A lifeline is a line to which a drowning or falling victim may cling to, instead of facing imminent death. In knitting, a lifeline is a piece of yarn or thread that runs through each and every stitch of one row. It’s a proper case of prevention being better than unravelling the entire project, in case of a massive goof-up. Because stitches are live while working on a knitted piece, especially lace or brioche, there is ALWAYS a possibility of stitches getting dropped or me misreading the pattern or due to genuine confusion. The worst errors have occurred when I have been trying to fix previous errors, and then I fall into a spiral of doom and despair, and have […]
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STITCH MARKERS
Stitch markers are tiny yet efficient accessories in a knitting bag. They maybe made of metal or plastic and look like teeny-meeny CUTE safety pins.They are incredibly useful and I found them very handy, especially when I was a beginner. By slipping onto a knitting needle to mark a particular position in a row, it kept my work steady and clean. Today it is the key to keeping my sanity, as I mark each fifth or tenth row done with a stitch marker… Instead of counting the same rows twenty million times.”Many small objects, in many small places, do many small things, that can alter the face of the world.”
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YARN PACKAGING
You must have seen yarn packaged and presented for sale in your local crafts store in many different ways. Some of the most common ones are hanks, skeins and balls. Apparently there are 12 different ways of packaging yarn, and I must have seen 5-6. I doubt if someone buying is concerned with how yarn is packaged, they are more curious about the colours and textures. What matters is how yarn can be used once it is bought. Clockwise from top left, you can see a pink HANK, grey SKEIN, white BALL and something that is cutely packaged as a CAKE. It certainly looks delicious! In a hank, the yarn is rolled into a big circle then folded into itself. […]
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BRIOCHE KNITTING – ATTEMPTING MISS B
Designer Nancy Marchant, the Queen of Brioche, is the one who realized Brioche knitting was really underdeveloped, as compared to other knitting techniques. She created the key terms of Barking and Burping as well as a charting system which uses symbols for each brioche stitch or technique, so knitters across the world could share their patterns using the same language. Her research shows that the name “brioche” arose in reference to a type of cushion that was fashionable for ladies to make in England in the mid-1800s. These brioche pillows were named for the fluffy French baked goods, and the special ribbed fabric that lent them extra poof took on the same name. The Brioche Stitch resembles a ribbed knitting […]
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