Friday, September 18, 2009

Knitting MacGyver Tip of the Week

J., in one of my classes, is working on the February Lady Sweater. The body pattern has 7-stitch lace repeat, and even in the smallest sizes, there are over 150 stitches to work in the pattern.

I recommend, particularly for those who are new to lace, that knitters use markers to divide up the groups of 7 stitches.

Which means that you've got a heck of a lot of markers on the go.

J. was working on her sweater late one evening, far away from the closest yarn store, and realized she was short of markers.

Being the resourceful type, she dig a bit of digging around in her apartment and landed on a brilliant solution...


twist ties!

Bend them around a pen or large knitting needle to make a nice circle shape, and knit on.

3 comments:

TracyKM said...

Great tip! You can always pop into a grocery store and grab a couple in the produce department too, LOL. I've also used safety pins and paper clips, and one time, a long piece of yarn, wove back and forth for each repeat...across the front, knit the repeat, take it to the back between the needles, knit the repeat, bring it back to the front. Not as easy to see though, especially when you're so desparate you have to use the same yarn you're working with...

Kirsten N. said...

Yup, I've done that. I also seem to recall using pop can tabs when I needed a bunch in a hurry, back when I lived in a house with pop drinkers. Oh, and I used a ring, once, when I just needed to mark the start of a round.

Anonymous said...

My mother-in-law (who taught to knit 46 yrs ago) showed me how to make markers out of contrasting yarn. Just cut a short length of yarn long enough to double and make a slip knot. This now becomes a marker! It works just great.