The Knifty Knitter

Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Knifty Knitter Looms vs the Boye Looms

A few years ago, Wal-mart carried the Knifty Knitter looms manufactured by Provo Craft. Recently, Wal-mart began carrying looms that said "Knifty Knitter" on the front, but they were manufactured by Boye. Later, the boxes of Boye looms dropped the brand name "Knifty Knitter."

See for yourself:

The original Provo Craft Knifty Knitter round looms:

The Boye Knifty Knitter round looms:

For a short time the Boye box said, "Knifty Knitter," but it no longer does. I bought a set of the Boye round looms now sold at my local Wal-Mart, so that I could compare them to my Provo Craft looms that I bought a few years ago at the same Wal-Mart. Each round loom set comes with 4 looms. The size of the looms in each set is almost identical within 1/8 of an inch.

Because the looms are almost identical in size, and the pegs of only the medium and XL looms vary by 1 peg, they can be used interchangeably in patterns. Check it out:


	Provo Craft	Boye
Small	Blue – 24 pegs	Green – 24 pegs
Medium	Red – 31 pegs	Blue – 30 pegs
Large	Green – 36 pegs	Orange – 36 pegs
Extra Large	Yellow – 41 pegs	Pink – 40 pegs

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Ribbing Stitch for the Knifty Knitter Loom

Formally known as the ribbing stitch, it is also known as rib, or ribbed stitch. It is the stitch often seen on the cuff of sweater sleeves, or at the top of a sock. The ribbing stitch makes the knit stretchier and can be placed anywhere on a garment that you want a slightly snugger fit.

The ribbing stitch can be made on any Knifty Knitter loom (round or long) simply by alternating the knit and purl stitches. It's simple enough for the beginner to loom knitting. If you want to make terrific patterns on the Knifty Knitter looms, you'll want to learn this stitch.


Ribbing Stitch for the Knifty Knitter Looms

You can create a variation of the ribbing stitch by knitting twice and purling twice, or knitting once and purling twice, etc. The idea is simply to alternate the two stitches in a continuous pattern around the loom making a snugger fitting knit.

Don't know how to knit or purl? It's easy! The basic knit stitch is to ewrap the loom, place the working yarn above the loop on each peg and knit. Do this by bringing the loop up and over the working yarn and release it toward the inside of the loom, like this:

Purling is done by 1. Pushing the loops to the top of each peg on the loom. 2. Running the working yarn under the loop on each peg. 3. Sliding the Knifty Knitter hook under the loop (working from the top of the peg, down under the loop) snagging the yarn with the hook and drawing it back up through the loop on the peg. Like this:

The last step of the purl is to grasp the loop created above between the finger and the thumb. Use it to lift the existing loop up and off the peg. Replace the previous loop on the peg with the new loop in your grasp.