{"id":130,"date":"2010-01-24T09:42:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T17:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.wordpress.com\/?p=130"},"modified":"2010-01-24T09:42:11","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T17:42:11","slug":"10-tips-to-make-you-a-better-knitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"10 Tips to make you a better knitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knitting is like everything else – once you learn the rules, you can find ways to bend or even break them to make you life a little easier. Its taken me 16+ years, but I have amassed a bunch of tips and tricks that not only make my knitting life easier, it makes the finished product better. At the end of the day, that’s a good thing. So from time to time, I’ll post 10 tips to help you along as well. Here’s the first batch.<\/p>\n

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  1. Use a selvedge stitch – ALWAYS<\/strong>!<\/span> A selvedge stitch is an extra stitch on each end of your knitting added onto the pattern. When you’re making a scarf or any other open-ended garment, it’s a good idea to slip the first stitch and knit the last on every row. When making pieces that will be sewn together, working your selvedge in stocking stitch makes putting them together so much easier.<\/li>\n
  2. Take note of your row gauge.<\/span> When you do a swatch for your gauge, 95+% of the time it’s the stitch gauge you’re concerned with. While this is true, you shouldn’t ignore your row tension. If you know what it is, you’ll find you won’t need a ruler a lot of the times and your measurements will be more accurate. When a pattern say work to 15 inches, you use your row tension (let’s say its 6 row\/inch) and know that you need to knit 90 rows. It also keeps your work consistent.<\/li>\n
  3. Read the ENTIRE pattern before you start.<\/span> Have you ever heard that saying carpenters use – measure twice, cut once. You can take the same precaution in knitting. Read through the pattern to make sure you have everything you’ll need to complete the project and you’re familiar with all the stitches and terms used.<\/li>\n
  4. Use household items to assist you.<\/span> Save the cork from you bottle(s) of wine – they make great point protectors (drinking wine while knitting is a great way to make sure you’re relaxed as well). If you don’t drink, an eraser will do almost as well. I’ll have other examples in the future.<\/li>\n
  5. Use a lifeline.<\/span> When doing complicated patterns (cables, lace, or others), it’s a good idea to use a lifeline once you know you have completed a row successfully. Simply thread a darning needle with a contrast yarn and thread it through the row. This way if you make a mistake later on and need to rip back, you’ll be able to do so safely to a short distance.<\/li>\n
  6. Get a project bag.<\/span> Get a clear bag that can hold your project, pattern, and tools for each project. That way you won’t be fumbling to find everything when you need it and you can just grab the bag to make your project portable. A zip-loc bag works great for smaller projects.<\/li>\n
  7. Don’t cast off your neck edges.<\/span> Unless it is specifically required for your pattern, leave your front and back neck stitches live (your shoulder ones too for the three-needle cast off which I will show later). You almost always have to pick up stitches for the collar and having live stitches not only makes this easier, it makes it much neater.<\/li>\n
  8. Become a hooker.<\/span> A crochet hook (actually, several of them) has the ability to make your life very easy indeed (casting off stitches, picking up stitches) and should become your best friend. Crocheting is also a great way to embellish your knitting – especially when doing armholes on vests and other sleeveless numbers, and a great first step in learning the continental method of knitting.<\/li>\n
  9. Be a blockhead.<\/span> Whenever you’re working with natural fibers that are blockable, BLOCK them – even your swatches – actually, especially your swatches. You will be amazed at the difference between blocked and unblocked yarn. Your measurements will be true and you will get a better sense of the finished fabric.<\/li>\n
  10. Follow this blog.<\/span><\/strong> I don’t know everything and I don’t pretend to, but I will be putting up information that I gather from all over the internet and through my daily knitting adventures. Some of it will be helpful to you and you are more than welcome to learn from my mistakes. also, if there’s something you want to learn\/try but are a little gun-shy, let me know and I’ll try it for you and then post about it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Alright, as usual your comments are welcomed and appreciated. I will try to do a tips posting every couple of weeks or so as i haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Let me know what you’d like to learn and if it’s something I like to do (did somebody say CABLES??) I’ll put up a post about it – I’ll probably put up a post about it even if it’s not my favorite thing.<\/p>\n

    Hugzzz \ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Knitting is like everything else – once you learn the rules, you can find ways to bend or even break them to make you life a little easier. Its taken me 16+ years, but I have amassed a bunch of tips and tricks that not only make my knitting life easier, it makes the finished […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-lessons","7":"pmpro-has-access","8":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pNDS0-26","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}