Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts

Saturday, June 30, 2012

How to Knit Entrelac: An Entrelac Tutorial

At long last, here is the tutorial on Entrelac!  Below you will find a printable guide, with which you can knit a small sample of entrelac fabric.  When you feel comfortable with entrelac, you can use the directions here to create your own project.  Just substitute the number of stitches in the sample for however many stitches you want to use.

There is also a video demonstrating the small sample you can knit with the entrelac guide.  The video is in two parts, each about half an hour long.  I show the sample knit from cast on to bind off - how to knit the base or foundation triangles, the right side triangles/rectangles, the left triangles and wrong side rectangles, and finally the bind off triangles.

This tutorial is for knitting entrelac flat.  I also have a tutorial for Seamless Entrelac / Entrelac in the Round HERE.



This tutorial is just bare bones entrelac; there are many creative ways to expand on the basic entrelac I show you here.  As I mention in the guide, there are a couple of books on Entrelac that I know of (the first one I have), and a Craftsy class on Entrelac.  Here are the links:


Entrelac: The Essential Guide to Interlace Knitting


HERE is the class on Craftsy, taught by Gwen Bortner








And here are the two videos:



Wednesday, June 27, 2012

How to Knit Bobbles



I have recently started redoing all of my old videos.  Bobbles is one of those videos.  It was long and extremely boring, on top of being pretty hard to see.  This new video is still a tad on the long side, but at least now it is very clear!  And instead of written instructions scrolling through the video, I am putting them up here.  Hope everyone likes the new bobble video!


There are no set rules for bobbles, really.  You can make as many as you want, big or small, different colors (as in the photo above), and they can be placed anywhere you like.  If you are following a pattern, it will undoubtedly tell you where to place the bobbles, and how to make them.  

Below are a few ways I know to make bobbles, and I am sure there are more methods floating around out there. They all have a slightly different look, but the method of making them is really the same : increase into the next stitch, turn and purl, turn and knit, decrease.  And there is your bobble.  The typical bobble is 5 stitches, but you are free to experiment.  The video demonstrates stockinette fabric and bobbles, but you can really do anything with them.  Maybe garter fabric with a stockinette bobble, or the other way around.  Why not a seed stitch bobble?  Use bobbles as buttons.  Your only limitation is your imagination.

Decide where you want a bobble.  Into the next stitch, increase using any of the following methods:

1) K1, P1, K1, P1, K1

2) K1, YO, K1, YO, K1

3) KFL, KBL, KFL, KBL, KFL (Knit front/back loop)

Then, turn your work and purl those same five stitches.  Turn again and knit.  You can stop here, or purl/knit again.  The more times you do this, the puffier your bobble will be.

Now, you need to decrease back to one stitch, using any of the following methods:

1) Pass second stitch over first, pass third stitch over first, etc. until all extra stitches have been passed over the first

2) After you have purled and are ready to knit the stitches : K2tog, K1, K2tog, then pass the two remaining stitches over the first

3) Pass the second and third over the first together, then pass the fourth and fifth together over the first

4) Once you have purled/knit as many times as you like, continue knitting to the end of your row.  You will make your decreases on the wrong side of the fabric.  When you come to the bobble, simply purl all of the extra stitches together.  Obviously, this could become difficult if you have chosen to use more than five stitches for your bobble.  I wouldn't recommend this decrease for more than five stitches.  


And of course, here is the video!  Happy Knitting and Enjoy!








Friday, June 22, 2012

New Knitting Videos and Tutorial

Happy Friday everyone!  For those who don't follow me on Facebook, or maybe just didn't see the post, I have decided to redo all of my old knitting videos.  I have been making how-to videos since early 2008.  It is going to take a while to get them all done!  At the beginning, I only had a digital camera to record with.  The camera would record for 3 minutes and then stop.  So in addition to poor quality video, there were many stops and starts in the videos.  Not long ago, I got a real video camera! I am now able to record clear, HD videos from start to finish.  If you are familiar with my videos, I'm sure you noticed the difference!  I have also been playing around with different editing music, etc. on the videos trying to decide what I like best.  I think I finally have a format that works well and most people seem to like.  I will be adding these videos on the weekends, along with the regular stitch videos that I do.

So.  I have added a new tab to the top of the blog which will have links to all of my videos.  Not all of them are available right now.  It is going to take time for me to redo everything; I will be adding the links as I go.  The videos are not being done in any particular order.   Also, all of the stitch pattern videos I have done in the past will be going into a new tab on The Weekly Stitch.

I have also finished my entrelac project that I will be giving away as a free pattern to go with the tutorial.  I hope to have that up this weekend.

Hope everyone likes the new videos and tutorial.  Thanks for visiting my blogs.  Happy Knitting!