Using the content of free "trend" classes and projects at craft supply and manufacturers' web sites as a source of inspiration to take your crafts to the next level.
Disclaimer: I do not speak for any supplier, manufacturer, or community to which I link in my blogs. Because I was an employee of Michaels Stores until November 2021, many product links will lead to Michaels' product page rather than the manufacturer's.
The current "big thing" in knitting and home decor is made with yarns that can be as wide around as a man's thumb (or larger yet). While the 1" diameter "US size 50" knitting needles have been surpassed by newer, even larger ones, the current fad is to "knit" a scarf or blanket without the use of knitting needles at all.
Mega Yarn for Table Knitting
Size 50 straight needles; Size 70 circular needle
Unlike its predecessor trend of arm knitting*, table knitting starts with a foundation chain laid flat on a table. Loops are drawn up through each chain stitch to form the first row of knitting. From there, one works back and draws the yarn up through the previous row of loops to form the next row of oversized stockinette stitch. The table keeps the stitches from tearing out as one knits row after successive row before binding off the final project.
Foundation Chain for Table Knitting
First Row, Table Knitting (bottom)
Let me note that traditional needle knitting has a number of different ways of "casting" one's initial stitches onto the needle. The most common method is sometimes called "long tail", the "Italian" cast-on is a variation of the long tail cast-on. In a "knitted cast-on" (KCO), one knits the original stitch, then knits into that stitch and moves it onto the needle to create a second stitch, and so on until the pattern number of stitches has been reached. Unlike the long-tail and its variations, if you removed the knitting needle from a knitted cast-on, you would find something that looks exactly like the foundation chain of crochet. Or the initial chain of table knitting.
Foundations (top to bottom): Crochet, Tunisian Crochet, KCO (needle removed), Table Knitting
The first row of table knitting draws up a loop of yarn through each stitch of the foundation chain.
If this were done on knitting needles, the work would look exactly like the first row of knitting from a knitted cast-on (KCO). If it were done with a long or cabled crochet hook, it would look like the first half of a row of Tunisian Crochet (which we used to call "afghan stitch").
>First Row, Table Knitting (bottom)
The second row of table knitting works back across the loops of yarn, drawing a new loop of yarn through each of the first row of loops of yarn. This is consistent with the working of a knitted fabric, except that you see the loops laid out on a table instead of held in place by a needle. From here, table knitting continues on in the same manner of knitting a flat piece completely from the right side of the work - the same as if one were arm knitting or - knitting ambidextrously on knitting needles (my preferred method of working flat pieces).
Table Knitting versus Needle Knitting
Table knitting and arm knitting both bind off their stitches similarly to needle knitting. The usual method is to knit two stitches, slip the first stitch over the second, knit the next stitch, slip the previous (second stitch) over the new (third) stitch, continuing in that manner until you are left with one loop on one needle, and the thread all but secured.
The method I learned as a girl was to knit two together, slip the new stitch back to the other needle, and repeat instead.
That second bind-off method, done with an afghan hook, is identical to the second part of the "basic stitch" of Tunisian crochet.
Tunisian Crochet: Finishing a Row
All of this suggests to me, as I've suspected all along (growing up with both knitting and crochet skills), that there is a continuum between knitting and crochet, and a way of leveraging one set of skills to teach, or learn, the other.
*Arm knitting uses the knitter's arms in place of knitting needles. The stitches are long-tail cast over one arm and the work is done entirely from the front side of the work. Most arm knitting is done with several strands of "size 6 - chunky" yarns worked as one.
When Mom knitted hats and socks — which are usually knitted in the round — she used double-pointed needles (dpns). Sometimes they came in a set of four, other times in a set of five. For a set of n needles, you divided the stitches evenly over n-1 needles and used the last needle as the needle you were knitting onto. As the stitches moved from one of the stitch-holding needles to the working needle, the stitch-holding needle became free. Now that needle was used to work the next needle's worth of stitches, and so on.
When I knitted Donovan B. Bear his first hand-knit sweater (an Irish Fisherman style sweater, done traditionally from the neck down), I found it difficult to work a teddy-bear-sized sleeve in the round over those four or five needles. The stitches would become stretched, and the long ends of the needles got in the way of the work. I ended up having to use six or eight needles to work the small, narrow sleeves.
Magic Loop
Magic Loop is a circular-needle technique that, for many people, replaces double-pointed needles. Instead of rotating through free and stitch-holding needles, one uses a single, long-cable circular needle, keeps a few stitches on the needles but leaves most on the cable, and pulls out the cable between stitches to create a comfortable knitting space. YouTube demonstrations show this method working with as few as four stitches.
The biggest advantage to Magic Loop, as far as I can tell, is that it's easier to pack up your knitting and go: just slide all your stitches onto the cable, and slide them back onto the needles when you are ready to pick up again. (This is also one of the reasons circular and flexible needles are becoming popular for flat knitting: tip protectors can come off, allowing stitches to fall off a loaded needle, and one can't always complete a row or round when knitting on a train or bus, or at a Ravelry group meeting.) With double-pointed needles, there's a much greater chance your work will slide off a needle and require you to back-track.
Advantages to Magic Loop
Today, it's a lot easier to find circular knitting needles in a given size than it is to find dpns
The ends of non-active double-pointed needles can get in the way working with your active needles
Unless they come with an organizing sleeve, it's harder to keep a set of dpns together — and when they come apart, you need a needle size gauge to be able to figure out what size a needle is, or to put together a set from all of the random dpns in the bottom of your needle drawer. (That said, many circular needles don't have the size printed on them, either, and if you lose their packaging...)
Despite those advantages, for the most part I hate Magic Loop.
Advantages to Double-Pointed Needles
I feel that Magic Loop distorts my knitting and forces a looser knit, especially on the fine yarns (such as sock yarns) for which it is usually used.
I feel like I'm spending all my time slipping stitches onto and off of the needles and cables, rather than actually knitting
Slipping the cable loop out between small, tight stitches aggravates the tendinitis in my hands (although part of that might be a stiffer-than-ideal cable)
If I need to slip out the cable loop where it meets the needle, or bend the cable at that join, I fear that the stress on the connection will lead to needle failure
It Depends on You, and on the Project
Because I was moving between (and trying out) various needle sizes (and the yarn kept sliding off my dpns), I ended up doing my fisherman's rib cap using Magic Loop and and interchangeable needles. On the bulky yarn, it wasn't too bad. But right now, I'm working on some handwarmers, and Magic Loop has been a Magic Pain. Switching back to dpns is saving the project.
The first bread cookbook I ever purchased mentioned brioche as a particularly difficult-to-make bread which is usually baked in a special fluted (ribbed) pan. While "brioche buns" have become popular in fast-food establishments, I still haven't had the experience of eating a real, fresh-from-the-oven, French brioche.
Some years later, a knitters' stitch guide I purchased included a photo of what I'd considered a particularly elegant set of patterns called "brioche rib" and "contrary brioche stitch". While I still haven't tried them out, the important thing to note is that these patterns were designed for single-color knitting.
Today, many knitting patterns with "brioche" in their names are made in a rib technique where alternating rows are either "knit below" (k1b) or "purled below" (p1b) to create a two-color rib, with the prominent "knit" stitches showing in one color and the recessed "purl" stitches in the second color. On the opposite side of the work, the colors are reversed.
I used the yarn leftover from the Koala Basket project to do up Red Heart's "Brioche Rib Fisherman's Hat". It's not that I have a lot of opportunity to wear hats (I commute by bicycle, so most of my time outdoors in cold weather is in technical cycling clothing), but rather that I wanted to learn this increasingly popular style of knitting. After a few false starts, I got the hang of the technique. After that, the bulky yarn worked up quickly.
Searching for more about brioche knitting, I found a whole website devoted to brioche stitch techniques — and I learned that what I thought was a brioche rib, and what a lot of what the mainstream knitting press has been calling "brioche rib" for the past thirty-some-odd years is actually "fisherman's rib", (and that true brioche stitch uses yarn-overs (yo) combined with adjacent stitches to create depth and stretch). But I also learned that in the Netherlands, the terms "brioche rib" and "fisherman's rib" are used interchangeably. Go figure?
While working on the hat's briochefisherman's rib-knitted brim, I decided I'd like to try making a briochefisherman's-rib-style sleeveless jacket for Donovan B. Bear in a #5 or #6 yarn. I think it could look very stylish because of, rather than despite, the yarn's disproportionate weight. And now that I know the difference, I need to learn the real brioche stitch and variations. So many project ideas, so little time!
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
— Napoleon Pig, George Orwell's Animal Farm
A couple of days ago, I mentioned that I was using Red Heart Soft Essentials (a yarn I can get at Michaels) to work a pattern designed for Bernat Beyond yarn (which our local Michaels does not sell).
There are a number of theories and rules of thumb for substituting one yarn for another:
If the finished item is to remain the same size, the yarns should be of similar thickness
Alternatively, you can to change the number of stitches in your pattern (ideally for an even number of pattern repeats) to come up to the same measurements.
Different fibers will handle differently in wearing and cleaning — cotton knits will become shorter and wider, wool will full or felt, acrylics will pull and pill. Try to keep yarns that will handle similarly after the project is finished.
Substitutions in both yarn and gauge can be used to scale patterns up and down — use a similar color and texture of fingering yarn to make an American Girl doll's sweater look more identical to that of her owner's worsted sweater, with similar numbers of stitches and rows for each garment piece.
Most craft yarn manufacturers' yarns of a given weight, fiber blend, and texture can be used interchangeably.
Based on those general rules of interchangeability, I used some leftover Sugar 'n Cream to make Lion's Orient Point Washcloth, originally designed to use Cotton-Ease, using size 7 aluminum needles (the recommended size) and the recommended number of stitches. The sample on the pattern uses seven repeats of the eight-row eyelet pattern to create the 10" square; I only needed five and a half repeats.
At first glance, this made me think that Sugar 'n Cream might be a thicker yarn than Cotton-Ease. Then I looked at the two yarns on Ravelry.
According to Ravelry, Cotton-Ease is a 50/50 cotton-acrylic blend with a thickness of 8 wpi (wraps per inch), and a gauge of 17 stitches per 4" on size 8 needles. Sugar 'n Cream is a 100% cotton yarn with a thickness of 9 wpi (i.e., slightly thinner), and a gauge of 20 stitches and 27 rows per 4" on size 7 needles. (Note: yarn-wrapper gauges are always based on stockinette stitch; the gauge for a particular pattern may vary.)
In other words, Sugar 'n Cream should be slightly thinner than Cotton-Ease. (Worse for my theory, my own test came up with 11 wpi for the Lily yarn.)
I finally checked the gauge (in eyelet pattern) on my finished article: 16 stitches and 24 rows per 4" in eyelet pattern. I guess I knit more loosely than I thought I did.
Which goes to remind us, always check your gauge before starting a project where fit is an issue.
