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This Week in Knitting News: Poppies, A Knitting Statue and Stephen West

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gansey girl statueWith Veteran’s Day/Remembrance Day happening this week, poppies are popping up everywhere. Check out my roundup of poppy knitting patterns if you’d like to make some of your own, and don’t miss this story about a British woman who knit 1,000 poppies for the Royal British Legion to sell during its Poppy Appeal, which raises money to support servicemen and women, veterans and their families. In case you’re wondering, it took her nine months and 30 balls of yarn, and each poppy took about 30 minutes to knit. Amazing.

Looking for more knitting patterns for Poppies? Check these out on Etsy.

Knitting is a big part of the heritage of fishing communities in Britain and elsewhere (even though that story about every family having its own gansey pattern is a myth), and the town of Bridlington is celebrating that connection with a new stature. Gansey Girl, designed by Steve Carvill was unveiled recently. She’s sitting and knitting a gansey (though it’s difficult to see if she’s actually holding knitting needles). The statue also carries the names of some local fishing families.

On a lighter note, Stephen West recently started a mystery shawl knitalong, and to promote it he’s released a super fun video that will make you pretty happy to be a knitter. And may just make you want to knit a shawl. (If you can’t see it here, check it out on YouTube. You’ll be glad you did.)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwmfP0PNOLg]

[Photo via the Bridlington Free Press.]

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Comments

  1. Hilarious. And yes it does make me want to knit. I’m a new knitter; I started with Stephen West’s Penguono and then made another, and another. I’m knitting a ‘normal’ jumper now but it isn’t nearly as much fun.

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!