Knitting

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Giveaway: Drop-Dead Easy Knits

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drop-dead easy knitsThe first commenter wins it!

Easy knitting doesn’t have to mean plain knitting, as Drop-Dead Easy Knits illustrates, and easy but pretty knitting is the perfect thing for this time of year, whether you’re planning holiday gift knitting or just want to whip up something fast to keep yourself warm as the temperature cools.

This book has fun themes for the projects such as things to keep you warm, things to work on in waiting rooms or while traveling and the like. I like this book because while the level of attention needed to work these projects is usually not very high, they’re still pretty and things you will enjoy knitting, gifting or using yourself.

If you’d like a chance to win this book, leave a comment on this post before the end of the day Sunday, October 16. I’d love to know if you’re knitting something to keep warm (if you’re in the northern part of the world) or what you are working on. I’m knitting a sweater that was supposed to be my summer sweater (lightweight bamboo yarn knit at a loose gauge) and a giant scarf our of Icelandic wool. I really want to be knitting some socks. Soon.

Thanks for visiting, commenting and sharing, and good luck!

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Comments

  1. Wonderful giveaway. Right now I am knitting a cowl in a lovely lavender-colored wool blend.

  2. I am knitting a sweater and a scarf and a shawl. I tend to work on a few projects at a time. It does get cold here in the winter.

  4. I’m currently knitting fingerless gloves for a sale I’m in for the holidays. This book looks great!

  5. Your knitting sounds delightful and that book sounds perfect for the Christmas season. I’m knitting myself a new winter hat. It’s the Headgear 1 pattern by Catherine Lowe in a natural colour wool. I’m so excited to wear it. I’m just closing up the top and then on to finishing. It’s so nice to knit warm things in the brisk fall breeze.

  16. I’m working on a Sorting Hat that is taking a lot of yarn and will be fulled. My grown sons and knitting friends are all interested in how it turns out! Harry Potter fans are a varied and friendly lot!!

  17. I’m knitting a vest for my husband, but I think it’s destined for some creative stripes or something as I’m running out of yarn. I don;t know what made me think 6 balls would cut it.

  18. Thank you for the chance to win. I am knitting three ponchos for Christmas. Two for my neices and one for my sister in law!!! I better get busy!

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]