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.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

My Plateful

 Where does the time go. Between changing the light bulbs, washing windows and running my store I have had little time in my studio for knitting. But I have been able to knit some simple wraps that are quick and easy and fun to wear. One of my favorite techniques to use for these is plating. It is a machine stitch, one that works especially well on my Brother bulky. You use two different color yarns and thread one through the plating yarn feeder as   shown in the diagram below. The end result is an even combination of the yarns with a reversible fabric. You can create lots of interesting effects with cuffs, lapels, pockets etc. Unfortunately I don't know of an easy method for doing this by hand, so once again I encourage anyone who loves knitting to look into a knitting machine. I know there's lots of them out there, so start with eBay or Craig's list. Allbrands.com is a great source for new equipment of all sorts. I've had good luck with everything I've purchased from them. If and when my trusty machine fails, that's where I'll go for a new one. But hey, I've been using all my knitting machines for over 30 years now. A little tender loving care gets you years of service. So I'm off to knit one of these easy plated wraps. Back soon with the end product.


R