Commonly Misunderstood Terms

I'm Drea. I'm Meg. I'm Tina. And I'm Jess. And this is Pardon My Stash. Welcome to Pardon My Stash, a podcast about knitting, the fiber arts, and how awesome it is. Before we get into this week's topics, let's share what we're working on now, Drea. So, since we have last recorded, I have started and finished a hat. I made the Keein hat by Emily Green, and I used a less traveled yarn. I want to say, and I don't have the tag with me right now, but I want to say that the color was

twilight. It was like a dark blue. Wasn't it midnight? I want to say it was twilight. It's a dark blue. Yeah, it's a dark blue. It came out really nice. I'm actually currently blocking it, finally. Yay! I actually finished it the day before Rheinbeck, but it was unblocked, so I didn't want to wear it to Rheinbeck. But now I am currently working on Minted by Andrea Mowry, and I am using Juniper Moon Farms in Moonshine, and Odang in Desert Rose, I believe, probably. I inherited

the yarn from Meg. I do not remember. I remember, like, Odang, but I could not have told you what the yarns were, where I just remember I was highly allergic and didn't realize it. Yeah, so I inherited it. It's decadent. I love working with it. It's a really great knit. I'm loving it. I'm loving that I have finished a project, and I'm almost done with the second one. Hey! It's only been a couple weeks, so good for me. It's a good boost. Yeah, it is. I needed some

quick projects to jumpstart myself. Sometimes that's what you need. Meg, I am currently working on the Owlette sweater by Kate Davies Designs. I've done this before in the kid's size for my own child, and I'm making this for a baby in baby size. I am knitting it out of Critical Hit Dyes Barbarian Bulky in the Colorway Cardinal. It's not going as fast as I thought it would. I don't know why. It's still going pretty fast. Because you keep getting distracted. I do keep getting distracted.

That's really... I'm doing that thing where I'm jumping between two patterns at once, two different sweaters. This one is no offense to the designer. It's kind of boring until you get to the actual owl cabling. Before that, it's just stocking it. It is not holding my attention as well as it should. The other sweater I'm working on is a little bit more interesting

in structure. That one's Poema by Vera Sanon. It has a little more meat to the pattern. This one's kind of nice for just sitting and knitting because you don't have to think about it. For a sit and knit, you say? A sit and knit, I say. A sit and knit. I wonder who's doing that right now. Sorry. It had to be really corny. Sorry. It's me. I'm sitting in the end. So are you. So are you. I'm not. That's because Jess is crocheting. That's fair. Tina.

All right. Since I have spoken on this podcast, I finished my Stormy Skies shawl and I wore it to Reinbeck. It was nice and I liked it. I finished it on time too. I had time to block it and I wasn't rushing the night before. It was nice. Very good. You didn't give yourself a plus? Oh. You deserve that a plus. Well, now my daughter has stolen it. Oh, really? Yes. That's a high compliment though. If somebody steals your knit. And that was all of Jess's

knits back in the day. Her mom took them all. She's still trying to take them, man. Yeah. Yeah. My oldest on Halloween saw the shawl and thought that it went with her outfit and has since commandeered it. So now she's wearing it everywhere. And I'm like, eh, you know what? Go with that. It's being appreciated. Yeah. So I don't mind. I also went through and I kind of cleaned up a bunch of random projects that I had that were just kind of sitting or stuff that I had planned on frogging,

but hadn't yet. And my Silva cami is currently in permanent timeout because I tried it on. I put a wire through it and I tried it on. It's massive. It does not fit me at all. I mean, which makes sense because I made it in a larger size when I was larger. And I just like, but like, there's so much angst finishing it and taking it apart. So I'm just sitting in purgatory. It's just in purgatory and that's where it will be. So believe it or not, I know this is going to be

crazy, but I only technically have three whips. Wow. I don't believe you. I know. So one of them is what I'm working on right now, which is the wish and hope sweater by Anne B Hansen design. And I'm making it as I'm making kid sizes. So I'm making one in a three T and one in a five T and I'm making it as a thank you to my neighbor who came out of nowhere and just took my kids to school when I had a medical event a couple of weeks ago. Oh, that's so sweet.

Like, like basically was just like, okay, yeah, like I'll take care of it for as long as whatever. And I was like, really? And like, this is not not that I wasn't shocked because like, I don't think she's a nice person. I was shocked because like, we don't talk like that. Like we're acquaintances at best. So I didn't expect a neighbor to kind of like, kind of help me out like that. So, oh, man, I was just, it was really nice. So I'm going to make little sweaters for her kids. And that's how

I feel about it. And is that the lady who lives behind you? Yes. Yes. With the two little girls. So I'm making them matching sweaters. And my mother requested a sweater after she saw Meg's Calliope. So I have to start making that. I haven't actually pulled the yarn for it yet, but I did put it on my ravelry because I'm definitely going to start doing that because it has taken years for this woman to decide which sweater she actually wants. She keeps changing her

mind. That's a good one, though. And the pattern is free. Yeah, she's really nice. Well, here's the funny part. She saw yours and she was like, yeah, look how long those sleeves are. And I was like, mom, like I could do that to literally any sweater. It's called customizing. It's called, you just keep knitting. I could do like any sweater. But, but, but you gotta, you gotta do like the, the Meg excessively aggressive blocking. Yeah, apparently. So that's, that's apparently the

excessive blocking. I need to get into. We blocked it real aggressively. I was there to make sure you didn't aggressively block the body, but yeah. In between all of that, I have, I have worked on a pattern. I know it's been a while, but it is called the very vital ribbed beanie. So it's like my very vital, I think in a sense, because it's a very basic stitch, but it's actually, I actually finally, finally figured it out. I'm going to give myself a buzz on that because it took like a hot minute.

Like I brought, I thought I finished it. I brought it to Reinbeck and it turned into a Yamaha and I was like, this is terrible. So I took that out, redid it. And I was like, okay, this is much better. So I love the way it came out now. And I basically gave it a different brim because it just needed it, just needed some kind of brim with it. So you can look out for that soon because I'm going to, I have it with my tech editor right now, cause we had to go back and forth. What about you, Jess?

So I am currently working on a little crochet yarn basket ornament because they're fun and cute and tiny. It's by Donna Wolf. I don't know. I found it online. I think it was for free where I found it. I just put in crochet ornaments and it popped up and I did it. So I, I don't really have a lot of information on that front, except for it's fun and it's cute and it's tiny and I'm almost done with this one. Haven't you made like four? This will be my third. Are you sure? Yeah. Really? Uh huh. No,

cause you made the tiny one. Oh yes. You made the tiny one. Yeah. They tell you to use worsted, but I didn't have that handy when I first found the pattern. So I used fingering weight and it's super tiny and cute, but it's also super tiny and cute. So I found some worsted weight and made legit, you know, size ornaments also, you know, doing potion bottles and stuff, cause they're fun. And I am also doing the, um, rose hip sweater by Anna Joanna. I think that's how you pronounce it.

It might be Johanna. I apologize if I, if I pronounced that wrong and that pattern I got out of the strands of joy book. So, but it is also unravelery if people are looking for it. It's super cute. I like it. I'm doing, um, that one is in critical hit dies, Namira and a wild magic fade that I did. And then the little yarn baskets, the basket part I'm doing in some beige sugar and cream

yarn that I had lying around. And then the little yarn balls that go into it are with random things of critical hit dies I have lying around that I can roll up into teeny tiny yarn balls and stick in a basket. It's a good scrap project. It actually is for when you have like, like five yards of yarn. Yeah, no, it's like perfect. What do I do with the string? And it's like, I make a tiny little yarn ball and stick it in a basket. So yeah, those are my current projects. And I picked up felting,

needle felting, which is tons of fun. And I'm going to pick up stuff to do more of that soon because I made some little birds and now I want to make more. So that is also a thing that's going on. And I'm sitting here thinking, I can die roving. That's the thing I can do. So we'll see, we'll see how that adventure pans out in the future. But yeah, so that's what I'm working on

and what everybody else is working on. I know there was a lot to catch up on because you have from us in a bit, but if you want to see pictures of the current projects or get more information about Pardon My Stash in general, be sure to check out our website, PardonMyStash.com for info, pics, patterns, and yarns. All right. So it has been a while, but we did go to Reinbeck. We all

had a really good time. I know we've met some of you in person now, which is awesome. That was so cool. It was really cool. It was great to see you guys and meet and talk. And that was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. I don't know. I mean, I think I had a great time there. I actually saw a lot more and I think got a lot more than I have in Reinbeck in a couple of years. It was actually cold. That was, that was, I think, the best thing.

It was like the first Reinbeck in three years. That wasn't in the seventies. There was like, you know, the whole time we're like, yeah, we're going to like wear stuff for 0.5 seconds to get a picture. And then we're going to be walking around in t-shirts because it's going to be like hot. Like it always isn't. It wasn't, it was actually sweater weather. So we, we did get to do that. So that was awesome. Did enjoy that. Yeah. You know, the only thing I was kind of said,

when we went, there was only leaves on the bottom of the Reinbeck tree. That was kind of a surprise. I mean, not, it shouldn't have been cause it's been raining. It has been raining, but yeah, the Reinbeck tree was a little worse to wear this year. I mean, there was enough to still get our nice pics, but we were like, okay, let's angle the camera a little bit here. Don't look at the top. It's all good. It's all fine. What was everyone's favorite parts? Favorite things.

Besides meeting people. Yeah. Yeah. I got to bestow upon one of our listeners, a very wonderful gift. Probably my favorite project that I've ever made. I mean, definitely for this year than I was for like years past, but like definitely my favorite thing that I've ever made. I made a flavor, flavor clock, made it a pardon my stash. Straight out of the 90s. That thing was like legit. Straight out of the 90s. There was so much, so much effort went into that. I had so much fun making it.

It's a one of a kind item. It is. It'll be worth millions one day. Probably not. But I was impressed with myself and I loved it and I can't remember why. I think that's my favorite part is that none of us remember the origin of the Flava Flav clock. I know that we talked about it and then I was reminded of it. So I just, I'm so glad you were reminded of it. I know. Cause I had forgotten about it entirely. No, it was definitely a live chat many, many moons ago. It was, but I

can't remember. That we had on our, on our membership and yeah, Kara got the clock. Don't remember anything else about. Couldn't tell ya. Yeah. Why. The prompt. No. But it was real funny. It was. And she wore that thing with pride. She did, but it was fully functional and it even went off at 12 o'clock for our. With an alarm, which was hilarious. With perfect timing. It was real good. I planned it that way. Right. As the question, is it a recalibration? It's a recalibration.

It was pretty good. It was pretty good. And you're. Bedazzled and mustachioed. It was nice to like gathering in one spot because we, like, I also feel like other members and people who like listen to our podcasts were able to meet each other. Yeah. So it was like, Oh, wait, you listened to, Oh, okay. And it's like, I feel like we facilitate friendships.

And the people who, who see each other on the live chats once a month and getting to meet in person. Yeah. That was really neat. We had nice, you know, discussions and we had a good time. It was really, it was really neat to see everybody and see everybody's stuff. Like what everybody had made for Ryan Beck was also really exciting. I thought that to be super creepy. So you were real creepy. It was awesome. You were so shady.

Dre was handing out contraband. If you know, you know. If you know, you know. Everyone looks so confused until you gave them the contraband. It was real funny. They're like, what? What's happening? I will not apologize for being myself. Crimes. It was good. The fun is in the crimes. Secret ingredient is crime. But not really. You don't know. It wasn't not crime. Listen, don't get us taken off the air here.

All right. So this week I wanted to talk about some commonly mixed up terms in mainly knitting and crochet, but probably some other fiber related things. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on this topic, but you know what? I'm willing to listen. So I wrote some down that I know like cause some confusion or people mix up a lot. I'm never confused. Wow. That's a lie. One of the big ones. And I actually run into a lot is weight versus ply of yarns.

A lot of people think like the more ply something has, the thicker the yarn. And that's not the case. So the weight of the yarn is like is basically how thicker than your yarn is, how many wraps per inch you're going to get and whatnot. Well, the ply is how many individual strands of this yarn are twisted together in order to make the yarn. Sometimes more ply can make it thicker, but you can have a four ply lace weight yarn.

That happens a lot. And you can have a two ply bulky. We have a two ply bolt. We had a craft fair we did last year. This lady came up and she pulled some barbarian off the pegboard and she was insisting to us that it was four ply, like insisting because there was no way that it could be that thick and be two ply. Yep. So yeah, it is. I didn't know that was a common misconception, but apparently it is. Yeah, no. The thicker it is, the more ply it must have.

It's not because your plies can actually be very thin. Isn't roving technically no ply. Roving is a single ply. Single ply. Yeah, so it's like that doesn't just for that. Right. Like if you buy if you buy like pencil roving yarn. Yeah. Yeah. That's there. But you can also have single ply and it's fingering weight.

So it is. So it's it's got nothing to do with your weight and your ply are different. So don't go off of that to assume that you're using the correct weight of a yarn to piggyback on that too. Like if a pattern calls for a specific ply, you want to pay attention to that. Oh my God. Yes. Because you might think like it doesn't matter. It's a fingering weight yarn like a fingering weight is a fingering weight.

It's not. You're going to get a totally different texture and you may not be happy with it. Not to say that you can't do that. Just be aware that it can change the look. It may not come out the way that you think it's going to.

Because yeah, because plys can affect what it looks like just because of the way it's the way it's twisted and how it feels. Well, honestly, like they say a lot of times if you're doing a lace, a two ply is good because it actually works into a lace kind of stretching pattern.

So it's like you will see patterns that do that. So that, so that is something to at least be aware of and pay attention to if it requires it. Just know if you don't follow it, that it may come out looking different again, not to say that it'll come out bad or it won't work. It's just, it will look different than what the designer is. This is where I come in with everybody's favorite swatch, swatch, swatch your fabric. No, no, fine.

If it comes out different than you wanted, don't blame me. I never complain. You don't. You don't. I will give you that. I just get what I get and you know what? You can't get upset. That was your call. That's the choice you made. I never do get upset. No, and that's a, hey, you know what? There, if you are a process knitter and you want to rip it out as many times as it takes, like shine on you crazy diamond.

But thank you. If you, I'm serious, me too. But if you, if you are the type of person like this is me and he gets very upset when the fabric that you're working on doesn't come out the way you want, then you know what? I got no one to blame but myself if I didn't swatch.

So going along with the weight versus ply ply versus twist ply and twist are two different things. So ply again, apply is a strand inside of the yarn and the twist is the direction in which those plies are twisted to create said yarn. They call them s twist or Z twist because of the way you like, look at them. And usually most yarns are plied in an s twist.

Now I'm looking at mine to see like, I've never heard of different twists in yarn. I had heard of actually paying attention now. Oh, I wasn't surprised. Wow. Wow. So here's the thing. Most yarns are an s twist, which is great for knitting because most of the time while you're knitting in an s twist, you're actually just because of the way you are knitting, you are twisting the yarn further.

So it makes the plies stronger in crochet because you kind of go the other direction. You have a tendency to untwist said yarn, which is why you find that you may be splitting your yarn more.

A lot of times if you find out you're you're like knitting or crocheting, whichever you're doing, and you're splitting the yarn a lot, it may actually have to do with the twist because of the way you are knitting or crocheting, whether it's clockwise or counterclockwise, you're untwisting or twisting your yarn. How do you tell the difference when you're buying your yarn?

You kind of look at it. And so most of them are s twists. We we will post pictures of this on the blog for you guys at home. So if you look at your yarn and it dips down on the right side, that's an s twist. If it dips down on the left side, it's a z twist.

But yeah, so that's why if you find that as you're knitting or crocheting and your yarn is coming untwisted, it may be because it is just because of the twist of the yarn and actually not anything you are doing. That's why one of the they suggest if you can, you learn how to do combination knitting, which is when you knit unit going counterclockwise.

And when you purl, you purl clockwise. And this helps in one direction, you're like twisting it further another direction, you're untwisting it. So you're not like either making your yarn too tight or too loose as you're I'm probably not going to learn how to do that. It's really easy. You know how you do it. That is the you purl the old way used to purl and you knit through the back loop Lord that that is a combination. You purl clockwise.

I don't even know if I could do that anymore. Like I stopped doing that a while ago and then you knit through the back loop, but just something to be aware of. And it was like an interesting thing because I was like, oh, hey, that that is kind of neat if your yarn is splitting to kind of look at and be like, oh, maybe this is why and it's nothing that you're actually doing.

Just stabbing. Here's one for the embroiderers out there embroidery floss versus an embroidery thread. A floss is six threads applied together. So when they say get your embroidery floss that is like and the ones you buy at the store that are all applied together. And if they say use a thread or three threads, you split to your floss into the threads that you need. So those are actually doing different things. Equal opportunity fiber fiber stuff. I have used both of these. So going on as well.

Lace weight versus a lace pattern. You do not need to pay attention, Andrea. You need to know this one. You do not need this one. Lace weight yarn to make a lace pattern. I make lace patterns all the time. See, you can make a lace pattern in bulk. But apparently some people thought that they'll never do lace because they don't like using lace weight. And it's like that. That's not so a lace pattern is a pattern that uses yarn overs. That's that's basically it.

It's basically it. The pattern I look up the definition and I liked it because it was a pattern that incorporates artful eyelets. Oh, I like that. I like to think of it as purposeful holes art artful eyelets. I was like, oh, that sounds that sounds so pretty and fancy. Yeah. Whereas we all know if you've listened to this podcast that lace weight is a super thin yarn. I don't like super thin.

What? I don't know. What? I don't like it. But for those of you that don't like the lace weight yarn, you can find lovely lace patterns that use, you know, larger weights. Just be aware that a bulky lace is going to look different. It's not weird, but it's definitely going to look different. It's going to look different. It's not. It's not going to look the same as like a fingering weight. It's true. Another one I have is in this one. I always mix this up even to this day in Tarja versus Farah.

They both fit well together as a time trial. Oh, yeah. So both are our color work in Tarja uses separate color blocks that are usually on their own separate bobbins. And you basically have to join the yarns together so they don't fall out of your pattern in some special joining way that I have no idea. weave in. That's a lot of work. They look beautiful, but I look at the inside of those projects and I'm like, Oh my God, that's a lot of different yarns and bobbins and, and

pieces that I feel like. So if you don't like leaving your ends, I'm not going to lie. I had, you know, I've been knitting for almost 20 years at this point and I have never had the desire to knit anything in Tarja. And there's a sweater pattern that I now like am dying to knit. So that may actually be like my foray into in Tarja. I feel like I would just want to just carry the work all the way around. But here's the thing with

in Tarja, you actually have the ability to use more colors. Um, so Fair Isle is when you basically carry the other colors around your entire work. And, and with Fair Isle, because you're carrying it around and you have to kind of make sure you're not leaving these huge gaps in the back of your work, uh, or, or it may fall apart. You can usually only get up to three separate colors before you're going to have problems doing that.

In Tarja, you can have probably about as many colors as you want, depending on how it works, because they're all on separate bobbins. So if I want to make a color work sweater of Cisco's face, I'm probably going to have to do in Tarja. You got to do in Tarja for that. The only thing that's tough with in Tarja though, see in Tarja is great for block colors. It is tougher to do that when you're doing like the pixelated kind of look. Yeah. Like

a pink and then a green and then a pink and then a blue. And then it like that, that gets hard. So yeah, so you'd have your work cut out trying to figure out exactly how you want to. I believe you can do it though. You know what? You can do whatever you want. It's either going to be the logo or the face or both. I don't know. I feel like if you can work it out between like three colors or something, I feel like you can figure it out. Yeah. Make

the magic happen. Yeah. Those are the differences between in Tarja and Fair Isle. Fair Isle is usually two strands at a time and you carry your yarn all the way around. And in Tarja, you have a ton of little bobbins of different colors and you can have a whole bunch of colors and blocks and that gives you that option. The last one I have that's commonly mixed up is the knitting style versus a knitting method. So a style is how you hold your yarn.

That's like continental English, Portuguese, Thailand, Russian, et cetera. It's basically like how you hold your yarn, how you hold your tension. The Portuguese you say. Et cetera. Well, yeah, because it's like different ways. So like I didn't realize this. Like I didn't realize Highland was a thing and I looked that I had never heard of high carry the yarn

on their hip and they do it that way. Like they knit on their hip and I still like I watched it and I don't know how they do it and it is amazing, but they, you know what it is. That's where you, they don't like circulars because you need the, um, the needles to, you basically use, use it braced against your hip to, to knit. I've heard about holding, uh, like you gotta use straight needles, but you're holding a straight needle under your

under your, yeah. And then you're basically like, it's sort of like that only they do it. It's like, I can't even imagine. It's weird. It's cool to look at cause I'm like, how are they doing that? But, but that, that is a style. That is how you hold your needles, how you hold your yarn, how, how you like get your tension, et cetera. The method is the direction that you put your yarn. So those ones there, there are three there's Western,

which yep, Western, the Western method. And that's, that's the most common. That's when you throw or you do your yarn, it goes counterclockwise around your needle. That's the most common. Eastern is when your yarn goes clockwise around your needle and then combination, which I brought up earlier is when you do one part one way and the other part, the other way. It's true. That's Portuguese. That is what we do. That's how you do it. There's the

purling and knitting is two different ways. Yeah. And that it will, it is, it's because you're knitting, you would knit counterclockwise and you'd pearl clockwise. So you're, you're throwing the yarn separate ways over the needles. Cause you're kind of forward or back. So it depends on where you're sitting. So those are the three methods and you can do any of those three methods, uh, along with whatever style you're doing it. And sometimes it's

easier, sometimes it's harder. And sometimes like certain ones are just a dang impossible depending on your style. So you're telling me that I knit English Western style. Yes. English Western sounds like an oxymoron, but I love it. That's very cool. It was spaghetti Western spaghetti. And yeah, so those are all the commonly mixed up terms that I had found that I was aware of that I myself had, um, or that I found and bought were pretty

interesting. So I don't know if there's anything anybody else has that mixed them up gauge versus ease. Oh yeah. Gauge versus ease is a big one. The gauge is how many stitches you have to the inch and the eases, how much more, how many more inches you have to your usually your bust line. If you're knitting for a woman, if it says you want it, you have a four inch or plus four ease. That means you got to add four inches to your, to your

bust line. Um, if you want it to look like the model, again, your mileage may vary. You may, and that's, that's honestly, I think one of the most fun things about knitting your own garments is that you can just be like, you know what, I don't want to do waist shaping. I don't want to do that. And see the picture and they could be like, yeah, this was done with two inches of ease and you could be like, yeah, but I want that like

on my boobs. And if you like a more fitted sweater or you like a looser sweater or you know, whatever it is, you can, you can kind of go from, or it could be like negative ease and you're like, yeah, I'm going to add five inches cause I want it slouchy. The gauge does help you find the correct ease and make sure that you're getting the correct ease. But the ease itself is, you know, either if you, if you want it a little bigger, you go

plus. If you want it smaller, you go minus. And if you want it skin tight, you go even more negative than that's not me. I don't make it about the drapes. Like almost like now it's laying right. How is it? How is it falling against you? If you want to specify that cause it's not like you can't just like necessarily give it like positive ease and turn something into a plus size. Like you could, no, no, no, no, no. It's, I'm not

talking about designing. I'm talking about like, if you want the sweater to be bigger on you, a little baggier and less fitted. But no, that also, that's, that's actually a really good point of a misconception is that adding inches to the bus line does not make something plus size. It does not like a lot more work goes into grading a pattern to make it a bigger size. It's gotta be, you've got, I was reading something the other day

where somebody said like that the pattern was graded for bus sizes, not arms. So one size for the arm, then you wind up with, with something that fits great in the bus, but you've got little spaghetti arms and that that's not, that's not a great look. If you don't see different stitch counts on the arms, then you know, they didn't grade it for the arms. It's not graded. Yeah. Like if they, if you have the exact same, then it's probably

not right. Imagine that bigger bus, bigger. No, no, everyone has the same size arms regardless of the same. No, but that is another thing too, is that if you are, you know, you, you are knitting a pattern, you should look at the arm measurements. I feel like a lot of people don't look at the arm measurements and they just assume that the bust and the

arm measurements are going to correlate. And that's not always the case for people, especially if you have really muscular arms, you know, if you, if you lift weights and things like that, your upper arms could be bigger than your bus size would, you know, the designer says your bus dictates. So, and you can fix that, you know, when you go to pick up the stitches for the underarms and everything like that, but you should pay attention, make sure that you're knitting the right size arms.

And that's all the time we have for this week for additional content and opportunities to connect with the cast. Be sure to check out our website at part in my stash.com and remember to tune in next time for more tips, knits and wits at part of my stash.