Great Ways to Stay Inspired in 2015, from Knitter’s Review

Clara Parkes has been a fixture in the knitting world for 14 years, giving the rest of us tons of great information about yarn, tools and the knitting life.

She said in a recent post that it’s easy to keep her job fun and inspired, and that there are five main things she does to keep the creative spark.

I’ll let her give you all the details, but this is a great collection of things to read, listen to and try.

I’m now in my eighth year of writing about knitting, and I know there’s so much more to learn and do and write about — and always will be more — than I can ever possibly cover. That’s overwhelming, but it can also be a lot of fun to dive in and explore whatever’s interesting me at the time.

I really want to get into podcasts this year because I know there’s some great conversations happening around them (and Clara offers links to a few in her post).

I’d love to hear what you do for inspiration, for your knitting or other creations.

[Photo via Knitter’s Review.]

Next Pattern:

Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough.

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern.

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed.

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do.

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces.

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls.

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry.

40+ Hot Pads You Can Sew For The Kitchen [Sewing]

A Cozy Knit to Calm Your Mind

Double Knit an Infinity Scarf

Next Pattern:

Have you read?