Craftzine.com blog: Cozy Up to Yarn Archives

Archive: Cozy Up to Yarn

October 5, 2009

Lion Brand Yarn Studio Window

Andrea of the Lion Brand Yarn Studio (34 W. 15th Street, NY) is busy knitting a scarf for The Partnership for the Homless. If you are in NY, stop by and check out the staffers who will be knitting or crocheting in the window display each day through November 22nd. Then stop inside and get your supplies to knit a hat or scarf to benefit the great cause.

From our previous CRAFT post:

From now until December 1st, let the staff know you are working on a hat or scarf for the charity and you'll get 10% off all yarn, hooks, needles, and supplies. Once you finish making all your hats and scarves, drop them off at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. As a thank you, you'll receive a 20% off coupon for your next purchase.

October 1, 2009

How-To: Recycle a Sweater for Yarn

Shortly after I learned how to knit I read about how one could recycle a sweater for the yarn. Sweet! Cheap yarn I thought! I went to the Salvation Army and picked out a sweater I thought would be good for recycling. Huge, an XXXL, and 100% cotton. It was all cream colored and pretty nice. I took it home and gave it my best shot. Which failed pretty miserably at first. I wasted so much yarn that first time around. I still got enough to make into a sizable bath mat. I used the pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting (what a great knitting book).

After a whole lot of trial and error over the last three years, I've been able to get the recycling of sweaters down pretty well.

First you need to pick out a good sweater.

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September 30, 2009

Sarah London's Wool Eater Blanket

This Wool Eater blanket looks so very complicated, but Sarah London's instructions make it seem easy. The colors are quite inspiring, and the texture is to die for!

Knit Your Own Team Logo Scarf

CRAFT: Cozy Up to Yarn

By Michelle Kempner
Fall is an exciting time. The leaves are changing, the kids are back to school, and football season is starting up. Since you are starting to pull your knitting needles and yarn back out of the closet, why not use them to knit a scarf to support your favorite sports team? The scarf could have an image of the school mascot or a professional sports team logo. You can design the pattern yourself using photo software and the existing sports team logo and have a very unique scarf to wear to games.

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Mixing Fibers: Free Knit Pin Cushion Pattern

A common problem when working from the stash, is having only a small amount of each type of fiber left. How can you successfully combine cotton and wool in the same project? How can you combine acrylic with silk? Should you? Would you? Could you dare? (Yes, I totally stole that line from the Spooky Old Tree). Yes to all three! Of course your should.

By combining fibers in the same project you can start playing with texture, color, and drape in ways never possible. I love taking advantage of a fiber's inherent property and pairing it with another to create various affects and looks.

A few guidelines to get started
1. If using a combination of wool and anything else remember that the wool will felt and the other fibers will not. This can be used to your advantage, or end up in the reject bin. I combine wool and cotton in the Perfect Dishcloth so it will intentionally felt the wool as you use it as a dish rag. In this case it make a semi harsh scouring pad perfect for use of teflon and the like. The un-felted cotton gives it a nice texture that a just wool felted rag would not have.

2. If you don't want your project to gather, use the same gauge throughout your project. Like the felting, this is not a rule, just keep it in mind. This can mean using all the same weight, or changing needles/hooks for each section of yarn. It can be used to your advantage to have a thinner stretching yarn combined with a thicker yarn that has less give. Like an alpaca with cotton.

3. Winding yarns together is a great way to get a new yarn from three old ones. I used a cotton, wool, silk, and acrylic all together to make the great bulky yarn in this crocheted scarflet.

Knit Pin Cushion Pattern

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September 29, 2009

From Russia, with Love: Cabled Balaclava

CRAFT: Cozy Up to Yarn

Balaclava 4Ways2

By Nikol Lohr
The balaclava, named after the town of Balaclava in Crimea (now Ukraine), was originally worn by Russian soldiers in the Crimean war. While the balaclava retains a military association, it's also well loved by skiers and climbers for its flexibility and warmth. A sort of sock for your head, the balaclava is wonderfully warm and efficient — doing double duty as both hat and scarf in a single garment, without the added bulk and fuss of a separate scarf. It has an opening in the front, which can be stretched to reveal just your eyes, your eyes and nose, or your whole face. The extra length can be folded over to make an extra-warm hat, or you can pop your whole head through the front opening and wear it as a cowl.

The balaclava is a marvelously practical garment that everyone in a cold climate should own. It eliminates the trouble of finding hat and scarf and bundling up like Ralphie if you're just running to the mailbox or walking the dog on a bitter cold day. Of course, the classic black or olive drab balaclava might give you a S.W.A.T./bank robber vibe that you're not really going for — and it might not be the wisest look when you're popping into the corner store for some beer. To shake off the alarm factor, I've made this one in a totally plush sugary pink cashmere blend, with lots of cushy cables for added warmth.

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How-To: Make a No-Sew Blanket with Yarn Fringe

Yarn is the perfect way to embellish just about anything. Trim a yard of micro-fiber fleece with yarn fringe for an easy and ultra soft no-sew blanket. The technique is so fast that you can spend extra time getting creative with color combinations. Try the fringe with many strands of thin yarn, a few strands of thick yarn, short fringe, or long. Use a skein of your favorite yarn, or mix it up and use your scraps. When your project is done, you can literally cozy up with yarn!

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Crochet-Along: Show and Tell + Giveaway Results!

It's been such a fun experience doing this Crochet-Along with you all! We've had some great participants who have made some incredible dolls.

If you want to start now check out the lessons here.

Giveaway Results!

The Winner of 1 signed copy of Tiny Yarn Animals by Tamie Snow:

Flickr user : SugarCoatedCreations

The Winner of 1 signed copy of Feltique by Brookelynn Morris and Nikola Davidson:
Flickr user: crissybell

The Winner of 2 skeins of Lion Brand Alpine Wool Yarn:
Flickr user: sumrsprite

The Winner of 1 copy of Lion Brand Yarn Vintage Styles for Today:
Flickr user: loves2design

The Winner of 1 CRAFT T-Shirt:
Flickr user: Ernessa_Theodora

Check out the rest of the amazing entries and post your own picture at the Crochet-Along Flickr Group Pool.

It has been a huge pleasure to this with you I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
For more wicked amigurumi patterns check out my website Roxycraft and take advantage of my 50% off sale running until Sept 30th!
Enter Code "CAL2009" to get your discount.

Picking the Right Hook and Needles

One of the things that many experienced yarnies take for granted is how to know what hook or needles to use for the yarn you have. This is especially important if you are making up your own project as you go along or if you are altering a pattern you already have. Being able to take a pattern and look at your stash, grab the right yarn, and then grab the right hook or needles is so handy to getting your yarn leftover pattern off to the right start.

First, take a good look at the ball band. It has a ton of great information to get you started in the right direction. You can see what all the symbols mean by going to Skein Lane Studio and Yarn Standards.

Look at the yarn's weight (lace, fingering, sport, dk, worsted, aran, bulky, chunky - each yarn brand is different though) and the suggested hook and needle size. You can see general yarn standards for weights and suggested hook and needle sizes on Yarn Standards as well as suggested gauge.

Now here is the tricky thing - we all knit and crochet differently and with different tensions (how tight our stitches are) so for me I like to knit worsted yarns with size 6 needles tops. And I often crochet it with a size D hook. And it also depends on the type of fabric we want to create. Do we want a tight thick fabric or an open fabric? Not to mention all yarns are not created equal so some yarns are spun tight and others loose. You have 1 ply, 2 ply, 3 ply, etc ply yarns all wound up different ways. And then there are fiber types. Some fibers look a lot better knit loose while others tight. Alpaca will drape heavily and straight wool will have a bit more bounce.

I make sure to look at the weight they say the yarn is, what the suggested needle size is and then what the gauge is. Those are the big indicators of what the yarn will knit up like. All the same it's always best to get it wrapped around your needles/hook and work a few short rows to see what it's like. The yarn shop I used to work at had a huge basket of yarn just for this purpose, so crafters could see what the yarn worked up like and if it would be right for their pattern.

The easiest thing to do is to knit with the recommended yarn and needles/hook recommended by your pattern - but who does that? In an ideal world sure, but we work with what's available, what's on hand, what's in our stash or our local yarn shop. Yarns get discontinued too, so sometimes it's just impossible to find.

I found this great "Thinking Beyond the Pattern... A field guide to yarn substitutions" on Knitty.com about doing yarn substitutions. And this is wonderful to know. I think that was the number one question I was asked while working at the Yarn Exchange "what yarn can I use for this pattern?"

So to recap - swatches are your best bet, experience will help you get a feel for it, there are standards but they don't always apply, once you figure out how to do yarn substitutions you are golden for any project.

I hope this helps and that you will be well on your way to grabbing the right hook the first time around!

September 28, 2009

Yarn Yardage Leftovers: Crewel Embroidery

I've been cleaning out my apartment one space at a time. Today was my studio. After collecting up all the butterfly bobbins of wool I have floating around I was confronted with a whole shopping bag full of random colors. Some people may see this as overwhelming, depressing, challenging (what to do with all these random colors)... well... honestly... it filled me with childhood glee! You see, wool is great for crewel... and all those random colors? A painters palette!

Sometimes it's fun to mix things up a bit. Just because you have leftovers from a knit project, does not mean you have to stick with knitting for the leftovers. Those last 3 yards are perfect for a variety of projects and crewel is on the top of my list. It's free style embroidery, but specifically with 2-ply wool yarn - though I've used a variety of fiber types with good results.

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Alice Wrist Warmers

CRAFT: Cozy Up to Yarn

By Vickie Howell
When a professional knitter and a movie critic live in the same household, there's bound to be some crossover. In our house, that convergence takes form as "Movie Mondays" on my blog. Every week I post screenshots of the knitwear I spot in one of the many flicks we're watching — we've become veritable eagle eyes of Silver Screen yarn; my sons even commenting when a beanie or blanket flashes across the television. Recently, while researching Twilight for his movie news website, smellslikescreenspirit.com, my husband came across this photo still of Alice wearing fingerless mitts in the upcoming sequel, New Moon. Enter this project: simple wrist warmers for a complicated girl!

Alicenewmoon Movieshot
(Photo: Summit Entertainment)

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Lion Brand Yarn Studio Hat and Scarf Collection for Charity

CRAFT: Cozy Up to Yarn

The Lion Brand Yarn Studio in New York is collecting hats and scarves for The Partnership for the Homeless, a organization committed to helping New York City families in need. From now until December 1st, let the staff know you are working on a hat or scarf for the charity and you'll get 10% off all yarn, hooks, needles, and supplies. Once you finish making all your hats and scarves, drop them off at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. As a thank you, you'll receive a 20% off coupon for your next purchase.

Starting October 1st to November 22nd, the staff of the Lion Brand Yarn Studio will be knitting and crocheting scarves in the window during operating hours to donate to The Partnership for the Homeless. (We'll post some pics of these when it happens!)

For more information, visit the Lion Brand Yarn Studio blog.

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