Recently my knitting has been more successful than my sewing.
I just finished this vest using the Calidez vest pattern and I love it. It’s my favourite knitted project so far. I wore it today with linen Safyia trousers and a Gilbert shirt, two of my favourite patterns.
wow look at this incredible you-made outfit!!! this is incredibly cool and inspiring and i feel like i know you better now, in these clothes you’ve made to suit yourself perfectly. <3
Thank you so much. I am learning what suits me. These are my colours and I am making more solid garments as they are much easier to put together.
Wow, your knitting looks so neat 
Love the colour combination together in this outfit.
Any tips for how to relax whilst knitting? I’ve given it a go but my tension is so tight. At this point I’m starting to think it’s just my personality 
Thank you,
I think it’s common to be a tight knitted as a beginner. It’s a bit like learning to drive when you grip the steering wheel like your life depends on it! As you get more used to knitting you will naturally relax. Maybe try knitting something that tension doesn’t matter so much like a scarf or something.
andrea mowry, who’s a knitwear designer and has a pretty soothing youtube channel where she answers a few questions every week, she has some useful things to say about tension too! one thing is, some of us are just tighter knitters…so that’s why you do a gauge swatch so you’ll end up with fabric you like. the needles suggested in a pattern are just based on either someone’s idea of an average gauge, or the patternmaker’s gauge.
but also, mowry mentions how switching between continental or um the other one…english? holding the yarn in the right vs left hand, can change your tension, and using metal vs wooden vs plastic needles (and straight vs circular) can change your tension so if you can borrow from a friend and practice with different materials (and more or less grippy yarn, too) you might find a place where you’re making fabric you like, and not tiring out your paws too much.
want to show us what you’re working on, yvette!!???
also echoing jayne’s point about working on stuff where gauge/tension doesn’t matter so much, to get more comfortable with it. like blankets and scarves and things that aren’t fitted, or just swatches. show usssssss
This is my most recent knit:
It’s the ‘2 for 1 and 1 for all’ beanie hat pattern by North Shire Yarns and the yarn is 60% Superwash Merino, 15% Yak, 20% Silk, also from North Shire Yarns. It’s fingering weight, so I held two together (which actually wasn’t hard, this was my first time holding two together and I had imagined it would make it much more difficult).
It fits but I did have to aggressively wet block it (once halfway through and once at the end) to get it to fit.
This is a comparison of how small it is compared to one my friend made with the same pattern 
To be fair I think the yarn is a bit different??
The next thing I’m going to attempt to knit is the Sophie Scarf by Petite Knit (that viral Croissant Scarf) with some super soft alpaca yarn I bought on my trip to Peru, but I haven’t started it yet. Will let you know how it goes!
It looks great. All yarns knit up different so I always do a gauge swatch and wash it like I would wash the finished item to see if it shrinks or stretches out. In my experience cotton always stretches after washing but wool not so much.
The Sofie scarf is a great one to knit. You can knit until you have used half then start decreasing for the second half and so use up all your yarn, depending on how much you have.
An added thought. You could try going up a needle size as you are a tight knitter and see what it looks like. You want a scarf to have drape and not be stiff.
