Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Knitting Off with the Knifty Knitter Hook

I was knitting along today, making yet another scarf on the Knifty Knitter loom. That's when it happened... the unthinkable. I picked up the hook and knitting off wasn't working anymore. Alright, maybe it wasn't that big a deal, but I couldn't figure out why knitting off had become so cumbersome. That's when I saw it, the tip of the Knifty Knitter hook, it looked different to me. I went through the pouch where I store my crochet hooks and Knifty Knitter hooks. I have several KK hooks and had grabbed one that I'd never used before. It was thick at the end and not at all like the hook that I was used to. It didn't fit in the grove of the loom very well and try as I might, I could not knit off with it without tearing up the yarn.

I just thought I should warn Knifty Knitter newbies that all hooks aren't created equal. I tried to get a good shot of the tip, so that if you're having trouble, you would know what the tip of the hook should look like. I have 3 hooks and of the 3 only one is thick and difficult to work with.

Happy Knifty knitting!
Heather

Monday, January 3, 2011

Number Your Pegs on Your Knifty Knitter Loom

One of the idiosyncrasies of the Knifty Knitter looms is that the manufacturer, Provo Craft, is constantly changing the color of the looms. Patterns written for the pink loom, or yellow loom, may not coincide with the colors of your loom, because of the constant color changing. A better way to identify a loom is by the number of pegs it has. A pattern calling for a 24 peg round Knifty Knitter loom, for example, will always be correct for your 24 peg round loom. My Knifty Knitter loom that has 24 pegs happens to be blue, but yours may not be.

The Knifty Knitter round loom set actually comes with 4 looms. The sizes are: 24 pegs, 31 pegs, 36 pegs, and 41 pegs. When you number the pegs, start by numbering the peg directly above the anchor peg with a 1. Move around the loom going clockwise, increasing the numbers as you go. As you knit in a clockwise direction, having your pegs numbered will help you.

No Wrap and EWrap Stitch Alternate

I wanted to show you the new Knifty Knitter project I've been working on that alternates the Ewrap and the no wrap stitches. The no wrap stitch is sometimes called the "knit" stitch also. The result is a typical knit pattern with a purl stitch on one side and the knit stitch on the other.

Anyway, alternating the no wrap, or knit stitch, with an Ewrap stitch, gives you this look:
There are 7 rows of the no wrap stitch followed by 3 rows of the Ewrap stitch. Alternating the stitches in this way helped keep the finished project from shrinking so much as I took it off the loom. What I mean by that is that most projects done in a no wrap, or knit stitch, shrink to about half their size when removed from the loom. The Ewrap stitch incorporated between rows gives a bit off pull to the knit stitches. See how the Ewrap rows are a bit wider?

This project is an infant hat. I am crocheting the brim of the hat right now. The project will be posted soon to this blog.

Happy Knifty Knitting,
Heather

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