In the Making...

Oh swatches. Knitters do seem to love to hate them. I love to swatch - I must be weird.  What I tend to do is, while I'm knitting a current project and I have that moment where I'm either bored or a little frustrated with what I'm doing. I get a ball of yarn for my next project and make a swatch. I get to play with my new yarn and also, make sure that what I'm going to do next is going to fit. A swatch doesn't take long to make - probably half an hour at most and I'd rather do that than have to reknit the garment. Just cus I'm lovely and a little bit bossy, I'm going to tell you how I make my swatches. Little teeny swatches aren't the most helpful of things, because they'll lie to you. A good hearty sized swatch will pay you back that bit of extra effort. Let's say the pattern states that the gauge, that it's worked to is 22 stitches by 30 rows in stocking stitch across 4" [10cm] on 4.00 mm needles in a DK weight yarn....

I recently purchased some Knit Pro Karbonz DPNs. For a start off, they are a work of art. I think they look sleek and quite unusual. My usual DPNs are the Knit Pro Nova metal ones. I prefer the metal ones to wooden because the stitches move quicker, it speeds up my knitting and I enjoy the process more with metal needles. I've knitted a pair of socks in the Karbonz. The pros are that I can see is they are lightweight, flexible, warm to the touch (a benefit for those with arthritis or other issues with their hands) and the stitches are less likely to drop off the needles (they have a similar surface to wood, which is a bit more clingy than metal). In general, I prefer them to wooden needles. Though lightweight, they have a better balance to them than say the Symfonie wooden range. They have the benefits of wooden needles but with the extra pointyness of metal needles.  If you are a knitter that prefers wooden needles then it is seems to be a good middle groun...

Not really sure what started it but I've had the needle, thread and embroidery hoop out this week. I ordered this  sampler to embroider and while waiting for it to arrive; I ransacked my supplies. It was like a very colourful bomb had dropped. I bought the latest Crossstitcher magazine, and wanted to try a little cross stitch. I like the bird cross stitch but didn't have many of the exact colours so after much playing about and matching colours. I found suitable supplies without having to buy anything. This is my progress so far... I'll see how much gets done before the knitting bug bites back.

 I've been experimenting recently with Adobe Illustrator. It's an amazing piece of software; there are a few tutorials around on how to make knitting illustrations but I wasn't 100% happy with it as I was sure there was an easier way. I have no experience or training in Illustrator so this is amateur hour. This is what I figured out to produce the illustration below: I'm assuming you know the basics of illustrator such as how to draw shapes and change the stroke and fill.