Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

Try a Celtic Cable for St. Patrick’s Day

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Saxon braid cable knitting tutorial.There are all sorts of fun Aran cables and Irish-inspired designs that are fun to knit and incorporate into projects at this time of year.

Studio Knit has a great tutorial for an Irish Saxon Braid pattern, which is a little intricate, but as I explained in my video last week, all cables are worked with the same basic moves, even if the result is really intricate.

I think this braid would be lovely knit as a headband. Just make a strip long enough to fit snuggly around your head (make it a little shorter than your actual head circumference so it has to stretch a bit to hold onto your head). Or make it the bottom of a hat — stitch the same strip into a loop and pick up stitches along one side to stitch the hat. So many fun ideas.

Make sure you check out the knit shamrock pattern from a couple of days ago, too, if you’re still looking for some quick St. Patrick’s Day knitting projects!

[Photo via Studio Knit.]

Looking for more Knitted Headband Patterns? Check these patterns out on Etsy. Headbands are a great gift idea as they knit up fast and are well received by friends and family. Everyone loves wearing Knit headbands right?

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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!