Hola everybody!
So today I’m going to blog about my other crafty love… Knitting!
The wonderful thing about knitting,
Is knitting’s a wonderful thing!
It’s so therapeutic and perfect for passing away the hours and I love the fact that when I ‘flop’ onto the sofa and can’t be bothered to do anything but watch a film or some crappy TV I still want to knit at the same time and it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my time but doing something creative instead – yay! It’s also an amazing thing to take on tour so when I cooped up in the van for 8 hours straight I can emerge at the venue/hotel with a new knitted scarf, hat or mittens!!! I wish I could do sewing all the time like that but I’m a shockingly bad hand sewer and my machine just isn’t that mobile!
So anyway, this is what I’ve been up to this year with my knitting. Spoiler alert – some of these are epic fails, some of them are not but ALL of them were enjoyable!
Red headbands – I knitted both of these because of my roots getting really bad and I thought I could disguise them with a same coloured (as my died hair) headband and they worked a treat… Until I died my hair again, this time without the help of a salon, and it all went a bit pinky and clashed, in a really bad way, not good!
This monster is twisted, itchy and not even pretty… I honestly have no idea what to do with it!!
I really love this cowl – it was my first foray into fair isle/stranded knitting and looks awesome but it was so twisted (yup another circular knitting fail) I had to steek/cut this crazy bitch in half and re twist it to be flat! Still this is the only reason I know how to crochet now as I followed a YouTube video on cutting knitting by crotcheting either side… Every cloud.
I’m hoping I can save this one – it was meant to be a cowl/snood/thingymajig and was basically just me trying something without a pattern. I just started knitting in the round and decided to add a funky colourful pattern but its too stiff for my neck and looked like an odd Tudor esque collar (not in a good way) so I am now trying to make it into a hat so I’ve sewn up the top and I need to sew through some elastic thread around the bottom to make it tight around my head and that ball of wool is going to be a pom pom for the top too!
I refuse to call this an epic fail… it’s just a hat for a freakishly large head… ok it’s another fail. I followed the pattern to make a nice slouchy beanie with this great wool I found in Germany but somehow made it twice the size. I took the internet forum’s advise to shrink it in the washing machine… 3 times… but it’s still huge, and now a bit felted. Yup, definitely a fail.
Then my newest baby are these cute, thick mittens that I’m about to finish just in time for the lovely weather so to be stored away until November methinx/hopes. I did these bad boys over 2 pretty bad films the last two nights after work and had to completely unravel my first attempt at one as it was fit for the hand of Hagrid, the half giant… But as the 2nd attempt fits and used half as much wool and time, it’s another happy learning curve for me!
And all these squares for The Art Of Knitting magazine’s ongoing international throw project are actually meant to be all the same size….. Oh.
I also made my sister a hat which looks great – all chunky and ribbed with a great green to black gradient colour but sadly is in the epic fail column as it turned out to be mega tight and bloomin itchy on her poor little head… oopsadaisy!
The lovely thing is I couldn’t care less if my knits fail or succeed because I just love actually knitting them. I am about to take on my first big project- a sweater for my upcoming Minerva Crafts blog so I hope all this practise will put me in good stead for an epic masterpiece!
Knitters- what are making at the moment? Do you enjoy even your epic fails? And what the hell do you do with them? Unravel and start again?!
Cheers my dears!
I like those squares you made for the blanket, I think they look great. Maybe they’ll even out in size when you block them?
I have been pretty lucky as I have so far managed to avoid a complete knitting wreck ~ the one project I was going to class as a fail I managed to salvage by washing it and tossing it in the dryer to shrink it!
But that’s also because anytime something’s not working out I tend to just frog it. I can’t bear wasting supplies {especially yarn as it’s pretty pricey for a full project} on something I’ll never use. 🙂
xox,
bonita of Lavender & Twill