Look Before You Leap: Working “At the Same Time”
February 8th, 2010
Every once in a while, I find myself working happily along on a pattern when I’m suddenly confronted with an instruction or abbreviation that completely throws me. It’s not too bad if it’s something I can work out and then continue on, but occasionally I find that I’ve worked past a certain point where I was supposed to begin doing something else and I end up having to rip back. And while there is no shame in ripping, there is a good deal of annoyance when the ripping is caused by my plunging ahead, recklessly ignoring the concept of reading the pattern through before starting.
Before you even work your gauge swatch, maybe even before you decide for sure this is what you want to make, you should read the entire pattern through. This is a great time to circle all of the numbers for the size you’re working on, make sure you understand all of the abbreviations in the pattern, and look for instructions like “AT THE SAME TIME.”
If you find abbreviations you’re not sure of, take a look at the “Abbreviations/References” table at the end of the pattern, and if you don’t see the instruction there, check the “Stitch Explanation” section near the top of the pattern.
For instructions like “AT THE SAME TIME” you will want to read all the way through that set of instructions, noting at which point you are to begin working those instructions. In fact, let’s talk a bit about just what that instruction means.
You will usually see this in a pattern that requires a good deal of shaping, like a sweater. Take a look at the schematic for a sweater front, and you’ll see that much of the neck and armhole shaping will be taking place on opposite ends of the same rows. In an effort to avoid confusion, the instructions for shaping the armhole and the instructions for shaping the neck will be written out separately and then joined with the “AT THE SAME TIME” instruction.
What you need to do is note where you are to begin working that second set of directions. Usually this is a measurement or point in the stitch pattern, and will be indicated just after AT THE SAME TIME, for example “AT THE SAME TIME, when piece measures 17 (17, 17 1/2, 17 1/2, 18, 18) in. (43 (43, 44.5, 44.5, 45.5, 45.5) cm) from beg…” You will then be instructed to start working on the next instruction. The trick here is to continue working the first shaping instructions while beginning the new instructions. Don’t be thrown off by things like being told to work the first shaping a certain number of times — you will keep counting those repeats, but you won’t have completed them all before beginning the AT THE SAME TIME instructions.
Once you’ve taken a look at the bigger pattern picture, you’ll be ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy the process of creating a beautiful project, one stitch at a time.
Help Children in Need: afghans for Afghans’ Youth Campaign
February 8th, 2010
Our friends at “afghans for Afghans”, a charity that donates handknit and crocheted items to the people of Afghanistan, is collecting donations of wool (or other animal fiber) sweaters, vests, mittens, and socks for their Youth Campaign. The shipment is going out in March so all donation must be received on or before March 1. Please consider whipping up a pair of mittens or socks in the next couple weeks and send it to the afghans for Afghan’s San Francisco collection center. If you are up for a challenge, consider finishing up a hibernating UFO or starting a child’s vest to send. Your wool gift will mean one more boy or girl is comfortable and warm in the harsh winters. Afghans for Afghans is looking for knits for boys and girls ages 7-14.
Click here for more information about the afghans for Afghans Youth Campaign. For general guidelines, including fiber requirements, and the mailing address please click here.
Giant Knit & Crochet Animals!
February 6th, 2010
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Lion Brand unveiled a giant menagerie of exotic animals made of yarn at the Craft and Hobby Association convention in Anaheim, California last week.
These one-of-a-kind animals were created from a variety of our yarns available at Wal-Mart and retail craft chains including Jo-Ann and Michaels. The yarns, including Homespun, Fishermen’s Wool, Vanna’s Choice and Fun Fur, were combined in unique ways to create the extraordinary textures and designs of the animals. The animals were placed imaginative “habitat” settings including a rocky surface, a flowering bush and a tall grass—all created with yarn.
The giraffe is 8 feet tall and the snake is 40 feet long. In the photos you can see the development of this project from concept to the creation and finished pieces.
We had a great time at the show, watching the amazed expressions on the faces of people who visited our booth. Many of them stopped to take pictures of themselves with their favorite creature.
Inishturk Sweater Knit-Along: Visual Patterns - Charts
February 4th, 2010
I can remember over 20 years ago when I was in college (and working part-time in a yarn shop!) that some knitting stitch patterns were starting to written in chart form. I had always knitted cable and lace patterns with instructions that wrote out what to do row by row. I was used to doing that, but once I learned how to read charts, I found them to actually be much easier to follow. Quite a few of you have asked for charts for the stitch patterns in the Inishturk sweater pattern since they were not included. I knew I would like them, too. So, this week we have charts for the 3 larger cable patterns.
I’ve decided to include a little tutorial about how to read charts for those of you who have never tried them. So, below is a chart for Cable C:
This chart is a visual of the written instructions for Cable C. You can see that row numbers 1 and 3 are on the right of the chart and rows 2 and 4 are on the left. So, for row 1 (the RS) you will work the chart from right to left. Then, row 2 (WS) is read from left to right. (For those of you who are working this sweater in the round, you will read every row of the chart from right to left, because you are going in a circle!)
Alright, each square is a stitch and depending whether you are on the right side or wrong side of your piece, will determine how you read the symbols that go with the chart. The symbols for these charts are can be found here [PDF; must have Adobe Reader (free at adobe.com) to open].
The stitches that are empty are worked as knit stitches on the right side and as purl stitches on the wrong side. The purl stitches that are indicated by a” - “on the right side are knit on the wrong side. So, now all you need to match up is the symbols to the cables on the charts. There are a lot of different variations of 2, 3, and 4 stitch cables in this pattern, so just match them carefully to each other to see which stitches are knit, purled and whether you hold that cable needle to the front or the back.
OK, so here is the chart for Panel A (As always, you can click outlined images, like the ones below, to enlarge):
And…ta-da, the chart for Panel B (Again, click the image to enlarge):
So, for those of you who have been wanting these charts - enjoy! I always find it always helps to enlarge those charts as you are working them. For those of you who have never done a chart, give it a try and you may find you like these visual instructions!
Related links:
- Inishturk Sweater Knit-Along: Beyond the Ribbing & Sorting Out the Pattern
- Inishturk Sweater Knit-Along: Choose Your Yarn & Make a Swatch
- Announcing Our Winter 2010 Knit-Along!
Get more support at:
The Perfect Leftovers Project
February 3rd, 2010
After completing a small project with Amazing, I was left with about 20 small balls in various colors, each ranging from about 5-15 yards in length. With such short lengths of yarn, I decided the best thing to do would be to make a striped scarf. I used this Brooklyn Tweed scarf as inspiration and cast on 25 stitches. I then worked in a 1×1 rib, alternating between colors every 2 rows. When I used up an entire ball, I simply changed to another. The result is a beautiful mixture of the Mesa, Olympia, Wildflowers, Ruby, and Aurora colorways. While I only used small amounts of leftover yarn, the finished scarf measures about 3.5 inches wide by 60 inches long. I love how the finished scarf shows off both the vibrant brights and delicate muted tones. Best of all, I’ve used up all of the small leftovers that were sitting around my desk! I did have to weave in a lot of ends, but the completed scarf made it all worthwhile.
Did You Know…? How to Locate Stores Carrying Lion Brand in Your Area
February 3rd, 2010
Did you know that you can use our website to find stores in your neighborhood that sell Lion Brand yarns?
It’s very simple. Let me show you how - go to LionBrand.com and in the lower left hand corner of the page, enter your zip code. For example, I entered ‘07603′. Once you’ve entered your zip code, click search.
On clicking search, the Store Locater will show you stores that sell Lion Brand yarns around the zip code you entered. Each Lion Brand icon represents a local store that carries Lion Brand yarns. In this example, there ten stores around 07603 that sell Lion Brand yarns. Simply click on the closest Lion Brand icon from the blue pin to reveal the name of the store and its address. AC Moore seems to be the closest store.
When you click on the ‘Click for directions’ link shown above, you’ll be directed to a page that will even give you driving directions to that store from the zip code you entered!
Now that you know how to use the Store Locator, you’ll always know the closest place to purchase your favorite Lion Brand yarns. Go ahead and give it a try.
Have you used our Store Locator before? Have you found it useful? Please tell us about your experience. We love hearing from you!
Fiber Arts Abroad: Yarn-Spotting in Israel
February 2nd, 2010
While traveling in Israel recently, I came across a couple wonderful fiber displays. Working in Lion Brand’s NYC offices above the Lion Brand Yarn Studio, I get to see the creative use of yarn for the window display on a regular basis. I always love seeing other retailers use yarn in displays, and I was even more excited to see yarn used for a retail display in Jerusalem! The bright colors draped from branches and dropped into shopping bags lining the bottom of the window.
A week later while roaming the narrow sidewalks of Jaffa, I came across a fiber art gallery. As in the picture below, all the art was felted, from the initial felted “canvas” to the yarn details felted over it.
On a trip with lots of site-seeing and very little time to knit, the occasional fiber-arts spotting was especially comforting.
Related Links:
Sneak Peak: Discover the NEW YarnPlay Newsletter
February 2nd, 2010
This is Vanessa. What is she making, you ask? Find out in this month’s issue of our BRAND NEW monthly e-newsletter, YarnPlay!
So just what is it about? YarnPlay is full of irreverent and out-of-the-box ideas. It’s about creative projects for the young and the young at heart. Join the YarnPlayers each month, as we take knitting, crocheting, and yarncrafts to a whole new level!
How do you get YarnPlay? If you were already subscribed to BK4K, our newsletter for kids and those who craft with them that ended last month, you are automatically subscribed to YarnPlay. You can also get it by simply logging into your LionBrand.com account and clicking here to add it to your subscriptions!
Hope you’ll join us for the fun!
Runway Styles with Vanna White
February 1st, 2010
Our annual fashion show is one of the highlights of our year. Featuring avant-garde concept pieces, as well as wearable fashions, it’s a fun and fantastic show, featuring America’s favorite crocheter, Vanna White.
Check out this short video from The Orange County Register, with footage of our annual fashion show and an interview with Vanna — and keep your eye out for more from the fashion show, later this month on the blog!
Look out for some of these patterns in the upcoming year!
[Viewing this blog post in your e-mail? Please click on the title of the blog post to be taken to the website to view the video. Having trouble watching the video? Click here to go to the Orange County Register's website. Must have Adobe Flash activated to watch video.]
Inishturk Sweater Knit-Along: Beyond the Ribbing & Sorting Out Patterns
January 28th, 2010
It has been a lot of fun to see so many of you already starting the Inishturk Sweater and sharing your ideas and experiences with the rest of us. Probably the hardest part of this sweater is the part I’m going to talk about today - going from the ribbing into all those cable patterns!
I found working the ribbing went just fine until I saw that I had to increase 22 stitches on that last ribbing row (which is a WS row). I’m making this pattern in the medium size that had me working 106 stitches for the ribbing. So I took my handy, dandy calculator and divided 106 by 22 and found out I should increase a stitch every 4.8181818 stitches! OK, that is pretty close to one increase every 5 stitches, so looking at the ribbing, I decided I would mark 22 of the ribs with pins — skipping one here and there. Then I just increased at the top of these ribs. I know that increasing doesn’t have to be perfectly even for this pattern, but they should be fairly evenly worked across that row. I worked my increases as “make 1” (m1) increases, but I also could have just knit into the front and back of those 22 stitches to increase, and that would be fine for this pattern. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t have “holes” where I made my increases (which would happen if you worked your increases as yarn overs).
So, I finally had my 128 stitches to work my patterns. I carefully worked the set-up row and the following row which had me just knitting the knit stitches and purling the purl stitches. Then on Row 3 of the back, with stitch markers in hand, I carefully worked that row, placing stitch markers on my needle on each side of the larger cable patterns. Until these patterns are established (and even after that!) these markers will make sure that my patterns will line up - and just make knitting them a whole lot easier.
Another way I sorted out the patterns was to place different color markers on my needle on the side of each type of cable. Then I wrote down the color and corresponding cable on a sticky note and attached it to my pattern.
This sweater is a beautiful combination of some very different, but traditional Aran cable patterns. However, not only do these patterns have a different number of stitches, but rows as well! Some of you have been keeping track of that with Excel or another spreadsheet program — but here’s something to remember: the largest of these panels (Panel B) has 16 rows. All the other patterns have row repeats that go into 16: some have 2 rows, some have 4 rows, and Panel A has 8 rows. What this means is: every time I start Row 1 of that large Panel B, I should also be on Row 1 of all the other patterns.
Now as for that center Panel B — I have been following the row instructions written, but I do love charts. So, I’ve decided that this week I will make charts and share them with you next week. For those of you who have never worked charts before, I’ll include a little tutorial on how to do that as well. Meantime, keep those stitch markers and row counters at hand!
Don’t have a row counter? If you go to the pattern on LionBrand.com, you’ll notice that there’s a built-in row-counter right on the pattern page! It’s handy if you are working on your sweater near a computer OR on a mobile device.
Related links:
- Inishturk Sweater Knit-Along: Choose Your Yarn & Make a Swatch
- Announcing Our Winter 2010 Knit-Along
Get more support at:
