Cast on Baby

just a little Hi from me, I'm currently working like crazy, in German I would say I don't know where my head is, I guess you know what I mean. 

A few days ago a friend send my a link to a video I thought I'd share today:

 

 love it! so fun and so true! I hesitate to cast on right now, I feel the need to finish something else first.

 how about you? ♥

viking knitting

Have you heard of viking knitting before? Well, I haven't. If you'd asked me I'd suggested something like those chain mailles shirt that are formed with lots and lots of single rings that are sort of woven into a "fabric". But it turns out that viking knitting or trichinopoly as it is called as well is a lot more like "real" knitting, I found these two videos in my youtube suggestions area and thought I'd share as I really like the formed necklaces and bracelets.

How to viking knit:
How to finish viking knit:

I will need to try this soon, how about you?

♥

a little haul

I've been a little nuts last week. After buying a beaded crochet necklace a few weeks ago to see if I like how they wear and feel and look, I went to buy everything I needed to crochet my own beaded necklaces...

I ordered "a few" seed beads, all of them Toho ones, as they come in sooooo many colors! With over 400 colors to choose from I couldn't decide at all, I knew I wanted to make a classic pearly white one and a pink one that's pink but doesn't scream into your face. Don't really know how all the other colors got into the package. Of course I needed closures and yarn too. And while shopping for the latter I also found the most gorgeous buttons!

of course I tried bead crocheting as soon as I got home

I think I'm adding something to my crafty hobby. Do you go crazy too when shopping for your hobby?

♥

Twist Collective Fall 2012

the new issue is finally out!

I like the Praline, Queen Bee and Horatio & Oren.

How about you?

♥

video tutorial: icord CO and seams

Crescent shaped shawl are started in the middle of the inner circle and I often felt like this inner seamline was to tight. The stitches are stretched to the max when worn and depending on the yarn you use it could feel very harsh against skin. That's why I felt like a softer seamline would also make wearing the shawl make more comfortable. I simply added one row of stitches the seam-stitches by using the i-cord method and the result is smooshy and soft.

How do you do it?, basically you cast on a short i-cord then yarn over and continue on the other side of the i-cord, then work back and forth.
Most crescent shaped shawls use a stitch repeat of (k2, yo, pattern, yo, k2) resp. (k2, kyok, pattern, kyok, k2) as side stitches. I just substituted this "k2" stitches for the i-cord brim which evolves from the i-cord cast on. And made three i-cord rows instead of the classic two rows (right and wrong side). In the video below I take you through the single steps. I hope you find it helpful:

do you make shawls as well? which shape is your favorite? do you knit at all?
most of my readers probably came here for my amigurumi, so did you find it helpful?

♥

video making...

... is so weird. First I tried with voice BUT do you remember back in school when your teacher asked you to make a "radio play" or something alike? and you were shocked to hear your own voice? I still feel like that so I cancelled the tone.

But it's not only the tone, also watching my hands, super big, on the screen, knitting, it's so weird as well. Like an outer body experience, or something like that, weirdo!

What am I filming? a little video tutorial for the cast on I talked about in my last post. A side effect is, that now that I finally overcome my "fear" of the camera other videos will follow. I plan quite a few crochet tutorials as well, some will be additions to existing tutorials, a video sometimes explains better than a couple of pictures.

Do you make videos as well? are you on youtube? Please link to them below, if you want to share

♥

a little bit knitting

the test crocheters for Wesley are doing great so far and I'm sure I will be able to upload the pattern next week. Keep your eyes open :) as I also will have a 50% discount on it the first two weeks after introduction.

________

in the meantime I needed to decide between finishing a cardigan and waking it from its beauty sleep or casting on something new. A new summery shawl to be precise. And startitis won, I casted on. *sigh*

Casting on also included some experimenting. I love the "new" shawl shape that is rounded but not like half a circle but something between that and a classic scarf. Last year I made Charlize:

And even though I loved making it I hated the "side seam" which is the inner seam in the finished piece. It's soooo stretched that it gets hard and feels like cutting into my skin. I asked on ravelry and it seamed like I was the only one?

I ended up adding a crochet edge to this seam which made it softer but couldn't be the best solution. So now I'm trying some things to add stitches to the seam to make it stretch a little less and therefore softer:

a "i-cord-cast-on" with a kyok in the middle on the left picture and an "i-cord-cast-on" with a simple yo on the right picture

Am I really the only one feeling this way about shawl edges?

♥