In the Making...

I love my stitch markers. I've been posting images of all the uses for stitch markers on Instagram/Facebook and I'll be putting them all together in this blog post, so it's easy to refer back to.  Stitch Marker Use #1 - Mark the beginning of the round This one is fairly obvious use. If working in the round, you need to know where the beginning is. Where to put the marker: On the needles is easiest. Just be careful not to knit them in, by making sure that any extra part of the stitch marker is on the opposite side to your yarn when you work past it. If you struggle with knitting in your markers, round ones are best. Stitch Marker Use #2 - Written in the Pattern As with my pattern, Barque , a lot of patterns include the use of markers in the instructions. A clear pattern will tell you when to place them, when to slip them and when you can take them out again. Designers use markers in the instructions to simplify the pattern. I could spell out to you every row or I can just sa...

I finally got around to using my yarn that I picked up at the Big Coffee Morning yarn swap at A Good Yarn . Nicsknots  brought this gorgeous Easy Knits skein to swap and I was lucky enough for my ticket to be drawn first. The pattern is Rubbish Mojitos by Woolly Wormhead . I was very impressed with the pattern for the Mystery KAL this year and thought I'd try another. I didn't realise the crown had such beautiful swirls on it before I started. So that was a lovely surprise. The yarn ended up make spirals for the main body of the hat, which I thought was cool. Though being mainly purl stitch it hides it a bit. For some reason I decided that I was going to knit the hat inside out; so I was mainly using knit stitches instead of purling. Not that I have any particular objection to purling. I think it was more an exercise to see if I could work out how to reverse the knitting. I read the instructions from the end of the round and worked out what would be worked ...

 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.