K A bamboo marking pins from Woolbaa.com.au

I am expecting a new grandchild in a couple of weeks, and I have been knitting and crocheting lots of baby clothes in anticipation for the big arrival.

Well, making the clothes was great fun — until now, that is. With the due date hurtling ever closer, I can’t put off the inevitable: sewing up all the pieces and weaving in all the ends.

Part of my aversion to sewing up has to do with pinning the pieces together: metal pins slip out or they prick your fingers (not good form to gift knitted items with blood stains!).

Recently, however, I received a set of 10 bamboo seaming pins with one of the knitting magazines I subscribe to, so when I bit the bullet and sat down to construct my garments, I thought I’d give them a try. I wasn’t quite convinced they would do the trick, but boy, was I wrong. They are brilliant!

And I particularly love the bamboo, because it doesn’t slip around, so there’s no accidental falling out.

Now I want more (for making up larger garments), so with a dearth of yarn shops anywhere close, I took to the Internet to try to locate some. I finally found some, but holy cow, what a range of prices for the same product — from $9 to over $18, plus postage and handling! (The cheapest I found was on the Woolbaa)

If you, too, would rather do almost anything  than start sewing up your knitting or crocheting  — even the vacuuming (my least favourite chore) — then give these pins a go.

I’m not guaranteeing you’ll learn to love sewing up your woolies, but I’m betting you’ll find it far less of a chore.

© Sibrikov

If, like me, you love to knit (hand or machine) and/or crochet, but none of your friends share your passion, you can feel quite isolated — only other yarn tragics really understand your obsession.

If this sounds like you, then you should head to the Knitting Paradise site, which is a forum, comprising over 60,000 knitters and crocheters from all around the world.

There you’ll find the absolute nicest bunch of gals — and guys — who will delight in your creations, help you out when you get stuck with a pattern, share your crafting joys and frustrations, offer encouragement, share their experience through advice and tips, and share patterns and links to useful sites.

Once you have registered on the site and created your profile, you’ll receive a daily email summary of all the new topics posted in the past 24 hours.

The site also has a number of sub-groups of people. One very popular activity involves swapping surprise packages with other site members — you are matched with a swap buddy, receive a potted profile of their life, likes and hobbies, then you put together a parcel of items to send to them (up to a set dollar value), based on that profile.

Another quirky sub-group on the site is the Weekend Tea Party, where interested members get together online over each weekend to share what they have been up to throughout the week.

I’ve dropped in and out of a number of craft forums over the years, but this is the only one that keeps me coming back regularly — indeed, just about every day. And I’ve made lots of lovely friends, some of whom I’ve actually met up with in real life.

So, if you feel like spending some time with people who really get your fascination with all things ‘yarn’, or if you just feel like a general ‘yarn’ with a bunch of lovely people on just about anything, do yourself a favour and check out the Knitting Paradise site.

Knitting Paradise

However, because I thought it might be a handy resource for less experienced knitters who may read this blog, I thought I’d take a look and let you know if it was worth investing some bandwith in.

And aren’t I glad I did! I found some great knitting techniques I hadn’t come across before and will definitely give a go, and others that I had forgotten, but will definitely re-acquaint myself with in some upcoming knitting projects.

To get the ebook, all you need to do is enter your email address. You’ll also need a program to unzip the downloaded file — you can use the evaluation version of WinZip, which you can get a 45-day free trial of from here (when it expires, you can just delete it and reinstall it) .

Whether you’re a new or experienced knitter, this free downloadable ebook from the Knitting Daily Web site is a great resource to keep on hand.

Knitting Techniques for More Successful Knitting

From May 1 to July 31, knitters are being asked to create warm clothes, blankets, scarves and other garments for the 2010 Guardian Angels Knitting Project.

In its twelfth year, the charity knitting drive helps Australia’s poor to stay warm during the winter through donations of knitted garments to the Salvation Army.

Knitters who wish to participate can pick up a free book of suitable patterns from their local Guardian Pharmacy and completed garments can be left there to be passed on to the Salvation Army for distribution to the needy.

You can find your nearest Guardian Pharmacy here.