Knitting guides
The questions we answer at the counter every week, written down — each one short, and each one pointing at the yarn it is about.
How to choose sock yarn
What makes a yarn wear well in a sock — fibre, nylon content, twist, superwash — how much a pair takes, and the sock yarns we stock, from self-striping to hand-painted.
Read the guide →Which circular needle length do I need?
How to pick a circular needle's cable length for hats, sleeves, sweaters, shawls and blankets, when to use magic loop instead, and the difference between addi Turbo, Rockets and bamboo.
Read the guide →How much yarn for a sweater?
How many yards and skeins an adult sweater takes in fingering, DK, worsted and chunky yarn, by size — with the arithmetic for turning a pattern's yardage into a number of skeins.
Read the guide →How to read a dye lot
What a dye lot is, where to find it on a ball band, why two lots of the same colour differ, how we match lots on every order, and what to do when you run short mid-project.
Read the guide →How to substitute yarn in a pattern
How to pick a yarn a pattern was not written for — matching gauge, yards per gram, fibre and construction — with the arithmetic for recalculating the number of skeins.
Read the guide →Malabrigo Rios vs Malabrigo Worsted
Rios and Worsted are Malabrigo's two worsted-weight merinos, in largely the same colourways. One is superwash and plied, one is a non-superwash single. Which to choose, and for what.
Read the guide →Superwash vs non-superwash wool
What superwash treatment does to wool, how it changes the way the yarn knits, washes and drapes, when to choose each, and which lines in stock are which.
Read the guide →Which yarns can be felted?
Which fibres felt and which never will, how to test a yarn before committing a project, how much it will shrink, and the yarns we stock that felt best.
Read the guide →Yarn weights explained
Lace, fingering, DK, worsted, chunky and bulky — what each yarn weight means, the gauge and needle size it knits at, how much a skein holds, and what to make in each.
Read the guide →Zauberball: which one is which?
Zauberball, Zauberball Crazy, Starke 6, Crazy Cotton, Edition 3 — how Schoppel Wolle's gradient yarns differ in ply, weight, fibre and the way the colour changes, and what to knit in each.
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