{"id":10607,"date":"2013-10-11T13:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T17:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=10607"},"modified":"2022-10-22T08:16:57","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T12:16:57","slug":"i-love-yarn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/i-love-yarn\/","title":{"rendered":"I Love Yarn!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.craftyarncouncil.com\/I-Love-Yarn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I Love Yarn day<\/a>, and, although <em>every<\/em> day is I Love Yarn day as far as I&#8217;m concerned, I thought I&#8217;d take a quick break from book-writing to share a little of my yarny love, as evidenced by a few of my old blog photos&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As a crocheter, I love yarn. I love being able to turn this:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/yarnrainbow.jpg\" alt=\"my Bernat Satin stash\" \/><br \/>\n<em>some of my amigurumi yarn stash<\/em><\/p>\n<p>via this:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/wip_amigurumi.jpg\" alt=\"amigurumi in progress\" \/><br \/>\n<em>toymaking!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>into this:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/toyshelves2.jpg\" alt=\"PlanetJune amigurumi designs\" \/><br \/>\n<em>some of my amigurumi designs<\/em><\/p>\n<p>and this:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swift6.jpg\" alt=\"baby alpaca laceweight yarn\" \/><br \/>\n<em>mmm, laceweight baby alpaca<\/em><\/p>\n<p>into this:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/pjaccessories2_teaser.jpg\" alt=\"PlanetJune Accessories designs\" \/><br \/>\n<em>some of my accessories designs<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But possibly the best thing about working with yarn is that you can fudge things and fix mistakes &#8211; it doesn&#8217;t always have to be perfect. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a novice when it comes to knitting, and I must confess that I wasn&#8217;t quite delighted with my grey cardigan (the first garment I knitted) &#8211; stockinette tends to curl, and my i-cord edging wasn&#8217;t enough to combat that curl at the bottom. I found myself doing the Picard tug to the bottom of the cardigan every time I stood up&#8230; <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d heard you can stitch a tape facing to the inside to keep it straight, but who has time to shop for tape? Then I realised I could make an afterthought knitted facing by picking up stitches all around the bottom, knitting a few rows, then stitching it a few rows up on the cardigan. I used some stash fingering weight yarn (left over from my <a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=product_info&#038;cPath=30&#038;products_id=176\">Climbing Eyelets Shawl<\/a>) and just did it without over-thinking the plan&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/greycardigan_facing.jpg\" alt=\"grey cardigan - afterthought facing to stop curling\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It worked perfectly! My cardigan now has a straight non-curling edge around the bottom. You can just see a dented line on the outside from where I grafted the live stitches from the top of the facing to the cardigan with duplicate stitches, but the pale green colour is totally invisible from the outside and looks pretty from the inside when I wear the cardigan unbuttoned. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/3sweaters.jpg\" alt=\"3 knit sweaters by planetjune\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With this fix, I now have 3 self-designed and wearable handknit sweaters, and they&#8217;ve seen me through the (southern hemisphere) winter nicely. None of them is 100% perfect, but that may just make them even more special because it reminds me that I made them and it inspires me to do better next time. Although I won&#8217;t have time to knit anything else until I finish my book, I&#8217;m very excited at the idea of having a whole wardrobe of handmade sweaters &#8211; and in another year or two of knitting that could well be possible! I already have yarn bought and earmarked for the next 3&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So, both as a yarny professional (crochet designer) and an enthusiastic amateur (knitting adventurer), I really do love yarn! It&#8217;s amazing that you can start out with a ball of yarn and a hook or a couple of pointy sticks, and make pretty much anything \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is I Love Yarn day, and, although every day is I Love Yarn day as far as I&#8217;m concerned, I thought I&#8217;d take a quick break from book-writing to share a little of my yarny love, as evidenced by a few of my old blog photos&#8230; As a crocheter, I love yarn. I love [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet","category-knitting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}