{"id":1298,"date":"2010-08-10T00:10:35","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T07:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2010-08-11T21:27:58","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T04:27:58","slug":"tuesdays-tips-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=1298","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday’s Tips …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello knitters (and non), welcome to another edition of Tuesday’s Tips. Here are another 6 tips to make your knitting life a little easier. Before I start though, a quick apology to the ladies from Waves (you know who you are) as I won’t be there today. I am working on the set of Life Unexpected and started at 7:06 this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that I’m free to come and join you next week – Hugzzz! Here are the tips …<\/p>\n

Yarn bowls<\/strong> – are great for knitting at home and if you don’t have one you can get one from my friend Anne who makes great ones (see my earlier post on them). Unfortunately when you’re not at home they’re not always the most convenient thing. If you save the container that your handi-wipes came in though, it’s a simple matter to clean it out and use that in it’s stead. Take the sticker off, drop your ball of yarn in the bottom, feed the starting end through the top and place the lid on. You have a makeshift yarn bowl that’s as portable as you are and it will keep your yarn clean as well. You can even use different sized ones for the appropriate sized ball of yarn.<\/p>\n

Bigger buttons<\/strong> – tend to look great but are usually too heavy for knitted fabric and require too large of a buttonhole. What you can do though is sew on a smaller button to match the\u00a0 buttonhole that you have but don’t sew it on the top of the button band, sew it on the inside. Now sew the larger button directly over top of the smaller one on the top of the button band. It takes a little getting used to to button up your cardigan with the smaller button on the inside, but it’s worth the effort as the larger button can add quite a bit of aesthetic appeal.<\/p>\n

Variegated yarns<\/strong> – can add quite a bit of pop to a simple textured pattern and make you look like a knitter extraordinaire! All you have to do is know how to do Intarsia knitting. Use the variegated yarn as one “color” and your first choice of yarn color as the second. Use the variegated for a particular portion of the texture pattern and the other for the rest. You’ll be amazed at the difference this can make – even in a simple diamond pattern motif.<\/p>\n

Tug your cables<\/strong> – after the first stitch and the middle one when doing your crosses to help eliminate the loose stitch that sometimes happens from making cables. You should also try to use just the tips as much as possible and I like to make the reverse side stitches as tight as possible after a cable crossing. With a little practice this will become second nature to you and your cables will be even and consistent.<\/p>\n

Don’t knot<\/strong> – I think just about everyone I have ever talked to learned to thread the end of a cast off row through the last stitch and pull it up to make a knot at the end of their work. A little trick I learned from Lucy Neatby, there’s no reason to do this. Simply pull up on your right needle after doing the last cast off stitch and allow the yarn to pull through the last stitch. There is no need to loop it through and knot it as it is being kept in place on its own already and you’re probably going to darn it in anyway! Here are some pictures showing the process …<\/p>\n

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This is the regular way to finish off the last cast off stitch ...<\/p><\/div>\n

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Now, instead of threading the loose strand through the hole ...<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pull up gently until it is pulled through the last stitch ... and it's secure just waiting to be darned in!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Lifelines<\/strong> – are a great thing (we’re going to be using them on the Lace KAL we’re currently starting). The problem with them though is trying to find a slippery fiber to feed through the stitches that has enough strength without being too thick. There are 2 simple solutions for this. If you know a machine knitter or a store that supplies machine knitting supplies, ask them for a spare rip cord. It’s not the one you’ll find on a parachute, but instead it’s a very strong and thin cord that machine knitters use to separate waste yarn from the good stuff. They knit one row of the work with the cord then start with their good yarn. When they’re finished, a simple pull takes out the cord and the two pieces are separated. The other solution for a lifeline is dental floss. Look for the ultra glide types or waxed versions!<\/p>\n

I hope you’re able to use one or more of these tips in your knitting. Don’t forget to send in your tips and ideas either through the comments or through an email at mrhugzzz@gmail.com. For those that have asked about finding me on Facebook, you can by doing a search for “mrhugzzz”. Just put balls to knit in the message area so I know you came from this site.<\/p>\n

Hugzzz \ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello knitters (and non), welcome to another edition of Tuesday’s Tips. Here are another 6 tips to make your knitting life a little easier. Before I start though, a quick apology to the ladies from Waves (you know who you are) as I won’t be there today. I am working on the set of Life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[127,17,187,382],"tags":[999,966,144,25,969,447,975,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-1298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-buttons","7":"category-cables","8":"category-just-knitting","9":"category-tips-2","10":"tag-buttons","11":"tag-cables","12":"tag-cast-off","13":"tag-intarsia","14":"tag-knitting","15":"tag-lifelines","16":"tag-variegated","17":"tag-yarn-bowls","18":"pmpro-has-access","19":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pNDS0-kW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1300,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/1300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}