encouraging girls in the home arts
Sometimes yarn is sold in units wound in such a way that you can knit or crochet from them immediately. But often yarn is sold in skeins. These skeins of yarn need to be wound into balls in order to knit them easily. If you don’t wind them first, you will end up with a giant tangled mess of yarn! If you buy your yarn in a nice yarn shop you can ask them to wind it for you, which they will do with a yarn swift and a yarn winder. But if you forget (or buy it online,) you’ll […] Read more »
Casting on is the term for putting your first yarn stitches onto a needle for knitting. It is the very first thing you will do when you knit. There are a number of ways to cast on. Here we demonstrate the long tail cast-on, which gives a nice stretchy edge. This is especially useful for hats and sweaters, which need to expand when you put them on. It is also just a good basic cast on, so we use it for almost everything we make, even non-clothing items. Abbie insisted that I (Mrs. Brown) do this demo, so for the […] Read more »