It’s great to have you back! Yesterday I got in the knitty-gritty of knitting with Red Heart Boutique Irresistible Yarn, I hope you’ll try at least one project using this VERY soft and trendy yarn. It’s always a good thing to say, “Yes! I tried it!”
Almost done, just need to cast off and weave in ends…
A blanket knit up with Red Heart’s Irresistible yarn – Taupe
So what about joining the yarns, casting off and weaving in ends?
Joining yarn
I found that of all the joining methods, the one that seemed to keep this very soft, 90% acrylic yarn together was the butt join. I also left 6” tail for the finishing ball and the new ball.
However, before moving to the next stitches, I knotted the 2 strands together to make sure it wouldn’t unravel during the rest of the knitting. GASP! Knotting yarn in knitting is very frowned upon, I know, but when you look at the back, the yarn is so textured, you can hardly see it!
Irresistible yarn has no grip, slides easily if not secured in this case. I could release the knot when the blanket is all done and weave in the ends, but I know this blanket will be well loved, and don’t want the stitch coming undone eventually; so the knot stays.
You can see the path I took to weave in the ends, but the knot is hard to find. It’s like knitting eye-spy…
Eye-spy with my little eye a knot? No not really, what is slightly visible is the path of the woven ends.
Casting off
It only took about 4 stitches to figure out that it isn’t necessary to use my left hand needle to move the second last stitch on my right needle over the last stitch when casting off. All I had to do was grab the yarn with the fingers of my left hand. I found this made for a faster cast off. There’s my jumbo tip for casting off jumbo yarn!
Weaving in the ends
I didn’t have a yarn needle big enough for Irresistible yarn, so ingeniously, I tried using a cable needle to pass the yarn through the back loops of the work. You could also use a short, circular needle in a smaller size.
Weaving in the ends using a cable needle when you don’t have a yarn needle big enough to accommodate jumbo yarn like Red Heart’s Irresistible yarn
After a while, I realized I didn’t need the cable needle or any other needle — I just used my fingertips to pass the yarn through the loops.
Again, so simple and so fast! Here’s the finished blanket. The color and the jumbo knit are so appropriate for my daughter’s room! Knit up in Taupe, it brings in the feeling of the outdoors.
Ta-Da! Huge blanket, knit up very fast with the very soft Red Heart Irresistible yarn
My daughter is a nature and animal lover, if you haven’t guessed by now… About 3 years ago, she spent a few months researching nature photos, as well as messages of inspiration that had a vintage look. She had around 300 of them printed out in 4” x 6” (thank God for Costco…), then made a collage to cover a whole wall in her room. That’s what you see in the backdrop. She found (…long story) a massive painter’s board with a picture of massive tree trunks on it and placed it in the adjoining wall. You get a sense of being in the outdoors. The blanket knit up with Red Heart Boutique Irresistible yarn completes the look.
300 pictures printed out in 4” x 6”, in a collage to cover a whole wall in her room. Bringing the outdoors in.
Join me the rest of the week, as I explore free patterns for home decor and knitwear using the very irresistible Irresistible yarn. You’ll get to see Irresistible yarn in different colors in action!
This is part 3 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 2: The knitty-gritty of Irresistible yarn
Go to part 4: 2 home decor patterns to knit using Red Heart Boutique Irresistible yarn
