Our tale begins with some beautiful yarn. Some old (40+ years!) and some new (2024) and some in between. The main character, purchased in 2020, was a yarn with an organic depth of color and an aristocratic pedigree of 50% wool, 25% silk and 25% alpaca. Only a Noro Yarn could pull off such sophistication … Continue reading The Tale of the too tight Sweater
My current project (a hooded cowl) ended up having a lot of shaping to get it to drape correctly and I ended up using German short rows to accomplish that. I thought I’d share this easy technique that eliminates the unsightly holes or odd stitches and invisibly blends into a stockinette fabric. Let’s get to … Continue reading German Short Rows: easy and invisible!
Lately I have been taking a bit of a break from stranded colorwork for a more relaxed approach. Don’t get me wrong; I still adore color in my knits but sometimes I just don’t want to think about it too hard. Thus, I’ve fallen back into the fun technique of marled knitting. You might not … Continue reading Marling: a more laidback colorwork technique with interesting results
Lately I’ve been noodling around with garter stitch and zigzags. I’m intrigued by the power of separated increases and decreases to alter the knit fabric (stockinette) in the first place and now I’m really looking at how garter stitch is affected. I’ve spent weeks working out zigzags, garter and a bit of mosaic patterns with … Continue reading A Tale of Two Shawl Shapes
Knitting in horizontal stripes is part and parcel of the craft. It’s easy to do since that’s the way the stitches are laid down in successive rows. Vertical stripes or color blocking, however, is not as commonly seen and I think that’s a shame! It’s a technique that can produce some simple yet elegant visual … Continue reading Vertical Stripe and Color Block Changes
Hi all! Sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while—my day job was keeping me pretty busy. Things have eased off a bit so I thought you might like to see what I’m playing around with right now. Late at night I sometimes scan Pinterest for new stitch patterns I haven’t seen before. When … Continue reading Pattern play
I gotta tell ya, 2021 (December in particular) was a doozy. Between releasing my first sweater pattern, Christmas knitting to the last minute, a wedding and then some lovely major plumbing issues (NOT), I was happy when all of that was water under the bridge. Never mind the global pandemic and what that was doing … Continue reading January is for slow knitting
Let me tell you a little Christmas knitting story with all kinds of ups and downs. Many years ago (erm…30+?) I bought this putty colored superwash wool. I was going to knit a sweater for myself (yay!), and started doing so and got to the armpits and screeched to a halt (boo ). This yarn … Continue reading A Christmas Yarn about, well…, Yarn!
I'm usually pretty utilitarian when it comes to sock cuffs. I save all of my fancy details for the body of the sock, whether it's a cool texture or some color work. But a while back I designed some fancy lace socks and I decided that they needed some over the top fancy cuffs as … Continue reading Fancy Sock Cuffs
I've been Christmas knitting lately and had the occasion to knit buttonholes to finish off the front of a vest. I had made buttonholes in the past and while they worked, they weren't great. They were not super neat and they had an annoying loop of yarn at one end that consistently caught on the … Continue reading Beautiful (and easy!) Buttonholes
Lizzie Knitzz 