Welcome to Project Knitway or should I say Project Renottaway? It's my cyberspace place to post my favorite things...thoughts about family and creativity and design. One of my favorite things is making stuff, specifically clothing and accessories from fiber and metal. So you'll see a lot about that here. I also love spending time with my family, so there will be a bit about that too. When I'm not with my family or in my studio, I am most likely at nextdoor, my store. I have always had a store ever since I was a young woman. I started with a weaving store called the niddy noddy in Waukesha eons ago. I ended with nextdoor in Brookfield. It's my dream store filled with great clothing, especially denim. Really nice women work and shop there, it's a fun place to be. You can find us there every day and online at www.shopatnextdoor.com So come for a visit here and there.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tweed Yourself

Lest you think I'm into football fashion(that was just to keep the family happy) I'm giving you another version of the scarf and headband. Basically it's the same with a few extra twists. If you look closely you'll see that both pieces appear to be knit in a rib stitch. Actually it's a faux rib, very easily created by placing four needles in work and two needles out of work. I'll be explaining this in detail as the blog progresses. It's one of my favorite stitches because it gives you lots of flexibility with the yarns you use and creates a beautiful fabric. But before I get ahead of myself, there are two essentials you must master, casting on and binding off. Casting on is easy. I just use the e wrap method. The diagram is fairly simple to follow. Casting off is another thing, and here I just say practice makes perfect and patience is a virtue. Both these diagrams are from taken from the Brother manual that came with my machine. I highly recommend getting your hands on this manual even if you don't have the machine. I've seen copies available on ebay.

Tweed Yourself Scarf: cast on 80 stitches with a pattern of four needles in play and two out of work.
Knit 100 rows at Tension 8 in first color and then change yarns and knit 100 rows in second color. Bind off.
Sew ends of scarf together to create a continuous scaf.
Tweed Yourself Headband: using the same configuration of four needles in work and two out, cast on 60 stitches.
Knit 80 rows at Tension 8. Bind off. sew ends together to create headband.
Flower: cast on 4 stitches and knit 100 rows. Bind off.  Form flower loops and attach to band however you can. You'll figure it out!
Materials used: Lion Brand Fisherman Wool: one of my personal favorites. It's a beautiful yarn and very well priced. You can find it online at http://www.lionbrand.com/ You'll need one skein if you make your set in one color, two if you add the second color to the scarf. I used oaktweed and nature's brown. For you hand knitters out there, my gauge is about 4 stitches per inch and 5 rows per inch.

Enjoy and Stick to Your Knitting...R