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Beam And Read – Awesome!

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I’ve had the opportunity to try out this light and peeps, It. Is. Awesome!!

Of course I’ve used the Beam and Read for my knitting, but also reading late at night and early morning. Then, just the other night, I grabbed it and took it out to the chicken coop when I heard some commotion out there.

The next time I went to use it, it wasn’t there, seems hubby decided it made a very nice addition to his “auto fixing arsenol”. Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve since re-claimed it.

My knitting kit includes the Denise cloth knitting needle case, which also has room for extra scissors, a tape measure, stitch and row markers, extra dpns, row counters, even a crochet hook.  And now… this Beam and Read light lives there too, part of my permanent collection (and safely hidden away from hubby, who has already asked if he can have his own!).

The Beam and Read is from ASF Lightware Solutions. It includes led lights that never run out, and runs on standard AA batteries. Awesome product, highly recommended, and now I’ll have to go find another one. You can get yours here: http://www.readinglight.com/or at Amazon (search for Beam and Read)

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Comments

  1. “I’ve had the opportunity to try out this light and ladies, It. Is. Awesome!!”

    There are male knitters that read this blog.

  2. Ah… doesn’t it move up and down as you breathe? I think that would drive me nuts trying to keep focus. Or maybe not. Can someone that uses it address that? I’ll be on the lookout for one to try before I buy in the meantime. I’m ….er…. fluffy in the max and having it hit my tummy may also be a problem. Sigh.

    Edie

  3. I haven’t noticed it moving, Edie, and the strap is adjustable, so you can make it as long or short as you needed. I really love mine.

Have you read?

Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!