Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

Learn Knitwear Design from Aroha Knits

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arhoa knits design classIf you’ve wanted a chance to try your hand at knitwear design but you aren’t quite sure where to start, check out this free 10-day challenge from Aroha Knits.

Initiate Knitwear Design features daily challenges sent by email, live streams in a Facebook group to talk about the lessons and get questions answered, and support from other students in the Facebook group.

The course includes five lessons, with two days to complete each. It’s a taster for her paid course, SWATCH Studio, so if you’re interested in learning a bit about knitwear design or want to know how to take your designs to the next level this is certainly worth checking out.

The class starts July 16 and you have to register before then to take part.

Has anyone done this course before? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Aroha Knits.]

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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!