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How To Knit A Baby Blanket – Knitting For Your Baby Can Be Fun by Thomas Roberson

Do you want to grant your baby with a special blanket you made yourself? Why not try knitting a baby blanket? You’ve got so many things to discover in knitting that it can actually turn into a great hobby with results that you will value. Knitting is about needles, yarns, patterns, stitches and wonderful knitted. Learning how to knit a baby blanket paves the way to that comfy blanket you have always wanted for your tot.

Studying the art of knitting especially a baby blanket is about creating simple patterns at first. With them, you can make exceptional knitted outfits and items. As soon as you have completed simple ones, you can advance to intricate patterns. If you want to, you may ask for the help of someone who is skilled in knitting for tips and suggestions.

Begin your craft by holding the two needles until you are ready to add the yarn. Form a starter’s knitting block which will also function as the groundwork for your design. Anybody who finds knitting very interesting, learning this basic step on how to knit a baby blanket or any other items you like to create would be very easy. This routine should be practiced regularly until the process is successfully completed. When mastered, it will also pave the way for the person to become geared up for the succeeding stitch kinds.

You can pick from varied stitches in learning how to knit a baby blanket. They can help you create impressive blanket patterns although they are more appropriate for advanced knitting. For beginners or even the skilled at knitting, the process can take a number of weeks as it will depend on the blanket’s size which you are trying to create.

Uncomplicated knitting stitches can already create a simple patterned blanket. Yes, the stitches could become awkward and loose, but think of your craft as an art and it will come out good. With additional easy patterns, you would soon learn the craft of creating a baby blanket through knitting. You would not notice later that you are already aiming at more elaborate patterns.

You cannot learn knitting for a day as it can take some time to be proficient, just like any other venture. But then, when you constantly practice knitting, there is no other way but for you to become better at knitting. Knitting clubs can also help you improve your knitting particularly if you have just started learning how to knit a baby blanket.

Learn How To Create Outstanding Knitting Craft, From Home, With No Experience Needed! Discover more information about How To Knit a Baby Blanket, visit Knitting Instructions.

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Golden Rules of Knitting – The Start and Finish by Tis Amit

I truly believe that anyone can learn to knit – however, how pleased you are with your knitted projects, and consequently how inspired you’ll be to go on to bigger and better things, is very dependent on how your early attempts turn out. There are two of three simple, but essential, steps which will transform your final outcomes from the satisfactory to the simply sensational.

Before you start: Needles and Tension.

Once you have identified a knitting pattern you need to choose your needles and believe me, choosing a needle you’re comfortable with makes a real difference to the knitting experience. Needles come in a mind-blowing choice of sizes and lengths and are made from a variety of materials. Straight, metal needles, usually aluminium, have become the staple of the knitting kit and are useful for knitting synthetic yarns because they are smooth and allow your work to slide along easily. However, they can become either “sticky” or feel cold to work with. The more modern needles manufactured from plastic or acrylic are light and strong and useful in larger sizes where the equivalent metal needle would be heavy to use. Traditional wooden needles have recently returned to popularity and are now made from a range of sustainable woods such as birch, and most knitters, once they’ve made the change to wooden needles, are resistant to using anything else. The heat of your hands warms the wood and makes them very comfortable to work with adding to the whole tactile experience of knitting. Wooden needles also tend to be smooth but not too slippery so are appropriate to all levels of skill. They are obviously more brittle than other types of needles so need to be looked after but a “broken in” pair of wooden needles, where a natural patina has developed through use, can’t be beaten. With experience and as a project demands, knitters require circular or double-point needles to “knit in the round” or for distributing the weight of a larger project like a blanket or afghan, but investing in good quality wooden needles is invaluable.

Whilst every knitter just can’t wait to cast on a new project (which is probably why knitters have so many WIPs: works-in-progress) I can’t emphasis enough the importance of checking your tension. Whilst almost all patterns give a standard idea of the number of rows/stitches across a given distance, we all knit slightly differently and it is essential to check your tension if you don’t want to finish up with a “sloppy Joe” instead of a “skinny rib” jumper! Using your pattern or your yarn’s “ball band” as a guide, make up a tension square measuring 15cm x 15cm (6″ x 6″). Top tip; garter stitch (knit every stitch) for the first three rows and then on the first three stitches of every row to prevent your square curling. If you are knitting something patterned, work your tension square in the pattern to check the tension. (This also gives you a good indication of whether you’re going to like the finished article or not!) Cast off and gently smooth your swatch and pin to a padded surface (ie. a folded towel) making sure you don’t over stretch your square. Using a large headed pin as a marker, place it vertically between two stitches then, using a ruler, measure 10cm (4″) along the row and place another pin in the knitting. To check row tension, insert a pin horizontally and then measure vertically 10cm (4″) up the work and place another. Count the stitches and rows between the pins noting any differences in the recommended tension. If your tension matches you can start knitting! However, it you have more stitches/rows than stated, your knitting is too tight and you need to use larger needles. If you have less stitches, your tension is too loose and you should try smaller needles. Either way, it is worth trying another tension square to get it right. I used to think of tension checking as not only a waste of time, but also of yarn. I now combat this by labelling (yarn/pattern and needle details) my tension squares and they then serve as a useful reference for future projects.

It doesn’t end at “Cast Off”

Once you’ve got towards the end of your project it can be tempting to cast off, pin the bits together, sew up and admire. However, it really is worth taking a bit of time over the finishing process. Top tip for casting off, if you find that your knitting style is quite “tight” you may choose to change to larger sized needles for the cast off edge.

The process of “blocking”, basically wetting or steaming the knitted piece(s) to even out the stitches and allow the fibres to adjust and relax into place, is well worth the extra effort. Whilst you won’t need to block every piece of knitting, for most garments it can make a huge difference. Essential for fine yarn knitting such as lace shawls, blocking is also really beneficial to individual pieces to assist with the sewing up process and helps give a professional finish. You need to find a flat surface larger than the biggest knitted piece, for example a spare corner of carpet or your dining table, alternatively, you can make your own “blocking board” by wrapping a piece of hardboard with foam, wadding or an unwanted towel and then covering this over with a heavy cloth and securing in place with stapes or panel pins.

Most natural fibres such as wool, cotton, linen, cashmere and alpaca can be steam pressed or wet blocked, whilst mohair, wool blends and synthetic yarns don’t usually respond well to steaming but can be wet blocked. I’ve tried a variety of blocking methods, from steaming to fully immersing pieces in water (heart-stoppingly scary!) before wringing out and pinning to shape, but I much prefer the following more gentle method. Lay your piece of knitting out on your blocking surface but don’t pin yet, using a spray bottle, dampen the pieces, using a fine mist but also ensuring the pieces are quite damp. Using long pins, secure the pieces to the surface starting with the length, then the width and lastly curves and corners. Use a tape measure and check dimensions against pattern guidance regularly and don’t be stingy with pins – every few inches will prevent the shapes distorting. Allow the piece(s) to dry naturally. Cautionary note: avoid blocking any ribbed areas unless you want the elasticity of the finished piece to be diminished.

Bringing it all together: Sewing up

Sewing up is probably viewed as the most disagreeable part of knitting. All those boring ends to sew in and then making sure the right bits (and rights sides) are together can be particularly tedious – but again, taking that bit of extra time will pay dividends. There are two main stitches used for sewing up; back stitch and mattress stitch. Back stitch gives a good strong seam ideal for curved and horizontal seams such as around armholes and along shoulders. Mattress stitch is a very neat joining stitch for side seams and seams which don’t need too much elasticity. If pieces are blocked correctly, pinning them together should be a much easier job – use plenty of pins and ease in any fullness as you go. On a conventional sweater or cardigan you will usually sew one or both shoulder seams together, work the neckband, sew the sleeves into place and then finish by sewing the side and sleeve seams. Use the same yarn you used to knit the garment (this isn’t always feasible with some novelty or specialised yarn in which case you need to choose a suitable smooth yarn in a matching colour). Secure your yarn by working a couple of back stitches close to the seam edge and then work your way along the seam using your chosen stitch, pulling the yarn firmly but avoiding puckering, and checking the correct side of the garment as you go. Finally, press the sewn seams using one of the following methods. Place a clean, damp tea towel over the seams (garment should be inside out) and using a gentle heat, press the seams with your iron, lifting the iron on and off the fabric rather than using a sliding motion. Alternatively, spray the seam on the inside of the garment and finger press to flatten and allow to dry naturally. Pressing the sewn seams “sets” the seam stitches and helps prevent any yarn ends from working free.

YarnSmith.co.uk, based in Suffolk, UK, is online supplier of knitting patterns, yarns, needles, crochet accessories, knitting books and other knitting accessories. Here you can find all knitting accessories and yarns of all branded manufacture, compare and get best knitting accessories for you.

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Knitting’s Convoluted History by Chaka Lucas

Imagine getting up and pulling on pantyhose made of ripstop nylon, or wrapping strips of wool gabardine from toe to knee before stepping into loafers. Imagine a world where all is woven, a world without nylons, socks, tee shirts, stretchy lingerie, sweaters, and sweatshirts. Unlike woven cloth, knitted fabric adjusts to a body in motion, Knits make our lives flexible.

Generations of people have worn woven clothing that did not move or stretch with them. Knights in armor wore woven woolen hose with seams that ran from crotch to toe, and were cranky enough to wage war for a country. (Riding breeches are still cut like deflated beach balls because woven fabric does not stretch as you straddle a horse.) Ladies have suffered through fitted linen slips that required corsets, brassiers like rocket nose cones, and panties the size of pillowcases.

Still, the question Is not “Why didn’t someone invent knitting sooner?” but rather, “How did anyone figure it out at all?” Weaving was on the scene in the stone age, way before knitting, because in the course of observing nature, lots of things lead you to think of weaving. Weaving is in bird nests and spider webs. Look at your folded hands, with fingers interlaced and palms down; you have before your eyes the inspiration for a tabby or a twill pattern. Perhaps you are sitting by the fire one prehistoric night, playing with a piece of sinew from dinner. You wrap it over and under the fingers of one hand and have weaving.

Knitting, on the other hand, mimics nothing in nature. There must first be loops on a stick, then a second stick to draw a new loop through each loop just before you drop it, crating a flat fabric structure that is flexible in every direction. This is genius, plain and simple. No wonder it took eons to figure it out; we are lucky to have it at all. But where did it come from?

Though we see examples of sophisticated woven cloth even before the Neolithic period, about 6000 B.C., nothing even resembles knitting until the late Iron Age (c. 400 B.C. – 1.B.C.) with a fragment of a needle technique for netting, most commonly known as nalbainding.

Nalbinding is a stretchy, looped fabric made by sewing loops of yarn through each other with a blunt needle. The basic nalbinding stitch is formed around the thumb and twisted during construction, so the stitches look like stitches knitted through the back loop. Each loop is sewn through one other free loop. This differs from offset meshes of regular netting, in which the ends of each mesh are looped around the threads of two separate meshes.

Nalbinding is technically a knitted fabric, odd though the manufacture may be. On closer inspection it differs from modern knitting at increases and decreases. Some things possible in nalbinding are unwieldy or impossible with knitting, so it is possible to distinguish shaped garments made by the two techniques. Ancient nalbinded items found include small bags, and garments that need to stretch and bend around odd shapes – usually feet and hands. Because such garments receive hard wear, the technique may be much older than the oldest extant examples. Nalbinding is generally considered the precursor to modern knitting and still plays a limited role in garment making, usually in a folk context.

Want to know where you can find the best baby knitting pattern? Or vintage knitting patterns? Visit Leisure Arts for great knitting books, knitting patterns and more.
Chaka Lucas is a craft enthusiast who loves knitting, sewing, crochet, cross stitch, beading and more.
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Knitting Socks And Underwear – A Knitting History Tale by Chaka Lucas

Knitted underwear crept up the social ladder. In 1499 Princess Margaret Tudor (Henry VIII’s sister) listed “two pairs of hosen, knit” among her possessions. In 1509 Henry VIII married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon. Despite the knitted artifacts in royal Spanish tombs, we know that knit stockings were not introduced by Queen Catherine because of the interesting comment that “Henry VIII commonly wore cloth hose, except that there came from Spain by great chance, a pair of knit silk stockings.” If the rare knit stockings were to Henry’s taste, his divorce of Queen Catherine and the resulting insult to Spain dried up any more such gifts. Perhaps if one of his last five wives had been French or Italian he would have had a source. The oldest known guild of stocking knitters was formed in Paris in 1557, and silk hose knitting businesses in Venice and Milan by 1539.

By 1560 in England, Queen Elizabeth I wore only silk knitted stockings and made her preference known. Her Scottish rival, Mary Queen of Scots, also wore knitted stockings, which she may have become accustomed to in France. European royalty were all wearing knitted silk stockings by the end of the 16th century. Once the Royals were wearing knitted stockings, the nobility realized how much better knitted stockings were than woven ones. They all wanted knitted stockings, too, and they didn’t intend to make those stockings themselves. Knitting guilds on the continent flourished.

Under Appreciated

Stockings were being knit in the city of Nottingham by 1519, but stocking knitters’ guilds never formed because there was little fashionable demand for stockings for another 40 years. Guilds formed only when tradesmen organized to protect the trade secrets and promote commerce. Once knitting became fashionable enough to spur the development of a full-blown trade it was too late to protect the trade secrets of knitting. Then the bourgeoisie wanted luxurious knitted stockings, too, but they wanted to haggle over the price.

British merchants undercut European guild stocking knitters by going directly to rural British peasants and getting them to knit for almost nothing, then sold stockings dirt-cheap at home and abroad. Everyone loved the high quality, low cost stockings knitted by British farm families, and the farm families were glad to oblige. Knitting for pittance kept impoverished rural folk off the parish dole with a respectable, if scant, subsistence. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have denied William Lee a patent for a knitting frame because “To enjoy the privilege of making stockings for the whole of my subjects is too important to be granted to any individual… I have too much love for my poor people who gain their bread by the employment of knitting to give my money to forward an invention that will tend to their run by depriving them of employment and making them beggars.” Lee took his invention to France. The French continued to import cheap, well-made English stockings.

Finally in 1657 a framework Knitters’ Guild was allowed to incorporate in England. High tech knitting began, though it didn’t overtake hand knitting for 200 years, in part because frame knitting was not that much more productive than hand knitters. Hand knitters could work anytime, anywhere, in any daylight, while frame knitters could only work at their frames in daylight. The other factor was that frame-knit stockings did not have the exquisite shaping of hand-knitted stockings. Decent women didn’t show their legs, but men in knee breeches depended upon elegant legs for their fashion status, and baggy stockings were a disaster. Cheap won out sometimes, but not often enough to eliminate the preference for hand knitted stockings. Not until the French Revolution, anyway, when the knee breeches of the aristocracy were abandoned in favor of the long trousers of the triumphant proletarians. If you were not wearing calf-revealing breeches, who cares who your stockings fit? Thus died the international hand-knitted stocking trade, a slave to crass fashion. This led to renewed rural poverty and emigration.

Where does all this talk of stockings lead? It seems interminable, and in many ways it was, because for most of its history knitting was stockings or underwear. If you were lucky enough to be rich, someone else knitted it for you. There were occasions when even underwear got its moment in the sun. At the execution of King Charles I in 1649, the doomed monarch stripped to his undershirt, which was sky blue silk, knitted in geometric knit/purl brocade patterns, and declared before he was beheaded that, “A subject and his sovereign are clean different things.” This showed what kings and their underwear were made of. Afterwards the king’s physician kept the garment, which still exists at the London Museum.

Chaka is a knitting enthusiast who loves to knit baby clothes. In fact, she has a great baby knitting pattern to recommend for anyone else who likes to knit baby clothes. She also has great recommendations for sock knitting patterns for those who like a different sort of challenge.
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The Benefits of Knitting Circles
Written by Lisa Akers

I was reading Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and was struck by something very powerful. He said that our growing fear and insecurity about work, finances, the future, and the vulnerability that comes with that fear is really paralyzing our society. Our response to fear is to focus inward – to focus on our own performance and our own concerns with the hope that we will be ok. That was a real scary thought for me, as I see more and more of that in myself and others. Can you imagine what happens to society if we all become hermits?

It is essential to depend on others to succeed to the fullest. It is only with the assistance of others that we can become the whole person that we could be. It is through others that we can develop all aspects of our personality. Our dealings with other people shape our personality and develop our interpersonal skills. No one ever achieved anything great by themselves, and if we continue to hide behind the “I’ll take care of just me” facade, we’ll never achieve anything great either.

So what does that have to do with knitting circles? Knitting circles have for centuries brought women together to share their experiences, to ask advice, and to encourage one another. It’s a fun environment and a learning environment all at the same time. It provides a place where women can go to find community. Most importantly, it is a place where that community does not stand in judgment.

This kind of community is a large part of what is missing in our society today. By “nesting” and staying home, we have abandoned community. Nesting is a phenomena punctuated by the growing number of telecommuters, work at homers, and internet chat. We’re avoiding people and choosing to stay at home where we feel safe. The internet brings us chat rooms, but we can’t hold a conversation in person. Nesting is keeping us from achieving all we can achieve. So, enter knitting circles! Knitting circles are a way to connect with the people who can help you achieve something great.

You must get out of your house to have a circle (or at least invite people over to your house). You will be able to share the common interest of knitting with people who bring varied experiences. You will have the chance to talk to people and share in their wisdom.

You may not solve the great mysteries of the world, and your achievements may never be chronicled in encyclopedias for generations to revere, but imagine the pride of knowing you’ve changed one person for the better. Imagine knowing that what you had to offer was exactly what someone needed to make a dramatic change for the better. Wow! You might raise a child, coach a business owner, write a book, offer your expertise to assist another, or even just listen and ask understanding questions. When was the last time someone truly listened to what you said? See what I mean?

This is the value of community and the value of knitting circles. Knitting circles bring women together in an environment where it is comfortable to share and ask questions. It is safe to learn something new. It appeals to women of all walks of life and all generations. Find a circle near you, come to one of my Knit One, Share Two events, or start one of your own. You’ll be creating a life-changing group that will encourage each to become more than they already are.

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Lisa Akers is the president of Be Still & Knit. Her company teaches women how to find peace and stillness in their lives through handwork. By discovering knit and crochet, women develop a new way to take time for themselves and share the love they have as warm clothing! Find out more about Lisa at www.bestillandknit.com or listen to her podcast at www.peacefulknitter.com.