Alpaca Direct Blog

Knitting in the round is often the preferred method for making everything from hats to sweaters, but with smaller circumferences things can get tricky! Here are several methods for knitting a hat in the round such as using a 16" circular needle, Magic Loop, double pointed needles, FlexiFlips, and two circular needles.

This week Kelley's giving some finishing tips for the Baubles Shawl by Andrea Mowry, including how to use Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off in brioche! This lovely shawl uses techniques like lace, syncopated brioche, and bobbles.

Blocking a finished knit project is important to get even stitches. Knitting with acrylic yarn makes blocking hard, since it doesn't respond like wool. Here's how to steam block acrylic yarn without an expensive steamer.

Learn how to setup & knit the first two sections of the Baubles Shawl by Andrea Mowry. In this article and series of videos we cover how to knit syncopated brioche, knitting the brioche stitch flat, the "brkRsl" 2-stitch brioche decrease, and "brk4st" brioche 4-stitch increase.

The Nurmilintu Lace Shawl by Heidi Alander is the perfect one-skein project for beginner lace knitters. In this post, Kelley shares tips for knitting this free pattern and how to add some unique finishing touches.

Joining a new yarn to your project can be a bummer if the join shows in the finished project. There are ways, however to make the join invisible (or nearly so). In her latest episode of Technique Tuesday Kelley demonstrates 4 great methods for joining a new ball of yarn to your project.

When you're knitting a sweater that has shoulder seams, there are several options for joining them at the top. Kelley highlights three techniques: the 3-needle bind-off, the Kitchener Stitch, and the slip-stitch bind-off.

Learn how to cable without a cable needle and 5 more tips for knitting cables successfully. Kelley shares her experience knitting the Jones cardigan from tincanknits.

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Vests are good entry projects into sweater knitting. You use a lot of the same skills for vest knitting as you do in sweater knitting. Kelley knit the Calidez Vest this week, which is a super-quick project.

Learn two techniques for making your sweaters look professional: using backing buttons and adding a phony seam. All sweater knitters should have these skills in their toolbox.

Kelley just finished a pair of Skimmer Socks by Sheila Toy Strombetzg. These are great when you don't want your socks to show very much, because they're almost invisible under your shoes. I especially love this style because I'm a clog wearer, and these come up lower on the top of the foot, so they don't show. Yay!

These and the Turkish Bed Socks are my favorite knit sock patterns to wear with clogs.