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I’m also in the “likes knitting but is terrified of socks” category, do you have any tips on needle gauge, material, or patterns?

Yes!!

Knitting Socks 101

I like this Basic Sock pattern because this one works with both fingering/sock weight yarn, and has instructions for worsted weight as well.

What Yarn to Buy

So, if you have never knitted socks before, using a worsted weight is nice because they will knit up a lot faster.

If you don’t mind hand washing and laying flat to dry, Wool of the Andes is a nice, inexpensive wool, that knits up into a cozy pair of socks.

If you need to be able to wash and dry your socks in a machine, you’ll want superwash yarn. There’s a Wool of the Andes Superwash and a Swish Superwash. You will pay a little more for the superwash in the wool.

Another option is an acrylic yarn. There’s Brava which is really cheap, but not a terrible yarn. For your very first pair, this might be what I’d pick if you are really uncertain. But I will generally always prefer a wool.

And of course there is also a huge amount of fingering weight options available.

Knitting Needles

You can knit socks, two at a time, on a cable needle, but I personally prefer double pointed needles.

It’s personal preference whether you like metal, plastic, or wooden needles. I personally am in LOVE with bamboo needles.

Specifically the Caspian Needles from Knit Picks. But any DPNs you’re comfortable with will do!

For fingering/sock yarn you’ll want size 1 or 1 ½. And for worsted you’ll want size 3.

Second Sock Syndrome

What often happens, when a person makes one sock, is that doing the second sock of the pair can feel like a slog, lol. To combat this, it’s usually suggested to knit both at the same time.

I will generally do the cuff up to the heel flap on one, then on the next. Then the heel flap on one, and the next. Then turn, then the foot, then the toe - working first one sock, then its twin.

Stitches You Need to Know

People are always so intimidated by socks, but the trick is to take it one stitch at a time. Don’t try and wrap your brain around the entire process, just follow each step of the instructions.

To knit a sock using the pattern I linked you’ll need to know

knit in the round on DPNs (not as tough as it seems!)

how to long tail or cable cast on

knit and purl

knit two together (and purl two together)

slip slip knit

pick up a stitch

And that’s it. All very, very basic knitting stitches.

I hope that helps!

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

hey mal! i was thinking about getting into knitting and i was wondering what sorts of projects you’d recommend for beginners? and also i was just wondering what sorts of things you like to make?

scarves are a classic for beginners (since they can be made just with the knit stitch, it means you get a lot of practice on that stitch), but they also can take quite a while unless you use super bulky yarn. but if you do use super bulky yarn, i’d say a scarf is a good idea ! i didn’t look for any patterns for this one cause. you don’t need one, you just cast on some stitches (with super bulky yarn you’d cast on between 10-20 stitches depending on how wide you want it), knit for about 6-8 feet, and then cast off.

alternately, fingerless gloves are very good for beginners ! they can be very simple–you can make them with worsted weight yarn and just knit two squares and then sew the sides together. here’s a couple of patterns: this one can be done knowing only the knit stitch, and this one is a little more advanced, and uses purl stitches as well

i also think cowls are very good first projects for learning to knit in the round–you need to know how to use circular needles, and also (generally) knit and purl. here’s a couple of patterns: this one is bulky weight and very simple and uses knit and purl stitches, this one is worsted weight and you only need to know the knit stitch, this one is basically the same as the one before but with bulky weight yarn, and this one switches between rows of knitting and purling

hats are just a little more difficult–you need the same skills as cowls, but you also need to know how to decrease. patterns: this one uses super bulky yarn, so it’ll go very quickly, and this one is with worsted weight yarn

i personally have knit an awful lot of hats, but i like knitting cowls and socks as well. i like the idea of knitting bigger things (like sweaters) but I haven’t actually gotten around to it yet.

the one problem i have with people my age and younger is that a lot of us do not have hands on hobbies. like i have spoken to so many people my age who go to work, go to school and then fuck around on their phone/computer for hours and then ???????? like no wonder ur depressed and have low confidence in urself. u need to get ur hands on something, feed those dopamine receptors! learn how to play guitar, garden, scrapbook, fucking make model trains. i don’t give a shit, MAKE SOMETHING!!

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things have improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

take a ceramics class! pick up water colors, bake cakes! learn to work on cars! make soap. DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE STARING AT A SCREEN.

art tips post

for all the artist following me

Have two sketchbooks: One for finished and high-quality art (stuff made with Prismacolor or Copic if you use that or art for your portfolio) and the other sketchbook for more messy doodles. This way you have a place to try new things and mess up as much as you need. When I only had one sketchbook I was scared to draw in it because I didn't want to mess it up

Do studies. I cant tell you how much I've improved just by doing studies of shoes, hands, noses, and all that. This works for when you have art block too since you’re not really making stuff up and just learning how real things work.

Learn from others. I’ve never taken a real art class because 1. I can’t afford it and 2. there’s no good art classes/programs at my school. I’ve been following several artists and learning from them over the years and they’ve helped me tremendously. Just please do not steal art because that is never okay.

Break down concepts. If you notice there’s something wrong with your piece then figure out why. You can’t get better if you leave mistakes and don't try to understand whats going on. If the color is weird figure out if the values look right or maybe its the saturation of the color.

Watch youtube tutorials. Here are some youtubers I think are pretty good art teaching all things art: Draw with Jazza |  DrawingWiffWaffles |  Proko |  Baylee Jae

Have an inspiration folder/blog. Sometimes you just need a collection of starry nights or a misty forest or even a French bakery. All of those things can help you get inspired to draw. It could even be completely unrelated to what you plan to draw.

There are no dumb ideas in the creative process. If you want to draw a lizard in a dress go for it! If you want to draw various pastries with faces do it! Don’t let the thought of it being too dumb stop you because if I’ve learned anything in my several years of drawing it’s that an idea can lead to another and another and another and you may get a really good idea just from doodling dumb things.

Here’s a few things that can get you started on drawing better:

Dynamic poses | Dynamic clothes | Dynamic figure drawing

COMPOSITION | PERSPECTIVE | CONSTRUCTION

Anatomy:

Legs

Arms

Hands

Heads

Body (Female) (Male

Color Theory

Improving your sketchbook

Most importantly, don’t give up! You may not immediately get notes or followers but it’s more important you get better than to have popularity. How do you think those popular artists got to where they are now? To be good you’ve got to work at it.

honestly the top tip i can give to any beginner knitter is to just ignore all the supposed ‘skill levels’ something takes.

sure, you might not want your first project to be complex cables or ornate lace or complicated color work, but if you want to make a thing then make it. use youtube and learn the new stitches. ask your local knitting group for help if you need it.

your knitting ability will increase a lot faster if you ignore what you’re supposed to be doing and start picking patterns by how appealing they are to you.

People say it was cringy, but I really miss my teenage deviantart days. Where I was just so excited and inspired to draw all the time, make ocs and worldbuild with others. It was so much fun. And I miss it incredibly

Hyrule Warriors Scarf Pattern

If you saw the Hyrule Warriors trailer and had covetous feelings about Link’s scarf, then this is the knitting pattern for you! See my finished result here.

Materials:

(MC) 4 skeins of sport weight I Love This Yarn in Bright Blue

(CC1) 1 skein of sport weight I Love This Yarn in Red

(CC2) 1 skein of sport weight I Love This Yarn in Sun Yellow

Size US 3 16” circular knitting needles

NOTE: When switching from one color to another, I highly recommend you use the jogless stripe technique. You can find out how to do this in this video.

Pattern:

With CC1, CO 102 stitches. Work in St st for 12 rounds. 

Switch to MC and work St st for 12 rounds. 

Switch to CC1 and work St st for 6 rounds. 

Switch to MC and work St st until scarf is about 69” long (or desired length) from CO edge. 

Switch to CC1 and work 6 rounds of St st. 

Switch to MC and work 12 rounds of St st. 

Switch to CC1 and work 12 rounds of St st. Cast off.

Using both CC1 and CC2, duplicate stitch the Hylian crest pattern onto both ends of the scarf, placing it 6 rounds above each second red stripe. Before stitching a second Hylian crest, make sure that you have flattened the scarf in such a way that you can see the two crests will be aligned. Sew each end of the scarf shut, and add red fringe if desired.

A while back my boyfriend was lamenting the fact that Nintendo was only offering the Hyrule Warriors scarf to Japan. Approximately 50,000 hours of knitting later I came up with this for his birthday, and I’m very happy with it. The downside is that if he ever loses it or even stains it, I will immediately break up with him. I’ve never experienced anything so tedious.

If you have cashmere taste and a Red Heart budget, this is a friendly reminder that acrylic yarn can be softened very easily by

Prewashing your skein in a lingerie bag with fabric softener and warm water in the washing machine & dryer

Soaking your finished project in a bath of cheap hair conditioner and warm water in your kitchen sink

I know there are a lot of yarn snobs who might talk a big game about how “terrible” acrylics are so, here. Have some tools to prove them wrong. 💜

Please, I implore you, do not be intimidated by sewing. 

If you try to make a thing and it turns out bad then it’s ok, you learned stuff by doing that. I see so many people say they want to sew stuff but are scared of screwing up, but it’s nothing to be afraid of!! Find some cheap thrift store fabric or secondhand clothes to cut up if you’re worried about wasting costly materials, but please just try sewing the things you want to! 

How to Copy Your Clothes

My favourite way of making clothes is to just copy well fitting things I already have. You can either trace around the whole garment and use a tracing wheel for the seams, or carefully cut your piece up at the seams and use the parts as a pattern. The cut up method is obviously for clothes that you no longer wear but would like to replace.

Not only will it save you so much money (patterns) and time (the tedious fitting process) it’s also great in combination with thrift shopping.

Like when I find cheap vintage clothes in thrift shops that fit perfectly but are made of nasty polyester or come in ugly prints/colour combinations, I’ll just buy them to use as a pattern, same with thrifted clothes where stains and smells won’t come out.

There are a two basic things to consider: the elasticity and weight of the fabric should be similar, i.e. replace poly jersey with cotton jersey, and make sure the cuts of the clothes aren’t too complicated, like start with something simple.

Here’s Mimi G teaching both methods by using leggings, the perfect item to get started:

And here she is again with a T-shirt tutorial:

You can also make the T-shirt longer and let it flare out at the bottom to make a dress, tunic, or nighty [Edit: oops, I meant nightie, or sleep-shirt.]

Don’t forget to use jersey needles when sewing with stretch fabrics.

🌈 Happy sewing! 🏳️‍🌈 ❤️

Make Some Pocket Extenders for Your Pants

So I don’t know about you, but I’m often frustrated by the ridiculous smallness of girls’ pockets. At a bare minimum, I need to be able to shove my cellphone in there - come on, pants companies! So what I started doing was making myself pocket extenders. I’ve done this several times, for pants and shorts. It’s great.

I just got this pair of jeans, so I thought I’d show you how to do it. I kind of feel like it just hasn’t occurred to some of you that this is an option, so maybe now it will. All you need is your pants, some fabric (I just took a random piece from a scrap bin), a needle, and some thread (thread doesn’t even need to match the fabric since literally no one will see it).

See? Ridiculous. Like, half a cellphone, or only 2.5″. Useless.

 So turn those inside out to expose the pockets.

Figure out how big you want your pockets to actually be. I kinda go by whatever looks like might be right. I didn’t really measure them. Fold the fabric in half, so you have a pocket, and then fold it in half again so you can have two equal ones.

Try to get the edges to line up enough, pin it in place, then sew up the sides! Are your stitches crazy uneven and wonky looking? Doesn’t matter; nobody’s going to see it. These are in the inside of your pants. The only thing that matters is that it holds up. So I double-did the corners, since those tend to get the most stress.

Cut open the bottom of the existing pockets.

Pin it in place, then sew around, joining the new pocket to the old pocket. I did this by keeping my hand on the inside, so I wouldn’t accidentally sew through the other side. Again, I reinforced the corners, and didn’t worry about what it actually looks like. Then I turned it in side out to make sure the inside was all joined properly.

Yay all done! And the pockets are so much bigger now!

Whaaaat I can fit my entire phone and entire hand and probably something else now, are girls’ pockets even allowed to do that?! Heck yeah they are.

Lace-patterned sweater. About a week's work, knit in three strands of an apple green silk-mohair blend.

Give me your spiciest knitting takes

I remember the day the sewing course taught us about the importance of using ball point needles on knit fabric, so the rounded–not dull! rounded!–end of the needle would push the knit threads/fibers aside, instead of potentially cutting them apart like a standard needle might, which would potentially lead to runs/ladders.

I remembered how Mom had sewn a lot of her aerobics wear in the early 1980s (she was an aerobics instructor so “needed” a lot of variety in her work-out gear) from slippery thin synthetic knits, and had fought her way through most of those projects*, so I told her about ball point needles.  She looked at me and asked why she would want to sew with dull needles, and didn’t seem to believe my explanation of why they weren’t dull and why it would help.  *as of this week, I also suspect that she was probably using really cheap thread, too

But.

The sewing course did not mention why you would not want to use ball point needles on wovens.  And, as with the fact that sewing a knit with a standard needle won’t necessarily result in runs/ladders, I got away with being lazy and leaving a ball point needle in my machine for all sewing for years.

But.

When I started sewing woven fabric into doll clothes with a ball point needle, with the tiny seam allowances involved in doll clothes, that’s when I realized: the way a ball point needle pushes the fabric threads aside that makes it beneficial to knits?  Well, it also pushes aside woven fabric threads, which gets really obvious in a print, because it will pull a single fabric thread–every once in a while–in a way that disrupts the print, by offsetting the print design along that one thread as it’s pushed into the bobbin area, possibly even twisting it, too, so the unprinted side of that individual thread shows on the top of the fabric.

Which, sure, in a full-size item, that pull/offset may happen within the seam allowance, or maybe it happens in the visible side but you never get close enough to see.  Doll clothes, though?  The seam allowance is too small to contain the pull, and you’re going to be close to the garment because it’s so small.  You’re going to see the problem.

So, more opportunities to learn from the mistakes of others:

Use a ball point needle for knits, especially thin synthetic knits

Use good thread, because it influences the very act of sewing itself and not just the sturdiness of the finished item

Don’t be lazy and keep a ball point needle in the machine when you go back to sewing wovens

One more post for my Jester Stockings project: inside vs outside!

In case you're unfamiliar with fair isle construction, all those little bits on the right side are called floats. They're made by the second yarn in the row that isn't in the front facing stitch. This is were the real skill of the technique comes in, as incorrect tension of those floats can make the finshed piece too tight, awfully bubbly, or prone to catching if they aren't secured.

It's a lot of work that goes into the side of the peice that no one ever sees! And if that isn't a metaphor for niche skills/art in general, I don't know what is!

🧶