Knit Knack

We moved house last weekend and, boy, do we have a lot of stuff.  

I’m still in the process of unpacking my various belongings and finding places for them to live, but what I don’t have a place for right now are my knitting and cross-stitching projects. 

In the old apartment, I just used to keep the project I was working on at the time tucked away at the end of the sofa, and everything else in a bag in the spare bedroom. Now, though, I want to try and find a more stylish solution.  

Rather than a “spare bedroom”, which to me is just a place to keep stuff that doesn’t go anywhere else, the new apartment has a proper guest bedroom which is all ready for whenever anyone wants to stay over. I’d quite like to keep it that way, so don’t want to have bags of yarn and needles all over the place.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to stylish storage solutions for knitting/cross-stitch projects? I can see I’ll probably end up going with something like faux-leather storage boxes, but was wondering if there was anything a bit more exciting out there!

I thought I’d share this great site with all my readers.

I don’t know if everyone feels like this, but I often think that maybe I’m doing something wrong, maybe I can’t quite understand what an instruction means or the picture/writing just isn’t giving me enough to go on.

In cases like these, I find that animated examples of stitches can be a great help. I used video tutorials to teach me how to cast on in a tidier and more efficient way than I had been doing previously.

If you learn best through watching someone else do something, take a look at Save Knitting,which might be just the help you need.

Happy knitting!

I fear I may have misled my readers a little with my post about buying knitting materials from Costco… 

I have a confession to make. I live in England, so the knitting sets are quite possibly only available in the
UK – and even then, they may not be in every Costco over here. I know from experience that the stores in the USA stock different items to those in the
UK. While the two stores near to where I live carry broadly the same stock, they often carry some different items to each other.  

These were the only knitting items in Costco last time I visited, fortunately for my bank account, but perhaps if these sell well they may consider bringing in more craft items in the future. I know that they regularly stock scrapbooking and card-making materials. Some more needlecraft materials would be fantastic.

I did so well in January. I vowed that I wouldn’t buy any more yarn until I’d used up some of what I already have, and I stuck to it. In fact, the only temptation I caved in to was to buy a knitting book.

Last night, we headed to Costco to pick up some food and I was confronted by something I was completely unprepared for: knitting sets.

Obviously, any resolve I may previously have had went right out of the window as I was so unprepared for this temptation. At least when I go to John Lewis I know to steer well clear of the haberdashery department so that this doesn’t happen.

The sets were everything a knitter - from novice to time-served, according to the box - needed to knit a matching hat, scarf and bag set. I dashed home and got out the instructions, expecting the three items to be relatively straightforward. Instead, I was introduced to a hat knitter with some very vague explanation of how to use it, a pattern to crochet a zig-zag scarf with no clue how to do that, and a bag that looks incredibly similar to the one I’m already part-way through knitting.

Obviously, I’ll blog about my progress if I ever figure out the instructions that came with this knitting set. This could be a rather steep learning curve - anyone want to join me?!?

Well, January wasn’t necessarily the best month for my knitting goals.

I did finish knitting my scarf as I’d intended, but I didn’t do any work on my cardigan, which was a big shame. I didn’t buy any new yarn - and managed to restrain myself from buying the sewing machine that I’d been longing for - but I did buy a new knitting book.

The goal for February, therefore, has to be to get on with my cardigan. I’ve also vowed not to buy a sewing machine until I’ve moved house mid-month, by which time I should have a better of idea of whether I’ll actually use it and how much space I have for it.

What crafting goals are you setting for yourself for the month ahead?