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It's Here! Go Get It (If You Haven't Already)!

2012-02-14T12:21:48Z

I don't really feel like there's anything else to say but this: today's the day. The new edition of The Principles of Knitting is set to be released today. After years of hopeful speculation on our parts and unbelievable amounts of hard work on the part of June Hemmons Hiatt, the second edition of her beloved reference on all things knit finally sees the light of day.

Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt. Touchstone Books.

If you know what I'm talking about, you don't need to know more. If you don't, go check out my review and learn why you need a copy of this book, no matter your skill level.

I will admit I'm nowhere near done reading this book, but I still feel like I can offer my opinion on it. It's a great guide to all aspects of the knitting world that will open your eyes up to new techniques, better ways to do things and new things to try. Even if you consider yourself a pro this book will probably get you thinking about knitting in a new way and deepen your understanding of the craft. It's awesome, mind-boggling and a must own. Enough said.

It's Here! Go Get It (If You Haven't Already)! originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 12:21:48.

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Last Chance to Nominate for the Readers' Choice Awards!

2012-02-14T09:03:59Z

Hi, all, just wanted to let you know one last time that tomorrow, February 15, is the last day to nominate your favorites in About.com's Readers' Choice Awards. There are a whole host of different categories you can nominate people, products and resources in across the network, and here at About.com Knitting I have five different categories seeking nominations:

Favorite yarn company
Favorite knitting needles
Best book of 2011
Favorite knitting blog/website
Favorite knitwear designer

Once the nominations close I'll be busy selecting the top five finalists in each category and you can come back and vote for your favorites starting Feb. 22. Winners receive bragging rights and we all have lots of fun. If you've nominated your favorites already (and you get up to three choices in each category), please share this post or the link to nominate on your Facebook page, Twitter or wherever else you happen to go online. And if you want to tell the companies and people involved that you nominated them, I'm sure they'd appreciate it! And I do, too!

Last Chance to Nominate for the Readers' Choice Awards! originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 09:03:59.

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Intarsia Knitting Patterns to Test Your Skills

2012-02-13T14:00:01Z

One of the first intarsia knitting patterns I ever developed was the Color Block Pillow, which is a really easy way to approach intarsia knitting because you're not trying to insert a complex pattern into the knit fabric, you're just knitting squares. This is a great one to make in any three colors to match your decor and will help get you comfortable in the basics of intarsia.

This apron is made super-cute with the addition of a robot on the pocket. © Sarah E. White.

Another of my favorites that's really easy is the Intarsia Apron. Most of this apron is simple, solid-color knitting, but the pocket features a cute little robot worked in intarsia. Of course you could use whatever motif you like on the pocket if you're not into robots.

Another great choice for intarsia knitting (Mother's Day will be here before you know it!) is the Mom Tattoo Bag. This one has a little bit of most kinds of colorwork, including stranded knitting at the bottom of the heart, intarsia for most of the colorwork and duplicate stitch for some of the details. This one is a lot of fun to knit; line it and it will be a great go-to bag for the busy mom in your life (even if that's you!).

Intarsia Knitting Patterns to Test Your Skills originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 14:00:01.

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Intarsia Tips: It's All about Yarn Management

2012-02-13T08:47:19Z

To me, the most important thing to think about when knitting intarsia is what's happening with your yarn. Each section of a different color requires a different ball of yarn, of course, and as I mentioned yesterday the threads need to be twisted to make sure that the different sections of knitting are "locked" together.

But as you might imagine having a lot of big balls of yarn on the back of your work can be both heavy and messy as the threads get twisted around each other. One great intarsia knitting tip is to use long strings -- maybe as long as you can reach with arms outstretched -- of yarn rather than actual balls. These threads are easier to untangle and do less to weigh down your project. Of course you may end up with more ends to weave in later, but the eliminated frustration of untangling several big balls of yarn every few rows as you knit is certainly worth it.

Do you have any tips for better intarsia knitting? Share them in the comments or by filling out this form.

Intarsia Tips: It's All about Yarn Management originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 08:47:19.

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Getting Started with Intarsia

2012-02-12T10:45:37Z

Intarsia is generally considered to be more difficult than stranded knitting, but once you get the basics down, a lot of knitters find this technique to be more fun. That's because intarsia is picture knitting on a much bigger scale than is possible with stranded knitting; you can make big blocks of color to make a face, an animal, a monogram or just about anything else you can dream up.

Intarsia is the method to use if you want to knit blocks of color. © Sarah E. White.

Intarsia is a knitting method by which each block of color is worked with a different strand of yarn. That means no strands running across the back of the work to make it tight (yeah!) but it also means lots of ends to weave in (boo!). There are no limits on the number of stitches you can work in a particular color as there traditionally are in stranded knitting, because you're working with a different yarn each time. This is the anything goes style of color knitting!

The one thing you really need to remember when knitting intarsia is to twist the yarns when you change colors. There's nothing to "link" the two colors together if you don't do this. Without a twist you're just knitting a bunch of different pieces of knitting on the same needle at the same time.

Do you love intarsia? Or are you a Fair Isle fan? I'd love to hear which technique is your favorite and why.

Getting Started with Intarsia originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at 10:45:37.

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A Handy Way to Store Your Knitting Needles

2012-02-11T14:31:14Z

One problem I have pretty much constantly is that I have way too many needles -- particularly double-points and circulars -- and I have yet to come up with a good way to store and organize them. Right now I have a whole filing cabinet drawer dedicated to needles and crochet hooks, and it's a perpetual mess. In addition to that, there's a basket on my desk that has all the random DPNs I've found here and there (my daughter loves to play with them) that have yet to make it back to the drawer.

The Crafter's Tool Butler by Jordana Paige. Photo © Sarah E. White.

I have a needle roll, but I'm really bad about not putting things away after I use them. So my storage solution really needs to include someone who will put things back where they go when I'm done!

Unfortunately, the Crafter's Tool Butler by Jordana Paige is not a real butler; it can't help me with my picking-up issues. But it is a big, roomy storage pouch with room for a bunch of DPNs, circulars and other knitting tools. (There's no such tool that's big enough for my whole stash, but for a normal knitter this would probably provide plenty of storage space.)

It has six flat pockets for DPNs and four zippered mesh pockets for circulars, which also have spots for labels so you don't have to dig into the pouches to see what's in there. There's also a needle inventory so you'll know exactly what you stored inside.

I think this bag is probably too big for most people to want to carry around with them, but as a storage solution that gets a lot of needles into a compact space, it's a great choice.

A Handy Way to Store Your Knitting Needles originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 14:31:14.

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Juniper Moon Farm is Having a Design Contest

2012-02-11T10:27:48Z

I don't know how many of you out there are designers, but here's an opportunity to show off your designs on a small scale for a chance to win yarn.

Juniper Moon Farm is hosting a design contest that requires participants to make an original project using either one or two balls of the company's Willa or Chadwick yarns. (One is a wool-alpaca blend, the other a wool-mohair.)

Participants need to enter their designs in the Ravelry database and send the completed project and written pattern to Juniper Moon by March 1. The folks at Juniper Moon will choose their four favorite designs in each yarn, then the public will be invited to vote on the winners. The designs from each yarn with the most votes will receive $300 of Juniper Moon Farm (second will get $200, third $100 and fourth $50 of yarn). The winning designs will become property of Knitting Fever and may be used in future projects.

If anyone here enters this contest, I'd love to hear about what you made! Or, if you have entered design contests in the past, I'd love to hear about your experience.

Juniper Moon Farm is Having a Design Contest originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 10:27:48.

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Get Subtle Color with Andes del Campo

2012-02-10T14:59:47Z

This yarn pretty much has nothing to do with color knitting, though the colors are all pretty natural and harmonious in this line, so you could certainly do color knitting with it. Knit Picks Andes del Campo is a 100 percent wool in an aran/heavy worsted weight that has a cool tweedy effect for subtle coloration even in a solid color project.

This yarn is exactly what you'd want to be knitting with and wearing on a cold winter's day (and we're having a cold week where I live, so I'm kind of wishing I had more than one skein of it!). Knit Picks describes it as rustic, and I do, too; the stitches are slightly imperfect, but the yarn is also super-soft and lofty, making it a great choice for a simple, slouchy boyfriend sweater or a more structured cabled number.

Given that I only have a little bit, I'm sure it would be great for mitts, mittens or a warm and cozy hat, too. But that doesn't mean I don't want to explore this one in a sweater some day!

Get Subtle Color with Andes del Campo originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 14:59:47.

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Read About Color Theory to Gain Color Confidence

2012-02-10T08:55:17Z

I always feel like a bit of a fraud when I start talking about color knitting and color theory because the truth is, for all the reading I've done on the subject, and all the knitting I've done, I still feel like I don't really know enough to talk intelligently on the subject.

But I know (or at least know of) some people who are much better equipped for talking about color than I am, so I'm letting them take over today.

First, there's Marion Boddy-Evans, our excellent Guide to Painting, who has lots of great resources on color theory when it comes to painting. Of course colors in yarn don't mix quite like paint colors do, but all the basics apply and her articles will introduce you to the terms you need to know when thinking about color, for knitting purposes or any other craft.

For information written more with fiber artists in mind, check out the excellent book ColorWorks by Deb Menz. This book aims to explain color theory for all sorts of crafters and artists and includes examples that are knit, woven, beaded, made out of paper and more so that you can see how the same rules apply across crafts.

ColorSense by Susan Levin is another good choice for learning more about color. This is really a hands-on book, with tons of examples and not a lot of text, and comes with a color wheel that should help make choosing colors for your next project -- whether it's a knit sweater or a beaded necklace -- that much easier.

Do you have any resources or tips for choosing colors and using color in your knitting? I'd love to hear about them.

Read About Color Theory to Gain Color Confidence originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 08:55:17.

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Knitting in the News: Keeping People (and Trees!) Warm

2012-02-09T13:03:13Z

This week we're back to lots of news about how knitters are helping to warm the world.

Care home residents in Middleton Cheney (that's in Britain) have been busy knitting up blankets, scarves and socks for kids in eastern Europe.
Dorchester knitter Jean Wilson, who's been busy for years knitting for kids at a local hospital and children in Africa is being honored as her housing association appeals for yarn donations to keep her knitting in celebration of her 70th birthday.
And a knitter in Surrey has been stitching up hats for mariners as part of the Royal Albert Seafarer's Society's Wooly Hat Week.
A group of knitters in Montreal is making sure homeless people there stay warm this winter through donations of about 200 hats and scarves to a local mission.

The owner of a new knitting shop in Elgin, Ill., decorated more than 20 trees in the downtown area with knit cozies to celebrate the opening of the store, while the British knit and otherwise handcrafted walk-through aquarium known as Above and Below the Waves has raised more than £13,000 for charity.

A Wisconsin machine-knitter has been using her skills to spread political messages, and an astronaut conducted a fun experiment with knitting needles, making water "orbit" around a charged needle in space.

Knitting in the News: Keeping People (and Trees!) Warm originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Thursday, February 9th, 2012 at 13:03:13.

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