait for the shop launch to check them out).

I still have a lot of work to do - I need to re-work my policy page, finish my list of tags, properly research postage and packaging costs plus there is still several more lessons to go. I am loving every minute I spend on this and excited to see where it will take me.

Yarn dyeing - my journey so far

It was only at the beginning of this year that I took the plunge to try dyeing yarn.

I have experimented with sprinkling powder directly into the pot

I have squirted stock dyes directly into the pot and on to yarn with a vague plan and no intention of being able to replicate the outcome, and wound yarn for my first attempt at self striping.

I have progressed quickly from this ad hoc kind of approach, to dyeing with more intention. Basing my colour decisions on inspiration and planning the outcome of the yarn. I am taking a lot of photo's mostly of flowers and leaves, but also of the sky, sea, graffiti and anything else the catches my eye.

I now take careful and detailed notes as I dye. Tracking exact amounts of dye, the method used, steps taken and time the yarn spends in the pot.

Iris and City Sunset

Teal not Green and Winter Roses

Yarn dyeing has definitely become an obsession, a passion that I want to pursue as a business and share my creations and inspirations with other crafters.

This is a big and scary step! Putting my creations out there in to the world for judgement, not only that but embarking on a small business without much experience is quite daunting.

I have enrolled in a short e-course by Create & Thrive, called Set Up Shop. It is a step by step guide, covering all aspects of what goes in to setting up an on-line craft business. I am finding it extremely useful and thought provoking. It has been reassuring, some of what we have covered I had already considered myself. I just never had the confidence to put it in to action. Having someone who has already experienced success in this area providing this guide has given me the extra drive to push ahead.

Stayed tuned to see how things progress from here. Much work is going on in the background. I will post progress and thoughts of the course as well as updates on the shop.

What inspires me

Most of my thoughts on the blog so far have been directly about knitting or yarn. Sharing my projects and progress.

As the seasons change and the spring flowers take over the garden I thought I would share what is currently inspiring me.

In my very first post I wrote about how craft feeds the soul, the grounding factor that creates peace and provides escape. The action of making something, creating an idea in my head, and then using my hands to make that idea come to life.

This is definitely the driving force behind why I craft. It is my escape, my happy place and my creative outlet.

Everyday, out in the world, I take note of how colour occurs in nature. The combinations of colour and the vibrancy catch my eye. How amazing are these colours from my garden this morning!?!?!

How can seeing this beauty in nature not lead to inspiration?



To begin with it makes me happy. I put hard work into my garden throughout the year and these are the results of that work. Proud displays of the care that I have taken.

Flowers and foliage are also great guides on which to base colourways for yarn. Nature has a way of getting things right, so it is fun to try to capture that in dye.

I grab my camera out frequently to capture these types of images. Fuel for my creative fire.

What inspires you? Where does your craft inspiration come from?

Knitrospective - Shawls

What makes a great shawl? Colour? Shape? Size? Lace? Beads? Garter?

Shawls are a regular in my knitting rotation. I have a lot in my queue and library. Once I have completed one I am searching for the next one to cast on.

They are go-to accessory pieces, especially for my work wardrobe. Essential for combating the chill of air-conditioning and also for adding the "knitterly touch" to my outfits.

I began with small, one skein shawls like the Multnomah by Kate Ray, Mizzle by Patricia Martin and Pimpelliese by Christine Ebers.

Pimpelliese

I now enjoy larger multi-coloured, lace or beaded shawls. Although there is always a place for a more simple, one skein shawl in the knitting rotation (my recently knitted Reyna is an example of this).

Nuvem has been on my needles twice, and could definitely be knit again.

My Hope

The two most intricate shawls I have knit have not been for me, but made as special gifts. The My Hope for my sister on her wedding day and Bella Botanica for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Both had beading and lace work and I loved the process of knitting each of them. I know both have been worn numerous times, which makes me happy. What I am disappointed about it that in both cases I never took proper finished object pictures, only progress and blocking shots.

I think I will at some stage have to knit a lace and bead shawl for myself, but at the moment I am enjoying the squishy garter and fun colour combinations from patterns like Drachenfels and Moonraker by Melanie Berg.

Moonraker

A shawl that was in my queue for a very long time was Bloom, which I finished earlier this year. I wrote a full blog post on the finished object. I have worn it at work and received many compliments - it has some wow factor. I am thinking about yarn combinations for another one.

Bloom

So what is the best kind of shawl? It's much too difficult to decide, I guess I will have to keep knitting more to try out more patterns, colour combinations, shapes and techniques.