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More Fun Yarn-Related April Fool’s Day News

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Yesterday I told you about the call by a Canadian foundation for knitters to make butterfly chrysalises to help save the monarchs. That was probably my favorite April Fool’s Day gag related to knitting, but it certainly wasn’t the only one. Here are a few others. april fools day yarn

Deramores announced that it was teaming up with Ryan Gosling to produce a yarn line called “Hey Girl” (of course). The blend of cashmere and silk would include dreamy colors inspired by Gosling movie roles.

Lovers of Miss Babs fiber can look forward to a brand new colorway called the Emperor’s New Color, guaranteed never to pool because, well, there’s not actually any color.

And speaking of new yarns, Clara Parkes from Knitter’s Review checked out a new Italian yarn combining the fine traditions of yarn production and pasta making: Filato Pazzo Macarino.

Which reminds me of my April Fool’s post on Twitter. april fools tweet

If you saw any other fun yarn-related April Fool’s Day pranks, I’d love to hear about them!

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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!