A Pretty Plait

I love this braided scarf concept. It looks great, it'll be reversible, it won't come undone or need readjusting, it's a good way to showcase a beautiful hand-dyed yarn, and it'll be very warm. The pictures here do a great job of showing you how to make such a scarf, though I'd knit the three parts of the plait up one at a time using a set of double-pointed needles or the magic loop method, leaving the ones I'd done on a holder, rather than using a circular knitting tool as in these pictures.

I know some knitters will want more explicit directions, so I searched for a pattern, but was unable to find one as good as this. Most of the braided scarf patterns I found just sewed the braid together at the end, which doesn't look nearly as good as knitting them together. If you can find a pattern like this, flip me the link via email or in the comments and I'll add it to the post.

May Day Knitting

For a special May Day post, instead of pointing you towards knitting your own maypole, or even knitting your own maypole and surrounding it with tiny knitted mice, I thought I'd do a post about half a dozen of the most pleasing floral-themed knitting patterns I could find in a quick Ravelry search and we could just all consider it a May Day post because of the whole May flowers and maying tradition thing. Sound good?

Fine then, just humour me.





This pullover is the Cottage Garden pattern by Cheryl Burke, and is a Twist Collective pattern from Fall 2009. The floral yoke pattern is probably more effective when done in a higher contrast pairing of colours as some of the other sample pictures on its Ravelry page show, but I chose this picture because of a personal weakness for a turquoise and spring green colour combo.





The Sylvi jacket is a Twist Collective Winter 2008 pattern by Mari Muinonen. The lines are clean and simple and the detail on the back is just stunning. I've added this to my favourites on Ravelry, which means I am seriously considering making it at some point. I would probably not make it in red though. I love red, and the red sample looks great, but this particular pattern made in red would entail too many Little Red Riding Hood jokes.





This Floral Cushion pattern is from the Debbie Bliss Knitting Magazine Spring/Summer 2011 issue. Simple yet striking.





This is the Dahlia Cardigan from Interweave Knits, Fall 2011. I'm not generally a fan of the wrap/draped front cardigan style but this one is well done (or could be easily made with a button front), and that back detail is just beyond exquisite.





This is the Thistle shawl, designed by The Needle Lady. I'd make it as a throw rather than a shawl, because something this beautiful deserves to be out in plain sight in the living room all the time rather than folded away in a dresser drawer for much of the year.





The Bloomin' sock pattern, by Jeannie Cartmel. They're pretty, the pattern is a free download, and as a bonus whenever you're trying to find them you can ask those you live with if they've seen your bloomin' socks.

Knitters Say the Darndest Things

I'd suggest that you play a drinking game when watching this video and take one swallow of an alcoholic beverage for every thing this knitter says that you've said before, but I wouldn't want you to get too drunk to knit.

Now Your Off-the-Wall Knitted Efforts Can Go on the Wall

It can require some doing to find some attractive art work to hang on your walls. Original art is very expensive, and inexpensive prints and posters can look chintzy. It's one of those Martha Stewart-type decorating rules that framed personal photos should not go on the walls but should sit on the furniture, and I agree it's a rule that upgrades one's décor, because family photos almost never look really artistic.

But your walls needn't remain bare until you can afford original artwork. One way to go is to expand your ideas as to what constitutes art, because you can hang up anything you like so long as you find it interesting and attractive. The question to ask yourself is, simply, "Do I really enjoy looking at this?" In my front entrance way, I've hung up a wooden checkerboard that my father (a very talented and award-winning woodworker) made for me. A friend of mine has an antique post office window hanging over the couch in her living room, and I've heard of people mounting a large tree branch over their dining room table (they decorate it with lights at Christmas), or mounting and framing collections of small items such as buttons, or making collages out of personal momentoes.

Another option is to make your own art, and don't think that you have to be an accomplished painter, sketch artist, or photographer for this to be an option. If you can make anything beautiful that can conceivably be hung on the wall, go for it. I have a little stained glass butterfly hanging over the doorway in my bathroom, and I'm always surprised by the number of my guests who come out of the bathroom and immediately comment on it. In my front hallway, across from the checkerboard, I have hanging a framed counted cross-stitch of a magnolia that I made. It has approximately 29,000 stitches in it and took me two and a half years to stitch, so I had it professionally framed and hung it by the front door so I could see it every damn day of my life and think, "That's right. TWENTY-NINE THOUSAND STITCHES."

People have been framing needlework such as embroidery and needlepoint for many years, and now crocheting and knitting are getting into the picture. I ran across the picture above on the net a few weeks ago, and was very impressed. Finally, someone found a contemporary use for doilies! The collection looked so sharp I made a mental note to myself to find some comparable shots of framed knitting and write a post about it.





There were fewer examples of framed knitting on the net. Knitting tends to be less purely decorative than doilies are, so it might take a little more imagination to produce a decorative knitting piece, but it can be done. The blogger at Crafty Yuppie made this piece for an art show at work (and had a bit of time convincing her co-workers that knitting could be art), and I thought it quite lovely.





I found this piece, which is about contrasting the colour and texture of the knitting, in the My Mountain Studio shop on Art Fire, and it's striking.

This is a new direction to explore, and I'm sure most knitters could make a beautiful collection of knitted pieces that would suit their homes and become the admiration of all their house guests. You might even have swatches on hand you could hang up by the end of today, or say, a lace scarf that you can't finish because you ran out of yarn, that would be a perfect candidate for framing.

One important factor in knitted art's success is that the pieces should be framed to a professional standard, because a good quality framing job really adds to the aesthetic viability of a piece. I can't do framing myself and professional framing is one of my few extravagances in decorating, but so worth it. Especially when it comes to a piece of needlework that has TWENTY-NINE THOUSAND STITCHES in it.

What to Do When You Have Three Hours, a T-shirt, and a Skein of Yarn on Hand

Ute Rehner, a Facebook user and a member of the Heute Strick Ich Faceboook community page, decided one afternoon that she needed something to wear for an evening appointment. She took a plain charcoal gray jersey top and a single skein of Rowan Kidsilk Haze Glamour, and set to work, knitting a collar and cuffs, cutting away part of the original neckline and sleeves from her shirt, and then pinning and stitching the knitted ones in place, all in the space of three hours. The result looks wonderful — you can see more pictures and Rehner's narrative on here.

This is definitely a great idea for making a lovely little top that can be worn almost anywhere, will flatter most women, and that isn't going to take much time or money. But if I try it, I'll be allowing myself more than three hours of leeway for the job. I have never found that knitting and tight deadlines marry well.

Today's Knitting is Yesterday's News

If you're still one of those who indulge in the delightfully archaic practice of reading the newspaper on actual newspaper, or if your local newspapers are so desperate to entice you to do so that they leave freebies on your front porch, you may be wondering what to do with the paper once you've read it. Well, if you're a knitter, you can turn it into yarn and knit things with it. Back in 2007, Design Academy Eindhoven student Greetje van Tiem, from the academy's Man and Leisure department, presented a graduation show project that involved old newspapers into yarn that can be woven into carpets, curtains and upholstery. Accordng to van Tiem, each sheet of newspaper yields twenty yards of yarn.





Italian artist Ivano Vitali, who is interested in zero waste art and was experimenting with tapestries made of backdated newspapers, plastic bags, eggshells and aluminum foil nearly forty years ago, now works almost exclusively in recycled newsprint.





Vitali makes not only art installation, but newspaper garments that are not only quite attractive but even wearable. He produces different colours in his garment by carefully pre-sorting the newspapers before producing the yarn. And these are remarkably well-cut styles, but I can't help wondering what would happen if one got caught in the rain in newsprint knitwear. Mightn't it disintegrate completely?





I don't think for instance, that I'd have the nerve to go swimming in this Ivano Vitali-made bikini.

If you'd like to give knitting with newsprint a try, you might begin by checking out this Craftster tutorial on how to make newspaper yarn.

Why a Knitter Shouldn't Marry a Rollerskater

Franklin Habit of The Panopticon brings us an animated drama showing us what would happen if Queen Elizabeth, who is a knitter, were married to a roller-skating Albert Einstein.