The learn to knit afghan/blanket AKA "The Dog's Dinner"
I have knitted on and off - badly - and in a very limited way since I was a child. The time came, when after knitting a million garter stitch scarves I thought I would learn to do more. So I decided to do SOMETHING ELSE. But I couldn't concieve of knitting a hat, let alone a jumper - what did all those abbreviations in the patterns mean anyway? So I got a few books from the library and started to knit a few flat swatches of different stitches, learning what the abbreviations meant as I went as a new stitch called for a new technique.
I started off with just the combinations of knit and purl stitches with just a couple of different rows to the pattern. As I gained confidence I then moved onto then more complicated gansey patterns and then on to try every technique from cabling, slip-stitching, fair-isle to intarsia. After just a few bits I was hooked and realised I couldn't throw all my beautiful samples away. I had to do something with them. This was the birth of the dog's dinner - a recipe that is ideal for any beginner knitter to work their way through some new techniques in a painless way.
I started off with just the combinations of knit and purl stitches with just a couple of different rows to the pattern. As I gained confidence I then moved onto then more complicated gansey patterns and then on to try every technique from cabling, slip-stitching, fair-isle to intarsia. After just a few bits I was hooked and realised I couldn't throw all my beautiful samples away. I had to do something with them. This was the birth of the dog's dinner - a recipe that is ideal for any beginner knitter to work their way through some new techniques in a painless way.
Here's the recipe for your own dog's dinner
Needles :
what have you got? I used 9mm straight needles for the super chunky yarns, 5/6mm needles for the aran yarns and 4mm needles for the DK/sport yarns. Oh yes there is also a really dodgy bit of crochet on a 5mm hook 'cos I thought "what the hell" and I had a go at that too.
Yarns:
Yarns:
Same story here. You can use any scraps you can cadge and I started off with a few really small squares of DK and even lighter weight yarns that I had from making chilrens scarves. A big light went on when I realised that CHUNKY YARNS MAKE FABRIC REALLY FAST!!!! And so I moved on to super chunky for most of the blanket, which makes it absolutely the softest and most cuddly thing on earth. It also meant I could make a new section a night easily even when I was still really slow at working out how to create a new stitch pattern. Most satisying. So essentially you can use any amount of any colour and any weight.
Resources:
Resources:
a good stitch library website or a book. I mostly used Knit Stitches a visual Encyclopedia and the online stitch library on Knitting Pattern Central.
Method:
At first I was completely random in how much I knitted and of what. But I soon realised that if I ever wanted to sew this together into something approaching a regular rectangle, I probably needed to end up with roughly even-sized panels. So I took one panel of super chunky and made this my template.
Every panel thereafter was made to match this reference piece for size as closely as possible. Another Eureuka moment was when I realised thatmany knitting stitches only work on repeats on certain number of stitches (yes really, I didn't know this). As it happens this was a 17 stitch wide panel so I looked for stitch patterns that could fit into this - or one stitch either side (i.e. 16 or 18 wide). I soon realised that cable patterns pull in a lot width ways so for these I added a few extra stitches and held the first couple of rows against my reference piece to see if I had guessed correctly. I never counted the number of rows - I just held a new piece up against my reference panel to see if it seemed long enough, allowing a row for the cast-off. I took all the smaller bits I had made and blanket sewed them together to make panels the same size - making the odd bit especially to make up gaps. Every panel featured a different stitch pattern.
Method:
At first I was completely random in how much I knitted and of what. But I soon realised that if I ever wanted to sew this together into something approaching a regular rectangle, I probably needed to end up with roughly even-sized panels. So I took one panel of super chunky and made this my template.
Every panel thereafter was made to match this reference piece for size as closely as possible. Another Eureuka moment was when I realised thatmany knitting stitches only work on repeats on certain number of stitches (yes really, I didn't know this). As it happens this was a 17 stitch wide panel so I looked for stitch patterns that could fit into this - or one stitch either side (i.e. 16 or 18 wide). I soon realised that cable patterns pull in a lot width ways so for these I added a few extra stitches and held the first couple of rows against my reference piece to see if I had guessed correctly. I never counted the number of rows - I just held a new piece up against my reference panel to see if it seemed long enough, allowing a row for the cast-off. I took all the smaller bits I had made and blanket sewed them together to make panels the same size - making the odd bit especially to make up gaps. Every panel featured a different stitch pattern.
List of some of the stitch patterns used (I'm still adding to this so it's not exhaustive yet):
Knit and purl combinations:
 |
| Garter stitch stripes |
 |
| Chevrons |
 |
| Basketweave |
 |
| Gansey anchor pattern |
also:
- moss stitch
- stockinette stitch
- seed stitch
- wide rib
- 2x2 rib
- bell rib (this could also be classified as a lace stitch as it involves additional skills)
Bobble and texture patterns:
- basic bobble stitch
- bobble stitch star panel
- rosette stitch
- tweed stitch
- star stitch
Cable patterns:
- 3 x 4 stitch cables
- 1 x 6 stitch cable
- braided cable
- 1 x 12 stitch cable
- basic open cable (based on the bobble cable in the knitting stitches encyclopedia just omitting the bobbles)
- Nautical cable
- long and short cable
- star pattern
- heart pattern
- rectangles stranded colour pattern 10
- flower stranded colour pattern 18
- drop stitch garter
- bedjacket stitch
Sizing:
My reference panel was about 20 cm wide by 25 long so I decided to make my blanket six of these panels by four so I made up 24 in total, although some of these were in turn made up of smaller swatches . This was enough to wrap around one adult comfortably. You can make your reference panel any size and make the blanket up of any number of panels to make anything from the dog's blanket to a bedspread. Leave nice long ends of yarns each panel to sew them together with.
Colour and design: Why should the dog care? But if you do.....I went with a basic two colour design of blue and cream but in pretty much any shade of blue I liked from pale to darkest blue although all soft toned blues. I added just a couple of highlights of jade green and a couple of bits of multicoloured yarn, which had a blue running through it to tie it in. Other options that should work harmoniously
* One colour in every shade of that colour
* Multi-coloured but using the same depth of tone (so pastels or clashing rainbow brights)
* Monochromes - black, white and all shades of grey
*Any single colour with white/cream or black/grey
Colour and design: Why should the dog care? But if you do.....I went with a basic two colour design of blue and cream but in pretty much any shade of blue I liked from pale to darkest blue although all soft toned blues. I added just a couple of highlights of jade green and a couple of bits of multicoloured yarn, which had a blue running through it to tie it in. Other options that should work harmoniously
* One colour in every shade of that colour
* Multi-coloured but using the same depth of tone (so pastels or clashing rainbow brights)
* Monochromes - black, white and all shades of grey
*Any single colour with white/cream or black/grey
Constructing:
One thing I was thinking about of during the project was that your "normal" pattern doesn't really use wools of different weights in the same piece. I was concerned that the weight of the chunky panels would pull on the finer fabrics and distort them. Also I didn't want the edges to feel thin. So I decided to make sure that the patchwork panels of smaller stuff were in the middle surrounded by chunky panels, and separated by them as much as I could. I added chunky bits to the edges of some of the panels so that where two thinner panels were adjacent they had some thicker bits to hold them together. This seems to be holding up OK. Obviously if you use all the same weight of wool you won't have this problem.
Also I tried, whilst deciding where to place each panel, to put those that had come out thinner next to those that had come out fatter to even out the sizing. It worked well enough for me, but then you may have noticed I'm not the perfectionist type.
Making up: I simply sewed every panel together with blanket stitch using the end yarns where I had left them long enough and wove in the ends . There is a technique to weaving in - have a look at some you-tube tutorials. This had the effect of blocking some of the lace stitch bits and tighter patterns because they were stretched to fit the adjacent panels. It can also be good to do this a bit at a time as you go because it is a long old job if you are doing a big peice. I didn't block the end piece but I daresay it would look better if I did....
Below is a plan of how I put the pieces together (by weight of wool)
Also I tried, whilst deciding where to place each panel, to put those that had come out thinner next to those that had come out fatter to even out the sizing. It worked well enough for me, but then you may have noticed I'm not the perfectionist type.
Making up: I simply sewed every panel together with blanket stitch using the end yarns where I had left them long enough and wove in the ends . There is a technique to weaving in - have a look at some you-tube tutorials. This had the effect of blocking some of the lace stitch bits and tighter patterns because they were stretched to fit the adjacent panels. It can also be good to do this a bit at a time as you go because it is a long old job if you are doing a big peice. I didn't block the end piece but I daresay it would look better if I did....
Below is a plan of how I put the pieces together (by weight of wool)
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