Binding Off in the Round

I've been busy getting the Winter 2018 issue organized.  August is a difficult month to try and order yarn.  Between vacations and fiber festivals it can take quite a few emails to get the designers their yarn.  I spent a lot of time sitting at my computer.  We have 23 projects in the next issue.  That is quite a bit of yarn!  Some are still waiting for while someone (you know who you are, Carolyn) has already sent her project!

I did take time to prepare my handouts for the retreat at the end of September.  I'm teaching at Suzanne Bryan's guild's annual retreat.  I'm looking forward to it as Charles Gandy is the other teacher and it will be wonderful to catch up with him.

Student News
My students definitely are leading more exciting lives that me!  I have received very few lessons to review.  I know fall is approaching as more are signing up for classes.  The minute the leaves start to fall we all think about our knitting!

Tip of the Week
This week's tip was prompted by something the students at the retreat wanted covered.  I'm always happy to customize what I teach.  They wanted to know how to do a circular knitting join.  I've already discussed this in a previous blog entry (Joining in the Round).  What I didn't discuss in that entry was how to end a piece when knitting in the round.


This photograph shows what a circular piece looks like when you bind off.  When you work in the round there will always be a jog at the end which is quite unattractive.  Before you cut the yarn and pull it through, you can knit into the first stitch and work another bind off stitch but it almost always leaves a bit of a hole.

The best way to finish this requires a small bit of embroidery.  Thread the yarn tail onto a tapestry needle and insert the needle under the two bind off loops of the first stitch.

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Then insert the needle into the center of the last bind off stitch. If you look at the photo below you can see that I've pulled the yarn fairly tight to match the size of the loops of the surrounding bind off stitches. 

Adjust the yarn tail so that the other loop matches.  Here is the photo of the completed bind off.

Now all you have to do is weave in the tail and the join is pretty much invisible.  Here is the link to the video:  Circular knitting bind off

Knitting Salon
Salon will be on Sunday, August 26 from 2-4 pm.

Current Projects

One of my favorite baristas at Starbucks recently had a baby girl.  She has two sons.  I wanted to make something for the baby but I wanted to make presents for the big brothers as well.  I made a hat in a lovely pale pink from Spud & Chloe but I neglected to take a photo of it.  Here is one of the brother hats.  I used Berroco Ultra Alpaca for them.  The photo shows it in progress where I have used dental elastics to mark decreases and cable crossing.  Naturally I put small pompoms at the top as well.  My friend Jan says they look like Gnome hats.  I'm going to write the pattern up for the Winter issue as they are a very quick knit.

I also finally got to Martha's birthday present.  I forgot to photograph them as well but Martha kindly obliged.  What the photo doesn't show is how wonderful this yarn is.  I picked up a couple of skeins at the DFW Fiber Festival.  It is a local dyer, A Thing for String, and it is a Yak blend.  Donna Estin used the yarn for a sweater in the Fall Cast On.  I've got another skein and I'm going to keep the socks for me.

I signed on to doing the Stitch Anatomy lesson for the Winter issue.  I can't say I like intarsia so I didn't want to do a complicated project.  I came with this kid's sweater.  This is the 12 month size.   I did it in colors I like to describe as the Hudson Bay Blanket palette.

I decided to do a larger size in a more subdued palette.  This photo doesn't do the colors justice but the background is more of an oatmeal color.  I choose Universal Deluxe Worsted as they have a lovely color selection and because Amy Gunderson is wonderful to work with.  It seems like I order the yarn and it delivered the next day.  Obviously I am going to have lots left over so I am going to use it for the Gnome hats.

I got a package from Shibui two days ago.  (Again, a wonderful company to work with).  I'm going to redo a sweater I did back in 2009.  The yarn, Louet KidLin, has been discontinued so I'm going to use Shibui's Silk Cloud and Reed to get a similar effect.  I'm going to make it longer as well.  Since I've almost finished the intarsia sweater I'll swatch soon.