Now that you’ve made your gauge swatch, it’s time to block it. First, let’s address why. As I covered here, blocking your gauge swatch will tell you how well your project will handle being washed and how it react to being dried. You can also use it to tell how many stitches you’re getting per…
Reading a Ball Band and Determining Yarn Weight
Ball band simply refers to the little piece of paper wrapped around the yarn when you buy it. Sometimes it’s a tag tied to a string instead, but they all have the same information: yardage, meters, grams, material. Usually there’s the brand, colorway name, dyelot, and weight as well. There’s some debate as to what’s…
Understanding Ease
Many garment patterns refer to ease – positive or negative ease affects how you knit and want to wear a garment. Simply put, ease is how tight or loose a garment is on your body. A garment with a lot of positive ease fits loosely and a garment with negative ease will be tight and…
Why make a Gauge Swatch?
There’s a debate among knitters and crocheters as to whether you should do a gauge swatch. I’m in the “always do a gauge swatch” camp and also the “do as I say, not as I do” because I don’t always do them – but I can explain! You should do a gauge swatch any time…
Knitting Tools On the Go
In my traveling toolbox, I have: Stitch markers/progress keepers of several flavors and colors: round, closed markers suitable for keeping on your needles and slipping as you move along (both large and small, depending on the needle size being used) openable stitch markers, useful for adding/removing from your needles at any time progress keepers (can…
Perfect Toe-up Socks
Here’s my favorite ways to make what I consider to be the perfect socks: I start with Vanilla Socks (but you can use any sock pattern) and make the edits below. Perfect Round Toes: Use Turkish cast on (this includes one knit row).1) k1, m1L, k to last st, m1R, k1. rep for second needle2)…
Finished Object Friday – Brioche Scarf
I finished a brioche scarf from Leading Men Fiber Arts Show Stopper in the OMG Squee colorway. The design is my own and you can find it in my project notes.
Knitting in the News – Mr. Rogers Sweater
With the new Mr. Rogers movie coming out, there’s been a rush to create the original Mr. Rogers’ sweaters (news article). The sweaters have been lovingly recreated by Yasmin Esmek by hand – and the pattern has been published – so make your own!
Finished Object Friday – Flax Light Sweater (Again)
While this is my third Flax Light Sweater, it does have the honor of being the first sweater I’ve knit for myself. I’ve knit over a dozen sweaters for kids, 2 sweaters for my husband, and now finally, one for myself. It took me just over 7 weeks and was knit for my first knitting…
Stitchfiddle
Stitchfiddle (Facebook) (Instagram) (Ravelry) (Twitter) is a website that lets you create the charts that exist with knitting patterns. It’s mostly for designers, but I’ve used it to create charts for patterns with written instructions. If you log in, you can save a max of 15 charts. With Premium, you can make charts without a…