Kelly Spenhoff

What Is This Thing For?

I have this comfy cardigan that I won’t wear in public. I knit it in January 2022. In usual Kelly fashion, I decided I needed to knit something to bring on a trip when I didn’t actually have time. We were leaving on the 29th on a road trip to Disneyland and I absolutely had to have a new hand knit cardigan to bring. I could always finish it on the 2-day drive.

Stockinette is my favorite and I wanted it oversized, so it was easy to choose a simple pattern. I picked up acrylic yarn from Jo-Ann. Like I said, we were about to go to Disneyland, so I needed to buy my yarn on the cheap. I knew it wouldn’t look good forever, but I thought it would last a few months before it needed a good shave. I finished it in time and it was a great road trip sweater.

This cardigan never saw the inside of Disneyland, though. It was a fuzzy balled up mess after 17 hours in the car. I loved everything else about it, but it looked so shabby.

I still wear it around the house to this day. And Bruno loves getting wrapped up in it on my lap. But the yarn choice made it impossible for it to fulfill its destiny as my vacation sweater.

How did I get it so wrong? The pattern was fine, the color was fine. The gauge and fit were both just what I wanted. I forgot to ask myself one question.

What is the purpose of this sweater?

If I had taken a few minutes to think about it, I would have known that I wanted a sweater that would look good after lots of wear.

The yarn I chose was perfect if I had wanted a cozy lounging sweater that I could wrap around me and Bruno together. Before Bruno, it was Indy and Vader. All of my chihuahuas have loved this thing.

How many times do we jump straight to the cast-on because we found a pattern or yarn that we can’t wait to use? Or because we need the sweater for a trip in 3 weeks?

We invest so much time and skill into our projects. Just think how fulfilling each project could be if we made sure it would serve its purpose before starting?

When we are making something by hand, we may as well take the extra few minutes in the planning stage to make sure we know exactly what we want.

The Knitting Police Aren’t Coming

What knitting rules do you follow without question? I used to have a few. Never tie a knot in your knitting. Always weave in your ends. Link Serious knitters have to knit complicated things. You must follow the pattern exactly.

The first time I wore a knit piece in public without weaving in the ends, no one stopped me and told me I couldn’t wear it. It was a shawl that matched my outfit perfectly and I didn’t have time to weave in the ends before we had to leave. What’s a knitter to do? I taped the ends down with clear packing tape on the backside and threw that sucker around my neck!

It was super cute and I was proud to have my handmade finishing touch on the outfit all day. My shawl taught me that you can actually do whatever you want. The Knitting Police aren’t coming.

From then on, I started looking for other rules I could break. On my Car Eyes Hat pattern, Link I tied knots instead of weaving in the ends on the colorwork eyes. I figured, I’m the one writing the pattern, I’ll do what I want! The backside of that section ends up completely enclosed, so who cares what it looks like?

I used to think that if I didn’t use complicated stitch patterns, I wasn’t a “real” designer. My Share a Pair Link handwarmer pattern has lots of texture because I wanted to prove that I could work shaping around a stitch pattern and still have it work.

Eventually, I realized that I wasn’t actually wearing everything I designed and knit. They were beautiful, but they weren’t me. Because I love stockinette stitch. Sure, it can be a little monotonous to knit, but I love the look of it so much. When someone says something is knit, stockinette is what you picture in your head. So I embraced it. I design things I love and actually wear. Who’s going to stop me?

Why do we feel like we have to prove ourselves by knitting complicated things? You can love a garter stitch scarf just as much as you can love a wedding ring shawl. And there’s nothing wrong with either one. Maybe we don’t want people to think our knitting is just a silly hobby. Maybe we are comparing our knits to knits we see on social media and we feel like we don’t measure up. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can knit a thousand wedding ring shawls, just make sure it’s because you want to do it.

It’s so much fun to have an idea and run with it. To combine parts of different patterns into something uniquely you. To knit something up just to see how it looks and then rip it out without shame if you don’t like it.

You are knitting for your enjoyment, not to please gatekeepers. It doesn’t matter if your sweater looks like everyone else’s. It matters if you had fun knitting it. It matters if you love it and actually wear it. I have found out that trusting your taste and being willing to experiment are what make you a great knitter.

The best thing about knitting is that we can test all our weird ideas. We can make whatever we feel like. We can trust ourselves. If we want to wear a sweater for 6 years before we weave in our ends, no one is stopping us. If we want to knit nothing but garter stitch scarves and dishcloths for the rest of our lives— we can enjoy ourselves while doing it!

The most confident knitters aren’t the ones looking over their shoulders for the Knitting Police. They are the ones who know what they want and decide to make it.

Knitting Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

After 22 years of experimenting, knitting a million miles of yarn, and frogging half a million miles, I’ve learned some lessons the hard way. (Is there any other way?) Here are my top six:

Check your gauge. There’s a reason people repeat this over and over. It’s because we know we need to knit a swatch every time, but we hate taking the time to do it. Three different knitters using the same yarn and needles will knit 3 different gauges. If you care about the size of your finished object, knit a gauge swatch before you start!
Don’t guess when choosing which size garment to knit. You have the power to make every knit fit perfectly. Take body measurements and take into consideration how much ease you want in the finished item. Just because you wear a medium in a store bought sweater, doesn’t mean you can just knit the middle size in a sweater pattern. (Combine this with #1 and you’ll be unstoppable!)
”It’ll block out” is a lie we choose to believe. There are going to be small imperfections that will resolve with a good blocking, sure. But if you’re at the point where you’re telling yourself “it’ll block out” you already know, deep down, that it’s not true.
If you suspect a yarn isn’t right for the pattern and you use it anyway, you’ll regret it. If that’s the only yarn you have available, you’d be better off choosing a different pattern for it. You’re never going to wear a sweater so stiff it can stand on its own or so stretched out it reaches your knees.
Always make a note of project details to keep with your WIP. I have lost count of how many projects I’ve frogged because they sat untouched for so long I didn’t know what they were. Or someone asks you to make them another hat just like the one you made them 4 years ago. It was their favorite hat ever and they lost it, so you can’t even look at it to try to recreate it.
Don’t be afraid to frog. If you don’t like it, you won’t use it. Time knitting is never wasted. Ripping out an entire sweater doesn’t erase the hundred hours you’ve enjoyed practicing your hobby. Let the time spent knitting be just as worthwhile as the finished object.

One of the best things about knitting is that there’s always something else to learn if you want to. After 22 years of knitting, I’m still learning from every swatch, crazy experiment, and finished object. The time spent has been totally worth it, whether I was knitting or frogging.

The Secret to Knits You Actually Wear

We all have knits we never wear. That cardigan in the back of the closet that falls off your shoulders. The hat with the not-quite-wide-enough brim. The shawl that’s just a little too small to drape nicely over your shoulders.

We’re knitters, we don’t have to suffer these atrocities! We can customize anything we make so it fits just right. Here are 10 modifications you can use to make everything you knit feel custom.

Use bust shaping if necessary. You don’t have to make a bigger size if the only place you need more room is in the bust. Don’t end up with a sweater that fits like a sack if that’s not what you want.
Use waist shaping if necessary. Kind of like #1, but the other way around. Add or remove inches at the waist to get exactly the fit you want.
Add short rows to the back of the neck. Many (most?) sweater patterns already have short rows to raise the back of the neck up higher than the front. But some don’t have any or maybe not enough for your taste. Adding some short rows to the back of the neck makes the fit more comfortable and looks a thousand times better.
Customize the length of the sleeves! Not everyone who wears the same size has the same length arms. Designers know this, but the best they can do is write the pattern with the most likely sleeve length for each size. It’s up to you to make sure the sleeves are the right length for you.
Change up the cuffs. I almost always change up the cuffs on sweaters. It took a few sweaters living in the bottom drawer to make me notice that I’m pretty particular about my cuffs. Two inches of ribbing is my absolute minimum, sometimes I do 6 inches and fold them up!
Look at the overall size of a shawl. Compare it to your body size and how you want to wear it. You can add repeats to make it bigger. If you want to wear it bandana style and need it smaller, cut out some repeats or sections.
Consider the border of a shawl. Do you love the contrast color and want to make it wider? Does the giant border take away from the gorgeous yarn you chose for the body of the shawl? Adjust as needed to make it exactly how you want it!
What kind of bind off does the shawl have? If you’re knitting a top-down shawl, that’s a lot of stitches and a huge opportunity to customize. I love an i-cord bind off, personally. Some people might like a delicate picot bind off. You aren’t confined to what the pattern says.
How’s the brim of that hat? It can make all the difference. Maybe when the pattern was written, a different type of brim was in style. If you like the rest of the hat, just change the brim to what you like.
Do you have a favorite level of slouchiness in your hats? Add or remove rounds to adjust the slouch in a hat.

As knitters, we have the skills to make things exactly as we want them. We should never suffer through a day pulling the waist of our sweater to stretch it out every five minutes. Why would we compromise with a bandana shawl that covers just a few too many inches of the rest of our outfit? It doesn’t have to be that way. The difference between a knit that never sees the light of day and one in heavy rotation is usually just one or two modifications to the pattern.

How do you customize your knitting projects? Share your ideas in the comments so we can inspire each other!

I Know I’m Supposed to Weave In the Ends, But I Don’t Always Do It.

When we learned to knit, it was basically carved in stone that you need to weave in the ends on every project. Even if it makes us die a little inside, we try to follow the rule. Sometimes on a project with a lot of ends, we weave them in as we go to spread the misery across time.

Once I made the cutest striped sweater with all my leftover yarns from Wonder Woman projects. It used about 10 different yarns in red, yellow, blue, and white. I was so glad I wove the ends in as I went. There were too many to tie, it would have been lumpy. And with so many ends to do at once, I know I wouldn’t have done it. That cute striped sweater would have lived in my “to finish” pile forever.

If we hate weaving in ends so much, why don’t we just break that rule? I think we’re afraid that we aren’t “real” knitters if we don’t follow the rules. Or maybe we think that if we know and follow all the rules it proves that we are Good Knitters. But no one is giving out trophies for that.

We all know what will happen if we don’t do it. We’ll be strutting around showing off our gorgeous hand knit sweaters dotted with holes and have yarn tails streaming out behind us.

We could tie a knot instead of weaving the ends in. But it could come undone someday. It could migrate to the right side of the work. It’s tacky to tie knots in your knitting. At least, that’s what the Knitting Police say.

I say we can do what we want with our ends! I have a couple of smaller shawls that I wear around my neck bandana-style. I’ve worn them for years and still haven’t woven in the ends. If you look at the backside of them, you’ll see all the ends taped down with clear packing tape- I didn’t even tie knots!

I never weave in ends if they’re not going to show. I tie a bow and double knot it on the inside of a sweater, leaving the tails long. The double-knotted bow is less likely to migrate to the front of the work, and the long tails mean that if it ever comes undone I can tie it again. It works like a charm when I join a new ball of yarn, but too bulky for stripes. I understand all the whys and hows of weaving in the ends. That’s why I know exactly how to get around it.

I don’t always skip out on weaving in my ends. When I make a gift for someone, I finish it beautifully. And I’m happy to do it. A handmade gift is such an act of love, I want every detail to show it. I want the recipient to wear their new knit with pride, not ask me why it’s taped on the backside.

It is important to learn the Rules of Knitting. If you decide to knit an heirloom sweater or baby blanket, those rules for professional finishing are going to elevate the piece. And knowing the rules means you’ll recognize when you can get away with breaking them.

The Sleeves Don’t Match!

Something’s going out the window, the sweater or the pattern! I had no choice. There was no way I could knit the sleeves according to the pattern. Knitting the body of this cardigan had already stretched my patience to its breaking point.

A couple months earlier, I’d been browsing Ravelry for shawl collar inspiration when I came across a cardigan I had to have. I usually prefer to make up my own patterns, but this thing was stunning. When I got an email a few days later that the pattern was on sale, I assumed the universe was reminding me about it.

Naturally.

I wound up and weighed every pink and green yarn I had and was ready to cast on. It didn’t occur to me that the convoluted technique could be anything other than straightforward and simple, like the pattern and video suggested. (Why didn’t the need for a video tip me off? That should have been a red flag.)

I managed to finish the body. Switching two colors every single row and tying them in knots was super annoying, but the fabric was gorgeous. I’d stop every couple inches just to stare at it. I pictured myself wearing this speckled sweater with a luxurious shawl collar constantly. I was going to live in it.

Then I got to the sleeves.

This wasn’t regular sleeve island. The wacky technique from the body doesn’t transfer, so instead we get an even more convoluted technique. Also with tons of knots. Except these ones are visible on the surface of the sweater. (I don’t care what the video says. I’ve been knitting over 20 years and my experience was vastly different than their claims.)

There was absolutely zero chance I was finishing this sweater if I stuck to the pattern.

So I decided to knit striped sleeves. At least I’d end up with a complete sweater. Unlike half of Reddit, who abandoned this project with passion. (Too bad I didn’t google it sooner.)

But I didn’t just knit striped sleeves. I knit each sleeve with completely different random stripes, so they don’t match each other.

A couple people suggested I try to make the stripes blend in with the body so the sleeves wouldn’t stand out. (Have you met me?! I do not blend in.) I worked way too hard holding onto my sanity during this project for the finished sweater not to reflect my personality.

When I finally finished it, I hated it.

Not how it looked. I personally hated it. Like it had done me wrong.

It took a few weeks before my hate softened and I could bring myself to wear it. I wish I’d made one size bigger in the shoulders, but overall it fits well enough to wear. People compliment it every time. Someone once asked if it was Free People, and since they buy a lot of Free People, I took that as a win.

Most people love the speckled look. Plenty notice the sleeves. Any sweater that doesn’t make me blend in is a success in my book.

Trusting myself is always the right decision. I know how much convoluted technique I can tolerate, and I know how much I love a truly unique piece. I’m so glad I finished this sweater my way.

Imagine if this gorgeous, sleeveless pain in the ass was stuffed in a bag in my closet forever.

Where’s the fun in that?

Striped Cat Hat Knitting Pattern

Here’s the cutest cat beanie knitting pattern! Don’t want Cheshire Cat stripes? This pattern is just as cute in a solid color. Or in the colors of your actual cat if you want to be twins!

This cat hat knitting pattern can be part of your Halloween costume or cosplay, but you can also just wear a cute cat hat on a random Wednesday. Why limit your cuteness?

My favorite part is the construction of the ears. They are knit directly onto your finished beanie, so no sewing. And they are shaped so that they stand up on their own, you’ll never look like a droopy kitty.

Go ahead, knit yourself up a whole litter of beanies!

Buy on Ravelry

Buy on Etsy

Sizes: child (adult)

Finished measurements: 18.5 in/46.25 cm (20 in/50 cm) circumference

Gauge: 21.5 sts and 31 rounds = 4 in (10 cm)

Materials:

Yarn: color A (purple) 70 yd (66 m), color B (pink) 75 yd (69 m)
Needles: US 8 16-in circular needle and dpns, or size needed to obtain gauge

Notions: yarn needle, 5 stitch markers

Buy on Ravelry

Buy on Etsy

Downtime Shawl Knitting Pattern

This is the Downtime Shawl. It’s an easy triangle shawl knitting pattern that happens to be gorgeous to wear. It’s a side-to-side triangle shawl with maximum squish. All that cozy squishiness comes from alternating sections of slipped stitches and garter stitch.

Wear it to keep your neck warm or to add a handmade touch to your outfit. This shawl does both without even breaking a sweat. No one will believe it when you tell them how easy it was to knit!

My favorite part is how a cleverly placed stitch marker moves with your work, so you never have to keep track of what row you’re on. You can literally pick it up in your downtime and knit a little without wasting time.

This pattern + a variegated yarn that’s super soft = your new favorite shawl. Don’t blame me if all your friends ask for one!

Buy on Ravelry

Buy on Etsy

Sizes: one size

Finished measurements: 57in (145cm) wide, 26.25in (67cm) tall

Gauge: 23 sts and 40 rows in 4in in garter st

Materials:

Yarn: fingering weight, 800yd
Needles: US 4 24-in circular
Notions: 1 stitch marker, yarn needle

Buy on Ravelry

Buy on Etsy

How to Make Every Knitting Project an Heirloom

Over the last two decades I’ve knit more projects than I can count. I’ve also dropped plenty of my hand knits off at Goodwill.

I don’t regret any of the projects I didn’t keep because they made me the knitter I am today. However, these days I’m not interested in knitting anything that isn’t worth keeping. Here’s a list of things I’m doing to ensure all my knits going forward are heirloom quality.

Use the highest quality yarn you can afford. Things to consider when choosing yarn: Will this get fuzzy or pill with wear? Does it have enough elasticity to hold its shape over time? Will it create the type of fabric you want for this project?
Choose your pattern wisely. It’s okay to choose a trendy pattern for an heirloom, everything comes back in style! A vintage knit will be a treasure when it comes back around. But it is important to keep the construction of the pattern in mind. Knitting a sweater in the round is quick and easy, but seams help the sweater hold it’s shape in the long run.
Use proper finishing techniques. Join new colors and weave in ends without tying knots. Over the span of generations, a knot can come undone but a well-woven tail will stay in place forever. (I have gotten comfortable with knots under certain circumstances)
Take the time to ensure a good fit. It doesn’t matter how long it lasts if you don’t like the way it fits.
Hand wash with the right soap. Even if the yarn says you can put it in the washing machine, you should hand wash. Use a soap made for hand washing knits, like Eucalan or Soak. Block the items back to the original measurements while drying.
Store seasonal items clean and safe in the off season. Take the time to protect your knits from moths! Once the item is clean and dry, seal it in a zip top plastic bag, freeze for a few days, then store it in its bag until it is back in season.
Treat your hand knits like the heirlooms they are. Don’t tie an heirloom sweater around your waist or use a hand knit throw as a picnic blanket.

What have I overlooked? I’d love to know how you elevate your knits to heirloom status!

How to Crochet a Tiny Star With Sharp Points in One Round

I like to use these tiny crochet stars as appliqués. You could also make them into a garland, tie them on packages, glue them on hair clips…the possibilities are endless! These little stars are so fun to make! ⭐️

I learned this method sometime in the 00s from a blog called Wild About Color. The link is still in my bookmarks, but unfortunately the blog is no longer there.

I went online looking to refresh my memory and guess what? None of the tutorials I found produced the nice pointy points of this method. So, here you go! May this crochet star method live on for another round of hookers!

A red sweatshirt sleeve with crochet stars on the cuff.

Here are the written instructions to crochet your own tiny stars. There’s also a video at the bottom of this post if you want to see the whole process. Heads up- the video doesn’t have any instructions- it’s just me crocheting a star in case you need a visual.

Materials: yarn of your choice and an appropriate size hook, yarn needle to weave in ends (optional- you can just tie a knot and cut the tails if you’re gluing it to something)

Skills: Magic ring, single crochet, double crochet, chain stitch, slip stitch (US terms)

{all steps are worked into the magic ring- this is a one-round project}

Start with a magic ring. Pull up a loop and ch1.
Make a point: sc, dc, ch2, slip stitch into the bump on the back of the second chain stitch from the hook, dc.
Repeat step 2 four more times to make 5 points of the star.
Cut yarn, leaving a 4-inch tail, and pull the yarn all the way through the last stitch.
Pull the end of the magic ring to close the center.
Pull the yarn tail to bring the last point and the first point of the star together.
Now you can choose if you want to use a yarn needle and weave in the ends, or just tie the ends together and cut the tails off.

Here’s a video if you want to see me crochet a star:

I hope you have fun crocheting a galaxy of tiny stars with perfectly pointy points!