A new skill conquered.... I hope..... and a kind of cute tutorial!

I'm right in the middle of my summer holiday. Sunny has behaved well for his first week (we've done nearly 1000km in him in the last week!) and I've been able to get a heap of knitting done. The lead up to our holidays was pretty busy, and I've a few finished sewing projects to photograph and post, but this little knitting project will have to do for now!

I'm making surprisingly fast progress on my Featherweight cardigan, considering I'm using lace weight yarn and 3.75mm needles. I'm so pleased with it. It's just beautiful. Anyway I'm almost at the point where I have to pick up the stitches for the sleeves and that means one thing - double point needles!!!! I considered delaying the inevitable by starting another project but realised I needed to HTFU and just learn. Of course there's a heap of info out there but the most useful tips I found were on the fabulous Techknitters blog. This woman is gold. 

So I ordered myself a bargain set of bamboo needles off eBay (about $13 for 20 different sizes of 5 needles!) and decided the impending birth of a good friends first baby was the perfect opportunity to teach myself the dreaded DPN's. Don't be mislead. This is most certainly not unselfish knitting. This is selfish knitting at its best - as if I'm going to go and drop stitches and experiment on my precious cardi!

The result - one slightly wonky but passable (don't zoom in) pixie beanie!

This thing is tiny. And pretty stinking cute if I may say. To give you an idea of scale:

Those are embroidery scissors and my DPN's next to it. I went with red because I don't know what flavour my friend is having. It was a fine baby merino wool from Spotlight and I knitted with 2 strands to make up something close to the worsted weight the pattern. I'm pretty sure I did the rib in 4.5mm and then the rest on 5mm needles. The pattern was a freebie off Rav here. It was pretty easy really, but I learned quickly that it is bloody easy to drop stitches off these things. I will be using a safety line for sure on my cardi. 

Now what does one need to finish off a tiny, stinking cute baby beanie? Why, a tiny, stinking cute pompom! Have you ever made pompoms using a fork? It's addictive and an awesome way to use up little bits of leftover yarn. Pompoms are awesome.  I've made absolutely tiny ones using dessert forks, but this one was made using a normal dinner fork. Here's how!

Gather your bits - you will need some yarn, a fork, a wool needle and some scissors.

Wind your yarn around the fork....quite a bit but not too much. This one actually is a bit too much. Too much yarn makes it really hard to tie it tight because of the bulk. 

Thread a scrap of yarn through your needle pulling it through so the two lengths are similar. You need about twice the length of your hand. 

About half way stick your needle through the middle of the pompom between the centre tines of the fork. Pull it through halfway. 

Cut the yarn right at the needle and yank the ends gently to work out what belongs to what. You're going to use one piece to tie one half and the other on the second half. Doing it this way means you can tie it tighter and your pompom is less likely to become disembowelled some time in the near future. 

Tie one half and then the other. It helps to have someone else's hand to hold the knot tight. Do it as tight as you can. Mine really should be tighter - too much yarn to start with! Make sure the yarn goes through the centre tine on the fork on each side. I then tie the 4 strands together in another knot. You can see I wasn't that even with sticking my needle through the middle - the more even you are the more even the pompom will be. 

Slide the almost-pompom off and cut the loops each side. Trim (with restraint) and fluff it into a nice pompom!

Accept that it now belongs to the cat (it was a prototype anyway) and make another one. Make many more. Make multicoloured ones and string them up to make you smile. Pompoms rule.