Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Technique – Yarn Substitutions.

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I ran across an awesome resource a long time ago, and I use it so often that it’s just assumed that everyone knows what it is. What is it? Well, hang on there, it’s so awesome that it deserves an introduction like no other.

So you find this great pattern you just have to knit, but would love to knit it in something other than the yarn called for. What to do? Unless you’re a walking yarn encyclopedia you just log on to this wonderful resource, bring up the yarn specified in the pattern and it will tell  you the weight, yardage, company, fiber content and just about everything else you’d want to know about it. Is it Ravelry? Well, yes, Ravelry is an awesome resource unto it’s own, but for the “everything you ever wanted to know about just about every kind of yarn out there” there’s none other than…..

Yarndex! Try it!yarndex_logo5

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Comments

  1. I have some old Needleworks magazines and they have some great patterns but the yarns are no longer available. Any ideas of how I can knit these or finding out about older yarns?

  2. Hi,
    See if you can do an internet search for these yarns. You might not be able to buy them, but if you can get a general idea of what weight yarn and how many yards/meters per skein or hank, you can go to http://www.yarndex.com and find a substitution there.
    Good luck!
    Terrye

  3. I have a pattern for a round baby afghan (42″ in diameter) using Baby Sport – H crochet hook, if . . .

    I use a Bulky weight yarn and increase the hook to an N might that be okay to use the same pattern? (ie: be about 64″ in diameter). Or does someone have a round/circular pattern for and adult?

    The baby pattern I have is found on the Bernat website and it’s called Round Blanket to Crochet.

  4. I put in all the information and it either gave me the “sorry” line or it matched it up to itself. Not helpful.

  5. I am trying to find a substitute yarn for Lion Brand Organic Cotton Worse weight to knit a baby hoodie can you help

  7. I am trying to get to Yarndex.com, but several different links take me to LoveKnitting.com. Can you help?

  8. Yarndex was a project of Yarnmarket, which was purchased by LoveKnitting. I think they just got rid of that URL at some point and made it forward to their main site. You can search for it on the Internet Archive (archive.org), or maybe Ravelry can help answer your questions.

Have you read?

Knit a Pet Bed on a Knitting Machine

I feel like I haven’t shared many knitting machine patterns lately, probably because I haven’t been using my knitting machines much lately. (I finally made space for them to live on the bookshelf in my office, and now that they have a “place” it’s almost like I forgot they existed for a while.)

But I did recently make a little cat bed, that surely would work for a small dog, too. 

This one uses two different sizes of knitting machine: a larger one (it could be any in the 40-48 needle range) and a 22 pin. 

The larger machine is used in flat panel mode to make the bottom pillow like part of the bed, while the smaller machine makes a long tube that is used around the edges as the sort of walls of the cat bed. 

For stuffing I used a bit of leftover quilt batting for the pillow, and some cut up old T-shirts for the tube. 

You can use any worsted weight yarn you like (I used two colors of Big Twist Pound+, which comes in huge skeins that weigh more than a pound). Acrylic or cotton yarn is nice for washablity, but you’ll be cranking for a while so make sure you use a yarn your machine likes so it’s not too much of a struggle. 

You can grab the pattern for this cat bed over at Our Daily Craft. I’m sorry to report the pictured is as close as a cat has gotten to it so far, but maybe your cats like to be cozy more than mine do?

If you’re looking for more options for cute handmade places for your cats and little dogs to rest, check out this roundup of knit pet beds. I still want to knit one by hand but the machine version was definitely a faster option (especially good since my cats are ungrateful).