Links

About.com’s Knitting pages
Lots of information and links. The Learning to Knit page contains information for beginners or anyone who just wants to brush up on their skills.

afghans for Afghans
Charity that collects wool items for distribution in Afghan refugee camps.

American Textile History Museum
Located in Lowell, Mass., this museum features exhibits on spinning, weaving, antique clothing, and more. The museum also offers workshops and lectures, a Textile Learning Center for kids and storytelling nights. Its collections include textiles and books of interest to spinners and weavers. The museum’s Textile Conservation Center will preserve items for individuals.

Ample-Knitters
Ample-Knitters is an email discussion list that focuses on issues of concern to those who knit for large-sized people—whether that includes friends, relatives, or the knitter him- or herself. It is also open to designers who want to make their patterns size-inclusive. List members trade tips on how to resize existing patterns, recommend design resources, and share other pertinent advice.

The Andean Plying Bracelet (320K PDF file)
Instructions from craft book publisher Interweave Press on how to prepare spun yarn for plying. Includes step-by-step photos.

Also: The blog Ask the Bellwether has advice for avoiding “purple finger” when using this technique.

Beginner’s Scarf Pattern From AOK Corral Craft and Gift Bazaar
If you want to learn to knit, visit this page. Instructions on how to knit a scarf include a list of materials and pictures showing how to do all the steps required for the project—cast on, knit, and bind off.

Boston Area Spinners and Dyers Home Page
Information on Guild memberships, meeting times, workshops, and gatherings.

Castlebay Music
If you like the music at Mind’s Eye Yarns, you’ll want to check out this Maine company’s site. Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee put out Celtic harp music, traditional music from Maine, and originals. Includes a recorded sample.

Craftown
Information on a variety of crafts. Includes Learning Centers for various crafts. Knitting instructions include basics and a series of step-by-step diagrams as well as similar crochet instructions.

Cybersock Tutorials
Lessons (with photos) on knitting socks, including how to knit two socks at a time on two circular needles; Argyle socks; two-color socks; socks knitted from the toe up; and more.

DnT
Animated illustrations showing knitting techniques, links to other knitting sites, plus free patterns for knitted dolls. (The name stands for “Dollettes-n-Things.”)

Euroyarns
Euroyarns is the distributor for the Elizabeth Austen knitting bags and needle cases we sell, among other products.

How to Knit with Two Circular Needles
Instructions on this technique, a faster alternative to knitting with double-pointed needles. Unlike the Cybersock Tutorials page listed above, this one gives instructions for knitting one sock/sleeve/other item at a time—the more common method. Includes photos.

The KnitList
This is the web site for a long-standing online discussion group that now has almost 4,000 members worldwide. The web site has tons of patterns submitted by members as well as lists of knitting guilds, events, and vendors. And, of course, you can visit the discussion group, which is located on the Yahoo! Groups site, at groups.yahoo.com/group/knitlist (Yahoo! Groups has plenty of other knitting groups, too.)

Knitter’s Graph Paper
If you want to knit your own color design into an item, any easy way to do it is to draw the design on knitter's graph paper. Just like a knitted stitch, the cells in knitter's graph paper are shorter than than they are wide, so if you knit one stitch per graph-paper square, your design will come out in the correct proportions. This clever web page takes that idea one step further: Enter in the stitch and row gauge you are getting with a certain yarn, and it will spit out printable graph paper at that exact gauge. (Tip: When printing out pages, be sure that the “Shrink oversized pages to paper size” and “Enlarge small pages to paper size” are not checked in Acrobat’s print window.)

Knitter’s Review
Great site. Offers reviews and previews of yarns; reviews of knitting tools, yarn shops and knitting web sites; primers on topics such knitting lace, the different types of needles; fun polls (How old is your oldest project? Do you ever dream of raising your own fiber-bearing animals? Who taught you to knit?); forums; fiber event listings; and a weekly e-mail newsletter. Users can add their own comments to the reviews and tutorials.

Knitting and Crochet Terms and Techniques
Explains abbreviations for some common stitch patterns (and some not so common)—so when you run into a mysterious abbreviation like “1BC,” “2FC,” or “BDKC,” you may be able to find the explanation here. (For definitions of general knitting and crochet abbreviations, including some that are used in the explanation of stitch patterns, look here.)

The Knitting Guild of America
Nationwide group has chapters in Wakefield, Lancaster, Pembroke, and Waquoit, Mass. Site features a bulletin board that is open to nonmembers as well as members. The Knitting Guild publishes Cast On magazine, which is free to Guild members.

KnittingHelp.com
This web site offers more than 150 online video clips that demonstrate knitting techniques. There are also written tips on each technique’s pros and cons and when you might want to use that method. Both continental and English methods are demonstrated, where applicable. One page explains knitting-pattern abbreviations and includes links to relevant video clips. The site also includes a discussion forum, free patterns, and tips for beginning knitters.

Knitting Meetup
On the third Wednesday of every month, the folks at the web site Meetup.com try to arrange local meetings of knitters in cities around the world.

Knitting Universe
Site from the publishers of Knitter’s Magazine. Includes databases of knitting shops, tips and techniques, groups and guilds, workshops and events, free pattern downloads, a mailing list (called Knitters University), and more.

Knitty
Online-only knitting magazine. Besides feature articles on topics like steeking, handspinning, and more, there are patterns, columns that offer help with your knitting questions and tips and tricks to help you go beyond what's in the pattern, etc. There is also a gallery of projects, a links page, and a bunny.

Learn to Knit (and Crochet)
This site includes some basic information on yarns and tools, discussion forums, and a few projects and patterns.

MagKnits
Online knitting magazine offers free patterns, articles, designer profiles, an advice column, a monthly newsletter, a discussion forum, and contests.

New England Textile Arts
This Yahoo! Group includes knitters; spinners; spindlers; weavers; lacemakers; felters; bunny, alpaca, and sheep keepers; yarn shop owners; fiber dyers and painters; and “people who are BRAND NEW to all of the above and want to LEARN about some of this,” according to the group description.

Oklahoma State's Guide to Sheep Breeds
Great reference for history and fleece properties of specific breeds!

Planet Shoup
Craft site contains both knitting and crochet patterns. If you have ever come across a crochet pattern that you would prefer to knit—or vice versa—you’ll want to read the article that tells you how to convert patterns from knit to crochet (or the reverse).

Ron’s Fiber Home
Home of the FiberNet mailing list. Also links to other fiber sites.

Russian Join
Instructions and pictures show how to work this method for grafting two ends of yarn together in the middle of a piece—without a lot of knots or loose ends to sew in.

Somerville Family Network
Local charity that offers services and information to local parents and families. Mind’s Eye Yarns and its customers support the charity each year through donations of knitted items.

Spindlitis
Teri Pittman’s Spindilitis site is back, although with less content than before. But it does have some helpful questions and answers about common problems that beginners often run into, and she also has a blog.

The Spinning Wheel Sleuth
A newsletter about spinning wheels and tools. Its Frequently Asked Questions page explains some of the different types of wheels (with diagrams), gives a short history of the evolution of the spinning wheel, and tells where to find more information on spinning and weaving (including where to find plans for building a spinning wheel!).

Stitch Guide
Site offers illustrations, instructions, and video clips you can watch online to learn different needlework techniques—not just for knitting, but also crochet, sewing, quilting, embroidery, cross stitch, tatting, and other crafts.

Textile Society of America
This organization based in Maryland “provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination of information about all aspects of textiles: historic, artistic, cultural, social, political, economic, and technical,” says the group’s web site. Site includes lists of exhibitions across the country and international textile-study tours sponsored by the TSA and others. The society also sponsors conferences and symposia and publishes a newsletter, among other activities.

The Transportation Security Administration’s
Guidelines on Flying With Knitting Needles
This page on the TSA web site gives guidelines and advice for travelling with your knitting equipment. One tip is to travel with a self-addressed, stamped envelope so you can send your needles back to yourself if they are not allowed past security. There’s also a checklist of prohibited and permitted items (printer-frendly version —116K PDF).

Vintage Knits’ Discontinued Yarns Yardage & Fiber Contents List
Have a vintage pattern that calls for a yarn no longer made? This page lists both fiber content and yardage for many discontinued yarns so you can find an appropriate substitution. It’s part of Vintage Knits, a site that offers old knitting patterns for sale.

Welcome Baby
Group in Dorchester brings gift baskets and resource packets with information about parenting, health care, and other resources to families with new children.

Wool Processors’ List
Contact information for a variety of places that will wash, pick, card, and otherwise process raw wool.

Woolworks
Volunteer-run, noncommercial site for knitters. Includes patterns, discussions, a gallery of knitters’ projects, knitting stores around the world, charities nationwide that accept knitted items and knitting supplies, and other resources.

Yahoo! Groups
Yahoo! Groups has a few hundred knitting groups, including some that focus on specific topics like sock knitting.

YarnStandards.com
These guidelines are set by the Craft Yarn Council of America so its members—yarn companies, publishers, and needle and hook makers—can all use standard labels on their knitting and crochet products. But the information is extremely useful to crafters, too:

• a list of knitting and crochet abbreviations;
• standard body measurements in both inches and centimeters for babies, women, men, and children—including suggested measurements for getting a standard, close, very close, or loose fit on a garment;
• head measurements;
• skill levels;
• knitting needle and crochet hook sizes; and
• an explanation of the different yarn weights.