Team Kiwi

The official blog of the New Zealand Olympic Knitting team.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Day Two

Managed to get a fair bit done on the foot during the evening, and should be on track to start the increasing for the heel this afternoon. The pattern is coming along nicely and I haven't had to do any ripping due to stuff-ups (knock on wood!) I'm still getting the little "rivers" of loose stitches between the needles though - I've tried to take up as much slack as possible as I go from needle to needle, but they're still loose. Any suggestions as to what I should do to avoid this happening?

11 Comments:

At 12:16 pm, Blogger Juliet said...

Hi
I'm a lonely little expat kiwi that has lived in Scotland for approx 13 years and have only knitting for solace as I miss warm sunny weather and normal food.

I am knitting a Rowan pattern Rambling Rose (done the back and 1 flower so far) for the Knit Olympics so far - please may I join the kiwi team?

 
At 12:35 pm, Blogger Eatsruns said...

Yes of course! Email me (sarah.e.moore@gmail.com) with your email addy and I'll send you an invite!

Sounds like you're doing well! I have to start mine again...

 
At 12:50 pm, Blogger Beverley said...

HI

My name is Beverley and I am from the Wellington area.

I would like to join your team please!!!

I have made a start on my knitted, woven cape but didn't like it so frogged back and restarted. So finishing may be an issue!!!

Anyway I am in the running!!

Good to see an NZ team!!

Knit on

>^..^<

 
At 1:24 pm, Blogger octopusgrrl said...

Hi Beverley, just send either me (octopusgrrl@yahoo.com) or Sarah your email address and we'll be happy to send you an invitation to the group! Just checked out your blog - I love your sense of colour!

 
At 1:28 pm, Blogger Eatsruns said...

You'll need to move the stitches around the needles to avoid the "rivers" or "ladders" as they are commonly known.

What I do (discovered this when I was making some fingerless gloves, I haven't attempted socks yet!) is I get to the end of a needle, and then with my 3 dpns I knit a couple of stitches from the next needle onto the one I just filled. Then I bring the empty needle back into play and knit on. Repeat this around the round and then every few rows after that.

I'm sure other people have a much better method than me though!

Interestingly I've found I don't get ladders in ribbing, so the hats I've been making lately have been flying off the needles. I think I'll keep that in mind if I ever decide to attempt socks!

 
At 1:45 pm, Blogger octopusgrrl said...

Thanks Sarah - I did actually think of doing what you suggested at one stage, so I might give it a go. But I'll have to decide whether it's worth unfrogging all I've done in pattern so far *sob!*

 
At 2:05 pm, Blogger Eatsruns said...

You can usually do a little bit of poking and tugging to fix things up!

 
At 2:48 pm, Blogger octopusgrrl said...

yeah, that sounds like a plan :) It only looks obvious when they're stretched, anyway.

 
At 3:03 pm, Blogger Beverley said...

HI

What I do when I knit on 4 needles, which is not often as I prefer either straights or circs when I have knitted the first stitch of the next needle I pull really tightly to "snug" up the last stitch on the previous needle.

You need to check out the "magic loop" or use two circs instead this fixes the problem. In other words you can use two circ needles in place of the DPs. But instead of knitting from needle to needle when you reach the end of the circ you pick up the two ends of the next circ and knit from one end of it on to the other end of it. Then next circ needle etc. Hope this is clear. I think this way is magic after having struggled with DPs.

I am sure there are places on the interent which would demo this technique.

Knit on

>^..^<

 
At 3:34 pm, Blogger Eatsruns said...

Oh yeah, magic loop is on my list of techniques to try! The only thing that's stopped me so far is it *really* doesn't work on my Denises. And me and DPNs have been getting on a little better lately.

 
At 12:32 pm, Blogger octopusgrrl said...

Thanks for the tip, Beverley - I couldn't picture in my head exactly what you meant, but I found a tutorial online with lots of photos and now I get the idea. Next time I'm at the LYS I'll see if they have a couple of sets of narrow gauge circulars and I might try making my next pair of socks concurrently!

 

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