ZAK Knits Episode 3: Knitting a Cable Beanie

Hey there everybody! Welcome back to ZAK Entertainment for January the 23^rd 2017. How was your weekend? I’ve been pretty busy working on a certain video for you guys… Grab some popcorn because I finally finished my newest ZAK Knits episode! Yes I know I’ve been teasing this for weeks now and I couldn’t upload it now due to some technical challenges and the fact that I got picky on certain things but strap in, pick up your needles, yarn and let’s start knitting! This is ZAK Knits Episode 3!

Thanks for watching! That was a pretty fun video to film, knit in and edit together. If you noticed since Episode 2 I have gone back to doing live commentary. Doing post commentary was nice and made it more professional in a way but when it comes to knitting videos I think I prefer doing live commentary as I’m actually knitting. I just need to work hard on speaking and knitting at the same time. Actually I did cut out a lot of silent parts during editing as well as some word stumbles.

Another thing you probably noticed is the fact I had two cameras! Yes this is my brand new set up that I will be working the kinks out of and using in all my future ZAK Knits Episodes. Wasn’t all that hard to set up either and it was all made possible thanks to my brand new USA Gear Tripod. (That I talk about in anearlier blog from this year.) I used this tripod for the face cam and I set up my big tripod over my shoulder for, well, the other the shoulder view. Of course the real fun part of this set up was the editing. Truth is this was one hefty edit due to having to sync up both cameras and make cuts between the two.

Of course HitFilm 4 came to my rescue once again, giving me a smooth easy to work interface and allowing me to organize my clips and keep a clean (Kinda clean… Just because the editing program is tidy doesn’t mean the editor himself is… Haha.) timeline.

After three episodes of this I definitely want to keep going with this series. Of course improvements have to be made and I will over time, I mean yeah I’m new to this, but they’re fun to make and I enjoy editing them a lot so I hope you guys enjoy them too! Don’t forget to check out the previous two episodes ZAK Knits Episode 1, where I knit my round dishcloths I did last year and ZAK Knits Episode 2 where I knit my socks! They’re both on the ZAKEntertainment Youtube channel.

Still regarding ZAK Knits Episode 3 if you’ve been keeping up with the blog you’ll know the project I was working on in the video was actually already completed, about two weeks ago.

This is the finished product for those who’ve watched the video. It’s an awesome cable beanie and I absolutely love how it turned out in the end. I used a pattern by Splendor Knitting (Homera Luna) and the pattern itself is called The Natural. Funny enough I used a yarn color that matches the original pattern. Of course the yarn itself is Lana Grossa Lord, which is actually discontinued now! Super rare yarn and I think I used the yarn wisely, actually I have another whole ball of this yarn so who knows what I could use that on. Maybe a pair of thick cable knitted gloves to go with the hat? You can check out the yarn by going to my stash page! I really need to update my stash page with the huge amount of yarn I have now…  Anyway it’s worsted yarn (Heavy worsted, I almost considered it Aran weight but you can’t argue with the label.) and I used size US 7 (4.5 mm) Circular Hat needles for 90% of the hat and switched to US 7 Circular Magic Loop needles for the crown.

This is actually 70% Wool – Merino, 20% Silk and 10% Manufactured Fibers - Nylon / Polyamide so the hat is pretty thick, soft and keeps my head warm. Uh my cast on was a bit loose thus the ridge is a bit too loose but since then I’ve been practicing my casting on and I think I’ve gotten better. Also I’ve heard a tip about casting on in smaller needles on beanies then going up a size, so I think I’ll be giving that a try on my next hat.

Final closing thoughts before I officially end this project… It was a really fun knit and even though it wasn’t my first knitting cable project it gave me a lot of knowledge regarding cable and in general it was a really fun pattern to knit. Cable knitting is really fun and not hard once you study your pattern and how to actually do it. I learned very quickly and I absolutely recommend this pattern to beginners who are just getting into knitting or want to start cable knitting. (Cabling? Cable Knitting? Knitting Cable? What do you even call it?!) You can check out my Ravelry project page to see all the details! It also holds links to all my previous blogs talking about the hat.

So I haven’t done an update on this for a couple of blog posts… It’s time for an update on our Re-Growing a Lettuce Challenge! If you don’t know what this is check out the first update blog on it! Basically Mum came up with this crazy idea three week ago now to try and re-grow a lettuce from its stem.

It’s growing like no tomorrow but it actually looks like it’s forming into a circle like the original lettuce was.

Finally I’ve started up another Video Game play through! With Super Mario Odyssey recently announced and the promise of it being in similar vein to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine I started up a new play through of Super Mario Sunshine!

I absolutely love this game, it’s got a wonderful setting (Isle Delfino is the best.), a pretty cool storyline (Bowser Jr? Shadow Mario? Pretty awesome.), fun and challenging platforming levels (When I say challenging… I mean it can get pretty challenging at times.) and just hours and hours of fun Mario Platforming. I’ll talk a bit more about this game on Wednesday (Blog is getting too long to do a full feature on the game.) but yeah that’s what I’ve been playing recently. Oh yeah Super Mario Sunshine also introduced the best character ever and I don’t mean Bowser JR… No I mean Petey Piranha.

I mean look at this cool dude just sleeping here like nothing.

I’ve also been playing Pokemon Sun and Moon (Of course.). I finally… FINALLY beat the Battle Tree Singles.

This is a battle facility that opens up after you beat the Pokemon League and it features a bunch of trainers from previous Pokemon games in the same style as the Battle Tower, Battle Subway and Battle Maison from previous Pokemon games. To really do well in this place you need to EV train your Pokemon and even then you gotta have some strategy and smarts when entering this place, they really love to work you over with type advantages and odd moveset. I’ve been trying to best the 20 streak Single Battles mode for a couple of weeks now with no luck. The farthest I got was battle 13 before my poor team was beaten by an annoying Porygon-Z. Last night though I finally got through all 20 battles and battled the Battle Legend Boss at the end of the run. I’ve now unlocked Super Singles… This means I’m going to be facing two veteran trainers every 20 streak run through. I’ll talk more about this in the future.

Anyway that’s about it for the blog today! Hope you enjoyed the video! Will definitely be doing more knitting videos in the future but I got plans for all sorts of videos in the future, travel videos, video game videos, short films, yeah I know it’s a bit broad but hey I got a lot of interests and things I want to do. Living life to its fullest is one of my goals in life. Hope the rest of your day is awesome!

Be sure to check me out on Instagram and check out my Youtube Channel where I post all sorts of videos from Short Films, Travel, Knitting, Vlogs and more! Also check me out on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat as ZAKManK, and of course Ravelry! I post here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a wide range of awesome entertainment topics!

Keep your lives entertaining and I’ll…

See you on the next blog!