Tag Archives: Markers

Sweater Adventure #3: Finished the First Colorway

Sweater Adventures, ,
Fronts and back in first colorway

Holding the yarns doubled looks like a good option. Well, it does for the first colorway at least.

I have markers

  • right on the needles separating the edgings from the stockinette
  • counting every ten rows (the gold pins through the fabric)
  • showing the two most-recent rows with V-neck increases (the light-bulb markers through the fabric)

Since I was watching college football while working this first colorway, the on-needle markers reminded me, most of the time, at least, to switch from one stitch pattern to the other. Yes, I did still have to tink in a couple of places. 🙂 Continue reading...

Custom Alphabet Markers

Avoiding Errors, Tools/Notions

Click to enlarge

Despite my severe problems with counting, I decided to make some custom alphabet markers–on unopenable jump rings–after seeing these beauties while checking out what yarn I might like to pick up at their trunk show (even the Big Guy picked out some yarn–and he was not the only male person there, either). What I liked about these particular markers was that the beads were glued in place over the ends of the jump rings, which means snag-free knitting.

On Optical Delusion, I need twenty markers, which I decided to do as A through T so they would all be absolutely unique. Using unique markers solves several problems, as I explain at length on the project page. I had initially cut little pieces from a slat of a cheap vinyl miniblind (bought to make waterproof labels for the book’s swatches before wet blocking), punched holes through them, labeled them with a Sharpie, then hung them on my (openable!) light-bulb markers. They worked, but since OD is in garter stitch, they had to be flipped to the front after turning at the end of every row–even the rows that are only two stitches long. Their length (1.25+ in/3.5+ cm) was awkward too. (In stockinette, I could have kept such long markers at the public side of the work all the time, and they’d never be in the way.)

So I decided to buy some alphabet beads and make some custom jump ring markers. Here’s how I did it.

I picked 9 mm rings, based on the largest needle size I thought I’d ever have a chance of using and not realizing that’s the outside diameter. The alphabet beads are a bit over 0.25 inches in diameter (about 6 mm).

  • I opened the jump ring by putting the tips of needle-nose pliers inside the ring, then spreading the pliers’ handles apart (that is, I did NOT twist the ring). I quickly learned to leave the gap small to start with. (top left)
  • I put the bead on one end of the ring (top center), then tried to slide the bead so the other end of the ring would just slip into the other end of the bead’s hole.  Sometimes I couldn’t get both ends of the ring inside the bead. Making the gap bigger didn’t really help, as that only made it harder to squeeze the ends back toward each other, so I tried putting the bead on the second end, then sliding it toward the first end. That trick almost always worked. My last resort was to slightly widen the gap between the ends of the ring.
  • I squeezed the ring back closed, but before I tightened it as much as was safe (to avoid cracking the bead), I turned the bead so its flat side was perpendicular to the plane of the ring (so the finished marker looked like a capital T from the side).

    • Continue reading...

    Stitch Marker Musings

    Tools/Notions

    In the post on my new storage boxes, the small windowed slip tins holding my various types of stitch markers are available on the Internet from multiple companies in multiple sizes, colors, without windows, etc. (In that small size, I had to buy a minimum of twenty-four, so if you go that route, see if some of your fellow crafters would be willing to split a box.) I was inspired to get them after I purchased the set of 100 rainbow light-bulb-shaped locking stitch markers from Stunning String Studio, which came in just such a cute little tin (they’re in the lower right corner of the small tin).

    I know lots of knitters don’t like on-needle markers. Perhaps they knit much faster than I do? Or they just don’t like to fiddle. I use them because I’m easily distracted and have a great deal of trouble counting (when counting happens to be necessary). I like the comfort of knowing I’m on track if the project is anything other than plain old stockinette. Even then, I use coil-less pins to count my increases and decreases, as you can see in a pic of the Big Guy’s sock in progress.

    I used to use plastic circular split rings exclusively, but when I was working on my Alpine Meadows shawl, there were yarnovers at the edges of the stitch repeat, and they kept hopping over my ring markers. Not good. So I substituted some of my large silver coil-less pins, and no more migrating yos. Even though I was making that shawl on size 3/3.25mm needles, the loop end of the markers was still not quite big enough to slide smoothly along the needle tips without a little help. So I switched to larger solid ring markers, which were bigger around than the yos.

    But another thing I liked about the circular split ring markers was that they were in different colors. I knit sweaters in the round pretty much exclusively, and I always use red as the BOR marker (telling me to stop and write down the round number I just finished) and yellow as midround, if one is needed. For projects like the Triple Braid sweater, I pick a unique color to put before each different stitch pattern around, so whenever I hit, say, a green marker, what follows is a 6-stitch cable, while I might use pink before the main triple braid. I even use colored pencil or marker to draw in a thickish line right on my chart, so that WIP and chart correspond.

    Somehow I found Stunning String Studio’s rainbow-colored light-bulb markers. These beauties really do look like an incandescent light bulb, and they’re openable. The former means that they’ll slide easily along all but the largest needles or interchangeable needle tips, and the latter means that if when I have to move them because of my counting issues, I can move them right now, instead of waiting till I work my way to them. The extra length means they’re big enough to prevent yos from crossing stitch-repeat borders, and they’re in plenty of colors, for however many a project might need.

    Coil-less Pins

    Avoiding Errors, Tools/Notions, Work in Progress,

    I have two sizes, small gold ones and large silver ones. They are different from safety pins, because there’s no loop at the bottom.

    To Count While Casting On

    I use them to mark groups of stitches as I cast on. (I only use circular needles, so even the small ones fit over the cables.)

    To Keep Track of Shaping

    I use the gold ones to show shaping. For example, as I increase a sleeve from cuff to underarm, I put a pin right in the increased stitch. If I’m increasing every five rows, then when there are four rows above the marked stitch, it’s time to increase again.

    I leave them in until all the increases have been made. If I run low on gold pins, then I put a silver one in where the tenth gold one is and can remove the first nine gold ones.

    Using Ring Markers for Double Decreases

    Avoiding Errors, Tools/Notions, Work in Progress, ,

    Elizabeth Zimmermann’s astounding Baby Surprise Jacket (and its larger Toddler and Adult versions) rely on double decreases to do the first part of the shaping. Her recommendation is to put a coil-less pin through the two stitches that result after each of the two double decreases in the first decrease row.

    But I have trouble, in the next decrease row, figuring out exactly which stitches are marked so that I work the double decreases on the correct groups of three stitches. Ordinarily, I use ring markers to remind me where to do decreases (unless it’s someplace easy, like two stitches in from the edge).

    It seems like double decreases do not lend themselves to ring markers, because if you put the marker on the needle immediately before or after you work the double decrease, whose resulting stitch is the center stitch of the three you’ll work the next double decrease on, you’ll have to slip some stitches back and forth between the needles to remove the ring marker before you can complete the double decrease. Very annoying.

    You can use ring markers successfully, though, to indicate the position of vertically aligned double decreases. Do the double decrease, work one more stitch, then place the ring marker on the right-hand needle.

    The next double decrease at that spot will then be done on the three stitches just before the marker, and the marker won’t be in the way.

    After you do the next double decrease, remove the marker, work one more stitch, then put the ring marker on the right-hand needle.