Yarnit Creator Competes on FUNDERDOME

I had never even heard of the Steve Harvey show FUNDERDOME until I saw that Kate from Yarnit was going to be on it.

It’s an entrepreneur competition show where two different ideas are pitted against each other for funding. The studio audience votes on the best idea, but at some point in each round one of the entrepreneurs is given the opportunity to cash out so they get some money whereas if they go to the end and don’t win the vote they would get no funding.

The Yarnit was pitted against the Dreamcade Replay, a console gaming device to play retro video games. That business won the big prize (though the vote was really close) and the Yarnit cashed out at $25,000, which is still pretty great.

If you don’t know about the Yarnit, it’s a plastic ball (yeah, there were lots of ball jokes on the show) that sits on a base that you put your yarn inside while you’re knitting. The yarn feeds out of a hole at the top and stays clean and protected from animals and children while you work. They’re lightweight, durable, have a clip-on strap for on-the-go knitting, and the ball itself fits in many standard car cup holders.

They come in lots of different colors and styles for personalization and you can even store stitch markers and other little tools in the base. So cool! (And if you happen to want to get your hands on one, they’re running a special for a limited time on the clear Yarnit; use the code Funderdome.)

Congratulations, Kate, and I can’t wait to see the new product in action!

[Photo: ABC]

Stitch dictionaries are a fun way to learn new-to-you knitting stitch patterns or to take a deep dive into a particular technique. Debbie Tomkies offers 100 cable stitch designs and thoughts on how to incorporate them into projects in her Cable Knitting Stitch Dictionary.

Each stitch pattern is shown in a large swatch photo and with written and charted instructions. Any special stitches are included on the page. The stitches are rated on a difficulty scale of 1 to 3, and the pattern notes also indicate how many extra stitches you should add to a project if you’re going to work this cable (since cables pull the fabric closer together you need to compensate for that) as well as how many stitches and rows are in the repeat if you want to design a project yourself.

The cables are arranged into sections: classic cables, combinations, all-over panels, creative cables, motifs and panels and cabled edges and borders.

It’s fun to flip through the designs to think about projects you can add a single cable or two to or make with an allover cabled design. Or you could make swatches of different cables and sew them together into a pillow cover or a throw.

At the back of the book there’s a section on general cable knitting techniques, reading charts, working swatches and avoiding errors (though it mentions working the wrong number of rows between cable turns, it doesn’t share how to count rows between cables to avoid this mistake).

It also talks about how to design your own cables, combine cables in a project, choose the right yarn and needles and determine how many more stitches you need to cast on when working cables instead of stockinette stitch. There’s also a glossary of symbols and abbreviations you may find in cable knitting and other patterns.

The book provides a good overview of things you can do with cables, as well as some fun things you might not have tried like infinity cables and horizontal cables. It’s a great book for a designer who likes to work with cables or a knitter who wants to play with different stitches in their projects.

About the book: 176 pages, paperback, 100 stitch patterns. Published 2024 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $26.99.

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