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I'll be honest, I love TV. I watch it while I knit, and I thoroughly, unapologetically enjoy it. With the advent of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, the original programming from HBO and Showtime, and the fabulous British detective shows, the options for knit-worthy TV are endless. Here are my top 10 recommendations for knitworthy TV.

Well, 2018 is in the books, and I thought I would do a little review. We have a wonderful selection of free knitting patterns, and I wondered which were the most popular last year.

When I look at the top 10 downloaded free patterns from Alpaca Direct in 2018, I see a beautiful group of projects, and almost all of them accessories. That stood out to me—just one sweater and one blanket in the mix. We love our accessories, don't we?

A new baby is something to be celebrated, and this coming May, shop owner Kelley is going to welcome her second granddaughter. So exciting! I don't know about you, but I still have some of my own baby clothes saved carefully in my hope chest. These include a receiving blanket and a couple of handmade dresses; they're such wonderful keepsakes.

Kelley designed a future keepsake for her new grand baby, Claire—a hat fittingly named Clair's Baby Hat. It's knit with our new luxury yarn, Bravo, a 100-percent baby alpaca yarn, so it'll be warm, cozy, and beautiful. We are so proud of this luscious yarn!

A few years ago I took stock of my notions bags, weeding out the things that I didn't use very often and putting together one main bag that I took with me everywhere with my current project. I filled the other bags with leftovers and put them with my stash.

Since it's been awhile, I looked through my bag again. I had most of the old favorites in there, but I needed to add a couple things that had disappeared in to the void of a project bag somewhere. Here's what's in my notions bag!

Sometimes you want a little pretty at the end of a project, and the picot cast-off is just the ticket. It makes a lovely edging as you cast off, perfect for baby items or anything, really.

There are a few decorative cast-offs worth knowing, and Kelley demonstrated two of them, the picot cast-off and the Channel Island cast-off, on this week's Technique Tuesday on Facebook Live. 

We're having a ball introducing you to our first yarn line, Coeur d'Alene Yarns. The first yarn in the line is Sasquatch, a fingering yarn hand-dyed locally in the Pacific Northwest and exclusive to Alpaca Direct!

Sasquatch is a sumptuous blend of 80% superwash Merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon. There are two types of this yarn, a tonal and a multi-color.

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.

I absolutely love knitting cables. The texture they provide is unparalleled, and they pack such a punch and they're WAY easier to knit than they seem. In Kelley's Knit Club project for April 2020, the Love and Hope Shawl, has a cable running up one of the edges.

There are a few great tips for knitting cables easier, and Kelley demonstrated one of them, keeping track of rows between cable crossings, this week during Technique Tuesday.

There's nothing like a pair of handknit socks. You can use gorgeous sock yarn, choose your stitch pattern, and take them with you wherever you go. One thing I've learned over the years is how to customize socks to fit my feet, and I like a rounded toe. It's important for me because my feet are fairly straight across the toes, and a pointy toe just ends up flopping around empty. 

We all have bad habits we need to change. It's hard to do, but so rewarding when we're successful! I've had my share of changing bad habits, and lately I've been working on changing some in my knitting and crochet. Here are ten that I'm working on. I went over some of these in a recent Facebook Live broadcast, but I thought I'd detail them all here.

Ready, set, go!

Short socks, or footies, as some like to call them, are great for summertime (or anytime, really) knitting. They're a small, super-portable projects, and there are so many designs to choose from.

Kelley is working on the Rose City Rollers pattern by Mara Catherine Bryner. Make them two-at-a-time like Kelley did, and you'll have a pair to wear in now time at all!

Gorgeous colorwork knitting is all over Ravelry these days. From intricate Fair Isle projects to simple stripes, it's easy to fall in love with color.

I thought I'd take a walk though the patterns we offer and find my top five. I also have a great stranded-knitting tip for you: how to get even floats!

Blocking is the last step in knitting a project, and it's where you can literally wash away problems. There are three types of blocking most normally used—wet blocking, steam blocking, and spray blocking—and I'm going to describe all three for you.

Kelley, our shop owner is getting ready for a new grand baby in May, and her latest project is the Chevron Baby Blanket by Melissa Clulow, a free pattern on Ravelry.

This is a really easy pattern—just a 2-row repeat for the entire thing! So perfect for knit night or TV knitting. It's knit with a worsted-weight yarn, so that makes it quick, too. Kelley used HiKoo CoBaSi Plus for her blanket. It's a blend of cotton, bamboo, silk, and nylon that's perfect for kids; it's machine washable!

If you've ever struggled with the decrease section when knitting a hat on 16-inch circular needles, you need to learn the Magic Loop method of knitting. Similarly, if you hate how sweater sleeves twist up while knitting in the round, you need to learn the magic loop technique.

This technique works on just about any size project, so you can use it exclusively for smaller projects in the round, such as hats, sleeves, mittens, cowls, socks, and so on.

It's summertime, and the knitting is breezy. Here are 5 great patterns to cast on (and wear!) during the summer months.

Never stop knitting, regardless of the heat!

I'm going through my closet, getting rid of things that don't fit or I no longer like. I have a huge pile of sweaters that need to be stored for the winter, and I decided I'd do the knitterly thing and get them all tidy so I can wear them right away come fall.

Here are my 5 steps for getting sweaters ready for summer hibernation.

I use circular needles pretty much exclusively, and all my knitting friends do, too. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is that circular needles are more readily available these days than straight needles. They're also easier to knit with than straight needles because they don't hit the table or your lap while you're knitting (does this happen to anyone else?) and you won't lose one of them!

There are many things to consider when choosing circular needles, and I'm going to compare materials and brands like Addi, Chiaogoo, Knitter's Pride and more, as well as talk a little about the interchangeable sets we offer. Whether you prefer metal, wood, or bamboo, we've got circular needles for you.

There's almost nothing worse in knitting or crochet than getting a hole in your handmade garments. It's so sad! And how do you fix it?

Well, we're here to show you two different methods for fixing your knitwear without panicking—weaving techniques for fixing weak or worn areas in socks, and duplicate stitch to fix holes in garments.