I wanted to make a rug with roses, so back to Pinterest I went and sure enough there were a couple of examples of crocheted rose rugs and they were gorgeous. That was it, I now knew exactly what I wanted to create, a beautiful crochet rug made to look like a bed of roses.
Have you ever considered purchasing a gourmet food gift? In many cases it can be the perfect gift. When you are stumped and just can't decide what to give, when the receiver is one of those people who has everything, when your recipient is someone you don't know very well, then offering a gift with a variety of flavors and choices can really fit the bill. An added bonus to creating your own gourmet gift plate, or basket, or bowl, or even a small mug is that you gave it your personal touch. It is so much nicer than buying a gift basket off the shelf.
When deciding what to collect you can opt for healthier choices or work with a theme. Here are some cute ideas:
Candy Boxes
Microwave Popcorn
Coca-cola in Glass Bottles
Hot Cocoa
Candy Canes
Decorated Cookies
Champagne
Champagne Glass
Candles
Chocolate Truffles
Cupcake
Dried Fruits
Nuts
Dried Vegetables
Spreadable Cheese
Deli Meats
Crackers
Pet Treats
Pet Toys
Collar and Coat
Clean up Bags
It is really simple to place your items decoratively, and wrap up your gift either by using plastic cling wrap and for even more fun try shrink wrap! Shrink wrap gives your gift a beautiful, professional finishing touch and it can be purchased in different sizes. This is a great item to keep on hand with your gift wraps and cards. In my video I had not planned ahead for this gift, so I used plastic cling wrap from Costco. This plastic wrap if very clingy, and works well in a pinch, but I would have preferred to finish this plate in the video with a shrink wrap.
Diamond Painting is a newer craft that is similar to a paint-by-numbers type of activity without the paint. The finished piece also reminds me a bit of a cross-stitched piece, but instead of using embroidery thread, like DMC floss, the image comes together by placing faceted resin diamonds to a sticky canvas with a design imprinted upon it.
While attending a craft group meet up, I was pleased to see that one of the group members was working away on a large piece that was colorful and had a gorgeous shimmering finish. I could not stop asking questions about this clever activity. She was working on a cheeky cow design where the cow had a brilliant mask of flowers and there were so many colors to work with that I was immediately inspired to get my hands on a kit and try diamond painting for myself. There was only one downside to this activity...I had no idea what to do with the finished design!
My home is full of antique furniture and art. These diamond paintings, although beautiful when they are completed and framed, are just to modern for my home. I wanted to find a scaled down option so I logged on to my Amazon account and starting searching.
There are some small card designs on Amazon and probably on other places on the web, but the selections were limited to holiday greeting cards. Diamond painting tools were plentiful as well, but the "diamond drills" or faceted resin diamonds were a bit harder to find. Fortunately, I did find two options that worked; one for square diamonds and one for round diamonds. Once I managed to find the materials that I needed (the "diamonds", the tool kit and the way to make my cards sticky) I was ready to create my own DIY Diamond Painting Greeting Cards.
Now I needed some designs, so I got to work. First I designed a beautiful Vintage Rose so I could created Mother's Day cards for my mom and my mother-in-law. Next I created a cute Narwhal design, then a simple Geometric design. These are all for sale in the shop. Just click here to see the whole collection.
One of the many things I have missed in my office is having a Month-at-a-Glance calendar where I could write in the upcoming special events-important dates such as dinners with friends, birthdays, appointments that I want the family to also remember, travel plans, etc.
There are calendars in many office supply stores that are dry erase, but my office has antique furniture in warm oak tones and the cold look of white board and metal did not appeal to me. Also I find that the dry erase boards tend to stain over time and not look great. One other feature that did not appeal to me was the overall size of the available calendars; they were just too big.
About a year ago I had purchased two 11”x14” frames that I wanted to turn into calendars, but it wasn’t until I bought the Cricut Maker that I knew how I wanted to make them. I created the calendar files using Adobe Illustrator and made my calendars and I wanted to share these files with you.
I am so very happy with the results and my calendars went up on the wall and right into use. They look great, they offer function as well as style. I hope you find that they work for you as well. You can choose any 11”x14” frame with glass, not plastic, and you can choose any fabric and any color pen. I chose light colors to work well in the office, but keep in mind that you will want to be able to write on top of the glass and have it show up. I think light colors work better.
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For Easter I was tasked with bringing a fruit salad for our family dinner. I like fruit salad, but I often feel like a large bowl of cut up fruit needs a little something, maybe a bit of sugar or honey, some fresh mint is always a nice addition and I could certainly mix in some yogurt. This year, however I had just started a new meal plan and I wanted to keep the fruit free from extra calories. I had never made fruit flowers or tried to create a fruit display so I know if I can pull this off, then anyone can have equally great results.
I have been a fan of Mason jars as décor and serving dishes for a long time now. They are rugged and hold up to abuse. They can go into boiling water and into the freezer and they do not break easily. For these bouquets, that would require transport, canning jars worked out very well. Also, I had plenty on hand and could make several small bouquets to put around the table. I started with creating the concepts so I would know what fruit to buy and how much. Grapes gave me a good base for the “soil” and would hold the skewers of fruit solidly, so they made a great foundation. Slices of watermelon added beautiful color and pineapple worked well in slices, also. I chose not to use apples or bananas because they oxidize to quickly and the color would not look good, but the apples would be an option if you spritzed them or soaked them with lemon water. Strawberries made the perfect rose.
I added blueberries, blackberries and raspberries as accents and I specifically made one flower with loads of blackberries to reserve for my dad…he’s a big fan of blackberries!
I was not sure how these would go over and WOW…they were a huge hit. As a crafter, I find that many times I am hard on myself and my work and look for perfection, but my family only saw beautiful displays of fruit and took great joy in eating them up. Lesson learned…just make them, they will be loved!!
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Creating this video was a difficult process. I went through several variations of how to heat the beeswax onto the fabric and most were messy and required too much dedicated equipment or supplies.
As a Beekeeper I have work with beeswax a little bit. I have separated wax from honey. I have purified wax to store for future projects. I have had wax in all colors from the purest white that only comes from brand new hive boxes to rich golden hues from matures hives. Sadly, to this day, I have not made candles. I have all of the equipment and I will make them eventually and I am sure it will end up on video for your viewing pleasure.
When my oldest daughter showed me Bee's wax Wrappers and told me about using them to store food, acting as a reusable replacement for plastic wrap and to cover bowls for food storage my first thoughts were how I would make these. My secondary thoughts were how I would keep my kitchen clean while I made these.
I scoured the internet and saw several methods and got to work. I bought aluminum trays so I would not permanently damage my cookies sheets and tried melting the wax onto the cloth in the oven. The was didn’t spread well, and I felt like I had to watch it like a hawk. Wax has a fairly low flame point and I didn’t want to start a fire. The oven method just made me nervous. My next attempt was to use an embossing heat gun to melt the beeswax, but it just blew the wax around too easily before melting it and again it did not spread well.
The iron and parchment paper method that I show on the video, on top of a folded towel was so easy, clean and effective! The wax spread, the mess was contained to sheets of parchment (which can be saved and reused) and the towel was there to soften the work surface and also catch any wax that may possible leak from the paper. I started with less wax and I could easily add more, so leaking didn’t really happen. It was controlled, simple and fast.
Keep these wrappers in mind for gifts. They last about one year, so like a dish towel, a hostess can always use some more. Plus, if you look for Fat Quarters in your fabric stores quilting department you will find a range of fun fabrics to match anyone’s theme or décor.
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I have long desired to play with quilling techniques and use quilled paper designs on handmade cards. I have purchased some of the basic tools over time and for one reason or another I had lost track of them. While perusing one of my local craft stores I saw a small selection of quilling tools and most of them were from Quilled Creations. This was a company I was familiar with because in the past I had purchased their Quilling Design Board and I loved using it.
I didn’t take long for me to decide that this was a craft that I needed to revisit and the Quilled Creations Beginner Kit ended up in my hands. Now as a working business owner, I could not just sit and play and that kit waited for me for a bit, but while it waited I just kept accumulating more tools and soon I had a collection.
In this unboxing video I will show you the tools I have collected and give a brief overview of how to use them. There will be plenty of follow up videos to show how to make basic shapes and then advanced designs. Ultimately I hope to provide a comprehensive set of videos to give you a one-stop-shop full of ideas and projects on the subject of quilling.
The tools I have gathered are extensive, but in the video I do not show a fringer or a quilling coach, and I have even begun designing an SVG file to see if I could use the Cricut to cut regular strips of all sizes and also the fancy strips for petaled flowers and the swirled flower designs as well. I will keep you posted on my progress with that Quilling SVG file.
Quilling can be used to create card decorations, wall art, jewelry and miniatures. Customizing and creating artistic names is also very popular.
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Winding thread onto bobbins and finding an easy storage solution for them became a necessary task when I got a new sewing machine that also had an embroidery function. The sewing machine I use is not overly expensive, but for the small purchase price (under $400) it is a real work horse. I have the Brother SE400 Sewing and Embroidery Machine. I can use it to sew a variety of projects on a wide range of materials, and even more fun, I can use the Embroidery functions to create beautiful custom embroidery designs. For the beginner it does simple work like adding a name or initials to personalize an item without much effort. I look forward to showing off several sewing tips and techniques through the Craft Curiosity on YouTube channel.
Because this machine has an embroidery feature, I purchased a beautiful set of embroidery threads in 64 colors. When you embroider with these colors it is typical to use a bobbin thread in white or black for the back of the work. In that instance, you would not need to wind the colored threads onto bobbins.
I found that the thread quality worked for many of my sewing projects and because I was using these colors for sewing I wanted to wind the bobbins with the matching thread. With such a range of colors it can be daunting to keep track of your threads if you store the bobbin separately, my desire was to store the thread spools and bobbins together. I purchased several bobbins and created a "pin" to pop into the top through both the spool and the bobbin to rest the bobbin on top of the spool. After considering many materials, I settled on bamboo skewers and wooden beads. I just found the right size beads so that it would be large enough to not fall through the spool or bobbin opening and also have a large enough hole that a bamboo skewer would fit snugly into that hole. I added a touch of wood glue to give this a bit of strength and keep everything together and quickly made a large supply of wood pins.
Last, but not least, I planned to store all of these bobbin and spool combos in a drawer and I did not want loose thread messing up the drawer and tangling with each other, so I put a small slit on the bottom edge of each spool, and I wrapped each bobbin with a ¼” cut of clear vinyl tubing by slicing several pieces of the tubing and making one cut to open the slice up. The vinyl tubing has just enough memory to stay wrapped around the bobbin thread and hold the loose end of the thread neatly.
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When you watch the video about making the Perpetual Annual Calendar on the Cricut Maker it is important to note that this is a follow up to the video about making the Perpetual Monthly Calendar. This video has a bit less detail, but all of the instructions are included from the point where the SVG file is uploaded.
This annual calendar, made with any 11”x14” frame, is so convenient and family friendly. It is a terrific “at-a-glance” overview of the whole year and the frame size of 11”x14” is an ideal size for most locations. It is not huge, but it is not too small to include important appointments and events. Additionally, using the glass surface of a frame works well because most dry erase white board material eventually stains. This calendar will look more stately than stained.
I must say that I am very pleased with the results. My home office is furnished with antique furniture, all American oak, and I wanted subtle understated accents for my office accessories. The fabric I used was found at Hobby Lobby and it is a light taupe or maybe ecru fabric with a white print. It is almost tone-on-tone and is perfect for a calendar that I want to write on top of. I have been using a black dry erase pen.
The accent color was drawn by the Cricut with a Cricut pen. I used Bronze, but with the Monthly and Annual calendars I decided that I wanted just a touch of gold, so I went over the written details with a gold fabric glitter pen. I’ll put the link below because this pen was AMAZING to write with!
There is a download file that I have made for both the Monthly and Annual Calendar that can be downloaded at no cost. Just click on the link below to find the file (if you are not logged in a registration page will pop up--sign up for free and you will be able to access the download).
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I designed the Forget-Me-Not Easter Egg Sugar Cookies to be a wonderful beginner sugar cookie project. Royal Icing is not for the meek—there is a learning curve—but I assure you it is not a steep curve. With patience and practice your cookies will start out a little rough, but drastically improve as you work on your skills.
There are many nuanced tips that make a huge difference in the outcome of your icing. For example, the icing bag is easy to hold and squeeze when the icing consistency is correct and when you hold from the back and squeeze toward the tip. Unfortunately most beginners squeeze near the tip and the icing oozes from the back of the bag. The reusable bag ties from Wilton are large rubber bands that work well when this is a problem for yourself, or when you are teaching junior decorators. Your icing will stay put in the bag and only flow out of the tip until you have this under control. I host an annual Family Cookie Baking Day at my home and always include Christmas sugar cookies with bags of icings in all the festive colors as well as dishes of sprinkles, so these bag ties really keep the icing neat and make it fun for everyone at all skill levels.
Outlining is another area where the right technique is easy, but so important. Touch the icing tip down onto the cookie and begin squeezing the bag gently while you lift the tip back off of the cookie and start moving. Allow the icing to “drop” into place and you will have a better line that is easier to place. Holding the icing bag in one hand while you direct with a fingertip from your other hand will bring balance and precision. Flooding the outline is very easy, try to fill with less gaps and it takes less effort to finish and have a smooth surface. Outlining and flooding works best when the icing is the right consistency and recognizing the consistency is also going to improve with practice.
Adding the flowers is really easy, just make even and evenly spaced dots of icing and use a toothpick or pointy tool to drag the icing into petal and leaf shapes. I use a pointed tool from my Quilling kit, it wasn’t really designed for decorating but it works perfectly.
The Cricut Maker is the latest digital cutting machine made by Provo Craft. It is able to cut paper, vinyl, cardstock, chipboard, bass wood, balsa wood, leather, fabric, felt and iron-on transfers...and I'm sure there is more! This is an elegant machine that is perfect for the home crafter and solid enough to make industrial quality cuts. At Craft Curiosity I have a number of tutorials coming for wonderful products to create and enjoy.
I have been a big fan of the Cricut cutting machines for a long time and I have spent a fair amount of time creating my own SVG files to use for greeting cards, box cards and most recently I created perpetual calendars which I will share here on the website. It's really great if you can design your own patterns, but the beauty is that you do not have to do that to enjoy the machine. The Cricut Design Space is full of amazing patterns, cuts, prints and now even sewing projects that are so easy to accomplish that you will not need advanced design skills to create beautiful projects. I highly recommend subscribing to Cricut Access where you have the choice of having the fonts only, standard access and premium access. If you can do an annual subscription you will save quite a bit, but you can choose fonts only or standard for a nominal monthly fee.
Unboxing the Cricut Maker is just the beginning of a world of new projects, tutorials and creative ideas that will be made available to you from Craft Curiosity. I will do my best to give you solid tutorials and share everything I know and as always your comments, suggestions and questions will be answered to the best of my ability. I'm so happy we can take this journey together!
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I was inspired to make this piece when I saw a similar necklace worn by a good friend. It featured brilliant crystals in a matched rainbow color combination that flowed to a centered tassel pendent of brilliant yellow silk. My friend paired the necklace with a black velvet top and ballerina skirt and looked sensational. My friend looked amazing and that necklace really grabbed my attention.
Hand knotting is beautiful! I love using this vintage technique to create long strands of beads or crystals. It has been used for years to create pearl necklaces and the knots would be placed between each pearl to protect these valuable pearls from spilling to the floor if the string breaks. The knots also keep the beads, pearls or crystals from rubbing against each other.
There are multiple methods available for hand knotting, some methods use a single strand and some use two strands. The material is usually nylon or silk, with silk used for finer pieces. I chose C-Lon cord to make this Vintage Style Hand Knotted Crystal Necklace because I wanted some of the cord color to show through the crystal and I wanted a larger, more obvious knot in between each bead. I also used the same C-Lon cord to create the tassel. I appreciate the lovely finish of this material and by using this cord for the tassel it allows the sheen of the material to really show through.
Repetitive projects like this, especially when done to create a piece of jewelry, can be completed in one night and keep your hands busy while watching a favorite show on the television. The same technique could be used for a bracelet, but I would include a clasp and use two or three strands of beads to add substance.
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Learn to create a Crochet Cast On! It is a useful tool in your knitting tool box! There are a variety of uses that make this in invaluable cast on and I would put it in the intermediate to advanced category. Intermediate or advanced, because if you have not crocheted before then holding the yarn will be somewhat foreign, but remember that each new technique you learn will grow your skill and if you take it step by step you will master this crocheted cast on in no time at all.
The crochet cast on is useful for necklines leaving the edge smooth and without any gaps. The crochet cast on perfectly matches the standard or basic bind off, so if you are beginning a scarf of blanket, you can finish with a matching stitch. This is also the standard stitch you would use to create a provisional cast on, which is nearly the same, but you will begin a provisional cast on with scrap yarn instead of using your project yarn which then allows you to pick up your stitches at the beginning and knit in the other direction.
If you have never tried the crochet cast on before you will find that holding the knitting needle and holding the crochet hook, especially for the first stitch is awkward, but once you get past the first stitch it will become easy to do. You will also need to remember that your last stitch to be counted is the stitch on the crochet hook, so plan accordingly to use this last stitch. Once you have the rhythm going, you will enjoy this particular cast on.
The crochet hook I use in the video is a Boye crochet hook, size I, which is a 5.25mm hook. It has a comfort grip that is really nice! I am also using Clover Takumi bamboo knitting needles and Red Heart Grande yarn.
If you are going to create a ribbed piece on your knitted garment, for example, you are making a classic sweater and you want a ribbed waist band, the last thing you want is to lose all of that valuable stretch by starting with a classic cast on. The Cable Rib cast on is an invaluable cast to have in your toolbox and is the perfect cast on for this scenario!
This cast on make a beautiful stretchy edge that flows with the knits and purls of your work, and you can start with a provisional double slip knot to avoid the knot at the beginner of the cast on which is a nice add on. It will be worked into the “working” yarn, so you do not have to plan ahead for the stitch count, but you do need to plan ahead for the patter you want to create. So, if you are doing a one by one rib, you will cast on one knit stitch followed by one purl stitch and continue on. If you are doing a two by two, or three by two, or any other pattern, you just follow that pattern as you cast on.
This is a more advanced technique, but I believe anyone can do it. It is more advanced because of planning your stitch placement and it is more advanced because you are not just repeating the same motions over and over in each stitch, but you are placing your working needle in a new position with each pattern change. It’s not difficult, it just requires a bit of focus as any patterned piece will require. Stitch by stitch you can knit anything you choose. Just take it one stitch at a time, take a deep breath and relax and enjoy the process. You will be so satisfied with the results, and guess what? If you are not happy with your progress, just rip it out and start over. It’s really no big deal and you will become a better knitter when you are not afraid to begin again.
I love the Clover Takumi bamboo needles that I used in this video as well as the Red Heart Grande yarn. If you want to see these or similar products just click on the links.
Wow! I am very happy to you want to learn how to do the Ribbed Bind Off. I am assuming you are a beginning to intermediate knitter, and you are expanding your skills in the knitting arena, and of course I may be wrong, but for some reason you stumbled onto this page and wanted to read or learn about binding off a ribbed piece of knitting. For that reason I am impressed because this is getting a little advanced. Now the big secret here is that even getting a little advanced in the knitting arena is handled just one stitch at a time, with one process at a time. So you can learn to do ANYTHING in knitting and truly master your craft!
The Ribbed Bind Off (or cast off) of a ribbed panel of knitting requires using both a knit stitch bind off and a purl stitch bind off, and nothing more than that. What I mean to say is if you can just put the point of your working needle into the right place and then follow through, whether it feels a bit strange or not and whether or not your hands feel a bit uncomfortable at first, you will master this bind off.
The benefit of learning this bind off method is that you will have a looser finish on your bind off and this is particularly helpful if you are placing a bit of ribbing at the neckline, and works very well if you are creating a ribbed cowl neck on a sweater. I never liked when a turtle neck or a cowl was tight at the outer edge and this bind off will help.
If you are just learning to bind off, I do recommend watching the How to Knit: Binding Off video as a starter because it will outline the process more simply than the ribbed bind off. Practice each technique on a swatch a couple of times first to become comfortable with it and you will be binding off like a pro in no time at all.
In this video I used the Clover Takumi bamboo needles and Red Heart Grande yarn!
So, you’ve done all this work! You have learned to cast on and you have knitted up a beautiful item. Now you need to know how to finish this piece, maybe it’s a scarf, or something more elaborate. It is time to learn how to bind off (or cast off) your knitting.
Knowing how to bind off or cast off your knitting is a critical step in the learn-to-knit process. Fortunately it is a simple process to learn. I have attached the video below to take you step by step through the binding off process for the most basic and most widely used bind off in knitting.
There are several different bind-offs that you can you for a variety of reasons, but if you are knitting your first scarf or dish cloth this simple bind off will work just fine. As a matter of fact, if you were making any number of more advanced patterns you would still use this basic bind off in many instances.
Now in this video I am showing you how to bind off in a classic knit stitch bind off method, but it is also possible to cast off from the purl side and that may be just what you want to do. There are also methods that will allow for more elasticity and can be accomplished by using a “slip slip knit” process in the bind off.
At this time I have just two bind off knitting tutorials on Craft Curiosity on YouTube, but I will be adding these additional bind offs to the collection of knitting tutorials. If you want to be alerted, then just check out my YouTube channel and hit the SUBSCRIBE button and you can also click on the smaller button on the channel page that will allow you to receive email alerts.
If you want to find something similar to the Clover Takumi knitting needles or the Red Heart Grande yarn that I used in the video, just click those links and you can check out some options online.
Every year for Christmas I host a “Family Baking Day” where I make dozens of sugar cookies and prepare colorful tubes of royal icing and we have a great deal of fun creating beautiful Christmas Sugar Cookies. I have had a bit of practice working with sugar cookie dough and royal icing and I have had my failures and my successes, so this puts me in a pretty good position to direct my family members in making their cookie designs.
Our family baking day is a two-part day. First I ask each person (or family group) to bring prepared, but not yet baked, cookie dough. This way no one is mixing dough during our party. I pull out all of the baking sheets and set up a loading, cooling and finished cookie station in the kitchen. Second, I set up a large table with my baked sugar cookie cutouts, bags of icing and as many colorful sprinkles and toppings as I can round up and I create a creative “arts and crafts with cookies” area.
It used to be just the ladies, and we would send the guys to the other room to watch football, but slowly they would start creeping in and now they are equally involved and there’s no game on the television. We just put “Elf” in the DVD player and set it on repeat. How is it that we don’t get tired of that movie?!?
I have some very talented family members who jump right in and create beautiful cookies and I have others who as less artistically inclined. With simple guidelines, my non-baking and non-decorating family members have created some beautiful cookies, and I find that having a few tried and true techniques will help ensure their success and create a feeling of accomplishment.
At the end of the day, I served a nice light salad, usually with a rotisserie chicken chunked up and tossed in, to give us a little protein boost and try to counter all of the cookies that we eat.
In this video I will show you just a couple of easy techniques and a few quick tips on how to hold the icing bag and direct the tip.
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I enjoyed making earrings with wire, crystals and resin filled bezels a great deal. Working with the Thing-A-Ma-Jig Deluxe was very easy and there are so many patterns you can follow to create jewelry components. Shaping wire with the jig is very easy and your work will be consistent by using such a cool craft tool. Make sure you harden the wire, especially since these are earrings. Work harden will help keep the shape of the earring so they continue to look beautiful.
The one item that I brush right by was the Diamond Glaze. This is such a great product and I really should have told you more about it. Diamond Glaze works like a resin, but you don’t have to premix anything. You just squeeze it out of the bottle. It will coat paper and seal it without discoloring or smearing the print. It will stick to the metal bezel, and it will also stick to glass, among other materials, and you can also dome with it. I chose to use it in this project because the bezel area was small. If I were to make something larger I would choose a resin product like Ice Resin instead. However, in this application Diamond Glaze is really nice.
I hope that you will give these earrings a try. You can use a variety of colors and styles to create something similar. I have a second pair that I made in the same fashion and you can watch that video as well. It is titled: “Diamond Glaze Silver Earring” and you can click this link or find it on my YouTube channel.
I would love to see what you come up with, so I hope that you will post a picture of your earrings. I know you can make something really wonderful by just following the basics on the video.
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It is not difficult to learn to knit and to learn properly, in my opinion means that you also learn the purl stitch. Some knitters never move to the purl stitch, yet it is so easy and really expands your creativity. Be fearless when you are learning because if you can learn one half of the stitching, you can certainly learn to do the backside knitting as well. Learning the knit stitch and the purl stitch will open up your world of knitting possibilities.
When I began knitting I decided that each of my initial projects would include something new to add to my tool box. My first scarf was a collection of knits and purls that became a checkerboard pattern at each end of the scarf. The second scarf I made had one big beautiful cable running through it.
"Pacific Northwest" by
Fiber Trends
The third project I knitted was insane! I picked out a beautiful shawl pattern called "Pacific Northwest" by Fiber Trends. I fell in love with this beautiful shawl and wanted to make it for my mother-in-law. I picked out a beautiful merino wool and silk lace weight yarn and asked the woman at my local yarn shop if she thought I could handle this. She told me I shouldn't take this on just yet...so I did!!
This shawl started with a crocheted cast on and had several lace stitches that I had never heard of. It took me nine months, I started over and over, and I had to learn how to gauge the yarn properly because I had one large skein of yarn and I
Stitch Detail
wasn't willing to buy a second since the cost was prohibitive. That shawl was knitted up perfectly! Mainly because I didn't know how to fix an error on lace, so I had no choice but to take my time and do it right, but this made me FEARLESS!!
Don't be afraid to rip out and start over; it will make you a better knitter. Start simply, practice your stitches and then find a project that will help you build on your skills.
A Cable Cast On is perfect for neat edges on a knitted project. When you knit this cast on it makes a perfect, firm scroll accent and if you are knitting a blanket or a coat where you want to see a firm edge with lovely detail, then pick the cable cast on. This cast on knits up in a similar fashion to the Knitted Cast On, but it will be much tighter. The edge of your knitted fabric will not have the same amount of stretch as it would with the knitted cast on.
When I work up this cast on, I prefer to insert my needle into the space in between the two loops on my needle before I tighten up the tension. I mention this in the video and show you an example. When I knit this cast on there is just too much tension and it will work up more easily and more quickly if I do so.
In the knitting tutorial video below I am using Clover Takumi bamboo needles and Red Heart Grande yarn in a brilliant red. I used a large size set of knitting needles, I believe they are a ten and a half, and chunky yarn to help show the stitches more easily. Both of these items can be purchased by simply clicking on the highlighted links and shopping through Amazon, but there are no limits with this cast on. You can use a finer yarn and you can use yarns that have some loft or dimensional elements. You will just need to insert that needle first with frilly or irregular yarns or it may be difficult to complete the stitches.
There are a variety of cast ons and other knitting techniques so feel free to explore the entire knitting portfolio here at Craft Curiosity.
