Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Twelve Free Videos from 2013

In past years, I picked out the best blog posts of the year and ran a list on New Year's Eve.  This year, I challenged myself to do a technique video every month, and the videos are by far the most popular posts.  Here are the twelve videos of 2013:
  1. January:  Twisted Fringe Video.   I love this fringe, which hangs nicely and doesn't have yarn ends to fray.
  2. February:  Video on set in sleeve, knitted upside-down using short-rowing.
  3. March:  make a cute Machine Knitted Bunny!  Nope, not difficult; it's just a square of knitted fabric and a little sewing.
  4. April:  Learn knit-side grafted seams with this video.  You can Kitchener from the purl side or the knit side, and sometimes you need to do it from the knit side.
  5. May:  Figure-8 cast-on and graft video.  Here's a stretchy cast-on.
  6. June:  New video, Tam Take Two, showing how you can use sew-as-you-go to make these cute pinwheel hats much more easily.
  7. July:  Make vertical, ribbed buttonholes following this easy video lesson.  This is my favorite buttonhole because it looks so tidy and neat.
  8. August:  The August video was floatless, vertical fair isle.  You can have several colors and textures in work at once!
  9. September:  The September technique video, one of the most popular of the year, shows how to join afghan panels using a contrasting-colored cable. 
  10. October:  Lattice Lace on the Silver Reed machine video teaches a pretty, lacy stitch that "ripples" and knits up very quickly!
  11. November:  The Helix Cable looks quite fancy, but is fast and easy to knit. 
  12. December:  Fingerless Mitt Video, using English Rib to make a thick, quick and practical gift item. 
As of today, I have 160 free MK videos over at my YouTube channel, some great, some primitive (I left my original, clunky beginner lessons up, even though we redid them all in high-definition, using what we learned, for the DVD products we sell).  This is a body of MK work unlike anything anyone else has done, unless they were running a paid subscription site.  I currently have over 2 million views and over 5,000 subscribers, but I get the most excited about the people I have taught to machine knit. 

My husband John says I really must keep on doing the monthly video, and I'm planning to try in 2014. 

Want to catch all the new free videos in 2014?   Click here and "subscribe," and you'll be able to grab 'em as they come out.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you, Diana!
    As a fairly new machine knitter, I am so grateful for your videos.

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  2. Your work is much appreciated Diana, thank you!
    Though I haven't been able to successfully complete the twisted fringe (the outlier hook often won't hold the yarn to make the elongate loop - sometimes it would and sometimes it wouldn't). I assume it's either my technique that is at fault or I tried with too thick yarn, or both. I've put it aside out of frustration for now but will come back to it.

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    1. Some machines will hold the loop, and some won't. On my machine that won't hold it, I just set the machine to not knit held needles, pull that needle into hold, and put the loop under it before I knit back. That will definitely hold the loop.

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    2. hmmm, I will have to try that, thanks for the tip!

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  3. I'm glad you're leaving the old tutorials on YouTube. Otherwise, we may have to search again where these lessons are for referrals to beginners.

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