Meyas

Gauge swatching

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 18:43:24 +0100

No one likes to knit gauge swatches. Let’s face it, you are essentially knitting a square that in the future will serve no purpose. Unfortunately sometimes you just need to knit a stupid square. Hopefully this post will illustrate what might happen if you skip it.

A few swatches I’ve knit throughout the years:

Gauge in 10cm/4in

If you are intending on knitting a pattern that provides a gauge, knit a swatch in pattern by casting on the gauge’s stitches and knit the gauge’s rows. Usually the pattern will tell you which stitch to use for the swatch.

99% of the time* the swatch will be a square of 10x10cm or 4x4in (*source missing). We usually also add 3 sts at the beginning and end of the row, to be knit in garter stitch; the same is done at the beginning and ending of the swatch where you knit 6 rows in garter stitch. This prevents the fabric from rolling on itself if you are knitting in stockinette stitch, thus making it easier to measure.

If your swatch matches the designer’s, perfect! 😌 You can start your project and it’s the most magical feeling.

If it doesn’t, you will want to check how different the final piece will be. That’s what the rest of this post is about.

Input the pattern’s gauge and your swatch dimensions:

Little Peaks Quilt

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 18:43:24 +0100

This blog post is the continuation of Solving a quilt puzzle: Part 2 and the final post in the series. When I wrote the last post (1.5 years ago 😬), I was still sewing the triangles to each other, in long stripes of triangles. I also planned on writing more blog posts describing the process, but that obviously didn’t happen. If you’re new here and don’t want to read the previous posts, the quilt design I used is free on Purl Soho’s website.

It took me a lot longer to sew than I thought it would. After sewing +1000 triangles following the order that I had determined, I still had to:

sew each strip to each other until the quilt top was complete;
create a quilt sandwich with three layers: quilt top, quilt batting (I used wool) and a quilt backing (I used cotton in a solid color);
pin the quilt sandwich in place and sew in the ditch, by following the patchwork seamlines;
trim the quilt sandwich;
create the binding (basically a long strip of fabric);
machine sew one side of the binding to the quilt and hand sew the other side.

On step 3 I decided to do a marathon sewing weekend to finish the quilting part of the process. I took a few photos and that’s what I’m sharing on this post.

We live in a tiny apartment and my sewing machine is quite noisy, so I temporarily moved our kitchen table to the bedroom. This way I was able to sew for ten hours straight without feeling like I was being a nuisance to my husband and everyone on Discord. 😅

My cat Estela loves this quilt and every time she finds it she must lay on it. Even if I was in the middle of sewing it and just taking a 10 minute break.

I believe I was more than halfway done on Saturday morning, and by Sunday evening the quilting was done!

The next step was to trim the quilt sandwich and it was incredibly satisfying:

The binding was easy to craft and machine sew to the quilt. And the very last step might have been my favorite: hand sewing the binding to the quilt. The corners were a little stressful, but the sides were meditative and enjoyable. I plan on hand quilting another blanket in the future.

As you can see on the photo, my quilt is far from perfect, but we use it every day. It’s beautiful and the wool batting makes it super warm. 10/10 would make it again, but on the next one I will be more mindful when cutting the fabric pieces.

And now a side-by-side of the plan vs the final result. They don’t look the same for the reasons I explained in the previous post.

And that’s it! I’m sorry for the photo dump. I left Instagram recently and I guess in the future I will share more photos here.

Pattern: Sentido

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My new pattern, Sentido, is available now available on Ravelry.

It is a simple 1x1 rib stitch beanie, with a colorwork section in mosaic knitting. It is written for both children and adults. Check out the test knitters’ versions on their Ravelry project pages no Ravelry. This pattern wouldn’t be possible without my wonderful testers.

On the Portuguese version of this blog post I explained why I have been absent from Youtube, but of course that doesn’t make sense on this page since I speak in Portuguese on my Youtube channel.

I haven’t been knitting as much as I used to, but I did a bit of sewing on my quilt.

I’m officially midway through the 27 rows of triangles. After 6 rows, I’ve found a good rhythm and it’s progressing at a good pace. Leaving the sewing machine and the materials easily accessible has been key.

Spring is almost here and it makes everything just a little bit better.

Pattern: Argila

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My newest pattern, Argila, is finally available on Ravelry!

This is my first adult sweater and it took me so long to publish that I could have had a baby by now, that’s how long it’s been. I re-knit the sweater several times before I was happy with the result, and the writing process was also more complicated than I expected.

The pattern is written for 12 sizes and there’s a lot more to consider when grading for this many sizes than I expected. In addition, since I like writing a portuguese version for portuguese knitting and an english version for continental knitting, it takes almost double the time. For the brick stitch in particular it makes sense to have both versions; in portuguese knitting you purl 3 out of 4 rows and in continental knitting you knit 3 out of 4 rows.

All in all, I think it was worth it! I love to see my testers wearing their sweaters. ❤️ Speaking of which, check out their projects on the project tab of the pattern on Ravelry. This pattern wouldn’t be possible without them.

You can find out more about the sweater here.

Sock pattern: Dezasseis

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My newest pattern, Dezasseis, is now available on Ravelry!

After a smooth test knit, this might be my fastest pattern release yet. I was a bit disappointed when I realized that I would have to release it as a one size only, but I decided to release as is. The price tag should reflect the pattern’s shortcomings.

I hope someone can still enjoy it!

And thank you to my test knitters! Check out their projects on the project tab of the pattern on Ravelry.

You can find out more about the socks here.

Piecing together a sweater

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been thinking about writing a blog post on how to sew a sweater knitted in pieces for a long time, and there’s no better time than the present since the test knit of my newest design is halfway through.

I won’t go into detail on the hand sewing techniques side of the process because I usually sew everything in backstitch. There are plenty of alternatives like mattress stitch, if you prefer an invisible seam, or crocheted seams, among others. I for one, prefer the look of a visible seam.

In my experience the most difficult part of the seaming process is sewing the sleeves to the sweater, so I will focus mostly on that in this blog post.

Step 0: Block your pieces to the measurements on the pattern. In particular, on my Argila sweater it is easy to overstretch the front piece because the brick stitch is very stretchy. I usually wet block my garments with wool soap like Eucalan or Soak;

Step 1: Sew the shoulders. They should be exactly the same size and be easy to match;
Step 2: Sew the sleeve cap to the sweater:
- 2.1: Identify the middle point on the top the sleeve cap and join that point to the shoulder seam with a locking stitch marker;
- 2.2: Join the edges of the sleeve armhole to the corresponding edges on the front and back pieces with locking stitch markers;
- 2.3: Evenly distribute the remaining sleeve cap fabric to the front and back pieces with locking stitch markers;
- 2.4: Start sewing the sleeve cap to the sweater starting at the middle point you identified on step 2.1 and leave a long tail. Once you have sewn one side of the sleeve cap, use the long tail to sew the other side.
Step 3: Join the sleeve edges with locking stitch markers, matching increases, and sew the sleeve;
Step 4: Repeat from step 2 for the second sleeve;
Step 5: Join the front and back pieces, matching increases and the beginning of the pieces. On the Argila sweater, even though the increases on the front and back where worked at different rates, their location should be the same due to the difference in gauge;
Step 6: Weave in the ends and knit the collar if necessary.

I hope this was helpful and not a blog post like that owl meme.

Solving a quilt puzzle: Part 2

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 13:09:59 +0200

This blog post is a continuation of post Solving a quilt puzzle: Part 1.

According to the plan I delineated in Part 1, I should now attribute a color to each number I used on the previous section.

I was planning on using a Robert Kaufman roll-up (more on it in Part 1), and on Robert Kaufman’s website you can see a picture of the fabric for each color on the roll. I screenshot it and got the RGB color values for each fabric with Gimp. Now I needed to tell Racket what my colors were.

I compiled a list of colors like so:

(define c1 (make-color 246 246 248))
(define c2 (make-color 245 243 231))
(define c3 (make-color 246 246 236))

And did the same for all 38 colors.

This was my range of colors:

I could finally start thinking in triangles. In Racket painting and drawing a triangle is as simple as:

;; draw a equilateral triangle, length 40, and paint it with color red 
(triangle 40 "solid" "red")

All that was left to do was to draw the triangles, and have each triangle get its color from the same index on the matrix we got on Part 1. At the same time, I would rotate every other triangle 180°, and rotate the triangles on the next row in opposite order.

;; list of colors defined by me 
(define rangeofcolors (vector c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 c6 c7 c8 c9 c10 c11 c12 c13 c14 c15 c16 
c17 c18 c19 c20 c21 c22 c23 c24 c25 c26 c27 c28 c29 c30 c31 c32 c33 c34 c35 c36 c37 
c38))

;; draw equilateral triangle, length 40, color x
(define (givecolor x)
  (triangle 40 "solid" x))
;; draw and rotate 180° equilateral triangle, length 40, color z
(define (givecolor180 z)
  (rotate 180 (triangle 40 "solid" z)))

;; get a matrix of 26 rows from Part 1
(define quilt (paint_n_rows 26))

;; paint triangles, but rotate them on [odd rows and even index of quilt] 
;; and on [even rows and odd index of quilt] 
(define (colorit anyquilt j i)
  (if (odd? j)
      (if (odd? i) 
          (givecolor (vector-ref rangeofcolors (vector-ref (list-ref anyquilt j) i))) 
          ;;else
          (givecolor180 (vector-ref rangeofcolors (vector-ref (list-ref anyquilt j) i)))) 
    ;;else
    (if (odd? i) 
       (givecolor180 (vector-ref rangeofcolors (vector-ref (list-ref anyquilt j) i))) 
       ;;else
       (givecolor (vector-ref rangeofcolors (vector-ref (list-ref anyquilt j) i)))))) 

;; save image (copied straight from stackoverflow ;))
(define (save-pict the-pict name kind)
  (define bm (pict->bitmap the-pict))
  (send bm save-file name kind))

;; bringing it all together
(define (print-all-pretty)
  ;; 
  (let ([result (for/fold ([rows (blank)]) ([j (length quilt)])
     ;; draw a new picture with each row of triangles 
     (vc-append
      (for/fold ([row2 (blank)]) ([i (vector-length (list-ref quilt j))])
        ;; draw a new picture of row of each triangle in the specified color
        ;; and remove white space between triangles
        (hc-append -20 (colorit quilt j i) row2))
      rows
      ))])
        (begin
          (print result)
          ;; crop image to remove half a triangle on the side edge and save it 
          (save-pict (crop 20 0 880 1040 (pict->bitmap result)) "triangles.png" 'png)
        )))

And this is the final result:

I’m in love with it. As soon as I saw the result I ordered the fabric.

I feel like I should say something about Racket, but since I can’t compare it with anything else due to my lack of experience, my review is pretty much meaningless. Here it goes: I think it wasn’t too hard to understand the syntax, although at times it felt like I was lost in a sea of parentheses. The documentation is extensive and if I ever need to do something similar, I won’t hesitate to use Racket again. (By the way, my husband is in love with Racket.)

As for the quilt, in the near future I will have to mess around with the maximum number of triangles and the number of colors, because after receiving the fabric in the mail I realized I had made a couple of mistakes. First, each strip only yields 27 triangles instead of 31 (due to the selvedges); second, the roll has 4 extra colors in addition to the 37 displayed on the manufacturer’s website. But it should be fine.

I plan on continuing to write updates, but this time on actually sewing the quilt, which is more in line with the content of this blog.

Right now I’m cutting the triangles and beginning to get a sense of just how long this project will take.

This was fun and I hope it helps someone in the future.

Solving a quilt puzzle: Part 1

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Before we get to the meat of the matter, followers of this blog beware: the next couple of posts will be different than what I usually share on this space, and will contain no knitting whatsoever.

I have wanted to make a quilt ever since I started sewing and Purl Soho’s Little Peaks Quilt pattern was exactly the sort of quilt that I was looking for. The only problem with the pattern is that there isn’t exactly a color plan before you start sewing, and you are expected to pick “any 2 triangles” at random.

Their sample is absolutely beautiful:

However I wanted to use very different colored fabrics and I would never start such a large project without making sure that I would like my version.

While I was still playing around with the idea of making a quilt, I went looking for fabric and discovered that you can buy strips of pre-cut fabric in a big roll of matching colors! I was looking for dark and mute colors, with a pop of color. I ended up selecting a Robert Kaufman Kona Neutrals Palette 2-1/2" Roll-Up and 1 extra fat quarter in the color Kumquat.

The plan was to follow the instructions for the pattern mentioned above, but to follow my own color scheme, which as opposed to the original pattern doesn’t have one solid color that gets repeated every other triangle.

Instead I would have 37 colors from the roll up, plus the orange. Each color/strip of the pre-cut fabric would yield 31 equilateral triangles of 6.35cm in length; the orange fat quarter would also yield at least 31 triangles of the same size. So in total I would have 38 x 31 = 1178 triangles. Now I would have to determine the placement of each different colored triangle, in no specific order, except that I didn’t want to have 2 triangles of the same color sewn next to each other (neither to the sides nor on the row above or below). I didn’t care about the vertices, only the sides.

This was fine:

This is what I was trying to avoid:

Since I was ignoring the vertices, I realized that I could think in terms of rectangles and achieve the same result.

The rectangles simplified everything in mind and the next logical step was to think in numbers instead of colors. I would look for a solution in numbers and attribute a color to each number later on.

The next step was to determine the width and length of the quilt in triangles. I decided to have 22 triangles in width and 26 in height, or about 139cm x 165cm (after sewing it will be smaller than this due to the seam allowances). But the horizontal lines of triangles would actually use double the amount of triangles needed to determine the width, so I would need 44 x 26 = 1144 triangles in total.

With this information the problem I was trying to solve turned out to be: arrange sequences of numbers 1 to 38, in a matrix of [26 x 44], so that each number is never repeated either to the sides or in the rows above or below, and so that each number is never used more than 31 times.

From the beginning I felt that the easiest way to solve this would be with programming. My husband works in IT and from time to time tries to convince me to try a programming language that he thinks would suit me. He had been raving about Racket for a while, because I could draw stuff with it. I finally looked it up and the drawing aspect of it did seem pretty straight forward (notice the pretty drawings above). But I had some work to do before getting to the drawing bit.

As for my programming experience, I attended a course in Introduction to Programming in college where we worked in R and later I took a class in Python on Coursera. So I had no idea what I was doing (still don’t), but just had a vague idea that making a loop somehow would solve the problem. Let’s just say that my husband was a huge help, specially for going from one vector to a matrix. Neither my husband nor I had any experience with Racket, so this might not be the most idiomatic code.

Setting it up:

;; dictionary that keeps track of the number of time a color was used
(define colors_count (make-hash))

;; maximum number of times a color can be used
(define MAX_COLOR_COUNT 31)

;; number of colors available 
(define MAX_COLORS 38) 

;; set all colors 1-38 to 31 available units on the dictionary
(for ([i MAX_COLORS]) 
(dict-set! colors_count i MAX_COLOR_COUNT))

;; start a vector 44 in length 
(define row (build-vector 44 values)) 

;; first non colored row
(define NO_COLOR -1)
(define dummy (build-vector 44 (lambda (x) NO_COLOR)))

Work on picking colors making sure our condition is met:

;; pick a random color that still has available units on the dictionary
(define (random_color) 
  (let ([color (random (dict-count colors_count))]) 
    (while #t
           (set! color (random (dict-count colors_count))) 
           (let ([color_count (hash-ref colors_count color)]) 
             (when (> color_count 0) 
                 (break))))
    color))

;; update the units available for each color 
(define (updatedictionary color) 
   (dict-set! colors_count color (- (hash-ref colors_count color) 1)))

;; true if c1 is different from c2 and c3
(define (differ c1 c2 c3) 
  (and (not (equal? c1 c2))
       (not (equal? c1 c3))))

;; select a color that is different from the previous selected color 
;; and different from the color on the same index on the row below
(define (selectcolor previous_color below_color) 
  (if (and (equal? previous_color NO_COLOR) (equal? below_color NO_COLOR))
      (begin
        (updatedictionary (random_color))
        (random_color))
      ;; else
      (begin
        ;;continue looking for a color until it finds one that is different
        ;;from the previous color and the color on the same index on the row below
        (let ([generated_color (random_color)])
          (while (not (differ generated_color previous_color below_color)) 
                 (set! generated_color (random_color)))
              (updatedictionary generated_color)
              generated_color
              ))))

Create the matrix and print the result:

;; fills a vector with colors provided by the selectcolor function, 
;; taking into account the colors on the row below 
(define (paint_row below_row)
  (let ([row (build-vector 44 values)])
    (for ([i (vector-length row)]) 
      (let ([below_color (vector-ref below_row i)])
        ;; for i=0, there isn't a previous color 
        (if (equal? i 0)
            (begin
              (vector-set! row i (selectcolor NO_COLOR below_color))
              (display (~r (vector-ref row i) #:min-width 2 #:pad-string "0"))
              (display " ")
              )
            ;; else
            ;; looks for the previous color on index i-1 of vector row, 
            ;; and selects a new color considering also the color below
            (begin
              (let ([previous_color (vector-ref row (- i 1))])
                (let ([picked_color (selectcolor previous_color below_color)]) 
                  (display (~r picked_color #:min-width 2 #:pad-string "0"))
                  (display " " )
                  (vector-set! row i picked_color)  
                  ))))))row))

;; paints n rows and prints the result 
(define (paint_n_rows n)
  (let ([result (list)]) 
    ;; paints the first row and appends it to the result list
  (let ([previous_row (paint_row dummy)]) 
    (set! result (append result (list previous_row)))
    (display "\n")
    ;; continues painting to n-1 and appends the results to the result list
    (for ([i (- n 1)]) 
      (begin
        (set! previous_row (paint_row previous_row)) 
        (set! result (append result (list previous_row)))
        (display "\n")
        )))
    result))

While going through the code and writing the comments for this post, I realized that I probably only wrote half of it. Without the help of my husband it would have taken me weeks or months to figure this out.

But here we are and, for example, the result of (paint_n_rows 4) looks like this:

31 36 33 29 28 02 11 12 33 15 03 08 30 02 37 11 21 26 19 36 27 11 09 07 15 09 14 35 26 36 12 19 21 24 12 20 30 34 32 30 14 15 26 29

11 04 07 00 06 14 17 06 14 12 37 24 21 30 31 25 29 15 25 03 07 01 14 03 14 36 24 08 33 17 02 24 02 08 00 01 02 03 08 24 10 07 32 33

34 17 13 07 33 20 13 18 26 16 06 36 10 32 25 00 12 09 16 07 26 22 01 14 02 27 10 13 22 16 17 13 37 23 30 02 11 24 28 16 01 17 29 01

19 29 37 18 37 30 04 32 21 11 24 34 21 16 20 26 17 26 18 28 33 09 10 12 19 23 12 37 01 33 08 03 11 01 23 28 00 03 32 12 13 24 02 04

Now that the hard part was done, I could finally start messing around with coloring triangles in Racket.

This post is getting huge, so this is Part 1. I will continue on Part 2.

Gift guide

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Christmas is right around the corner and I decided to write a list of gift suggestions to help non-knitters on this holiday season. My list includes products that I either already own and love, or products that I’m planning on buying in the future.

Since I’m Portuguese, I tried to look for the products in Portuguese stores. When that wasn’t possible, I looked for alternatives in Europe (to avoid customs fees).

1. Solid cream bar

Look for something easily absorbed.

        <ul>
            <li><a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/636926650/lanolin-hand-cream-deeply-moisturizing?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=knitters+hand+cream&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1&sca=1)">Lanolin Hand Cream</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://www.mylys.de/accessories/twig-und-horn/care/882642/twig-und-horn-makers-balm-rosewood?c=588">Maker's Balm by Twig and Horn</a>
            </li>
            <li><a href="https://suziesparklesknitting.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/make-your-own-knitters-hand-balm/">DIY hand cream</a>
            </li>

        </ul>

2. Wool wash

These detergents don't need to be rinsed.

        <ul>
            <li><a href="https://retrosariaserafina.com/pt/eucalan-wrapture">Eucalan Wrapture</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://www.en.laine-et-tricot.com/soak-lessive-laine.html">Soak</a></li>
        </ul>

3. Stitch Markers

Any kind of stitch marker will usually work. It's jewellery for your knitting.

        <a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/285648759/set-of-6-harry-potter-inspired-knitting?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=stitch+markers+knitting&ref=sr_gallery-1-6&organic_search_click=1&bes=1">
            <img alt="harrypotter" src="/img/2019/11/harrypotter.jpg">
            </a>
            <ul>
                <li><a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/285648759/set-of-6-harry-potter-inspired-knitting?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=stitch+markers+knitting&ref=sr_gallery-1-6&organic_search_click=1&bes=1">Set of 6, inspired by Harry Potter</a></li>
                <li><a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/517941299/cake-stitch-markers-for-knitting-novelty?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=stitch+markers+knitting&ref=sr_gallery-1-23&organic_search_click=1&bes=1">Set of 4 cakes</a></li>
                <li><a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/728300391/12-silver-plated-hexagon-stitch-markers?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=stitch+markers+knitting&ref=sr_gallery-1-19&organic_search_click=1&bes=1)">Set 12 hexagons</a></li>
        </ul>
        </td>

4. Fuzz remover

Knitted garments will inevitably start pilling. This tool helps to bring your garments back to life.

        <ul>
            <li><a href="https://www.tribeyarns.com/products/gleener-ultimate-fuzz-remover">Gleener</a></li>
        </ul>
        </td>
        </tr>


<tr><td>
    <h4>5. Handpainted yarn</h4>
   You can never have too many skeins of beautiful yarn.
    <a href="https://retrosaria.rosapomar.com/collections/fios-rosa-pomar/products/mondim-dyed-by-alfinete">
            <img alt="mondim" src="/img/2019/11/mondim.jpg">
        </a>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="https://retrosaria.rosapomar.com/collections/fios-rosa-pomar/products/mondim-dyed-by-alfinete">Mondim Dyed by Alfinete</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://retrosariaserafina.com/serafina-merino-and-silk">Serafina* Naturally Dyed Silk Merino</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://loja.ovelha-negra.com/pt/home/3891-malabrigo-sock.html">Malabrigo Sock</a></li>
        </ul>
        </td>
        <td>

6. Knitting books

Special techniques and patterns. There are many good books out there.

  <a href="https://www.wook.pt/livro/vogue-knitting-the-ultimate-knitting-boo-editors-of-vogue-kn/20760762"> <img alt="vogue" src="/img/2019/11/vogue.png">
        </a>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="https://www.wook.pt/livro/vogue-knitting-the-ultimate-knitting-boo-editors-of-vogue-kn/20760762">Vogue Knitting</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://retrosariaserafina.com/making-no-8-forest">Magazine Making nº8</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://retrosaria.rosapomar.com/collections/livros-de-tricot-knitting-books/products/marlisle-a-new-direction-in-knitting">Marlisle</a></li>
        </ul>
        
    </td>
</tr>

    <tr><td>
    <h4>7. Set of needles</h4>
    My favorite needles. :smile:


    <a href="https://retrosaria.rosapomar.com/collections/agulhas-para-tricot-e-crochet-knitting-and-crochet-needles/products/chiaogoo-twist-red-lace-interchangeable-knitting-set">
        <img alt="chiaogoo" src="/img/2019/11/Chiaogoo.jpg">
    </a>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="https://retrosaria.rosapomar.com/collections/agulhas-para-tricot-e-crochet-knitting-and-crochet-needles/products/chiaogoo-twist-red-lace-interchangeable-knitting-set">Chiaogoo</a>
        </li>
        <li><a href="https://www.woolstack.co.uk/knitpro-zing-set-dpns-double-pointed-knitting-needles/">Knit Pro Zing</a>
        </li></ul>
    </td>
    <td>

8. Project bag

These are very handy to take a knitting project outside or to have a pretty place for it at home.

        <a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/734440694/knitting-project-bag-drawstring-large?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=knitting+project+bag&ref=sr_gallery-1-42&organic_search_click=1">
            <img alt="saco" src="/img/2019/11/saco.jpg">
        </a>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/734440694/knitting-project-bag-drawstring-large?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=knitting+project+bag&ref=sr_gallery-1-42&organic_search_click=1">Project bag with foxes</a></li>
            <li><a href="https://retrosaria.rosapomar.com/collections/acessorios-para-tricot/products/fringe-supply-co-field-bag">Fringe Supply Co Field Bag</a></li>
        </ul>
    </td>
</tr>

My list includes options for different budgets: the cheapest option costs 5.6€+shipping (the Wrapture wool wash) and the most expensive option costs 90€+shipping (the Chiaogoo needle set). I hope this list helps.

Happy Holidays!

I'm not affiliated with any store/company.

Emilinda Aurora

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On my shawl pattern Emilinda Aurora, I give you the option to knit an i-cord on the bobble border. Hopefully this post will help you figure out if you need to knit it or not.

After blocking my gray sample, the border remained flat for a while. But after 4 or 5 days of wearing the shawl, it began to curl! It doesn’t bother me at all. You can still see the bobbles and the shawl is very comfortable. However, the photos might be misleading and that is why I decided to knit the rusty version.

The border will still curl a bit, but the i-cord will tame it a fair amount and the bobbles will stay on the uncurled part of the border.

The i-cord is knit at the same time of the border, and you will only be knitting 3 more stitches throughout. I explain how to do it on the pattern.

One of my test knitters opted for purling the stitch right before the i-cord on the right side and knitting it on the wrong side. This option should help it further. You can see how it looks on her project page on Ravelry.

Emilinda Aurora

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My new pattern, Emilinda Aurora, has been finally released and it’s available on Ravelry. It has taken longer to release than I expected (as per usual), but I think it was worth it to think about the pattern a bit more.

I decided to knit a second sample where I knit an i-cord edge on the bobble border, the orange sample. The i-cord will help with the curling on the border and it looks as beautiful as before (in my opinion 😇). You can read more about the icord on this post.

Whether you decide to knit the i-cord or not, the shawl will need to be blocked carefully if you want it to look like mine.

You can find out more about the shawl here.

Quietude Mini

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When I finished my sample for my Quietude pattern, I couldn’t stop thinking about knitting a pair of socks for my niece and nephew. And I ended up adding their sizes and more to the original pattern. So as not to confuse people, there are now 3 PDF files, one for each yarn weight and gauge. If you already have the pattern you should have received an update from Ravelry. You can find the pattern here.

Prisma with fewer colors

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When I imagined the cardigan Prisma with 7 colors, I didn’t really think about the amount of yarn that would be leftover. My sample was a size 6 for which I bought 350g of yarn and I only used about 245g. That’s almost 100g of yarn leftover!

I still think it was worth it because my niece really really wanted it, but if like me you are worried about the amount of yarn you’ll have left, I will write down a couple of notes to help you use fewer colors.

On this cardigan you will always use the same yarn for the ribbing and 6 colors on the rest of the cardigan. The amount of yarn you will use on the ribbing won’t change. What we can play with is the remaining 6 colors. It won’t be possible to optimize the amount of yarn used for all sizes, but these notes might still be useful if you prefer the cardigan with fewer colors.

On the pattern I always use the same reference for each color: C1-C6. Since we are trying to reduce the number of colors down from 6, the easiest way to achieve that without modifying the pattern completely, is to either use 2 or 3 colors.

In order to use 2 colors instead of 6, substitute the color reference the same way throughout the pattern, like so:

2 colors
C1 :arrow_right: C1
C2 :arrow_right: C2
C3 :arrow_right: C1
C4 :arrow_right: C2
C5 :arrow_right: C1
C6 :arrow_right: C2

For example, whenever I tell you to knit with C3, knit with C1, so on and so forth.

And to use 3 colors:

3 colors
C1 :arrow_right: C1
C2 :arrow_right: C2
C3 :arrow_right: C3
C4 :arrow_right: C1
C5 :arrow_right: C2
C6 :arrow_right: C3

You will also have to adjust the quantity of yarn used for each color: multiply the original amount of yarn needed for your size by the number of times that color is repeated on the schematic above. For the first option, with 2 colors, you’ll need (OriginalAmountofYarn x 3)g of C1 and C2. For the second option, with 3 colors, you’ll need (OriginalAmountofYarn x 2)g of C1, C2 and C3. The same is true for yards and the total amount of yarn remains the same. 🤓

Since you’ll be using less colors, it might be interesting to explore the possibility of carrying the yarn instead of breaking it (you can read more about that technique here). If you do decide not to break the yarn, you might also want to consider knitting the body of the cardigan in one piece. I haven’t tried either of this options so I can’t guarantee that it will work. The important thing to be on the lookout for is that the knitted fabric doesn’t get distorted on one side on the front, when/if you carry the yarn.

Don’t be afraid of modifying knitting patterns. Yes it might be a disaster, but it might also be absolutely fantastic.

Happy knitting.

Prisma

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My niece is at an age where she is obsessed with rainbows. Everything must be rainbow or unicorn themed. So when I asked her to pick a color for her new cardigan, it came as no surprise when she answered “the rainbow”. 🌈

That’s how this design came to be. So far it is my most challenging design, both to knit and come up with. I was hesitant about releasing it because I didn’t think anyone would want to knit it. It’s knit in pieces and you have to join new yarn often. After a little push from one of my youtube subscribers I went ahead a wrote it. I wrote the instructions as detailed as possible with several schematics so you don’t get lost.

All in all I really love the cardigan and more importantly, so does my niece.

It’s available on Ravelry and you can read more about it here.

Série Meias: A Tutorial for sock knitting in portuguese

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

As you probably gathered from the title, this is a portuguese only content anouncement. I probably shouldn’t even write a post about it, but who knows if there isn’t someone out there desperately looking for a sock knitting tutorial for portuguese knitting, that doesn’t mind not understanding a word I’m saying.

The pattern I wrote for this tutorial is only in portuguese too, but that might change in the future.

Click here to download the pattern for free on Ravelry.

Quietude

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Eight months after first coming up with this design, it is finally time for releasing it. I didn’t get it ready in time for the last Holiday season and decided to release it today, not only because it is my birthday, but also because we are now 5 months away from Christmas. Time to start thinking about Christmas knitting!

You can read more about this pattern here.

Frisos

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

My new pattern is finally ready for release. When I knit the sample in grey I wasn’t sure I would like the colors, but I actually love it. I’ve worn it a couple of times and the yarn is incredibly warm. And the Fool’s Gold from Hedgehog Fibres is also kind of amazing.

You can read more about it here.

Graúdo

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is my first proper pattern. I'm loving this process and have a lot of new ideas.

You can read more details about it here.

Meyas - the pattern

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been talking a lot about writting my first pattern on my youtube channel and it’s finally here. It’s nothing new or fancy; just my favorite techniques for knitting socks. I knit the portuguese way, with yarn in the back, and this pattern is written for knitting that way. This is not the case for my future patterns, but for this one I thought it would be fun to leave like that. There are tons of free sock patterns out there, but not that many written for portuguese knitting. It basically means that whenever possible you will be purling. The kitchener stitch on the toe is also done from wrong side of the sock.

You can get it for free on Ravelry. Click here to download it.

Meyas

Gauge swatching

Gauge in 10cm/4in

Pattern's required stitches and rows

Little Peaks Quilt

Pattern: Sentido

Pattern: Argila

Sock pattern: Dezasseis

Piecing together a sweater

Solving a quilt puzzle: Part 2

Solving a quilt puzzle: Part 1

Gift guide

1. Solid cream bar

2. Wool wash

3. Stitch Markers

4. Fuzz remover

6. Knitting books

8. Project bag

Emilinda Aurora

Emilinda Aurora

Quietude Mini

Prisma with fewer colors

Prisma

Série Meias: A Tutorial for sock knitting in portuguese

Quietude

Frisos

Graúdo

Meyas - the pattern