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Power Outages Do Not Enhance Knitting And Spinning!

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On a personal note, we did the power outage thing this past weekend. It was fun. Actually, we’re pretty well set up for such things. We heat (and are able to cook) with wood and have all manner of candles and hurricane lamps that usually see only dust collecting services.

This is a GREAT opportunity to sit and knit or spin, yes? No! Not on a farm. Certain devious critters, who test fences regularly figure out that when the power is out, the fences don’t work. Yup, we chased horses and cows. Also, funny thing, the heat lamps and water pumps don’t work when the electricity goes bye bye. So we hauled water from the pond (5397 miles away – not really, but it seemed that way).

So, I guess, that’s my lame excuse for why my felted slippers STILL are not done! And why the Blue Faced Leicester that sits in my spinning basket is still sitting there, unspun.

But, in honor of this weekend’s Fun And Games On The Farm, I found these for you. Free Farm Animal Knitting Patterns (pictured above)!
How much fun! 

There are more free Animal Patterns here. Like Lizzie the Cow Tea Cosy and the Lion Washcloth.

 

Don’t forget to enter our Year End Knitting Stuff Giveaway! Just leave me a comment making sure I have your email address. Hope You Win!!

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Comments

  2. Would love to knit some of these finger puppets, but the page is not found when clicked on the link?

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!