Currently: Yarn Testing

I’ve purchased some new knitting needles that I’ve only been able to slightly use. They are round needles in the US size 50 and are surprisingly easy to use.

The reason for the larger needles is because I wanted to knit a nice comfy blanket. You need extra chunky yarn….and a lot of it. I’ actually not too certain how many skeins I need in order to make a decent size blanket. My original plan was to arm knit this blanket, there are quite a lot of tutorials going around and I just had to try it out. I think I need extra extra chunky yarn in order for it to work the way I want it to. Either that or buy regular chunky yarn in even more skeins. I just wanted to save myself some hassle and buy X amount of skeins once instead of multiples of smaller skeins. It made sense in my head. The yarn I bought was from Hobby Lobby, and it’s from the brand Yarn Bee. I couldn’t find it on their site but I’ll keep browsing the net so that I can link it later.

I also purchased the needles from Hobby Lobby and the reason I bought circle needles is because the loop was long enough to knit a blanket. All of the straight needles were much too short, plus round needles allow a more comfy knitting experience. More movable? The arm knitting, although easy to learn, just wasn’t progressing the way I had hoped. The stitches just weren’t as tight as  I wanted them to be so I switched to the needles and since I needed the needles to be pretty long I just went with the circle needles.

I prefer wooden needles because of how light weight they are…believe me you’ll noticed the difference after switching. I wanted to test out the needles with the chunky yarn I had purchased and that’s when I noticed it will take many more skeins to finish the blanket but I’m looking forward to testing out more skeins and finding the right yarn in order to knit the blanket I have in mind.

Until then, I will gladly try out tons of yarn. More updates to follow.

Any projects you’re currently working on, or do you have any tips when dealing with yarn and round needles?

Thanks for reading.

This post was written by:

KIM VERA - (view all posts by Kim)
Kim works as a museum Copywriter and helps out with events from time to time. When she isn’t working or blogging, she is probably off taking a nap. Feel free to email her at kim@mind-speaks.com

A Day of Knitting

 

Hello all! Kimmy here to bring you a montage on my knitting process. I’ve been knitting for several years now…(does the math) 8 years to be exact. And I’ve developed some skills in that time frame. The best thing about that is that I continue to learn new knitting skills.

It’s one of my favorite hobbies and I’m so happy that I took that first step in learning how to knit. Crochet is a completely different thing. I’m slowly learning how, but I haven’t picked it up as quickly has I have with knitting. The best thing about crochet is that you can make the cutest creatures. Knitting is a bit different in that sense. I’ve been seeing a bunch of crochet items that are just too cute and I’ve been wanting to learn how to make them myself.

My biggest inspiration being Taylor from, Nothing But a Pigeon. I met her a couple years ago at a craft market and she was beyond nice. Her crochet taxidermy is amazing, I purchased a jellyfish from her and I’ve been inspired ever since. She makes a bunch of other animals too I, however, am still stuck on the jellyfish. It’s changed over the years.  Above are the first two I ever knitted. The orange one was so perfect!!! I knitted it for a friend and I haven’t been able to get it to that level in a long tie. I want my knitting to be consistent. -.- Anywho, I’ve knitted a few since that first one as gifts for friends. It’s random, but I find them to be cute.

The one I’m knitting in the video happens to be a new version. The tentacles have curled ends and two toned colors on a few of the tentacles, just something I’m testing out.

Thanks for watching and reading.

This post was written by:

KIM VERA - (view all posts by Kim)
Kim works as a museum Copywriter and helps out with events from time to time. When she isn’t working or blogging, she is probably off taking a nap. Feel free to email her at kim@mind-speaks.com

Wall Decor

We here at Mind-Speaks were given the opportunity to create a project for Cut Out Keep, using Red Heart’s Grande Metallic yarn. I decided to make some wall art, using my new favorite technique in knitting. Double knitting!!! This yarn is super fun, it has strands of metallic thread and it just makes the wall art pop. We were given 4 skeins in the colors, straw, mulberry, wisteria, and glacier. Such pretty pastel shades! Those are usually the type of colors I aim for when choosing yarn. Red  Heart yarn is my favorite to use, the texture is always great and it makes knitting easy and comfortable when sliding the yarn on and off the needles.

Supplies:

• 2 skeins in different colors
• size 15 long length knitting needles
• wooden dowels length varies depending on chart (optional)

*Keep in mind, these are the materials that I used, feel free to change the needle size.

I decided to use a heart shape for this project, but you can use any pattern.  Just remember that if you use a pattern that isn’t the same on both sides, your project will be backwards on one side. I used Craft Passion’s heart chart for this, it came out nicely, however I do wish that I used a longer dowel, but that was the only size I had at the time.  It’s a sturdy enough yarn to not require a wooden dowel in the first place, but I wanted to use one. I’ll add the link to the tutorial once it is live on the site. But for now, here’s  a finish picture of the project and some progress photos.

Thanks for stopping by and keep crafting

This post was written by:

KIM VERA - (view all posts by Kim)
Kim works as a museum Copywriter and helps out with events from time to time. When she isn’t working or blogging, she is probably off taking a nap. Feel free to email her at kim@mind-speaks.com