Subject: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 13 Sep 03 - 04:53 PM Does anyone know of a site where you can get pictures of how to knit (English style)? I used to knit a bit, and have gotten past casting on, but none of the books I can find have any decent pictures about where one sticks the needles into the yarn. I want to start again, bought two big books which are useless -- they leave you hanging at exactly the wrong moment. You would think by now someone would have written a book that has a sequence of pictures and explanations, but none of the books I have checked (not just the two I bought) has anything remotely clear or explanatory. Just shows how hard it is to do a decent description of something as simple/complex as simple knitting. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Sorcha Date: 13 Sep 03 - 05:02 PM Try PMing Mario. I think he knits....and there are some threads over at Pip Freemans Annexe. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 13 Sep 03 - 05:16 PM I knit, Peter. I suggest that you could come here for a free lesson (you know where I live) OR I could loan you a how to knit book with pictures OR you could get yourself to a knitting store and ask someone there for help OR you could go to a library and look at for a knitting book - the Leaside library has lots of knitting books OR I could go with you to the Leaside or other library to look for a knitting book OR all of the above. ~black walnut |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Lyrical Lady Date: 13 Sep 03 - 05:25 PM |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Willa Date: 13 Sep 03 - 05:26 PM These sites might help; they do have pictures. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Lyrical Lady Date: 13 Sep 03 - 05:28 PM Oooops...wrong button!! I, too, am thinking of starting to knit again.. helps to keep the hands busy and off the cigs! If you come up with a site, please let me know as well. I think this would be very helpful! LL |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 13 Sep 03 - 06:10 PM Hi, b.w., I may take you up on this (actually I have no idea where you live). I have two damn knitting books with pictures, but they are no use when the going gets tough! yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 13 Sep 03 - 06:19 PM The DIY site is a classic example of my point: pictures too small, and it gives instructions like: "the right hand needle goes behind the left" which is completely useless. What one wants to know is exactly where to insert the right hand needle into the left hand loop. As I said, it shows how few people have any idea about how to give useful instructions in writing to novices. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 13 Sep 03 - 07:03 PM Peter, weren't you at my house for a house concert - Eileen McGann or David Francey? Does that ring a bell? I helped somebody with their knitting at the Eaglewood Festival. It was a teenage guy knitting beside his mother who was a new knitter. I think that learning with someone, 3D in real life with real needles, is so much easier than trying to learn from a diagram. ~b.w. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: akenaton Date: 13 Sep 03 - 07:30 PM Amos is apparently very good at the old plain and purl. Ake... |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Liz the Squeak Date: 13 Sep 03 - 07:51 PM What exactly do you need help with - plain? Purl?? Whatever??? Have you got past knitting a single row without making or losing any yet? LTS |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Kim C Date: 13 Sep 03 - 11:27 PM The Readers Digest Guide to Knitting is very good... also a little spiral-bound book called the Knitter's Companion. I think there's also a knitting web ring... you may be able to find something there. I don't know offhand a home page for it but I'm sure you could search on the Almighty Google. Also try the Knitting & Crochet Guild of America, or the Craft Yarn Council websites. Again, I don't know the addresses offhand, but a search ought to bring them right up. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Amos Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:10 AM Ake, I? Knit? Surely not. If I have slipped as much as one stitch, it was in dreamtime far from this mortal coil. I suppose you just said that to needle me, eh? I doubt they would even let me through the Purley Gates.... A |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Barry Finn Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:21 AM Hi Peter, give MMario shout. He does some fine, fine work in this area. Barry |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:52 AM I bought a lovely cotton shawl that MMario made, but it's crochet, not knit. Peter, are you right handed? Then the needle in your right hand has the cast-on stitches, and as you transact each new stitch, it slides onto the left needle. Stick the left needle into the material on the bottom side of the right needle. Pay attention to the stitch that is (should be) closest to the right needle's point under your index finger. Knit and purl are simple. It has been many years, but I think knit when you pick up the new loop (through the stitch under your index finger) from the far side of the needle and slide it onto the left. Purl is when you poke the left needle through from the outside and pick up the yarn from the inside of the right needle. If you want a solid "knit" side in the finished material then you have to knit all of the stitches off of one needle onto the other, and alternate each row as knit or purl. Otherwise you end up with distinct raised and recessed rows. Is this too simplified? Ignore it if so. I was just trying to see if I could describe it clearly. I understood what I was saying, if that's any measure. :-) SRS |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,Wyrd Sister Date: 14 Sep 03 - 08:21 AM SRS, are you American? (which explains everything)If not, then you certainly knit back-handed. MY cast-on stitches have always travelled from left needle to right! |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 14 Sep 03 - 09:09 AM Mine too. Left to right. ~b.w. (Canadian) |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 14 Sep 03 - 09:34 AM (In knitting, not in politics). ~b.w. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 14 Sep 03 - 11:13 AM Hi b.w., I do remember the concert very well (Eileen McGann) and had a wonderful time. No idea how I got there, or away. Actually, it is very difficult to describe (I was aware of that when I made my points) in words, and pictures have to be very synched. I imagine video is better, but as anyone knows who has bought an instrument video, they can be even more frustrating. Not to pick on Stilly River Sage but "Stick the left needle into the material on the bottom side of the right needle," doesn't say whether the needle goes in front of the loop first then back, or under the loop or what. And that is not Stilly River Sage's fault -- I have not set out the problem as I see it, nor set up the problem in such a way that a set of instructions would be helpful. I didn't say that the way I learned (and forgot) was to have the "old stitches" in the left hand needle, and the new ones on the right, and so on. I find it fascinating that it is so hard to speak clearly about something that a few seconds with an expert would clear up. I only waste people's time with this because I find exactly the same phenomenon with learning to play the guitar!!! yours (with knitted brow) Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Sep 03 - 11:37 AM Ambidexterous. And this is how my mother knitted. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:11 PM Later. Another cup of tea, thinking about knitting. . .I think Mom taught herself to knit--it worked, as she did some very involved projects. My knitting was only sporadic and based on mimicry, so Peter, you may have to turn the description to make it line up with the photos you're looking at. SRS |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:43 PM I like to knit 2 colours with one in each hand. It's a great old traditional way to do it. You knit in a round (with steeks) and the right side always faces forward. Then you cut the steeks to make armholes and neckholes. We won't do that right away, though, Peter. I only mention it in that it reminds me of the upcoming Ontario election, except that in the election, all of the faces are backwards. ~b.w. (reptilian kitten and buffy-lover) |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: harpgirl Date: 14 Sep 03 - 01:39 PM ...I don't know about you Peter...I think you should learn how to tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue! |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 14 Sep 03 - 02:26 PM Reminds me of a high school teacher friend of mine who a week or so ago was sitting in the cafeteria and asked one of his grade 9 girls what the fascination with having your tongue pierced was. She said, oh its great for oral sex, boys really love it. He spewed his coffee. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 14 Sep 03 - 02:54 PM Look, Peter how hard can this be? Stick the needle into the loop 1)from below and 2) right next to the other needle. Next wrap the yarn around the point and pull the new stuff through. Repeat indefinitely. If you can't get this from books, then you need to find someone who knits who will show you "hands on." Nothing to be ashamed of there. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,Duckboots Date: 14 Sep 03 - 03:25 PM I can help you with this Peter, bring your wool and knitting needles the next time you come over. Heather |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: AllisonA(Animaterra) Date: 14 Sep 03 - 06:50 PM What are the books that are no help? (BTW I second the Knitters Companion. Also, Knitting Without Tears (I forget the author) |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 15 Sep 03 - 08:16 AM Thanks Heather, don't think I won't. Can't remember the titles of the books (I am in the wrong office). One is Beginning Knitting, another is Everything Knitting, and the third is something like Knitting for Life. I checked out the Knitters Companion, but the directions were obscure (So what else is new). All these books are great, I am sure, once you get past stage one. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:46 AM Take up the offers to have some one show you, it's one of those things that you either can or can't learn from books depending on how your mind works -- not an insult, just an observation on how people process information. If your nearby 'Catter's schedules don't fit with your timetable, how 'bout stopping by the coffee hour at a local house of worship or old age home, or some other place haunted by elderly women. I'm sure one (or more) of them would be delighted to help you. You'd learn have the fun of learning, they'd have the joy of teaching, and you both would have a new friend. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,Wyrd Sister Date: 15 Sep 03 - 02:19 PM Stilly River- whatever works! I THINK I remember a friend, who was from the Shetland Isles (N UK, nearer Oslo than London) telling me that the women there knitted the beautiful traditional patterns by knitting backwards and forwards. Does anyone have any info on this? Sounds like something you could do. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,Penny S. (cookieless) Date: 15 Sep 03 - 06:06 PM Wyrd Sister, I may have a book which refers to Shetland knitting, the history of - unfortunately it is at the other end of my spare room, behind a number of largish objects. I will look for it when I can, and get back. If not, my mother's collection may include something, and I'll look when I visit Dad next. The author I'm thinking of is Mary Thomas, if anyone else has anything by her. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Mrs.Duck Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:17 PM Most of the knitting done up there was on three needles using double pointed kneedles and a padded belt with holes in it. Much like using a circular needle the knitting is always done from the right side. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: harpgirl Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:32 PM I can attest to how right-brained and therefore soothing knitting can be, having recently started knitting again after a thirty five year hiatus. Shetland knitting sounds difficult but interesting! My mother taught me the basics. She is one of those individuals that can knit almost anything without even much of a pattern. I did not inherit that gift. She still knits up a storm at age 79. Her last stroke interefered with some of her bridge playing ability but not her knitting ability! |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Liz the Squeak Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:34 AM In my family, it was always the grandmother who passed on her skills. Consequently it ran in generations. My great grandmother knitted but couldn't sew a straight seam to save her life. Her daughter, my grandmother, could sew but not knit. My mother was one of those infuriating women who could knit all day and every day, without a pattern and apparently whilst watching endless mindless programmes on TV. I can sew almost anything wearable, but knitting is restricted to small squares, frequent referal to the pattern (even for stocking stitch!) and more foul language than my forebears (well, three of them, anyway) ever knew! I'm trying to teach Bratling to do both. Her control skills are there, but she has the concentration of a vacant butterfly. Consequently, she has a dolls scarf that is sort of zig zaggy and has taken 8 months to get to 8 inches. LTS |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,MMario Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:24 AM Peter - try http://www.valleycafe.com/knitting/ click
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Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:28 PM WOW!!! That is the coolest thing, MMario!!! Well done!!! ~b.w. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,MMario Date: 16 Sep 03 - 04:30 PM the forum at http://www.pagebypage.com is also very helpful. and they have a chat room you can request live help from! |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: katlaughing Date: 16 Sep 03 - 04:50 PM FWIW, I'm in the US and learned from my grandma with input from my mom and big sister. We've always done it left to right as Wyrd Sister noted.:-) Ambi would be too kewl and the Shetland Islands stuff sounds relaly interesting. I personally prefer crocheting. Great thread! |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Burke Date: 16 Sep 03 - 07:04 PM MMario's site is cool, but it's continental style & may not be what you want to learn. The knitting that way is easy, but I never could get the purls down. I'm also surprised at the demo pushing the finger against the end of the needle when finishing the stitch. That is completely unnecessary. A personal demo is your best bet. I have the Reader's Digest book & love it. It has lots of information on adapting & design. It also shows different ways of casting on & off, increases, decreases, etc. with pictures so you can decide which method suits the look you want. Lots of knitting instructions are written row by row, this is straighforward, but not much good if you loose count or otherwise make a mistake. Try to break the patterns down into their component parts & you'll soon be able to see what you need to do next without counting. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:49 PM I almost bought the Reader's Digest book but it was too expensive! I think I will stay away from continental knitting for awhile. I am a lefty, and someone said it would be best to do that, and I did that for a few weeks, and then shifted over to English normal right hand style, and that worked o.k. -- but then when I stopped and didn't start again for three years, I completely lost both methods (They may have interfered with each other, typical). yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:32 PM Go to the library! Check out a book or three! Maybe they have the Readers Digest book there. Get it through Interlibrary Loan. (We're all so busy looking for everything online, but like knitting itself, go back to the basics and visit the local bibliotech!) :-) |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: LadyJean Date: 17 Sep 03 - 01:11 AM Try the "Leasure Arts Knitting Book". I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this, since I'm an auditory learner, but it does explain things clearly, and there are plenty of nice, big, pictures. A friend reccomends "Knitting for Dummies". But the Leisure Arts book is fairly reasonable. If the people who make Valium and Prozac ever find out about knitting, they'll have it banned. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 17 Sep 03 - 07:29 AM I was just taken by the animation, Burke. I still get excited by inventions like the steam iron. ~b.w. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: KathWestra Date: 17 Sep 03 - 12:48 PM Jennifer Woods (her Mudcat handle is KnitPick) is an extraordinarily good knitter who is never seen around these parts (Washington, DC environs) without knitting needles and yarn. She also has one of the largest libraries of knitting books known to humankind, and spends a number of hours every week working at a yarn store. I'm hoping she'll weigh in on the subject of clear instructions. Oh, and she's also a lefty--dextrously speaking, so maybe she can give you some tips, Peter. KW |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 18 Sep 03 - 08:28 AM Continuing thanks. yours, Peter T. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: GUEST,kendra Date: 18 Sep 03 - 11:00 PM as delightful as it is to knit...the sculptural quality of crocheting comes to mind |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 22 Sep 03 - 09:02 AM Peter is an excellent student. A+ for knit one, purl one. ~b.w. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Peter T. Date: 22 Sep 03 - 10:58 AM She got in first! B.W. and I had a fine time, sitting out in her yard, watching me bumble through; but I think I can see, far off in the distance, beneath the fog of my ineptitude, something akin to knitting beckoning. I bow in her direction. I tried to tempt her into making a harp cosy, but I don't think she bit. yours, Peter |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: black walnut Date: 22 Sep 03 - 12:45 PM Before you know it, Peter, you'll be sittin' in a boat, knitting banjo cozies. ~b.w. |
Subject: RE: Help with my knitting! From: Morticia Date: 22 Sep 03 - 02:32 PM so now you have the basics , you might be wanting a look at this? http://knitting.about.com/library/blstitches.htm |
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