Why Use Circular Needles?

Even if you're a super beginner knitter, you've probably seen or heard of circular needles before.

image via StitchDiva.com

So what are these circular needles (a.k.a. "circs") all about, and why would you want to make the switch from trusty old traditional straights?

image via YarnBird.ca

As the name implies, circs are particularly useful for circular projects, such as:

• hats
• skirts
• dresses
• bodies of sweaters
• even sleeves of sweaters!

You can even use them in the place of double-pointed needles (which are typically used for circular projects with fewer stitches, such as gloves and socks), by using the Magic Loop method.

 

image via Wear7.com

But, just because you CAN use circs for these projects doesn't mean you CAN'T use them for regular knitting (i.e. back-and-forth) as well.

There are plenty of reasons you might want to sub in a set of circular needles for your long straight ones, even when knitting something as simple as a scarf.

• Circs, with their short needles and long cables, fold up and travel very easily
• You carry less weight on your wrists when the stitches gather on the cable rather than hanging on a needle that you have to support
• They won't stick out and poke holes in your bag (or other people nearby!) while you're carrying your project around with you

My personal fave is the KA brand circular needles that we sell -- not only do they have super smooth joints (an important feature when you're constantly scootching stitches around and around the needles), but they swivel so that if you're doing back-and-forth knitting, you don't have to wrestle with uncoiling long cables each time you switch hands!

Want a crash course in how to use circular needles for an actual circular project?  Sign up for our Beginner's Hat class -- in this class we learn how to use both circular and double-pointed needles, in a single two-hour workshop.

Featured Pattern :: Evergreen Gloves

Another new pattern that we're carrying in the shop!  Come on in and we'll get you all set with the right yarn for the project.  

This week...

Designed by Kim Driggs, now available at the shop!

Featured Yarn :: Pleasant Hill Road

Pleasant Hill Road

A variegated rainbow cotton is set starkly against a deep navy slubby rayon, with a smoky black strand of lurex to give it a little shine.

• Fiber Content: 62 rayon / 32 cotton / 6 lurex
• Yardage: 450 yards
• Yarn Weight: Sport
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Hand wash / lay flat to dry
• Pattern Suggestions: Pineapple Pattern Tunic

Also available in our online shop!

What's your process?

From time to time, customers will ask me if we offer any classes on "yarn blending," i.e. how to know which fibers or colors will or won't go well together.


While this would be a super fun class to teach, I feel like it would also make me feel a little weird to teach it.  I know Yarnia is unlike any other yarn store, there's no doubt about that!


In creating a yarn shopping experience for which most customers have absolutely no context, I feel like it's my and Angela's duty to walk you through that process, every time you come into the shop, if you want!  It wouldn't really serve anyone to have the avenue to successful yarn creation be blocked by a $25 class fee.


That being said, making cool-looking yarns definitely comes with practice, and if I can share with you here some of my process, all the better.


So like I was saying last week, amongst the plethora of knitting projects I packed with me to take to New York, was a brand new pair of hoodie gloves -- one of my favorites, and now that cold weather biking is upon us, I knew I'd better get on it!

With such a relatively small project (I'm more of a sweater-and-blanket kinda girl, so the prospect of only needing 4 oz. of a given yarn is totally novel to me), and a no-need-to-be-subtle garment like gloves, I was overwhelmed with options.

So I considered, what are my constraints?  I knew I wanted soft (-->bamboo), warm (-->wool), dark (rainy bike handles get dirty quick!) and pretty.  Oh, and DK weight, because hoodie gloves on Size 7 needles are my fave!

I started with one of my favorite colorways of bamboo.

Then I added in a strand of black bamboo, just to see what the contrast would do.  To build up to the DK weight, I added in a strand of black merino, and an off-black regular wool.

I liked this, but something about it was just too calypso/Jazzercise for me.  


I tried an entirely different direction to see how I truly felt about this.

Blues and greens, also wool and bamboo, with just a thin strand of this fun little acrylic novelty yarn thrown in for some texture.


I liked it, but while I was swatching it up, that first blend kept nagging at me.  What if I toned down the black contrast by subbing in a brown bamboo in its place?  Then I spotted it, another variegated bamboo, this one sporting a variety of blacks, greys, and browns.

I replaced the black bamboo strand with this one, swatched it up, and I knew.  It was the one.  

Do you have a custom yarn success story?  Failure?  Question?  I'd love to hear it.

WOTN As I fly to New York

By the time this has posted, I will have flown overnight on the red-eye from Portland to Newark, taken the subway into Brooklyn, gone out to brunch with one of my best friends, and caught up on some last-minute work before disconnecting for the weekend and driving out to our friend's beach house where we will spend 3 Internet-free days catching up, hanging out, and...obviously...knitting.

I am bringing an absurd amount of WIPs with me on this trip, initially sparked by my profound fear of being caught on vacation with less knitting than time, and bolstered by the fact that I have an equally absurd amount of travel time in my near future.

Even after two cross-country flights, I also have a round trip drive to said beach house (totaling ~8 hours), all the chillaxing time AT the beach house, and a four-hour bus ride at the beginning of next week, from New York to D.C. to visit my oldest friend and her family.  So yeah, I have a few cones of yarn rattling around in my purse. 

Here's what I've got on the needles:

1) Leafy Fingerless Gloves

Gotta finish these puppies up.  They're tricky because even though they're super fun to work on, they require more concentration than I can offer while being social, and an intense amount of work space as I toggle between two different pages of the pattern simultaneously -- one for the leaf pattern, and one for the gusset directions.  Appropriate only for podcast listening.

2) Pine Forest Baby Blanket

When one of my friends who I hadn't seen since this summer showed up at our Knit Night last night, I realized just how pregnant she really is, even though I theoretically did know that she's due in December.  Somehow, without even a second thought, these three strands of baby-soft acrylic paired themselves with the softest shade of lavender bamboo, and the decision was made before I even had a chance to download the pattern to Evernote.  

It's only 600 yards of a worsted weight yarn, and uses the same awesome lace pattern that I used in the February Lady Sweater (but of course with a baby-perfect garter stitch border)!

3) A brand spanking new pair of Hoodie Gloves

(Keep an eye out for Monday's blog post for more on this one...)

4) Simple Lace Scarf

This is a sample that I'm working up for the shop, with easy-but-impressive holiday presents in mind.  My goal is to finish this up by the end of my trip, so that we can start selling the pattern and getting these on your needles just in the nick of time.

I'm working it up in Bay City, which couldn't be a better match for this pattern.

5) Backup Project: Ivy Cardigan

You've gotta have a backup project, right?  I know it's nutso to think that I might actually finish all 4 of these other projects and have hand dexterity left to spare, but it's a neurosis of mine, I'm telling you.

Featured Yarn :: Ashworth

Ashworth

A silk blend, bamboo, and cotton are mixed together in matching shades of cream to make this soft and neutral yarn, with a slight texture of raw silk.

• Fiber Content: 65 rayon-silk-polyester / 22 bamboo / 14 cotton
• Yardage: 230 yards
• Yarn Weight: Bulky
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Hand wash / lay flat to dry
• Pattern Suggestions: Matilda

Also available in our online shop!

FO :: Felted Uptown Clutch

Guest post by Angela

A couple of weeks ago I made the Felted Uptown Clutch by Lion’s Brand yarn. The pattern is free, and it was super fast and easy to knit up. I used two strands of our bright blue wool (great for felting) for the body of the bag, and the natural brown for the stitching. 

Basically the clutch is just a knit rectangle, which you then felt, fold, and sew, so the pattern really lends itself to endless customization/ alteration options. 

I think it would be great to add cables down the sides, or to knit the entire thing in a different or more textural stitch. I didn’t have a button to use when I finished the project, so I just crocheted a chain and made a wrap/tie close instead. 


I haven’t felted much before, so this was a great way to dive in. The instructions say to just throw the clutch into the washer and dryer to felt it, but I chose to do it by hand to save water, because our blue wool bleeds quite a bit, and I didn’t want to run the washer for just one small piece of knitting!  It only took me about 20 minutes of scrubbing (with a little bit of dish soap to soften the fibers) to get my rectangle nice and felted. 

I’d recommend this project to anyone who wants something fast and easy to whip up, or to someone who wants a basic pattern to then elaborate upon. It’d also be great for gifting – because really, who doesn’t like soft things to put their wallets and car keys in?

Join us for Knit & Crochet Night!

Hey, all.  Fall's here, no doubt about it.  It's time to get knitting (and crocheting)!  And what better way to make your way through your WIP list than to hunker down with a bunch of other yarn-lovers and do it together!

Next Wednesday, October 19th, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. is our next Knit & Crochet Night here at the shop!

Bring your patterns, projects, ideas, questions, and meet some other crafty peeps in the neighborhood!

Swing on by after work and we'll make a night of it.  We'll be here knitting from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., and will have tea, wine, music, good company, and some little snackies to keep us going!

I know I've got LOTS of projects that I need to get off the needles soon...how about you?

Check out the event on our Facebook page for more info.

Featured Pattern :: Market Basket Felted Bag

Another new pattern that we're carrying in the shop!  Come on in and we'll get you all set with the right yarn for the project.  

This week...

Designed by Theressa Silver, now available at the shop!

Featured Yarn :: Clay

Clay

A variegated cotton is combined with matching shades of rust, brown, and pumpkin orange in a host of fibers -- cotton, bamboo, and rayon boucle!

• Fiber Content: 60 cotton / 24 bamboo / 16 rayon
• Yardage: 255 yards
• Yarn Weight: Worsted
• Amount on Cone: 8 oz.
• Care: Machine wash OK / lay flat to dry
• Pattern Suggestions: Bronze Beauty Pullover

Also available in our online shop!

Evernote & Knitting on the go

I'm a busy lady.  I often find myself putting in 14-hour work days, bringing 2 entire meals to work with me so that I can stick to my satisfyingly frugal food budget, and coming home just to trade out my Tupperwares and change my clothes.  

Adding in the fact that nearly my entire social circle lives within a 1.5-mile radius of the shop, and that I have the Small Business Unconventional Weekends to contend with, I don't end up spending many of my workday evenings at home.

Which means that I am ever on the lookout for ways to make my knitting projects more portable, manageable, and organized -- after all, I never know when I'm going to be knitting the next 21 rows of my cable tunic at Meridian's exquisitely late happy hour, or on my boyfriend's couch while he cooks up a mean curry.

Here's one of my recently favorite tools: Evernote.  Now I'm a pretty recent (and resistant) newcomer to the iPhone scene, so I'm still not 100% comfortable moving my organizational systems online, but Evernote does make it pretty dang appealing.  

At first glance, it's just a glorified note app, with the added bonus of being able to add tags, pictures, and locations to your notes.  I started off just using it for my shopping lists, and keeping a log of books I want to read so I have a starting place when I find myself at Powell's wanting to get a new book for my next trip.

But lately, I've been realizing that because the iPhone camera so high quality and easily zoom-able, it's incredibly useful for compacting hard copy things into a digital form.

For example, if I've been taking notes by hand in a notebook at work, and want to have those notes with me for a meeting later, but just want to bike there in my vest and carry nothing but my phone, wallet, and keys, I'll take a picture of that page, and voila -- instantly accessible on my phone.

Also, just as a side note, let me say for all those Schedule C afficionados out there...receipts.  That is all.

So recently I had this dilemma.  I was going to a panel discussion after work one evening, and the knitting project I was planning on bringing was my Ivy Wrap Cardigan, which is accompanied by an unwieldy 3 double-sided pattern pages, folded 4 times and stuffed inside of the cone.  Not very practical for trying to be a polite member of the audience and giving us public knitters a good name by keeping the distraction level to a minimum.

A little phone in silent mode takes up way less space.

So here's what I do instead: Start up a new note in Evernote (which is totally free, btw), that will be my go-to for everything I need to know about this pattern.

Then, I take a picture of the pattern, or whatever portion of that pattern I'll need to have on hand for the next few sessions of knitting.

The touch screen makes it super easy to zoom in if I need to get a closer look at a particular line of directions.

I can add a tag to this note so that it will come up whenever I'm browsing through all my current knitting projects.

And because I no longer have the hard copy pattern to scribble my notes all over, I can take virtual notes about where I'm at, what I just did, and where to pick up again next time.

It all gets stored neatly in my "notebook," with everything right there at a glance. (Oh, and bonus!  It synchronizes with your Evernote account online, so you can also access this from any othe computer or device that's connected to the Internet.)

And, if I take a long hiatus from this project, so long that this note gets buried beneath all my more recent notes (which are organized chronologically for browsing purposes), I can just search for a word in the title that I know will bring it up.

What about you?  What's your favorite method for keeping your WIPs organized?  What are the pros and cons?

Featured Yarn :: Olympic

Olympic

A sea green strand of bamboo, and matching shades of merino wool and lurex combine to make this beautiful and subtly heathered sock yarn.

• Fiber Content: 52 bamboo / 27 wool / 14 merino / 8 lurex
• Yardage: 30 yards
• Yarn Weight: Sock/Fingering
• Amount on Cone: 5.5 oz.
• Care: Hand wash / lay flat to dry
• Pattern Suggestions: Mystery Sock '09

Also available in our online shop!

WIP :: A-Line Dress (home stretch!)

Well the end of this dress certainly took a surprise turn.  After dozens and dozens of rounds of the eyelet lace pattern with some slow decreases, all of a sudden it was time to work on the bust, which felt like it lasted about 10 minutes compared with the looooong trek that was the skirt portion.

Almost immediately came the shoulder shaping, and I have to say, I didn't quite get where they were going with this.

Until, I realized, this wasn't like the camisole tank tops I'm used to where the shoulders give way into a thin strap and then connect; this odd triangular shape would in fact wrap over the shoulder and be matched up with its symmetrical decreases on the front part of the bust.

Which creates adorable little cap sleeves!

(Pattern available here via Ravelry.)

Super into this dress.  All that's left is a couple quick rows of picked-up-edging and then it's wet blocking time!