Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

Finally Finished Something

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prima shrug maggie paceThis month was supposed to be my month of finishing, then a crafty injury kept me from knitting — at all — for more than a week. I have to tell you it was pretty darn boring!

I allowed myself to take up needles again yesterday, and I think it went pretty well. I finally finished one project. This is the Prima Shrug by Maggie Pace, which is the subject of a workshop at CreativeBug. I didn’t watch the workshop, and I did change the pattern a bit. It was supposed to be all k1, p1 ribbing but I did the collar in garter stitch instead because lining up the ribbing on the collar with the ribbing on the sleeves was driving me crazy!

I also used a different yarn, some worsted weight Malabrigo I had lying around. So I didn’t get the self-striping effect, but it sure is pretty. I also made my collar a little shorter than hers, mostly because I really wanted to finish it last night, but I think it’s long enough. It doesn’t come up on my neck, and I like that.

I am, apparently, incapable of taking a shrug selfie today, so you’ll have to settle for the project-on-a-bed picture. It’s still pretty. Just wish it were warm enough today to wear it!

What have you been working on lately?

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Comments

  1. Wow, Sarah, I love how your shrug came out. That color of Malabrigo is beautiful!

    I had my knitting laid out in a relaxing pace with only a couple of projects to finish all summer. But I recently learned a friend of our’s is expecting a baby, so that adds a project to my list 🙂

  2. I’m also shrugging! Trying to finish off a cabled shrug (from Lion Brand) got a few more rows to do, then second cuff and the neck ribbing. Started it last year, but had to rip it out because I ran out of yarn, so had to try and find something similar!

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!