This week we bring you another bonus mini-episode of the Knit Picks
podcast! Stacey gets a chance to catch up with designer Allyson
Dykuizen, who began designing under the name “Sweatshop of Love.” After
spending some time teaching and designing, Allyson decided to broaden
her design skills by creating Holla Knits – a collaborative collection
between designers that focuses on a young, fresh, and modern aesthetic.
Hear more about the designers and ideas behind Holla Knits as well as
how Allyson began knitting, transitioned into the world of knitwear
design, and what inspired her to create Holla Knits!
You can find the first Holla Knits collection here:
Holla Knits Spring/Summer 2012 eBook
3 easy ways to listen…
This month I’m enamored with Jared Flood’s Turn a
Square Hat. I’ve had the pattern in my Ravelry queue for ages and
when Alison
posted about her adventures with the pattern on the blog a few
months ago, I decided that I’d better finally give the pattern a try!
Okay, perhaps the term “shout out” has significantly diminished since Carson Daly’s tenure at TRL? Regardless, the Full Circle sale ended on Monday and I wanted to heartily thank everyone for its success!
As you’ll recall, for the entire month of April we offered our Full Circle line at a 10% discount, with an additional 10% going to charity in celebration of Earth Day. With your generous help, Knit Picks will be donating over $1,600 directly to the Arbor Day Foundation. Each and every dollar goes a long way toward planting trees, purifying water and generally beautifying and enhancing the planet. It was a true honor to partner with such a great organization and our Full Circle yarn was the perfect, soft, 100% recycled wool accomplice. Thank you all, you’re lovely!
Read more »Buttonholes seem like the simplest of closures but you will want to take careful consideration of the size of your buttons relative to the size of your garment as well as the function of the button (is it decorative or utilitarian?). To help make this potentially tricky process a bit easier, we have created a guide to three different buttonhole styles – including the one row buttonhole, two row buttonhole, as well as a buttonhole for ribbing.
Usually shank buttons are best for knitted garments since the button shank gives more vertical clearance for the thickness of the knit fabric. If you are using a flat button, you may want to create a shank by wrapping thread or yarn around the stitches that attach the button to the fabric. Wrap the stitches between the button and the fabric, then secure the thread or yarn with a knot at the back side of the fabric.
Read more »The very first photo in Knitting With the Color Guys takes me back to when I was learning to spin and knit. In the late 1980s, Glorious Knitting revolutionized the way knitters approached design and color. In the new photo, Kaffe has a project in progress draped over his knees with a basket on the floor overflowing with a variety of yarns. It makes me smile!
Read more »First of all, I excel in procrastination – the mountains that I need to climb are huge and overwhelming! I thought by sharing my woes, you might encourage me to kick it in gear!
Read more »Why, three bags full in fact!
Actually, I have so much more than that! But I did get those at the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival last weekend!
I can’t really pass up a deal like that – it’s scraps and seconds,
but $6 for 8 oz of fiber is just too good. Unfortunately I must come
across deals like that too often, because I have so, so, so much
spinning fiber that I’m quickly running out of places to put it.
So, obviously knitting is not my only pastime. Spinning is certainly
one of them, and although I wouldn’t consider myself to be a great
spinner, I love the process of watching a big ball of fluff turn into
something wonderful and useable.
This week we are featuring a big favorite around here – the Classic Lines Cardigan.
This is an older pattern but one we just simply love. Our own Alison wrote it – her one & only pattern so far – and it just looks good on everyone.
Read more »As the days get both longer and warmer, cotton yarns come to mind as we get ready for breezy summer projects. This week, Kelley catches up with Alison to review the variety of cotton yarns that are available through Knit Picks! Get inspired for your next summer project as Kelley and Alison discuss the different properties, characteristics and uses for the different Knit Picks cotton and cotton blend yarns. Kelley also shares behind-the-scenes details on what inspired her to expand the cotton selection to include customer favorites like Shine and CotLin. Not only will this mini crash-course in cotton yarns help you pick out the right yarn for your next project, you just might be tempted by Kelley and Alison’s project ideas that make the most of the unique properties of the variety of cotton and cotton blends that are available.
3 easy ways to listen…
Read more »
Pets love presents too and a new toy is usually an easy, fast knitting
project that can be tucked into the nooks and crannies in your travel
bag. I found the sweet Nibbles the Mouse pattern on Ravelry yesterday and got busy with my double pointed needles and some leftover pieces of Palette I’ve had at my desk.