Category: Blog

So how do you know which yarn to choose for your project? Well, there are many options. Let’s talk about them.

But first, does it have to be the yarn suggested by the designer? No. No, it does not. But it should probably have some similarities.

The qualities to look for when choosing yarn for your project

Fiber content. What the yarn is made of affects so many things: how to wash it, how it drapes, how it feels, and how it lasts. Try to choose a yarn with a similar fiber content to the one suggested. It doesn’t have to be identical. Just not opposite. For instance, if you’re knitting something lacey or cable-y, choose something you can block to shape, like a wool or cotton. Acrylic will just spring back into its original form and won’t hold blocking. Very sad. (More on blocking later this month.)

If you want something cozy that also breathes, choose wool or superwash wool.

If you want something super drapey, choose bamboo (viscose), silk, or cotton, or a blend that includes them.

If you want something machine washable and dryable, choose acrylic, cotton, bamboo, or superwash wool.

If you want something luscious that will look amazing forever, choose cashmere, wool, silk, or a blend thereof.

If you want something super soft, choose merino (a type of wool), alpaca, cashmere, silk, a nice acrylic, a nice cotton, angora, mohair… The list could go on. There are so many gorgeous yarns out there.

If you want a workhorse yarn for making dishcloths, cheap cotton is the way to go.

If you want a workhorse yarn for making warm outerwear that’ll get dirty and used and worn lots, use any old 100% wool with multiple plies. (Plies are strands all twisted together.) If it’s itchy, it’s okay because it won’t be worn next to the skin.

If you want to make chemo caps or something for sensitive skin, use something soft and luscious with no hairs. Use the “soft” list above, but scratch off alpaca and mohair. They have hairs in them that make many people itch.

If you’re making baby soakers or longies, 100% wool is the only way to go. Keep in mind that wool refers to all animal fibers, not just sheep’s fleece. I love wool, but I’ll have to save my reasons for a different post.

Yarn weight. The term “weight” here actually refers to the yarn’s thickness. You’ll want to find a yarn that’s the same weight as the one the designer recommends. Yarns can also be classified by their gauge: how many stitches per inch they knit up to. The standard North American weights, in order from finest to thickest, are

1. Lace weight
2. Fingering weight or Sock weight
3. Sport weight or Baby weight
4. DK weight or Light Worsted
5. Worsted weight
6. Heavy worsted or aran
7. Bulky
8. Super bulky

Sometimes, they get grouped together, but I really do find there’s a difference between Worsted and Aran. Also, lace weight can be found as super-fine cobweb lace or slightly heavier lace, but they’re all grouped together in one inadequate category.

Colour. This is really a personal choice, so I have only one thing to say: If you’re going to spend hours working an intricate stitch pattern (lace or cables come to mind), don’t use a variegated yarn. All those colours will just drown out your fancy stitches. What a waste.

And those are the basics. A quick primer in yarn choices. Did I miss anything? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

This post is part of my 31 Days to Your Nicest Knitting series. Every day, I’ll post a new tip or trick to make your knitting nicer. You can follow along easily by subscribing. If you have any knitting problems you’d like me to fix, let me know and I’ll try to answer your question as part of the series. You can find all the posts in the series here.

Do you ever get grooves between your purl rows? Or find big, oversized knit stitches randomly scattered throughout your stockinette?

Most of us have knit stockinette stitch and been disappointed when it didn’t look perfectly smooth. On the right side, it looks like every other row of knit stitches is oversized. On the wrong side, there are grooves between the rows. Oh no!

There’s a simple explanation: most of us purl more loosely than we knit.

The way to fix it is a little more complex. Sometimes, just knowing what you’re doing can be enough to make it change. Concentrate on keeping your tension tighter on the purl rows. (If you knit with the yarn in your left hand, loose purls are more likely to happen to you.)

Ways to tighten up those purls

1. Some knitters find that wrapping the yarn under the needle (instead of over the top of the needle) when purling tightens the stitches up. What’s actually happening is that because the yarn is wrapping with less distance, the bagginess of the stitches disappears. Good, right? Yup, totally fine. But just watch out if you do this because wrapping the yarn the opposite direction means that now all your stitches are mounted backwards. So, on the knit row, you’ll have to knit into the backs of the stitches to straighten them up. Otherwise, you’ll end up with every other row of stitches being twisted.
2. Try purling with the other hand. It’ll feel incredibly awkward at first, but it could work. (I first learned to knit as a “thrower” with my right hand, and my purl tension was perfect. Now that I mostly knit continental with my left hand, I have to really tighten up my purls, and they still don’t look quite right half the time. I’m tempted to switch back to the English method just for flat stockinette projects.)
3. Purl onto a smaller needle. You’d have to switch needle sizes for every row, but it might make all the difference.
4. Knit looser and purl the same.
5. If you just can’t knit looser, or you’re concentrating so hard on tightening your purls that now your purls are too tight… Do what I did and just knit AND purl really tight. It was a weird fix, but for me, it worked. The key is to pay attention and adjust what you need to adjust in order to make it work for you.

Now, if your problem isn’t lines of large stitches, but bunches of them scattered all over the place, that’s something else entirely.

Random, large, loose stitches scattered throughout your stockinette are caused by the way you move your stitches along as you knit them.

If you tend to knit a whole pile of stitches until they’re all bunched up together on your right-hand needle and you absolutely must push them along so you have more space to knit… well, you’re creating a tension problem.

If you knit with your stitches spread so far apart that you can barely slip them off the left needle tip because they’re so far away… you’re creating a tension problem.

Those bunched-up or spread-out stitches are giving more and less yarn to different stitches as you knit them. The goal is to give every stitch the same amount of yarn.

To fix this, keep your stitches comfortably moving along at a steady pace. Don’t stretch them apart. Let them stay at a relaxed, easy distance. Don’t bunch them together. Keep them moving.

I use my right thumb to push my stitches along the right-hand needle after they’ve been knit, and my left thumb to move stitches up to the left needle tip to be knit. You might choose to use your fingers or whatever. Just keep them shuffling along at a steady pace. It’s okay to do this every 3 or 4 stitches or so, but every 10 stitches is too many. Make sense? Your hands will find a nice rhythm after a little while, and before you know it, you won’t even have to think about tension anymore.

You may also need to make sure you’re keeping your working yarn (the strand in your hand that’s attached to the ball) at an even tension. Every knitter tensions their yarn slightly differently. Some of us loop it around our little fingers, some hold it between fingers or clench it in a curled-up finger… Just be aware of what you’re doing so you can troubleshoot and see if you need to try a new method for tensioning your yarn. Like any new skill, it might feel awkward at first. But if it gets you nice results, keep doing it until you develop your muscle memory. Then, your fingers will do it for you.

What do you think? Does your tension need work? What has worked or not worked for you in the past? Leave me a comment and let me know.

This post is part of my 31 Days to Your Nicest Knitting series. Every day, I’ll post a new tip or trick to make your knitting nicer. You can follow along easily by subscribing. If you have any knitting problems you’d like me to fix, let me know and I’ll try to answer your question as part of the series. You can find all the posts in the series here.

I use this trick all the time when I’m knitting in the round. It is my number one, always-given bit of advice in my classes, too. I learned it from Cat Bordhi originally because she’s awesome.

Here it is:

Every time you change needles (when using DPN’s, 2 circular needles, or Magic Loop), work the first 2 stitches, then give the working yarn a good tug to tighten them up.

Tugging after working just one stitch doesn’t help. It’ll just get loose again. But if you tug after knitting two stitches, they keep each other snug.

Ladders (loose, horizontal bars of yarn between columns of stitches) are formed because gravity pulls on the needles, which pull on the knitting where they meet and loosen things up. Even if you knit with a constant tension, the needles will make the ladders happen if you don’t do this extra step. Giving the first two stitches a tug is essential. It won’t make your knitting too tight unless you go crazy with pulling. A nice, quick tug on the working yarn will do the trick.

This technique also works great when knitting flat. Work the first two stitches of the row, give the yarn a tug, and keep going. Your edges will be nice and neat and even from now on.

I also do this when I’m working short rows. After doing the wrap and turn (or whatever method I’m favoring that day), I work the first two stitches, then give them a tug.

It’s also perfect for making tidy I-cords.

Basically, every time you turn your work or start a on new needle for any reason, give the first two stitches a tug.

This post is part of my 31 Days to Your Nicest Knitting series. Every day, I’ll post a new tip or trick to make your knitting nicer. You can follow along easily by subscribing. If you have any knitting problems you’d like me to fix, let me know and I’ll try to answer your question as part of the series. You can find all the posts in the series here.

If you’re a knitter who loves little tips that make your knitting look better, or that make your life easier, then I hope you’ll join me for this new series: A tip a day for the month of October to get you to your nicest knitting possible!

I don’t know about you, but I love knitting. I knit every day. But I hate it when I spend a ton of time time on a project and it ends up living at the bottom of my sweater drawer. It’s so disappointing, and I feel so guilty about wasting all that pretty yarn, and yet the thought of ripping it all out makes me cringe…

But, I’m happy to say that that hardly ever happens to me anymore. I’ve learned so many great tips from books and teachers and friends over the years. What I want to do this month is send you one of those little insights every day. One tiny tip in your inbox (if you’re a subscriber) or here on the blog that will help you take your knitting up a notch. Maybe even relieve a little frustration. Knitting should be fun and relaxing, after all.

What inspired this sudden series? Well, I have writer friends. And a bunch of them are participating in this “Write 31 Days” challenge, so of course I went and read all about it. And it sucked me right in. I’ve been meaning to compile all my favourite tips and tricks for knitting in one place, so why not do them one at a time, every day, for the month of October? The point is to write every day, but to make it short and sweet. So that’s what I’ll be doing.

You can expect to learn about things like sewing in ends, joining new colours, eliminating ladders and weird tension, getting gauge, choosing increases & decreases when the pattern is vague, and more.

You’ll be able to find all the tips together in one place right here for a while. (I may eventually put them together into a handy ebook. One thing at a time, right?)

So here’s where we can have some fun. If you have any knitting woes, questions, conundrums, or favourite bits of advice, send them to me. I’ll include them in the series. By the end of October, I want you to feel like your knitting has improved and you’ve learned at least one good thing that you didn’t know before.

So, what problem do you want me to fix for you this month? Leave me a request in the comments.