How to Read What You Stitched

Sometimes when we knit or crochet, we tend to lose our way. In former blogs, I suggested how to keep track of your rows.

But let's say you lost your list, and your not sure where you are. With knitting, this is what you do:
Take the needle with stitches and put it in your right hand. Now read what you stitched from the right side of the needle to the left. This way you can look at your instructions and find the row that you just stitched.

The same holds true for crochet. Take your work and lay it down. Read from right to left also. If you know your stitches, then reading them won't be a problem.

It really is simple. If you're not sure, create your own pattern...at least for one row. Then remove the pattern. Try reading it....then bring back your instructions and see if your correct!
This should be fun!!!

HAPPY STITCHING, my friends.

Up or down a size

Yesterday a customer asked me about gauge: what do I do if I'm too tight or too loose? I told her you either go up or down a hook/needle size.

Then I came up with a great analogy: if you're pants are too tight, you go up a size and if they're too loose, you go down a size. Well, the same thing holds true for your gauges!!!

Simple, right!!!?

I thought so!

HAPPY STITCHING, my friends!!

Pattern Knowledge

It's come to my attention that when buying yarn for a project, there are certain requirements.

The first one is that you have to find out a little bit about the yarn that the pattern is asking for. Let's say it's ABC Yarn, by XYZ Yarn Company. Before going to any knit shop, go on-line and get all the information you need. HOW? Go to any search engine, like GOOGLE, and type in ABC Yarn. You're going to find out it's: 1. Content, 2. weight (worsted, DK, etc.), 3. stitches and rows to the inch, 4. needle size. Now you're ready. Why do you need this information? When you are selecting yarn, it should be the same weight and gauge as the BALLBAND.

We had a situation where a customer brought in a book, the gauge of the project was 7 stitches to the inch using size 7 needles. When looking up the yarn that they asked for, we found out that it was a bulky yarn, gauge of 3 stitches to the inch on a size 13 needle. Completely different!!

So, before going to your LYS, go on line and do your homework. It will save you and the yarn shop owner LOTS of time!! Plus, you can start looking for the yarn that is to the pattern gauge, providing they don't have that selected yarn.

Remember, the ballband info is the key to selecting your yarn, not the gauge of the pattern!

HAPPY STITCHING, my friends!