As Pandora's Needles Click Away

How to Make Your Own Sock Blockers

Pandoraknits — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:20:24 GMT

Have you ever gotten a sock done, only to find that you don't have the correct size sock blockers for it? Or have you simply discovered that $40 for a nice pair of wooden ones is just not in the cards at this time?

You can make your own sock blockers with a few minor ingredients, and things that you most likely already have, being a knitter.

You will need:

-A plastic placemat (a cheapo one from Target will do, one without an edge)

-T-pins (you do block your items, don't you?)

-craft scissors (the ones NOT for fabric cutting or yarn cutting)

-a machine made sock in the correct size that you don't care much about (surely there is still one in your drawers somewhere...)

-a permanent marker

-an emery board

To begin:

Lay your placemat out on the work surface, and pin your machine made sock to it, paying attention to keep the sock perfectly flat. You will most likely need to kid-proof the area, as some of the cutting process can be a little...sharp.

Grab your T-pins and your machine sock that you don't care about, and lay it on the placemat. You will be pinning the sock to the placemat with the T-pins, in order to form an outline of what your sock blockers need to look like.

Once it is pinned SECURELY, you will trace around the sock with a permanent marker. This is your stencil. If you get permanent marker on it...well, that's why we want you to use a sock you don't care about.

Now that you have your template for the first blocker traced out, grab those craft scissors and carefully cut out your blocker. You will want to cut inside the lines of the blocker, so that they don't end up bigger than the intended socks.

Now that you have one sock blocker cut out, you can use it to trace the next one. Make sure you have that first blocker at the exact dimensions you need, and then trace it onto the remaining placemat piece.

Cut out the second one, and now you have a pair! You aren't done yet, however. You will need to clean up those edges with the emery board, because I know you do not want to snag a nice handknit sock on a sharp edge! All you need to do is file the edges so that they are slightly rounded and won't snag on any yarn-y goodness.

After the filing, you will want to test your blocker on that sock-you-don't-care-about so that you can make sure there are no missed rough edges.

Once you are done, give your blockers a rinse to get the file shavings off of them, and put them in a box for safe-keeping.

Total cost for this project: $3 and 20 minutes of time, on the assumption you have t-pins and scissors already.

Happy blocking!

Coming Soon: Make your own sock bags

Pandoraknits — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:23:55 GMT

I have the fabric. I just need to get the step by step written instructions done and get the pictures going. Stay tuned!

How to Finish those Looming Knitting Projects

Pandoraknits — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:32:10 GMT

It is often at the point when you have the back and a sleeve of a sweater done that you do not wish to work anymore upon it. You get the itch to cast on something else. You know that you shouldn't, so instead, all of your projects languish on your needles for weeks, even months with nary a thought in their direction.

The solution? Get creative with your work. Let's say that you are working on the garter stitch scarf from hell, and would really like to work on some socks instead.

First, knitting is a pleasure hobby. Go ahead and cast on those socks, but also lay down the terms of agreement in order to get your scarf of doom done.

Rule #1: Work twice as much on the scarf as you do on the socks. Set an egg timer, so if you have 15 minutes to knit, work 10 minutes on that scarf, "I will work until the egg timer goes off, then I will switch to my other project" and then work 5 on the socks.

Rule #2: Carve out time every night for working on the scarf. You can easily set aside 10 to 20 minutes every night before bed to work on the scarf that needs to be done for little Tommy's birthday.

Rule #3: If you can, grab some audio books from your local library, put them on your mp3 player of choice, and knit for a few chapters. At this time, that garter stitch scarf is an easy project that doesn't really require concentration, and you can be entertained while you work.

Rule #4: Set up a reward program. Let's say that there is some uber soft squooshy Jade Sapphire cashmere that you want to make mitts out of, but wouldn't normally buy it for yourself. Turn your garter stitch scarf into a pay as you go project. Let's say you pay yourself $2 into a jar for every 4 inches you get done on that scarf. By the time you reach the 4 feet that you need for a passable scarf, you will have $12 towards that cashmere loveliness.

Rule #5: Promise yourself that you will recognize that any progress on that scarf is good progress, and that you will work every day on it, even if it is only for a few minutes.

All you need to do is recognize that your time is valuable and that you need a reward system to get those looming projects done. Since garter stitch is relatively mindless, you can do it anywhere. If you happen to be working on a sweater with charts that are the size of Texas, you can always use the time before bed to work on it.

And reward yourself for your work. New yarn is always a motivation to get other stuff in the stash done. :)

How to Use Handknits to Help Fluffy

Pandoraknits — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:51:38 GMT

Are you trying to clean out those old swatches that have been sitting in a box?

I just started looking into giving my knits to Humane Societies around my location, and it appears that the only requirement is that it be washable. So all that superwash wool that I have been sitting on has now been given a purpose.

Most donations are accepted happily, and most of these animals, especially the dogs, really need to have something soft to snuggle in the kennels.

All you need to do is grab those swatches, decide how many will give you a decent sized blanket, and sew them up. This gives a nice patchwork look, and the animals of course, don't care what it looks like.

You will have to check with your local Humane Society to see if there are any size requirements, or if specific things are needed, With Autumn and Winter coming, wouldn't you feel better knowing that you made a difference with an animal that is still up for adoption?

Please donate.

How to Determine Yardage Requirements

Pandoraknits — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:22:44 GMT

Have you ever gotten 2 sleeves away from finishing that sweater, only to discover that you don't have enough yarn? Have you made late night phone calls to your LYS looking for a dye lot that they sold out of yonks ago?

While the current projects cannot be helped, there is still a way to prevent future heartbreak. It does require that you knit a swatch, though, so be warned.

You will need:

-a scale that can measure to within tenths of a gram (or pound)

-a ball of your chosen yarn

-a line counter/ yardage counter

To begin, wind your ball into a center pull ball while using your yardage counter. After you have wound your ball into a center pull ball, make note of the yardage measured and then weight it. I have found that MOST of the time, the weight on the ball band is not, in fact, the weight of the actual ball. This gives you the ratio you need to determine your yardage needed.

Let's say that Yarn Q weighed in at 1.2 grams and that the yardage measured for the ball was 65 yds. Divide the yardage by the number of grams and you get the ratio that is necessary. Yarn Q's yardage per gram is 54.166 yards per gram, or 65/1.2. Also check the ball band to see what they say is the approximate yardage. In Yarn Q's case. it says that there is approximately 60 yards per ball.

When you do your swatch in the pattern, measure the weight of the ball again after you have detached your swatch. Let's say that the ball now weighs .99 grams. This means that you used .3 grams of the ball knitting that swatch. To determine how many yards you used to knit your swatch, you simply use the yardage per gram that you determined before, and plug it into this formula:

Yards X

------------ * ----------------------------

Gram grams used in swatch

Where X equals the number of yards used in swatch

54.166 X

----------- * ------------

1 .3

X= 16.2498

For those of you who remember algebra, you need to multiply the known yards by the grams used, then divide by 1 (the number of grams in the ratio)

In our example, this would be 54.166/1 times X/.3 which, we multiply known yards 54.166 by the grams used .3 (which equals 16.2498) and then divide that number by 1, and you get that you used 16.2498 yards of your ball to knit that swatch.

Go back and look at the pattern. How many square inches are required for each side of your sweater? And how many square inches were in your swatch? Let's say that the swatch was 5 inches by 5 inches, or 25 square inches total. If the sweater pattern has the schematics that tell you the length and width of the pattern, and the front and back are both equal, you can simply multiply the length and width to get the total square inches, and then multiply by 2 to get the square inches needed for both front and back. Then do the same thing for the sleeves. Let's say that the height of the sweater is 27 inches, and that the width at the widest point is 17 inches. That means one side of our sweater requires 459 square inches, so the front and back together would require 918 square inches of fabric. And that the sleeves were 15 inches long, and 7 inches wide. For two sleeves, it requires [15 * 7 * 2] or 210 square inches total.

So far, we figured out that our swatch was 25 square inches and took 16.2498 yards to knit, and the sweater itself requires 1128 square inches {918+210) of fabric. All we need to do is some more algebra to determine the total y ardage. Multiply the sweater square inches by the swatch yardage used, and then divide by the swatch inches. This tells you that you need 733.19 yards in order to knit the 1128 square inches for your sweater.

Now go back at look at the yardage per gram ratio. This is the last bit of math you'll need to do. Divide the total number of yards required for your sweater by the number of yards per gram. This tells you that you will need at least 13.536 grams of your yarn in order to knit up that sweater.

Swatch inches Sweater inches

---------------- * -------------------

Swatch yards Y

Where Y equals the yardage required for the sweater

25 1128

---------- * --------------

16.2498 Y

Y=733.19

Simply go back and look at your ball bands, and then you can figure out the number of balls needed. The chosed yarn said that there was approximately 60 yards per ball, and we neededd 733.19 yards total, so that means we need about 12 balls of yarn. Congratulations, you have just determined the number of yards needed and also the number of balls needed for your pattern.

Now as you knit, you know all the weights needed to finish each part of the sweater, so when you get to the sleeves, you can simply weight the yarn you have left to determine if there is enough, and then knit merrily away, knowing you are safe.

Of course, due to the possibility that the gauge goddesses will try to mess with you, always buy one extra ball of your yarn, in the same dye lot, just to be safe...

How to Substitute Different Weight Yarns

Pandoraknits — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:30:27 GMT

Many times you love a pattern, but hate the yarn they chose. Now, we can't blame the designers for choosing an ugly yarn (often it is not their choice) or a weight that only looks good on a bulldog with a bag over its head (bulky weight yarn on anyone bigger than a twig??) So we just need to make some adjustments to the pattern to make it useable with our yarn of choice. Now go knit that swatch!

There are many tutorials for changing yarns of the same weight, which only involves looking for yarns with the same stitches per inch. The issue, however, is when you decide that a pattern would look better in a fingering weight yarn, versus the worsted weight called for in the pattern, or better in a bulky weight instead of a cobweb laceweight yarn.

My example is completely made up, with a pattern that requires worsted weight yarn, and I want to use a fingering weight. Look at your pattern. Let's say that you need a yarn in worsted weight, that gets 18 sts per 4 inches, or 4.5 stiches per inch. The yarn I have chosen is a fingering weight, so I need to knit a swatch with it to determine the how to adjust the pattern.

Let's say that I get 6 stitches per inch with my fingering weight replacement yarn. All you need to do is divide the stitches for replacement yarn by the stitch gauge in the pattern, and this gives you the factor to multiply the stitch counts by in order to create the pattern with your new yarn. In this case, my factor is 1.33, so everytime in the pattern there is a stitch count, simply multply that count by 1.333 and you will get the correct number of stitches to cast on.

In order to get the correct row gauge, you would divide the replacement yarn row gauge by the patter row gauge. If I got 8 rows per inch with my swatch, then I would know to divide 8 by the required number of rows in the pattern, which, in this case, also ends up being 1.333. Chances are, you will get a number with a decimal.

Now that I have this information, I can go through and write the correct numbers down on the photocopy of the pattern and then start knitting merrily away.

And always write these factors and the yarn used into a notebook for future reference, as well as save that swatch.