Category Archives: tricks

a reversible knitting hat Q&A

I recently checked in to my patternpage on ravelry, and saw my Reversible Biking Hat has passed 100 projects! Yey! I thought it could be nice to collect the questions I’ve gotten since releasing the pattern all in one place, so here we go – a little reversible biking hat Q&A. I’ll add to it as there are more questions, and hopefully it can be a resource! Follow this link for the actual Reversible Biking hat pattern.

What are the sizes?
They are Small, and Medium. The first hat was made to fit my boyfriends head and appearently it’s really small! I kept getting feedback from knitters about the hat ending up too small, so I added another larger size. Since the original wasn’t very big for men’s heads, I called the original size S, and the larger size M.

… and the stats?
The size S measures 16″ (41 cm) around, is 8″ (20 cm) tall, starts with 96 stitches, and counts 24 repeats.
The size M measures 18″ (46 cm) around, is 9″ (23 cm) tall, starts with 112 stitches, and counts 28 repeats.

Well, I’m making a hat for a *really* big head… how do I make a size L?
For the next step up, I’d reccomend casting on 128 sts. Here is why: The difference between the S and M sizes, are (112 sts – 96 sts =) 16 sts. The reason for adding 16 stitches between the sizes has to do with the decreasing pattern, so to keep that in check, add another 16 stitches on to the M size stitch count (112 sts + 16 sts), totaling 128 sts.

And, to get a little technical about the decreasing: This setup will give you 32 pattern repeats, which will decrease with 16 sts per decrease round until decrease row 6. Decrease row 6 has you halve the stitches, so at the end of row 6 you should have 32 stitches. For the final decrease row (decrease row 9) you’ll halve the stitches again, for a total of 16 stitches. You might want to do another round of decreasing half the stitches if you prefer ending with 8 stitches instead.

I’m going rouge and using a totally different gauge yarn than recommended. Any comments?
Yes! Do it! I love knitting based on what I have on hand, and I’ve never been very good at matching yarn and pattern perfectly. So, I’ve learned to adjust the pattern according to my yarn. It’s not that hard, I promise. I wrote about that in this post on alterations to the biking hat pattern, so be sure to read that too.

The general gist of it is this: you take the finished measurement of the project, multiply it with the gauge you get with the yarn you’re using, and that is the total number of stitches you need. Let’s do an example. The circumference of the Reversible Knitting Hat in size is 16″. My hypothetical gauge with my hypothetical yarn is 3,25 sts pr inch. 16 ” x 3,25 sts pr inch = 52 sts. So, I need to cast on 52 sts to achieve the goal of 16″ finished measurement.

In other words, goal # of inches x your stitches pr inch = amount to cast on.

Great. What about row gauge?
Yep, my example didn’t address row gauge. But for simple objects like hats, knitting until indicated length will be fine. However – if you use yarn that is way thicker, or way thinner than the original, you’ll probably have to adjust the number of rows to decrease over. Thinner yarn will need more rows to get enough height, and thicker yarn needs fewer rows. If you’ve knit until the decreasing starts, you can just measure your rows to see how many you get pr inch, and multiply by how many inches you’re doing the decreasing over – which for this particular hat is around 1 1/2″ – 2″.

And repeat patterns?
You also going to need to check that your new number works with any repeat pattern! The repeat pattern in the Reversible Biking Hat is 4 (k3, p1), which means any total number of stiches you get after doing our fancy math, should be divisible by 4. If it isn’t, round up or down to the nearest multiple of 4.

That was easy. To make it a little harder, let’s look at the decreasing again. This pattern is set up to work best with an even number of repeats. In the example above, I’m starting with 52 stitches, which is divisible by 4, producing 13 repeats. That’s not an even number. What is going to happen, is this: I start with 52 stitches, and decrease 1 sts pr repeat for half of the repeats, including the first and the last repeat, so 7 sts (now 45 sts total). Then I decrease 1 sts pr repeat for the other half of the repeats, 6 sts (39 sts total). I do that one more time, reducing first to 32 sts, then 26 sts. This number now gets halved at least once, to 13 sts, or alternatively another time if your stitch number at this point is above 15-ish, but this is depending on the thickness of your yarn.

Now, what has happened is that instead of each 4-stitch repeat section being combined neatly with its neighbour several times over for a wedge-like finish towards the crown in tidy pairs, you have one little section left over, and an odd number of stitches to pull the loop through. Most likely *nobody* will ever notice, but it doesn’t decrease as neatly as with an even number.

I want to make spirals like that picture up there.
Easy! I covered that in this post, so be sure to read that. Basically, you stagger the repeated section every yo-row by one stitch. So at the beginning of every yo-row, knit 1 stitch (or 2 if you’re into steeper diagonals!), *then* knit the rest of the section as normal. You’ve effectively just nudged the pattern over by one stitch, and when you keep nudging at the beginning of every repeat, you get diagonal lines!

Phew. I’m glad we’re done with all those numbers. Let’s look at some pictures.

image credit alois

image credit manosa

image credit kellys

Any recommendations for picking a good fiber? Something that won’t get too hot, but stay warm and keep its shape for cyclists biking in the cold.
I enlisted the help of my boyfriend – the handsome man in the pattern pictures – for an answer to these, since he’s the cyclist in our household. This is what I learned from him:
• The version I made in a wool/cotton mix (the dark grey hat in the pattern pictures) is his lightweight version. I’ve also noticed it’s not as good at keeping it’s shape, I suspect the cotton does that. He doesn’t really use that one below freezing.
• The sports wool version I made in brown, no pictures of that unfortunately (like a sock yarn with some poly I think) is what he uses when it’s cold.
• Neither are enough for bitter cold (from -5 celsius or around 20 degrees fahrenheit), and he has a lined fleece earflap hat he uses for that, as well as one of those microfiber things that almost totally covers his face.
• He says the eyelets means that neither of the biking hats never really get too warm, since they sort of self-ventilate!

And in conclusion, I admit to being very much partial to wool, just because I think cotton is more uncomfortable when it gets damp or wet. So my suggestion is a sports-weight wool (eg sock) yarn.

I like seeing this hat on men with beards.
I do too. Check out the ravelry project page for even more men with facial hairs wearing this hat.

image credit © lngom

I want to see this project mentioned elsewhere!
Aren’t you lucky? I’ve collected them right here!
• Allergic to wool’s post on Winter cycle chic (Meghan is also the co-editor of Pom Pom!)
• My own post on gauge, alterations, and potential design changes of the hat
• Ariane of Falling Stitches with her fabulous taste in knitting, featured the hat in a Ravelry round-up on her blog.
• And of course, on ravelry! The project page have some really fun hats on there, like one made for running, with a hole in the back for a ponytail (!), people’s first go at eyelets, or knitting in the round (with success!), a whole lot of men, and a whole lot of bearded men (I honestly didn’t expect this to be so popular with the male demographic, but I’m thrilled! I’m sure the bearded boyfriend model helped in that regards!), and my favorite… a husband who had added the hat to his lady knitter’s queue and added “Make this for hubban since I love him“. How adorable!

Any questions out there about the pattern? Let me know! Also, find the pattern for the Reversible Biking hat right here!

trick: anchoring seam-allowances

Remember my printed dress that I fixed up? It’s only been a few days, so I’m assuming yes. I mentioned that I anchored the seam-allowances together, and I wanted to expand on that!

This is a technique I’m finding myself using more and more – most recently in this printed friday-fixed dress, and also the gathered sundress from before Christmas. Basically, it is sewing the seam-allowances together at strategic points to keep the lining (or some other layer, like an inner structural bodice for example) in place.

I find I use this trick when the lining is hanging free, sewn together to the outside fabric only at the neckline (and sometimes at the sleeve hems). This construction method means that the lining moves pretty independently of the outside fabric at many points, and that’s not always something I want. For example, I really like the waist-seams to be attached to each other and move as one, and not start bunching or twisting!

Ok, let’s do some visuals:

This is the side-seam of the skirt, where I attached the seam-allowances of the skirt and the lining together. It’s a good idea to make sure the seam allowances are facing the same direction (usually towards the back) on both layers. Hang the dress up, or lay it out as it would normally hand, and then reach in and pinch the seam-allowance where you’re sewing it together before turning it inside out.

This is the side-seam of the skirt again, just a larger view. After pinching the seam-allowance together, you’ll have the lining to one side and the outside fabric to the other. It might look a little strange, but as long as you did the pinching while the garment was hanging like normal, it’ll be fine. Do keep an eye out for draglines – I like to sew the one side, pin the other, then hang it up to see if something weird is going on. Fix, and proceed.

I didn’t sew the seam-allowances together all the way down, since I want the hem to be moving on its own. Also, notice how I stitched pretty much in the middle of the seam-allowance (which is a lot narrower for the lining that I just overlocked, but same principle!).

I also did the waist-seam. In this picture we’re looking at the skirt lining at the top, and the inside of the self-faced bodice closest to us. I made sure all the waist seam- allowances faced down, then stitched for a few centimeters right at the middle, center front and center back. The lining layer was slightly smaller than the outside, so I only did a small section so they wouldn’t pull and make draglines. In a sturdier fabric where the lining matches perfectly, I’d go ahead and sew a larger section.

I made a little illustration to further show where I’d use this technique (at least on a dress – a tailored jacket uses this many places, but that’s a post of its own!). I used it two places on this dress; at the side seam and the waist seam. If the lining layer had sleeves attached to it, like a fully lined jacket for example would have, I would also want to attach the seam-allowances at the top of the shoulders. With this particular printed dress I actually sandwiched the sleeves between the outer fabric and the lining layer, so they were all anchored and secured by that.

I hope this made sense, and can be helpful – feel free to ask any questions!

how I dress for my strong shoulders

Me-Made-May is right around the corner, and as I mentioned in my last post on MMM, this excersise is more of a personal style challenge for me than anything. This has got me thinking about how I put together outfits, and what I’ve discovered and learned from that.

So, here’s the deal: my shoulders are prominent. They’re wider than my hips (for those who use those things to categorize), and they are angular. They are one of my most pronounced features, but quite honestly, sometimes I don’t want them to be quite so much. That’s when I do one of the following things:

• Duck and run for cover

Cheat. Blur the lines of where your shoulders actually ends. I tell you, this is my most used trick. Usually, tops and shirts and jackets should have their sleeve seam hit right at the tip of your shoulder, but if I followed that, the fit would be too big elsewhere. This means the seam is further in on my shoulder, but that’s ok! It actually hides my wide shoulders through an optical illusion (or the power of social norms – take your pick!). A yoked dress or cap-sleeve shirt are other examples for big-shoulder hiding.

• Vertical lines

Vertical lines take attention away from horizontal lines – at least that is my reasoning and experience! I love wearing cardigans for this reason, and deep v-necks as well.

• Balancing out the hips

By creating volume at the hips, the shoulders don’t look as wide in comparison. There is a reason I love my Marie-skirts! Another way to do this is to wear a layer (like the outfit with the cardigan in this post) ending at the widest point of your hips to emphasize them, or to wear brightly colored shorts.

• Flaunt it!

They’re there, make them the focal point! By the way, the type of sleeve that this top has will work to hide the real width of your shoulders as well, oddly enough.

Now finally, part of me struggles a bit with this – there is a constant battle between the part of me that wants to feel like I look nice, and the part of me that feels I should be accepting of what my body looks like, and not try to “hide” any parts of it. I don’t know if I’ve come to any conclusions, but I’d love to hear other people’s comments. Is it possible to hide things in a “good” way?

how to sew opposing curves (without pins!)

I meant to make the Colette Patterns Beignet skirt for the button-themed challenge over at SewWeekly (where I’m a contributor!), but my planned bound buttonholes got the best of me, and I decided buttonholes made in a rush was not worth meeting a deadline. So, it’s lying in pieces around the apartment; the lining by the iron on top of the washing machine, the skirt-parts slung over the chair by the sewing machine, and the pattern on the sofa in the living room. Tell me I’m not the only one leaving her sewing projects all over her house?

Anyways, the Beignet skirt! I’ve seen that quite a few people have had trouble with sewing the lining to the facing, where one concave piece has to be joined to a convex one. I’ve been meaning to do a tutorial on that, so here it is! (It’s also handy for setting in shirt-sleeves, where the sleeve seams are done “flat” before the side-seams are sewn.)

A major thing to keep in mind about joining opposite curves is the seam allowance. Let’s draw some circles:

So, circle #1 is just a circle, with the black line representing the sewing line of any piece. Let’s add pink seam allowance to the inside of the circle (this is to represent any piece of fabric where the curves goes into the patternpiece, like a neckline), we shall call that circle #2. Circle #3 has green seam allowance on the outside of the circle (outward curves, like sleevecaps).

So – if we look at circle #4 and compare the colored lines, they are obviously not the same length. This means that the cut edges of your fabric pattern pieces that you are sewing together, are not necessarily the same length. This is important to take note of because when we are sewing, we don’t want to try to match up the edges of our fabric (the seam allowance) – we want to match up the seam-lines. The seam-lines should be the exact same length, and this, my friends, is step one in avoiding puckers when joining these inverse lines together.

I don’t use pins when I sew these curves. If you’ve ever marked your seam-line, and then pinned the heck out of your fabric, I think you know what I mean. Pins pull the fabric, and it creates an object the sewing foot has to get over. While it’s traveling over that pin, the foot can’t hold the fabric in place against the feed-dog, and things start slipping, the stitches don’t end up on the seam-line, and the tension gets wonky. So, no pins.

Notches however, are good things. Match up any notches the pattern gives you. Additionally, you can measure the pieces of fabric you’re sewing together, and mark the half-way point – maybe even the quarter-points too, or more, depending on how curvy the pieces are, how long they are, and how novice you’re feeling.

I’ve taped on a piece of artist’s tape to indicate where my ½” mark is, so I can line up the fabric to the left side of the tape and sew consistently at that width.

Let’s move over to the sewing machine. If you don’t have a guideline for your seam allowance on your throat-plate, give yourself one. Masking tape or artist’s tape works just fine. And the bigger the seam allowance, the harder this is going to be to sew. If you have the option of grading down the seam allowance before sewing, you might want to consider that – though you have to grade down very accurately and consistently.

When I sew opposite curves together, I like to keep the piece of fabric with the inwards curve on the bottom, and the piece with the outwards curve on the top.

When lining up curved pieces, you want to line up the edges for the first inch or so, and also line up the top edge where they intersect at the seam-allowance point (in my case, ½” in from the edge).

Line up the two pieces of fabric, and sew a couple of stitches. With the needle in the down position, lift the foot, and reposition the edge of the under-fabric along the seam allowance guide. Rotate the top layer to match. Lower the foot and continue.

The fabrics need to be adjusted, since they don’t line up with each other or the guide any longer.

The bottom layer is shifted so the edge is parallel to the guide as far as possible.

The top layer is repositioned to match the bottom layer as far as possible.

Don’t worry if the two layers don’t match for more than a few stitches – we’ll readjust often. Also, remember that we’re matching up the seam lines, not the cut edge of the seam allowances, so the fabric is going to bunch in the seam allowance, and where we’ve already sewn. That’s ok.

Notice the rippling of the green fabric’s seam-allowance where I’ve already sewn? That’s because the cut line is longer than the seam-line (circle #3 in the illustrations), and it needs more space than at the seam-line.

The point where the two layers diverge is usually a little further down than you think, so I stitch a couple of extra stitches before I readjust. Also, this needs to be done with the two layers moving freely and not being attached to anything at either end. Trust me – I tried otherwise, and it didn’t work nearly as well!

Try really hard not to pull on the fabrics. Smooth out the fabric where the seam will go, and watch out for the notches. You might find that you do have to coax the layers a little to make the notches match up (roughly), but the point is to not pull on the fabric all the time. As you get more comfortable with sewing without pins, and stopping often to correct the positions of the two layers, your opposing curves will just get better, smoother, and easier to sew.

Unclipped and rippling seam allowance.

Notch/clip/grade the seam allowance…

… press…

…ta-da!

Any questions? Confusion? Relief? Comment away!

using the fabric scraps

I can’t stand waste. More specifically, I can’t stand being wasteful. I don’t know if the mild hoarding is the source, or the consequence of this aversion to throwing away anything that could possibly be useful, but here I am – constantly with drawers and boxes and surfaces covered in things that surely will be useful – somehow, sometime.

Setting up in a new apartment always feels like a new start, so spurred on by that, I’ve come up with a way of making at least some of my hoarded materials turn useful. I’m sure I’m not the only one with scraps of fabric left over after sewing projects – too big to throw away (too beautiful!), but too small to be put to use in a garment. Some people make small things; pincushions, coin-purses, soft toys – but I mostly make garments, and these pieces aren’t even large enough for pockets. I finally realized the perfect use for these scraps was to make bias tape!

I make my bias tape by measuring the same amount (say, 3 inches) along two sides of a triangle – along the weft and the warp grain. Connecting those two points gives me the bias, and then I can just use my ruler to draw new diagonal marks. This works well on oddly shaped scrappy pieces, but I’ve found that my lines can get a little skewed after four or five repeats – best to double-check my lines every so often!

One trick to getting perfectly aligned seams when joining pieces is to make sure the short ends are at a 45 degree angle to the long ends, which they will be if they follow the grainlines to begin with. Sometimes it’s easier to trim the scrap piece of fabric first. The other trick is to mark the seam allowance, and offset the two pieces so that it’s the stitching line goes edge to edge on both layers.

It’s kind of amazing how many yards of bias tape you can get out of a fat quarter sized scrap (or smaller!) of fabric.

I think I’ve been fooling myself with my mindset of “this can be useful somehow!”. Sure, most of the things we having lying in drawers and boxes can be useful, but are they useful to us – in the way that we use things? Like I mentioned, I don’t really sew or make small things, so smallish scraps of fabric don’t hold any value to me, at least not in how I craft. So while someone else might have found a million things to make with my scraps, I didn’t. By making these remnants into bias-tape, I’ve turned them into something I will actually use – something that makes sense with the kinds of things I craft. And that is the whole point, isn’t it?

And what will I use my bias tape for? I took a workshop a while back where I learned lots of finishing techniques, like hong-kong hemming, bound seams, and decorative uses. Quilts can be finished with some home-made bias tape; use it for a decorative piping touch, and my favorite, a really nice edge finishing from Tasia of sewaholic.

sewing underwear: the extras

After sharing an underwear pattern, and some basics of how to sew underwear (well, at least how I do it! There are many ways that are all right. If it works, it’s right. That is what Elizabeth Zimmerman taught me), I wanted to show some other types of elastic you can use.

But first, a word of warning! See how the fabric is twisting and the underwear looks crooked? That is because I didn’t take my own advice about following the grainlines of the fabric! So don’t do what I did.

FO, or fold-over elastic
Fold-over elastic is a type of underwear elastic that is slightly shiny on one side, and has a faint grove in the middle. The grove is a handy guide in folding the elastic in half, and makes it easy to have an even amount of elastic on either side, as well as finishing the inside and the outside. This wasn’t the stretchiest elastic I’ve worked with, so I’d stretch it more than usual while sewing with it. (This is the source of underwear elastic that I’ve used.)

1. With the right side of the fabric facing you, line up the grove in the middle with the edge og your fabric, and zig-zag. Choose a stitch-width that lets you stay inside of the grove on right side, and the edge of the elastic on the left side.

The grove in the middle makes it easy to fold the elastic over evenly.

2. Fold the elastic over along the grove, and zig-zag through all layers (basically, in the same spot as the last seam, just through the extra layer of elastic).

3. Step back and admire. Looks nice, doesn’t it?

Regular elastic
The downside to using regular elastic is that it doesn’t lie as flat and nicely as the other methods, but there is no need to buy special elastics if you don’t feel like it! This way doesn’t add elastic to the outside edge of the underwear like the other alternatives, so I’d recommend adding a generous half-inch to the pattern where you’ll be using this technique. 1/4″ or so would be a good size.

1. With the wrong side of the fabric facing you, line up the edge of the elastic with the edge of the fabric. Zig-zag all around. Fold the elastic in, so the fabric-covered side of the elastic is facing up. Zig-zag again. You can stop here and have it look nice from the outside and ok on the inside. Or, you can fold and zig-zag again, and have the edge of the fabric completely encased and looking pretty on the inside too. Completely up to you!

Stretch lace
Using stretch lace to finish the seams is perhaps the easiest of them all, since it doesn’t require any folding!

1. With the right side of the fabric facing you, place stretch lace on top, overlapping the edge of the fabric. Zig-zag on top of the lace with a thread color that matches the lace. Depending on the width, you might need two rows of zig-zag-ing.

And that is it! I hope these posts can be helpful!

* * *

Did you miss a post in this underwear-making adventure?

If you make a pair (or five?) from this pattern, please share! Comment, link back, and show off!

reversible biking hat – alterations

The autumn hat I shared recently is one I based on my pattern The Reversible Biking hat. I’ve made a few of them now, so knowing the pattern pretty well, I wanted to change it up a bit. And altering knitting patterns to fit your own needs really isn’t that hard! Here is what I did/what you can do:

First, I used a different yarn, which usually means a different gauge. The gauge in the original pattern is 24 stitches per 4 inches, or 6 stitches per inch. My gauge for this new yarn was around 17 per 4 inches, or 4,3 stitches per inch. How many stitches do I need to cast on to make the same size? (hmm, I sound like a math book problem!)

The circumference of the hat is 18 inches, and with 4.3 stitches to the inch of my gauge, I simply multiply the goal number of inches with the amount of stitches per inch my gauge is:

18 x 4,3 = 77,4 (≈78)
goal # of inches x your stitches pr inch = amount to cast on.

At this point, you might have to make some adjustments to your cast on number. If there is a repeat pattern, the number for your cast on has to be a multiple of that. In this case, the repeat pattern I used is 6 (p1, k5), and 78 is divisible by 6, so I’m all set. Alternatively, if you have a cuff or a brim, you can adjust the number of stitches up or down in the first round after the cuff.

Another thing I did to change the look of this hat, was to stagger the 5-row repeats and create diagonal lines instead of straight lines. This is also quite simple; at the first round of the repeated section, knit the first stitch, then do the section as normal. You’ve effectively just nudged the pattern over by one stitch, and when you keep nudging at the beginning of every repeat, you get diagonal lines!

When you tweak the number of stitches, one thing is to be aware of the stitches in each repeat. The other is to be mindful of the decreasing. The Reversible Biking Hat is pretty simple in how it decreases, so the major thing to consider here is that I have an odd number of repeats (13) instead of an even number of repeats (24) like the original has. This means that while most knit stitches in the very last row corresponds to two whole sections, there is one left over that corresponds to the last, thirtheenth section. That is ok – you can cut the tail and loop through the rest of the stitches that turns out to be 14, instead of 12.

The more intricate the pattern and the decrease design, and the longer the repeat is, the harder it is to substitue numbers. But for relative simple designs like this one, all you need is a little math!

If you have any questions, or if something was unclear, do please ask!

indigorchid

patterns, stitches, and making things