EVIL EVIL EVIL

I'm more of a worsted gal myself. I just had this free bulky and wanted to make something all chic. Then I decided to make one for someone I love who's totally more chic then I am (and who doesn't live in the land of fleece.)

I am in the middle of a sweater, nice silk/wool blend, but it's knit in pieces, not in the round and I am at my desk in the physics department until about 0200 every night. I needed some instant gratification.

That and every time I go up to Van, my friend Jhayne (who the gauntlet is for-someone gave her yarn for her b-day and she, as she puts it, "doesn't make things with sticks and string" (though she is very impressed with it) so I volunteered to make her something) always asks me if I did anything with the yarn she gave me. It's been over a year. I thought it was about time to make something.

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No privileging sock yarn over worsted or bulky, or naturals over acrylics; no privileging knitting over crochet over tatting over weaving over spinning. All's good, and we can get entertainment from each.

Besides, socks *are* evil, and if someone else has the constitution to zen out over stitching them, mazeltov, I can't. Small needles make my eyes ache.

By the by, does your mill-end store have an online store? *That's* the great news to hear about -- I depend on the Peaches and Creme outlet store
http://www.elmore-pisgah.com/On%20Line%2...
-- it ain't high-tech, and shipping for a few items is killer, but if you use cotton yarn in bulk, it's a good way to go.

If you're going to do a lot of knitting, learn to relax as you work. The important thing is consistency, so the fabric is even. I pull the yarn through and let the stitch be the size it wants to be; maybe I'll snug it up a little, but never tight; the stitches should slide easily along the needle. You just want them to be uniform.

What you're going for is an even fabric that has a desirable "hand" for the texture pattern. (Oh, that's a whole wonderful subject in itself.) This is why I use small-diameter needles -- to produce a finer fabric without having to tighten the tension I'm putting into it. Go with it, don't fight it.

So the answer to your question is probably "tension while knitting" (unless you're talking just about knitting into the foundation row). (And "at the end" of what? the row? the fabric?) Learn to relax (ergonomically important), let the stitches make themselves, and if you find them too loose overall, reduce your needle size until you get a pleasing fabric.

On the earlier thread, my post didn't go through, so here goes re binding off: Binding off is simple: Knit the first stitch. Knit the second stitch. Pull the first stitch over the second stitch and release it. Repeat across the row (or around the round, for circular knitting). That’s it. The trick, again, is to keep it loose; I pull down on the fabric to elongate the new stitches as I work them. Or, if you crochet, just crochet yourself along the row -- it’s the same thing.

I knit so tight. Then I went from throw or "English style" knitting (wrapping the yarn around and the way most people think of when they think of knitting) to pick knitting, or "continental style" knitting. I knit much looser now. I also knit much faster. That may help. I like not having to wrestle with the needles.

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Knitting is a wonderful calmative; I do believe that the rhythmic movements of the hands produce alpha brain waves.

Just as a fun practice, deliberately knit loose and sloppy for a while -- overcorrect in the opposite direction. (I think it's called successive approximation -- overshoot, undershoot, to arrive at a happy medium.) See what it feels like.

Then tighten the tension a little bit. See how little tension it takes to produce even stitches. Once you decide what feels comfortable, you can experiment with adjusting needle size to get the gauge you want.

Honestly, I think the work ethic is the death of America. When you exert more effort than needed, you're fighting yourself.

I just watched part of Mrs. Moskowitz's video. It hurt to see her keep taking her right hand off the needle to loop the yarn. If you're not already in the habit of right-hand thread carry, see if you can learn to carry the yarn with the left hand. (This is also useful for two-color knitting.)

I wind the yarn counterclockwise around the left index finger a couple of times (two or three, depending on how slippery it is). For more control, I let it cross the palm and come up between the ring and pinky fingers and over the pinky to the ball of yarn. (This is not as complicated as it sounds.)

Then, to knit, I just poke the right needle tip through the first stitch on the left needle (just behind the yarn coming from the index finger), pick up the yarn, and bring it forward through the loop (which can now safely drop off the LH needle): new stitch made on the right needle. My hands never leave the needles; the right thumb and forefinger lightly stabilize the new stitch (keep the tension even) as I make the next one.

Be aware that there are differences in the way the loops face on the needles in the left-hand and right-hand techniques. There are bound to be illustrations on this wonderful Web.

Your son is right. You're doing something very cool. A sock or a seamless sweater (the original technique, before knitting machines were invented) is a continuous piece of string. Magic!

if you're throw knitting, try continental style:

If you're doing continental style, try throw knitting, but it's obvious which kind I like, since it takes less energy and is at least 5x faster.

I'm not sure if the video will show up, but you can find it here. It looks pretty good. I, of course, knit differently, but when I knit English style I apparently purled like no one else, but hey-it worked for me!

Can someone tell me how to get the video to work? I am messing about the internerds, but there are labs to grade so I'm going to be semi-responsible and do that instead of this. *sigh*

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Here's a great idea: sweater to cloche and mittens.

I had a fine cashmere sweater that I ended up tossing because it had holes in unfortunate places. I wish I'd found that tutorial earlier!

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We can't afford not to have single-payer!

Open the sleeve seam, pick up the stitches of the row where you want to start, and cut off the rest. Long pause to unravel the cut-off part and prepare it for reuse: Skein it, wash it to get the kinks out, let it dry, and wind it into a ball. Knit down from the picked-up stitches.* How far up you cut depends on what shape you want the restyled sleeve to have -- higher up for tapered decreases, lower down if you want to make all your decreases just before the cuff.

I'm with you on the body width. It's not just sleeve length -- if it's wide enough at the hip, the shoulder is hanging off. Raglan sleeves are a better style to repurpose than set-in, because the shoulder fits a range of people sizes.

*I know sometimes I spell out (belabor?) the obvious, but I have edited a lot of how-to books, and you really have to make the step-by-step clear. Several years ago, a book publisher recalled a cookbook because a recipe called for a can of condensed milk and didn't say to pour the milk out of the can before putting it in the microwave.

The standard recommendation for cutting an opening (cardigan front, armholes, etc.) is to secure the stitches on each side of the cutting line with a sewing machine. I wondered what people did before sewing machines, and eventually found a reference in a knitting magazine -- in Norway, they worked a line of single crochet up each side.

As I say, knitting fits in well with the winemaking and gardening thing that we do -- and it also relieves stress, apparently.

I like a blog where there are three posts about the bailout and the financial crisis and then a sticky post on knitting. It's all political, top to bottom, just not horse-racey.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

You could learn to tie/make one and then you can wear the cravat with anything!

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