Knitting Tips and Tricks

I am tall. Tall enough that clothes in otherwise great stores are of very little use to me. Despite this fact, I wear a 9.5 shoe. So shoes have played a very important part in my fashion life. Need less to say I am one of the masny women obsesses with shoes.

It is interesting to me that the old shoes I pull out of my closet to wear always get the most positive comments. As if people are trying to chat me up to see where I got them and are sad to hear that they were purchased years before. I find that even now I have a few new pairs that I have never worn, but I know that in a few years everyone will love them.

I think it is the same for little bits of information. We all have little tidbits stuck in our heads and it takes just the right situation to share our facts with others.

Now, I'm not really in an official knitting group or club, but the women who work at Knit + Stitch in Bethesda and the women who were trying to get their x-mas presents completed in the shop over the last few weeks are the closest I've come to one. And this awesome and very open group has shared some great tips that were offered simply because they were paying attention to me while I was knitting and made relevant recommendations. And, I would like to share these tips with you.

First of all, kittything saw me making fingerless wristwarmers which I found in Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I thought they were great, but looked kind of like weird tubes rather than a thoughtful handmade gift so she sent me to a great pattern at knitty.com called fetching. I have to say that I LOVE this pattern. I made it with some inexpensive variegated yarn and am now making it again in a great yarn called waterlily. In case you haven't seen me knit, I am a new knitter and I tend to be a TIGHT knitter. My knitting is pretty uniform, but it is very tight. Kittything saw me knit and told me a great tip:

TIP #1 - When casting on, hold a second needle along with the one you will be using to knit the first row. That way, it will be possible to knit the first row. It will also be uniform.

TIP #2 - Came from Anne at the yarn shop. She teaches a sock class that I may take in the new year. She said that my bind off was tight as well so she recommended that I use a larger needle to bind off. I have tried both of these tips and they are great.

As with any good piece of info, it is best shared. So I have been telling everyone the yarn shop about these tips. Well, Lyn Ermer who owns the Knit and Stitch = Bliss yarn shop, offered...

Tip #3 - Knit the row before bind off using a larger needle to avoid a tight bind off.

If these tips are useful to you, enjoy.

In the meantime I want to share one more thing. Over the Christmas holiday, I was up in the Lehigh Valley and I was taken to a yarn shop that was closed, but they let us in for a quick peek. It was called The Yarn Shop at Kraemer Textiles and they had some great yarns. They had a Sterling Yarns with silver fibers running through the yarn and some GREAT chunky yarns called Bear Creek.

Sorry no pictures. I hope that everyone who received a handmade gift from me takes pictures for me for my blog.

Well, that is all for now and maybe for the year.
Happy New Year!