Ok I wasn't sure what to post as a knitting fail. Tbh, there've been a lot, because that's how you learn!

There was the lace shawl I made after just a month of learning to knit, out of completely unsuitable cotton yarn that did the finished piece no favours at all (never mind all the actual knitting mistakes I made, too).

There was the summer top I frantically knitted for a holiday and finished literally in the car on the way to the airport, only to find out it was about three sizes too small because I'm nothing if not optimistic.

But these were forgivable, for I was just a newbie.

Not so with the time I decided to jump on the trend of everyone knitting the Find Your Fade shawl. I went through the stash, picked out a combo of yarns that could definitely not be described as a "fade" but I quite liked anyway, and got to work.

Unfortunately I'm crap at knitting shawls, and it took a year to get through the first two sections. So I've now been knitting in general for about 7 years, and on this specifically for 1.

THEN, and only then, I go to start the third colour and realise I've just sort of...completely mixed and matched yarn weights and this was never going to work? Honestly no idea how it never occurred to me until that point.

So, long story short, absolute fail, frogged it and was very salty about it. This may or may not have been when I decided a ban on shawl knitting was in order, a ban which has served me well.

Ok it's not the most exciting stitchy mail in the world, but I don't get to afford things in bulk very often and that's quite a big wallop of plain white aida that'll probably last me at least a year!

Since I needed to order this anyway, I also took the chance to grab the last few colours needed for Errol. Just have to get them on floss drops and I'll be all set! But this brings me to my question...

Our local craft shop sells their skeins for £1.40 ($1.77 per single skein for the US folks). It really really adds up.

I used to buy all my floss online from https://www.enchanted-needle.co.uk which for a long time sold them at £0.69 (nice) and that obviously made a huge difference.

Unfortunately nowadays their pricing has gone up to £0.99 in line with the other big online options, which is still a lot better than £1.40, but when you take postage into account it's no longer really saving much if anything on small orders.

So, after all that rambling, my question is where are other UK stitchers getting your floss? Is there a trick to finding it at the old prices? Or are we just all completely out of luck?

Slow progress, as per, but it'll do.

On the left is the start of my Big Damn Heroes shawl, honestly not sure if I've posted this here yet but it's been at least a couple of weeks since cast-on which should tell you all you need to know about rate of completion 😅

Definitely requires a bit more concentration than I've been able to give lately, so I just keep defaulting to the socks instead.

Speaking of, that's the second sock of a pair using the Show Off Stranded pattern.

The weird heel construction (knit the gusset along with the heel flap) resulted in a slightly different fit than I'm used to, but I think it feels ok. Will only really know once I'm wearing them as a pair, so fingers crossed, but the yarn is so happy right now I don't care about the perfect fit 😄

What's everyone else been up to? Feel free to humiliate me with your productivity levels, I don't mind at all...

If you will insist on all making separate threads for your projects, at least get weird with it 😄

For once I actually got some stitching time this weekend! Treated myself to some of the missing floss for Errol as a reward for making it through multiple dentist trips, and so this looks pretty much the same as last time I posted him here but in reality there's about 300 stitches of filled-in gaps that were dotted around his torso and tail!

Not the most satisfying progress but it's all gotta be done sometime.

Letting myself work on his lil claws now as a hopefully quick win. I'm maybe 40% of the way through the actual stitching (his head is massive) and already starting to dread all the backstitch 😅

Full disclosure before I say anything else, I’m asking this out of personal curiosity and a desire to help friends out but also because I plan on making a video about it so yes it’s kind of a research question too.

Ok. So personally I use Pattern Keeper, and it’s been great. But I find myself wondering what other apps have popped up in the couple of years since I first discovered PK. The other day someone tagged me in a Mastodon question about alternatives, and then a similar convo coincidentally broke out on Discord too, so clearly other people are asking the same question.

Now, I know about a few apps already. Markup R-XP has a devoted following. CrossStitchSaga I apparently need to try because I hear it supports backstitch. And resident app developer @ClickStitch@sh.itjust.works posts here regularly with updates on their new contender.

But I thought I’d cast a wider net and see what everyone else is using.

Do you use one of the ones I listed? Do you use another specialised cross stitch app? Do you use something that was originally designed for a totally different purpose but turns out to work great for stitching? Or do you prefer to keep things analog and mark off printed patterns with a pen?

Would love to hear what you like and dislike about your current solution, and I’m hoping to get to test a load of them out and do a proper comparison of them all.

I promise to do a writeup of the conclusions here too so it’s not just stuck in video form!

These were supposed to be the first of two pairs for a Discworld makealong but it didn't quite work out that way with the whole illness thing.

Also, couldn't take proper pics yet so you get me lying on my back on the bed wiggling my feet in the air instead, which actually might be better than real photos!

Pattern is Eskarina Socks by Rachel Coopey and the yarn is Socks Yeah! also (coincidentally) by Rachel Coopey!

I knit the size M which is way bigger than I normally go but another knitter who usually does my size advised it. Honestly, I could totally have gone with small, they're ever-so-slightly baggy.

They are also very awesome though so idc I'll just wear them over warm tights 😄

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It was 24 Hours of Cross Stitch again this weekend and one of my 2024 craft goals was to take part in more stuff like that. So I cleared the calendar and went for it!

We ended up with a few people in my Discord doing it, and a few people on Mastodon threatening to but not quite getting there. Still, maybe next time lol.

Normally I regret joining this challenge by the Friday night but honestly this time it flew by. Possibly because I had to stay up until 4am Sunday morning anyway to watch the Packers get knocked out of the playoffs, so there was a lot of extra stitching time!

Really happy with progress here especially since Errol was the real victim of me getting so sick for the last bit of 2023. This is more like it!

p.s. @MrJameGumb@lemmy.world for reference this is 2 over 2 on 36ct.

p.p.s 19-21st April next, for anyone thinking of giving it a whirl ;)

Been back at work on my Eskarina Socks and I almost had them finished off yesterday but then realised the bit of knitting I'd done at the dentist was all wrong and needed to be redone. Woe.

Will probably get that redone and the toe finished off tomorrow though so prepare for gratuitous sock pics soon!

Last week I set my crafting goals for the year, and one of them is to make a shawl. Now, that's a big deal because I've been self-banned from making shawls for about two and a half years, but it makes sense for...reasons.

So to that end I picked up the Big Damn Heroes pattern that I've had bookmarked literally since it came out in 2013 and have started some good old-fashioned swatching. Oh shawl knitting, how I missed thee.

What's everyone else up to this week? Knitting yourself some emergency mittens to get through the cold snap? Or alternatively for our southern hemisphere friends, maybe resenting all yarn-based activities due to heat and humidity?

Either way, here's your opportunity for weather related knitting complaints.

Not even a knockoff or anything, an actual Lowery! Like the real fancy stitchers have! 😮

Pretty sure you're not supposed to clamp things in at an angle like this, but on the other hand I can't use it sideways until I save up for the extension bar (or more likely fashion something that makes the whole thing a lot less fancy all of a sudden). But for now, this works fine 😁

Will do a proper review at some point, right now I'm mostly just still excited to own one lol.

(This post shamelessly duplicated from Mastodon because cross-posting is temporarily broken)

Hi all, merry 2024! It looks like my instance is back to federating properly so to celebrate, an update post!

I've been gently reminded (thanks, whoever that was in my YT comments 😅) that while I was going about my new year business, catching up on work and doing the hoovering and generally feeling like a real on-top-of-stuff adult, I'd actually forgotten to update our monthly knitting theme 🤷‍♀️

So, first of all, apologies for that one! Please accept this sock yarn porn as partial repayment .

I thought I'd wait a couple days into January to do it, until lemm.ee federation was fixed, and then forgot. Which is maybe slightly better than completely forgetting. Sort of. In a way.

Anyway. Given that we're somehow halfway through the month already, my body and mind are a mess, it's Saturday evening and also I see you're still enthusiastically posting socks, I've made an executive mod decision to just extend the sock theme and move "knitting fails" to February instead.

I hope nobody is waiting in the wings, desperate to post their fails, and now super disappointed. But if you are, just post them anyway, let's face it these rules are more like guidelines and I promise you'll still get counted 😀

Hope everyone's having a good start to the year, and you can probably expect me to be this disorganised every January so if anyone wants to be co-moderator of this place to avoid it happening again...well...my DMs are open!

The title makes a bold claim, I admit. But go with me here.

This is the Tea Rose Slip On by Retro Claude, knitted in Stylecraft Special XL which is super chunky 100% acrylic yarn. Definitely not what you think of when you think knitted jumper!

I only tried this as an experiment because I happened to have the yarn lying around after buying it for an abandoned wedding-related idea at the start of the year. Figured I had nothing to lose!

It was an EXTREMELY quick knit, the yarn is incredibly soft and lovely, and the colour. Be still my heart 😍

The pattern is free and the designer is honest about only having tested the size S. As a result, the neckline in my size L turned out to be waaaaay too wide even for someone who loves a good wide neckline. So I just grabbed a crochet hook and slip stitched around and problem solved! Albeit in a slightly sloppy way.

So yes, conclusion, super bulky jumpers CAN work and not be frumpy and awful to wear. One day I'll post a photo of me actually wearing it to prove that last part but, as Aragorn would say, it is not this day.

(Sorry to anyone who saw this on Mastodon already for the repeat. Crossposting between the two is temporarily broken, because of course it is 😅)

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Everything about this is wrong in every way.

Shame on you, Sainsbury's.