Vegetables, yarn, and yarns: all of my passions all in one place.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

My Killdeer

When last we saw my knitting progress on Canary Knit's Killdeer pattern, I had hit a small snag in the form of a manufacturers knot in my first ball of yarn. I was remiss as to how to proceed and almost set the whole thing aside in favor of a cape more suitable to winter. I was (this) close, but then, I decided to hope on google and look for demonstrations on how to join yarn with a double knot, as this would easily fix the problem without any more ends that need weaving in. I hate weaving in ends almost as much as I hate manufacturers knots in my otherwise perfect ball of cotton yarn.

After watching the demonstration, it seemed simple enough, so I gave the join a try. I cut the knot from the yarn and took the two resulting yarn ends and I knotted both using the following method:
1. Cross the end under the other yarn strand.
2. Turn it around and cross the end over the other yarn strand.
3. Take the end through the resulting circle of itself and pull.

A small knot will result for both. Then, you pull on both strands and the knots magically come together to form a very strong join that hardly shows in the finished work, so long as you cut off the ends very close to the final knot. There are plenty of tutorials out there if this didn't make sense to you. Just give it a google.

I used the double knot trick to join all of my yarn thereafter and had hardly any ends to weave in when my Killdeer was finished. And it is finished.



I loved this pattern. The shaping gives the cardigan a nice fit, while the short-row detail results in a collar and sleeves with a slight ruffle to them. The pockets, created by knitting an extra patch of stockinette that you then join back into the main garment, were fun to knit. They really made me feel clever when I managed to pull them off.

It needs blocked still, but there's plenty of time to get that gone. It's February here in Ohio with a foot of snow on the ground (at least) and a consistently subzero windchill. I won't be able to bust out the short-sleeved cotton anytime soon.

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