You can add color and texture to your knitting by adding heavy thread or embroidery floss to your yarn and then just knitting regularly. It also helps keep lacy projects made on large needles keep their shape, as it won't stretch as much.
When I saw ecru embroidery floss for several skeins at $1, I snapped it up to use with my knitting. I have also found (in thrift shops) industrial spools of tweedy thread with blobs of color which adds a tweedy effect to plain colored yarn.
By pam munro from L.A., CA
I got psyched by the suggestion of using chop sticks as knitting needles and used the round Korean ones with the pointed tips, but the resulting gauge was really too small to make a narrow scarf out of the ball of bargain fun fur I had picked up.
I was working on a knitting project recently, and the pattern called for stitch markers. I could not locate mine, but my husband came to my rescue.
When knitting or crocheting a pattern that has different instructions for each row I copied the pattern and cut out each row and put 1 row on a 3X5 blank index card and put it into the binder that comes with index cards. (I bought mine at Wal-Mart)...
I made what I thought was the "back" of a long vest and it turned out entirely too "wide", a big rectangle, in fact. So I re-purposed it, sewed around the top for a neck hole and made a poncho out of it!
It's spring and scarf season is over - so if you are a knitter - switch over to rectangular shawls. It's the same only a bit longer and wider!
In a pinch, you can use chopsticks as knitting needles. Just sharpen the tips of the chopsticks in a pencil sharpener then dull them a little so they aren't too sharp.
A while back, a woman asked about how to knit or crochet. Here is what you do. You make a loop with your yarn and place it on your knitting needle, that will be your lead needle.
Take an old fashioned writing pen, remove the tip, ink cartridge, and end cap. Thread yarn through the now empty tube.
One way to vary the knitting on all of your shawl projects is to practice using different knitting combinations of purl and knit to make patterns. (A knitting book will show you how).
This craft tip is for storing knitting or crochet needles. Using fish aquarium tubing, which is very inexpensive and comes in various diameters, I cut just about an inch or so, pushing it down a bit (so they don't slide off) but yet long enough to cover the tips of the needles.
Take an empty Pringles can and cover it with pretty paper, fabric or paint. In the plastic lid cut small X's to insert your knitting needles.
