Lily Chin on Knitty Gritty
November 10, 2006 by phoenix
Tips and Tricks-Episode DKNG-308:
So I have read some dissatisfaction about Lily Chin on other knit blogs regarding her designs as somewhat impractical or silly and questioning her place as Vogue or Interweave’s (I can’t remember which, please forgive me my ignorance) knitting goddess. However, having seen her appearance on today’s Knitty Gritty, she can be my kniting goddess any day. I learned more, and more easily in an the 20 minutes (With the commercials) than I think I ever have in my admittedly short knitting career. I knew some of the tips, but she had so many that there were still more useful knitting tricks that it would have taken me a while to figure out on my own. So thanks Knitty Gritty and Ms. Chin for making things basic, but not so basic that someone who’s actually familiar with the words “knit” and “purl” will pass out from boredom.
So if you want to learn
calculating amounts of yarn for casting on; extra seaming; what to do if you run out of yarn while casting on; binding off with a crochet hook; encoding needle size in the swatch; and working with a hanging swatch.
check the episode or the website.
I personally found her method for invisible seams (without the stair-step lump) on a circular bind off most useful. I had been fudging it with a similar technique, but she instantly highlighted the step I was doing wrong. I probably would have figured it out eventually, but how much easier to learn from a pro. Goes to show, there’s no sense in knitting in a vacuum.
Her knit/purl cast ons were great too. Again, something I already know how to do for ribbing, just hadn’t put it all together for what to do when I run out of yarn during the cast on. Although I solved that problem by wrapping the yarn around the sticks with the number of cast on stitches I need. Takes a bit longer than the pi rule of 3x the length of the garment, but given that pi is more than three, it seems more accurate. So far, it’s always worked for me.
The button tip is nifty too. Something tells me me items will be featuring a lot of toggle-style buttons.
Finally her built-codes for needle size on her swatches reminded of the byte-code scarves I’ve been working on. Simple and geeky. Terrific.
Overall, just the motivation I need to get back to knitting. Right after I do a few more work things of course.
