Knitting

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Using Household Items for Knitting

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use a dpn to fold and hold a knitting projectWhether you’re traveling this summer or just want to do a bit of knitting on the go without dragging your whole knitting tool arsenal with you, there are some great hacks you can do to use regular household items to aid your knitting.

Amy from Love Knitting has a great list of things you can use instead of other things. Some of these are classics, like using scrap yarn as a stitch marker or a wine bottle cork as a point protector.

But I don’t think I’d have thought to use dental floss as a stitch holder (I usually have some extra yarn around I can use for that purpose) or using a DPN to hold your folded scarf in place so it’s not warming up your lap when it’s hot outside. That’s pretty brilliant right there.

Her suggestions for common household measuring tools are great, too. It’s a good idea to measure things you always have with you like your hand (mine’s about 6.5 inches from wrist to end of the longest finger) that you can use in a pinch. Or always carry a business card (usually around 3.5 by 2 inches) or an index card (3×5) in your bag, which is handy for jotting notes as well as measuring.

Do you use any common household items in your knitting? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Love Knitting.]

Comments

  2. When knitting cable stitches I have had to open up a paper clip and us it as a holder when my cable stitch holder went missing. I have also used large size baby diaper pins to hold a few stitches away from the others for part of a project.

Have you read?

Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

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.