Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

Get Out Some Big Yarn and Needles to Knit This Snood

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snood operator wool and the gangI was looking around on Pinterest, as I often do, and I saw that Wool and the Gang has a free pattern out for its Snood Operator, a gigantic cowl worked in garter stitch with the company’s Crazy Sexy Wool and size 15 mm knitting needles (a 17 or 19 US would do). All you have to do to get your hands on the pattern is sign up for their email updates.

It uses just one skein of their yarn, which is great if you want to play with it, but if you’ve got some super bulky in your stash this would be a great use for it, too. I’m sort of thinking of a riff on this for some big yarn I have in my stash. Not only would it be really warm and dramatic, it would take almost no time to knit, which is a bonus. And it comes with a free earworm, too!

[Photo via Wool and the Gang.]

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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!