Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

Help Funding the Knitting Maine Pattern Booklet

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knitting maine kristen tendykeI love a good knitting-related Kickstarter, and this one from knitwear designers Kristen TenDyke could use our support.

She’s looking for funding for the printing of her lovely looking pattern booklet Knitting Maine. That’s certainly a topic I can get behind because I love Maine (even went on my honeymoon there!) and I love knitting, of course. The designs, from the look of them, are classic with a twist, and Kristin is mindful to use ec0-friendly yarns in her designs, if that’s something you care about. All five designs — four sweaters and a shawl — are knit using yarn produced in Maine.

She’s hoping to raise $5,000 to print the booklet on recycled paper with soy ink with the help of a local, family owned printer. This is such a lovely idea for a project I was sure you all would want to hear about.

As I write this there are 12 days left in the campaign and she’s raised about $2,000. Thank you gifts include PDF and printed copies of the booklet or her previously published patterns, crocheted hearts, beads infused with Reiki energy and distance Reiki healings.

Check it out for more details and information.

[Photo via Kristin TenDyke.]

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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!