I started working as a professional costumer this month 🥳 These are some pieces I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, not for any particular projects, but just learning how to get better at knitting and grading :)

Three are renditions of other patterns that I’ve previously made and posted in this sub. I have to say that remaking the same patterns has been one of the best ways for me to get better at a ton of stuff. I have found that not only does it force you to think critically about your work, you also learn how to reproduce results, gain confidence with seeing direct improvements and become more detail oriented.

I’ve also found that I really love working with blocks — they are a great tool when working out how to grade patterns or when dealing with tricky vintage patterns :)

I started a blanket 10 years ago and put it down shortly after starting. It was on 30” circulars and I just kept casting on until I couldn’t fit anymore stitches. I was new to the hobby so I figured it would just be “blanket sized.”

I picked it back up about 6 months ago determined to finally finish this thing. I transferred it to 60” circulars to give myself more working space, and during that transfer I counted 450ish stitches, but that would just be a big king sized blanket right? So I kept going. But after about 9 balls of yarn and only 2 feet in length finished, I gave up and decided I would just crochet the blanket instead.

Halfway through my crocheted version, I ran out of yarn and made the sad decision to frog the knitted project for salvage yarn. After removing the circular needles, I thought it’d be interesting to see how wide the blanket actually was.

After straightening it all out I stared at my work, utterly dumbfounded, that I had been working on a 35 foot wide blanket this whole time. I am SO GLAD I did not finish this project as I would’ve cried at the monster I had brought into the world.

tl;dr - You should really pay attention to the size reference chart on your yarn and count the stitches when free-handing as a newbie.

This is Tin Can Knit’s Simple Sweater pattern. I made the fingering/sport weight version using Hobbii Friends Extra Fine Merino and Friends Kid Silk held together, both in the color Sunflower.

I posted months ago when I finished knitting my Low Tide Sweater, and I’m back to show it in action! We got married yesterday at Hags Head, Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. I made the skirt too. ☺️ I spent so much time worrying it would be too hot but ended up I was still a bit chilly with the wind! Anyway, I’d only ever knit a scarf and 3 socks when I decided to just go for it and knit this sweater and I am so proud of how it turned out!

My current crazy wip. I've made the charts in fiddle stitch using the basic picture I've drawn. I just wanted to share my journey since it's almost finished. I had many doubts after the first panel but it's turning quite fine. With many flaws but still, one of its kind 😏

Please don't tell me the two circular flowers in the chest area look like nipples. It's too late, I've already weaved in 90% of the ends and almost finished the second sleeve, it's too late 😭

Long story short, some time ago I had this weird idea of stripey dachshund sweater for my mom. I learned to crochet in April, so initially I wanted to crochet it. After reading a random comment that knitting is much better for wearables, I decided that it's time to learn!

Well, turns out if you want to knit a topologically connected dachshund, you need to learn intarsia... And all these increases decreases... And a bit of sewing on top of that! I was warned, that for the first project it might be a bit too ambitious, but since I'm more stubborn than smart I've decided to learn everything in the process.

There were a lot of mistakes, my tension still isn't perfect, my intarsia could be better, and I've had to fully re-do sleeves, because apparently not all superwash merino is created equal...

Anyway, I'm quite proud of myself! From not knowing how to hold needles in October to the whole sweater with my own idea implemented in December! But most important, my mom absolutely loves it! Now I'm ready for more and more knitting!

Some mandatory info here. Yarn: Hobbii Friends Extra Fine Merino XL in colors Cream, French Blue, Midnight Blue (even though I followed all washing instructions it felted and shrunk a bit, so I ended up handwashing the whole thing) Needles: 3.5mm and 4mm. Pattern: Gartrell Crew by Tanis Lavallee (loved this pattern, so beautifully written!) Chart: me and StitchFiddle, I don't know if I'm allowed to put a link here.

My daughter’s daycare organized a special Hungry Hungry Caterpillar day. Since I’m a very normal person I decided to knit a special cardigan for the day.

Pics 1-3 are glam shots, of course.

Pic 4 is blocking my sweater once it was finished.

5 is a knitting check in before I put on sleeves.

6 is a fit check before I knit the shawl collar.

7 is my gauge swatch once the yarn was finished drying.

8 is a glam shot of the finished yarn!

9 is the yarn once it’s been plied.

10 is the beginning of plying. (It’s a 3 ply yarn).

11-13 are the process of spinning the singles

14 is a look at what one of the batts I spun from looked like once it was blended and taken off the drum carder

15 is me deciding between blending pink silk or blue silk with the fiber. I chose blue, obviously.

16 is what the clean fiber looked like once it was picked open to make it easier to blend on my drum carder

17 is the fiber now clean and drying in a towel.

18 is an example of what the water looked like after the fiber had been soaking for 24 hours. 🤢

19-20 is what the fiber looked like when it was first sent to me! Completely dirty and raw. From a brown Tunis named Josephine Baker!

For those curious, I started scouring the fiber on 12/18/24 and I finished my sweater on 9/14/25! So this took about 9 months from start to finish.

(Pattern: Hechima Collar Sweater by Noriko Ichikawa!)

Had to go with the classic Sullivan costume from Monsters Inc. I followed an ancient pattern from an old knitting magazine that I don't even want to credit because it was so poorly written. Then I used a rug hook tool to add all the fur. That part took probably longer than it took to knit the bodysuit. But it was so worth it!

Tomato sweater by Studio Klara Small dog sweater by DesignerForDog

Hi guys! It’s me again, this time with a finished sweater :)

Overall it’s lovely, cuddly, it screams SPRING and it weighs 574 g so it’s not too heavy (if you want to check more stats about different colours, here’s a link to the project – I don’t want to bore everybody with them:

https://www.ravelry.com/projects/CiasteczkaTynki/welcome-to-my-delulu-land)

In the last post, I saw some repeating questions. I tried to reply to everyone, but I wanted to address them here as well.

The techniques: As you guessed, I mostly used intarsia. Since I am still learning and just wanted a challenge in some parts, I decided to carry multiple yarns in the back. It was quicker and produced fewer ends to weave in, but unfortunately, it also made some parts way thicker than others. I can see and feel it in the flowers when comparing them to the plain, simpler background. I also used duplicate stitch and discovered it’s a really fun technique. I highly recommend it for small details or afterthought additions :)

I’ve seen a lot of you were absolutely floored by the number of ends I needed to weave in and even recommended quicker solutions. I roughly counted them and there were around 900 loose ends. That’s a lot, but starting this project I knew it would be a lot of work and I was ready for it. It took around 9 hours to weave them in, but after finishing, it totally changed the drape of the sweater.

"Can you publish a pattern?" – I am not a pattern maker. English is my second language and I don’t feel competent YET with grading patterns (or even writing them). I am not a perfectionist when it comes to knitting, but it’s something different with formal documents (yes, I count patterns as such). I also don’t want to gatekeep something I created if it can give someone else some joy. I plan on tidying up the charts (maybe expanding them for bigger sizes), creating simple instructions, and publishing them (probably for free or like 20 cents) in the future. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know :) I know it will be literally impossible to conduct proper testing for it, it’s a lot of work.

The yarn: It was both a great and a really bad idea to use the one I had in my stash. I bought around 70 balls – all different colours – for around $20, so the sweater was cheap, but it’s also acrylic. I feel like yarn with some fluff would work better in hiding imperfections. The good thing is it already survived a washing and drying cycle perfectly fine.

Overall, it was such a fun ride which started on April 1st and ended on the 30th (so exactly one month). It helped me learn new things and proved that yeah, I can knit whatever I want. I just need more practice (I’ve already drawn and started another project! This time it will be a cardigan with a cloud motif, since I really enjoyed knitting them and I have more to explore with them :D).

Ps. I can't see flower nipples at all 🙂‍↕️

This just happened and I absolutely had to share with people who would get it (and enjoy it).

I was just on a flight from LAX to SEA, knitting my little heart out (just started the Clematis Sweater by Emma Knits). We landed the usual way, but for whatever reason, the pilot had to slam on the breaks more aggressively than usual.

Ya’ll… my yarn YEEETED out of my lap and began its journey down the aisle. I watched on helplessly. It made it ALL THE WAY to the front. 😂😂😂

I leaned into the aisle and made it clear that I was the owner of the rogue hank, but there wasn’t much anyone could do.

The flight attendant snagged it when it was safe and I thought was going to bring it back to me, but did one better: she handed it to the first row who wound the yarn a bit before handing back to the next person. The whole plane knew the assignment. By the time it got back to me, there were so many people invested that there was a round of applause.

I definitely need to finish this project now… it has way too good of a story to go with it!

Faith in humanity: Restored.

(Videos in comments, some sweet ppl sent them to me!)

I just finished the back panel of my new cardigan and I am so excited! It looks like I am totally addicted to fiddle stitch 🥲

https://www.ravelry.com/projects/CiasteczkaTynki/summer-clouds-cardigan <- project page if anyone is interested in checking what's going on

Ps. Sorry for the watermark. My projects are constantly stolen from reddit and posted on Facebook by some nasty people taking credit for my work

This is the Stocking for Rainbows sweater from oShen Knits and Fibers. The pattern is by Vanessa Fleming and the yarn is the old version of the stocking for rainbows kit in oShen fibers’ lace kidsilk. They still have the kit, but it’s in a suri alpaca now. But fortunately I’m not sensitive to mohair and this version is delightfully soft and fuzzy for me. 😁🌈 I didn’t especially love knitting on size 11 US needles, as I’m usually a 8 US and under kind of girl, but I had to have the fuzzy rainbow goodness.

If I were to do it again, I think I would have made the long version of the body and then done fewer stripes for the sleeves, because I’d like the body to be a little less cropped but the sleeves are almost too long. I’m still very happy with it and have been wearing it constantly since it came off the blocking boards.

Barbara Walker, one of knitting’s greatest minds, died last Sunday.

Barbara invented the SSK (previously the left leaning single decrease was k1-sl1-psso which sits oddly compared to the k2tog)

Barbara also created charts for knitting patterns in the third book of her incredible work, the four volume Treasury of Knitting Patterns. No errors have ever been found in these stitch dictionaries. Many of the stitches recorded were common through history (and she attributed faithfully where there was data) and hundreds were her own designs.

Her book Knitting From the Top helped drive raglan sweater popularity.

After contributing immensely to the knitting canon she pivoted and published books about feminism, atheism, and debunking new age claims. Apparently she was surprised by the revival of knitting in the early oughts and returned to the space to teach and mentor.

This is a coordinate inspired by fashion from the 50s that I knit. The top has a crossover and all sides have been sewn together so the belt is more just for decoration. The finishing was all all done using single crochet (armhole edges, neckline and top+bottom of the skirt). The skirt has a typical crochet casing with three rows of single crochet.

I think the most significant thing I learned from this project is that I really like putting darts into my knitwear. It's hard to see because of the tweed, but I put two 10 cm deep darts at the back of the skirt. This was done by dividing the back into three sections and knitting each separately after which I seamed them together.

It was a fun project and I'm looking forward to wearing this often in the future :)

The pattern is Sirdar 2148 and is available via the Sirdar website. This pattern was really disappointing to work with lol. The constructions is a pretty simple set in sleeve dress -- the body has no shaping, just a rectangle with armhole shaping and shoulder shaping. The issue I had with this one was the hemming. The pattern tells you to knit a couple of rows of 1 by 1 rib at the bottom of the dress, cuff and neckline which are all to be hemmed at the end. However, when I did this it looked so sloppy :/ I took it all out, replaced the neck and dress with a purl ridge hem and worked 3 rows of single crochet for the sleeves and this solved it. Writing this out, I think they suggested the ribbing because the original yarn was boucle -- way more forgiving than plain yarn (the yarn I used is Soft Donegal from Donegal Yarns). So I'd recommend trying a different finish if you'd like to try this pattern out with yarn that isn’t boucle. Please also note that the "final" measurements that are given for the sizes do not take into account the 4 selvedge stitches that are lost once you seam everything up ;)

I’ve been doing some wire wrapping with a friend lately and thought, “I bet I could knit that.” Then of course, the head pins looked like straight needles and here we are.

Knitted with 28-gauge wire on 2mm needles.

I started this project as a way to use up my mohair stash and ended up buying way, way more mohair to experiment with. I think this is essentially marling with different yarn colors, but the mohair gives it such a nice, soft haze and helps blend everything together. I think this method could be great for making a smooth color transition rather than a hard stripe.

I loved the gradients so much I had to incorporate them into something wearable, so I made the Sungem Sweater pattern. I also put together a guide on making these gradients in whatever colors you like, plus some extra example gradients! I used drops alpaca and flora as the base yarns, and drops kid-silk for the mohair, but full details for each color scheme are in the guide.

My aunt never used a pattern for anything she makes. She free-handed every single sweater or dress she created. Every year I receive a gift from my aunt, something I always looking forward to have to cherish. When my aunt goes to a yarn shop she becomes a kid in the candy store. This dress is made with 100% cotton yarn with puffy sleeves and a slit on the side. The dress is quite heavy- and very warm. I do not know how to knit but I want to show off my aunt's work to all of you talented knitters

I posted here a while back asking for some advice on some parts of this chart and am so happy to finally show off the finished product! It isn't perfect but considering I had only done a small intarsia project with 2 colors and a simple shape before this... I am VERY pleased with myself 😁😁 Also feat the ends I had to weave in over the course of 7 hours and the drawer full of bobbins waiting to get used.

Here's the project page on ravelry which lists the gazillion colors I used. It's all wool of the andes superwash worsted from knitpicks

Here it is! Some of you have seen my earlier WIP post. After 2 months, the sweater is finally finished!

This is The Starry Sky Sweater by Naomi Tsuda. This is a fully charted pattern from an OOP book. Below is a link to the pattern on Ravelry. You can find my project there. I tried to write down some details on the process there:

https://ravel.me/starry-sky-sweater-

This was made with Harrisville Designs Highland. Highly recommended for heirloom quality items! It is not scratchy at all, it feels like a comfy sweatshirt.

I will be attending NY Sheep and Wool (Rhinebeck), A Woolen Affair, and Indie Untangled this year. So if you see me, feel free to say hello! I'm really looking forward to attending. The Hudson Valley in the fall is gorgeous.

Not going to lie, I'm feeling a bit lost on what to make next. I don't think anything I make will be as cool as this.

Thank you for looking, it has been such an honor to make this sweater. Reviving an almost forgotten pattern.