Advanced Cabling Techniques: Increasing & Decreasing Cables

So far in our Advanced Cabling Techniques video series, we have covered how to add a splash of color to your cables with intarsia cabling and how to create interlocking cable textures with multiple crossing cables. And just what else can you do with cables? How about adding in a bit of shaping!

For our third video in this series, we show you how to create both increasing and decreasing cables. This technique allows you to shape your cables to grow larger or smaller, letting you create unique and interesting cable patterns. I think increasing and decreasing cables have a lot of potential as interesting design elements on a hat or sweater. In addition to their distinctive look, there are also many clever ways you can incorporate increasing and decreasing cables into your knitting! If that cabled cardigan or Aran sweater is a bit too boxy, simply add in a few increasing and decreasing cables for a bit of clever waist shaping, and voila! A nice, flattering cabled sweater!

Check out the third video installment of our Advanced Cabling Techniques to start creating cables with shaping!

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Crochet Away Your Peculiar Insecurity, in Sixty Minutes or Less!

I wear a lot stuff around my neck, a fact that I only fully grasped during a recent clothing cull. I mercifully stopped counting after the twentieth scarf but, even so, it all seems excessive until you consider my persistence in wearing them. The very unstudied guess here is that I wear scarves, say, 90% of the time. Now while I could claim that it’s an aesthetic sensibility or just plain cozy, most likely it’s because I find my neck rather long and goofy looking. I mean, is that too strange? Is that totally unheard of? At least I’m not complaining about my nail beds.

Whatever the reason behind it all, now’s my time! I’m the annoying person who likes annoying weather and it’s bulky scarf season.

 

NeckwarmerCloseUp

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Podcast Episode 173: Creative Colorwork

This week, Kelley chats with Kim about her newfound love of colorwork
knitting and all fo the fun projects she has been creating using this
technique. Next up, Kelley reviews the books, Exploring Color in
Knitting by Sarah Hazell and Emma King as well as Mastering Color
Knitting by Melissa Leapman, both of which are helpful resources for any
colorwork knitting project. Kelley also shares a helpful tool for
colorwork knitting that you can take with you no matter where you go –
Color Snap! This is an app available for iphones, blackberry, and
android phones that allows you to take pictures and translate them into a
color palette. Finally, Kelley catches you up on her roadtrip down to
Mexico as well as the progress on her strash re-organization project.
Books & Tools Reviewed:
Exploring Color in
Knitting by Sarah Hazell and Emma KingMastering Color
Knitting by Melissa Leapman       Color Snap – iphone/blackberry/android app
 
3 easy ways to listen…
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It’s Cyber Monday time again!

I don’t know about you, but Black Friday for me means being lazy & laying around in my pajamas, recovering from Thanksgiving, not running around to a bunch of stores – I leave that to my sister who looks forward to it every year. (Of course my feelings may have something to do with my many years of having to work in retail on the day after (US) Thanksgiving). But I like nothing better than an online sale – which means Cyber Monday is perfect for my style of shopping!  No pushing & shoving involved!

This year our Cyber Monday sale will start at 6 am PST on Monday,
11/28/11 so that nobody has to stay up all night or wake up at 3 in the
morning to get the best deals. Book mark this special landing page – Cyber Monday – and check back Monday morning for some great deals!

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Wintery Freebie Friday

So, for those of you in the US, did you go out shopping for Black Friday deals this morning? Or are you like me and spending your day lazing around, recovering from Thanksgiving?  I’m actually going to be working on holiday gifts – in fact, we have two free patterns by our own Melissa that are a lot of fun & perfect quick gifts to work on this weekend!

First we have a trio of Snowmen!

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and the winner is…

Thank you so much for all your responses to the Knits that Fit contest!

It was fun reading your comments! I’m sorry we didn’t have more books to send out to you! We have randomly chosen two people to receive a copy.  Congratulations to:


Winner #1 – Thressa
!

who said: I would finally be able to make myself a sweater.

and
Winner #2 – Kim!
who said: Ooh me!

We will be sending each of you a copy of Knits that Fit.
Thank you again to everyone who participated. We love hearing from you!

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Win Your Wish List Contest Winners!

Thank you to everyone who entered this year’s Win
Your Wish List contest- we had over 4,800 entries in just one week! We
selected three participants at random as the winners. Congratulations toTara Paine, Rebecca Bryant, and Kara McIntosh! These three lucky knitters each won $50 worth of goodies from their wish lists.
It’s fun to see what’s on everyone’s wish list this year. You can visit this page to get a peek at Knit Picks’ most wished for items. Of course, the staff here at Knit Picks wanted to get in on the fun too. Since they couldn’t enter the
contest, they’ve made their own wish list. We hope all your holiday wishes come true this year and thanks again to everyone who participated.

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Fana, Faroe or Fair Isle?

I’ve just completed about half a year of knitting for charity,
family, and pretty much anyone who isn’t me. When I told my husband that
what I really wanted for my birthday this year was to knit something
for myself, he emphatically agreed! (and of course added that he wants
something too.)

I want a new sweater. Not that I don’t have a bunch already, but there’s just something awesome about new
things, you know? I went into my craft room and saw my completely insane
stash and immediately drew a blank. With so many choices, what should I
knit? So I implore you, dear reader, to help me decide!

So far this year I’ve knit myself a Setesdal-inspired sweater, a
colorwork yoked sweater, a lace panel cardigan, and a stranded pullover
with Turkish-inspired patterning.

So, what next?

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Choosing a Contrast Color

I have a significant, documented obsession with Jared Flood’s Turn a Square hat pattern.  Whenever I’m in the mood for instant gratification and a not-too-hard-but-not-too-simple project, it’s my go-to for a basic watchman’s cap with a nicely shaped crown.

For these hats, I had a lonely skein of self-striping yarn in my stash (I think it’s Merino, it didn’t have a label).  I knit up a quick hat using the Wool of the Andes worsted in Mink Heather as the contrast color, making a small dent in my stash and leaving me with more than 50% of my mystery self-striping yarn.

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