I have never been able to master the long tail cast on. I can’t figure out how long to make the tail. And I either end up with not enough or too much left over. So this provisional cast on is great. It is like making a crochet chain over your needle. Here is a video that shows you how.
Category: tip of the day
It’s Time to Take Care of Your Spinning Wheel
When fall turns to winter, it’s time to get out your wheel and do some maintenance. If fact at each change of seasons you should do some care and feeding of your equipment.
What should you do?
- Change the leaders on your bobbins
- Oil all the moving parts
- Treat your wheel with wax or lemon oil
Watch the video to find out more:
TOTW: Keeping your Patterns
Do you print out your patterns? I have some I have printed and some I have bought. And I needed a way to organize these and keep track of them. I borrowed my system from a customer. She always carries her notebook to shows or to stores so she has all the information about the patterns she wants to make next.
Watch this video to see the system….. Click here to download the dividers for your own pattern notebook
Three Yarnie Apps I Really Love
**Disclaimer: I have not received any compensation for this blog. I truly love these apps and use them personally. The opinions are mine alone.
There are 3 yarnie apps on my phone that I simply can not live without. I have to say that these are mostly knitting oriented and so I apologize to my crocheting friends. I simply don’t crochet myself, so I don’t have that frame of reference. I’d love to hear about apps that you use that would be helpful for my readers.
- Stash Bot–This app is a great little reference to have in your pocket at a fiber festival or a yarn store. I will give you the approximate yardage needed for knitted garments. You need to know the size of garment and an approximate gauge of the garment. Then it will dial in the number of yards that you need. I believe that it is a paid app, but it was well worth the money.
- KnitCompanion–This app is a way to see the PDF’s of your patterns without all the paper. I just use the free version and it is amazing!! It will automatically upload the PDF’s of patterns in your Ravelry library. And you can keep track of where you are with the vertical and horizontal lines. It is great to use when reading charts. There are also many stitch and row counters that you can use as well. I love this app!!
- StitchCounter–This app does just that. It will help you count stitches or rows. It is simple to use and so convenient. You always have it in your purse or pocket.
what to do with all those leftover bits
I have so many baskets and vases filled with little bits of yarn leftover from this project or that one. Do you have those too? I bet you do.
What to do with them? Here’s a video that highlights one way that you might want to bring those bits back into a useful life.
Those bits can be used to make scrappy socks or a strippy sweater or a granny square afghan or a jelly roll knitted blanket. I think they would even be fun to use in an entrelac project.
When you have your bits organized by color and by weight, you are ready to just pick it up and make something that you will love. This is all part of the push to use our resources wisely. Happy Making!!
TOTW: Up Your Color IQ
I hear crafters talking all the time about having a hard time picking colors for projects. Especially those large multiskein projects with requirements for spreckles and gradients and variegated colors. As usual I’m here to help. At a festival or during our month open studio, I’ll help you pick colors that will make that project really shine. But when you are on your own, I have some suggestions as well.
First of all watch this video. I talk about a sure fire way to up your color IQ. My answer to use Pinterest. Make a color inspiration board and start pinning photos that really excite you. Photos that you love. DO NOT pin yarn. Nope. Pin photos of landscapres or animals or flowers or closeups. Pin 4-6 photos a day for a week or two. This will help you to define your color style.
And if you are interested in learning more about color, listen to my podcasts from Season 2 Episodes 6-9. You can find links here.
TOTW: Video Tips for Spinners
It’s Tour de Fleece right now. We are in the last week. There are many challenge days as the cyclists are in the Pyrennes, climbing up and racing down mountains. I am hignlighting some tips for handspinners. These originate during my FaceBook Live presentations (Thursdays at 1pm on the Flying Goat Farm Page).
In this video I talk about how to manage your fiber when making a large project, such as a sweater or spinning an entire fleece.
And here is a video about pre-drafting. I know that this is a controversial topic. I pre-draft nearly everything that I spin. In this video, I tell you why I do it and why you should too.
TOTW: Why you need to knit gauge switches the same way you will knit the garment
I KNOW!!! You don’t want to do a gauge swatch. But in reality there are some good reasons to do that. Especially when you are making a garment that needs to fit. In this video, I’m sharing the way that I make a gauge swatch that will give me the MOST information. This is particularly important if you are making a garment from handspun yarn. The Tour de Fleece is going on right now. It’s day 3 in fact, only18 more days to go. Many of us are spinning to make a wearable item. You knit swatch will give you information on the gauge, right? But it will also give you information about how a lace or cable section might look. It will also give you a swatch that you can use to see if this is going to be the kind of garment you can wear next to the skin or if you need an undergarment too. So I hope you watch this video and learn some lessons that I’ve learned through trial and a bunch of errors!!
Tip and Trick: Help with Reading Charts
In this installment of Tips and Tricks, I tell you about one of my favorite ways to keep track of my progress in a chart. I show you the highlighter tape that I use. It is important to make the pattern easy for you to follow so that you have a fun and more stress free time knitting. So even if a designer doesn’t think you need a modification, you can still do it for you! Embrace what you need and keep the fun in knitting!!
Tip of the Day: Let’s Avoid Yarn Chicken
Each week I am LIVE on Facebook at 1pm on Thursday. During my time with you, I let you know what is going on around the farm. My community is also my accountability partner, so I show you my latest project’s project and make a new goal for next week. But probably the most fun for me is talking about a tip or trick for knitting or spinning or making. Here’s where to find my Thursday Threads LIVE
Last month my tip of the day was how to avoid Yarn Chicken. And I also gave you an idea about what to do if you run out of yarn before you really want to be done. I hope you enjoy it!!