I thought I had come up with a fantastic idea. Bored with knitting long i-cords for my niece’s Christmas present, a Knitted Babe, I remembered the French Knitting Dolly I had had as a child.
Brilliant! Make a dolly’s legs and arm (yes, I got bored after making just one arm) out of a dolly! Quick, easy, painless, and somehow poetically satisfying to boot.
It started off well. I found a shop that stocked knitting dollys, and when it arrived I found some great online instructions to remind myself how to use the dolly.
There was a fair bit of fiddling around to begin with, but I figured that once I had got the hang of the technique, I could churn out the remaining limbs in no time flat.
So I carried on, and on, and on. At one point it did occur to me that it would probably have been about twice as quick to knit these stitches as to ‘dolly’ them but, what the heck, I was bored with knitting the things, and a change seemed as good as a rest.
Except that it really wasn’t.
Eventually the end of the cord appeared out of the dolly’s bottom end. To be perfectly frank, I had by this stage developed a sneaking suspicion that there might be just the slightest difference in tension using this method, and that the resulting stitches might be just the teeniest bit looser than knitted stitches:
Hmm. Back to the needles, I think!
Too bad it didn’t work.
Do you know how to crochet? I like to crochet eye-cord. It’s fast and crochet is sturdier than knitting. I use this method for handbag handles all the time. The cord can be stuffed with fiber-fill, nothing or even a skinny plastic tube from the acquarium shop!
Darn it! That would have been a fun shortcut. You did get a very cute piece of knitting paraphernalia out of the deal, though.
Oh I’m with Sonia – cute knitting paraphernalia is never a waste of time!
well, ya gotta try!
I remember my knitting dolly; I wonder where it is now? But I can churn out i-cord way faster than I could ever dolly!
When I was very little I wanted and got a red plastic spinning wheel for Christmas. Turned out it was a spool knitter or dolly. I was so disappointed but I remember making miles of icord. Still waiting for a real spinning wheel. Thanks for reminding me of that.
always worth a try š
I have a knitting mill thingy which produces i-cord like that but it has a handle. And a weight to hang at the bottom which really doesn’t sort out the tension issues – but it’s much faster… but I usually crochet as someone mentioned before as it is much stronger and sturdier.
Well its a very nice knitting dolly!
Knitting dolly is definitely a good option here as my other half happily will operate it whilst I am knitting more interesting things :o)
Nice to see what you’ve been up to whilst I’ve been away – love the lacy stockings and hoping you are starting to resurge happily and finally bad luck with that beret – the stinkers!
Oh I used to have a dolly when I was young and before I could knit very well. I had no patience with it at all and it felt like forever before the yarn appeared out the bottom. I soon got sick of it, and got back to learning to knit š
Love your pics in the previous post, and what a great bike.
Lol- love the dolly- its very cute. Had one as a child- but i never worked out how to use it… (its actually very ambarrasing to admit)
And for that tension: now i got the proove that your tension is more regular when you knit than you ever would admit š
just look at the diffrence of the two š
I had some cheap plastic thing I used to make Barbie dresses with.
At least you have an interesting knick knack. š
oops! well that was a good lesson to learn wasn’t it! I reckon i’d have tried it too.
I can see why that amount of i-cord would be daunting. I would probably have tried to wriggle out of it as well.