Tubular Cast On and Cast Off

TECHKnit to the rescue on learning Tubular Cast On and Tubular Cast Off!

Great illustrations and instructions! I'll definetly be using this for my TKGA Master Knitting Program!

Cast Ons and Seed Stitch

So last night I played around with cast-ons from Knitter's Handbook : A Comprehensive Guide to the Principles and Techniques of Handknitting which came in the mail yesterday. I ordered it for the TKGA Master Knitters Program.

Who know there were so many cast ons?!? This book has more techniques then any of the other knitting reference books I have including Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book. Unfortunately, it is lacking in enough illustration of the cast ons. For most it has one, at best 2 illustrations, for each cast-on. So only one or two of the steps can be seen visually. I gave up on a couple of cast-ons just because I couldn't visualize in my head the un-illustrated steps.

I'm going to look on the web for video of cast-ons and see if that helps.

I also practiced doing seed stitch for swatch #3. I read that you should do this swatch first because the fabric needs to be dense without holes. The needle and yarn you use for this swatch has to be used by 3 other swatches so if you have to change needle size you have to redo those swatches.



As you can see, my practice seed stitch has holes. I'm knitting it on a size 8 needle. I think I'm going down to a 6 next and see how that turns out.

The other thing I learned while practicing the seed stitch is that I had been doing it wrong before. I tried seed stitch early on in my knitting "career" and it was hard to knit the purls and purl the knits. I think I must have had the stitches twisted, because last night it wasn't hard to do that.

Also, I'm practicing purling the conventional way by going over the top rather then in the combined way I've been purling which is to go under. This creates a stitch that has to be knitted through the back stitch when doing stockinette. I don't mind that but sometimes it is hard for me to figure out other stitch patterns because my stitch is laying different on the needles then they are in the illustrations. That may have been my original problem when I was trying to teach myself seed stitch.

I'm not sure I like the yarn I picked out for my swatches, Shepherd 100% Wool. It is kind of fuzzy and I'd like to use a smoother yarn for my final swatches. I may return it and exchange the skeins for another brand. Or I may just keep the yarn for other knitting projects.

TKGA Master Knitting Program

I got my instructions for the The Knitting Guild of America (TKGA) Master Knitting Program yesterday.

I've been wanting to take the program for awhile now. It is a 3 level program, with each level requiring you to knit swatches, answer questions, do reports, and knit patterns. It looks like a really comprehensive course.

In the first level in which I am enrolled, there are 16 swatches to knit along with 17 questions related to the swatches. Plus there is a two page report on Blocking and the Care of knits that you have to write. And there is one hat project to knit.

There are some great articles geared towards the Masters Program in the TKGA's Cast On magazine that have been archived on the member section of the site. Just reading those, I've already learned a few things like duplicate stitch and increasing in ribbing. Can't wait to try them out!