Simple Knitting Tips: Use Your Smarts

I prefer, when shopping for clothes, to take along my daughter or a friend who can give me an objective opinion of the items I try on. Sometimes the mirror and my brain gang up on me and make me see things that aren't there, or not see things that are. If I suck in my stomach and stand just right, those pants look perfect, since they're on sale after all, right? When I have someone else to see from a different perspective (and be honest) then I make fewer bad decisions at the mall. Now that there are smart phones, if I'm shopping alone I take a pic and send it to my daughter for her input. Sometimes, just taking the pic and looking at it before I send it will tell me what the mirror failed to mention. And so it seems to be with knitting...

Beyond the obvious benefits of taking pics of your knitting to post on your Ravelry projects page (which I know you are doing faithfully), taking pics of your knitting while in progress can help you have an objective view of how a pattern is working or whether the color combos you have chosen are really truly compatible.

Even in the days before smart phones, we took pics of blanket layout ideas when knitting patchwork blankets. This is my The Geese, They Are A-Flyin Afghan. I took this pic after knitting a couple of the strips to see how they would look together.

Here's my Log Cabin blanket (aka The Little Test Block that Grew), pre-sew up, with cat. As handsome as he is (and he IS handsome, isn't he?), taking his pic wasn't the point. The point was: Will these squares look good next to those squares? Bonus: This photo will remind me of our layout decision after I pick it all up off the floor. Also, my cat is gorgeous.

Here is my Charleston Indigo Scarf in mid-test knit. I needed to take a pic to see if it was really as pretty as I thought it was.

So today's Simple Knitting Tip is to Use Your Smarts--smart phones, that is. Snap a quick photo of how it's knitting up and catch issues before it's too late to fix them. Snap a pic and never forget the colors you meant to put next to one another. Snap a pic and remember that the cat likes hand knits...but then you probably already knew that.

Tutorial: Add a Zipper and Lining to Your Knitted Bag

Y'all. I am not a seamstress. I have great respect for them, but I am not one of them. I have always wanted to learn to quilt, no doubt due to the genetic code relating me to this marvelous quilter. When I realized that sewing was not really my thing, I decided I would knit quilts, which is crazy and, as it turns out, totally do-able.  That, however, is a blog post for another day.

Today is about using the skills you have to make things. Not being a seamstress, adding a lining to a knitted bag first sounded pretty daunting, but all it takes is few simple steps, some fabric, thread, a sewing needle and a zipper. If I can do it, so can you!

This applies to those of you who might purchase a certain pattern available today for the first time, or anyone who has ever knitted a bag and thought, If I don't line that, I'm in big trouble.

Step 1: Knit your bag. You'll want to have taken care of any blocking or weaving in ends before you get to the zipper + lining stage. The bag shown is a small, flat accessory bag, but you can add linings and zippers to larger bags as well. Just size it all up!

Step 2: Add a zipper like this:

Step 3: Sew a lining by hand (or by machine, if you have access to a teenager with a sewing machine and the mad skills to use one). In some cases your lining fabric might need to be trimmed to size. If that fabric is hand-dyed Shibori tie-dye indigo, save the scraps and make something small.

Step 4: Add the lining to the bag. Remember how you folded down the top edges of the lining? Pin it in to the bag and sew to the zipper so you will have a hem in one easy step (along with a lining sewn to a zipper). The end of the zipper (they always seem too big, but I might be overcompensating when I buy them. Hush.) will need to be tucked down in between the bag and the lining. Out of sight, out of mind.

Step 5: Enjoy! I also add a tassel or zipper pull to the end of my zipper. Some choices in that department include: a tassel, some i-cord, a crochet chain, and a braid. Also a post for another day!

I hope this brief, very amateur foray into sewing was helpful for you. My apologies to the talented seamstresses out there who might have cringed through this tutorial, but this is for those of us who knit our quilts, remember?

The patterns for the bags pictured will be available soon in my Ravelry shop, if you haven't already bought yours at SAFF!

Simple Knitting Tip: Close that gap!

I was proof-reading a new pattern of mine today that will soon be published by LYDIA Yarn, (!!!) and I noticed that part of my directions for this knit-in-the-round item include the following:

"Decrease one stitch when joining—slip the last cast on stitch onto the left needle and knit it together with the first cast on stitch.  This will prevent the gap left when joining in the round."

So simple, yet so effective! For years, when joining in the round, I just joined, hoping for the best, and went back later and stitched that gap closed.  Since I was knitting a lot of hats and cowls and pairs of socks, we're talking a lot of "hoping for the best" and going back to fix it later. This in itself isn't a bad practice. My finished items looked fine and it wasn't that big of a deal to stitch the gap while I was weaving in the tail end of the yarn.

Now that I cast on an extra stitch and knit the first together with the last, however, frankly I feel pretty clever.  I like feeling clever (it's kinda rare), and I know you probably like feeling clever, too (you manage it more often than I do, I'm sure).

So here's what this looks like, this clever simple tip:

I hope this works for you as well as it has for me.

And that pattern? It is the Coosaw Cowl and it's now available from LYDIA Yarn via Ravelry.

Simple Knitting Tips: Organize your stitch markers

Every now and then a knitting trick comes my way that it is so clever I wish I had either

1.   thought of it myself  -or-
2.   heard about it sooner.

At the Knit Inn this month, someone bought a project bag that had one of these Book Rings on it.  Turned out that one of the uses for it was to keep your stitch markers organized and handy.  GENIUS!  

I can't figure out why it doesn't say "Stitch Marker Organizer" right on the package!

I've had a couple of these rings in my office supplies for years (no clue where they came from) and I am delighted to be able to tell you that you can actually BUY THESE AMAZING THINGS at your office supply store of choice (Mine is Staples, because EASY button, of course!).

2/20/14: Edited to add: The bag was courtesy of my friend and tech knitting editor, Jessica Higdon, who was clever enough to buy it and show me the genius ring :)

Organized and adorable!

(originally published 2/19/14 on knitoasis.blogspot.com)

(you know, back in the old days...)