I’ve just had another pattern published in the latest issue of Yarn Forward, issue no. 15.  I just love the color of this yarn (Rowan summer tweed) – ‘Mango’.  I had a hard time giving this top up to the magazine!  It is a little less fitted than a lot of styles I design and it was really easy to wear.  There are slits at the sides of the hem with small twisted stitches in the ribbing at the waist.  I can see this being a top that would get a lot of use in the summer evenings.

You can see a preview of this issue here.  For anyone who can’t easily get a hardcopy of the magazine I believe that the will have the digital version up again in the near future.  The last digital provider that they were using went under a few weeks ago.

I haven’t seen a copy of this magazine yet but I believe a photo tutorial of the crochet cast-on that I did for them was in this issue.  It’s one of my favorite provisional cast-ons.  It is easy to do and you can clearly see the stitches when you remove the crochet chain afterwards. (Plus as an added bonus all of your stitches are in the right direction!)

For anyone who knits in the round (top down or bottom up) you have probably encountered the problem of joining new yarn without it showing.  With flat knitting it is just a matter of finishing your yarn at the end of a row and all ends can be hidden in the seams.  Knitting in the round means that you need to be a bit more inventive.

My two favourite methods of joining are a Felted join and a Russian Join.

The felted join can only be used with an animal fibre.  You need to split the end of the old yarn and the new yarn into two pieces for a couple of inches.  Then layer the two sides together like a yarn sandwich and give it a gentle twist.  Now wet your fingers (if you aren’t too squimish you can spit on them!) and dampen the yarn making sure they are all a little damp.  Beware of getting stray hairs in your mouth.  Then roll them quickly between the palms of your hands and the friction will felt them together.  Truely magic.

The Russian Join can be used on all sorts of yarn, animal and plant based.  However if the yarn is very splitty it won’t work very well (if the yarn just unrolls in your fingers).  Thread the end of the working yarn through a tapestery needle and work the tail down onto itself in the working yarn.  Try to keep it towards the center and work for around 2 inches.  Before you pull the needle through pull the start of the new yarn through the loop created.  Now do the same with the new yarn.  Pull the yarn flat, trim any loose ends and keep knitting.

If the yarn you are using is very thick you may find that the Russian Join creates too big a lump in your knitting.  In this case you can try splitting each end of yarn in half and cutting half of the yarn.  This means that there is less bulk being woven through.

My camera battery is dead right now so I can’t add photos but you can also take a look at the russian join here Russian Join.

In a few weeks time I should have my ‘Lime with a Twist’ cardigan up for sale. This cardigan is fairly straightforward to knit but it does involve both a provisional cast on and quite a few picked up stitches.

Hopefully (if I can get someone to take photos!) I will put a tutorial on my favorite way to do both of these.
There are many different ways to create a provisional (or invisible) cast on. The method I find the easiest and use the most is the crochet cast on directly onto the needle. Bear in mind that you don’t need to know how to crochet to do this (I am not able to crochet) and it is easy to control.

Picking up stitches is very useful to feel comfortable if you want to avoid sewing knitted pieces together. To make your picked up stitches look as tidy and professional as possible you need to always ensure that you pick your stitches up in the same row – it sounds simple but it can be remarkably easy to slide across a row and it really ruins the edge.
Also with picked up stitches you want to avoid holes, two things to keep in mind are to avoid picking up where there is a big gap – if you work into more tightly knit stitches there is no give to create a hole when the piece is being worn.
Usually when you pick up stitches you are asked to ‘pick up and knit’ the stitch, when you do this you should keep the yarn as tight as you can. If you find the stitches loose you can cheat a little by knitting into the back of the next row to tighten them up a little.
The only time I have really seem only ‘pick up’ called for is with applied I-cord’. In this case just picking up the loop that the stitch will be worked through is all you do.
More (with photos) of these tutorials in the near future.