New Mexico Knitters! (And Wannabe Knitters!)

I'm teaching classes this Saturday!  I will be teaching beginning knitting and continental style knitting :)  More details here.

I would love to meet you and you're friends so be sure to sign up today!  Sign ups close soon, so don't hesitate.

Tuesday Learn To Knit Day 14 - The I-Cord

Hello My Dear Students,

I know I didn't really come back and teach you new things the next week like I said I would, I got incredibly busy and these lessons fell by the wayside.  I know.  For Shame.  I apologize profusely and hope to get these back on track. 

This week, we're learning the I-cord.  I was teaching my friend how to knit this the other night and knew that I must show you all! The I-cord is used for a variety of things including straps on bags and various embellishments.  It is also good for knitting jewelry and those sorts of things.

Basically, knitting an I-cord is knitting in the round on a very small scale.

You will need two double pointed needles and whatever yarn you are using.

First, cast on probably 3 or 4 stitches (the more stitches, the thicker the I-cord.  Many patterns call for a specific number, so I'll leave that to them and give you the basics).

Instead of knitting on the side that the last cast on stitch is on, you will slide the stitches to the other end of the needle and knit the first cast on stitch first, instead of the last.

Continue with the rest of the stitches on the needle and when you complete the row, slide the stitches back to the other side of the needle (I hear making the type-writer sound "Ching" while doing this makes it easier ;))

Continue in this fashion until the I-cord is as long as desired and bind off.

If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions, please feel free to let me know :)

Tuesday Learn to Knit Day 12 - Knitting in the Round

Hello knitters! In this week's installment of my knitting lessons, I will be teaching you the fundamentals of knitting in the round. This type of knitting is perfect for hats, socks, bags and other 'round' type things, it creates one uniform piece of fabric so you don't have to sew up the sides later.

There are two ways to do this, with circular needles (circs) and double pointed needles (dpns).

In both cases, the most important thing about knitting in the round is to make sure your stitches don't get twisted. This can take some practice (as does everything with knitting). The way I do this is to make sure that the ridge created when casting on is all facing downward. If the little ridge is twisted or snakes around your needles, you won't get a flat project and you'll have to start over. Unless, of course, your project calls for twisted stitches, but most of the time they don't :)

I find circular needles a bit easier so I will start with those first.

Cast on the desired number of stitches just as you would with straight needles.

Stretch the stitches over the entire length of the needle so that they reach the other point.

Place a stitch marker (the little elephant in the picture) to mark the beginning of a round. A round is equivalent to a row on straight needles.

Knit as you would on straight needles, passing the stitch marker over from left to right as you come to it.

Now onto double pointed needles.

With double pointed needles, usually they come in a set of 4 or 5. Depending on the size of the project, you will have 3 or 4 in constant use (kind of acting as the loose chord holding circulars together) and one for knitting.

Cast on the desired number of stitches evenly over the 3 or 4 needles. this part can be a bit confusing and frustrating at first. To keep the needles from falling out or getting twisted, I hold the ones with stitches on them in my right hand along with the needle currently receiving stitches sticking out a bit farther than the others.

Make a triangle or square with them as shown to orient the stitches so that the first cast on and the last cast on are next to each other.

Place your marker (the elephant in the photo) and knit two or three stitches from the first needle to the 3rd (or 4th).

Now take your empty needle, needle 4 in this demonstration, and knit all of the stitches from needle 1 onto needle 4.

This will leave needle 1 empty, and you will then use needle 1 to knit all of the stitches from needle 2.

Then you will use needle 2 to knit all of the stitches from needle 3, and so on and so forth.

Standing Out on Etsy 101

Hey everybody, if you're an Etsy seller I want to point you in the direction of Olivebites. She has a three-part series that she posted this week all about how to standout on Etsy and I think the information in there is not only informative, insightful and intelligent, its also very inspirational and an easy read. (sorry for all the i's, I mean, I like alliteration and all hehe). So please head over and check out what she has to say, I learned all kinds of new things that I will start implementing in my shop!

Tuesday Learn to Knit Day 11 - Stitch Patterns

Today we're not learning a new stitch so much as we are learning what cool things we can do with the stitches you already know, namely the knit and purl stitches.

These stitch patterns will let you practice both knitting and purling as well as show you some cool textures you can create with them!

First, stockinette:

This pattern consists of two rows: Knit one row, Purl the next row, simple, no?

Second, ribbing:

This pattern is very useful when making pieces that you would like to be stretchy, its pattern is some variation of the following:

CO 16

K2, P2 across row

You do this for all rows

Third, seed stitch:

This pattern is where you vary your knit and purl stitches, like so:

CO 16

K1, P1 across row

you will do this for all rows with an even number of stitches, for odd amounts, the second row will be to P1, K1 across all the stitches

Tuesday Learn to Knit Day 10 - A Simple Increase

Since I taught you two simple methods for decreasing the number of stitches in your knitting last week, this week I'm going to teach you an easy way to increase. Its called Knitting Through the Front and Back (kfb).

Ok, so you knit to where you would like the increase to take place,

You knit the next stitch (stitch to be increased with) as normal but do not slide the stitch off the left hand needle, instead, insert your right hand needle through the middle of the stitch and through the back

Then wrap the yarn around the right hand needle again and pull the right hand needle back through the center of the stitch, similar to normal knitting, and slide the stitch on the left hand needle off, you will have made two new stitches on the right hand needle.

This is what it looks like in the long run:

Now you know many of the basics of knitting and can start making all kinds of projects! I will continue to show you various knitting techniques, and if you have something specific you'd like to know, don't hesitate to ask! Questions? Comments? I want to hear those too :)

Wise Wednesday - The Art (or science?) of Pricing - Follow Up

from Sassboxclassics

So last week I shared with you my take on the art and science of pricing. A number of great comments were made and I chatted with CarolBradley about the formula and she brought it to my attention that I had mistyped! I wrote that you multiply your labor by your materials when really you add them together to get your At Cost price (you should NEVER sell at cost, by the way), it is now corrected in the original post. She also shared with me her formula for pricing which I really like. To price her jewelry, CarolBradley uses:

Materials = Raw materials for the piece + shipping, etc

4 x materials

add pro-rated labor at $xx an hour

add 10% for overhead

and this gives you the MINIMUM price for retail

from Sovietvintage

Again, this formula can be personalized as needed, and make sure that you are paying yourself a fair hourly wage!

from SomethingUsed

*Also, in all of these formulas, we are assuming that the seller buys their materials at a wholesale price, rather than retail.

Tuesday Learn to Knit Day 9 - Two Simple Decreases

So by now I'm sure you'd all like to move on from rectangles and squares and maybe do a hat or something with shape! That's why this week I am going to teach you the two simplest decrease methods that are very widely used. I use them in most of my hats, sweaters, socks, etc etc, the list goes on.

Ok the first one I am going to teach you is the Knit 2 Together (K2tog) method.

Basically, it is what it sounds like. You knit to where you'd like to decrease, then insert your right hand needle into both of the next two stitches on the left hand needle as if to knit.

You then complete the stitch as one normal knit stitch. You wrap the yarn around the right hand needle from right to left, back to front, and slip the two old stitches off the left hand needle leaving only your new single stitch on the right hand needle.

Pretty simple no?

The next decrease method is fairly similar in appearance although the "direction" of the decrease goes to the right instead of the left, this will be more obvious once you've seen them both.

Again, knit to where you'd like to decrease, slip the next stitch off the left hand needle onto the right hand needle without knitting it (sl1).

Knit the next stitch on the left hand needle.

Now take the slipped stitch and pass it over the knitted stitch and off the right hand needle (Psso)

What do you think? Which is your preferred method of decreasing?

Wise Wednesday - The Art (or science?) of Pricing

It's been a hot topic on Etsy recently (well, I mean, I guess its almost always hot topic huh?) but pricing can be a very difficult thing to tackle. This post is filled with the things that I find most important about pricing and I think everyone, especially every Etsy seller, should know.

First, you can't do everything. And when I say everything, I really mean: your product cannot be quickly made, cheap and of the highest quality. You can do maybe two of those three things, but not all three and you shouldn't try. This will reflect in your pricing.

If you have a quickly-made product that is cheap, it won't be the most high quality piece. If you make a very high quality piece that was made rather quickly, it won't be cheap. If you make a cheap, high quality item, it won't be quickly made. You see what I mean?

Make sure your decision on which two features to focus on (whether you make it consciously, or your craft makes it for you) reflects in your pricing structure.

There are so many different ways to price items, and you really do have to find one that works the best for you. I've heard some people settle for a simple calculation of "Three times the price of the materials" I've heard some people research the price of other similar items, I know some people have very lengthy equations that they use, or they download a pricing template. The equation I find that works best for me is as follows:

Hours Spent on Piece x Hourly Wage = Labor

Cost of Materials + Labor = At Cost

At Cost x 2 = Wholesale

Wholesale x 2 = Retail

If you decide to use this method, I can send you an excel spreadsheet that I made that makes this easy for me, you enter in your hourly wage that you will charge (make sure its fair, come on, do you really want to be making less than minimum wage?), you enter in the cost of materials and how many hours you took to make it, then it calculates everything else out for you. Trust me, it can be a bit scary or at least eye-opening at first to see how much you really *should* be making, but you have to know what your work is worth. If you don't believe in it, no one else will.

Tutorial: Knitting a Picot Edge

Edgings are great ways to embellish an otherwise ordinary project, or even those projects that aren’t ordinary hehe. There are a few ways to do a picot edge, but today I’m going to show you how to a knitted picot edge in the easiest method that I know how.

To make the edge, you can choose to either begin the project with the picot edging, bind off with the picot edging or pick up an already bound off piece and add the edging. The directions after this point are fairly similar but the first row may be different depending on the project. Either way, make sure you have all of the stitches that you want on your needles for the edge.

Knit two rows in stockinette.

On the next row, yarn over and knit two together across all the stitches

Knit another two rows in stockinette.

This next part I kind of fandangled myself after having done a few edgings the “hard” way where you finish the piece then go back and sew the end of the piece together to make the edge. So instead of that, I bind off (or attach while continuing the work, whichever happens to be part of the project, in this case it is attaching while continuing the project) while sewing the edging in place.

This is done on the purl-side. I go through the front of the stitch on the left hand needle as if I’m about to purl then pick up the equivalent stitch that is on the opposite side of the YO rows where I began the first stockinette row for the edging (in this case the cast-on row) and knit the two together.

If I’m binding off at this time I also incorporate that into the work as the stitches are added to the right hand needle. Do this all across the row and you end up with a nice little detail on the edge of your work.

Did you like this tutorial? Did it make sense? What other tutorials would you like to see in the future?

Trimmings

What do you do when you have that piece that is just....ok. Its nice, its functional, its *almost* cool, but its not...quite....there....yet. You know the piece I'm talking about. You may even have more than one of them (I know I do).

Instead of tearing up the whole thing, or frogging it to shreds in frustration, try adding a trim of some kind.

That way, the bulk of your item stays the same, functional, cool piece you created but its not just *almost* cool anymore, its now super cool!

Don't know what kind of trim to use? Something simple, complicated, lacy, ribbed? Come Monday I will post a tutorial for knitting a picot edge for your *almost* cool piece! This will be the first in a series of edges and trimmings. In order for me to know which edges you would like to see, please leave a comment and I'll do my best to give you what you want!