Musings on Different Knitting Techniques: right-hand yarn hold vs left-hand yarn hold

So much has been made of the split between knitters who hold their yarn in the right hand while knitting (frequently referred to as English style or throwing) versus those who hold their yarn in the left hand while knitting (frequently referred to as Continental style or picking). I have to admit to being someone who has followed this issue for a long time and to having read numerous blog post, articles, and writing about this in books. 

I was taught to knit with the yarn held in my right hand. Soon after I began knitting regularly, I was very lucky to have a master knitter who owned my LYS teach me how to tension my yarn a lot more effectively over my right index finger, under my middle finger, and over my index finger. Here is a link to a video of the way I tension my yarn: right-handed yarn hold (in the image to which I have linked, the knitter tensions in the same way that I do, except he adds one more tensioning point by wrapping the yarn around his pinkie in addition to tensioning over the index finger, under the middle finger and over the ring finger as I do).

My mentor was an extremely fast and effective knitter, so I was highly motivated to learn her technique. I found that with a little practice, I took to this method well and was very pleased with the results and the rhythm I was able to establish very quickly while knitting. This has been my primary mode of knitting for the last 20 years.

However, soon after this I began to encounter some knitters who knit with the yarn held in their left hands. Both of my friends with whom I first encountered this technique had learned to knit in other countries (one from Russia and another from Sweden). They both knitted in a similar manner in terms of how they held the yarn, but my friend from Russia actually created her purl stitches differently. I later learned she was knitting using a Combined method. It absolutely fascinated me that people could knit so differently and still produce very similar results. Even at the time, I had a small desire to learn what they were doing, but I was so used to my own method that it didn't really occur to me to do much more than giver their methods a half-hearted try in order to at least see what it was all about. I never seriously considered switching styles at that time.

Later, though, I began reading a lot about these different styles on knitting blogs, and I was fascinated to see how many knitters who held their yarn in the left hand were "coming out" to speak about the discriminatory comments they had faced over the years, being told they were "knitting wrong." I never understood that and always wondered why people were so quick to try to put those who do things differently into a category of "the other." I applauded these women for beginning to share their stories and for making these less well-known styles of knitting known to the general knitting public and for eventually making it so that these styles have become more than acceptable. In many instances, knitting with the yarn in the left hand has become more "normal" amongst the knitting community on the web than knitting with yarn in the right hand seems to be.

Which brings me to my own story.  Eventually, I began thinking that instead of half-heartedly trying to knit with the yarn in my left hand, maybe I should really try to switch. I had a few motivations to learn to do it well. First of all, I wanted to knit Fair Isle and wanted to use the two-handed method. In order to learn to do it well enough to make stranded knitting rhythmic, I figured I should really practice it alone first. I did this and became fairly proficient with the knit stitch. Of course, purl is another thing all-together when it comes to holding the yarn in the left-hand (one reason why I still prefer holding the yarn in my right hand for most knitting). No matter how proficient I have become holding the yarn in my left hand for the knit stitch and no matter how much I have practiced, I can't say I have ever become as comfortable with it as I am when holding the yarn in my right hand.

When I use my index finger to flick the yarn up over the needle, whether for the knit stitch or the purl stitch, I feel like my hand is a well-oiled machine. Everything just flows and it feel awesome. When I hold the yarn in my left hand, it feels a bit like work, and I find myself having to really concentrate. I can't take my eyes off the needles like I can when I use my right hand. I can't execute k2tog, ssk, yo, or m1 without thinking about it. I certainly can't execute the purl stitch without a lot of effort and concentration. And I still haven't found a really comfortable way to tension the yarn. I have tried them all, but none feels perfect in the way that my right-handed technique does. 

The one that I have found that works best for me when it comes to a left-handed yarn hold for the knit stitch is the one that I recently saw Elizabeth Zimmerman using on her dvds. She simply holds the yarn over her left index finger and tensions the yarn with her folded fingers against her palm. When I saw this a couple weeks back after purchasing her amazing dvds, I realized that she was tensioning her yarn in the same exact manner that I do when I crochet. This made me realize that maybe if it works for me for crochet, it would for knitting. Sure enough it does ... but only for the knit stitch. The problem for me comes into play when I try to purl and there doesn't seem to be enough tension to make it work. E.Z. seemed to manage, but she was famous for liking to knit a lot more than she liked to purl, which is one of the reasons she was so enamored with garter stitch and knitting in the round. Unfortunately, I am not quite as enamored with garter stitch or knitting in the round as she was, and I really want to continue to be able to purl comfortably. 

Lastly, knitting with the yarn in my right hand just feels right! I love the rhythm I get into when I do it this way, and even if I am not as fast as some who knit with the yarn held in their left hand are, who cares. First of all, I know plenty of knitters who hold the yarn in their right hand who are incredibly fast, my mentor being one of them. I am just not a speed demon at anything. However, I want to enjoy my knitting not win any speed contests. So much of my life needs to be lived in the fast lane as it is -- work, kids' schedules, etc. -- why should my knitting be a contest. I have decided that I will continue to use the right-handed hold as my primary method of knitting. I will continue to work on improving the rhythm of my left-handed hold for stranded knitting and for projects where it might be useful, such as something containing a lot of seed stitch. However, I don't think I will ever switch entirely.

It is nice to have more than one technique to depend upon, though, because we can never learn too much in life. Now I just wish that everyone would realize the value in all of the many ways that one can knit and be content to allow everyone to enjoy their own styles. Unfortunately, it seems that all too often one group or the other wants to make the other group feel like they are doing it "wrong." For far too long those who knit with yarn held in the left hand were the victims of that mentally; however, it is starting to seem like the tide has turned and now those who hold the yarn in their right hands are the ones who are all too often being criticized. This should not be. We all have different styles and sometimes those styles might correlate with how our bodies are designed. Isn't the most important thing that we do what makes us feel the most comfortable when it comes to our hobby?

By now you might be wondering why I have chosen to use the awkward phrasing of "knitters who hold the yarn in the right hand" and "knitters who hold the yarn in the left hand" instead of more common labels such as "Continental/English style" or "pickers/throwers." The reason for this is that after reading the excellent explanation that June Hemmons Hiatt gives in her book, The Principles of Knitting: Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting, I became informed that the terms Continental and English-style were inappropriate. She points out the terms contain a Western bias since they exclude so many other parts of the world that have been knitting for as long if not longer than those in England and other parts of Europe, using these techniques as well as others that haven't even been discussed in this post (thumb knitting, sometimes called Portuguese knitting) (Hiatt 4). Hiatt uses specific labels for each method use with each of the larger categories, which she generally refers to as "right-hand methods" and "left-hand methods." However, when I have referred to them in this way when speaking with fellow fiber arts enthusiasts, I find that they sometimes think I am talking about which hand does most of the needle work rather than which hand holds the yarn.

The reason I don't like to use "throwers and pickers" is that I find those terms to be limiting. There is nothing about the way that I knit by tensioning my yarn over my right index finger that resembles a throwing motion in any way. Throwing also has a negative connotation to it since so many knitters who prefer to hold the yarn in their left hands seem to have a caricatured image of knitters who hold the yarn in their right hands: wildly out of control knitters, making exaggerated sweeping motions every time they complete a stitch. This in no way resembles the controlled, precise motions of my knitting mentor, nor of myself for that matter. On the other hand, "picker" has an inelegant sound to it that I feel does not capture the precise, efficient motions of many of the knitters who hold their yarn in the left hand that I have seen. Meg Swansen is an excellent example of someone who is not only incredibly quick when she knits, but who also makes knitting look beautiful as she performs it for the camera.

So, I choose to use the wordier phrases that refer to which hand holds the yarn when I categorize the two basic knitting styles that seem to be predominant in Western culture. I also think that by doing so, the two become more equalized and the emphasis is on a choice of how to hold something, not on a label that might contain connotations, even if they aren't intended by the speaker/writer.  I know that a lot has already been written about this topic, but I would love to hear from others out there who have wanted to weigh in on their own experiences. Feel free to share your own thoughts/ideas in the comment section below, but please remember to be respectful of everyone's style when commenting.

Remember that knitting isn't about speed unless you want it to be in order to knit for profit or for competition. If you are enjoying what you are doing no matter how you are doing it, you are doing it right!

Works Cited

Hiatt, June, and Jesse Hiatt. The Principles of Knitting: Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting. New York: Touchstone, 2012. Print. 

Adventures with Fair Isle - Follow-up

I was thinking about the post I wrote a few days ago with information about all of the sources upon which I drew to help me learn Fair Isle, and I realized that I left out a few. Recently, I found a great blog that inspired me to try Fair Isle again since the writer had knitted some glorious sweaters and had also taken the time to share her knowledge with others. The blog is called By Gum, By Golly, and the writer, Tasha, is an incredibly skilled knitter and seamstress. She loves vintage clothing, so her Fair Isle work is inspired by vintage Fair Isle patterns. I found her tutorial on stranded knitting incredibly helpful since she focuses on several aspects about which most beginners wonder:

• How to hold the yarn using various techniques, depending on which suits the knitter best (I especially like that she admitted to dropping yarns, being careful not to let them twist, when she first began stranding. She asserts that this is actually a valid technique and that if one is comfortable using it, they should continue to do so. I have actually heard of prolific Fair Isle knitters using this technique, so it was nice to see it validated. As an FYI, I actually use the two-handed technique just because this is how I began.)
• How to strand the yarn to avoid "puckers" and to produce "even stranding" (more on this below)
• How to choose colors for vintage patterns

Tasha's writing on this subject has been especially helpful to me in calming me down a little bit about my worries that my stranding might be too tight (yes, I tend to be a perfectionist, but I always call myself the perfectionist who can never get anything perfect :) ). I can clearly see that my stranding on the wrong side looks very even and is not tight in any way, yet the front side still looks a bit uneven. Here is a photo of the wrong side to show the stranding:

It looks pretty even to me, and I even see a few spots where the floats actually look a little bit loose. That doesn't concern me, though, because Elizabeth Zimmerman always says in her videos "better too loose than too tight" because you can "snug up" loose floats. Please feel free to share your opinion if you see something here that indicates it might be too tight. Now here is the front.

I am fairly happy with it, but I keep having sneaking concerns that it might be a bit puckery. Here is where Tasha's By Bum, By Golly blog really helps quiet my inner-critic; she shared a post of the before- blocking and after-blocking photos, and the difference in evenness is distinct. Here is the link to the post: before and after blocking. This blog is the only place I have seen photographic evidence of the wonders of blocking on Fair Isle, so I am so grateful for Tasha for sharing. I am paying it forward by making you all aware of it, so hopefully I can help calm your own inner-critic.

Another source of constant help and inspiration to me has been WendyKnits. Wendy's writing on knitting has been so important to me for over 10 years, ever since I found her blog back in the very early days of blog writing. As you can see, she is very skilled at Fair Isle, and if you look at her archives, you will see that she has knitted many of the Alice Starmore Fair Isle designs. Her work is amazing! If you read the posts in the archives for some of her Alice Starmore designs (Mara comes to mind immediately), you will see that she talks about Fair Isle technique in many of them. 

Lastly, I just noticed that Spring edition of Interweave Knits has an article on Fair Isle knitting, and it seems to provide a lot of great information on it. I have yet to read it, but I am looking forward to a quiet evening without distraction to curl up and see what it has to offer.

As you can see from the scant progress made on the Ivy League Vest in the pictures above, I haven't had a lot of time lately to work on Fair Isle knitting since work has been busy, and family life has had me on the run. As a result, most nights I have needed something cozy yet simple to help me wind down from the day, which has allowed me to make significant progress on this glorious crocheted afghan by Lucy of Attic24, the Granny Stripe Blanket.

I am so grateful that I found Attic24 earlier this year since it has rekindled my love of crochet with the amazingly bright, adorable projects that Lucy shares with her followers. Being able to work on something colorful and warm in the evenings of this bitterly cold winter has been a blessing. Fair Isle also brings color to my life, but it isn't something I can do very easily in the evenings when I am tired since I am still too new to it for it to be mindless. Crochet, especially this type of repetitive, double crochet stitch, row-by-row crochet, really fills my need for color and mindlessness in the evenings. 

If any of you knitters have never tried crochet, I highly encourage you to do so. It is a lot of fun being "bi-crafty" (an expression I heard on one of the podcasts I listen to, but unfortunately I can't remember which one in order to give proper credit). I am loving crochet again so much that I have ordered a large quantity of Stylecraft Special DK (at Lucy's recommendation) on sale from Deramores so that I can begin another one of her afghan patterns as soon as I finish this one. I am considering either the Ripple Blanket or the Granny Patchwork Blanket. Crocheters out there, which one do you recommend more? They are both wonderful, so just let me know in the comments which one you like best if you have done them both or even if you are just looking at the pictures!

Happy knitting and crocheting, everyone!

Adventures with Fair Isle

Although I have been knitting for 20 years and have a lot experience under my belt, one area in which I need more practice and have dreams of unmet accomplishments is Fair Isle knitting. As you probably know if you have read my introductory post on this blog, knitting Arans and other types of textured designs has been my primary focus for much of my knitting "career." If you check out my Ravelry profile (suzknittyspinner), you will see that I have knitted several cabled sweaters of varying difficulties (and even more than are pictured on Ravelry since I wasn't always great about taking photos) with Alice Starmore's Inishmore being my most prized achievement. My dream is to knit one of Alice Starmore's Fair Isle designs now that I have one of her Arans under my belt.

However, during all those years of dreaming about and knitting cables, I always had a desire to learn Fair Isle (stranded) knitting, too. Lack of time due to a busy work and family-life schedule kept me from pursuing this dream as intensely as I would have liked to have done. I did make some small steps towards my goal over the years, though. I began by knitting hats, starting with a very easy hat and slowly trying others:

I highly recommend this simple pattern from Homespun Handknit: Caps, Socks, Mittens & Gloves, the Mushroom Cap and Mittens by Jacqueline Fee, as a way to begin to practice your stranding technique. If you have done any reading about Fair Isle knitting, you probably know that there are several ways to hold the yarns when stranding. You can hold them both in one hand, or you can use two hands by knitting English-style in one hand and Continental-style in the other (as Elizabeth Zimmerman and Alice Starmore recommend). I choose to strand using both hands, but because I am an English-style knitter, I had to learn to knit Continental-style with my left hand. Before I even started the hat above, though, I practiced Continental-style knitting on a scarf. Once I felt fairly comfortable with it (after over five years of practicing it, I am still not nearly as comfortable with it as I am English-style -- can't teach an old dog new tricks!), I tried this hat. Since the pattern only requires you to strand the yarn for one stitch at a time, it was fairly easy to get the hang of stranding and to get into a flow with my knitting. The yarn used was also a sport weight yarn, so that made the stranding a bit easier to manage for a first project.

After this hat, I tried another Mushroom Cap in different colors for my niece as well as a stranded hat of my own design (using one of Barabara Walker's motifs from one of her Treasuries) for my other niece:

Making these simple hats and especially choosing the motif for the second hat was a lot of fun, and I began to feel like I might be getting the hang of stranded knitting (these hats weren't technically Fair Isle since they were only using two colors without changes in the colors in the background), so I decided to try something that looks a little more complicated but really isn't, The Fake Isle Hat by Amy King.

It was so much fun to knit that I made another:

After my success with all of these hats, I began to gain confidence and decided to try some mittens at a slightly smaller gauge, so I began Beth Brown-Reinsel's Nordic Mittens, and this is where things began to get a bit more tricky. Working on double-pointed needles is usually a breeze for me since I was fortunate to have a knitting teacher who got me going on socks as my second knitting project (long before socks on two circs or Magic Loop existed). However, dpns while stranding was not my strong suit (and still isn't, which is why I am now using Magic Loop for stranded mittens). Here is what I started and have to this day not finished:

Unfortunately, I put these mittens aside when I began feeling frustration from trying to strand across the gaps between dpns, and my enthusiasm for Fair Isle withered a bit for awhile. I then decided that maybe I needed a class, so for my 40th birthday, instead of having a party, I asked for a weekend-long knitting class on Fair Isle with Beth Brown-Reinsel. It was awesome, and I learned so much. That class renewed my interest in Fair Isle, so I began an Ivy League Vest by Eunny Jang. 

It was a bit slow going at first since the gauge of the Shetland wool is finer than anything I had used previously. However, I began to feel like I was getting a rhythm, and then I made a mistake in the pattern! I intended to find it and fix it, but life got in the way, and before I knew it, this project was put in hibernation along with the Nordic Mittens. They both sat in a closet for over five years. However, this is the year that I plan to finish both of them. For some reason, cable knitting came very easily to me, but I have had to work at Fair Isle. I am now at a point, though, where I really want to be able to say that I met the challenge and have become a proficient Fair Isle knitter. Hopefully, I will be able to do that by the end of this year.

I will be posting later this week with some tips about how I have jump-started both of these projects and the ways that they seem to be coming along more smoothly this time.

Please share your experiences with learning Fair Isle knititng or any questions you might have if you are just starting to learn this technique in the comments below. Click on "no comments" to get to the page where you can add your own comment. I would love to get a discussion going here about this subject. I have a lot of great ideas for further posts that can link you to many of the helpful resources and tips I have picked up along the way even though, as you can see, I have been very slow to put them into practice. I have studied this subject a lot more than I have practiced it over the years. :)

Proud Mama

The day that I have been dreaming about ever since my precious baby girl as born, over 16 years ago, has finally arrived -- she has become a knitter! I have had a plan to entice her into this lifestyle for quite awhile. Of course, my motives were selfish since I dreamed of spending hours upon hours of quality time with her, sipping tea and stitching as we had some mother-daughter bonding time. 

I began to put my plan into action when she was only 4 1/2 years old. Being the avid reader of all things Elizabeth Zimmerman-related, I was very familiar with Meg Swansen's (E. Z.'s daughter) story of how she became a knitter. Elizabeth taught Meg early, but as Meg tells the story in her book, Meg Swansen's Knitting, she only knitted in fits and starts until she was a young adult. It was at that point that she became passionate about the craft, and this began a truly incredible collaboration between mother and daughter. Most of us know the rest of that delightful story, but if you don't, I highly recommend that you check out some of Elizabeth Zimmerman and/or Meg Swansen's writing and videos.

So, I envisioned my daughter and I developing a crafting relationship that emulated this famous mother/daughter pair. When she quickly got the hang of knitting at four and half, I thought, here is my knitter -- only to see her put down her needles the next day never to pick them up again for many years. Then at around eight years old, she picked them up again, showing enough enthusiasm for the craft to inspire me to buy her own little crafting bag with measuring tape, needle-sizer, a pair of scissors, a knitting instruction book for girls, needles and yarn. She began a simple garter-stitch scarf, knitted on it with zeal for a couple of days, and then quickly became bored. After that, her little bag sat in a corner of her bedroom for several years until one day in a flurry of spring cleaning, she decided that she would never again want to knit, and so she was going to get rid of all of her knitting "stuff." Of course, this saddened me, but in the back of my head, I thought, "She doesn't know what her future will hold. One day, she will still pick it up again." A little voice inside me did wonder if maybe knitting just wasn't her thing since I had noticed that as artistic and crafty as she is that she gravitated towards projects that could be planned and executed in a day, which led her to sewing and making other small crafty projects for a time. 

Alas, the day finally came in the last month when my patience seems to have paid off; she asked to pick up her needles once again to make a cute wool headband that she saw in an advertisement. She had originally asked me to find a pattern and to make the headband for her, but before I had the chance to begin it, she suddenly came to me and said, "Mom, do you think I could learn to knit the headband myself?" This was music to my ears, as you can imagine, so I replied, "Of course. Let's get started." The next day, I bought her some luxurious wool to get her properly hooked and to make sure she loved every minute of this experience, reviewed the knit stitch with her, taught her to purl and then to combine knit and purl to make seed stitch, and off she went! She picked it up like no time had passed since her last knitting session and even worked on training her hands to tension the yarn over and under her fingers in the way I have always done, so she could pick up speed. Before I knew it, she was knitting away every time I saw her with a spare moment. She even mastered it enough to knit while watching T.V.  

It is indescribable the joy a knitting mother feels when seeing her daughter with needles in hand and yarn flowing thought her fingers! I am in heaven. Not to mention, it is a blast to have someone right in my own house with whom I can talk "shop."  Here are the results of her glorious efforts! 

Pretty good for a newbie, I must say with a mother's proud heart.  My delight continues, since she is now asking to make herself some leg warmers! We are off to our LYS tomorrow.

In case any of you are wondering what I have been up to lately, I am working steadily on my husband's sweater and the Granny Stripes Afghan. However, in the meantime, I quickly knitted this wonderful hat for a co-worker to help him deal with this incredibly frigid weather we have been having. The pattern is a free download on Ravelry called Men's Ski Hat. I used Berroco Vintage yarn so that he could wash it easily. The stitch definition was great, yet the hat is very soft.  He loves the hat and wears it, which is the best a knitter can ask for, isn't it?

Unfortunately, I am also working on another hat for a friend of my sister's who is starting chemo today. I am so glad to be able to make these hats for those who need them, but I certainly wish I didn't have cause to make them. I will show you the hat and share which pattern I made when it is finished. It is looking really nice so far, but there aren't enough rounds to show it now.

Happy knitting and crocheting!

Experimenting with Design

I recently completed a warm hat for a friend who is going through chemo and needs as many hats as she can get with these extremely cold temperatures we have been having in the Midwest. I had already made her a simple cotton chemo cap for indoors, so this time I thought I would make her something that was beautiful and really warm for outdoor wear. I started searching for patterns, but then I got the idea that I should design one of my own. I have created a few of my own garments over the years (mostly hats and one sweater). I always enjoy the process of searching through stitch guides and choosing colors. This time, though, I wanted to get more practice with Fair Isle knitting since it is something I have tried on and off, but that I don't feel I have mastered yet. Watching Elizabeth Zimmerman's incredible Knitting Workshop DVD (a Christmas present) had inspired me since she was encouraging beginning knitters to design their own two-color hats; I have been knitting for twenty years -- surely I could do this! Here is what I came up with:

I had a lot of fun choosing the motifs and deciding which colors to use for each motif and in each round. Since I wanted to be sure the hat was easily washable for my friend, I used some left-over acrylic that I had from a baby afghan (I would definitely advise using wool, though, if you can). The yarn was worsted weight. The motifs come from Mary Smith and Maggie Liddle's A Shetland Pattern Book (a great little book with easy to use Fair Isle patterns). I choose the central motif of the crosses so that I could knit some "prayers" into her cap. The other motifs were chosen since they had repeats that were divisible into the main pattern repeat and into the total number of stitches on the hat. I am happy with the results overall, but here are a few things I would change if I made another cap using this design:

• I would use a different green. The one that I had in my stash was a bit two light and doesn't pop well enough against the cream yarn. The pattern color really should be dark if the background color is light and vice versa.
• I would use Eunny Jang's technique from her Introduction to Fair Isle video where she recommends knitting all the stitches on the color-change row of corrugated ribbing instead of purling any of them in order to avoid the visible line in the color-change row. Of course, I saw her tip after I had completed the hat. The visible line doesn't bother me too much, though, since it is something I have seen in a lot of corrugated rib, but Eunny's technique is definitely something I will try next time.
• I might substitute different pattern motifs above and/or below the crosses

This project was a lot of fun since I really liked making so many choices and having everything under my control. It meant that I had to knit by the seat of my pants at times and there was some ripping and re-knitting, but it gave me a real sense of why E.Z. always had the mantra of "be the boss of your knitting." It is a great feeling. If anyone is interested in the pattern directions, I would be happy to write them up and post them to the blog. Just let me know by replying to this entry in the comments section below. (Click on the spot where it says "no comments" or if someone else has commented, click on where it says "comments" with a number before it.)

Now that I have completed this hat fairly successfully, I think it is time to pick up some of the other hibernating Fair Isle projects I have started over the years:

Beth Brown-Reinsel's Nordic Mittens

 Eunny Jang's Ivy League Vest

As you all know from the title of my blog, I am an Aran knitter at heart, but I still like experimenting with two-color knitting. Now if I could just finish something bigger than a hat!

Everything Old Becomes New Again: Infinity Scarf, aka E. Z.'s Moebius Ring

Recently, my daughter asked me to knit her an "infinity scarf." I was delighted since she rarely wants hand knits from me, but I wasn't sure what she meant. I asked her to show it to me, and when she brought up an image on her computer, I recognized it instantly as Elizabeth Zimmerman's Moebius Ring from her beloved book Knitting Around. This book has been a favorite of mine for a long time, and I have often admired the Moebius Ring. I was thrilled that she wanted one. Since she wanted black garter stitch, and I had some black Berrocco Ultra Alpaca left over from another FO, I casted on immediately. Here it is:

I enjoyed knitting mindless garter stitch more than I imagined I would. It made for a great carry-around project. I also invested in some Addi Turbos for the first time; boy did those needles fly! I loved that. I still like my Clover Bamboo needles for some projects and my Lantern Moon Ebony dpns for larger gauge socks, but the Addi Turbos sure have their place in my heart now, too.

I wanted to especially thank the Techknitter from the Techknitting blog. for saving me when it came to this project since I forgot to begin my garter-stitch rows with a slip stitch even though I have known to do that for years. Somehow it slipped my mind, making the edge look very uneven. However, when reading the Techknitter's blog, I saw a post about adding a crochet slip-stitch edging to garter stitch, so I did so on this scarf. It worked like a charm and was a fun way to end the project since I enjoy crochet so much. I highly recommend it: Here is a photo of how the edge looks:

The technique of adding a slip-stitch crochet edge is very simple, especially if you know how to crochet. I found it to be a pleasant was to end my work on this project.