Original Diva

Craftsy has got to be my most favorite website ever. I am a bit addicted to it. They offer online video courses in sewing, quilting, knitting, crochet, and other crafts, including gardening. Without shame, I signed up to be a Craftsy affiliate because I love their classes so much. (Affiliate commissions help me buy more Craftsy classes! Yay!) Craftsy classes are generally affordable and certainly a much better deal than the short, non-interactive and totally over-priced video offerings over at Threads. To whet your appetite, Craftsy offers free “mini-courses,” which are just as good as the “real” ones…and sometimes they aren’t actually that short!

Here are two I highly recommend:

Know Your Wool: This is an extremely in-depth class that I am surprised they did not charge for. You learn all about wool and where it comes from. You even get to visit a sheep farm!

Micro Torch Basics: This a class on how to make jewelry with a micro-torch. Do not be intimidated. The teacher makes it really easy and she’s funny too! Now I need to add micro-torch to my long craft shopping list.

Craftsy also offers free courses on cake decorating (which frankly I’m not interested in, but you might be!), knitting, and one I’ve signed up for and looking forward to – it’s about making homemade pizza! Yeah! I’ve also enjoyed the free bag-making classes…and actually used one class to help me make some Christmas presents.

Overall, Crafty’s production and interactive community make it hands-down the best video craft instruction I’ve discovered so far. So you might as well take advantage of the free classes, but be forewarned, you will want to pay for more once you sign up!

Check out all of the other free Craftsy mini-courses by clicking here.

Now that I’ve gotten into knitting, I just like reading knitting books. Sometimes the reading is more fun than the knitting itself! (Ssshh!) Getting Started Knitting by Jennifer Worick is a great book for beginning knitters – with the caveat that I wouldn’t use it as my sole beginning knitting book.

I regularly go to the library and I check out tons of knitting, crochet and sewing books. What I find is that most books have something of value to offer, and between the bulk of them, you get a pretty good education. Personally, I might have never learned knitting without video training and an in-person class to help me. So the books should ideally be a supplement to classes, unless you love learning by diagram.

So don’t get Getting Started Knitting if you think this book alone can teach you all the ins and outs of knitting. It probably can’t. And it’s not as in-depth as it could be. But it is a really good book that teaches a lot of basics that a beginner needs to learn and understand.

On the plus side, Getting Started Knitting has lots of aforementioned diagrams, and they are usually pretty clear, with a few notable exceptions that had me scratching my head. I particularly liked the section with the list of increases and decreases. Increases scared me at first, but with the combination of classes and books I am now feeling more comfortable.

On the negative side, I found the projects in the book to be pretty uninspiring personally. After reading a bunch of knitting books, it seems like everyone teaches basic scarves and this book happens to have a scarf way into the projects section – at the point at which you might be relieved to be beyond scarves! – and this scarf is simply a plain scarf with knit “corkscrews” at the ends.

I’ve found a few other beginning knitting books with better projects that I am more inclined to keep in my library. But Getting Started Knitting was certainly helpful to me, and it may be helpful to you as well!

A few thoughts:

One, I really hate the hooks that come with the commercial knook kit. They don’t grab the yarn at all. I ended up taking my drill and carefully cutting into the side a little bit to give the hook a bit more depth. This helped significantly, but it’s still not ideal.

For some reason my loops (on the string) shrink down to where they are almost impossible to put the hook into. Once again, a better hook might help, but I must be pulling on the yarn too much. Still, I’ve ordered some knook hooks off Etsy to see if they will help.

The directions in the booklet are confusing. I had to go online and look at some videos. Still can’t see how this will be faster than regular knitting, especially now that I’m getting pretty good at continental style.

I do like the idea of being able to easily switch back and forth between knitting and crochet in one project.

The new knook needless will hopefully arrive next week. I’ll experiment more then!

Having taken to crochet, and just now finally starting to feel like I’m “getting” knitting, I’m excited to try the “knook,” which is a knitting tool using a crochet hook and long string. I’ve heard it has a feel similar to Tunisian crochet. Time to get “knooking”!

Craftsy has some great free online video classes. If you are new to knitting or crochet (or even an old-hand at it), you might enjoy Know Your Wool. This class covers breed-specific wool and even includes a field trip where we get to meet real sheep! Now, I’m not a “wool geek.” I am really not a huge fan of wool (not that I dislike it). But I found the class to be really interesting and informative. It is a bit “dry” in terms of presentation. And it may be “too much information” for some folks (like myself) who simply want a simple overview of the different types of basic wool. However, I would recommend this class for anyone working with wool as it will help you get a better understanding of what goes into making wool and how that affects your projects.

Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts: A Stress-Free Journey to Original Design by Rayna Gillman is a great introduction to free-form art quilts that showcases a process to cut strips and pieces from old quilt blocks to create a new art quilt. The book is geared towards traditional quilters but can be helpful to new quilters as well. (However, she does assume you have old blocks lying around and a quilt “design wall,” neither of which I have!)

The big plus of this book is also it’s minus. The entire book is dedicated to one process. It goes through it step-by-step and the instructions are easy to follow. But the book is not especially meaty nor diverse when it comes to a variety of techniques. Most of the quilts in this book end up looking similar in style. Not all of the end result quilts I was that crazy about. But this is a great starter book for learning how to do basic art quilting.

I seriously don’t understand the love affair many knitters have with wool. Granted, I don’t consider myself to be a “knitter” yet – I’ve just started to learn, and I’m terrible at it. I’ve read some of the “Yarn Harlot” books and she seems obsessed with wool to the point of going to great lengths just to get friends to like it. I guess I’ll never be a knitter with a capital K, because I just don’t get it! I am certainly not adverse to wool, but I don’t swoon when I see some. I see wool as being high maintenance and therefore not my favorite fabric. It can be itchy, it attracts moths, and it’s likely to felt if washed accidentally. (I actually like felted wool better for its sewing possibilities!)

And why the disdain for acrylic yarn? I read this thread on a knitting forum and was amazed at the disdain for acrylic…the poor knitter was simply beside herself that her friends and family had given her some offensive acrylic yarn! What on earth should she do with this horrible stuff? One of the suggestions was to give it to a charity for people with “special needs or mental illness” because anything “bright/fuzzy/soft works just fine for them.” Wow. So basically, let’s hand off that awful acrylic to some people so handicapped they won’t care. Wow.

Personally, I like acrylic. And I may not be special needs, but as a new knitter/crocheter, I don’t want to waste money on high-priced yarn that I would mess up anyway. Red Heart Super Saver is absolutely fine for me to practice with. Heck, it’s fine for me to use, for appropriate projects. If I’m making a cover for my electronic gadget, I don’t need or want merino wool!

Crochet Bug did a great project that involved creating an afghan made of “pixels” with many colors, and explains here why Red Heart Super Saver was the yarn of choice.

You can also soften up acrylic yarn in the wash with fabric softener…and do that even before you start to knit or crochet! Here is a great tutorial on how to wash your yarn before you use it. But not all acrylic yarn is scratchy out of the box. I have also been making a hat out of some super bulky Lion Brand acrylic yarn and that stuff is nice and soft!

Now, maybe as I get more proficient at knitting and crocheting I may become more snobby about the type of yarn I use. But I don’t think so. I am generally a low maintenance kinda gal anyway. I don’t like to spend a lot of time putting on make-up, I try to avoid buying clothes that are “dry clean only,” and I don’t wear super-high stiletto heels unless it’s a very special occasion. Heck, I’ve never had a manicure. So my low-brow love of acrylic is probably not going away any time soon.

Here is another useful video tutorial that shows you how to replace an old skirt waistband that has gotten worn out:

I was looking for information on sewing an elastic waistband on YouTube and found a few helpful videos.

Sewing Tutorial: How to Sew an Elastic Waistband

How to Sew a Waistband Casing : Making a Sewn In Elastic Casing

Sewing An Elastic Waist Band On Pajama Pants

The last video shows you an elastic sewing technique different from sewing a casing – in the “pajama pants” method, you sew the elastic directly onto the waistband, which gives you that boxer shorts look.

Your first question might be, what on earth do I use a “welting foot” for? You can use it to make custom piping for your next sewing project. Here is a quick tutorial: