On Knitting Smarter

With a little one on the way, I realized that if I'd like to plan at all on making some of our Christmas presents, this is the year to do it.  And since she's due at the beginning of December, this, now, is the time to do it!  As a result, I've been knitting a lot more than usual in the past month, and getting more and more addicted.  (Addicted --> increasing love and frequency!)

One of the neat things about my mother-in-law is her love for learning.  She's been an outstanding craftswoman since John was little, if not before, but never stops taking classes, reading books and watching videos on youtube to help better herself.  I've found myself inspired by her and other friends like Amy not to get stuck in a rut myself.  And I've learned a lot about knitting in a smarter way than before!

All my recent projects, including my current one in the picture above, have been "in the round" patterns.  Happily, they've all also required size 7 needles, so the same two pairs of circulars have been doing marvelously lately!  I love knitting in the round, and I love doing it with two pairs of circulars instead of with double-points.  Here are some of the reasons why.  

• Knitting in the round is faster and cleaner.  There are minimal (if any) seams to sew up at the end, and fewer yarn tails to hide away.
• Seamless projects also come out beautifully, with no bumpy seams!
• The two-pairs-of-circulars method is flexible enough to work for very large circles or very small ones, like thumbs!
• I find that I lose stitches more readily with double-points.  There are more points and places for stitches to fall off, and with circulars the stitches all push handily onto the middle parts of the needles for storage.  
• There are also fewer needle-changes with two pairs of circulars than with double-points, making it faster still. 

Yay for knitting, and yay for natural fibers like wool and organic cotton!