Magic loop: yes, it is!

After my success with two-colour brioche for the It's New To Me KAL back in October, I decided to keep up my upskilling momentum and try another new technique that I've been vaguely meaning to try for years: magic loop!

If you're not familiar with it, magic loop is a method of knitting a small circumference in the round; an alternative to using double-pointed needles (which I'm prone to dropping). My favourite thing about it is that the 'ladders' which can appear between needles are a little easier to control - at least for me! And I also like switching needles twice per round instead of three or four times, which keeps things flowing nicely. Another benefit is that you can use the same interchangeable needle tips when switching between standard knitting in the round and magic loop - reducing the danger of a tension mismatch. I have a jersey with visibly different tension in the sleeves where I switched from metal circular tips to wooden dpns...

Candide designed by Noriko Ho, my first magic loop project

I picked a simple hat for my first attempt, thinking it would be easiest to focus on one tricky thing at a time. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, with the help of this photo tutorial on the Tin Can Knits blog: Magic Loop Technique. If you'd like to see magic loop in action, I've included a video below. :)

For good measure, I followed up with another simple hat, this time in reverse stockinette, and then jumped in the deep end with a pair of stranded mitts.

obsidian designed by ash alberg, knit in Malabrigo Rios

Underwing Mitts designed by Erica Heusser

If you followed the saga on Instagram, you'll know the second mitt went missing for a couple of nail-biting days before it was discovered stowing away in some clean laundry! Talk about relief...

It was this pair of mitts that really hooked me with magic loop. This kind of design, with a clear front and back, just makes sense to knit on two needles rather than dividing it up further.

My current magic loop project is a pair of scrappy socks, using some pretty leftovers from a couple of different projects. Because I was knitting at a tight gauge, I found I needed to upgrade my needles to a pair with smoother joins between the cable and the needle tips. I settled on a pair of HiyaHiya Sharps from my LYS Maker Maker, which, true to their name need to be handled with a bit more care than I'm used to.

Simple Socks designed by Emily Bolduan

The gist of the technique is this: you'll begin with half of your stitches on one needle tip and half on the other, with the cable looped between them. Then arrange your needles so that you have one free-floating needle tip in your right hand, and knit across the stitches on your left-hand needle tip. When you run out of stitches, rearrange the cable and start again.

If you'd like to try magic loop for the first time, my top tip is to do what I did, and knit a hat on circular needles, switching to magic loop for the crown decreases - this way you won't need to get to grips with a new technique while you're trying to cast on.

A post-Gift-A-Long post

I can't believe we've come to the end! It's been a whirlwind few weeks helping behind the scenes in the Gift-A-Long, keeping up with the threads, and handing out prizes. While being a moderator has kept me extra busy, it's also been incredibly fun and exciting and I'm looking forward to doing it all again next year. :)

My fellow Hand & Arm Things host Becca worked out the final stats for our category:

Final tally is 238 finished projects (!!) (64% of those declared), but more importantly…

• nearly 300 people participated in this thread alone,

• sharing more than 450 GAL-designer-related projects (some not for hands but that’s totally cool),

• calling out more than 250 GAL-eligible patterns for us to appreciate.

The ongoing parade of WIPs and FOs provided an incredible source of inspiration from the great colour choices, skilful stitching, beautiful yarn (including handspun), and lovely patterns people chose. I found out about new-to-me methods of construction, such as starting a pair of mitts with the thumb and it growing from there (Lee Meredith's Either/Or mitts), and cool-looking techniques like slip-stitch crochet (Yuliya Tkacheva's Snegurochka Mitts), and some just really beautiful cable designs I hadn't seen before (Olga Beckmann's Morosko mittens, and Kelly G.'s Cèilidh Fingerless Gloves).

Another big source of excitement was seeing my own designs pop up! My Beeswax Hat was actually the tenth-equal most popular pattern, with 11 finished projects during the GAL. In total there were 22 finished projects from my patterns, which is pretty amazing! Here are a few of my favourite photos from the 22, including two Beeswax Hats, an Ascent hat, and a Silverwing shawl:

knittingvortex's Beeswax

UkeeKnits' Ascent

rebekafish's Darkwing Duck!

theaburras' Beeswax Hat

For participating designers, a traditional part of the Gift-A-Long is sharing other designers' work. An obvious way of doing this is using their patterns for our own projects, which I did with my GAL socks, and we've also been sharing our favourite patterns on our blogs and other social media. I've been posting collages of great knit designs on my Instagram account. These are a few of my favourites from the past few weeks:

Star Anise by Svetlana Volkova (top left),
Singing Beach by Bonnie Sennott (top right),
Crisp Apple Strudel by Katy H. Carroll (bottom right),
and Same Wavelength by Kristina Vilimaite (bottom left).

Stornoway Throw by Anita Grahn (top left),
Icterine by Hunter Hammersen (top right),
Tree Rings by Andrea Rangel (bottom right),
and Badlands Mitts by Kathryn Folkerth (bottom left).

Hudson by Shannon Cook (top left),
Ballydesmond by Irishgirlieknits (top right),
Dancing with Bears by Carol Sunday (bottom right),
and Grellow Love by Clare Devine (bottom left).

Another cool way to share each other's work while getting to know each other better is to interview fellow participating designers on our blogs and podcasts. I've been lucky enough to have been interviewed three times during this GAL! Once by Stephannie Tallent for her Sunset Cat Designs blog (Interview: Amy van de Laar), once by Vikki Bird for her blog (GAL 2016: Meet Amy van de Laar), and Carolyn Macpherson also featured me in an episode of her podcast The Next Beautiful Thing:

Thanks for the ride, everyone! Hope to see you all again next year. 💛

New pattern: Multifaceted Mitts

Presenting Multifaceted Mitts, the fingerless mitts version of my Multifaceted Mittens! Personally, I love mitts. Having my fingers free is so much more practical, plus I get to show off my nail polish... ;)

Features:

• all-over stranded colourwork pattern inspired by crystals
• twisted ribbing at the cuffs and mitt-tops
• short-cuff and long-cuff options (mitts shown with long cuffs)
• full-mitten version also available (separately or both in an ebook)
• requires less than 50g of fingering-weight yarn in each colour
• one size, to fit 7-8" palm circumference
• pattern includes colourwork charts

Like the mittens, the mitts are knit in Knitsch Sock yarn from Holland Road Yarn Co. This time I chose 'Sweet Pea' for the main colour, a really strong vibrant pink, and 'Silver Lining' again for the contrast colour (because of its shimmering-metal illusion).

The mitts have a few extra little details, like the two-colour ribbing at the top of the thumb. This allows for a decent amount of ribbing while also continuing the colourwork pattern. It's slightly awkward to switch between knit and purl stitches while also switching colours, but it's only for a small area (and the effect is really worth it).

For details, and to download the Multifaceted Mitts pattern, visit its pattern page on Ravelry, Loveknitting, Etsy, or Craftsy. An ebook with both patterns (at a reduced price per pattern) is also available on Ravelry.

New patterns: Rose Jam

Some of you may have gathered I have a bit of a thing for roses. I like to look at them, smell them, and for good measure, eat them! Rosewater and rose jam are lovely in desserts and baking, and fun to experiment with. My favourite combos are quince jam made with rosewater (recipe here), and rose jam on scones with whipped cream. :)

It was only a matter of time before I came up with a rosy knitting pattern, and in fact I've made two: the Rose Jam Hat and matching Rose Jam Mitts.

The stitch pattern is inspired by rose petals, which sometimes have a very sweet heart-shape in some old-fashioned and wild varieties. Like so:

Rosa moyesii, at Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens

Hat features:

• all-over mini-cable texture inspired by rose petals
• the petals flow smoothly out of the ribbing and up to the crown 
• a one-skein project (128-160 yards of worsted-weight yarn)
• suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways
• two adult sizes, photos show larger size  
• both charted and written instructions. 

 Mitts features:

• all-over mini-cable texture inspired by rose petals
• the thumb gusset emerges naturally from the stitch pattern
• a one-skein project (140 yards of worsted-weight yarn)
• suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways 
• one size, to fit 7-8" palm circumference
• both charted and written instructions. 

The 2-stitch cables in the hat and mitts can easily be knit without a cable needle, making these quite straightforward projects for an intermediate-level knitter. I've included a guide in each pattern based on this excellent method.

The yarn I used for my hat and mitts is the famously-squishable Malabrigo Rios, in the semi-solid colour 'Ravelry Red'.

The Rose Jam Hat and Mitts are available as separate patterns, or together.

Ravelry links: Rose Jam Hat and Rose Jam Mitts, and the ebook Rose Jam.
Loveknitting links: Rose Jam Hat and Rose Jam Mitts.

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The little white flowers in some of the photos above are from Mum and Dad's Viburnum opulus, known to us as the 'Snowball Tree'. After our Rose Jam photoshoot, Dad took photos of me messing about and making the tree 'snow'. And then he made an animated gif. ;)