27 February 2011

Hi Folks

I sneaked away for a long and well deserved vacation (well at least in my opinion it was deserved).

Yes, I did get some knitting done. I have created a design for a Bermuda Project. All that are going on the Bermuda trip will have a project to do to remember the trip by.

While knitting the example for the Bermuda trip I ran into a common problem that can occur when knitting with cotton yarn, linen, etc. Your needle separates the strands and pierces the yarn easily. This can be quite annoying.

The solution is quite simple – start knitting from the other end of the ball of yarn. What is happening as you knit, and find that you pierce the yarn easily, is that with each throw if the yarn you are untwisting the yarn ever so slightly. Well, this adds up and you end up with a loose collection of plies.

By changing the end you knit from, your throw will wind the yarn up instead making the yarn's twist tighten instead of loosen and piercing will, for the most part, go away.

So simple.