Techniques

We're declaring today the first day of summer! It's Cast On Day for our Summer '15 Knit-A-Long, and we've even got the weather cooperating. So following on from our stitch markers technique post on Tuesday, we've got a nifty trick for managing the cast on for Chicane. The first part of the pattern involves casting on 173 stitches, and then...

At the counter, we get asked a lot about how to use stitch markers, so we thought it would be a good idea to do a couple of posts on them. What's more, Chicane, the chosen pattern for our summer Knit-a-Along, makes clever use of them, so this post counts as a bit of a warm up for that. Stitch...

Adding beads to knitting makes for really beautiful finished objects. For instance, just look at WittyKnitty's wedding shawl above. There's two distinct ways of doing it - prethreading the beads onto the yarn before you start, as our Party Lace Scarf does, or adding them to individual stitches as you work. The second technique means you can dive straight into...

Our last post on colourwork technique was about choosing colours that work together well. Choosing the orange and dark grey in the little swatch above gives a fabric with good contrast: the small diamond motifs pop out pleasingly. But what's happened here? This is the same yarn, the same needles and the same knitter - in fact, it's the other...

A lot of new crocheters report to us that their projects suffer from mysterious narrowing. Though they don't intend to reduce stitches, the intended square or rectangle turns into a triangle. It an be quite puzzling. The reason is almost always caused by not working into the very last stitch of the row. That stitch isn't always easy to spot,...

If a pattern features rib at a cuff or a welt, chances are it's to give elasticity and snugness. It would be a pity to take away some of that stretchiness when you cast off, so a very common instruction is to "cast off in pattern". We get asked a lot at the counter what that phrase means, so here's...

"Work stitches as they appear" is an instruction that we get asked about at the counter a lot, so here's a picture tutorial to help. The key to this (and to much else in knitting) is the fact that knit and purl are just mirror images of each other. When you're shown a stitch in isolation, you can't tell whether...

Welcome to the next technique post for our summer HAP-Along! This is a trick that works in lots of other places too - picking up stitches is a common task and very straightforward. The first thing to get out of the way is the terminology: there is, as far as anyone can tell, no difference between "pick up" and "pick...

There's a lot of ways of increasing a stitch when you're knitting. Different methods have different effects on the fabric you're producing, and your choice depends on the results you want and on your own personal choice. This post is about one way of increasing right at the very edge of a row when you'll be picking up stitches from...

Part of the fun of a KAL is finding out new ways of doing things. Our HapKAL means that we're all hearing about different techniques, because there's lots of different patterns being used. Over the next couple of weeks we'll feature picture tutorials for several of the techniques involved, and today's the first of these. Hap patterns often have the...

Few things will annoy you more about a finished piece of knitting than a cast off that's too tight. In almost all cases, you want an edge that stretches as much as the knitted fabric below it, and sometimes that doesn't happen. There's a few ways of avoiding that irksome tight edge. We've talked about Elizabeth Zimmermann's sewn bind off...

We get a lot of questions at the counter about the best way to make buttonholes. The answer, as usual, is "It depends" - on who you're making the garment for, on the size of the button, on how wide your buttonband is. For a lot of purposes, the yarn-over buttonhole works a treat, so here's a tutorial. Every beginner...

Last Tuesday, we showed you Lisa's Watershed (it's on display in the shop, and it's getting a lot of attention, probably because it's simply ideal for this lovely weather). Lisa made a number of modifications which are detailed on her project page, so it's perfect for showing you one of Ravelry's very best features: how to find helpful projects. This...

"Cast off in pattern." It's a fairly common instruction, but one that often causes confusion, so we thought a tutorial would be useful. First of all, the reason why. Different stitch patterns have different properties - stocking stitch is flat, moss stitch ripples gently from one stitch to another, rib pulls in. If your cast off mimics the stitch pattern...

A while ago, we blogged about SSK and K2tog, decreases which turn two stitches into one. We promised to get back to you with double decreases, the ones that turn three stitches into one. Because they involve two stitches, SSK and K2tog can point in two different ways: leftwards and rightwards respectively. Once you toss another stitch in there, you...

French knots are a very simple way of adding detail to your crocheted and knitted things. And what would Elijah do without his appealing wee eyes? So here's how to do a French knot in pictures. To start with, thread a tapestry or crewel needle with your chosen contrasty yarn or thread, and weave it in on the wrong side...

Over the weekend, we had a query in the shop about how to loosen up a cast on. While sometimes you want a nice tight edge, more often you want your cast on to stretch at least as much as the rest of the knitting, and we all have memories of the hat with the overtight brim or the blanket...

Our impromptu Color Affection Knit-Along has been going on for a while now, and there's fantastic finished objects popping up all over the place. As with every knitted or crocheted item, they all look even prettier if they're blocked. And so we were faced with a bit of a dilemma. Blocking wires work beautifully for straight lines, as we showed...