Beautiful Sock Yarn & Wool for Your Next Project
“Could you please tell me the best way to match the yarn for the second sock so you have a lovely matching pair?”
This is a question I am asked quite regularly.
I am busy knitting fingerless mitts for my niece as part of her Christmas present. I used a now discontinued Regia sock yarn (other beautiful sock yarns are available in the Yarn Shop) and 2.75mm KnitPro Karbonz double-pointed needles (which I really love using).[Read More]
Grafting or Kitchener Stitch is an excellent way of finishing the toe in a smooth neat way. But if you prefer, you can miss out the grafting stage and gather the remaining 8 stitches, pull them tight, and sew in the end firmly.
To graft you need to do a set up stage first.
When I buy the gorgeous Opal ranges for the Knitting Squirrel’s Yarn Shop, sometimes, in the bottom of the box there is a sample sock. Usually, I glance at the sample sock and set it aside for later. Today, when the new Gallery and Best Friends Opal ranges arrived, there was a sock in the bottom of the box, machine knit using one of my favourite colours in the Gallery sock yarn range – Blue Whale in the Red Sea – isn’t this a cool name for a gorgeous colour combination? I’ve always felt there was enough yarn in the sample sock to make it worthwhile unravelling the sock and rejuvenating the yarn for using in a new project.
So today, later... finally arrived for the sample socks in these vibrant yarns: Gallery – Blue Whale in Red Sea, Play – Chase, and Beachcombing – Driftwood.[Read More]
I love to have several projects in progress at the same time. At the moment, I have 9 WIPs that I am working on, most need to be finished for Christmas. But there are also the projects that are on the Back Burner and they seemed to be growing in numbers and preying on my mind.
The Back Burner projects seem to have been growing over the last couple of years. So a while ago I lifted out all of my back burner projects and looked at them lying on the table.
I decided to divide the projects into 3 groups: Love This; Hate This; Keep as Sample;
This will be the Bunny Girl in a Dotty Dress designed by Julie Williams of Little Cotton Rabbits. I’m using Artesano Alpaca for the bunny. Love the slightly fuzzy texture. Okay, I haven’t touched this project in a while but I still want to finish this gorgeous bunny! Definite “Love This” work in progress.[Read More]
I have been pondering a comment that was made to me at a knitting group recently. While I was knitting a sock I was asked the question
“What are you knitting?”
“A sock” I smiled.
She looked at me took a sip of coffee and said,
“I don’t do utilitarian knitting, it’s a waste of time.”
I nodded and went back to knitting my sock.
I have been contemplating this small interchange for a few weeks since it happened.
So is life too short to spend my time doing utilitarian knitting?[Read More]
So is it worth the effort and the time required to reknit the toe of a hand knit sock?
Should I just accept that the inevitable has happened and a favourite pair of socks has worn out for whatever reason? Because they were a favourite pair of socks they were worn more often. Perhaps the yarn wasn’t really appropriate for knitting socks.
Can we really expect our hand knit socks to last forever when nothing else really does?
When is it time to consider the worst?
When the project that you were so excited about after casting on months and months ago has been neglected. When, despite all of your good intentions it fell by the wayside.
I look at my blog post “Starting the Sky Scarf” and I just know that there isn’t going to be a finished Sky Scarf for me to be photographing, writing and posting in the near future.
When knitting stripes, as for the Yellow Rainbow Socks below, you can end up with a little step up or colour jog at the colour changeover. This is because when knitting in the round, you are really knitting a spiral. There are several ways in which this can be camouflaged but the first one I read about was the Jogless Jog described by Meg Swansen in her book Knitting published by Interweave 1999. I have continued to use this one because it is just so easy to work.
The Yellow Rainbow Sock has solid areas of knitting which are joined together by a series of 3 row stripes. I used the jogless jog to hide the change over of colour in the stripes where you would otherwise have a colour jog. Using the jogless jog gives you nice even stripes when the socks are viewed from the back.[Read More]
Some people are absolutely amazing when it comes to wrapping their beautiful hand knit presents. They are inventive and creative. Wonderful papercraft artists.
I do not profess to be one of these tallented people. But, having said that, it is worthwhile making an effort when wrapping a handmade gift, to make the experience of giving and receiving extra special.
Are you having a problem with your wooden needles snagging on every stitch that you knit?
This problem had developed with a few of my birch wood needles. They not only snagged the yarn and prevented the rhythm of my knitting but also gave me a blister on my finger.
Fixing Wooden Double Pointed Needles Tips
This issue seems to affect my wooden double pointed needles rather than my bamboo ones.
I needed to solve the problem or else it would mean replacement needles.
I bought a fine emery board in the Chemist and a block of beeswax (used for waxing quilting thread). I ran my finger along the point of the wooden needle to find exactly where it was split and snagging the yarn. Then used the emery board to smooth the blemish away. Sand with the wood grain, taking care not to cause the point to become too sharp or one sided in the process. Then I rubbed the sanded point of the needle on the wax and buffed it up using a spare buffing cloth for my reading glasses.
This method has been very successful and I don’t notice which needles have been fixed when I am knitting with them.
Hello, I'm Nicolette Kernohan. I love sharing unique knitting projects, exploring colour & inspiring your creativity. Knitting Squirrel sells knitting wool & sock yarn in glorious colours & fibres.
