Posted on Posted in Techniques

Finally we are getting a bit of nice, light, summer knitting weather! Yeah! Later in this post, we have a tutorial for the figure of eight cast-on, mentioned in other tutorials (and here) and a new way of striping those toe-up afterthought heel socks. But first we wanted to show you the new knitting bags we got in at Loop. Above you can see Sophie knitting with one of the Yarn Pop Gadgety bags. These are great because they have grommets that allow yarn to be threaded through. The ball of yarn stays safely inside the bag pocket, instead of rolling out …

Figure of Eight Cast On Read more »

Posted on Posted in Patterns

When the weather warms up, we love turning to smaller projects we can take on the go, like our Afterthought Heel Socks from last week. Cowls are a great accessory to work on in summer too – they usually only take one or two skeins of yarn and you can build up a collection to give away as Christmas presents come winter! This week, we’ve decided to bring you our edit of cowl patterns to keep your needles happy all summer. First up is a cowl from one of our favourite designers, Alana Dakos. Her gorgeous new book Botanical Knits …

Loop’s Favourite Cowls! Read more »

Posted on Posted in Free Patterns

We’ve got socks-on-the-brain at Loop, this week. No, not a new illness, we’re planning our summer knitting: small, portable projects that can build our winter gift giving stash… or end up on our own feet, come autumn. I like to use my “fancy” sock yarns to knit the bodies of my socks and then slip in contrasting, afterthought heels in hardwearing Lang Jawoll Superwash sock. Not only is this great for self-striping and hand-dyed yarns, as the afterthought yarn won’t break up the colour pattern, but it extends your “fancy” sock yarn so you can get more out of it. …

Lots of Socks Read more »