Knitting

Articles on Knitting

What is knitting

Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth. Knitting consists of loops called stitches pulled through each other. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can be passed through them. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine. By hand, there are numerous styles and methods. Flat knitting, which can be done on two straight needles or a circular needle, produces a length of cloth, while circular knitting, which is done on circular or double-pointed needles, produces a seamless tube. Different yarns and knitting needles may be used to achieve different end products by giving the final piece a different colour, texture, weight, or integrity. Using needles of varying sharpness and thickness as well as different varieties of yarn adds to the effect

wikipedia.org

Yarns or cottons

There is actually no real limit to what you could use to crochet with as long as its long and thin enough to wind around your hook you could work with it.
There are however a load of standard professionally used materials ie wools and Cottons. Cotton and wool come in a variety of thicknesses and you would use the finer threads with a smaller hook. As the Wool thickens the hook needs to be bigger to work with easily.
The size and thickness of the wool you would need for a project will be told to you in the pattern. As with our clothing and all sorts of measurements around the world you will get the metric and imperial size but if you have the one you not familiar with, dont let it put you off. There are loads of conversion tables out there and can easily be converted over to your preference.

An important thing to remember is that if you go out and by wool for a particular project you need to get enough to complete your project. This is applicable especially when you working with only one colour. The Reason for this is that if you run out half way and go buy more wool you might not get the same dye-lot and this could be disastrous to the finish.
You might never notice the difference when working but when you pull your garment out of the cupboard on the fist day to wear it and you put it on, you can see to different colours!!! This had happened to me and I would not like for you to have to go through all that hard work just to be disappointed in the end.
The dying process and quality of our wool and cottons had dramatically improve over the years and the chances are a lot less these day of this happening but it does!! If you not an expert like my mother and dont like having to pull something out and start all over then take heed!

Yarn size

There are quite a few thicknesses of wools and cottons and im not even familiar with all of them myself but the ones i do know about are the most common.

Baby yarn

Baby yarns are usually 3 and 4 ply weight that is easy to knit and have special non stain qualities that make washing them often and baby messes easy to get rid of.

Double knitting

Double knitting wool is the most common and is used to make your standard jerseys and clothes. Double knitting is easy to work with and goes a lot faster then the thinner 4 ply. You can if you have some extra 4 ply wool take it and double it up to make double knitting wool as that will give you the same size.

Chunky

Chunky wool is the thickest of the wools and the fastest to knit as it is so much thicker. Although it is fast it is not as common as double knitting as in places like south Africa it can be a bit to over the top for our weather.
It really is a nice wool to make kiddies jackets and scarf with and its nice to use to teach kits to knit with as it goes so much faster!
As with double knitting and 4 ply wool you can do the same for chunky. you take two strands of double knitting and you have chunky wool. remember that it is now not so easy to knit as you constantly have two strands to contend with rather then a nice pre woven ball of wool.

Other wools

There are still a number of other wools that i have not spoken about as yet as they specialy wool and not really for beginners. Lets get this knitting thing down pat first then we can get more complicated!

Crafty Corner Knitting classes

We are based in roosevelt park near emmarentia and i teach basic knitting classes. I run classes at times that suit you. You need to book two weeks in advance and let me know what time and day suit you. I charge 120 per 2 hour session. Call me on 011 782 0351 for a booking.