We've spent the past two weekends putting new laminate flooring down in the kitchen and family room. The house has been in complete disarray. The animals are freaked out, and if we want to watch TV, we have to go in the guest bedroom.
Archive for category Technique Speak
Holy crap, will wonders never cease? While I may have killed the Polar Bear Patterns store yesterday (seriously — I did. It's completely dead) — today I have managed to provide two free downloads to both of my readers!
Read more on New *DOWNLOAD* Increasing and Ribbing Tutorials…
Hand Health
Jul 7
Healthy, pain-free hands are perhaps THE most important tools in your hand-knitting toolkit. Yarn is important, to be sure — but of what use is even the most fabulous pink MOHAIR, if it hurts when you knit?
On the Edge
Apr 15
Soooo… you want to be a better knitter? Probably one of the single biggest wholesale improvements you can make to your knitting is: use edge stitches.
Unfortunately, this is one of those knitting things that sometimes I hear complaints about: that no one explicitly spells out this for you in a knitting pattern — you’re supposed to somehow just "know" about them, and how to do them.
You may remember that one of the things I recently finished was a pair of short socks for DH. Unfortunately, they turned out to be short in multiple places: one of which was the leg, as intended, and one of which was the foot, which was not.
When the Student Is Ready…
Jan 29
The rest of the old Buddhist saying is, "…then the teacher will appear."
Well, usually I’m the knitting teacher — but in this case, I became the student.
Last Friday, I was grousing about the short black socks I had knitted for DH while on the trip in New Zealand. Although I had faithfully copied the original socks, DH confirmed (after a brief trial wearing) that the feet were really too short. You’re probably familiar with the phenomenon of short socks sliding down the back of your foot and off your heel — and that’s what happened.
That Loopy Last Stitch
Nov 11
Sometimes, the little tricks are the best ones — simple yet effective. Here’s one that has cropped up a few times lately in various classes I’ve been teaching.
Actually, I posted this once before, a while ago — at the end of this post, which is way more than you ever wanted to know about binding off. But it’s a good tip, and since it’s kind of buried at the bottom of that post, I thought I’d bring it back out and let it see the light of day again.
Kitchener, Smitchener
Oct 31
Well, I’m sure both of you have done Kitchener stitch, or grafting, in the usual way: it involves a tapestry needle, at least one reference book, and some quiet time alone — not to mention gnashing of teeth.
Pick Up Lines
Oct 1
Hey gang – time for yet another thoughtful and informative post about the vocabulary foibles of the knitting world!
I was considering writing about my experiences at Flock and Fiber, but I seem to have come down with some sort of cold since the weekend. And while I’m starting to feel better, poor DH got it the day after I did, and consequently neither of us slept well last night. So I am just too lazy and tired to get my camera right now and take pictures of all the insignificant amount of new yarn and stuff I got. Maybe in a day or so…
Joining Yarn
Aug 7
Hoo boy, it's been a while since I posted a good, solid, technical article.
(Just in case you are wondering — yes, this does mean that my personal UFOlympics are sort of at a standstill. I've spent a lot of time working on #5, the Rowan vest: trying to figure out how to trim out the armholes without adding too much bulk. I've tried about 4 different things so far, and I really thought I had it nailed on the last attempt, but not quite. So I'm ignoring it for now. More about all that later.)
Roomier Short Row Heels
May 23
Table of contents for Short Rows & Sock Heels
OK, even I can admit that this short row heel obsession thing may be getting a bit out of hand.
But there’s another little gem of genius here worth sharing, in my efforts to eliminate the inelegant flap-and-gusset-style heel from the face of the earth.
Why Do We Purl?
May 13
Every so often, as I’m teaching a new knitter, the question comes up:
What is the point of purling? Why don’t we just ‘knit’ all the time?
This is actually a really, really good question, if you think about it for a minute. Why DO we bother with purling?
Table of contents for Short Rows & Sock Heels
- Short Rows, Deconstructed
- The Double-Stitch Short Row Heel – aka the “yo-yo” or “jo-jo” heel
- Roomier Short Row Heels
- Sasquatch Report
So — a few weeks ago, I wrote about sock heels. How I don’t really like flap-and-gusset style heels, and how the EZ afterthought heel usually seems too small for me, and how I’d been checking out all kinds of short row heels, in my search for the Best Short Row Heel of All Time.
Read more on The Double-Stitch Short Row Heel – aka the “yo-yo” or “jo-jo” heel…
So, flipping through a Japanese knitting book of pattern stitches one day, I came across a twisted rib and cable pattern that I thought would make a VERY handsome sock for DH…which it did.
Short Rows, Deconstructed
Apr 10
Table of contents for Short Rows & Sock Heels
- Short Rows, Deconstructed
- The Double-Stitch Short Row Heel – aka the “yo-yo” or “jo-jo” heel
- Roomier Short Row Heels
- Sasquatch Report
So, while I haven't been blogging much in the past week or so, I really have been busy.
One of the things I've been working on is a sock pattern for my friend Deb, whose blog lives over at www.fearlessfibers.blogspot.com. She dyes bee-you-tee-full yarn and sells it on Etsy – which if you haven't visited is a very fun place — her shop is at http://fearlessfibers.etsy.com.
Best. Advice. Ever.
Jan 25
The most important piece of knitting advice I ever found was in the Holiday ’87 issue of Vogue Knitting. (I must have found it while I was knitting those lousy boyfriend sweaters.)
Ending It All
Jan 16
Binding off. Well, there’s not a whole lot to say about that, is there? I mean, you’re done knitting, you bind off, right?
Pshaw! Of course not!
While I don’t think quite as many techniques exist for binding off as casting on, there are quite a few. And the CO and BO edges can make or break an otherwise lovely project: the main issue being edges that are too tight, and that affect the shape of the finished piece.
Take a Ribbing
Oct 16
One of the biggest problems with knitted ribbing is the relative lack of stretch in the cast-on or bound-off edges.
Ribbing is almost always at the edges of a garment, and we usually want it to stretch as much as possible. If the cast-on or bound-off edge is really tight, it can even break when the ribbing is stretched over a heel or a head. And then calamity ensues.
Slip Slidin’ Away
Oct 3
Many of my students get confused over the directive to “slip” a stitch.
To slip a stitch means simply to move it from one needle to the other without doing anything else to it.
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