The Knitting Fiend

Once again, in my never ending quest to force my readers to “push the envelope” and learn new knitting techniques, I bring you my instructions for knitting a spider.

This spider is basically one small tube, one large tube and 4 idiot cord legs. I knit mine using wool-ease and stuffed it with fiberfill.

I read directions to knit a spider written by Cathy Hollingsworth. Her version required knitting a very small number of stitches circular or on double pointed needles or knitting stitches back and forth and creating an extra seam. I didn’t want the seam; I hate knitting a very small number of stitches on doubled pointed needles, and I wanted to knit a spider. What to do?

I decided to use a technique called “double knitting”. What is double knitting? It’s a way to knit an open tube while working back and forth instead of circular. Try the pattern, and you’ll decide if this is a technique you ever want to use.

My Tubes:

Tube 1:

• Cast on 10 stitches using waste yarn; I used mauve colored yarn. Knit 1 row. Break yarn, attach grey yarn leaving a long tail of grey.
• Row 1: *Knit 1, slip 1 with yarn in front; repeat from *. Note: When slipping, the yarn is positioned as though you are going to purl, and you slip purlwise. Just don’t purl. After you do this the first time, every other stitch will be worked in grey.
• Repeat row 1: until the length of the tube is equal to the width. Note: after the second repeat, all stitches on the needle will be grey.
• Break yarn leaving a long tail.
• Remove waste yarn by snipping individual stitches of waste yarn and pulling the yarn out carefully. The piece will open up into a tube! Thread a tapestry needle with tail of yarn and run through open loops pull tight, anchor. (See right.) Insert tapestry needle through center of the hole you closed and hide the yarn inside.
• Carefully remove work from needle. Run thread through open loops,
• Stuff with yarn or fiberfill. Pull thread to close; it will look sort of like a sphere. Anchor and hide yarn inside the sphere.

Tube 2:

• Decide if the piece you just made is the head of the body based on size. (The head should be the smaller piece.
• If the first piece is the head, knit a body by casting on 20 stitches. Follow the directions for the head, once again knitting until the length is the same as the width. (This is what I did.)
• If the first piece is the body, cast on 6 stitches. Work as for first piece.

Ok, you have two tubes made my way. Now, follow Cathy Hollingsworth. directions for the sewing the two pieces together and attaching the legs. (I made my I cord legs about the length of the body, but varied the lengths.)

So far, I’ve made a cute Halloween center piece consisting of the spider and knit pumpkins. My mother in law chuckled.

Pattern coming soon, at a blog near you!

Well, I’ll show you my modifications to the original pattern tomorrow. I kinda-sorta did, and kinda-sorta didn’t follow the Cathy Hollingsworth’s directions. I used a nifty technique called “double knitting” to avoid the whole “four doubled pointed needles” thing; I also increased the number of stitches. So, I’ll show you double knitting, etc. tomorrow.

Meanwhile, if you need to scare off trick-or-treaters with these, follow Cathy’s wonderful, original pattern at:

Knit or Crochet Spider Pattern.

From a curious reader:

I have to admit that I don’t really understand the carnival thing and how it relates to conservatives and cats.

“Blog Carnivals” seem to be fairly new, and few know what they are.

First, a Blog Carnival has nothing to do with conservatives and/or cats. However, there is a web site that happens to be named “The Conservative Cat” which has tools that help people organize Blog Carnivals.

A Carnival is a big simultaneous “Blog Meme” which runs regularly. I learned of Blog Carnivals very recently and thought “What a good idea; we could run simultaneous memes”.

Before trying to host a Carnival I thought I should participate in one.

So, I practiced by writing this article about my cat, and entered it in “The Carnival of Cats,” which was hosted by “Gina’s Rantings”. (Naturally, I picked the Carnival of Cats, just to confuse you by mentioning cats again. There are tons of carnivals. I just happened to enter the one about cats.)

After I wrote and published my article, I visited “The Conservative Cat’s”
Carnival Entry Form. I found the words “The Carnival of Cats” in a pull down menu on that form, and clicked those words to highlight them. Then I filled out the rest of the form, and clicked the button.

The information in the form will probably be obvious after you write your article.

The form sent me an email confirming my entry, and I just waited two days wondering what would happen.

Meanwhile, the form also sent an email to Gina of “Gina’s Rantings”.

Gina, the hostess wrote the blog post that is considered to be the actual “Carnival”. You can read it here: The 81st Carnival of Cats.

If you read her article, you will see loads of bloggers participated. Because that carnival has been running a long time, cat lovers watch for the article, visit the carnival when it’s published, and visit the blog article. (I think I got about 50 hits from Gina’s article the day she posted. That’s quite a bit.)

Here is where “The Conservative Cat” comes in again. When Gina wrote her article, she sent “pings” to all the articles that she referenced. That meant I got another email, and the trackback to the summary article is listed at the bottom of my cat article.

How did Gina know the address to ping? The Conservative Cat’s form sent all the trackback URLS to her!

For my Carnival, I would write a article similar to Gina’s, but it would be based on the entries I received. I would also trackback etc. So, as you see, a Carnival is potentially a very good way to run a “simultaneous meme”.

To summarize:

1) A blogger decides to “host” a carnival and announces the topic, the deadline and when they will post the “summary” pr “Carnival” blog post. (I announced here.)

2) Bloggers who wish to write about that topic, write an article. Those bloggers need to tell the host they blogged about the topic and would like to be included in the “summary” blog– i.e. Carnival. I described three ways a blogger could tell me about their article so I can include it. The best method is to use “The Conservative Cat’s” form, but the other ways are ok too. (Note, if you are all fired up and want to enter today, you can’t use the Conservative Cats form yet. Due to a “chicken and egg” problem, I am required to announce the carnival, the blogger at Conservative Cat adds my carnival later. He tells me he’s adding it, but I don’t expect it will be up for a few days.)

3) The “host” collects all the URL, visits and reads the articles, and write a summary blog. That’s what Gina did for “The 81st Carnival of Cats”, posting the summary here. That’s what I’ll do between next Friday and Sunday. (Of course, the job will be brief if I’m the only one who enters, but there you go.)

Since Carnivals are supposed to repeat, later on, I’ll announce another Carnival, possibly with a topic like “What’s was your favorite knitting project ever.” I plan to run another Carnival this whether or not the first one Carnival succeeds, because I think, in the long run, if I get even one other entry, people will begin to “get” what this is.

Those who think it’s fun will participate; those who don’t won’t I know this is new, and people don’t “get” what it is. So, believe it or not, I’ll be thrilled if I get at least one other entry. But two would be even better!