My Favorite Book on Finishing

It turns out I had a lot less to say about finishing than I thought I did, so if you have any questions or topics I didn’t cover let me know and I’ll get to them next week.

In the meantime I wanted to share with you the best book out there about finishing: Finishing School by Deborah Newton. This excellent book shares Newton’s passion for a fine finish on knit garments and covers everything from blocking, seaming and edging to adding buttons, zippers and pockets to your projects.

Newton is a huge advocate of swatching and advises knitters to test out any finishing they might be contemplating on their swatches so they’ll know if the project is going to turn out the way they expect. This method also gets you to begin your project with the end in mind, to read through a pattern and make sure it makes sense and that all the pieces fit together logically before you even decide to knit it or how to finish it.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s a fun, encouraging read and it will guide you to be a better finisher, which will no doubt make you happier with your knit garments and other projects.

Have you read this book? Do you use her tips? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

Have you read?