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Don't mind me while I write your Holiday gift list for you. Just pass this on to your significant other, kids, and anyone who's in the market to buy you a gift!
This is also a great resource for anyone buying gifts for knitters. We've got the best stuff!
Kelley has almost finished her darling version of Susan Hickson's Candy Bear. She featured it on two episodes of Technique Tuesday, and it is the cutest.
This week, Kelley demonstrated picking up stitches to attach the bear's head to her body. She used this method instead of seaming the head to the body.
There seem to be a million choices for binding off knitting, and I almost always gravitate to the "regular" bind-off, passing one stitch over another. But sometimes you just want something with more pep, and the picot bind-off fits the bill!
This bind-off is pretty and versatile—you can change the look to fit the project and your mood. Kelley's here to teach you how to work two versions of this bind-off.
Handknit gloves are so special, and Kelley has whipped up a great free pattern for an easy pair, knit from our exclusive Bravo yarn. These gloves are soft and luxurious but also very practical. Alpaca is warm and light, so these gloves will be light as air.
One of the challenges of knitting gloves is avoiding the holes that inevitably appear between the fingers, usually because enough stitches weren't picked up or they were picked up too loosely. Kelley has solved that problem!
Sometimes you just need an easy project to work on, and Kelley's new free pattern, the Simple Ribbed Hat, is the perfect cast-on for times like these.
We debuted this pattern on a recent Technique Tuesday on Facebook Live, and Kelley used it to demonstrated how to fix a few common mistakes knitters make all the time (even a pro-level knitter like Kelley!).
You'll learn how to fix dropped stitches, turn purls into knits, and fix incorrectly oriented stitches.
Have you heard of Izzy Dolls? They're darling little toys that are included in aid packages, and are sometimes a child's first toy. Designer Esther Braithwaite has developed many patterns for Izzy Dolls, sometimes called Comfort Dolls, and they're available free in her Ravelry store.
Kelley fell in love with them and decided to feature Izzy Dolls on her weekly Facebook Live broadcast, Technique Tuesday.
Shop owner Kelley's favorite fiber is alpaca. It's one of the warmest fibers to work with, and so soft—why wouldn't you want it for your baby?
Kelley has developed a free alpaca baby hat, Claire's Baby Hat, and she's following up with a pair of baby socks, Claire's Baby Boot Socks. (If you're wondering who Claire is, she's Kelley and Jim's second granddaughter, due in May.)
Learn how to work a German short-row heel and the Icelandic bind-off!
I just finished repairing a baby blanket that had a hole in it. The owner was anxious to get it back, so it was a rush job. Oh, and the owner of the blanket is 14 years old! Isn't that great? It shows how important these blankies can be for children of all ages.
Shop owners Kelley and Jim are expecting their second grandchild, and Kelley has baby blankets on her mind. I thought I'd share a few options for those of you who need a shower gift or are expecting a baby of your own.
Our shop owner Kelley recently finished Ambah O'Brien's Adventurer Cowl, and during our weekly Technique Tuesday broadcasts on Facebook Live, she demonstrated a few techniques used in the project.
This project is really gorgeous, no matter if you choose a bunch of mini-skeins to work with, or just two colors like Kelley did.
And with so many techniques to practice, it's a great pattern for stretching your skills. Ambah wrote the Adventurer Cowl for advanced beginners and beyond, and if you're a beginning chart reader, the pattern includes both written and charted instructions for the lace.
Kelley just finished knitting the Shift Cowl by Andrea Mowry, and she's fallen in love with mosaic knitting.
While it sounds complicated or fiddly—mosaics are made up of little pieces of glass, after all—mosaic knitting is super easy. Seriously, you end up with a beautiful colorwork project, but you're only using one color in each row.
It's that time again: last-minute knitting for the holidays. You had plans to have everything done a month ago, but alas.
Don't despair, though, we've got five ideas for quick projects, each totally doable in a week or less, so you'll be stress-free and ready to wrap!
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's has a new granddaughter, and she's busy knitting her all kinds of little treasures. The latest is the Candy Bear by Susan Hickson.
As always, Kelley has lots of useful tips and tricks for knitting this project. One of them is particularly great—how to avoid some of the seaming, using Judy's Magic Cast-On to on the feet and ears of her Candy Bear.
Stitch markers can be a knitter's best friends, and Kelley shared a few great ways to use then while knitting the Joji Locatelli's Odyssey Shawl. Markers can help you keep track of your knitting in so many ways, including stitch count and pattern repeats.
If you haven't joined the Odyssey Shawl knit-along, it's not too late!
It's never too late to knit a holiday gift, but you need to plan accordingly, with smaller and smaller projects the closer the holiday gets. So, with only thirteen days left until Christmas, headbands it is.
Kelley recently knit a few of these beauties and highlighted them in her weekly Technique Tuesday Facebook Live broadcast. Check it out to get some tips for making headbands fit really well!
Many of us knit garments and accessories, but not home decor pieces. Kelley is working on her Cable Channel Knit-Along project, which is a pillow cover, and it got me thinking about all of the cool projects you can knit to bring your love of fiber into your home. Get your knit decor on with six of my favorite patterns from Alpaca Direct!
We've been seeing faux-fur pom poms everywhere lately—they're so cute! They add a touch of chic to any knit hat pattern.
Shop owner Kelley figured out how to make faux-fur pom poms at home, easily and inexpensively, with faux fur from the fabric store and items she had around the house. She's so clever.
Here's a video of the process.
Hats are the knitting trifecta: small projects that are useful and make great gifts. You can most hats done in a short time, and many are one-skein wonders.
Here is a variety of free knitting hat patterns, from beanies to slouches to earflap hats, that are guaranteed to suit your gift-knitting needs this season and for years to come.
It's sweater weather, finally! I thought our super-hot summer would never end. Fall is my favorite season—it's knitting season, after all (not to mention football season).
If you're like me and you love knitting sweaters, here are five free knitting patterns to add to your queue immediately. It's a nice collection of projects, with a variety of construction methods and design details.
