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A Knitalong for Evernote Fans

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evernote
Do you use Evernote? I have to admit I don’t use it that much any more, but before Pinterest came along that’s pretty much how I used it. I would copy patterns, add links to inspiring things and keep notes about household cleaners, ways to cook beans and other “important” information filed away there.

The virtual communities built around Evernote sometimes host challenges, and the first-ever knit and crochet challenge has just begun. To take part, people must RSVP to the event on Facebook, make a clipping of the pattern they’re working (there are three options each for knitters and crocheters), share photos and tips on Twitter and finish their object before the end of the month.

At the end they’ll be a Twitter party talking about ways to use Evernote in crafting, and five participants will get Evernote goodie bags.

Sounds like a lot of fun. And speaking of ways to use Evernote in crafting, I’m really thinking hard about cataloging my stash there. I can never get motivated enough to do it on Ravelry.

If you use Evernote for knitting purposes I’d love to hear what you do!

Comments

  1. I use Evernote for organizing stuff for designing: references, timelines, to do lists, calls for submissions, etc. I still have most of my stash, needles, etc on Ravelry.

Have you read?

Knit a Leopard Print Shawl and Learn about Yarn Substitution

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations. 

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind. 

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca. 

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl. 

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions. 

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic). 

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only. 

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]