Knitting Toys 101: Increases & Autumn Acorns

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There are two common types of knitting increases that you are likely to encounter when knitting toys, M1L and KLL. In this post I will show you how to do both of these and share my Autumn Acorns Dress colorwork chart. Finally I am announcing the new local maker group my friend and I have started!

Knitting Increases

Knitting increases used to scare me…a lot. I’m not really sure why. It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid and was totally convinced that something lived under my bed. The weird thing was, I was only scared of that invisible creature at night. During the day I was happy to coexist in mutual harmony, but by night I was sure the thing wanted to eat me alive.

Knitting had that effect on me. I was really and truly afraid of making mistakes. It felt like the world was going to end. Now I’m more comfortable with the process and even committing those dreaded errors.

Knitting increases enable you to shape heads, legs, arms, and bodies!

Increases and decreases (which we will tackle next week) are the next step in your knitting toys journey. To be able to shape heads, bodies, arms, legs, and tails, you will need to be able to make your fabric larger and smaller.

Increases are used to shape a piece of knitting by adding stitches to make it larger.

Vogue® Knitting The Ultimate Knitting Book

The Vogue® Knitting The Ultimate Knitting Book demonstrates eight different knitting increases. I highly encourage knitters, especially beginner knitters, to invest in this resource. It isn’t expensive, but is chock full of good information! I refer to it on a regular basis. I even occasionally bring the enormous volume to bed and read it like a juicy romance novel.

If you haven’t already checked out the first two posts in the Knitting Toys 101 series you can find them here:

M1L

Both of these increases are relatively simple but it’s much easier to watch the video rather than read them. I have written out the instructions but they will make more sense if you watch it as well!

First of all we are going to focus on the M1L (make 1 left) also known simply as M1 (make 1). This increase leans to the left and is used a lot in knitting toys.

  1. Identify the bar between two stitches.
  2. Insert your needle from the front of that bar to the back.
  3. With your right hand needle (if you’re right handed) knit into the back of the bar.

KLL

Another increase is the KLL (knit left loop). This one can be a bit tricky until you are easily able to identify the loop to be knitted into.

  1. Identify the left side of the “V” of the second stitch below the stitch you have on your right hand needle (if you’re a right handed knitter).
  2. Insert your left hand needle underneath that left side “V” and lift it onto your needle.
  3. Knit into the back of that stitch.
Little deer with Autumn Acorns Colorwork Chart Dress

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Autumn Acorns Dress Chart

Autumn Acorns Colorwork Chart

I am so incredibly excited to share this sweet little Autumn Acorns Colorwork Chart with you all! I have been enjoying making dresses for the Little Cotton Rabbits animals and have been dreaming of my own colorwork designs. To be able to make this dress you will need two things:

  1. The Seasonal Dresses Pattern from Little Cotton Rabbits.
  2. The dress modification instructions from Suzy Marie Knits.

I did change the Suzy Marie’s modification pattern slightly. First I used 2.75 mm needles and I cast on 100 stitches. I also slightly changed rows 26 and 27 to read like this:

  • Row 26 – Purl tog across (50 stitches)
  • Row 27 Knit 4, (knit 2tog, knit 1) 14 times, knit 4 (36 stitches)

Increases in Life

This week is my birthday. I’ve reached that age that I no longer want to acknowledge that my number has increased. I am exactly halfway to 90. So much of my former life as a mother is decreasing and to be honest it makes me a little sad.

My four kids are big. They each are doing their own thing. Two still live at home but spend increasing amounts of their time living their lives independent of me. Those are all very good things and I’m thankful for them.

For that reason it’s time for me to have some increases in my own life, not just on the knitting needles. My good friend Tanya and I are staring a local maker group and I could not be more excited!

The Union Street Fiber Society will meet the first Saturday of each month from 1 -3, beginning on September 7th, 2019! We will drink lattes, chat, make new friends and laugh, we are going to laugh a lot. We may even get a little knitting done! Tanya and I both hope that this will be a long term group that will grow in friendships! Maybe we will even plan some field trips at some point!

If you are local to the Concord, NC area (near Charlotte, NC) please join us! We are meeting in the cutest little coffee shop, Press & Porter in downtown Concord. You can drop me a comment below or email us at [email protected].

Thank You!

Finally, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for letting me be a small part of your maker journey. Every comment, share, and like mean the world to me. I’m always surprised when I see my analytics how many of you are out there and that you are from all over the world! Above all please keep sharing on Facebook and Pinterest. Also I would love more than anything to hear from you! Post a comment below so we can get to know one another!

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12 Comments

  1. I love your knitting and your pictures are gorgeous! I am looking to get into knitting more myself. I will be checking back for more information. Thank you for the informative post! 🙂

  2. I love all your projects so much! I have crocheted a lot of toys, but now I can’t wait to start knitting thanks to your inspiration. Just LOVE your channel!

  3. I fell in love with your acorn dress, I will be making a little deer and wanted to make a dress like yours, thank you for sharing the directions

    You do such cute work

    I was excited to see you have a knitting group and thought I might take a trip over to Concord one Saturday and join you, until I saw you are NOT in Concord California 😝

    1. Lol!!! We are definitely not in Concord, CA! Funny story, we called to have our Toyota van serviced and couldn’t understand why they didn’t have our information since we bought our van from them. Finally we figured out that we were calling the Concord, CA Toyota dealership! 😂😂😂 And I’m so glad you like the dress!! 😘😘😘