Category: Knitting

Knitting in the Florida Heat

Florida knitters have unique challenges because of the hot climate.

Knitting with wool is a year round thing for me. My house is air-conditioned so summer is actually a good time to knit. And summer here lasts nearly year round!

The “good” parts of summer are cool enough to open windows occasionally, but the dead of summer is too hot and humid to ever do that. Even when the AC is running day and night the humidity is high inside the house.

Florida knitters probably knit more projects that are made with “summer” type yarn, such as linen, cotton, and sock yarn. Little shawls and lightweight sweaters might get some use here. Household cotton dishcloths and towels are a good choice too. Unfortunately for me, I like knitting sweaters. With wool.

Knitting In The Heat

I can’t wait for “sweater season” to begin knitting sweaters because that season never arrives here.

Sweater knitting can be tough when the body of the project wants to cover my lap while I knit the sleeves. Usually I knit in the living room chair where I can toss the body onto the arm. Then Fontana my cat decides to sleep on my lap! Double heat… LOL.

Knitting something like a sweater is actually easier to do in summer when the AC is constantly running. Once the windows open it can be too hot to knit with wool in my lap (plus a cat). So, I guess my sweater knitting season is summer!

knitting cat in lap

Drying Hand-knits in Humidity

My knitted projects can take a long time to dry.

Everything I knit gets blocked out in a spare bedroom. I’m lucky to have a bed no one uses now. The ceiling fan goes on to circulate air in the room and help the process. The dehumidifier I bought seems to help quite a bit too. I close the room off and that works well.

When the Cumulus sweater needed drying, I blocked it out on boards on the bed. The ceiling fan stays on day and night while the dehumidifier helps dry out the room.

Drying my wool sweater in Florida on a spare bed

Wool dries pretty fast. When I knit with Alafosslopi, which is a bulky wool, then drying can take longer. I think I was drying the Carbeth cardigan when I realized I needed help with the humidity. Carbeth was knit in Alafosslopi and had a bulky rollover neck. It took a couple of days to totally dry.

Even when the major heat is gone, the air here remains humid. I have to dry my hand knits this way even in winter – with the window closed.

Knitting Project Selfies

As you can probably tell, I take my own photos. The iPhone gets propped somewhere and I set the timer. It usually takes many tries before I get something I can crop to look okay.

But all that wool can be tough to handle wearing when the temps are near 100 degrees and the humidity is high! The photo sessions are done quickly. I guess I could wait until January and take all my sweater, hat and mittens photos on the few cold days.

Venlig sweater in gray Flette yarn
Farfuglar sweater front showing sleeves and yoke
Calliope sweater hand knit pullover
Calliope
Knitting the Marshland Sweater
The Marshland pullover by Tin Can Knits
Wearing my Cobblestone Cardigan hand knit in gray wool
Cobblestone
wearing hand knit sweater and shawl

I don’t get much sympathy for living in a place where there is no snow and very little ice – sometimes the birdbath freezes. When it comes to knitting, Floridians face different challenges.

When Hurricane Ian hit at the end of September 2022, we lost power in the house for four days. I spent much of those days knitting. In fact, I decided to try some mosaic knitting because my new book had just arrived. It was a great thing to have such a hobby on long days without electricity. I sat in front of the window with a breeze blowing and enough sunlight to see well. Because the storm came late in the season, the air was not so hot. Once Ian blew away, the weather became downright NICE!

Florida’s Lack of Yarn Shops

People in Florida see no real need to knit I suppose. All that heat keeps us in capris and sleeveless cotton tops. For that reason, there is quite a lack of yarn shops. And if I find one, there is a lack of the nice types of wool I like to knit with. It makes sense, but it forces me to buy all my yarn online.

The Four Purls yarn shop near Orlando used to come out to the coast and sell yarn out of their traveling truck. But they have not been here in a while. Probably because of gas prices. They don’t seem to sell the yarn I love to work with because no one wants anything made of wool here.

knitting divider

Keep Reading The Blog

Lots of Changes This Year

Writing a blog, sharing photos, and doing research and making links takes time. Lately I don’t think the time spent doing all that is worth enough to continue. I…

Keep reading

Leave No Tails! Three Ways to Join Yarn Ends

Here are some ways to join two yarn ends together while knitting to eliminate yarn tails.

Knitting is fun! Weaving in endless tails of yarn is not. On this page, I’ve written about three ways to join ends of yarn together that will eliminate tails. There will always be the cast-on and bind-off tails, but we’re talking about joining in a new ball, or color.

Unless you are knitting a small item, you will probably have to join a new ball of yarn to the project. Sweaters and large items require many skeins, and if colorwork is involved, even more.

Fair Isle projects, like the mitts below (shown inside out), require lots of color changes and therefore lots of ends! It took me a very long time to do all that weaving.

weaving in ends on Stellar Parallax mitts
Colorwork mitts and all the ends left to weave in!

I’ve always simply slipped the end of the new yarn over the needle, leaving a tail. That leaves two tails (the old and new) that must be woven in when the project is finished. These tails can add up, and the weaving in can be a project all on it’s own!

The ideas for joining yarn on this page make knitting a bit easier by NOT leaving any tails. Not every technique will work for every project. Know your yarn, and choose the join accordingly.

How to Do a Magic Knot – Works for (almost) any yarn, but might not be good for every type of project.

This is a simple way to join two yarn ends. But, I would not be inclined to use it except in certain circumstances. Personally, I don’t like knots. I’d be a little skeptical of the knot staying knotted, or popping through to the front side and looking bad.

Any yarn that comes apart easily would not work as the ends have to be tightly pulled.

Knitter’s Pride has a good page, with images and suggestions on when it’s best to use the Magic Knot.

Very Pink Knits has a good, slow-motion video on this technique.

I just knit the VENLIG sweater pattern with some Woolfolk nubby yarn. The skeins had a few knots here and there and I simply knit them in. With the fluffy texture of the wool, it would be hard to see this tiny knot even if it was on the front of the sweater.

How to Do a Russian Join – Uses a needle

The Russian join in knitting uses a tapestry needle to weave the yarn ends together. This method of joining two ends of yarn seems a little time-consuming, but looks better than a knot, IMO.

This join seems perfect for any type of yarn where a magic knot wouldn’t look okay, or the spit splice (read on) wouldn’t work.

How to Spit Splice Wool – No tools needed

The first two methods for joining yarn would work for nearly any type of yarn, but the spit splice is meant for wool. The water (or spit) and the friction of rubbing the yarn, are what turns two yarn strands into one. This splice will not work on Superwash, or any manmade washable fibers.

I’ve written before about how to do the spit splice because I used it on the Warm Up Sweater and Kate’s Poncho very successfully.

On the Warm Up pullover I created wide stripes, using two different brown yarns. This meant I had to change colors a lot. Because I used this yarn splicing method, I ended up with only a few tails – the cast-on, bind-off, and under the arms where I picked up the sleeve stitches.

unravel the yarn ends
Joining two yarn ends
Lettlopi wool sweater knitting brown
Warm-up Sweater
spit splicing the wool yarn
Kate’s Poncho – Splice done!

I find this to be an easy and nice splice to do. Unless two different colors are being joined, it’s tough to find the join section once it’s done. If knitting with wool is your preference, you must try this method.

A Spit Splicing How-To Video

Tin Can Knits has a short and to the point (my favorite kind) video below. What I do differently is unravel the yarn a bit to attach the strands. I suppose on smaller yarn like the type she is using, it wouldn’t be necessary.

A knot in a wool skein can be unknotted, or cut out, and re-joined using this method.

Do you have a favorite way of combining yarn ends? Please leave a comment.

More Knitting Adventures

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

End of Year Knitting

End of year knitting projects with self-imposed deadlines.

I’m trying not to get stressed out, but here it is October and I have some projects to get finished for December!

A New Baby

One in particular is a little sweater for a new baby boy. He will be born in December and his family lives in Florida. There will not be too many cool sweater days, so he must get the item ASAP after arriving on the earth.

I’ve chosen Tin Can Knits “Playdate” cardigan pattern. I have knit Playdate before and found it really interesting and fun. I still have the little sweater because it was made for no one. I have no grandchildren, but it is such a cute item. I highly recommend the pattern.

Fox buttons on baby sweater, hand knitted using the Playdate pattern by Tin Can Knits.
Fox buttons on the Playdate cardigan #1

The new Playdate version will be made in the small 3-6 month size in hopes that the baby can wear it throughout Spring. Even if the weather gets hot, stores tend to have icy cold AC blowing and his mom can take it for such outings.

Waiting on the Yarn

I’m currently waiting on the yarn to knit Playdate in a pretty blue color. The yarn order is coming from Miss Babs and will contain more yarn to knit a poncho for my daughter. That yarn is burgundy red.

The swatch has been knit using some Kunlin stash, which is a DK weight. I wanted to see the textured pattern and check my gauge, which is good.

Brodgar poncho knitting swatch
Brodgar poncho gauge swatch

Another Poncho Knit in a Rarely Used Colorway

Do you get in a rut where you want to knit the same types of projects continuously? I just made the Kate’s Poncho for my daughter, who loves it, and now I’ve found another poncho to knit.

I rarely knit anything using red yarn, but I believe this poncho – Brodgar – will look very nice in this beautiful Miss Babs Yowza yarn in “Cordovan”. It is Superwash merino wool, which will make it easy to wash in the washing machine, using a bag, when my daughter needs to clean it. The skeins contain 560 yards, which is quite huge! I opted to pay for winding because the poncho needs 2 skeins. The yarn is dark burgundy and will look very nice with jeans and dark colored pants.

A finished poncho would be a nice Christmas gift, but realistically, I won’t get it done in time. Hopefully I’ll get it into the mail before the cold weather goes away completely in the New Hampshire Spring.

I look forward to beginning both of these projects, with the baby sweater coming first in the queue. Waiting for the new yarn delivery has given me time to prepare for the new projects by finishing up some knits that are currently on the needles. I’m nearly done with the orange watchcap and have completed the Venlig sweater.

orange watchcap
Orange Watchcap
Venlig
Recent knitting projects

Do you suddenly realize that Christmas is coming fast? Do you hurriedly fishing the hat and mitten gifts? What knitting projects are you hoping to finish before the new year?

knitting divider

More Knitting Stories on the Blog

Slouchy Orange Watchcap in October

This slouchy watchcap pattern is worth the tedious knitting. It is also an excellent take-along travel knit.

It has taken a while to finish this watchcap pattern. The pattern is simple, but the knitting is tedious. Round and round we go with knit one, purl one. The decreasing is unique, and the end product is totally worth the monotonous knitting. See the pattern link down the page.

Hats are good traveling projects, and I knit a lot of this one in the truck while taking local trips.

I chose this orange yarn envisioning walks in the woods in Autumn when cool, crisp hiking weather coincides with hunting season. It is bright enough to work as hunter orange.

Yarn used: Camp Colors in Orange, fingering weight. Needles: Size 0 for cast on, Size 1 to knit.

If you dislike double-pointed needles, like I do: When the pattern said to transfer stitches to 4 DPNs, I used one type of stitch markers to divide for the DPN placement (little black markers). I used another type to mark the decreases (colorful pin markers).

orange hat knitting
Markers for sections & decrease stitches
orange watchcap
Keeping the 16” circular
knitting in the car
Knitting in the truck
bright orange yarn knitting slouchy watchcap
Good traveling knit

This pattern can be made as a watchcap with a rolled up brim, or a shorter version with no roll. The longer hat can be worn slouchy. I had previously knit this hat using Camp Colors yarn in light blue.

Get the pattern here: Ribbed Watchcap and Beanie

Pattern Review

The pattern is well written with directions that are easy to follow. Information is included for those who wish to do a tubular cast-on, which I did not do, but may try if I knit it again.

Remember that the hat is being knit with the wrong side facing.

Be careful weaving in the ends and remember which side will be facing, including with the brim rolled.

*Tip: I despise DPNs and knit nearly all of the crown decreases with circular needles. I kept the 16” circular for quite a while, then changed to a 9” circular. Eventually I went to 4 DPNs when there were fewer stitches to worry about.

orange yarn on double pointed needles
ridges for decreasing the crown
Knitting is done on wrong side
Crown, top of orange hat
Crown

The unisex design works for anyone, and information is given if you want to make it smaller around for the little ones.

I think this hat would look nice knit with any type of fingering weight yarn. A solid color will show mistakes more clearly, as you can probably see I made some!

Watchcap finished
Finished October 17th, just in time for Halloween!

Keep Reading the Blog