Wow, another week has literally flown by and we’re back to Tuesday’s Tips. Well, I have another 6 tips for you this week and as always, I am looking for your input as to tips. If you have any tips that you know and would like to share, feel free to pass them on either via an email at mrhugzzz@gmail.com or through the comments section on this or any other page. Here we go with this weeks tips …
Reduce those ends – If you’re knitting with natural fibers, you can reduce the number of ends you need to darn in by spit-felting the ends of the balls of yarn together. This allows you to knit with one continuous piece of yarn until you are finished one piece. This means less ends to darn in later and neater edges as well. If you’re making a scarf this is essential as it gets rid of any darning at all. Even your cast on and cast off tail can be incorporated into a fringe. I like to felt the ends together before i start a project so that I just have the one ball of yarn to carry around!
Even less ends – If you’re making something with stripes of color, you can carry the stripe color not being worked along the edges (loosely) every 2nd row. Again, this eliminates having a lot of loose ends to weave in later on. Remember to keep this a little loose though or your work will pucker – a not in a good I want a big kiss way!
Knit with an Edge – Most people just cast on their stitches for a pattern and then start knitting, without paying attention to the cast on row. There’s a lot you can do with it to embellish the look of your work. Have a look at Nicky Epstein’s book “Knitting on the Edge” if you want some great examples of simple (and complex) edgings you can incorporate into your pattern. There’s also a few books in your library or sites online that will help.
Knit 1, Crochet 2 – If you haven’t tried crocheting, you may be missing out on the best complementary thing you can do to improve your knitting. Crocheting is a great way to embellish your knitting (edges, armholes, adornments, etc) and will help you learn the basic technique for picking (Continental Style knitting), which is a great skill to know if you’re an avid knitter. There are lots of sites online that will help you learn to crochet and one of my favorites is below. Also, again, check your library – the knitting AND crochet books are right beside each other – numbered in the 746.43 area.
Be Kool – If you’ve thought about dyeing but are afraid to try it, pick up a pack of unsweetened Kool-Aid and try it on some natural yarn you have. If you don’t have any, pick some up from your LYS or favorite site online and give it a go. There are lots of resources to help you (yup, your library has books on it too) and it’s a lot easier than you think. It’s a great way to customize something as yours will be the only one in that particular color! If you decide you don’t like it, take the unused Kool-Aid and make yourself a drink 🙂
Pick up your math – When you sew seams between the sleeve edges and the body of the sweater, you have to deal with rows and stitches. Since they are different widths and heights, you can’t match stitch for row. What you can do though is look at your gauge and see how many stitches/rows you get per 4 inches. Reduce it down to the amount per inch. You’ll be left with something like 5/6. This means that for every 5 stitches, you need to have 6 rows. Now you can go along and pin your work in this ratio so that you can see where to seam without getting that annoying pucker!
Well, that’s it for this week. Check back tomorrow for regular blog posts and I’ll have more tips for you next week!
Hugzzz 😎