Tubular Cast-on for both K1, P1 and K2, P2 Ribbing

I came across this awesome tutorial video while scrolling through some of my groups in Ravelry.  Instead of using waste yarn, this cast on is a much more simple way to get the rolled ribbing look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE3b4Vq3sJ8&feature=youtu.be

Sloppy SSK'S & How To Fix Them

Sloppy SSK's and How To Fix That

When knitting in the round, If you are going to SSK Stitches 3 and 4 on Round 2 of your knitting, do this for a nice, tight SSK on Round 2:

On ROUND 1, you will 'set up' the stitches for the SSK on Round 2 like this:  On ROUND 1, (previous round), slip stitch no. 2, and continue knitting your round.

On ROUND 2, the SSK round, when you get to Stitch No. 2, the slipped stitch, pick up the 'bar' behind that slipped stitch with your left needle, and pull it through the slipped stitch with your right needle. You have now tightened the first stitch in your SSK.  Knit the SSK stitch as you normally would.

Please refer to this excellent video by Cat Bordhi to see how the 'bar' is pulled through the slipped stitch on the SSK round: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMHXK3JxrJA

Annie Modesitt also has a technique as well:  

http://sulia.com/channel/crafts/f/e92147d4-41b1-4154-b5cd-63120a3c86f5/?source=fb&random=0.634486375605#

How To Rip Back Rows

Use the smallest circular or double point needle that you have, preferably a size 1, 2, or 3 needle. Find the row BELOW your mistake, and pick up the RIGHT loop of each stitch (including edge stitches). Remove your regular knitting needle from the top row of your knitting, and rip back your stitches until you reach the skinny needle row. Start knitting again with your regular needle. Here's a great video showing how this is done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVeUteBJEsI&list=PLCA62A5AB7F53FB9E&index=12&feature=plpp_video

Jogless Stripes While Knitting in the Round

When kitting in the round, sometimes you change colors for stripes. To avoid the "jog" that occurs when you start the new color, do this: At the beginning of the round where the new color starts, go ahead and drop the old color and start knitting with the new color. After finishing the first row of the new color: SLIP THE FIRST STITCH on the second round as if to purl, and then continue knitting. Here is a video demonstrating this technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhbjcQjXw8g&list=PLCA62A5AB7F53FB9E&index=8&feature=plpp_video

To Swatch or Not - Practice Sample

If you see the perfect pattern, but the project is too big for you to tackle without knowing that you will actually like knitting the entire thing, try knitting a dishcloth using the pattern instead. For worsted weight cotton like Peaches'N Cream yarn, use about 45-48 stitches so adjust your practice pattern by adding edge stitches to make it fit. Knit your pattern in the center continuing with edge stitches until you have about 8". All you have invested in this project is some yarn and a few hours of practice knitting which will help determine if you want to commit to the entire project. Besides, you'll end up with a cool dishcloth to use!

Tink - or Undo Your Knitting

Sometimes there is no way to "fix" a mistake without "unknitting" your work. Here's a tip to make that task easier: Use a needle a couple of sizes smaller than what you are knitting with. For knit stitches: hold your yarn in back of your work and insert the left (smaller) needle into the stitch below the first stitch on your right needle. For purl stitches: hold your yarn in front of your work, and insert the left needle under the "bar" below the stitch. Pull the yarn out of the stitch.

Automatic I-Cord Edging

If you want to have a finished edge on scarves, shawls, or baby blankets, cast on an extra three stitches at each edge of your knitting. Then, before starting the "real" pattern, knit the first three stitches. Then follow your pattern until you get to the last three stitches. Stop, bring your yarn to the front of your knitting, and slip the last three stitches as if to purl. When you turn your work, always knit the first three stitches, then follow your pattern until the last three stitches. Bring your yarn to the front of your knitting, and slip the last three stitches as if to purl. You will automatically have an i-cord edge!

Reviving Musty Yarn

If you find a "musty" smelling stash of yarn, and don't want it to go to waste, try one of these two tricks: Put 2-3 drops of lavender oil on a cotton ball. Wrap it loosely in a plastic bag, and put it in with your work... OR...Keep a bar of soap in your bag - any soap will work.

Adding More Color By Overdyeing

A little recipe for you to help perk up a skein of plain or colored natural fiber yarn with overdyeing. Supplies you will need:
¼ cup vinegar
2-3 cups tepid water
a 2 -3 qt pot
a packet or two (or more for really dark result) of unsweetened Kool-aid
Optional: candy thermometer.
Add the water, vinegar, and Kool-aid to the pot and without heating, stir until the Kool-aid is fully dissolved. Open up your yarn skein so it is just a big loop and arrange in the pan making sure all parts are submerged.
Turn on the heat, low or very low, depending on your stove top. The goal is to raise the water temperature to about 185-190 degrees gradually without boiling the water. Monitor the water color. When it's the correct temp, the color will be absorbed by the fiber and the water will be clear or very close to clear. This gradual increase should take at least 15-20 min. You can poke and shift the contents but avoid stirring unless you are using superwash wool. Once the water is clear, cover the pot and remove from heat. Allow the pot to sit until it reaches room temp to set the dye and absorb any additional dye in the water.
Rinse the skein. If you see color in the rinse water it is either not completely set (redo process with water and more vinegar) or there was so much Kool-aid that the yarn couldn’t absorb it all. Roll in an old towel and squeeze out the extra moisture. Hang skein to dry.
This will work for animal fiber, silk, and nylon. Wool/acrylic blends will partially absorb the dye giving you a heathered look.

Lifelines

How to use lifelines is demonstrated at this website: http://www.heartstringsfiberarts.com/lifeline.shtm.

Lifelines are a must when you are knitting a complicated pattern and want to be able to rip back to a certain point in your work without losing stitches. Super handy if you are knitting lace with lots of yarn-overs, or if the pattern instructions aren’t completely clear for the next step and you just want to try them out but not necessarily commit to the interpretation.

Remember to mark, in some way, the same row in the pattern from the position of your lifeline in the event that you have to continue from that point. One way is to add a series of knots to the lifeline yarn indicating the row.
-----------------------*--*-----------* --*--*------------- is row 23, for example.

Attaching a New Skein of Yarn

There are several options when starting a new skein of yarn Here are a few ideas:
**If you are working with wool or animal fiber that felts easily you can felt your ends together with a felting needle. To do this, slightly splay the plies of both ends you are joining. Lay over each other, overlapping an inch or so, and then punch together with the felting needle, turn sideways and felt again so the strand is compact and round.
**Also with wool fiber, you can spit splice the yarn. Tease out approximately, but not perfectly, about equal lengths of 2 plies of yarn. Overlap the ends, again approximately. Lay the overlapped ends across your hand and either spit on it or us water. You get the yarn nice and wet, then you gently rub it back and forth between your hands, generating both friction and heat, until you have a nice, continuous piece of yarn.
**Leave a long tail in your work and then leave an equally long tail for the new strand and simply continue knitting. Weave the ends in later.
**Merge the ends with a darning needle. This works like Chinese thumb cuffs if your yarn has multiple plies and works similarly to a person holding both wrists with the opposite hands, from the inside. For explanation purposes: we want to join yarn A to yarn B. Thread the darning needle with A. Starting about 1.5-2 inches back from the end of B insert the needle lengthwise down the center of B for another inch or so (going towards the work or ball). Go far enough with the needle and A so that the tip of A is hidden within B, remove the needle and adjust if necessary. Then take the little 1.5-2 inch tail of B, thread the needle and, starting at where A went into B, slide B into A going the opposite direction. Go far enough through A to hide this end of B as well. Remove needle and adjust or trim.

Polymar Clay Buttons

Polymer clay comes in tons of colors, and you don't need much skill to flatten it, cut out a circle, and poke holes in it with a toothpick to make a button. It bakes in the oven in fifteen minutes or so. Of course, you can make them as plain or fancy as you wish, and there are tons of free instructions and ideas on the web. When you cook them make sure you don’t use utensils that are used for food. Using a sheet of tin foil works well.

Customized Yarn

To add a novelty look to your knitting try combining your yarn with a colored thread. The thread will naturally wind around the yarn as you knit, creating a bumpiness. There are many novelty threads available for quilting, some are shiny or springy, some in variegated or changing colors. Knitting a thread with a yarn that tends to stretch, such as pure alpaca, can also stabilize the finished work and support the yarn.

Determining Needle Size for Yarns

To determine a needle size for a yarn (homespun or unlabeled), double the yarn and, using a needle sizer, find the hole where your doubled yarn goes through comfortably; touching all sides but not squeezed. Use this as the primary needle size and compare to the pattern recommendations. For mohair, boucle, and novelty yarn, consider the fuzz/loop as part of the yarn width. For thick and thin, combine the fattest and thinnest parts to do your measuring.

Smoother Bamboo Needles

If you have a pet chew on your bamboo needles, use this tip to fix the problem.
Use super fine sand paper to get the big bits off and then steel wool to smooth. Finish with a good rub with a piece of wax paper, which will fill the dents. Also, if you need an emergency cable needle for small work, a toothpick rubbed with a bit of wax paper works well, too

Slanting Decreases

An easy way to remember which way a decrease slants is by using this logic. A left slanting decrease is an SSK which has a left slant (the S) in the middle of it. A right slanting decrease is a K2tog which has a right slant (the 2). See: S2 = \ /. Left slant, right slant.

Chart Reading

Reading charts for color work or cabling can be intimidating even for experienced knitters. Part of the problem arises from trying to read the chart as we would read a written page (left to right and top to bottom). Knitting charts are read from bottom to top and right to left for right-side rows, left to right for wrong side rows. If you are knitting in the round then all rows are read from right to left.

To assist in knowing which end to read from and to keep you on track with your pattern, number your chart on the side of the row you need to start from for each row – 1 on the right of the bottom row, 2 on the left of the second to the bottom row, 3 on the right of the third to the bottom row, and so forth.

How Much Yarn Per Row?

A simple rule of thumb to estimate how much yarn you need per row:
Spread out your work to get the full width of the piece. With your remaining yarn, loosely extend it across the work 3 times. If you have enough yarn to do that, you have enough to knit the row. The only exception is if you have yarn gobbling features like bobbles or cables. If you are binding off, you'll need at least four lengths as this procedure takes that much more to do it properly.

Cables

Ever look at your cables and then look at those in the magazines and books and wonder how the designer got such a tidy looking cable? Well, the answer lies in a couple of techniques that keep the stitches in the cable and right next to the cable all the same size.
• First, just like ribbing, when changing from a knit to a purl, or visa versa, bring the yarn straight back or forward and give a little tug to get rid of the slack in the yarn.
• Second, keep the stitches in the cable from stretching out by working at the tips of the needles through the cable section on a row where the stitches are crossed. You’ll be amazed at how neat and tidy those cables will look.
• Third, manipulate the stitches if necessary to get rid of looseness. Loose stitches usually occur on the left side of the cable if the cable is a left or front cross and on the right side if the cable is a right or left cross.

Fiber Content and How To Figure It Out

Sometimes you find a fantastic bargain yarn, inherit someone else’s stash, or choose from the charity yarns where the skein has no label. Determining whether the fiber is animal, vegetable, or synthetic can be accomplished with a burn test. Below is a chart of burn test results and the process for performing the test.

The test is done as follows:
Hold a small piece of yarn near the flame and observe whether the yarn melts as you bring the flame close.

Hold the yarn in the flame and note how fast it burns.

Withdraw the flame and note if the yarn continues to burn or goes out.

Smell the odor of the burnt yarn.

Note the color of the ash and whether it is hard and brittle by pinching between fingers.

If a molten bead forms, note the color and hardness.

If you want to find out if a yarn is animal vs. other you can accomplish this without flame by placing a snip in some full strength bleach. Animal fiber will dissolve. Vegetable will change color but remain. Synthetic will remain unchanged. Blends will do a combination of things.

To find out if a wool is superwash or feltable, take a very small bowtie of yarn and rub intensely between your palms in warm soapy water for 1-2 minutes. Superwash may get a little fuzzy but remains distinct strands and maintains good twist definition. Feltable wool will show a tendency for the strands to stick together and the twist definition will become indistinct. If you continue rubbing, good feltable wool will become a nugget of fiber in your hands. Some of you may find this is an excellent way to make jewelry.

Stretchy Bindoff

Use Elizabeth Zimmerman’s stretchy bind off if you end up with necks being too tight after binding off the stitches for bottom-up sweaters, socks, etc. After you finish the row, cut the yarn so it’s about 3 times the length of the edge you have to bind off. Thread on a darning needle. Then sew forward (to the left) through two stitches, and back (right) through only the right-most of the two stitches. Slip the right-most stitch off the needle and continue. Forward two, back one, drop, forward two, back one, drop, etc. If you are knitting in the round and want to use this bind off, slip the first stitch to the right needle and make it the last stitch for an even finish.

To watch a video of how it’s done, use the link in the title.

Garter Stitch in the Round

Garter stitch, which is so easy to do when you're knitting flat, is kind of a pain when knitting in the round! This is because you have to alternate knitting one round with purling one round to make up for the fact that you're not turning your work. If you feel up to the challenge, you can do a wrap and turn at the end of each round, and go back the other way, still knitting, which creates kind of a "cheater's" garter stitch.

I-Cord

Using the I-cord technique would work in any knit-in-the-round situation where you have less than 10 stitches – as in reducing stitches for a hat, or making strings, ties, or toy parts (dread locks, squid legs, etc).

To make I-cord place all stitches on one double-point needle, knit across all stitches. Instead of turning your work, simply slide the stitches all the way to the right end of the needle and continue knitting. It’s a little confusing at first because the yarn for the first stitch is attached to the opposite end of the work, but what you will find is that the yarn that is running from one end to the other is actually pulling the work into a stockinette stitch tube. Really cool.

This page has a video demo of how I-cord is made and also how you can apply it to an edge as a bind off (bonus!)
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knitting-tips

Picking Up Stitches Evenly

Sometimes it’s challenging to pick up a specific number of stitches over a span of work. If you have issues with having too many or too few stitches, try this. Fold the side where you are to pick up the stitches in half and mark the fold, then fold the work in half again and mark the two resulting folds. Now your work is divided into 4 even sections. Divide the number of stitches to pick up by 4 and pick up that number in each section.

Toe Up Socks

When knitting toe-up socks, use the socks themselves to hold the yarn ball. You can also knit both socks at the same time using the magic loop method. Magic loop is a way to knit in-the-round using a very long circular needle making a large loop with the cord that hangs outside your knitting so you can continue to knit in the round.