I have a vague memory of sitting outside in the sun trying to understand a pattern for a teddy bear with my good friend Penny. The instructions talked about having certain numbers of stitches on each needle but try as we might they just kept bunching up on one. Looking back it must have been meant for double pointed needles (dpns), in the round. We’d not even heard of these so were trying to get it to work flat, on straight needles. Quite comical now I think of it.
I did slightly better with circular needles. I’d inherited some from my old school and without even knowing what they were for, decided to cast on as many stitches as I could, join them up and continue knitting in a ring. I seemed to cast on hundreds of stitches and got bored after only 2 or 3 rounds. Realising I had created a twist was the final straw and I gave up. The irony is that this is one known method of knitting in the round. Sometimes the twist is even thrown in too (on purpose and everything). However, I wasn’t to know this so assumed it was just another of my hare-brained ideas gone wrong.
“In the round” knitting patterns cropped up all over the place but, my assumption that it was beyond my reach put me off numerous projects and somewhat limited my scope. One day I would have to master it.
For Remembrance Day 2013 I found a knitted poppy I liked the look of that happened to be in the round. I did some youtube homework and gave it a go but didn’t get very far. I didn’t have the right number of needles and, with it being a tiny piece for trialling an already fiddly technique, I got myself in a right pickle. I admitted defeat and found other, easier patterns.
Nonetheless, I still wanted to add knitting in the round to my repertoire and the video I’d watched had given me an idea. Casting on with a larger number of stitches (and avoiding complicated increases or decreases) might be something I could handle. The result would be a simple tube…and that lends itself perfectly to…
I always associated leg warmers with fashion disasters from the 1980s but they are surprisingly practical. I like to wear long socks under my jeans but the toes always wear out even when the rest of the sock still has miles to go. Now I can team my surplus of short socks with my snuggly leg warmers and everyone is happy. I also love the fact that they are effectively one long spiral with no seam (so, apart from a few inevitable ends to weave in, no sewing up!).
Having mastered simple knitting in the round I became a little bit addicted, especially when I realised I could branch out and create funky spider-web type arrangements like this: