KnitBits: Knitting Fails, What’s Your Knitting Worth and the Steven Show

Knitting fails happen to everyone. Just last night I was trying to knit what should have been, looked like, was, a relatively simple lace pattern and I could not for the life of me do it. I was supposed to have 39 stitches, then suddenly I had 38. Rip it out, try again. 40. Ugh.

A knit fail is not the end of the world — yarn can always be ripped out and tried again, after all — but it’s always great when people can share their knit fails with the world. It makes us all feel better. So take heart and check out these cringe-worthy knitting fails over at Love Knitting.

Once you’ve done that, go read the super sweet piece from the Globe and Mail that reminds us why we do what we do. It starts off as a regular learning to knit story and ends reminding us that knitting really is an act of love, all the time. It’d worth the read.

And speaking of worth, when people ask you to knit something for them, odds are good most of them don’t want to pay you. This knitting time calculator isn’t a real calculator, but it will give the person asking some idea of what your time might be worth. It offers estimates for the length of time a project might take, asks if the person wants to buy the yarn or have the knitter buy it, whether the person wants to compensate the knitter by cleaning her house and so on. It’s good for a laugh, anyway.

And for a final laugh, you probably know that Steven Be and Stephen West have been working and touring together, and recently they were teaching and putting on a ridiculous (in the best possible way) fashion show at Vogue Knitting Live. You can check out some of the fun with the first episode of the web series StevenBe. It will inspire you to knit something awesome, I’m sure.

[Photo via Love Knitting.]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

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