Use for a Single Knitting Needle

Dear Meredith,

My current clear out has seen me part with quite a number of odd/single/lone knitting needles. Rather than due to me losing one half of a pair, I have usually acquired them in the first place as part of a bundle when charity shopping. They do have their uses though, beyond knitting and the traditional itching inside a plaster cast (officially discouraged by healthcare services).

I'm thrilled that I've gotten an orchid to re-flower and was so doubting I'd ever have success with it, that I used the original green bloom-support-stick for tomatoes in the garden. It turned out to be the perfect use for a lone 4mm needle.

xoxAnna

Finger Knitting How-To Video

Dear Meredith,

Here is the video that was made to help finger knitting spread through Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form where I was invited to do an art/knitting residency. None of us could have hoped for a better response - the school went finger knitting crazy. There's so much to show and tell you about the project, but I'll start off with this:

Finger knitting with Audrey from Stoke Newington School on Vimeo.

xoxAnna

Fluffy Bunny Egg Cosies

Dear Meredith,

I haven't shown you these yet. I took their portraits before sending them off to their new home. For awhile I'd been trying to come up with ways to use up my mammoth mohair stash and this was one of my drops in the ocean. With mohair resurfacing, working out projects will be less of a stretch. I had fun making these egg warmers, though they did languish awhile waiting for finishing touches. The impetus was provided by sew-on googly eyes. I find googly eyes are often the answer.

The full frontal...

From the side...

Up above...

And from behind...

Dogs are for life, not just for Christmas, according to the bumper sticker. So too then, bunnies aren't just for Easter. (And goldfish not just at the fair.)

xoxAnna

Knitted Faces

Dear Meredith,

This morning I was rewarded for parting with my lifetime collection of CDs by finding a well loved first edition of Barbara G. Walker's Charted Knitting Designs at the charity shop for £1. Check out what/who is on page 263.

How was your journey back to New York? And being home?

xoxAnna

More DIY Knitting Blockers

Dear Meredith,

Blocking makes a huge difference, as you so clearly demonstrated with your Jared Flood, Hemlock Ring Blanket. It's easy to consider it a pain in the bum. It certainly is, if you are going to do things properly and block your swatches before you can even start knitting. Who has that capability for patience and foresight?

There are plenty of good tutorials and discussions to be found and every knitting book I own covers it and extols the virtues, yet it's something I'm loathed to do. Space is often a concern, if it's a big item that needs laying out. Not necessarily cause I'm short on space, more because there are a million other projects taking up that space. I also find that the official tools are pretty idiosyncratic, pricey and a bitch to store.

Frustratingly, blocking is actually a make or break activity, so, what I've become interested in are solutions and specifically DIY ones, made with stuff we might have on hand anyway that make the job easy or at least a bit more entertaining.

To block hats with colourwork only at the crown, I have a favourite bowl, around head shape (if my head was flat topped). Let me introduce you to my avocado green vintage Pyrex 1 1/2 QT...

The upturned bowl gets balanced on a vase or a bottle of wool wash for example. Then the hat gets stretched over, making sure that any ribbed section is not stretched (thereby retaining it's maximum elasticity). It all winds up looking like a very magic mushroom.

Another hat blocking solution I use is a balloon. Somehow I always have a few laying around. I think they come from my Xmas stocking - I get balloons. My mum used to give my cousins condoms. They have two kids each, I don't.

Balloons are a little dicey, as you need to beware of popping them while you are shaping the hat on to one. Blow up to about the size of your head. I reckon it would be great to try with helium!

The balloon will stay suitably inflated long enough for your hat to dry, before turning in to a wrinkly testicle.

I find my cake cooling racks double very nicely as drying racks, allowing plenty of ventilation to get underneath when blocking small items that benefit from a lot of even support. You just have to remember to get the fluff off before sliding your next batch of chocolate chip cookies on there straight from the oven.

There are my gloves again, which started me on this DIY blocking solutions round up kick. I already linked to a couple of mitten blocking solutions in my last letter, but here's one I thought was extra entertaining, so I'm giving credit where it's dew.

I did try making a hand with fingers out of a wire coat hanger. It was not big enough.

It does work for a small foot though, if it's a sock with a short cuff. And it's plenty big enough for a mitten, plus it has a convenient hook built in.

As an alternate to official squared blocking boards/mats/cloths, a lot of folks use those large foam puzzle pieces, with the benefit that you can add more, depending on the size of the project needed and they take pins well. You can see them blogged here, long ago, at pieKnits and at my knitting and me. They're the same stuff Haden and I had around when we had our two person show.

You use a moving blanket, which is great because it folds up and is a generally useful thing to have around.

Gingham also works well, particularly if you can find one with squares/units of a useful size - say 1cm or 1".

That's all I got right now. Got any other good ideas?

xoxAnna

Glove Blocking Round-Up

Dear Meredith,

Gloves are my default Summer knitting project. They are small enough to travel well, don't leave you with a giant pile of hot knitting in your lap, are just the right side of needing to concentrate, while being rather impressive and obvious as to what they are to onlookers (alleviating the need for strange mimes failing the possession of a shared language). And they're not socks. As much as I have spent the last 15 years in socks mainly knitted by my English Grandmother (neither English or technically my grandmother), but also by myself and my mother: I do hate jumping on a bandwagon.

I just finished the pair of gloves that reminded me of your sorbetero's. I used my now worn copy of Sirdar Pattern N0. 588 'Growing up in Sirdar' as a base pattern.

I'm sure I'd make many a collector shudder, but I decided a few years ago that my knitting pattern collection is for using and that means occasionally folding, a little spine bending, pencil notations and the odd case of being shoved in to a bag with work-in-progress. Yes, even my first edition of Barbara G Walker's 'Knitting from the Top'.

The other upside of knitting gloves in the Summer, is that you know they are done for the Autumn. And they dry quickly when you block them. Now, I have always just hand-washed them, put them on damp, then carefully taken them off and laid them out to dry (flat, where air can circulate), before giving them a little blast with steam from the iron. This time I wanted to research my options. There was surprisingly few out there. Here's what I found:

This pair of DIY blockers are made using a pair of washing up gloves, rice and two plastic bottles over at suite101. They seem quite chunky and recommend a second pair of hands to aid in making them. Today I'm home alone.

Roseann of Possessed to Knit pointed me in the direction of these DIY mitten blockers made with no-melt mylar on Kathryn Ivy's blog. Perhaps a bit flimsy and they're obviously for mittens, not the gloves in question.

Jenny of Jenny's blog on knitting uses tons of pins - all perfectly colour arranged mind you. Beautiful as an end unto itself, but as a functional process - no thanks.

Nannette of Knitting in Colour discusses the need for blocking colour worked gloves without going in to how. It did give me a chance to look at her elaborate glove, shawl and sock projects and designs.

In what seems to be her final post the Sassiest Girl in America tipped me off to using vintage glove stretchers - of course! Cue a certain amount of time looking on ebay and etsy, further fueled by Jane's Probably Knitting's post on the blockers she ordered from Chappy's, who gets them from Purrfectly Catchy Designs. They don't have any listed on their website, but they're out there. I think I'd go for one with the donkey cut-out.

The system I've decided to road test is from Miriam at Mim's Blog. Her glove blocking tutorial used all ingredients I had to hand - pencil, surgical gloves, tape, a craft knife and satisfying use of leftover foam core from a framing project.

And it tipped me off to her designs. Her new Chevron Collection is beautiful. I think you'll like it. I like the staging and the choice of model too.

Here are my gloves on their experimental blockers, looking like jazz-hand musical notes on a drying rack scale...

I'll have to model them for you when they're dry.

xoxAnna

Moon Crater Mends

Dear Meredith,

While I am on the subject of repairs, I wanted to share these with you. They are my friend Tinka's mends to her jeans. Not made by moths this time, these holes are usually the result of a stain she decides to cut out and beautify. They look like little moon craters to me.

I love the way the weave always goes in a different direction in the 'hole'.

Platform 21 has a great project on repairs. Here's a link to a recent competition they held.

I bet you are seeing all manner of good fixing solutions where you are.

xoxAnna