I wanna knit with Paton's Be Mine!

#1

Hi all…
I am wanting to knit with some cushy Paton’s yarn called “Be Mine.” The stats are as follows:
Tension
14 sts - 19 rows = 4" (10 cm)
Suggested Knitting Needle
5.50 mm, US - 9

Yarn here

Being I’m a newbie, I haven’t mastered the art of making something acording to the yarn I want or get first. I know a person should find the pattern first, but the one book they have for this yarn (baby items) are cute but not what I’m looking for. I actually would like to knit a baby blanket for my expectant sister in law.
I guess I am wondering how hard it is to come up with my “own design” :wall: and be able to calculate how much yarn I’ll need. Where did you all go for help and inspiration once you wanted to make your own patterns? I’ve tried to compare the yarn guage to patterns I see that are cute, but can’t make a match and I don’t want to waste money…
Thanks in advance for your help!
:XX:

Mod Squad was here! :thumbsup:

#2

Baby blanket patterns are easy to find online, for free. You’re basically knitting a gigantic square. And you can design your own pattern , with no problem:
Knit a swatch, and write down your stitches per inch and rows per inch gauge
Decide how big you want the blanket to be, in inches
Do some math to decide how many stitches need to go across, and how many rows to knit.

So… let’s pretend my stitches per inch is 7 and my rows per inch is 10.
I want my blanket to be 36 square inches
I would have to cast on 7stitchesx36inches: 252 stitches
I would have to knit 10inchesx36rows: 360 rows

At this point, I personally would go “Holy cow I need to find thicker yarn!!!”

disclaimer: I’m sure there’s an easier way to do the following
Anyway, to guesstimate how much yarn you’d need, figure how how many inches of yarn take up 7 stitches… cast on 7 (or 8 to be safe) stitches, then take it off the needles and measure how much yarn you used. Then look at the yarn lable and figure out how much you can knit with one ball. I always round up when i do this, because I might not be able to find the same dye lot if I have to buy more.

So… let’s pretend I decided that 252 stitches and 360 rows wasn’t too much to knit :shock: and I didn’t change yarns… So I cast on 8 stitches, pull them off, and measure my yarn… it took me 10 inches of yarn to knit my 8 stitches… I round that up to 12 inches, becasue 12 fits nicely into yardage measurements and becasue I’m over cautions (and becasue this post is longer than i thought it would be) Looking at the label, I see that each ball is 50 yards, or 150 feet of yarn. How many stitches can do with 150 feet of yarn? If 1 foot gives me 8 stitches, then I can knit 1200 stitches with this ball.

To make the whole thing, I’d need 252 stitches times 360 rows, so that comes to 90720 stitches :shock: in order to knit that many stitches, I’d need 90720 stitches / 8 stitches per inch = 11340 feet of yarn, OR (11340 feet / 3 feet per yard) [size=6]3780 yards of yarn[/size], OR (3780 yards / 50 yards per ball) [size=7]75 and a half balls of yarn[/size].

I would DEFINITLY find thicker yarn. :oo:

Since I just realized I totally ignored the stitch/row/yardage measurements you gave for the Be Mine yarn, it looks like that would be MORE stitches, since there are more stitches and rows per inch than my made up calculations. Assuming you wanted a 3x3 foot blanket like my made up blanket (is that standar-ish size for blankets for babies???) and your stitches per inch of yarn is the same …
If I can knit 90720 stitches on 75 balls…
You would need

okay, I have to go baby sit before I can figure out this math. I will come finish later, if anyone is interested (just call me OCD with math)*

#3

Hey Hil, we’re gettin’ there! I actually am working on a blankie that I started before my 5 month old nephew was born. I got the cotton yarn on the Suss Cousin’s yarn site. She did the Hollywood Knits books. Anyhoo, It’s a simple 112 stitch wide garter stitch square. Then you crochet an edge of feathery yarn. Of course I was too much of a dilitante knitter to be bothered with a guage swatch and knitted up 3 skeins as instructed only to have the bleepin’ thing look like the state of Montana! Nothing against Montana mind you…
Well, we all know what I learned to do next… :frog:
I have been practicing some instant gratification by doing the granny’s fave dishcloth and am thinking a larger version of this would be nifty. However, could I accomplish the same “border” without doing it by knitting up to the number of stitches and then back down again? Could I knit a few rows, then do a yo,k, yo for a row, then one or so yo’s and knit the whole row… know what i mean? My dishcloths seem to be not quite square, but I suppose they need to be dampened and blocked? But I digress… Be Mine is listed as “super bulky” for it’s fluffiness but if you really feel it it’s basically a thread with a polymide type tufted fuzz and seems to be thinner than it looks if you really pull it through your fingers. The weight of a ball is only 1.75 oz. so if I try to compare that to some of the patterns I saw that say to us a DK type yarn for about 350oz, I would need a ridiculous amount of the Be Mine… ack!
I knew I should have paid attention the day the teacher said in math class “Yes, you will use this stuff someday” LOL :doh:
Looking forward to your further input!

#4

You wouldn’t say “COW”.

PS…MY HEAD HURTS! :doh: I HATE NUMBERS!

#5

“Holy Sheep!” would be more like it :lol:
OK, what a doofuss… I took another look at the weight and it says 1.72 oz. but 50 grams, where did i get this crazy 300 or so oz idea?
D’oh :doh:
ok, keep going…

#6

hmmm… :thinking:

EUREKA!
The be mine is 14 stitches = FOUR inches, not 1 inch
that means you have 3.5 stitches per inch, which IS a super bulky weight yarn. Forgot a little thing called “division” I’m a dork :oops:

I’m not sure what you mean by…

However, could I accomplish the same “border” without doing it by knitting up to the number of stitches and then back down again? Could I knit a few rows, then do a yo,k, yo for a row, then one or so yo’s and knit the whole row…

I think I’d have to see the pattern. Or stop thinking about math sop late at night :slight_smile:

#7

Yeah, I confused myself too… If you imagine the granny’s dishcloth how you start out at 4 stitches and then k1,yo,k to end of row, and keep doing that up to 44 stitches… instead of increasing up and making a triangle, then you knit back down to complete the square… could i get the same effect by just knitting square to begin with rather than increasing up to the size I want. Did that make any kind of sense? :thinking:

#8

I made a baby blanket with that pattern…I felt like it would NEVER END! If you get bored easy, DONT DO IT! :shock:

#9

AHH! The dishcloth is knit on the diagonal! :doh Yes I understand. Yes you coul djust start off doing it as a square, but it would look a lot different.

#10

OH! And, if you DO knit this blanket, you’re gonna have to knit it on straight circs…it will NOT fit on regular straight needles by the time you get to the middle.

#11

good idea KK!

#12

Oh, for sure, circs for sure. I have read the raves about Denise’s, but I haven’t made the leap to interchangeables. I do really like the Addi Turbos I have. The cable is plyable and doesn’t get kinked up like the first Boye I got.
I am going out of town this weekend to see my little baby nephew so I have 3 days of knitting, playing and googling… oh yeah, and I’ll see my brother and sister in law too LOL :wink:
Guess I’ll be making a yarn stop on the way out of Dodge… :cheering:

#13

you know, Knitty Gritty had a tip that if your circ cables are winding up on you or stiff, you can dip them into some boiling or hot water and soften them up… supposedly, it straightens them out and they stop trying to roll back up. :sunglasses:

#14

It really does work. I tried it with my first Boye circ’s (before ordering my set of Denise’s). I was going nuts wrestling with that cable which wanted to curl every which way, but the hot water smoothed it right out. :thumbsup:

#15

My MIL gave me a classic pattern that knits up quick and looks adorable:

Get a pair of the largest & longest needles you can find and a pair of the smallest at that same length. Start with the small needles, cast on 100 stitches, knit 10 rows. Switch to large needles and knit 10 rows. Keep repeating until you have desired length.

I’ve made a couple of these for gifts when I was first starting out and if you pick nice yarn it really looks cool. I found some at Joann’s that had one thread of normal baby yarn and on thread of that same color only it had a shiny/reflective-but-soft quality and it was just beautiful.

Good luck! :XX:

#16

Susie, Do you have a picture … I can’t even imagine what that looks like? How do you get the big needles into the little stitches? Or… am I making this something it is not … like the “pool cover” :slight_smile:

#17

Debbie - Unfortunately I don’t have a picture since they were all gifts. The only picture that I have is one with my cat Samson (grey) stepping on it. It’s all folded up and the yarn I used was the least pretty of all the ones I’ve done. It really is pretty with the right yarn:

KH Thread here

I think this is the brand of yarn that I used for the really pretty sparkly ones but I can’t remember:

YARN

I’ll check when I get home tonight since I just picked up some more for another blanket. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful!

[size=2]***
Mod Squad was here :-D[/size]

#18

Ok, just a newbie questions here. :thinking:

For the baby blanket with the 2 different sized needles:

How hard is it to go from the small needles to the larger ones? I tend to knit pretty tight and can’t see going from a size 10.5 to a 19 without a problem with the stitches being too tight.

What sizes do you usually use when you make this blanket?

I’m really intrigued with the pattern and would love to try for my new neice or nephew to be.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

Kim

#19

I thought it would be difficult too since I tend to knit tight too. My MIL patiently instructed me to knit loosely thoughout the last row of the smaller needle and a little tight on the last row of the larger needle. The yarn tends to slide and shift to allow you to do this - it was very surprising to me!

I’m at work now so I’ll have to check my needles when I get home. They’re hand made by my FIL as a Christmas present specifically for this pattern. I think the small ones are around a 6-8 and the large ones could be a wide as a quarter (no clue) what size that would be). I think you’re 10.5 and 19 needles are different enough that they’d work. Since they’re big you should be able to whip right through that beautiful yarn! I found that this pattern knits very quickly - I usually stick to about 10 rows with each set of needles but as long as you start and end with the smaller needles you can really knit as much or as little as you want!

#20

Thanks so much for the tips & info. Sounds really interesting.

Have to finish my other little projects first though before I start something new. :smiley: I can at least look at what type of yarn to use. :lol:

Thanks again & have a great weekend!