I’ll Knit If I Want To: Episode 70

hi there and welcome to allnet if i want to i'm andrea mowry of dre renee knits and this is where i try to answer some of your questions and we cover mostly knitting but sometimes a little spinning even a little sewing and sometimes just random life stuff so i am just gathering some props for one of today's questions the first question actually so look at me actually prepared to answer one of these questions i am wearing my velicor sweater today this is a sweater i released a couple years ago that i really love to wear spring through fall it is a wool cotton blend and the yarn is called i believe it's best friend from yacht yarn on the house i'm not sure that it's being made anymore last i checked they did still have a few of the colors at tote yarn and wool so you could try and find it there um but i really hope that they start making it again because it's really one of my all-time favorite yarns especially with that little bit of cotton in there um i really can wear it even in warm weather and i'm wearing it today with my greer jumpsuit which is one of the first pairs of little overalls i made i'll link both those patterns for you below just a little sip of coffee here it's my second cup and it's just just really hitting the spot okay let's answer some questions so question number one would you please explain the method of using stitch markers to count rows when making sleeves thereby ensuring they're even it seems you place them on the first sleeve then remove them from the maid sleeve when knitting the second i'd like for my next sweater to actually have sleeves that are the same length so i grabbed one of my sweaters i had up here um this does not have enough sleeve action to show it but this is the daily which is basically a little bit heavier weight this is an air and weight um striped crew neck sweater very similar to the weekender but with stripes and a crew neck instead of a boat neck so four sleeves i generally for years and years and years i always used a row counter to track my sleeves and then i don't remember if i had lost my row counter or if i was being lazy and didn't get out my notions back i don't know what happened but i did start using stitch markers and i had been watching people do it for ages and just had never implemented it myself so i'll just tell you how i like to do it uh keeping in mind that when i'm doing it i'm also not following directions because i'm making them up as i go so i do find it extra helpful for me and i'll get to that shortly because you could also apply it to your own sweaters so i can actually see my little decrease here so what i like to you basically already have the gist of it where you may be able to see behind me here this away those are my bobbins i am actually applying a three-ply yarn right now on my little hanson mini spinner um i like having if i can when i'm applying i like having the bobbins kind of up a little bit higher instead of on the floor behind me but once i start it's hard to stop the process and move things until i'm done and this is like close to 12 ounces when it's all said and done i think i had four ounces of each fiber i'm doing a combination spin so i used um two different hand-painted tops and a bat and i'm using each of them as one of the plies in the three-ply yarn so all that to say i've got like this going on um so i'm a little further away than usual i'm going to try and scoot up you know i'm going to unplug this so i don't accidentally turn it on okay so pardon me while i do a little rearranging here i just want to make sure you can see okay so there we go you would mark one and what i also like about this method is again you could just use a row counter for this and that is what i always did before so i would kind of figure out my measurement a lot of sweaters will you there's usually two different ways it's written a sweater will or pattern will either tell you to decrease by measurement so they'll say for your size decrease one stitch or decrease every inch 10 times let's say or they might even give you a row count depending on the pattern and what's going on i prefer if possible if i'm not dealing with stitch patterns that you have to decrease on certain rows to stay within pattern i do prefer measurements because as we've talked about a bit before a lot of people can hit stitch gauge but they have trouble hitting both stitch and row gauge so if you're just knitting to a certain measurement you don't have to worry about row gauge as much because you're knitting to that specific measurement and you can take the amount of rows or rounds needed for you personally to get to that point but so what i would do with my row counter is i would figure out okay my decreases need to be spaced an inch apart let's say for ease um or 2.5 centimeters and so i'm going to do that once and then i'm going to count how many rows or rounds it took me to knit that one inch and let's say it was 10 then i know i can either use my row counter click click click and every time i get every time i've worked 10 i know it's time to decrease again or when you play stitch markers you can actually just count and i kind of like that method because i don't have to worry about if i um forgot to like click my row counter or you know sometimes when it gets to sleeve island um i just want it as simple as possible so what i like to do can i i can show you yeah you can see those stitches pretty good so i would say like let's say i had my little marker placed here then i would just count up like one two three four five however many it is and once i had that many again let's say 10 then i know to work my next decrease so the other thing i like about it then is i can very very quickly look along my sleeve with all my little stitch markers hanging off and i can quickly count to say okay have i worked all of my sleeve decreases so i could go through and go one two three you know however many i haven't be like okay i should be at the correct stitch count now so all that being said that is like the gist of using the stitch markers um so then when i get to the second sleeve design wise and again you could apply this to your own sweater knitting now i can really see the shaping and i can decide okay would i have preferred maybe to start my shaping a couple inches up and then done more of my decreasing to keep that upper arm a little wider or do could i have done this more even like i just use it as a way to look and be like okay do i like the way the sleeve turned out and do i want to replicate it exactly in which case i would do what you said where as i go i would either move marker for marker from one sleeve to the other or i would use more markers just to match it up um either way it's fine and um but otherwise i might say okay i can see really easily thanks to my markers exactly where those decreases are placed and here's how i maybe could make it better um and then i do always like to to get your sleeves to be even and the same length that would be a reason to maybe not just transfer all of your stitches to your other sleeve or at least leave your final marker in there because i tend to go back and count from where my final decrease was and count how many rows it took me to get to my cuff and then again i can count my rows in my cuff as well and that's going to ensure that my sleeves are the same length if i just want to do it without like a measuring tape and again to count rows of rounds i always prefer to do that with my knit stitches as opposed to a purl stitch because i find knit stitches easier to count and i would just count how many of those little v's vertically it took um to get to my next decrease or to finish off the length of my sleeve or the distance of my cuff so i hope that answered your question um let me just review it really quick yeah you basically already had it that that's what i do is i place them on one sleeve as i go and then i either transfer them over all except for maybe the last one or i just place new ones and kind of compare them that way but it is really handy and these little guys i actually my favorite place to get these little light bulbs is a lot of clothing companies will use these now on their tags um maybe not a lot of clothing companies but a few of them i just realized i've been looking the wrong way the whole time so as many of you know i do not do a high tech i'm still doing i do not do a high tech um video podcast whatever you want to call this over here i literally prop up my phone and there's a green dot that i look at so that i'm looking at you but i usually have my camera rotated the other way so i've literally been looking at like the hit stop play button this whole time so sorry but now i know where the green light is so my apologies but anyways you can often find these little companies like to use these little light bulb guys um for different things so that is where i collect a lot of them and i find that they like to sometimes use fun colors which i greatly appreciate so anyways there's a little hack for collecting free stitch markers next question what is your go-to binder for a top-down sweater with a ribbing at the bottom i find the regular bind off too tight and have not found one that is not too loose or too tight one that stretches but not too much and does not flare thank you love your style so time to write myself a note again um so i would recommend i have a couple that i'm just gonna write a note so remember to link them so if i'm doing it if you have been following my work at all my absolute go-to favorite i think i just did a regular bind off on this i did because this is i think four by four ribbing that i have on this sweater um i will say though that's just a regular bind off and it is really nice and stretchy um but not overly it definitely doesn't flare so one thing i would consider if you did want to use a regular bind off is maybe just going up a needle size to do your bind off and that's going to help loosen it up while still keeping your tension nice and even um but otherwise i recommend a really simple one is jenny's a surprisingly stretchy bind off that is one where in between binding off your stitches so you knit a stitch and then you're gonna do a yarn over knit another stitch and then you pull your first knit stitch and your yarn over over the second knit stitch so basically i think of it as one two three you have a knit a yarn over in it and then you pull one and two over three uh the thing about that is and there's a i have a video so i will link that for you um but you always want to make sure to do your eye your yarning over your yarn over over the top of the back of the needle instead of under the bottom because that uses less yarn you don't want to full yarn over because it'll use a lot of extra yarn and then it might do the flare-up thing that you are trying to avoid um but that is in the tutorial if you find that one helpful my go-to bind off for ribbing is a tubular bind off i find that it is the most polished looking bind off it's invisible it looks like the ribbing just like fall you know is right to the edge and i like that for one by one and two by two ribbing um the only thing with that where people can run into a little bit of trouble is you finish that bind off by using kitchener stitch to secure all of those stitches and sometimes people have a tendency to like really tug as they're sewing that bind off so that's where you really want to be careful is to not do that or your bind off will be a little too tight but if you do it with a good amount of um the right amount of tension then it's a really lovely flexible bind off and i have a video on how to do that on one needle so it's not the whole bind off but you can also absolutely find if you just search tubular bind off you can absolutely find tutorials for the whole shebang um and the way i check that to make sure i'm not doing it too tight which i mentioned on here before is as i go along i just do a little tug test to make sure that my bind off is staying loose and not getting too tight as i'm doing the kitchener but those are my favorites there is also books out there dedicated solely to cast-ons and bind-offs so you might really want to check that out because you might find some gems that end up being your okay i apologize i am going to just wipe my nose for a second sorry okay next question hi andrea i watch your podcast all the time and always learn something new from it yay last week you mentioned how to measure yourself to make sure your sweaters fit do you have any recommendations if you were trying to knit a sweater for a gift should you generally go with small medium large categories and hope for the best i don't want to give away the surprise by asking for measurements thank you for considering my question so um i really love this question because i myself have tried to figure this out thankfully the main person inet sweaters for would be like the people i live with so i can just sneak into their closets so this is what i would recommend if you have access to that person's closet i would just bring a little tape measure and when they are maybe in the bathroom i would go sneak and measure their sweater and go off of those measurements um especially if it's a sweater you know they like or a shirt you know it's going to give you a guideline um otherwise what i have done as well is i will go under the guise of like hey i am trying to work out sizing um for some new project or like i'm getting really into knitting and i'm trying to understand sweater construction more and different sizes and so do you think you could tell me your measure like i'm collecting measurements of friends and family just to get like a better grasp on it like i'll kind of do something like that and a lot of times people are just like oh okay so that's something you could try too um but yeah i think i think the most the best way would be to um sneak into a closet i'm trying to think of what else i have done to sneak out those measurements um a lot like in the beginning of every year generally i measure like peter and my kiddos and i just write those measurements in my notebook for the year of like okay this is where everybody's at so that if i'm gonna knit anybody anything um because at the end of the day you want them to have a good fitting sweater if you're gonna put all of that effort in and knitting sweaters can be very expensive so i do think you want to get the correct measurements um so i hope that helps um yeah okay if i think of any more ideas i'll add them all right next question my husband is in of how vibrant and clear your videos are can you share your setup and lighting secrets well thank you uh it's always a treat to hear because i don't have any um set up so i am sitting next to a window and that is my lighting um here on my studio i have like three windows right here and i do generally record during the day but otherwise i don't use any lighting um my studio is actually kind of dark so that can actually be tricky i would love to figure out lighting for further into my studio because knitting and picking out colors and stitch patterns when there's not great lighting in here can be challenging um but yeah for my videos i'm literally just sitting next to a window and i i'm doing it again over here andrea um and i just record on my phone so i have an iphone it's like maybe a 12 i think i got it two years ago maybe um yeah and i just have it i used to prop it up on a bookshelf and it would fall off sometimes while i was recording these so finally i kept getting like instagram ads for the different arms that you can put like stabilize your phone on which i actually got this mostly for holding my phone while i record tutorials so i use my phone for tutorials as well and that's it i use headphones to try and isolate so that the sound is better um i have some earlier videos where i didn't use headphones and this sounds kind of quiet it didn't record loud enough so um but that's that's the that's all i do so there you go all right last question of the day thanks so much for all the tips and facts you covered in the last episode about measuring for a sweater my question concerns measuring for a sweater such as the cardi you were wearing in the last episode one that has no buttons and is worn with a gap between the two front sections i think in the last episode i was wearing a cardi you wear closed though i was wearing it open but it does have buttons i think it was my lys cardigan little yellow sweater um is the finished size given in a pattern based on the fronts touching each other or open as it would hang secondly if i wanted to use that finished cardi as a measurement guide because it fits so well when it's done do i lay it out for measuring with a three inch gap between the fronts like it would appear when being worn then measure the width of the entire front so these are great questions um if we are thinking about the same sweater i'm pretty sure that the episode you're referring to i was wearing the little yellow sweater and um also known as the lys cardigan and that is a button-up cardigan so the pattern for that states the ease wearing it closed and buttoned um but on my patterns i say whether how that ease was taken if it was worn with the sweater open and just the two fronts like touching um or if it's worn with overlapping button bands i always try to mention that so you know that within the pattern itself and you can look at the schematic in some of my cardigan patterns i even offer two measurements to try and help people get the best fit possible so one is with it worn open and one would be with it worn closed so that is how i do that and so you would want to base it off the information given in the pattern on how you would measure it if you wanted to go off of those measurements for other sweaters so um generally speaking and if you're looking at different patterns and they say this is with a three-inch gap then yeah i would definitely consider that as part of the measurement one thing you could do too is if you've knit that sweater and you've got it laying flat you can measure the back and then each front panel and add those all up and then see what that measurement is compared to what they offer in the schematic to make sure that they are either including a gap or not so you know kind of that full circumference that you're looking for um but generally i would say you're gonna be going off of not including that three inch gap would be my guess um so unless that's how you like like you could always add that three inch gap in though for yourself as well um so all that to say you should be able to find quite a bit of that information right in the pattern for you um on how it was measured and the how the ease was intended for those measurements righty so we still have two knit alongs going on we have the drk spin it to knit it knit along weekender style which i am so it's also tour de fleece right now i have one skein of finished yarn we were actually traveling so i was on the road for almost three weeks during all of this so i brought my little um mini spinner here uh with me to get some yarn spun up and this is the yarn that i was intending to do it is the kind of blue and all bark no bite colorways from hello yarn i divided each braid of color into two strips and spun them end to end and then applied one of each color together and to be honest i don't know that i'm going to use this for the weekender anymore i am so excited about the long color changes in here that i think it would be really really good for color work but that is the great thing about making your own yarns and patterns and all that stuff is you can change your mind so we'll see i have two more bobbins um so i've only finished one skein but i do have two more bobbins these are ready to be applied this is gonna be the next thing on my wheel after i finish this three ply i also think i spun this a bit thicker um i haven't done any measurements or anything but just looking at it i feel like this is a between a sport and a dk um so a bit finer than i had hoped for it was also i don't spend a lot of singles on my hanson i use it more for applying um and it had just been a while since i had spun i've been doing a lot of sewing and finishing up a lot of deadlines for work so i wasn't getting as much spinning time um although now that i'm looking at this they might end up being pretty equal so we'll see i'm gonna see once i apply and wash these how much they puff up and what final weight i get um but yeah i'm just i'm just still deciding i'm really enjoying some combo spins right now bringing together different colorways i'm really excited to see how this three ply works out but i also am curious about there's some standard three plies i want to try with some of the colorways i have so right now i'm in an exploratory phase of my spinning so we'll see what i end up doing for my final weekender but i'm really excited to keep playing with colors and see where i land and i'm super stoked with how this beautiful yarn turned out so that is where i'm at with um tour de fleece and i'd love to hear where you are at and we also still have the inclinations kyle knit along i keep looking at that stop button i'm sorry all this is just gotta flip this camera around um but we still have the inclinations called knit along going on and really really fun watching all the different cowls come to life over there and it's not too late to join either of these knit alongs the drk spin it to knit it for the weekenders going for a whole year and it just kicked off you can absolutely jump in and the inclination cowl is going on through august so you can absolutely still jump into that one too and there are links and everything below if you have a question you would like to have me answer there is a form at the bottom of the description so below this video you should see a link that says show more somewhere near the title and it'll drop open a box where you will see all of the questions i've answered today links i have mentioned and a form you can fill out if you have a question you want to see answered another big question i am getting asked a lot in my email and in the question form right now is about the rhinebeck sweater i touched on that in an early up earlier episode but it is coming july 26th and we are currently having a naming contest over on instagram so if you're on instagram and you follow me make sure to check that out and submit your idea for a name for the sweaters because we are offering a fun prize whoever picks the winning the first person to suggest the winning name is going to receive both of the patterns and a 25 gift certificate to magpie fibers and a 25 gift certificate to spin cycle yards so if that sounds fun make sure to go add in a name over there and also make sure to sign up for the newsletter so that you can take advantage of the subscriber discount on launch day all right thank you so much for joining me for some more nitty conversation and i hope to see you back here next week happy knitting

Channel: Andrea Mowry

Views: 23,849

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Id: QZKl1HRSr0I

Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 14 2022