Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

I Can’t Believe I’ve Missed This!!

by

Nashua Painted Forest. I just love it!  This is what the woods outside my window look like this time of year, my favorite time of year.

This is what Yarndex says:

“Painted Forest” by Nashua Handknits is a variegated yarn with rich earthtone colors blended within each twisted strand. Available in 10 bold multi-colors, “Painted Forest” is suitable for sweater weight garments, hats, blankets, and shawls. The content of “Painted Forest” is 100% wool.

Yummy. I. Must. Find. Some!

“And do what with it?”, you ask.

“mmmmmmmmm” as she dreamily drools all over the keyboard, “I’m sure it will tell me what it wants to be, they always do”.

And that, my friends is why my family wonders just when I will finally fall off that slippery slope I desperately cling to!

Next Pattern:

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!