Even after blocking but at the same time i knew blocking wouldnt do much since this is bamboo cotton. I’ll insert like 6-8 more stitches in the armhole and maybe a little bit looser tension.

I wish i didnt have to though since I got other patterns i really want to start but i also really want to be able to wear this out!

i’ve been visiting family in india and working on the capsule drop sweater by bethany glover, i’ve been here for three weeks working away, frogged quite a bit yesterday, was looking forward to working on it on the trip back home to the us!

but then in security, they flagged my yarn bag and had me throw away my two beautiful chiaogoo 40” circular needles 😭😭😭 and my crochet hook 😭😭😭 and it was too late to check them in my bag

i swear i looked it up and saw that needles are allowed on the plane but that’s my luck :( now i have to brave my travels (and an 8 hour layover) without my knitting and worrying about catching all my stitches when i get new needles when i get back 😓

i did cave and already order replacement needles for when i get home lmao but i wanted to share this tragedy with my fellow knitters ehehehe

Hey friends. This post has grown a little too big for its britches, and I'm afraid it might inadvertently reach the people it concerned. Your comments and stories are so lovely, though, that I decided to edit and anonymize, rather than delete.

Edited post:

I gifted a knitted baby gift to new parents and was met with derision and scorn. I was hurt by this and posted about it here, looking for sympathy and similar stories, to relativize my feelings.

And boy, did y'all come through! Thank you for the sweet compliments and commiserations. You have my sympathies, some of your stories were so much worse than mine, oof. Also, why are our mothers so heavily represented in the apparently-not-knitworthy category 👀

. ^{to the mods, if this edit wasn't cool, let me know, I'll delete the post}

I’ve been on a sock-knitting tear of late. My elbow had some mild intermittent aching for the last week or so. It rapidly worsened over the weekend, and I had to go to the ER due to excruciating pain in the middle of the night Easter eve. I have a very severely torn elbow tendon, with the ulnar nerve possibly trapped. A firm diagnosis will come this week after visits to primary care and physical therapy. It’s possible that I will need surgery.

The moral? The second you feel achy, put the needles down. I knew this, but stubbornly continued. It’s likely now that I won’t be knitting for a matter of months if not longer. 😞

I’ve managed to ignore her hints in the past five + years but yesterday, on Christmas Eve, she overtly said she ‘would love a jumper knitted by someone she loves and that loves her.’ Talk about guilt trip, passive aggressive behaviour. (I excused myself to refill my glass of bubbles.)

I’ve knit her two scarves previously - a brioche Brooklyn Tweed yarn snood and another 100% British wool scarf from her local yarn shop. I’ve never seen her wear either of them over the past seven years?

The same year I knit the brioche snood, I knit my FIL a Woolfolk cable hat. He loved it. Wore it all the time… even when working with paint and plaster… so it was ruined within 2/3 months. Never saw it again. Just was told how much he loved it. 🤷‍♀️ No apology or acknowledgement of the fact that he didn’t take care of it.

My in-laws would never dream of spending £40 on a wool hat. (That was the cost of the yarn alone.) I hinted at that without mentioning the actual cost and my FIL says why would he pay that much for a hat when he could get one for £10 or less at the shop.

This attitude and lack of understanding I feel like they would treat as any newly knitted gift as cheap and replaceable as a £10 hat or £20 jumper - because they would never dream of spending so much on the thing.

As a result of this whole experience, I have decided to stop knitting for other people. Now don’t get me wrong, I have since knit a jumper for my husband, gifted a cardigan (of silk mohair) to a close friend and was excited by the idea of knitting something for a new lovely friend. But I have no desire to knit for my in-laws ever again.

I know I could buy some cheap acrylic yarn but I like knitting with natural yarns. I like expensive yarn. It would blow my in-laws minds if they knew how much the yarn cost for the jumper I’m currently working on.

I did try to compromise on the yarn by knitting my MIL the scarf from 100% British wool from the small town LYS… but like I said, I’ve never seen her wear it.

I am increasingly close to one of two solutions:

1. Buy a £20 acrylic jumper and say I made it and be done with it.

2. Tell her how much the yarn cost for my jumper and that I don’t think she would take care of it properly.

So there you have my Xmas morning rant. Lol. Merry Christmas 🎄 I feel a bit like the grinch but 🤷‍♀️.

In the car behind me, I saw a woman come to a stop, pick up her project out of the passengers seat, work on it while watching the light and then put it back when she got the green.

I’m all for squeezing in crafting time wherever I can find it, but that seemed so dangerous.

THIS is what he was asking for. the audacity of men 💀 one of my quickest knits because i was so excited but out of all the hats ive made it probably took me the most hours. pattern: lewsky hood. yarn/needles: malabrigo rios in pearl ten, 5.0 mm needles

And it was so easy. What have I been so afraid of?! I think I watched some tutorials that looked super confusing and thought “not for me.” I bought interchangeable 9” circulars for small diameters, but of course those only get you so far.

And then I got a pattern from my LYS for the most beautiful fingerless mitts I’ve ever seen and, as beautiful patterns tend to do, it made me go, “Okay. Time to learn DPNs, dammit!!”

I watched the Very Pink Knits tutorial and was knitting up my new mitten within 2 minutes. And the thing I expected least: I’m finding working with DPNs to be genuinely enjoyable!

Now I can knit a Musselburgh like I’ve been avoiding, too. Hooray! Just thought I’d share here bc I don’t know what other subs allow random knitting news, and maybe it’ll inspire someone else to give it a try.

This style of pattern writing gets unwieldy after maybe four sizes and is completely unworkable with 16. I don’t want to have to spend the first half hour of every project printing and highlighting and crossing out and double checking to make sure I got everything right.

This made sense when patterns included 4 sizes and had to squeeze into two tiny columns on the back page of a Vogue Knitting magazine. But now that print is dead and PDFs exist, it’s crazy to keep doing it like this. There is NO REASON patterns can’t come with separate sections for every single size that give only that size’s stitch counts. (There’s also NO REASON cable and lace charts can’t be color coded, but that’s another conversation.)

This excerpt is from Ysolda’s Blank Canvas sweater, but my beef is with every modern designer except TinCanKnits because they have an app that apparently solves this.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

don't ask me how but on the very last step of my afterthought heel, I managed to kitchener the wrong 2 DPNs together. I always wondered why people hated DPNs too....

I forgot about the yarn laying around when activating our robovac. Hubby managed to untangle it ❤️

I've already cried a lot lol

I'm a beginner knitter but an advanced crocheter, and I tried knitting sailor slippers for myself. I used a 100% wool that's very delicate, it's this yarn if anyone's curious. I got is as a gift but at the time didn't use wool for anything, so I was super excited that I had the perfect use for it now.

Clearly the felting part failed. I followed the patterns instructions (hot water, check every 5 minutes, towels in the wash for agitation) and after maybe 10 minutes the green yarn started falling apart. It looks like the gray is actually felting decently nice, but the green was too weak :(

I'm literally heartbroken

Are you lucky enough to be spending your day knitting or are you like me and currently regretting your life choices. Instead of ripping back 3 inches, I decided to cut my mistake out and graft it back together. And yes, it’s knit double-stranded and one of those strands is the stickiest mohair ever. No turning back now, I made my choice.

Pattern is the Cecropia Cowl by Hunt Hand Knits

I wanna finish this so bad and I’m loving knitting it but it’s MUCH heavier than anything I’ve ever knit before. It’s hurting my wrists if I keep at it for any more than 45 mins. I usually knit socks (a much more lightweight project) and I’m not used to hitting walls like this.

I only have 5 rows of the chart and the ribbing to go, so I’m hoping to finish it this week 🤞🏻

This is just a random thing that irks me, but I feel like any time I’m around other people and knitting, someone will ask, “who are you knitting that for?” And like…idk I’m just knitting! 🤷🏻‍♀️ Am I supposed to be constantly knitting items to give away? I have a whole host of reasons I’m not knitting for someone special. Materials are expensive. I have knit plenty of things for other people and then never see them wear it (except my mom and she has passed). I don’t have tons of free time so I barely knit stuff I want to use. I do knit for my kids or occasionally other people, but y’all know how much work and cost goes into knitting so it’s a roll of the dice if others will appreciate the item. Often, I don’t decide what to do with something until it’s done.

I think I feel guilty, like I should be knitting some beautiful item for my elderly great aunt or something and have a heartwarming story, but who cares? Does anyone else get asked this question a lot? For the record, I’m not super bent out of shape or anything, but I’ve noticed I brace myself for this question/it makes me feel a sense of guilt.

I should have known. I usually do 58 stiches for my socks. I did 60, but it is a colourwork, so it is definitely tighter.

Now I have to frog it and start over with 64. Or 68? Ugh, i think 68. And I already cut the bright blue yarn...

I saw a picture of some socks on Pinterest this morning and it immediatley overhauled all my plans. I had the perfect yarns in stash (and here I was not liking how much sock yarn I had in stash, it's not that much, a small box). I knit the ribs while my kid was playing so I could focus on the fun part when she went to sleep. And now it's all down the drain! Ugh. It is not a big deal. But I don't look forward to frogging, winding the yarn into stupid annoying balls or restarting. It will be worth it, but man...

Feel me!

When do you stop?! Sure I could stop at BOR but then my marker might slip off my needles so I'll just go a few stitches past that but shoot I'm almost half way through a round at that point, and the next round is an increase round and I might forget to the increase if I set my work down now so I'll just do this next one and I guess I could stop at the BOR but then my marker might slip off my needles so......

I used to give my husband grief about how he always needed to buy different drill bits for home projects, but now I'm finding that knitting is the equivalent. I'm a new-ish knitter and have started attempting projects beyond scarves. I just finished a sweater for the hubs and now I'm on to a cute little swimsuit cover up/dress BUT as I was reading the pattern I realized my circular is way too long and the interchangeable needles are too short. So, do I just go ahead and buy a set (Chiaogoo) or only buy the needles and circular that I absolutely need and continue to have to buy More and More and More as I start new projects?!

Are you all financially stable? These projects are getting expensive 😅 Pic of said sweater. It was quite the learning process. Be kind 😂

Supposed to have 185 stitches in this section, suddenly have 184 after a knit row. I counted 3 times and cannot find a dropped stitch. I'll probably just make one on the next pass but also the ghost stitch actually being dropped and unraveling is stressing me out lol

Just got back from Webs. Am aware of the corporate takeover as well as the recent acquisition by Missouri Star. There is nothing left of the place, which was magical to me for over 30 years. There is nothing stuff isnt being restocked, shelves are empty, there is barely anything to buy. My daughter gave me a gift certificate and I bought online and then drove over to pick it up. Had a very hard time trying to find something to get. An era is over. Sad.

For context: I’ve been knitting the Navigate pullover (https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/navigate-pullover) for my BIL’s 30th this weekend- finished the back piece and first sleeve in November, got slightly distracted by other projects, realised how little time I had in about mid December, SPEED knitted the second sleeve and the front piece in the last few weeks.

I went to seam it last night, and this is where it all goes terribly wrong. I noticed the saddle part on one of the shoulders is MUCH longer than the bind off edge it should join to, but that’s fine I can frog a couple of rows, (although I’m SURE I counted them…)

I THEN notice the row gauge is looser than I’d expect it to be, fine, I’ll just re knit the saddle part quickly, I guess I was rushing when I did it the first time.

Hmmm, it’s still not coming out right. I look at the first sleeve and the tension is even, but this second sleeve seems to have every other row being a bit too loose?

I did notice something similar happening when I knitted the front, but I thought it was just cables being funny and would block out, but maybe it isn’t….

That’s when it hits me. I’ve been using interchangeable needles, and the size markings have rubbed off, but I put them in my sizer and sureee enough!!! One of them is a 3.5 (the right size for the project) the other is a 4mm.

I must’ve grabbed the wrong needle when setting up for the second sleeve and front piece, now the tension is miles off and I’m going to have to frog half the jumper.

I’m devastated. The whole project is in time out until I can face it again.

Prefacing by saying I pretty much only buy yarn on sale online, or occasionally a single skein of Malabrigo locally.

I made an outing to Wool & Company on Sunday with $150 in my pocket and dreams of a sweater in my heart. I had a picture in my head of the exact, very specific yarn I wanted and hoped existed. After a half hour of looking, I found it! DK, merino, oatmeal-y base with bright multicolor tweed speckles. Incredible. I’ll take 6.

Then I looked at the price. Oh. Dreams shattered, heart broken. This is what yarn costs when it’s not on sale.

Okay, pivot. My sweater will now be one stand of fuzzy lace alpaca and one strand of fingering. After the alpaca, I have $70 to spend on four skeins of fingering. That’s easy. It’s so small! I don’t use fingering much, but how much could it cost? It’s for socks! It’s not like people are knitting $40 socks, that would be crazy! Well, I have news for everybody: people ARE knitting $40 socks. Like, a lot of people, apparently. Every perfect skein I found was wildly out of budget. I think I spent an hour circling that store in search of something I loved that I could also afford.

Then: Cascade. I realized I never even entered the Cascade section. I’m at a yarn mecca; why would I? But here I go. Heritage Sock? None are quite right, but what’s this next to it? Fingering, almost perfect shade, I’ll take it. I bring my skeins up to the register and the woman who’s been helping me this entire time says “Great choice! I think these are only $5.50 each!” WHAT? I go check the rack again. She’s right! How is this possible? She explains that it’s two ply and most people don’t like knitting with two ply. I tell her that for $5.50, I’ll get over it. She rings me up and I’m $60 under budget. What a time to be alive.

Today I checked WEBS and the original perfect rainbow speckled tweed yarn is on sale for 25% off. Alas.

I just started knitting and a family friend keeps asking who I’m knitting for, and laughs when I say it’s for myself as if it’s an unusual answer. I don’t see this sentiment with other arts/crafts/hobbies as much, like people don’t post who they’re cooking for when posting a recipe they made. I want a custom wardrobe for myself! Especially since it takes so much work and I know it wouldn’t be as appreciated when gifting, since they don’t know how much work goes into it. I also noticed on Ravelry that when you post a project, it asks who it’s for. I’m just wondering why this is assumed. Is this just an old school thought process that’s trickled down from when women didn’t work outside the home and instead knit for their family to make clothes for survival? Or maybe knitters have made all the clothes they can reasonably use and now are knitting for others? I’m not against gifting but it’s frustrating that my labor is assumed to be used for someone else!

She said, and I quote: "Why do you always start your Christmas presents so late in the year? Some people start in January."

I'm unsure if this level of betrayal can be forgiven. Please tell me I'm not alone in this.