Perhaps even for the fun of it!I,of course, would pay for the wool and delivery.Cheers for any help.
My wife knits, but she's slow, maybe in time for next winter
Her nan used to knit stuff had her own business but it's hard, she could do 12 hour marathon stints
My missus absolutely does.
Feeling the cold in my new home and the quality of the jumpers in the shops is awful.Plus the prices seem a bit steep for sweatshop tat.
My mother knits for my children. So much nicer than shop bought stuff.
My missus does too.
It looks very complicated.
She's doing a little woolly cap with mouse ears at the mo.
I hope it's for me.
Houns,those Etsy jumpers are truly horrible.
If you add up the true cost of hand knitting a jumper - time and materials - the cost is far higher than most would be willing to pay.
Here you go - not sure if the prices will meet your approval ...
http://www.rebekkagudleifs.com/sweaters.php
My wife knits, but she's slow,
The trick to quicker knitting is motivation. My mum and all her sisters are really quick knitters. Its because my gran was a terrible knitter. Pics of my grandad are hilarious - v-neck sweaters where the V practically reaches his navel. So when their mum started knitting them a jumper my mum and co would quickly have to knit their own before she could finish it.
I remember being driven through Knightsbridge as a kid by my Aunty in her XR3. She'd pick up her knitting at the traffic lights and only put it down again to change into second. 🙂
Paying for the wool and delivery? I suggest you learn how to knit yourself if you aren't prepared to pay for the hours of work involved:)
Paying for the wool and delivery? I suggest you learn how to knit yourself if you aren't prepared to pay for the hours of work involved:)
Indeed. How about:
Does anyone build bike frames anymore? Of course, I'd pay for the tubes and delivery.
Good idea
Don't underestimate the cost of wool either. Sure, you can get enough shitty acrylic for a few quid, but for something nice that you'd actually wear like marino you're probably looking north of £50 before you've started. Hand-spun is considerably cheaper to just buy the fluff, but then you're looking at hours of spinning also. Suppose if you're looking for something "special" or not.
I can ask my missus for more accurate figures when she gets up if you like (she's been poorly this weekend so is in bed).
Don't underestimate the cost of wool either.
+1, I've started knitting recently and good wool is not cheap. So far I've only done hat and scarves/cowls and those have taken me quite a long time. Girlfriend has recently made a cardigan (merino) and that cost ~£70 for wool + pattern (pattern is reusable at least and you could probably find free ones) alone.
Free patterns quite often lack quality control, I'm told. (Mind you, so do some paid ones.)
She says it's entirely dependent on size (bigger = more wool, obvs), but a finger in the air price would be £20 for acrylic, £80 for marino / BFL, before you've looked at the hours to do it. She reckons a jumper would take her about a month.
If you're looking for gift ideas, things like hats / gloves / socks / a shawl are much more realistic.
Ask at the local wool selling shop, the ladies who run the shops are generally prolific knitters or they'll have someone who does it for them.
Cheers guys,I had no ideas about the costs and I,m now wondering about the quality of the jumpers in shops.I noticed on a hippy website once that two ladies offered to knit a bloke a jumper for nought.Not sure what kind of reward they were hoping for!
Not sure what kind of reward they were hoping for!
Knitting the jumper out of their victims entrails is its own reward
The price of wool is ridiculous, but there are other sources of reasonable yarn. I used to work freelance as a knitting pattern checker and have a library of high end patterns.
If I were to knit with the yarn specified the garments would be £100 ish before if even picked up my needles
As long as you understand yarn weights and stretch and can read the given tension and yarn length per ball it is easy to work out substitutes.
Also ebay - there seems to be a lot of people who buy the wool and never knit it up.
The counterpoint to that is, my OH likes knitting with nice yarn, it's the whole tactile thing.
Are any of those patterns shareable?
Good shout on eBay, that'd never occurred to me.
Wife LIKES knitting you say.I wouldn't like to think of her getting bored.
The knitting industry was once my day job! If you want a heavyweight, 100% wool pullover it's going to cost you serious money, whether hand knitted or machine knitted. You get what you pay for, be it pullovers, bikes or whatever. Sorry!
What's the best method for learning how to knit? Internet, books or find somebody to show you? Always fancied giving it a go and forgot about it until I saw this thread.
It's funny, but I had a dream about this last night! I can't remember the details, but I do remember pleading with someone, "Oh, please teach me how to knit!"
Like FunkMaster I've quite fancied giving it a go, but never got around to it. What about those things (dollies?) kids used to learn on (4 panel pins nailed into a cotton reel) - is it worth starting with one of those?
You don't see many people knitting in public these days - I remember that women used to carry their knitting with them, and would resume knit at every opportunity - in cafes, or when waiting for a bus etc.
Just bought one of these and even if I get it working I suspect it would probably take long enough to disuade from alturistic knitting! Even once you're done knitting you still have to sew the panels together.
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Wow - loving this thread even more! Didn't think there would ever been a decent knitting thread on stw!
Knitting with 4 nails in a cotton reel.is French knitting and just makes a knotted braid tube - ive only used that technique once to make some replacement braid for something specific once . . .so i would say just learn to knit on two needles first and foremost. The Internet should give you enough tutorials. Bear in mind if you are a lefty you may have to find instructions in reverse (a book and mirrors helped me teach my eldest - but I'm sure YouTube can help)
I had either that or a very similar machine to that - fast but will make your shoulders ache. Also trickier to source prepared wools (waxed) for machines than balls of yarn.
I have Norwegian in-laws who will knit to order
rather excellent
I have one of these ( made quite a while back )
My Mother In law started it but did not like me enough to finish it.
My Wife stepped up to the plate and finished it and did a great job.
The Staithes Gansey ( every fishing village had its own design so they knew were to take the bodies )
Not mine but it looks just like this
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Yep the GF is bloody obessed,
I...errr....washed one of hers once. It will be a long time before I'm forgiven.
Tend to have a few oily poo rideen sheep fleece kicking about as well, spinning wheels, looms, drum carders.
It's great, stop me getting harrased!
Is it just basically a pair of needles, ball of wool and willingness to learn that's needed to start? If so I'm tempted to give it a go. Make myself a nice hat or scarf.
Find a pattern first, patterns generally specify a wool weight and needle size. Otherwise, that's all I did... Thicker wool is easier to use IME
My baby daughter has received some lovely hand knitted clothes from older friends and relatives. I always get hand knitted socks from my wife's nan, nice and warm but fall down.
My wife started a throw over 5 years ago, it's only 1/3 finished.
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home knitting should be banned I had to endure years of home knitted jumpers hateful things.
home knitting should be banned I had to endure years of home knitted jumpers hateful things.
I assume its you in Macruiskens photo!
The Icelandic are quite into their knitting and do quite a selection of jumpers that are sold through a wooly jumper marketing board.
Or fisherman's jumpers as already mentioned. Fishermen's Mission in St Ives always had a ton of them.
I,m the man for you Awench.
[quote=piemonster ].
I assume its you in Macruiskens photo!
erm thats me in my photo, taken last week 😉
I'm not sitting at home all day knitting jumpers for hours just for 'fun' for any man . . . Well I might for Idris Elba 😉
Ummm not exactly Idris Elba here but I do tan nicely.
Ha ha - I'm sure idris has been covered in another thread somewhere.
Really you should look to start knitting - it's a beautifully logical and really useful craft.
Cheers guys,I had no ideas about the costs and I,m now wondering about the quality of the jumpers in shops
there's a lesson in here about globalisation etc...
if you wanted to pay someone minimum wage to make a wool jumper in the UK, and sell it in a shop, it would need to cost well north of £100, possibly even £200.
The last couple of decades have seen us totally insulated from the true cost of stuff like this, and now we think £50 for a jumper is pricey. Which feeds into all areas of our consumer society, ie buying tat from Primark and chucking it away later, taking for granted how wealthy we are in the global scheme of things, yak yak
I do, although currently just started a project where the lady said she wanted an aran jumper, so I told her about aran wool, quantity etc and she came round with pure 100% aran wool and a pattern for chunky wool (doh!). I am doing it for free. So if you want to get the pattern and the correct wool & quantity would quite happy make it up for you but probably won't be able to start it until December...
In Farnborough, Hants if you want to discuss as I think you are in Kingston. I like to make the more complicated things like aran & socks although have never done fair isle so not sure if that was what you were after. Pure wool is better as it holds the pattern and does not stretch when washed. I usually pick up my 100% wool at charity shops otherwise it gets very expensive.