I have nearly finished my grand adventure in learning different sock techniques and how to custom fit socks! There are also a couple of baby knits that I'm working on, or soon will be. In Multicrafty, have a gander at my messy first attempt at spinning. And last but certainly not least, I share a few Aussie knitting vlogs that I've discovered this year.
02:23 Catch Up
07:31 Eye Candy - Star Illusion Blanket
14:00 Handy Dandy
14:07 - August Sock KAL
45:20 - Baby Lamb
51:16 - Daniel's Hat
55:40 Multicrafty - spinning on a Turkish spindle
1:04:51 Craft for Thought - community with Three Cats Yarn, Oliphant Kat, Fibre Bound and Rose Hip Island
1:18:09 Stat Chat
1:22:40 Heart Full of Craft
1:23:54 Thanks!
Transcript
Greetings. Welcome to another episode of Bobolog. I really appreciate you tuning in again. So thank you to anyone who is coming back and has watched previous episodes, and a very warm welcome and thank you to any new viewers who may be tuning in. My name is Bobbie Olan. I am a knitter and sometimes multi crafty maker, living in Victoria, Australia. More specifically, I live and create on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people and I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present and future, and I'd like to extend that respect to all Aboriginal peoples across Australia.
It is quite warm here today and I did have the fan on earlier but it just made too much noise so I'm just going to be using the hand fan a bit. I hope that's not too distracting in the video. I'm not sure if you can see it because I don't have a monitor that allows me to see what's being filmed because I'm just using my phone.
So to get started, the first thing I want to say is just a little correction from the last episode. I had purchased some yarn from an Aussie yarn store called Hand Make - Hand Make Create. And I said that I thought that they were in Queensland, but that's wrong. They're actually in New South Wales. So sorry about that, Tash, if you're watching. But Hand Make Create is a store in New South Wales and they have a lovely selection of yarns as well as a few knitting tools that I haven't seen anywhere else. For example, that's where I bought my Lykke circular knitting needles in, I think the length I got was 100cm, and I have only seen 80cm elsewhere. And I think they even had longer length when I was shopping but I didn't want to go too extreme unless I knew I had a need.
Catch Up
So since I have filmed the last episode, you can see that I've got a haircut. Sadly, that's probably one of the most exciting things going on in my life at the moment. My partner and I are still being very cautious and trying not to go out and do anything unless we have to so a haircut for me was still pretty exciting. My... I went to a new hairdresser, a new to me hairdresser in Mount Waverley and he tried to explain how I can sort of style and maintain and manage waves. Because I don't want curls and all of the curly girl stuff is just a bit too much effort for me. As you can see I'm not being very successful doing it myself so far.
But anyway, what else have I been up to since I saw you last?
I did have an appointment at the osteo. I go to my osteo every one to two months and he mostly works on my arm issues, but a few other bodily issues I have here and there. But he did explain one thing about my elbow problems that he's probably explained before and I just didn't take it in. But he said that - so I have pains on the inside of the elbow and I also have pains on the outside of the elbow. More often I have the inner elbow pains. And I've never really understood what causes them. I, I always just accepted them as part of knitting but I do try to manage them by going to the osteo and by trying to do stretches and things.
But he said that the inner one comes from gripping. And I know that I do hold on to my needles pretty tightly sometimes. When I'm, when I'm focusing and I'm concentrating I just tend to like sort of clench up and like, I'm trying to be aware of that and trying to loosen up my grip. But sometimes, working with smaller needles especially, that is hard.
And then the outer one. Outer elbow pain pieces comes from this action. Which makes a lot of sense because I really, that's something else since, since I finished reading Knitting Comfortably by Carson Demers I've made an effort to have this line straight when I'm knitting. But it is very hard and I can't help but, you know, flex my wrist back like that. So that obviously makes a lot of sense to why there are those, that those two pains on the elbow, they're opposite ends of the elbow. So knowing now, what causes them. I do want to try to be a bit more aware, if I start feeling one of those pains while I'm knitting to loosen my grip or to stop moving or stop flexing my wrist as much. So that was an interesting tidbit from going to the oteo a few weeks ago.
What else have I been up to? If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I attempted doing Instagram reels for the first time. They, they're very fiddly and the timing especially I found very difficult to get right. But they were kind of fun to do. I did also try a YouTube short but that one... there are just some - the, the adding music, adding audio to that, I found it quite tricky. So my first and only YouTube short so far is silent. But I've done two Instagram reels and one YouTube short. Yeah, they're a lot trickier than I had expected. I think the YouTube short took me like half a day, I'm embarrassed to say. But we'll, we'll see if I, if I keep going with those.
But if you're interested in checking them out, obviously you can find the YouTube one on my Platypus Knitting channel, and on Instagram I am also @PlatypusKnitting. You can also find me on Ravelry under my own name, Bobbie Olan, and I would love to hear from any of you who are watching me. Just jump online and say hello or comment on the video below. I'd really love to hear from you.
I think, I think that's everything of note that I wanted to say that I've been up to since the last episode.
Eye Candy
In the last episode, I did mention a blanket that I thought I had featured last year as an Eye Candy item, but since I didn't I thought I'd have a, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about it now.
Star Illusion Blanket
So that is the Star Illusion blanket by Katie Ahlquist. You can find that blanket and proper spelling of her name (because I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it), you can find that in the YouTube description below. I also have a blog site where I put transcripts of the episodes and links to everything that I'm talking about as well. So you can find a link to the Star Illusion blanket there.
So it is a free pattern. And I selected it because I - there are a couple, there have been a couple, or are a couple of new babies this year. So I wanted to knit baby items obviously. And usually I mainly do like little garments for them but I wanted to try something different. And I was searching around for patterns and I remember that I had heard about, I think it's, it can be called illusion knitting. I think it can also be called shadow knitting. But it's basically a magical type of knitting where, if you're looking at the design front on, you can't really see what it is. You're just seeing stripes of colour. But if you look at it from an angle, then you can see what the design is. So that's something that I've been in-intrigued in since I heard about it last year, but I haven't had a reason to knit something using that technique. So when I started looking at possible baby blankets, I realised this is the perfect opportunity to give that technique ago.
So I had a look on Ravelry and filtered by, by blankets, I think I filtered by age, and by the attribute shadow slash illusion. And there weren't that many out there which I'm glad of sometimes. It doesn't mean I'm scrolling pages and pages and pages because I'm the type of person who has to look at every single option. FOMO basically. I don't want to, I don't want to miss out. What if there was an amazing pattern on page 75 that I would have missed if I only looked at the first five pages. So I was glad that with all of these filters there weren't that many to choose from. But I really liked this Star Illusion one by Katie Ahlquist.
So last week, I unwrapped a few, a couple of different yarn packages and one of them was a whole lot of Scheepjes yarn from Bellmae Yarns here in Victoria, an online yarn store here in Victoria. And I had selected their Whirl Fine Art, which is a gradient yarn that is - oh gosh, I'm not going to remember their percentages. But I think it's merino, microfibre and acrylic. I think. But they are beautiful gradient yarns. Really big balls of yarn that are themed, or the colourways are based on art movements. And then they have matching single balls, normal size balls of the same base in a solid colour that either matches, that will match one and or both. Really bad at explaining. So it's a gradient yarn, and you can get separate little balls that will match either the outside or the inside of the gradient. That's what I'm trying to say. And not every gradient cake has a match for both the inside and the outside.
So I got two different colourways of the Scheepjes Whirl Fine Art, a blue one and a yellow one. And the yellow one only had a match for the outside of the cake. So I got two extra of the Merino Soft balls to match that. And blue one had a match for both the inside and the outside. So I got one of each. And that gave me a little bit more than enough meterage according to what the pattern says it needs.
I am not planning to do a gauge swatch for this one because it's a blanket and I'm pretty on-gauge. So I'm just going to go by the recommended needles from the yarn and just work the blanket and fingers crossed that I have enough yarn. And if I don't then, then it's great that they have those extra little balls that you can just tack on that will match the ends of the gradients. So I'm looking forward to starting that Star Illusion blanket.
That will probably be my next cast on after I have finished at least one of these other projects that I have on the go. I don't like having too many works in progress on the go. So I do want to finish, probably at least the socks. I nearly finished the socks. So yeah, that's the Star Illusion blanket.
Handy Dandy
And since I have mentioned the socks then I guess I will start talking about those.
August Sock KAL
So these two that you can see hanging up here they are my personal versions three and four of the August Sock KAL, the August Sock Knit Along by Roxanne Richardson. So I've mentioned this in the previous episode, but this is basically one of those, the pattern is basically one of these recipes/booklet type things. There are like five PDFs when you go to buy the pattern and they go through different issues that you can have when knitting a calf down sock, and different techniques that, that you can use in constructing your sock, and all the different calculations for making a sock that fits your foot. So I read all of the PDFs and then I came up with five different combinations that I wanted to try out and I'm knitting them all for my partner.
They are in a discontinued yarn by Wendy, which I'm really sad that they discontinued because I really enjoyed working them. Interestingly, they are a bamboo sock yarn. So I forgot to bring the label. I'm just going to go grab it now. So they are knit in Wendy Happy, which is that there, that's the yarn label there. So like I said, that, it is now discontinued. I think it was discontinued when I bought the yarn. I bought it from one of my local yarn stores here in Melbourne a few years ago and they've kind of just been sitting in stash until I found this August Sock KAL through Roxanne Richardson's vlog. So yes, it's a bamboo nylon sock yarn. It's got quite a lot of stretch to it, which I was very surprised and pleased to find. So they're quite comfortable to work with and they, the socks have a lot of give which is excellent. A lot of elasticity.
I bought three balls and I it's going to be enough to make five pairs of ankle socks for my partner, which is pretty great. It just, I didn't plan, I didn't necessarily plan it so that I use up all of the yarn to get the five versions. It just so happens that I wanted to make five different versions of socks. And after I knit the first three, so one in each colourway, I have, I had enough leftover to mix and match the rest to make the other two. Which is great because then I can compare all of the socks and they are all on the same yarn base. So that makes for an easier comparison, I guess.
So version three, this one here. I had, in the previous episode I had knit one sock and I had knit the cuff of the second sock so I'll just show you here. This one I thought I would try doing a shaped toe. So this one is for the right foot and the other one that's on the sock blocker right there is shaped like that, so for the left foot. So I'm just kind of interested to see if that's going to fit and wear better than just a normal wedge or a normal round toe where the top of the toe is centred.
The thing about that is I did find, I did side by side decreases and I don't know if it would just work better if I did a more traditional wedge toe where it has like a panel there. But I did find on this, on the longer side of decreases it was quite holey and gappy. So when I woven the ends on the inside, I kind of zigzaged down that sort of same line to try to hide the holes. And I think that has worked quite well but it is still a really visible seam. But you can't, you can't see my skin through there anymore. So that that worked in that sense, but I think if I were to try shaped toes again I wouldn't do side by side decreases. I'd either do centre double decreases or I'd do the traditional wedge that had- that leaves a panel there. I think I didn't want to do the panel because there, because there weren't going to be as many decreases on one side. I thought the panel wouldn't be as obvious and it would look odd but I reckon I'll just try for the next time.
Anyway. So what else can I tell you about this sock? This sock, the cast on that I used was the alternating cable cast on which I quite liked. I think it looks pretty good. It's a bit on the fiddlier side. For me personally, I found it a bit fiddly to do but I think it looks quite good. It's sort of tubular and it's pretty easy to work up.
The other thing about this sock is the stripes didn't match perfectly. So if I can hold it there... I mean, it's really hard to tell because it does look kind of well matched. There. But you can see here this stripe goes along around the whole foot. And on this sock here. It is only on the heel and then just one tiny little bit of it that goes around the whole foot. So when I, because I wasn't knitting these at the same time than I had a lot less control over that. I don't, I don't mind too much really. It's not that obvious a difference and it still, you know, ends on the same colour, still, like, follows the same striping sequence. So I, I did consider for a while tinking back but then I was looking at the other colours that came before it and the orange is the same length, the brown is the same length, and then it's the pink that is different. So that one is just not quite matching up.
Yeah. So these are also the first socks that I have ever done a short row heel on so these are the German Short Row heels. I thought, you know, they were all right. I didn't, I didn't have any real issues working them and I think they look quite good. One thing that I had wanted to do, but I wasn't sure I would have enough yarn (because I was trying to make all this stretch to make five different socks) is I wanted, be-because, because these heels are sort of just plain stockinette, in a sense, and they don't have that extra sort of layer of reinforcement that slipstitch heels give you, I would have liked to be able to hold another strand of yarn with it. And sort of, sort of have it like a double layer. But like I said, I was worried that I would run out of yarn. So I didn't do that for these. And also it's the first time I was doing them. I just wanted to see how they would work as they are. So I do think they look, I do think short row heels look really good. So I'm sure I will be making those again. Yeah, so that is my version three of the custom fit socks.
So this colourway is the Gemini colourway. It's quite a long repeat, 1-2-3-4- Would you call that six? Would you call that six stripes? I'm not counting that. That's just like one row. Five or six stripe repeat. As you can see, they're all different stripes. So that's my version three there.
I also managed to finish version four. Oh, it's in my lap. Version four is knit in a combination of- oops, what have I done? I haven't woven in the ends, oops. It's in a combination of the Taurus colourway and then the Zebra colourway. So the Zebra is on the heel and then I ran out of the Tau-Taurus colourway and so I had to use the Zebra for the second half of the toes.
So these ones, they are, what did I do? So I did these - I knew it was a bad idea before I set out doing them but I did it anyway. I did the Italian tubular cast on... for knitting socks, for knitting two socks at a time on magic loop. And it was just a bit of a nightmare making sure everything was, making sure nothing was twisted and rearranging everything so that, you know, it was, like, set up for magic loop properly and it was just not fun. I like the Italian tubular cast on but not, not for working things two at a time. Definitely not. And it does look a bit, like, loose. Like it looks a bit, it's not, I mean you don't want a cast on that's pulling in but you also don't want a cast on that's, like, flaring. Yeah, and I feel like that's flaring out a bit. So it's not, it's not the best. Yeah, I don't think I'd use that for socks again. Totally fine working one item in the round possibly, but definitely - I, I, I have used it when I've worked a sweater flat in pieces and that was totally fine. It looked and worked great for that and would probably be great for something like a shawl or blanket as well but not for socks.
The other thing that I did with these is, so with this sock I tried one of Roxane Richardson's techniques for improving the transition from ribbing to stockinette. So this one used a slip stitch method. And with this one I tried the other method that she had which uses knit one below but because, because I was so set on doing all of the socks the same - the same number of rows for the cuff, the same number of rows for the heel, sorry, not the heel for the leg and just you know getting all of my lengths and everything the same - I... the, the cuff ended on a colour change. And because it was one of those colour changes that's just the length of one row and because the transition was using a knit one below it just made it really messy. And you cannot see, you can't, you can't just, you can't make out. You can't make it out. It just looks, it just makes it look sloppy. Which is really unfortunate. But I would I'd like to try that method again some other time when I'm working in a single colour yarn. Because with this one, the leg, the leg changes colours one or two rows in. And I think because that transition between the cuff and the leg is all in the same colour, you can see it really clearly. And I'm sure this one works just as well. On her video it works. They both work just as well as each other. Here it just looks sloppy. So it was just the wrong, it was just the wrong place to do it. Yes.
This one is... Unintentionally it's, it's used, it's ended up being made of all of my least favourite methods almost. So the cast on was wrong. The transition was wrong. And then I did not enjoy making this heel. This is the first time I have done a forethought heel. So you you knit down the leg, you place your waste yarn and, and you continue on. You continue knitting the rest of the sock and then you go back, pick up stitches around the waste yarn, remove the waste yarn, and knit, and knit your heel and that's the forethought heel. And I really didn't, I just didn't enjoy it. I just didn't find it... It was just, it was just too much fiddliness for me. I'd rather, I don't like, I don't like having to pick up stitches. If I'm gonna have to pick up stitches then I'll just do a heel flap and gusset because I've never had a problem with them. I mean it looks good. But after having done other sock methods now if I want that kind of a heel that looks like that, that has that sort of line - again describing this really badly - I would do, I would do a short row or a plain heel and not the forethought heel. So I don't think I'll be doing that again.
I did do this one using centre double decreases as you can see and I actually, I quite like how that looks. Tiny bit concerned about its snag-ability, but I don't know. I'm sure it's fine. I like how that looks. So knit that, knit that down, and then how did I do this? Oh yeah, that's right. I just I wanted the toe to match the heel. So I just did centre double decreases again. So I have none of this Taurus coluorway left. I knit, knit, knit, knit, knit until I completely ran out.
The other very silly thing on my part that I did with this sock is I, I knit my version one of this August Sock KAL in, completely in this Taurus colourway and I somehow - they just match perfectly. Like, the stripes just match perfectly throughout the whole sock. So when I started these ones, I knew that continuing on with those two balls, that I'd get matching again. But what didn't occur to me is because - you can't see it with this colourway actually - but the stripe, this isn't the full striping sequence. It's actually a really long striping sequence. And I think it's, there's meant to be a section that has, like, a longer, a long, longer purple bit than this.
So when, when I was working this the, I think it was fine up to here and then past the heel the one, one sock the colour change, the colour, the colour. Oh goodness. The colour was longer in one sock than it was on the other sock. So I - was that on this one? Yeah, so. So what I did was, on the one where it was longer, I cut a length of the colour out so that the stripe would be the same length as the shorter stripe on the other sock. And I thought, I thought that would solve all my problems. I thought that would be it. But then as I continued working it kind of flipped. The sock that had the short stripe before now had a different colour that was longer than that same colour on the other sock. And because I'd already made the effort to make the stripes match once I thought I'd do it again. So I cut up a length of that colour on the second sock so that that stripe would match. And then I ended up having to, when it came back around to that colour I had to put that extra back in because that colour then was shorter on that sock and longer on the others. It was such a nightmare and I wish I hadn't bothered I wish I had just knit and let the stripes be different colours on these socks. But because I had started I kept going and I was very annoyed at myself by the end of it. I mean, the end result is a matching pair of socks which of course I am very, very happy about but it's just not, just not worth the effort really. I should have.. Yeah, I should've just let them not match but there you go. I have a very good, very well matching pair of socks there to give to my partner. So that was my version four of those socks.
Version five. My last one is still on the needles. Let me put this one down. This bowl is a bit of a tangle because I've stuffed three different works in progress here. But there is usually only one, everything usually has its own yarn bowl/project bowl. So I, I never had a deadline for making all of these socks. It was just something that I really wanted to do and make for my partner. But last week I realised that Valentine's Day was coming up. And I knew I wouldn't have enough time to finish all of the socks for Valentine's Day, but I still tried really hard. So I am filming this actually on Valentine's Day, Monday Valentine's Day. And all weekend... I cast, I cast on these socks on Saturday morning, and I seriously, I spent all weekend knitting on them. I didn't work on anything else. I didn't do anything else. Basically, well I mean, I did do other things, obviously, but I was giving all of my time to these socks here. And I came so close. I only have the toes left to go.
But anyway, these ones I finally remembered to do the rib in a half twisted rib - so doing the knits, working the knits through the back loop-loop and working the purls normally - which I had wanted to do for all the socks but just kept forgetting. So I finally remembered and then after all of my efforts to get that, to get a nice transition between the rib and the leg, I forgot and very happily was reminded that you don't need to make any efforts at doing those kinds of fiddly things for a twisted rib because it just does it naturally. Like, look how clean that transition is. I like, I like that there's such a defined difference between the two different sections. And, and just rib, half twisted rib just always looks amazing. Just, it looks so good. Like, it just looks so good. I love it. I just I wish- I don't know why I always forget to do it because I love- I mean it's not as quick and easy to do as a normal rib. But surely the more that I do it, the easier that becomes. So I've just got to remember to do it all the time because it looks really, really good.
Yeah, so I think that cast on that I used for this one looks amazing with it too. Like, I love how it's got a sort of, I wouldn't really call that like a picot edge. It's kind of like a zigzaggy edge which I think looks really nice. So that one is actually, usually when I do socks my go-to cast on is the German twisted cast on, which is a long tail cast on. So that I did on version one of the socks and it's fine. And for each of the socks I did a different cast on. This last one I thought I would do Tilly Buddy's very stretchy cast on, which is actually my general go-to cast on for anything. If I, if I'm not trying to use a specific technique I do Tilly Buddy's very stretchy cast on because it is so easy. There is no estimating yarn tails and it looks good with pretty much everything. It's mainly for ribbing, but it looks good with one by one, it looks good with two by two, it looks good with stockinette, it's stretchy. But oh my goodness with the twisted cast on, it just looks, I just love how that looks. It just looks amazing. So I think this is going to be my new go-to. It's beautiful. Anyway, I love it.
So yeah, so with this one, when I worked the socks as I mentioned, the colours weren't quite a match. So they both, each sock ended on the orange but one of them used a bit more of the orange than the other. So when I started these, I pulled out all of the orange and matched up where the colour change was and cut off the extra that I had so that they they would match and they have matched perfectly. I haven't had to do any sort of other cutting or fudging to make the stripes match. They are just working beautifully.
Yes. So these these ones are made using the plain heel. So that's the plain heel there. So I think that's also called an insta-thought heel. So you work the leg up until you're ready to do the heel. And then you put the instep stitches on waste yarn, and then you do a provisional cast on for the instep side of the heel stitches. And then you work that as you would an afterthought or forethought heel, just working in the round and decreasing like a toe. So the excellent thing about this is with all of this custom fitting that I'm trying to do in using this, this pattern / tutorial, I - so the thing about, that I discovered about my partner's foot when I measured is that his foot circumference is a little bit wider than his ankle circumference. So for all of these socks they've all been done with 68 stitches for the leg and 74 stitches for the foot. So the great thing with this one, with this construction is because you're, you're casting on for the other side of the heel I was able to just cast on all the extra stitches I need for the foot. And so when I, when I was finished working the heel and I picked up the other end of the provisional cast on I didn't need to add, I didn't need to increase any more stitches to work the foot. I could just work the foot. It was perfect.
There are other calculations that go into it so that you're casting on the right number to get the right heel diagonal. But luckily for my partner it just worked out that that was just the right amount, there was the same amount. So I had to - to get the right heel diagonal I cast on the same number of stitches that I would have needed to cast on to get the right foot circumference. That's what I'm trying to say. So that just worked out perfectly. And she has all of the calculations in, in this, this pattern. I just, I highly recommend checking it out. It's just, it's really informative and really great.
What did I do with this heel? So when I worked this, this heel I did side by side decreases. So... yes. I hadn't done side by side on the heel in any of the other socks. I had done it for the toe of the other sock there but not for the heel. So I thought I'd try here.
And I should say as well that all of my grafting of the toes and the heels where it's needed are again using a, a technique that I learned from Roxanne Richardson, which is the Finchley graft. It's a little bit fiddlier to set up because of how you have to rearrange the needles but it's so easy and I, I like, I like it a lot more than than the Kitchener. I think it looks... It's just a lot easier to work aside from that setup. And it looks. it looks great. So that's the Finchley graft there.
So I knit like a madwoman all weekend and I got, I got that far. I have a million stitch markers on here because I want to try doing - so I'm going to do these ones as a round toe. So that's the one where you decrease like you do for the top of a hat. So instead of having two lines of decreases, you're kind of decreasing evenly around the whole thing on fewer rows. So I want to do that again for this but I kind of want to try to make it shaped. It's probably not going to end up as shaped as when I did it on the wedge toe because it's just a little fiddlier to work out. So I've just got, I've placed stitch markers where the decreases need to be. So I've got two wider sections and then two narrower sections and then on the other side, two narrower and then two wider and we'll just see how that goes. And obviously then, yeah, on the other side it's the other the other way around. Yeah, I've just realised that I haven't put the stitch markers so that it's the other way around. I've done them so that they're going to be going in the same direction. So I have to remember to, to, to change that before I start working those decreases. So I guess that's enough talking about those socks.
Baby Lamb
The next item that I want to mention is - so last episode (I was gonna say last week, but it was two weeks ago) last episode with all of the yarn that I unwrapped, I also had some Scheepjes yarn that I had purchased to make a toy. So you can see the first adorable little hooves here. Let me try to take one out... some of the stuffing's coming out. So that, that is one of the front hooves there. It's so cute. Like, I just love this detail of, like, you know, giving it the, I don't know what you call them on animals, the, the toe bits. I just think that looks really great. And I was a bit concerned about this colour when I unwrapped it. It was pinker than I had hoped for. But I think it's looking really good actually. It's not looking super pink. It's, it's tanner and it's, it's matching well with the fluffier yarn that I bought. So this one is Scheepjes Soft Fun. And this one is Scheepjes Sweetheart Soft Brush. And this - I put Rocket there to show that this one is the right leg. And on this one I have Luna to, so that I remember that that one is for the left leg.
So they are the front legs slash hooves and I am working on the, the hind (whoops) legs. So these ones are a little bit, just a little bit wider than those ones. And I believe once I have worked up, once I have finished the leg, I think I do the same thing of stuffing them and working, you know, closing this hole and making that detail of the hoof. I think then I, I think I'm going to join them together and start working in the round for the body. But I haven't actually read ahead in this pattern. I'm kind of just reading what I have to do next. So hopefully that goes well and I don't run into any problems. So that's going to be the hind legs there.
It's just - did I say it's the Baby Lamb pattern by Lorraine Pistorio. And all of her toys are just so adorable. They have such character. I can't wait to do the face. It's just going to be so cute. And then they, they, you know, they sit there on their butts with their, like, legs sticking out andthe arms sticking out and they just, they're really cute. They're really, really cute.
And I do have to say, I'm not enjoying... I don't enjoy making toys as much as I enjoy making garments. But how it all comes together is really, really fun and exciting. Seeing all of the little details come together, it's really fun and exciting. So I would like to make more of her items. But we'll see when I finish this one if I can be bothered making one for myself because I'd love to have one for myself. But we'll see if, if I want it enough to take me away from knitting more garments because that's what I really love to do.
The cast on that I have used with this one, she didn't specify one in the pattern but I had used the disappearing loop cast on. I heard about these, I think, somewhere around the end of last year, but I hadn't had a reason to use it yet. So this was the perfect opportunity. It's kind of like, if you're familiar with crocheting in the round, it's kind of doing a cost in the same way that they do the magic loop cast on. A crochet, a ma-, a crocheted magic loop cast on. Yeah. Which I think is really clever. And I heard about it and I saw it and I realised it was like that crochet one and it was just like, "Why, why have I not heard of this before? Why? Why was, why is this only a thing now?" I mean, it could have been a thing before and I'd only just heard about it, but I felt like it was everywhere for a little while. And it's just genius. And obvious. So yeah, so I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to do that there. So let me see if I can show you how it works here. So you cast on in the round and then once you're ready to, you just pull on the end and it closes the hole. Easy. Easy peasy. I did, I left it wide because working around it was easier to have a wider hole but I'm going to end up closing it up anyway. So yeah, so that's that one there. Yes.
Daniel's Hat
So the last thing that I have on the needles is this here. So this is just the brim of a beanie, but it looks, it's looking huge. For, for a baby, I should say. I feel like it's looking really big for a baby. But I don't know. Sometimes I think baby things look really tiny. And then sometimes I think they look really big. And I just have no sense of what, how big babies are. I don't know. Well, that bit of - I feel like that's huge. So this - I should start at the start.
This is the Daniel's Hat by Ysolda Teague. It's a brioche beanie, and she's got it, they've got it from, from, you know, baby right up to adult sizes. So I have made this before. I mentioned in the last episode that I'd made one for Christmas, but I could - I had nothing to show for it because I gifted it the same day that I finished it, pretty much. Yes. But that one, I feel like that one didn't look this big. So the thing is with that, I'm using the same yarn, it, which is the Four Seasons Superwash Merino, which is a discontinued yarn that I got from Spotlight. That one I did in yellow, and then this, this cream colour.
So I did, I also made a little baby vest out of this navy blue colour and this mohair which is Lincraft Winter Warmth mohair, which again is discontinued. This is all from deep stash. But when I made the vest I made it with two strands of the merino and one strand of the mohair held together. So I am hoping but I am not hopeful that I have enough to finish this beanie. But if I don't I might just undo the whole thing and make the smaller size. So the hat is written for, I think it's aran weight or worsted weight. But I'm using DK so I'm using the numbers for the toddler size to get the baby size which is what I did when I made this before but this just feels big. So if I, if it, if it does come out too big or, you know, if it comes out too big or if I run out of yarn (which seems likely) I may rip it all out and do the baby size and it might actually come out fine.
So the thing that I've heard about mohair is that when you use it with, when you marl it with another yarn, it's not going to change your stitch gauge, your, yeah. Yeah, it's not going to change your tension. So I just figured I could make this exactly the same as the one that I made for Christmas and it would come out fine. But I'm wondering actually if that's the reason why this one is looking big, because of the mohair. But we'll see.
Yeah, so. So this first part, obviously, is just normal rib, two by two rib. And then I've only done a few rows of the brioche which I'm doing in two colours and you can't really make it out, make out the pattern yet. But this, I am making to match that vest that I had made previously. It just looks really big. Anyway, so that's, that's that there. See if I can get it hanging. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, so that is everything that I have on the needles.
Multicrafty
Continuing with talking about things that I have been working on, but moving away from the realm of knitting:
Spinning on a Turkish spindle
I have finally tried spinning, which is something that I have been wanting to try for a while now. What I really would like to do is to take a proper class at the Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria. But with everything that has been going on, like I said, I'm still sort of avoiding going out into the world unless I have to, or at least until I get my booster shot which is about less than a week away. I really want to take a proper class and do that and I really wanted to try on a spinning wheel. But since I have had to keep pushing back taking that class, I just thought, "Well I should just do the smart thing and get a drop spindle and try spinning on a drop spindle because it's cheaper and it's more accessible and I can do it myself at home with the help of YouTube videos." So that is what I've done.
I found - one of my uncle's has a 3d printer and he's, that, that's his hobby. He's really into it. He's printed so many things and he's always offering to print things for people so I went to Thingy- Thingiverse and I found a... pattern? Design? Recipe? I don't know what you call it. I found a, I'll just call it a pattern. I found a pattern for a Turkish spindle, or a cross arm spindle. And I wanted the Turkish spindle because I really like how they come apart. So I found one there and I'll put - again, the link for this and for everything that I've talked about will be in the YouTube description below and on my my website / blog site. So yes, so I found a pattern for a Turkish spindle and I got him to print it for me. So he printed that a while ago actually. I think I collected it after I had filmed the previous episode and he printed it a week or two before that. Maybe a week before that. And I only had a go spinning of it - spinning on it - maybe a week ago.
So this is my first attempt. Very sloppy. So you can see they're very inconsistent. I am using merino roving that I had bought to make a couple of blankets a few years ago, and it's actually the photo that is in my credits. That's a blanket that I've made out of this roving but it's not intended for spinning. But I have lots of it. I have a blanket's worth that I'm not going to turn, that I don't want to turn into another blank. So I just thought, "What the hell, I'll give it a go." And as you can see, this is so thick and thin. I'm just very inconsistent. But it was still pretty fun to do. So that was my first attempt.
I have looked up videos on, you know, drafting. Which is how you pull out the fibres so that they're the thickness that you want the yarn to be. Something like that. But I'm finding this roving really hard to work with. So I don't, I don't even know what I'm really doing. Short forward, short backward, long draw - it's all still a little bit of mumbo jumbo to me. Like, when I watch the videos I'm like, "Oh yeah, I get it. That makes sense." Then when I'm doing it I ended up just, like, pulling it however I can to get what I can. But anyway, this one, I hadn't actually watched any videos for months and months and months. I was just like, "Oh, yeah, I remember what they all said," and I just went for it. And you know, I got something out of it. But then after this one, I was like, "Okay, I really need to go back and re-, re-watch and learn about what I'm supposed to be doing." So I watched a few videos, and I had a second attempt, which worked much better.
And I also learned how to properly wind onto the spindle. So with this you're meant to do, like, two over, one under, two over, one under, two over, one under. And I had done that on the first one, but it was kind of just all over the place. In this one I, you know, tried to make it neater and it looked does look much better. So if you want to compare the two there. And while this one is still very inconsistent - it still has, you know, a lot of thick and thin and it's not a consistent weight all the way through - it is much better than what I had done previously.
So with this one I had pre drafted it before I spun it as well and I think that did help. Actually I pre drafted half of it and the other half I left undrafted and I did find the pre drafted one easier to work with. I should also say that each of these are about five grams worth of yarn, of roving. So I think I will do another five grams worth and then I'm going to try plying them together. So the idea is, so this is, this makes a centre pull ball. So once I'm ready to ply them together, I'll have all my little balls and I'll just start from the centre of it - which is what's wrapped around the bottom of the shaft here - and ply them together. So I do have to remember these singles, I am, I am twirling the spindle clockwise. So when I ply them together, I have to twirl it anti clockwise.
And now that I have shown you what that looks like on the spindle, I can show you the magic of the Turkish spindle which is the reason that I bought it. So that one has obviously already been taken off. This one, so that I can get it ready for the next one - you just pull off the shaft, pull out one arm, slide one arm out, and then slide it off the other arm. And there's your beautiful centre pull ball. No need to do any extra winding to have that ready to work with. And they are, there all the pieces of the Turkish spindle.
So yes, very excited to finally be playing with that and excited to be making my own yarn. And hopefully it's good for something. Not, not this one. I'm probably just gonna, after I ply the three strands together I'll probably just knit a tiny little swatch and have it as, like, a memento of my first attempt at yarn. But, I mean, ultimately, obviously I do want to be able to spin that blanket's worth of yarn into usable yarn that I can make into maybe even a sweater if it's not too terrible. So that's, that's pretty exciting. There. So that is my multicrafty adventure.
Craft for Thought
Next up, I just wanted to talk a little bit about community. So I - one of the reasons that I started this vlog was because I don't, I don't have a knitting group. And I don't really have, I don't have knitting friends. I have a crochet friend. I have a sewing friend who knits. And my aunt is an amazing crafty Wonder Woman. She knits and quilts and sews. She just does lots of things and I never know how she finds time to do it all, and everything that she makes is just amazing. Anyway I, yeah, I don't have like, knitting people in my life really. And I'm not, I'm not super great at reaching out to people or posting in, like, participating in forums on Ravelry and that kind of thing. Like, I do it here and there but then I often just get very, like, the conversation just moves way too fast and I get lost. And I, like, I'll make one post and then I'll completely lose track of the thread and I never post again, and I'll do that maybe once every few months or once every year or something like that. But I find it, I just find, I find it hard to really connect with people. So one of the reasons that I started this blog was to help build my confidence in talking about what I'm doing and sharing what I'm doing and talking to other people about this amazing craft. So building confidence. And I, I wanted to, I was hoping that it would help me find or build a community for myself.
And it has done that. So I think it was towards the end of last year, I was invited to join a group of Aussie podcasters. So they get together every now and then and have a virtual knit night and I've managed to attend two. I think they have had four, four Zoom meeting sessions since I was invited into the group and I've been able to attend the last two and it's been really nice. Obviously would be much nicer to be able to, you know, have an in person group but it's so lovely just being able to sit there with your knitting and do your knitting and have people around you working on their knitting and just talking about knitting and all sorts of things. It's, it's, it was really lovely and I'm really grateful to have been invited to that group and I'm really, I'm really happy that I have this opportunity to get to know these other Aussies from, you know, all around the country and hopefully make friends.
So, I have started watching some of their vlogs as well. The thing with me though is I'm a huge binge watcher. And it's kind of like how I was saying before, when I'm searching for a pattern I have to look at everything that falls into the categories of what I want because I don't want to miss out. It's kind of the same when I'm watching a vlog or listening to a podcast. I don't want to miss anything. So whenever I start listening to or watching something new I have to go back to the very, very beginning. And I have to watch from the very, very beginning. So I haven't gotten through many of their vlogs but I have been, yeah, watching them since towards the start of the year.
Three Cats Yarn
So the ones that I've watched that I'd like to recommend so far is Three Cats Yarn who is Mel. She is formerly Down Under Dyer. And obviously - 'Down Under Dyer', 'Three Cats Yarn' - she dyes beautiful yarn. Aussie yarn, Aussie wool. Yeah, and there are, I really want to get her highlighter set, but I'm trying to not buy without an immediate purpose. I kind of know what I want to use it for but because I have so many other projects that I have already planned out and have to make and I want to knit through some of my stash before I add to it, I'm not letting myself buy it yet. But check her out. She's got some beautiful yarns and a lovely vlog that I think started about a year ago from memory. So that is Mel of Three Cats Yarn.
Oliphant Kat
The next one is Kat of Oliphant Kat. So she is a designer and teacher. Both of them, Mel and Kat, I believe are in New South Wales. Yes, so Kat is, she, I started off watching her videos that were a tour through her knitted wardrobe. And she had so many knitted items that were her own, which I don't have. I have like two garments that I've knitted for myself. Because most things that I knit are gifts for other people. So I, I've said this before, but I want to knit more things for myself that I get to keep and show off. So it was, it was an inspiration to see how much Kat had of her own in her wardrobe. And she said that she's, you know, that wasn't even including the wardrobes of her husband and her kids and she had so much there which was really amazing to see.
The other thing about Kat I was really drawn to is that she's a fellow Filipina. And I actually didn't pick up on it immediately when I was watching her. But I was watching down on the TV downstairs and after a while my partner came over and asked if she was Filo. And, like, oh, I don't know coz I'm really bad at telling what nationality or ethnicity anyone is. And I'm like, "I have no idea. Why? Do you think she looks Filo?" And he said, "Yes." And I went and looked on her Instagram profile and she did say there that she's a Filipina - like me. Which I don't know if I've ever mentioned before. I was, my, my family's from the Philippines. I was born in the Philippines but I came here when I was three and I've only been there once and I can't speak the language, sadly, but I can understand a lot more than I can speak. But I just thought it was just really nice to have that extra little connection with Kat. And it was, it's funny, after he said that as well I started noticing things about her mannerisms that I either recognise in myself or in my sisters. And now I'm like, "Yeah, she's Filo. She's, she's Filo." Yeah, so again, highly recommend going to check her out.
Oh, I do also want to mention she, she does do tech editing and I need to reach out to her and ask about those services because I have started thinking about finally doing my own designs. Which was another reason that I wanted to start this vlog because I was hoping it would motivate me to work on my own designs and I hadn't yet so now I think I actually will start.
Fibre Bound
Anyway, moving on. The next one that I want to recommend is Fibre Bound. So Fibre Bound is Aleksandra who is based in South Australia. She has a beautiful podcast. She has a lot of followers.
I think she also, I think all three of these that I've mentioned so far started last year. Aleksandra did have, she had been doing vlogmas for a few years already. So it's just the podcast that's new. So I believe also they all have the same handles as their, their, I believe their channels are also the same as their Instagram handles. So if you want to look them up you should be able to find them on Instagram - @ Three Cats Yarn, Oliphant Kat, and Fibre Bound. Yeah, so yeah.
Aleksandra is a huge sock knitter. Last year at least, she was doing a knitalong that was a sock a month and on top of that she had other socks going as well as other projects. And she was just really lovely to watch.
Rose Hip Island
And the last one that I want to mention is Hanna of Rose Hip Island who is another yarn dyer. She is in Tasmania. So I've yet to watch another, another fellow Victorian. But yes, Hanna, of Rose Hip Island is in Tasmania and she, she dyes yarn and it's, her one has been going for quite a long time. So I think her first episode was in 2015. So I still have a long way to go. Which I'm really happy about.
I like having a lot to watch. I like being able to watch - I like bingeing. So I like being able to watch a whole chunk of one person's content, which means that I'm never often up to date. But usually what I do is I find a new vlog, I watch everything that they've ever put out, and then I find someone new and start again. But what I want to try to do now is, after I've watched a really long series, I want to go back and watch the more recent episodes of all the other ones that I've watched. And then go find someone new and that way I'm, I'll be at least a little bit up to date and can join in with knitalongs and things. Because that's one thing when I go back and watch all of these old ones is they have these knitalongs. And I'm like, "Oh, I really wish I could join that but it's long finished." So I can't, so I really do want to make more effort to stay current. Anyway, I mentioned that because both Fibre Bound and Rose Hip Island have had knitalongs on their blogs that I would have liked to join. So once I get up to date with Hanna of Rose Hip Island, then I'll, you know, I'll go back and catch up on anything that I've missed since I finished the big binge, and then start on something new.
But the other really fun thing about Hanna's is that you get to see, if you watch from the start like I do, you get to see her start her journey of setting up her yarn dyeing business, which is really interesting to see. So she initially, it's really just about knitting but she talks about how she has these interests in other areas of crafting and fibre arts. So aside from sewing project bags and other sewing, she also talks- mentions spinning and dyeing. And then it just sort of progresses. She starts dying more. She goes to a market back in Sweden where she's from and tries to sell some yarn. And eventually starts her own Etsy store back here in Australia. So it's, it's really, it's really nice to sort of see that develop and grow. So that is Rose Hip Island and I am still in 2016 for that one. So I'll be watching for a while.
Stat Chat
The next segment is Stat Chat. So now that I am coming close to the end of this sock knitting journey, and after having watched, especially Aleksandra and Hanna who knit a lot of socks, I thought I'd focus my Stat Chat on socks. So I had a look through my Ravelry and prior to 2021 I had knit five pairs of socks. I am including in that, one pair that I started in, I think, 2018 and I finished in 2021. But because I finished it early in 2021 and I had knit a lot of it prior to 2021 I'm counting it in that five. So five socks pre 2021. And then I did five socks in 2021. And now with this sock KAL that I'm doing, I have, I'm doing five versions. I've nearly finished this one, so that's five socks in 2022 so far. So five, five and five. And it just seems to be more socks as time goes on. So that is 15 socks, pretty much 15 socks finished. And I think I am finally turning into a sock knitter which I never thought I would become but here we are.
Yeah, so. So these five. There are other socks that I have planned already to knit. But I think I do need a break from socks after I finish this one here. Like I said. I've kind of been racing towards the finish line for this because I've been pretty eager to get it done and sort of do a comparison of all of the different techniques and fits and everything. So yeah, I need to take a break but it has been really good having just this kind of simple knitting that I can do when I'm tired or I just don't want to think about it. So that's been really great.
So I, one thing: I never thought I'd really get into sock knitting. And then two: I never really thought I'd make vanilla socks, because I really liked doing socks with patterns. And I still do. I still prefer knitting socks with patterning. But this was a really good exercise, doing vanilla socks with all of the different sock techniques and trying, you know, trying to do all the customizations. And I feel like it's just given me a much better understanding of socks. So now when I go back to doing pattern socks, I should be able to bring that knowledge with me. I do, I do think I probably will do more vanilla socks but they're definitely not, I just don't find them as enjoyable as patterned socks.
And I've heard a lot of people say that they do vanilla socks in self striping because it keeps them engaged and it keeps that level of interest, it maintains that for them. But for me, I just don't, I really don't feel like it was enough. And it could be because, yeah, I've knit two socks in the same self striping colourway of this one, two socks in that same self striping colourway. So maybe, maybe that was just too much to do in the same yarn and, and wasn't enough to keep me interested. But I, yeah, I do think I will continue to do vanilla socks alongside doing patterned socks because, like I said, it is nice just having something that, that simple and that I can just easily pick up and go mostly without having to think about it. So yes, that is that.
Heart Full of Craft
Getting to the end of this episode now, I have to say that I am obviously (for me, obviously) most grateful for my newfound knitting community. I love that I am connecting with other knitters in Australia. I, when I have gone to their zoom knit nights, I am a pretty shy, introverted person so I don't say much and I'm still trying to get to know who everyone is. Not all of them have been to the knit nights that I have gone to. There have only been a handful at each one. But it was nice going to one after having watched a few and really being able to, like, recognise who I'm talking to. So that was lovely. And I'm excited about having all of their vlogs to go through and I'm excited about spending more time with them and getting to know them.
Thanks!
So yes, that brings us to the end of this episode of Bobolog. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate you spending your time here with me today. Yes. If you liked this episode, I would really appreciate it if you gave me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I would also love to hear from you if you have any feedback about this episode or about any of my previous episodes or if you have any comments about the things that I'm working on. If you want to share what you're working on, I would love to hear that too.
Have you, you know, have you ever tried to do custom fitting on socks? Or do you find that standard sort of socks work for you? I have always found that they've worked for me. I've never actually had an issue. But I'm finding it really fascinating to learn that they could fit better. And it will be really interesting to see how this works out. So if you've done the same thing or if you're curious about it, I'd love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or send me a message on Instagram or on, on Instagram or Ravelry. I am on Instagram @PlatypusKnitting and I am on Ravelry as Bobbie Olan which is my name. And yes that, that's all I have to share with you today. I'll see you in another couple of weeks.
Fare thee well.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Resources
Mentions
Knitting Comfortably by Carson Demers
Patterns (on Ravelry)
Star Illusion Blanket by Katie Ahlquist
August Sock KAL by Roxanne Richardson
Baby Lamb by Lorraine Pistorio
Daniel's Hat by Ysolda Teague
Yarns (from my LYS, or on Ravelry)
Scheepjes - Sweetheart Soft Brush, Soft Fun, Whirl Fine Art and Merino Soft
Wendy Happy
4 Seasons Superwash Merino
Lincraft Winter Warmth
Comments