Tag: Knitting

Self-made Crochet Hooks And Knitting Needles

Self-made crochet hook and knitting needles

Links of entry

Once I wanted to have a really big crochet hook and knitting needles and after I found tutorials on how to make them (see links below), I made myself some.
In fact they are so big that it is quite difficult to work with them ;-)
I use them very rarely – but if necessary, I can ;-)

 


Links:
Making Crochet Hooks:
Making Crochet Hooks from Chopsticks (with explaining pictures)
Make your own straight hook (with explaining pictures)

Making Knitting Needles:
Chopstick/dowel knitting needle tutorial

Organic Stripes

Organic Stripes

Links of entry

Note: the Random Stripe Generator doesn’t exist any more, but you can find two new links in my entry Random Stripes Generator.

While knitting or crocheting you sometimes want to stripe your workpiece. I find it difficult to design organic looking stripes.
Math can help here (although I’m not a very mathematical woman ;-)): At Fuzzy Galore you can find an article about the Fibonacci sequence which sounds perhaps difficult, but is quite easy.

And those who don’t want to figure out their stripes themselves can use the Random Stripe Generator. (I just tried the generator, but it didn’t work properly. Hopefully it will ‘recover’.)
(It did work properly, but I didn’t know how to use it ;-)
My problem was, that I entered a stripe width and thought, that this was the max. width.
But for the stripe width selection, it requires that you specify exactly which widths you want. So if you want widths of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 rows, you need to select all five of those check boxes, rather than just the box next to ‘5’.
Try it and you will get wonderfully striped patterns. :)))


Links:
Article about the Fibonacci sequence
Random Stripe Generator

Here at unikatissima:
Random Stripes Generator

Plastic Bag Tote

Plastic Bag Tote

Links of entry

At Marlo’s Crochet Corner I eventually found instructions on how to cut a plastic bag to get the ‘yarn’ for crocheting and/or knitting. She also provides an instruction on how to crochet a tote.
Once I crocheted a purse with such yarn and it worked very well, but as always I didn’t take any photo ;-(
The purse was quite stiff (which I find appropriate for a purse ;-)).
I think about making plastic yarn (plarn) and working freeform with it, but I still have no idea what to make, because items knitted of crocheted with plastic bag yarn tend to get big.


Links:
Marlo’s Crochet Corner
Plastic Bag Tote
Cutting the plastic bag ‘yarn’

Here at unikatissima:
Freeform Needlework

Make Your Own Knitting Loom

Make Your Own Knitting Loom
Links of entry

While looking for knitting patterns I found sometimes sites about knitting looms. It sounded/looked interesting but I never thought of buying such a tool.
Then I found instructions, how to make my own knitting loom.
I haven’t done it yet, but the project still lurks in the back of my head ;-)


Links:
ThriftyFun.com: They say, that ThriftyFun.com wants to help people save money, save time and solve problems
Make Your Own Knitting Loom

Freeform Needlework

Freeform Needlework

Links of entry

I enjoy working freeform, that means that I don’t know how the crafted item will look in the end.
Although the choice of materials gives me a pretty good idea about the general appearance ;-)

One amazing application for freeform is needlework, just freeform crochet or freeform knitting, but I prefer doing both on the same item.

Once I wrote a (german) tutorial that can be found at creadoo: Faszinierendes Freeform.
A very good english tutorial can be found at knotjustknitting.com while clicking on ‘what is freeform’ in the navigation list.


Links:
creadoo: A german craft community
Faszinierendes Freeform: A (german) tutorial on freeform needlework

knotjustknitting.com – A website dedicated to freeform crochet
An english freeform tutorial can be reached by clicking on ‘what is freeform’ in the navigation list