The Knit Picks Staff Knitting Blog

by Knit Picks Staff on February 21, 2011

Let me show it to you…

Can you believe how beautiful it is? Aloft
is a blend of 75% mohair and 25% silk and it will leave you wanting to
knit with it over and over again. The silk adds a radiant core that
shimmers and shines through the soft halo of mohair, all the while
adding a beautiful drape and texture to any project. Our team fell
head-over-heals in love with the line the moment we first saw the
sample. The Knit Picks Director – Alison – couldn’t keep us out of her
office because we all wanted to keep touching it! It’s just so yummy!

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Tags: New Products, News, Yarn

Winners of the Knit. Sock. Love. Contest!

by Jenny K on February 21, 2011

Thank you to everyone who participated in this giveaway! We had some
really fun comments and everyone seemed really inspired by all of the sock love thanks to Cookie A’s wonderful designs.
Unfortunately, we were only able to pick three winners. To select our
winners, we used a random number generator that chose our winners based on the number of their comment.
Our winners!
#22 – Julie H.
I would love this book!

#566 – Debby
I think her socks are amazing and I would love to win this book! Thanks for the opportunity to try to win.

#1306 – Nicole I.
I LOVE Cookie’s socks, the patterns are written so well that it feels
almost like I am getting a lesson on sock knitting! I chose one of her
patterns for my first socks actually, and saw it through to completion
with total success. This book features a drop dead beautiful collection
and it would find a loving home …

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Tags: Contest, Fun, News

Knit. Sock. Love. Giveaway!

by Knit Picks Staff on February 21, 2011

This contest is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone who participated! To find out who won, click here.

Socks are wonderful for so many reasons. They are small and portable,
they are an excuse to try out new techniques and you get to use crazy
colors that you wouldn’t normally pick out for your knitting! If you are
a sock knitter, I am sure you are well aware of sock designer
extraordinaire Cookie A. In honor of our love for socks and Valentine’s
Day, we are giving away 3 copies of Knit. Sock. Love.

Cookie A. has once again filled another sock book to the brim with
interesting textures, shapes and designs – all of which are set against
gorgeous photography that is bright, playful and just plain fun.

Right
away, my eye was drawn to the section of the book devoted to the
diagonals. I just love how these lines seemingly go against and cut
right through the vertical sensibility of socks. At first glance, the
diagonal bands that meander over and across the socks may leave you with
a feeling of “how’d they do that?” but these are the kinds of questions
and design elements that are explored in Knit. Sock. Love.

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Tags: Books, Contest, Fun, News

Podcast Episode 153: Entrelac-tastic!

by Knit Picks Podcast on February 17, 2011

Alison interviews Rosemary Drysdale, author of Entrelac: The Essential Guide to Interlace Knitting. Hear Alison and Kerin chat about designing with entrelac, how to use this technique as well as handy tips and tricks. Stacey interviews IDP designer Michele Bernstein about how she got her start designing and the inspiration behind her Lacy Entrelac Infinity Scarf.
Books Reviewed
Alison reviews the book Entrée to Entrelac by Gwen Bortner.

3 easy ways to listen…

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Tags: Podcast

Bathroom makeover – crochet bathmat

by Alison on February 16, 2011

My husband Dan and I bought our first house last year at the end of February, and the upcoming anniversary of our move has prompted a rash of home improvement fixes of the “What do you mean, you never finished the (insert project name here)?” type.

Our bathroom needed major work when we moved in: new flooring, new
shower surround tile, new drywall, new paint, new cupboards. We’ve been
working on it in fits and starts, but in the last two or three months
we’ve finally gotten to the point where we could start thinking of
comfort or style instead of just function. I found a cotton voile print that I really liked and put it up over the existing linen curtain as a temporary fix, but ended up liking it so much that I wanted to pull the colors into the rest of the room.

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Tags: crochet, Finished Objects

Sockhead Hat

by Alison on February 15, 2011

I’ve been trying to actually use my handspun instead of, well, hoarding it in bins. I tend to treat my handspun as a finished project instead of like yarn to be knit (or crocheted, or woven), and it’s starting to overtake my craft room.

This yarn was one of my very first handspun skeins. I had some undyed superwash merino roving that I had gotten from a friend, and I tried dyeing it using the instructions I found on the Yarn Harlot’s blog. I was nervous about the roving floating apart and the colors mixing into a muddle, so I chose these instructions because they involved stuffing the roving into pantyhose in order to keep it from moving around in the pot. I used squeeze bottles filled with Jacquard dye solution to paint the roving (right through the old pantyhose), wrapped the weird sausages in plastic wrap, then steamed them over boiling water.

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Tags: Finished Objects, spinning

Yarn in progress

by Alison on February 11, 2011

I’ve been dyeing a ton of fiber lately! I think it’s because the weather has been so cold, dyeing just seems like a way to make Crafty Soup. 🙂

I’m a big fan of our Bare Wool of the Andes fiber for a couple of reasons. First, it’s really easy to spin because the Peruvian wool is a little grippy and lets you control it easily. Next, it comes in 100g bundles which are the perfect size for the bobbins on my Kromski Polonaise – I know that one bundle will fill one bobbin perfectly. Finally, it’s really inexpensive so I can mess around in the dye pot and try strange and/or challenging blends of colors without worrying about being out a pile of cash.

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Tags: spinning

Bits and pieces

by Kelley on February 10, 2011

When my sister returned from a trip to England last November, she sent me a ball of natural wool that she picked up as a gift. Did I mention that my sister does not knit? The single ball of yarn was your big hint. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister and I love that she thought of me. But, a single ball of heavy worsted yarn does provide a bit of a challenge. No wonder it had been sitting in my stash until a couple of weeks ago when the son of a dear friend asked me to knit him a hat. Bingo!

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Tags: Inspiration

Needle organization idea

by Alison on February 10, 2011

Just a little shout-out to Ravelry user halesje (Ravelry link) who had a clever idea for organizing DPNs. She found a makeup brush organizer in clear acrylic that looks great with our Knit Picks interchangeable needle stand and filled it with her DPN collection. I liked the look of it so much I went ahead and ordered the same brush organizer for my own craft room. It’s now sitting on a shelf next to my three prototype needle stands, a coffee mug filled with crochet hooks, and a small bamboo steamer that organizes my cables into short, medium, and long.

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Tags: Inspiration

Good For Goodness’ Sake

by Knit Picks Staff on February 9, 2011

Funny Alisha mentioned hats and charity in her last post – those two
things are near and dear to me! In fact, at the end of January, I
shipped off 25 little baby hats to a local medical charity.

All of these hats are made out of Swish Worsted (except for three – one in Stroll and two in Comfy). They are super simple, quick and cute,
and use only a little yarn. All of the yarn for these was scraps from
other projects that would have been destined for the garbage or a long,
lonely wait in some random scrap bin. But, I saw other potential in the
yarn. Even a few grams would be enough for a stripe in a hat this small!

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly amassed a pretty good collection of
these scraps, and have found that charity knitting is the perfect use
for them.

Got scraps? Keep reading for a free baby hat pattern!

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Tags: charity, Inspiration, Knit Picks Designers

This contest is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone who participated! To find out who won, click here.

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