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

You can experiment with the number of beads and the gap between them — you can easily undo the crocheting and begin again, but always thread on more beads than you think you’ll need, because that is the one thing you can’t add if your lariat comes up short.

Materials
3 or 4ply knitting cotton or 0.5mm rat tail stringing thread amount depends on desired lariat length)
Beads — mixed sizes and finishes in the colour scheme of your choice (the number depends on how close you want the beads to each other and how long you want your lariat to be.
3.50 crochet hook
superglue

Instructions
1. Apply superglue to the first 2cm of the cotton (this forms a ‘needle’ to help you easily thread your beads — be very careful to not get the glue on your fingers. Let the thread dry thoroughly.

2. Thread beads on your thread in the pattern that you desire, being generous with the number of beads — you can always finish your lariat with beads left over, but if you don’t have enough, you’ll have to begin again from this step.

3. Taking your hook and thread and leaving several centimetres from the superglued end, make a slip knot.

4. Pull down the first bead and incorporate it into a single chain. Make four chain and then draw up the next bead and incorporate it into the next chain. Continue in this manner until the lariat reaches the deisred length or you run out of beads.

To finish off, thread the beginning thread back through the first bead and trim flush with where it emerges. At the other end, once you’ve crocheted in your last bead, draw the thread through and pull tight and cut a few centimetres from the bead. Then apply superglue to last centimetre, dry thoroughly and, as was done with the other end of the lariat, thread the tail back through the last bead and trim flush with where it emerges. Dab a small amount of superglue on each knot — a toothpick is good for applying this.

The lariat is very versatile and can be worn singularly or doubled and looped through itself (as in the pic below) for a shorter necklace.

You can also wear a number of complimentary lariats together (different coloured thread and/or different coloured beads) — if you plan to do this, staggering the ends instead on lining them up can be very effective. For a more glam version of this lariat, you could use glittery thread.