I’m not a huge gift knitter, but this year, I have a few handmade presents planned, and they’re keeping my needles completely busy. While I’m really enjoying making for people I care about, I’ve also started to daydream about what I might cast on when the last gift is cast off! I usually have a thousand and one thoughts swirling in my head about what I’d like to knit next, and the challenge is sifting through all the inspiration to figure out what I need or what to knit most. So the other day, I broke open my new Strickplaner to start getting organised for 2022.
Read moreBooks for Beginners
It seems hardly a week goes by at the moment without a news item on the uptick in interest in crafts like knitting. Over the last 18 months, so many people have found or returned to knitting … what a wonderful thing! We often get asked to suggest books suited to beginners, and today we’ve collected those recommendations together. So if you are learning to knit and looking for help, or have a loved one who is, this post is for you!
Read moreThe Best Gifts for Knitters
Somehow, it’s mid-November! Where I am, twinkle lights have started appearing in the town square and festive music is playing in the shops. I don’t know about you, but usually, the holiday season sneaks up on me a bit. This year though, I’m determined to make my preparations early, so I can avoid any Covid-Brexit-posting stress and enjoy a relaxed lead up to the holidays. To help you with your own holiday prep, we’ve put together a special “Gifts for Knitters” section of the online shop.
Read moreA Look at Our Books: A Year of Techniques + Boost Your Knitting
If you’re subscribed to our newsletter or frequent our forum, The Knitalong Hub, you’ll know that we’re working really hard behind the scenes preparing for the launch of our newest project. We cannot wait to tell you all about in a very short time. But while we wait, I thought it might be nice to have a peek into our two flagship books, A Year of Techniques and Boost Your Knitting. I call them books, but really they’re more than that … they’re self-contained programmes carefully designed to help you sharpen your knitting skills. So while there’s beautiful patterns by talented designers, to be sure, there are also in-depth, stepwise photo tutorials + video tutorials that will teach you new techniques. Our mission is to empower knitters to unlock their full knitting potential, and these books are really at the heart of that endeavour.
Read moreGetting Started with Toe Up Socks
A few weeks ago, Jen shared some links to tutorials to get you started knitting cuff down socks. But of course, there’s more than one way to knit a sock! So today, I’ll be sharing some resources if you’d like to knit toe-up socks.
Read moreWelcome to our #virtualwonderwool stand!
We might not have been able to pack the van and head to Builth Wells for Wonderwool, but we’re super delighted to be taking part in #virtualwonderwool this weekend. While nothing can quite replace the fun and excitement of a knitting show, it’s really lovely that so many UK festivals have come up with creative ways to carry on in the circumstances. And the silver lining is that, whether you were planning to come to Wonderwool in person or not, you can peruse vendor offerings over on Wonderwool’s Facebook group or Instagram by following the hashtag #virtualwonderwool … and the special festival deals that we would have been offering are now available to you from the comfort of your favourite knitting chair! So step right up to our virtual AC Knitwear stand and have a peek!
Read moreMore Patterns for Experimenting with Colour
The Skystone Armwarmers, designed by Felicity (Felix) Ford as August’s featured Boost Your Knitting pattern, are the perfect canvas for practicing this month’s technique, choosing colours for stranded colourwork. The pattern calls for three background and five foreground shades of Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumperweight, giving you lots of room to capture the subtleties of your inspiration source — be it a bouquet of flowers, a mossy headstone, or a towering mountain! But if you’re casting around for more patterns to bring your newfound confidence in choosing colours too, here are a few ideas!
Read moreThe final three: afterthoughts, colour dominance, and nail-biting steeks
The final three A Year of Techniques projects for winter were all about demystifying techniques that some knitters find particularly intimidating.
Read moreHow helices, intarsia and a mouse enthralled knitters across the world
Back in 2017 we launched our first book, A Year of Techniques (AYoT), and we really had no idea at all whether anyone apart from us would think it was a good idea. Happily, lots of you agreed with us, and what followed was a year of glorious sharing of knowledge and skills, with twelve knitalongs and hundreds of projects completed. We were totally gobsmacked at how many of you decided to work through the entire book, completing everything, and really honoured that you would choose to dedicate so much valuable knitting time to A Year of Techniques. Lots of people popped in and out and worked on the months that inspired them most, and that was amazing too. The projects were always designed to be self-sufficient, so whether you joined us for one or two, or all twelve – thank you all!
Read moreThat was fun! Shall we do it again?
Happy New Year!
The kids are back at school, and we have found our way to the office and dusted off the computers, ready to knock this year out of the park! Or something like that…
The break was nicely recharging. I’ve been working on a sweater for myself – Granito by Joji Locatelli – and I’m using our Something to Knit With 4ply in the dark and mysterious Twilight colourway. It’s knitting up like a dream and I’m even daydreaming that I might finish it to wear at EYF in March. But that might be a bit over optimistic… We will see!
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