Category: 2022

This week on GK: Tyche, Pomona, a surprise package and the fifth birthday

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This week’s topic of the Knitting Help series for the Tyche Hoodie is the kangaroo pocket. You can read the tutorial here, or watch the video on YouTube here. I put all the previous videos into a playlist, so if you need all the video help for Tyche, you find it by clicking here.

As to my other design, the Pomona Sweater, there was a “tiny” setback at the beginning of the week as I realized there was an error in the pattern, so I had to frog the entire sample sweater and knit it again. The pattern (and the sample) is corrected now, everything is fine. Currently I am experimenting with short row shaping for the hem. I think I will include that in the pattern, too.

Short row shaping of the hem

I know mistakes and frogging are part of the design process but I can’t tell you that I wasn’t upset about it… and then my phone rang. It was the carrier, he told me has a package for me. I wasn’t expecting anything (yet) so I was quite surprised. It turned out to be a package from Holst Garn:

The package was shipped on January 22nd and arrived on the 26th. 4 days from Denmark to Hungary. How incredible…

It was a sweet surprise. And it is not only the speed that amazed me, but these guys at Holst Garn seem to know me quite well… 😀 I was busy admiring the yarns when it suddenly came to my mind that I had also ordered some stitch markers, but I couldn’t find them. I immediately thought that I had accidentally thrown them out with the packaging material so I was going after them into the waste bin, but they weren’t there… and then I found this:

So cute of them 🙂

I was laughing so hard… 😀 to leave this message was such a clever thing to do 🙂 I wish I had looked at the invoice before I freaked out, but you know, who cares about the invoice, when there is yarn in a package…? 🙂 Anyway, this moment made my week, so I quickly forgot the setback with Pomona. I love the texture of this yarn (it is Coast by the way, 55% wool and 45% cotton) and I already started to knit swatches with it. It is perfect for a design that I have in mind for the summer.

I have one more thing to write about this week, and that is the 5th birthday of GK. I started this thing exactly 5 years ago, in January 2017… To be honest I was already blogging about knitting and crocheting for a few months by then but it was all rambling about my knits in Hungarian. The official start of GK is definitely January 2017.

This made me nostalgic and I realized that January is the month of the great starts and ends in my life. I started GK in January 2017, changed the language to English in January 2018. GK was temporarily shut down in January 2019, we sold our house in January 2020 and finished major construction works on the new house in January 2021 (though the last workers left only in March). I am really looking forward of what this year brings…

5 years… I still can’t believe it. Time flew by so fast. I was looking for ways we can celebrate these past 5 years and I couldn’t find a better one than giving you 50% off of every GK knitting pattern for 5 days, starting today. No coupon codes needed. This sale only applies on Ravelry and Etsy, the discount will not work on my website. Sale ends at midnight Wednesday, February 2nd CET, 2022.

Happy Knitting!

Mici

Stash busting (after-) holiday knits

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In my last post I made a short list of my new year’s resolutions and the first resolution on that list was clearing chunky and bulky yarns from my stash. I have already started to accomplish this through the winter holidays, and now I have a considerably huge pile of knits waiting for weaving ends and blocking. Here is a summary about how I am progressing with this project.

I had a huge box of Garnstudio Drops Andes yarn which I didn’t need any more. I didn’t want to design something complicated because I didn’t want to spend time on calculations, so the easiest solution seemed to be a throw. I had a stitch pattern that I liked to work very much. Isabell Kraemer used it in her Lemmy K shawl design and I always knew I wanted to use that stitch pattern for something. So I knitted a throw for myself and I have to admit I love it so much that I put it in use before weaving ends and blocking… Unfortunately I can not show the throw to you here on the blog because some weeks later I realized that there is a really similar throw on Ravelry with the same stitch pattern made by a very popular designer… Though I see the differences too, they are indeed very similar and I wouldn’t like to get involved in any copyright issues, so I must keep the secret of that throw to myself…

When I was done with the throw, I still had plenty balls of Andes left. So I started searching for patterns on Ravelry and I found a very promising project: Autumn by Nazilia Zemdikhanova. I casted on one for myself in size S and I liked it so much I started a second one a few days later for my mother in size XXL.

It was a very mindless knit, I could sit and binge watch Netflix series while knitting, which is very rare for me (usually I knit according my calculation and taking notes, so following someone else’s pattern was really refreshing). Sizing is perfect, both for my mother and for me, I have a feeling that we will both love this pullover.

It seems Andes doesn’t want to leave me because I still have a smaller box full of it. Maybe I will do some calculations and do Autumn in the kids’ sizes as well…

The next yarn that took up many space was a box of Phildar Phil Alaska. My first thing was of course searching for projects in Ravelry but I didn’t find anything that I like, so I took measurements from my kids and cast on pullovers for them. These are really quick knits, I cast on in the morning and bind off in the evening.

The first one was for my daughter. It has a yoke with a simple colorwork. Before you watch the following picture, I have to mention that all my respect goes out to those designers who are designing circular yoke patterns with colorwork. It took me forever to draw a very simple pattern, and I was tearing my hair out all the way. I convinced myself that this was the first and the last time I’m doing this. And now here it is:

I know… it is not perfect. I have read many articles on circular yokes since then and I would make some modification on the pattern if I had the chance to start over (I would concentrate the increases in the upper half of the yoke around the neckline and take away increases from the bottom of the yoke), but I really don’t want to waste any more time on this. Neither knitting nor designing colorwork are really my thing plus I had to make this yarn disappear so I guess it will do for now. My daughter – who I knitted this for – likes it, it fits her fine and she will grow a size by next winter anyway so it will be worn for a few short months only…

The second project made with Phildar Phil Alaska was a raglan sleeve pullover for my son. When I finished it, I realized I still have a pullover worth of yarn and also I am not very satisfied with the raglan ratios so in the next few days I am going to frog that one back and knit it again. I will show the whole piece to you only then.

The third kind of yarn that I wanted to clear from my stash was Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky. It is a beautiful and smooth yarn that comes in beautiful colors but it is too heavy weight for me, so I knitted a pullover for my son.

Don’t let the lights fool you, this is blue.

And I saved the best one for last… if you are paying close attention to the cover photo of this post, you will see something that is not a stash busting knit… It is rather a sneak peak to a design that I have been working on for a while. I started to work on it in 2018 but it has never made it to publication. Now that I have finally finished knitting the sample, I am starting to write the pattern, so hopefully it is one of the designs that will be published in 2022. Here is a better sneak peak:

I guess it will be a fun project… I will share more information on this one later and update you when it is ready to test knit.

That is all I have to show you right now. It may seem a lot but they are very bulky knits and I knit quickly anyway so it wasn’t that much to accomplish…

Next week I plan to weave end and block everything so I will probably be able to show you the final results in my following post… Until then…

Happy Knitting!

Mici

New year’s resolutions for 2022

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After writing a summary for last year(s), I can not miss listing my new year’s resolution either. In the past few years I have learned that I should not make promises a year ahead, because I never know what will happen tomorrow. So my resolutions are made carefully. I am not promising to publish 5 patterns though I would really love to… These are only guidelines for the future based on my past experience.

Clear yarn stash

When you choose yarn for knitting and selling handmade hats, you are usually looking for bulky and chunky weights because the heavier the yarn weight and the larger the needles you use, the quicker you finish knitting a hat. Which means you are able to knit more hats in a given time period, so you make more pieces you can sell. Which means more money for your small business.

I was selling hats for 3 years, so I have piled up quite a few bulky and chunky weight yarn in my stash. Now that I closed my webshop, I don’t need them any more. I don’t like to knit with those heavy weight yarns and large needles and I find more technical challenges in the lighter weight yarns.

All in all, I have to clear 3 huge boxes of bulky and chunky weight yarn that is taking huge space away from other things in my office.

I also went through my lighter weight yarn stash and found some colorways that I regret buying. I will never use those for designing and photographing so they have to go, too. Fortunately my daughter is now starting to play with dolls, and we all know, a doll can never have enough clothes, so my plan is to knit as many doll sized sweaters and rompers as I can.

Buying new yarn thoughtfully

I will only buy yarn after considering my needs carefully. I see how hard it is to clear all yarn from my stash that are don’t needed anymore. I fall for yarn sales all the time but that is a huge mistake to make. I always end up with cheap but unnecessary yarn. I know, I have really written that down… I am really happy to have a workspace but that workspace is quite small so I have to be cautious of what to purchase and what to let go.

Keep consistency in posting content

This is true for the blog and for social media too. I am very guilty of forgetting to post to social media which is obviously not beneficial for someone who has a small business based on Instagram… So I will try to be consistent.

Keep learning, keep studying

If I want to be honest with you, I am not only loving knitting but I have always gravitated towards the science behind it if that makes sense. Creativity is not enough for designing, I realized I have to see the correlations between the different kinds of yarns and the design itself. I have to know more design elements. My current knowledge is all self-taught, based on some knitting books and on the internet (except for the very basics which I have learnt from my mother when I was a child). I was always telling everyone I am so sorry there isn’t any school for this but there is, actually… So I have signed up and I am really excited to start this journey.

Publish my designs that are already sampled

This is another thing I am very guilty of. I have many designs outlined in my notebook but I don’t have them written up as a pattern. When I seem to have an idea, I take notes, create charts, make swatches, knit a sample, and somehow I stuck there. My goal this year is to write, test knit and release as many of these designs as I find worthy of publishing before I come up with a new one from scratch.

Basically that is it for 2022. It doesn’t seem much for the first time but looking at the pile of yarn I have to clear away, the books I have to read and the designs I have to publish, I will not stop until next Christmas… Good thing it is only January…