Follow along and discover your next inspiration as we cast on for projects we love, explore new techniques, and dish about the latest and greatest from Knit Picks.
Meet the team »
I’m officially enchanted! I decided to try weaving a scarf with Chroma Fingering over the weekend, despite some trepidation about the possibility of the warp strand breaking and I’m SO GLAD that I did!
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We are so excited to introduce you to our newest type of needles, Sunstruck!
These gorgeous needles are a blonde twist on our Harmony needles – it’s the same laminated birch wood as the Harmony needles, but with a beautiful sun kissed look to them. We’ve all completely fallen in love with them & we think you will too. They are available in interchangeable, fixed circular, and straight needles – perfect for any project.
Read more »It was just around this time last year when everyone was buzzing with excitement over the second Sock Summit, held here in Portland, Oregon. And even though there are no gatherings on such a grand scale happening this summer, it sure hasn’t stopped any of us here at the office from springing right into a summer of sock knitting! It seems as though everyone has slowly put away the sweaters on their needles or quickly finished their WIPs in favor of these portable knitting delights.
Even more interesting is watching just how everyone works their way through socks – some work their socks both at the same time, some use the magic loop method, and others use double pointed needles all while some knit from the cuff down and others from the toe up. Don’t even get me started on the various cast ons, heels, and bind offs there are to choose from! And I love that about sock knitting – even though everyone is going through the same motions to create the same basic shaping, everyone gets to pick and choose from different styles and techniques to arrive at the finished project – a cozy pair of handknit socks.
So in honor of our sock obsession that is taking over all of our needles, this technique of the week highlights our video tutorial for the backwards loop cast on! Perfect for starting your next toe-up pair of socks, this is yet another cast on that is wonderful to have in your knitting repertoire.
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Every knitter appreciates our craft’s heritage but exploring all of those traditions is certainly daunting. On the other hand, just reading the history of sweaters like ganseys, Fair Isle, Norwegian, Cowichan and other fiber reflections of culture somehow doesn’t seem like quite enough. Thanks to Kari Cornell, you can use what I think is a brilliant way to blend samplers, utilitarians items and heritage into completely approachable projects – scarves!
Sometimes I am blown away by the way such a simple concept can be so brilliant! Think about it, scarves have been providing warmth, comfort, or decoration to both men and women almost as long as human civilization has existed. So says Donna Druchunas at the very beginning of her introduction to Knitting Scarves from Around the World. Then she goes on to appeal to my love of knitting history focusing on head and neck coverings. All the way back to 2900 B.C. and all around the world including Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Rome on up through seventeenth century Croatian soldiers, King Charles II of England and the aeronautical scarves of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and WWI’s “Red Baron”.
Read more »Sometimes when it comes to lace, less can be more!
Inspired by the hardy, well-adapted arctic willow, the Salix shawl takes cues from a seemingly barren landscape that’s far more alive than you might think!
Salix
is a full-sized Shetland-type shawl knit in Palette. Above a border of
Shells is a low-lying row of Buttercups. The body of the shawl is worked
in a pattern of Pebbles, with little variations just like those on a
beach. The stand-out feature, though, is the willow catkin running up
the shaped center panel.
When Bare Hare arrived to at our office, everyone’s first reaction was to uncontrollably “ohhh!” and “ahhhh” over how incredibly squishy and soft it was. Then almost immediately afterward, it seemed as though the same idea popped up for everyone at the same time – Bare Hare is an undyed yarn, which means you can dye it whatever shade is your color of choice! All of us have had previous dyeing experience and so of course, we couldn’t help but jump over to the dyeing section of the Knit Picks website to check out the different dyes and colors.
In addition to the Jacquard dyes, we were also drawn to the Earthues and Greener Shades dyes. And because we loved Bare Hare so much, we thought – why not experiment a bit and try out all three different types of dyes? I had been wanted to try out the Greener Shades Dyes, so I opted for the Coral Reef Aqua. Stacey chose Emerald in the Jacquard Dyes and Kerin went with the Earthues natural dyes.
Here is the result of our Bare Hare dyeing extravaganza, I love how they turned out!
I’ve been hit with SOCK FEVER! I loved doing the color maps for the new Stroll Handpainted
yarns and couldn’t wait to start knitting socks with the pretty skeins
when they arrived at the office a few months ago. I grabbed a skein of
Leg Warmer and knit my very first toe-up, two-at-a-time socks!
There’s nothing better than finishing a long-term project. And for me,
that’s most of them – but they’re not all knitting! This past week has
been spent in the garden, reaping the rewards of the last year’s work. 
But of course that’s not all – I finally wove in the ends on my little Chroma sweater!
Read more »I’m comepletly in love with one of our newest kits.
This gorgeous shawlette is the Dorothy Shawl, designed by Kristen Hanley Cardozo, who is one of my favorite designers. She has been a part of the IDP program for quite a while now and while I always want to knit her patterns, Dorothy has shot to the top of my queue.
Read more »This week, summer finally showed up in the Pacific Northwest – I realize that most of the rest of the country is in a record breaking heat wave but here in Oregon/Washington, it had been quite a chilly, rainy June. But no more! Now with the warmer weather, we are all scrambling to ditch our wool sweater projects and looking for some knitting/crochet projects that we can work on that won’t overheat us and that will be useful, whatever the temperature.
As it happens, Allyson Dykhuizen has a new free pattern that fits perfectly.
This is her Quartet of Headbands – 4 cute and light projects, perfect to knit up & wear immediatly, no matter the weather.
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