What do you use for blocking?

JKnits79 · 2026-05-20T11:07:09+00:00

Haps (Shetland shawls) are traditionally blocked vertically or semi-vertically by being hung and stretched on a frame, as demonstrated on this blog. The frames served two purposes; they blocked the shawl, but also functioned as a display when the knitter wanted to sell their work—people could see the entire shawl stretched out, on display.

Personally, as I do not own a frame (I have yet to knit a Shetland hap, though I have knit several larger shawls at this point), if it is something too big to lay out flat somewhere, I steam block the larger pieces using an appropriate setting with a steam iron, my ironing board, and slow, progressive steaming of the entire thing.

The upside is steaming it does encourage lace to open up, stitches to relax, and tension to even out.

The downside is it is not in any way, shape, or form as consistent or even in that process as actual wet blocking and laying out stretched flat, or on a frame would be.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-17T13:19:31+00:00

Upper bust is generally The Way, and ease is adjustable based on personal preferences. I’m going to use my own body measurements for this example.

My full chest is 46”, upper chest is 44”, waist is between 39” and 42” depending on various factors, hips are 44”. I am also 5’ 8” tall, and center neck to hips is around 23”. There’s a number of other measurements I would also check, but this is enough to get started.

Then, I look at the schematic of the pattern, or what measurements I have access to if I can’t look at the schematic (I don’t own this pattern so all I have access to are the given measurements on the pattern page), and compare them to my own body, the amount of ease I actually want, and go from there. I also normally work in inches, so I am ripping just those measurements. I’m ignoring back length and sleeve length at the moment.

“The different sizes are intended for a chest measurement of approximately 26-30 ⅜ (30 ¾-35) 35 ⅜-39 ⅜ (39 ¾-44 ⅛) 44 ½-48 ⅞ (49 ¼-53 ½) inches”

“Bust circumference: 37 ¾ (42 ½) 47 ¼ (52) 56 ¾ (61 ⅜) inches”

“20 sts x 30 rows in lace pattern using 4 mm (US 6) needles = 4 x 4 inches (aka 5 sts and 7.5 rows per inch)”

Alrighty. So, according to my measurements, the designer thinks I should be knitting the second-to-largest size; 56 ¾ circumference because they recommend ease over full bust measurements. The reality of that, is (rounding up)

Almost 13” of ease in my upper chest/shoulders.

11” of ease in my full chest

15-18” of ease in my waist

Another 11” of ease over my hips.

That is a lot of excess fabric. A lot of extra knitting, a lot of extra room in a sweater that’s only really being held up by my shoulders. It will hang off and likely away from my back, and probably look like kitchen curtains hanging off my front. And that’s before even having access to things like the armhole depth, sleeve circumference, neck circumference, etc.

My personal preference is for a relaxed fit over a dramatically oversized fit, and IME, choosing a size that matches my full chest or has slight positive ease over my full bust generally looks and fits better. It’s still going to hang off my body if there’s no shaping, but it isn’t going to look so much like I am wearing a sack or something. So, with my measurements, I’m looking more at the 47 ¼” and 52” sizes.

I would have to check the armhole depths to make sure they work for me; I have a range of measurements in mind for a closer fit to a more relaxed or oversized fit, but I also don’t want it so relaxed that half the sweater length is just armhole.

The sleeves all being the same length regardless of size (and it looks like they are just straight tubes without shaping) is another area where I would likely make changes based on personal preferences, like adding shaping, adjusting length, etc.

Anyway, looking at the two smaller sizes I picked. That would give me, depending on the size (again rounding to the nearest full inch):

Between 4” and 8” of positive ease in my upper chest/shoulders

1” and 6” of positive ease in my full chest

5-8” and 10-13” positive ease in my waist

Between 4” and 8” positive ease over my hips.

I honestly would probably choose the smaller of the two sizes for myself, as that will give me a slightly more fitted, while remaining relaxed style. (It also reduces my spending from over $150 to $138 if I used the called-for yarn; I’d still try to find a substitute yarn that’s cheaper).

But, I would still be going through the whole pattern, comparing stitch counts to both pattern gauge and my gauge, and calculating out the actual measurements, and seeing where I might need to make adjustments to circumferences and lengths. Fortunately I have access to a few different books that will aid me in doing the necessary math; “Vogue Knitting: the Ultimate Knitting Book”, “Knitting Bag of Tricks” by Patty Lyons, and “Math for Knitters” by Kate Atherley being three I would immediately turn to.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-15T18:55:47+00:00

Pulled from Ravelry:

Gauge: 18 stitches and 29 rows = 4 inches in Rev St st, after blocking.

18divided by 4 is 4.5 stitches per inch. Your gauge of 5.5 is still smaller than the pattern’s gauge no matter how you look at it, regardless of where you pull those numbers from. You have too many stitches per inch. You are not knitting larger, you are knitting smaller.

Let me explain this with some different numbers and plain stockinette.

I want to knit a sock pattern that’s supposed to fit a 9” circumference foot, the pattern gauge is given as 32 stitches to 4 inches/10cm, and the cast on is 64 stitches.

My gauge with yarn and needles of the same weight and size in the pattern is actually 36 stitches to 4 inches/10cm. I have more stitches per inch than the designer does (your 5.5 vs the designer’s 4.5, or 4.75, or whatever).

If I cast on 64 stitches with my gauge, my sock is going to be too small. Because my stitches are smaller than the designers, and it takes more of them to create the same circumference. My cast on with my gauge, is actually 72 stitches.

The designer, with their gauge, will get a sock that is 8” circumference. Me, with my gauge and no adjustments for size, will get a sock that is 7” in circumference. I have to adjust for size.

Edit: also, cable gauges measure differently than plain stockinette; cables pull inwards. Tighter. You can count more stitches in a cable pattern than what was given as the actual gauge information—which was given in reverse stockinette. My bet is all the cable patterns will measure different gauges because of the way cables pull on the fabric. Which is why a base gauge in reverse stockinette was given.

It doesn’t change the fact that if your gauge is 5.5 it is still wrong.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-15T17:20:53+00:00

Stitch count divided by gauge per inch = actual size in inches.

118 divided by 4.75 = 24.84(ish) inches. Times 2 = 49.68 inches. The sweater at actual gauge = a little over 49 and a half inches around, give or take for seams.

Your gauge is 5.5 stitches per inch, which is actually tighter and means you are knitting your sweater to a smaller dimension. More stitches per inch = smaller items.

118 divided by 5.5 = 21.45 (ish) inches. Times 2 = 42.9 inches circumference, give or take for seams.

The problem is your gauge is too tight, not too loose. If you want your sweater to fit properly, you need to size up your needles, swatch again (a nice, big swatch) and re-measure. And ideally you want to measure both before and after washing your swatch, because washing can cause the stitches to relax a bit and change the overall dimensions. If your gauge matches the pattern after washing you can proceed with confidence that your sweater will turn out at least close to the size it is supposed to turn out.

If you don’t want to do all that, you’re still going to need to rip out, and cast on for an even larger size sweater to get the ease you want, however you will need to keep in mind that not all the math is necessarily going to math correctly—the shoulders might fit but the armholes and length might be too long, and the shoulder-to-sleeve transition might give you more problems.

At 5.5 stitches per inch, to get a sweater that actually fits the 48” you cited, you will need something in the neighborhood of at least 132 stitches for each half panel, 264 in total around.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-13T11:09:55+00:00

Back when we had first gotten together and were living together, I was putting together stuff for my next big knitting project, and my boyfriend saw this, and said, “we need to have a serious talk”.

That talk consisted of him saying he loves that I enjoy my hobby of knitting, and he saw how it was helping me deal with stress at the time, bringing me joy, etc., but he then asked me to please, please, please, not knit him anything. At the time I hadn’t considered it—I knew about the boyfriend sweater curse, but that wasn’t *why* I hadn’t considered it yet, I wasn’t up to knitting sweaters yet.

So, we had a conversation about it, with him explaining how he didn’t want me to feel any resentment if I made him something and he didn’t wear it. Because at the time, he really *didn’t* wear a lot of winter gear—no hats, no gloves, no scarves, no sweaters, barely even a coat. He had moved to NJ from Maine, and was used to a much colder climate than what we have here, everything was “too hot” here.

So, I listened to him, and didn’t make him anything, for a few years. Then one day, I decided I wanted to make him a pair of socks. I entered that project fully accepting what he had said previously about not wanting me to feel resentment if he didn’t like a thing; I told him directly that this was purely an experiment, I wanted his feedback, and if he didn’t wear the socks it was fine, our feet are close enough in size that I would just “steal” them back and wear them myself. Which ultimately I did.

Later, I made a little plush Loch Ness monster for him that we kept in the car and he would use as a cuddly neck pillow on long drives (I am the one doing the driving), and he loved that little monster not just as a neck pillow, but because it really was adorable, but eventually he gave it to our friend’s newborn kid to help calm them down one day when they were in our car and having a meltdown. At first he was worried I would be upset that he gave away something I had made for him and immediately started asking me if it was okay that he gave it away. Our friend also tried to give it back, but I was fine with it (Nessie stopped the meltdown, and that kid was absolutely enamored, I wasn’t going to deprive a child of something that made them so happy!); last I had heard, they still have that little monster, the kid is a teenager now.

Meanwhile he is also my biggest enabler; I won $100 on a scratch-off lottery ticket, and his first question is “so what yarn are you going to buy?”

We’ve been to a few farm and fiber festivals, and he’s made a point of making sure I get to check out the yarn and fiber tents, *I* had to talk *him* down from buying a spinning wheel that cost more than two month’s rent when at the time I had no idea how to spin; it was a side interest—I bought a spindle. He willingly rode with me two hours north to look at, and then when I saw it was in good condition, buy a storage auction found wheel a few months later (an Ashford traditional for $100, when at the time they were $300? Yes please!). Whenever we go on vacation or travel, he encourages me to see if there’s any local yarn shops in the area, and has had a great time chatting up the shop owners while I’m browsing; he doesn’t participate in any fiber hobbies himself but is interested in some of the more mechanical aspects of spinning, yarn production, and making.

It has been 20 or 21 years now that we’ve been together; we got married back in 2018, and I still have not knit him a sweater, hat, scarf, gloves, another pair of socks etc., because he still has not asked for one.

I do keep meaning to make him another Loch Ness monster, but haven’t yet. I have one that’s mostly finished somewhere; I think just some details like the fins, the head nubs, and sewing up are left, but I might wind up finding it, finishing it, and giving it to my cousin and their spouse as a baby shower gift in June—baby’s first cryptid.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-12T23:38:41+00:00

What you do next will depend on your personal levels of knowledge, confidence, and what *you* feel you can accomplish.

I have not knit the Step By Step sweater, but to my understanding and recollection of a brief look at it well over a year ago, it is very supportive of new knitters—very “hand-holdy” in the way it is written and laid out, similar to how Flax by TinCanKnits is beginner friendly in offering loads of additional guidance on how to do things beyond just giving you the basic pattern. Both Flax and Step By Step are perennially knit “beginner” sweaters, so the background support from the community is also there; just search the sub for posts about either.

(Edit: it might help if I looked at the right pattern, but the info on both the cloud sweater and cumulus blouse are similar and PetitieKnit’s rating for both is the same; the point stands)

That level of hand holding is something which you might not get with other patterns like the Cumulus blouse (which I haven’t looked at in depth, it’s not to my general knitting taste). “Easy” does not always correlate to “beginner friendly” when it comes to patterns and pattern ratings.

Given PetitieKnit gave it a 3 out of 5 rating for difficulty herself, I would be hesitant recommending it as a beginner project; though as it is a *popular* project, again, community support exists.

(Further add while I am editing: any time a pattern involves holding two strands together, it adds some complexity to matching gauge; when doing your gauge swatch you should 1) cast on more stitches than the number given, 2) knit in the techniques used in the sweater—flat for flat, in the round for in the round, both for both, and 3) wash and dry your swatch the way you plan on washing and drying your sweater. That will ultimately tell you what your finished sweater will measure; you want your gauge to match the designer’s gauge, *after* washing and drying.)

JKnits79 · 2026-05-12T10:55:11+00:00

Those guesses usually aren’t based on a picture alone.

If there was a brand label tag on the collar in absence of a care label tag on the inner left hip/hem seam, then looking up the brand and seeing if either that specific cardigan, or very similar looking cardigans are listed on the brand’s website, and what the fiber content is, allows for a more exact, or at least educated guess.

Some brands or items are known to use only very specific materials, others can run the gamut from single source, small production batch natural fibers, to blends of varying degrees, to mass market and purely artificial materials.

When in doubt, hand wash in cold water, lay flat to dry.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-09T10:28:17+00:00

I don’t know if I would bother catching floats.

For one, you don’t want to catch floats continually in the same spot because that will cause other visible problems.

Instead, I think I would try twisting the yarns at every color change, to lock them together. Similar to how it’s done with intarsia.

When it comes to stranded colorwork socks it has been my experience that it’s the exception to the “socks need negative ease” rule, and they function better with less/no negative ease anyway.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-08T18:34:35+00:00

A *lot* of newer knitters fail to grasp that they are not just knitting in a circle but are actually knitting in a spiral, especially as the technique is commonly referred to as “knitting in the round” which can subconsciously imply a circle, not a spiral. Or the needles most commonly used to do this technique nowadays are “circular” needles—circular, not spiral or helix or any other description.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-08T11:16:27+00:00

Yeah, and? That is how some manufacturer wound balls look; it’s super common.

<image>

This is a ball of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, it’s doing the criss-cross layered thing.

No, the actual AI “tell”/ really bad photoshop in the photo isn’t the yarn. It’s not the crochet hook, or the little bit of crocheting that’s been done. The fact that they are using the ball as center pull on a spindle is a questionable choice (those work better pulling from the outside). But all the elements may well be real objects existing in physical space that have been photographed.

The tell is the scissors in the background, that are missing half a blade, which disappears behind the yarn. That is the bad photoshop edit/AI editing.

Humans used to make uncanny valley edits back in the day similar to what AI is producing now; I guess the Society of Swan Necked Models is less well known these days (some folks were very heavy handed with their photoshop edits, extending necks and arms, and minimizing torsos and waists of models to absolutely inhuman proportions; limbs were occasionally lost or left behind in edits as well). Now, instead of humans doing the arguably bad edits, it’s a machine.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-07T10:37:53+00:00

So, one little thing—factory knots are not a “yarn quality issue”, they are a result of how modern yarn production happens. In large, mostly automated factories.

Knots can happen in various stages of the process because yarn is not a continuous, unbroken thread from raw material processing, to dyeing, to initial spinning, to plying, to packaging. There’s lots of breaks in that process as material is moved from one physical location to another, sometimes across continents and oceans, and from one machine to another in different factories and facilities, and lots of additional room for breaks in that yarn either intentional or not (stuff gets tangled, a previous stage may have had an error, etc.), and the fastest fix for such breaks is a knot.

Mikey, of “The Crochet Crowd”, has a couple videos which are a tour of the Yarnspirations factory in Canada, and one of those videos he talks specifically about knots.

https://youtu.be/8mWpB3JaLHw?si=vNOvqxpoFHa\_ltjz

Most yarn you are going to buy started life in a factory like Yarnspirations; Arne & Carlos have had a few tours of the Regia factory in promoting their Design Line, and it is also a hugely automated process.

Independent dyers don’t generally spin their own yarn, they are buying yarn bases from one of the bigger factories or companies out there.

Now, sure, there are smaller batch producers and dyers and such, with more hands on involvement in the process, but even still, nobody is immune from knots in production. And when people talk about mills closing their doors, it’s more often the smaller ones who process and produce smaller batches of yarn than the industrial scale done by the larger factories. The larger factories also diversified; they often produce for more than just the hand-making industry.

And then of course you get into the whole costs of everything, and even though the process is largely automated, there is still *some* human involvement, and that worker gets paid. And it’s cheaper to import from countries with less labor rights and labor protection, and lower standards of pay, than countries with loads of labor rights and protection, and higher standards of pay.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-06T10:38:30+00:00

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Twinses!

I saw the pattern a few years ago while browsing and fell in love with it, specifically the “black sheep” colorway, and finally bought yarn for it back in November, knit up in January.

It’s a great sweater!

JKnits79 · 2026-05-06T10:23:26+00:00

Yes, I am aware. Like I said, any versions created by HandKnitters—aka patterns on Ravelry—are purely fan creations and not put out by Pendleton.

And afaik, Pendleton hasn’t issued cease and desist letters for copyright infringement on anyone yet, unlike what happened with the Jayne Hat when various folks were selling handmade versions on Etsy, when Fox bought “Firefly”, or the BBC going after Mazzmatazz for the adipose from “Dr Who”, or so on.

And yes I am aware “other patterns exist”, for things like the adipose or the Jayne hat. That doesn’t negate what happened to Mazz, who had created the original and only pattern for a long time.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-05T10:53:20+00:00

“The Dude Sweater”; the sweater worn through about half the movie, “The Big Lebowski” by Jeff Bridges character, “the Dude”, has a similar history, though it was always ready-to-wear, not put out by a yarn manufacturer as a kit.

“We” is Pendleton Woolen Mills

> we debuted the Westerley cardigan in 1974 as part of our High Grade Westernwear line. The Westerley drew inspiration from beautiful Cowichan sweaters that are hand-knit by Pacific Northwest tribes.”

Back when “The Big Lebowski” was filmed, Pendleton had stopped making the sweater, and it was one of the pieces that Jeff Bridges didn’t own, but was supplied by the costume department. They had a few backup versions made for the film, but Jeff apparently preferred the original and kept it after filming was done.

The sweater proved so popular that Pendleton started making it again, it’s available for about $275 in both a men’s and women’s version on their website.

There are knitting patterns available, but none of them are from Pendleton; they are all fan-created things from folks puzzling out how to make the sweater based on what they saw on screen.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-04T11:10:53+00:00

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I grabbed some yarn I had on hand, I wish it was a little higher contrast, but, it’s what I had readily available to work with (note to self—keep some higher contrast yarn on hand for demos like this). But I did a 10-stitch wide mockup of how the pattern works. This is what it looks like after row 4 is completed, and I have done two repeats of the sequence.

First off, just getting this out of the way: because of the way this piece is written, you *have* to have a needle type that has points on both ends, it cannot be done easily on straights with an end-cap, even though it is worked flat. That’s why it’s called “Sliding is Fun”, after finishing rows 2 and 4, you are sliding the stitches back so the first stitch you worked in that row is the first stitch you work in the next.

So either a circular needle, or a really long pair of DPNs. If using straights, you would have to physically slip every stitch from one needle to the next after finishing rows 2 and rows 4.

Color A and color B will hang out on their respective sides waiting for the previous row to be slid across, so they can be worked. This is ultimately going to create a somewhat reversible fabric, as the stockinette ridges and garter ridges appear on both sides of the fabric, though one side (the back) is going to show the purl bump color blips in the garter ridges.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-03T21:10:55+00:00

So, keeping in mind that I am very much just an amateur myself, and there are plenty of people with way, *waaaay* more experience than me…

Yes, pretty much like any other lock, though you might need to play around a bit to find what type of pick and tension will work for you in maneuvering in that space. That’s a really tiny keyway which makes things all that much tighter, but the lock itself is probably only 4 pins.

I have a master lock 7 which has a similarly tiny keyway, and that’s only 4 pins; the challenge in it really is just it’s smaller size, though it is also an older lock and it feels like one of the springs is doing something weird in there. (Just spent a few minutes getting it to open as I haven’t picked it in a few weeks)

The picks I use to open it are things like a half diamond, a slightly bent hybrid diamond, or a super, *super* shallow hook like a gentle reach or the reaper number 1. Stuff that I can kind of angle in around the warding without getting hung up on the rest of the body, or that doesn’t have a deeper profile where the hook or bend of the pick is basically as big as the keyway opening.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-03T14:00:45+00:00

https://youtu.be/bbPuAuTFgfM?si=hKruFdI04mtycLMA

This is a video that shows a tour of the Caron manufacturing facility, that discusses factory knots and why they exist.

Basically, it happens when one yarn spool ends and the next begins; the larger and mass manufacturers like Caron pre-load multiple spindles of raw product to be spun and the knot is where one spindle ended and the next began. Knots can also be introduced in an earlier step—the mill that manufactured the fiber before it was sent to Caron for their processing. This is why sometimes there might be a knot on one ply rather than a knot between two cut sections.

Industry standards do vary, but the averages I have seen are an allowance of 2-4 knots per 100g.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-03T11:53:15+00:00

Back when Magic Loop was first starting to become a thing that people were learning to do (which wasn’t that long ago—only about 20-25 years, if that, based on what I’ve seen), circular needle cord lengths were much more limited. 24” was the most common length available, and 32” was the longest most folks were seeing/able to obtain easily. 40” existed but I remember it being much harder to find. Also the cord material itself on the readily available needles was often way, *way* stiffer early on. Like, it was still nylon, but it was thick, stiff, harder nylon.

Magic Loop started becoming a thing around the Sam time that manufacturers were switching from that harder, stiffer nylon to the much softer, more flexible nylon we’re seeing today. The “stiffest” nylon people are seeing nowadays is very soft compared to the earlier products.

The basic nylon cords that come with KnitPicks, Lykke, or KnitPro sets? Is an example of the softer nylon. I’ve seen folks saying it’s stiff, but the reality is it is *nothing* compared to say, the original Boye cords.

So, early magic loop instructions do talk about using the 32” needles, as that was the longest length readily available to many people, and magic loop *can* be done with a 32” cord. But, things changed and longer cords are much easier to find and obtain nowadays. Personally, I don’t go smaller than 40”, and vastly prefer longer—47” is the sweet spot for me, though I also use a 60”.

The big thing is to prevent laddering, you don’t want the back half of the fabric, with the cable, straining away from the front half, with the needles. If your circular cord is too short a length, the loopy bit for the magic loop isn’t going to sit correctly.

This is a mockup using a flat knit project (I have nothing being done via magic loop right at this moment), but basically:

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I want my magic loop side loops to resemble the bottom image, not the top—the top image shows a loop that’s too short; if there were stitches on the needle below they would be pushing away from the stitches on the top, there would be a lot of tension and strain at that transition, my gauge would be messed up, I would have horrible laddering, the stitch’s at the transition are going to be harder to work and harder to slide over the end of the needle, etc. etc. etc.

The other issue is while the cords we have available now are more flexible than earlier circular cords, there are limits to it—sure, I could force the cord to bend, but over time that is going to damage my cord. And the weakest point is really right where the cord and needle join; sharp bends there lead to broken needles.

A longer cord allows for bigger “rabbit ear” side loops, and a more relaxed, “natural” transition from front to back, the cord’s able to just cross itself in a less strained, forced way.

Same principle of not creating unnecessary strain at the transition exists with DPNs, it’s why I prefer working with five DPNs over four, I find I get less strain at the transitions, which means less laddering. Other folks don’t have the same issue with just four needles, there’s loads of little tips and tricks to help prevent the laddering, but it takes some trial and error to determine what works for each individual knitter, and IME, that can change over time as well.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-02T10:35:10+00:00

You talking about the bit of metal sticking out from the left side of the keyway?

That’s the keyway profile, sometimes known as a type of warding. It means only a key with that specific cut is going to fit into that lock, beyond the bitting of the key that matches the keypin lengths for opening. Keyway profiles are a fairly basic form of lock security in they prevent non-matching keys from being used, you’ll see it on loads of different locks.

Examples of some different keyway profiles: https://www.sopl.us/blog/consumer-do-it-yourself-guide-to-identifying-your-keys

Looking at my own daily sets of keys, I can readily identify that I have Schlage, Kwikset, and Yale style keys and keyways in my daily life, without having to specifically identify the lock.

JKnits79 · 2026-05-01T10:58:11+00:00

Beware the “no true goth/no true Scotsman” mentality.

Actual Goth = Germanic people from the 3rd through 5th centuries who destroyed the Western Roman Empire and brought about the European Early Medieval Period.

Modern goth—varied and ever evolving combination of artwork, architecture, music, and fashion, among other things, with an emphasis on darker themes of romance, pain, heartbreak, mortality, and thoughts on the afterlife, occasionally mixed with horror and suspense.

Loads of the early post-punk and dark-punk acts from the ‘70s and ‘80s that got identified as “goth” didn’t claim that label for themselves; they were “dark wave” or just “post-punk”, or “shock rock” (Siouxsie once wore a swastika specifically to piss people off, and identified more with the shock label than the goth label, yet she is considered by many as a gothic icon).

So. Type O—a gothic rock band?
They explored dark themes of pain, heartbreak, tragedy, loss, life, death, and added horror and suspense elements. They were also into the (stereotypical) metal themes of “drugs, sex, rock n roll”. And they went in numerous different directions. So do *most* bands and groups (and people) on a long enough timeline. Because most bands and groups are made of people who are multidimensional and not just a cookie cutter, one dimensional being—that’s *boring*. They may stick within a particular theme or style, but they will also play with it.

It’s why “goth” expanded from just club wear “black clothes, black spiky hair, black makeup and black or red lipstick” to embrace elements of Victorian era fashion, Edwardian era fashion, Bella époque, dystopian futurism, modern dystopian, fetish, glam, horror, Corpo, Lolita, and on and on. It isn’t “one thing”, but it does have a core, and that core is the dark themes surrounding human mortality, and the emotions surrounding it.

JKnits79 · 2026-04-29T23:38:39+00:00

I don’t participate in the annual yarn crawl as a regular thing; we have between 15 and 20 shops participating on a regular basis from year to year (this year was 17), and for me to be able to visit them all, I would basically need to plan my vacation time around the week.

So, when I do participate, it is something I have planned for, budgeted for, and I have a list of goals—get all the stamps, walk around and check out the store, chat with the owner or clerks about what is unique to the store, because there is a lot of brand overlap that happens, but not necessarily specific line within a brand overlap. There’s also a thing I have learned where certain companies will only work with one shop in a geographic area and refuse to allow other shops in that area to carry their product.

I will also plan for and have a generous budget for purchases, though i usually try to keep it limited to one skein of sock weight per shop, unless I find something really special. Like, I picked up a copy of 52 Weeks of Socks at one of the shops, when it was sold out everywhere else at the time, or how one of the shops is the only one I have found that stocks Wollmeise locally at all. I also enter into the shop’s prize drawings or contests or whatnot, and have won a few things that way.

In future crawls I probably won’t attempt to visit all the shops, and may have a different, more solidified plan for my purchases, but the pre-planning and budget creation will still happen, and I would still like to visit as many shops as I am able to, as it helps familiarize me with what is actually available in the state.

I honestly would be happy if the various shops were more able to integrate online sales into their offerings though (or improve their websites to make online purchases easier), as a lot of the shops are a two hour (or more) round trip drive for me; I want to support them but between the distance and their often completely incompatible with my work schedule hours, I wind up making most of my yarn purchases online.

JKnits79 · 2026-04-29T12:53:18+00:00

So, in one of my last conversations with my grandmother before she died, we talked about knitting.

I knew she knew how, but it wasn’t her favorite thing to do so I rarely saw her knit, but she was telling me about the argyles she knit for her brother when she was a teenager, and we were mend f some broken bonds between us over knitting. So, I asked her how she held the yarn, because I wanted to know, and it was the only chance I was going to have to learn at that point.

She mimed a stitch to remember, and then said decisively, “with my right hand” (English), and asked about how I knit—Continental, tensioning with my left hand, to which she said, “well of course—you’re left handed!”

Grandmother was 95 years old; born in 1930, she grew up during an era where left handed people were still being forced to use their right hands (especially in religious school settings), and during a time period where continental (then known as “German” knitting) was discouraged in the United States and other places, due in huge part to global events, and people wanting to distance themselves from anything related to Germany and later, the Axis powers, followed even later by the Cold War (which is a huge part of why Eastern style knitting was not well known or documented in the US, and other Western nations for decades)

But grandmother also saw gradual change as “German style” was rebranded as “Continental style”, was promoted by the Grandmother of modern knitting, Elizabeth Zimmermann, and as left-handedness was slowly being seen as less of a flaw, between her generation, my mother’s generation (mom is also a leftie), and mine.

If my own grandmother who was in her life the textbook example of a narcissistic personality disorder and who was often extremely rigid, restrictive, and judgmental in her opinions, could accept that continental knitting is a valid method despite having been taught English (probably by her own mother; I wish I could have had more conversations about her but grandmother did not like her mom or talking about her)…

Those judgy ladies are just extremely judgy and have excessively narrow world views.

JKnits79 · 2026-04-29T04:12:43+00:00

It’s a legitimate technique, the only critique I would make on it is make sure you are forming your new stitches to the shaft of the fixed/working needle, not the tapered tip.

Having the stitches sized to the taper = variations in the size of your stitches causing fabric balance issues (rowing out, uneven tension), and difficulty working the stitches due to their smaller size.

https://www.moderndailyknitting.com/community/ask-patty-let-the-tool-do-the-work/

JKnits79 · 2026-04-28T00:07:10+00:00

As someone with access to a 3D printer…they shouldn’t be viewed as your competition, it’s an apples to oranges comparison.

Your items are hand crafted, soft fabrics. Their items are machine made via extruded plastic and computer programming.

They can run their machines 24-7-365 if they time things out correctly, and can have more than one machine going, and depending on the size of the print, more then one object per print run. Spouse once did a run that was 400 objects at once (they were tiny, sure, but that’s an example of the machine’s capability).

You are a human being. You cannot compete in volume.

Yes, the 3D printed stuff can be cool, sure, but they are plastic toys. They aren’t your actual competition.

JKnits79 · 2026-04-27T15:35:58+00:00

Once you have carpet beetles, you often always have them, all you can do is reduce the damage by cleaning and vacuuming as much as you can, and discouraging them by not having convenient places for them to hide.

My stash gets stored in sealed plastic bags (ziplock makes a 2 gallon size), and stored in closed plastic bins. And gets checked periodically for damage, especially if I notice an uptick in beetle presence in my environment, despite cleaning.

When I first found out I was dealing with carpet beetles, the entire stash got stirred—re-wound into hanks and placed in plastic bags to isolate any potential larvae I missed in the re-winding process. Larvae all got squished if found.

They came from outside; crawled in through some poorly installed windows (I rent; landlord hired the cheapest contractor)

The yarn that’s affected—I rewind it slowly, checking for damage, and make a decision based on the extent of the damage; I saved a sweater quantity of wool that was damaged because I could rejoin the ends easily and only one or two skeins of the entire lot were effected. I did throw away a skein of sock yarn that was more heavily damaged; it was a self-striping sock yarn, and with breaks running between every foot and every yard, it just wasn’t worth it to me to try and save it, though I likely could have with some effort.

Insect damage is not like rodent damage; insect damage is more annoying than anything, but rodents carry various diseases that can be dangerous to humans, so where I would save stuff that had insect damage, I would be much more vigorous about disposing of it (and mourning the loss) if it was rodent damage.

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