Mostly Knitting Blog » Page 49 of 71

Rainbow Looms and a Band Brand Review

May 11, 2014 Rainbow Looms

My son Charlie and I have finally succumbed to the Rainbow Loom craze! Yes, it took us a while but with friends on Ravelry telling me I should get one, people ending up on Knitting-and.com looking for information on them and then Charlie coming home from his best friend’s house with them all up his arms, I decided it was time to give in. Plus they’re, you know, kind of cool 🙂

Rainbow loom bracelets — Charlie’s rainbow loom bracelets

Our loom was on backorder so Charlie decided to get his Dad to buy a cheap pack from K-Mart, which came with a little plastic crochet hook. At first, we used the instructions that came with the bands. They’re basically the same as the instructions in this video, except you pinch the beginning bands between your fingers instead of using the mini loom. We made them with single bands, then two bands of different colours at a time (like the top bracelet on Charlie’s arm).

Our loom still hadn’t arrived so I bought a pack of proper Rainbow loom bands with a gift certificate from Spotlight (thanks Spotties!) and decided to try this technique, which is apparently called a fishtail bracelet.

I think we both love the fishtail bracelets and using double bands more than the others. They’re much more substantial and you can play with blending colours. When I say “we”, I mean I make the bracelets and Charlie wears them and runs away with the ones I made for myself 😉

I was very surprised at the difference in the quality of the bands. The K-mart bands started perishing within a couple of weeks of making the bracelets. When Charlie stretched them, they became pitted and weak, making many points along each band where they eventually broke. The real Rainbow loom brand bands however, have been treated to an equal amount of abuse and are holding up fine. I also found them to be easier to work with as they’re thicker and less likely to twist.

If you’d like to keep up with which projects Charlie is getting me to make for him on the loom (when it finally arrives), you can sign up to my blog over there in the right hand menu and be notified whenever I post. It’s a great way to find out when I post free patterns and booklets as well 🙂

Now I’m off to finish a crochet blanket. I’ll show you Charlie’s new hat tomorrow!

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Choosing Buttons for Baby Garments

May 1, 2014 Knitting

I love knitting for babies and one of my favourite things about it is the huge range of cute, and sometimes bizarre, novelty buttons that you can find to sew on them.

As a mother, however, the one thing I hate most about knitwear for babies is trying to do up the buttons on a cardigan wrapped around a 4 kilo mass of wriggling baby, especially when the buttons aren’t chosen to be functional.

If you’ve ever knit something for a baby and it has never been worn, it might not be because the parents are ungrateful un-knitworthy hand-made hating ingrates. They might be, but they might have just had a difficult time doing up the buttons. So from my years of experience doing up cardigans on wriggling babies, here is my guide to choosing buttons for baby garments.

The irresistible but poky novelty button.

These are the type of buttons that have little poky bits sticking out everywhere but they’e cute so we must put them on all the things. Star shaped buttons are the WORST. Unfortunately they are also adorable.

These buttons should be used strictly as a decorative element, as trying to put them through a buttonhole that is in constant motion just causes yarn snags, sudden knitwear hatred and wild emotional swings (especially if the person trying to do them up is sleep deprived).

Novelty buttons — I am not a functional button!

The irresistible but mostly round novelty button.

This type of button works well on knitwear most of the time. If it has any part that sticks out, like the cat’s ears, they are smooth and won’t snag.

The only time I would avoid using buttons of this type is if my yarn is particularly splitty as it still might snag, but who wants to knit with that kind of yarn anyway?

Round decorative buttons

These are my favourite type of buttons to put on baby wear. Printed with cute characters or flowers, special 3D look patterns or interesting moulded but completely smooth shapes. The buttons below are all vintage but you can still get printed buttons with classic children’s characters in most shops that sell buttons.

They’ll never snag the yarn, no matter what you’ve knit with, how wriggly the baby is or how tired the person trying to do them up.

Four round vitnage buttons

Putting my buttons where my mouth is

Figuratively speaking.

This is a baby surprise jacket that I knit for my nephew. I used vintage pale green buttons for fastening the front and a poky novelty ladybird button purely for decoration.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on choosing buttons for baby and toddler knitwear so please feel free to leave a comment below!

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Free Knitting Pattern – Latvian Boy’s Hat from 1956 (Translated into English)

April 30, 2014 Knitting

Today I finished translating the boy’s hat from my vintage Latvian knitting book and have uploaded it for you to knit.

I test knit the pattern (I’ll show you my hat once it’s dry), and was very pleased to find that I translated it properly and managed to correct the errors and add the missing information (it didn’t say how long to knit before casting off).

I tried the finished hat on my son Charlie, who is about the size of the average seven year old, despite only being five, and it fit perfectly! All my experience in knitting hats paid off and I didn’t have to add or unknit any rows. Phew.

Now I wonder what to tackle translating next. There’s a very cute looking baby cardigan, or I could really challenge myself and see if I can make heads or tails of the chapter on knitting Latvian mittens…

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How to Sew a Sock Cat and Mouse – Video Tutorial

April 30, 2014 Sewing

Sock Cat by Professor Pincushion

I adore sock animals (you should see my collection of sock toy books!), so when notice of the tutorial for this gorgeous little kitty arrived in my email, I had to share it with you.

Sock Cat and Mouse, video tutorials from Professor Pincushion.

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On Vintage Latvian Knitting Patterns and Being Fearless

April 28, 2014 Knitting

When it comes to knitting, sometimes I have a habit of closing my eyes and jumping into projects that I have no idea if I am capable of achieving. It’s like the extreme sports version of knitting, you get addicted to the adrenalin rush and forget about the times you ended up in hospital, or in this case, the times you swore at your knitting and threw the whole lot up against the nearest wall before storming out of the room. Expletives optional.

When I started translating and correcting the knitting patterns in Home Work (a book of mostly lace edgings published in Toronto in 1891), I knew very little about knitting lace. By the time I had gotten halfway through I realised that thanks to my research and Margaret Stove, I had learnt so much I could now design my own.

Skull and crossbones lace. Free knitting pattern available.

Today I’m learning to read knitting patterns from 1956, written in Latvian. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I found this book on Ebay last month and the patterns are so beautiful that I couldn’t resist it, even though I didn’t know a word of Latvian (I can now translate “stitch”, “knit” and “and” without help, lol). I have to admit, I even fell in love with the paperboard cover.

Adījumu Raksti un Adīšanas Technika

The wonderful thing about these patterns is that they have very little text, relying mostly on schematics, colour charts and sketches of the finished item. This makes it possible to translate them using a combination of Google Translate, the technique and stitch pattern sections in the book (yay for knitting charts), and the things I already know about Latvian knitting. Specifically, I hit a section that I was sure should be a two colour cast on followed by a two colour herringbone braid a couple of rows later and sure enough, after comparing terms in the technique section, I was right.

At the moment I’m working on translating a pattern called Zēna Cepure, which is a child’s hat that reminds me of the bonnet from the bouncing baby set in the original Homespun Handknit, only knit in the other direction.

Boy's hat from Adījumu Raksti un Adīšanas Technika

I intend to translate the whole book eventually, so if you’d like to know about the patterns as I upload them, please feel free to subscribe to the blog over there on the right where it says “Subscribe to the Blog via Email”

Wish me luck!

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