Read the labels...

So you have taken up knitting and now you are very confused trying to read the label try to figure out what yarn is best for your project. Let us start with the weight.

Sometime on the label it will say the weight and sometimes it will be a number. From 1-6 it goes from fine to supper bulky each with its own uses. 1 is fine or finger weight, good for sock, mittens, lace, baby things and if you are crazy very fine sweaters. Knitting using size 000-3 needles or higher if you are making lace. 2 is sport good for thicker socks, mittens, baby things, hats and if you want it sweaters. You tend to use needles size 2-5 when working with this. 3 is light worsted excellent for think socks, sweaters, scarfs, hats and just about anything else. This yarn tends to be 4-8 in needle sizes depending on what you are working on. 4 is worsted perfect for Aran (cabling work), afghans, thick warm hats, mittens and house socks. Needles that work best are 5-10 but you can go down to 4 if needed or up to 12. This is what most people knit with on a daily basis. 5 is bulky good when making thick things, sweaters, blankets, rag rugs and work best with size 8 to 15 needles. Finally there is 6 or super bulky. Thick yarn with large needles equals quick knitting and warm and fluffy things.

Then there will be a small section sometimes that will tell you the gage. A small square, with a number of rows, stiches equaling how big of a square that will make, with little needle or crochet hook inside will tell you the gage. Of course you can change the needle and I recommend it. You can test the gage beforehand if you like too as well, but if you like to live dangerously I say have fun and don’t. Go till you feel it is right, turns out it isn’t take it apart and try again. Experimentation is fun.

Of course there is also direction care. This doesn’t differ from the images on your clothing.

Have fun knitting.

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Cable me up

Probably one of the most iconic types of knitting is Aran knitting. Beautiful, less complicated than it looks and memorable. The term Aran itself denotes the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay, Inishmore (once known as Aranmor), Inishmaan and Inisheer but also the beautiful knitted cable worked sweaters that have become so iconic to time. However as far as knitting techniques go it is rather new. Developed with in the last 100 years it has become a very iconic knitting idea very quickly.

Sweater I made last year with Celtic knot cables on the wrist and front.

By simple twisting of the stitches beautiful cables can be formed. Using a small double pointed and often curved needle you move the stiches behind or in front of the knitted stiches. By doing this you create an amazing cabled stitch and what we today call Aran knitting. Each design could be combined with others to create amazing art that you can wear.

Socks J made last year with simple cables on the top.

It is because of these beautiful combinations a piece can be like no other piece. Hand knitting is always defined because each piece is different, beyond the needles and the yarn, just by moving the needles every piece made is different from the last one, even by using doing it exactly the same from project to project. How knitting works is as you work you make something unique to you with mistakes, messed up tensions, ladders. Some of those things will fix themselves over time but even if they don’t that is ok. Knitting is for life, and Aran I think proves that. Created to make one of a kind pieces that unfortunately may sometimes have been used to identify fisherman lost at sea. Some had flaws but what are flaws when you are venturing out to some new.

Y cable ear warmers audible for sale or my etsy page: GrandmasTools.

I was afraid to try cabling the first few times I did it. It was an adventure but by learning it I would eventually be able to create beautiful pieces that are one of a kind to me. Still working on trying to create one that is just by me but I will get there.

Celtic knot Cable hat going up for sale on my etsy page November 1st. GrandmasTools

High Cotton

We have all seen the commercials, and we all know the jingle. “The touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives.” A pretty common material today thanks to the invention of the Cotton Gin in the 1793 by Eli Whitney, it wasn’t always cheap or available. Been cultivated for at least the last 7,000 years it has helped shape cultures, save and ruin lives and cloth the backs of men.

In 3,000 B.C it was being cultivated in Pakistan and being spun and woven into cloth. By 800 A.D. it was brought into Europe by Arab Merchants.  By the time of Columbus’s adventure to the new World in 1492 where he found it on islands in the Bahama’s it was well known through most of the world. The Industrial Revolution, the Cotton Gin and sadly the building of the slave trade made the south the King of Cotton by the 1800s. It became more available to the masses, and came in a variety of colors and eventually would be dyed with little flowers on them. Something that was extremely expensive in the 1700s soon would become extremely cheap and the most common cloth in a just a few years. Within 10 years it grew from a $150,000 industry to $8 million.

This fluffy little seed is what everyone wanted, once cleaned of the actual seeds the fluff, could be spun and woven. Between the fact it is hard to clean it of the seed by hand, has a very short staple length which makes it very hard to spin by hand and easy to break, which is probably why it took so long to become the common cloth of the world. The cotton gin made it easier to clean but back fired from making the slaves lives easier to harder as the cotton industry to grew. That and the demand for cheap cloth, and the mechanized world of the cloth industry made the south the King of Cotton.

Eli Whitney's cotton gin

So the touch and the feel of cotton has come with its price. Whether it is the expense of coin or the expense of man, history has made it a lasting and renewable cloth. The world of natural fiber, older than anything we can ever imagine.