Check out this Fun Knitalong to Start the Year

Actually, it doesn’t start until Feb. 1, which is maybe even better than starting at the beginning of the year, but this new knitalong from Berroco looks like a lot of fun and a great way to build some skills if you’re not already comfortable with colorwork and short rows.

The knitalong is for Mrs. Watson, a fun two-color Garter Stitch shawl designed by Martina Behm. It uses two colors of Ultra Alpaca Light, which is a lovely yarn and comes in a lot of different colors.

To be an official part of the knitalong, though, you can use any Berroco or partner yarns (that’s LANGYARNS, Amano Yarn, James C. Brett or Ístex Lopi). Knitalongs are a fun way to learn new techniques and be part of a virtual knitting group where everyone is making the same thing but the results are always different.

Have you ever taken part in a knitalong? I’d love to hear what you made and how it was.

[Photo by Martina Behm, via Berroco.]

Next Pattern:

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!

Next Pattern:

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