Twisted Sister, Our Favorite Knitting Tips
The Daily Knitter Staff
The exchange of knitting knowledge and advice continues with this second article in our series on knitting tips. Each tip is tested by The Daily Knitter staff and comes highly recommended. Do you have a favorite knitting tip we can share with our readers in future articles? Email
editor@DailyKnitter.com and help your fellow knitter.
Unraveling your knitting to correct a mistake is inevitable. At one time or another, we all will have to do it. But the most frustrating part of frogging is placing the stitches back on to the needle without twisting them. Instead of turning the stitches around by hand as you knit and potentially stretching out the stitches, simply knit into the back of the reversed stitches.
More twisted stitches come to mind when working with circular needles. Who hasn't said a prayer when joining? Next time try knitting the first one or two rows flat after casting on and then join your work. You can use the tail of yarn to seam up those few rows once the project is completed.
Guarantee buttons will be placed in the correct location. When working the button band, insert a reverse stitch or other marking stitch where the center of the button hole would be. No guessing or measuring the next time you sew on cardigan buttons.
Keep a lint brush handy if you are knitting with angora or mohair. The shedding can drive you crazy, especially when wearing black velvet pants and knitting with white yarn. We won't pretend to understand why it works, but try putting the yarn in the freezer an hour before knitting. This greatly reduces the shedding.
Working a repeating pattern and don't have a counter near by? If there are six or less rows repeating, grab the die from a board game to keep track. Simply rotate the die each time you complete a row.
Need a quick pom-pom to top off your hat, but don't have a pom-pom maker? Use a credit card, but not to go out and buy a pom-pom. Wrap the yarn around the card to your preferred thickness. Thread a new piece of yarn through the wraps and tie it tightly with a knot. Remove the wraps and cut. Voila, a pom-pom is born.