Knitting For Profit
If you love knitting and have ever wished you could make money from it, then make sure you keep reading because I
Posts Tagged ‘learn to knit’
Knitting Pattern Abbreviations – A Handy Summary
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
To follow on from my last post, the other knitting ideas I find really handy is to have a summary of knitting pattern abbreviations and conversions close to hand. So here's a list of all the ones I know or could find – feel free to add more if you know some!
ALT – Alternate or alternately
APPROX – Approximately
BC – Back Cross (Also RC or Right Cross)
BEG – Beginning
BET – Between
BO – Bind Off
CC – Complementary Color – Contrasting Color – The secondary color yarn
CM – Centimetres (2.54 centimetres is the same as one Inch)
CN – Cable Needle
CO – Cast On
CONT – Continue
DEC – Decrease
DPN – Double Pointed Needles
FC – Front Cross (Also LC or Left Cross)
FL – Front Loop
FOLL – Following
G st – Garter Stitch
G – Gram (There are approximately 28.35 grams in one ounce)
INC – Increase
INCL – Including
K – Knitted Stitch – K will often be followed by a number such as K5 meaning you need to make five knitted stitches.
K1B – Knit One Below – Knit the stitch into the row below the one you are stitching
K2TOG – Knit two stitches together
KB – Knit Below – Knit the stitch into the row below the one you are stitching
KFB – Knit into the front and back of a stitch
KWISE – Knitwise – This indicates a slip stitch done “knitwise” or like a knit stitch.
LC – LC Cross (Also FC or Front Cross)
LH – Left Hand
LP – Loop
LT – Left Twist
M – Meter – One meter is roughly 39 inches
M1 – Make One Stitch
M1PST – Make one purl stitch
MB – Make Bobble – A bobble is a raised area that may be included to add a touch of dimension.
MC – Main Color – The Main color yarn for your project
MM – Millimetre – Generally used to gauge or measure needles and occasionally yarn length
Oz – Ounce – Knitting yarn will often be purchased by measures of weight
P – Purl Stitch – P will often be followed by a number like P3 meaning make three Purl Stitches.
P1B – Purl One Below – Purl the stitch into the row below the one you are stitching
P2TOG – Purl two stitches together
PAT – Pattern
PB – Purl Below – Purl the stitch into the row below the one you are stitching
PFB – Purl the front and back of a stitch
PM – Place Marker
PNSO – Pass Next Stitch Over
PREV – Previous
PSSO – Pass Slip Stitch Over
PWISE – Purlwise – This indicates a slip stitch done “purlwise” or like a purl stitch.
RC – Right Cross (Also BC or Back Cross)
RH – Right Hand
REM – Remaining
REP – Repeat
Rev St st – Reverse Stockinette Stitch
RND – Round
RS – Right Side – The side of the “fabric” that will be the outside of a garment or the upside or visible side of a decoration, trim or other element that is visible in the finished product.
RT – Right Twist
SK – Skip
SKP – Slip Knit Pass – This is where you will slip two knit stitches together as one and pass them over the last stitch knitted.
SK2P – Slip, knit two stitches together and pass over the two stitches to decrease by two stitches
SL – Slip
SL1K – Slip one stitch knitwise
SL1P – Slip one stitch purlwise
SL ST – Slip Stitch – SL ST will often be followed by a number to indicate the number of slip stitches that need to be made. (May also be referred to as SS in some patterns)
SS – Slip Stitch – SS will often be followed by a number to indicate the number of slip stitches that need to be made. (May also be referred to as SL ST in some patterns)
SSK – Slip Slip Knit – This is where you will make two slip stitches together as one and then knit them together through the back loop. (The actual number of slips may change, thus you may see SSSK or something similar as well)
St st – Stockinette Stitch
TBL – Through Back Loop – The stitch should be knitted through the back loop
TOG – Together – Indicates that the stitches should be stitched together as opposed to stitching them separately so that K2TOG would indicate you need to stitch two stitches together as one single stitch.
WS – Wrong Side – The side of the fabric or garment that will be against the skin and not visible to the outside world or the underside of a decoration, trim, ribbing element or other knitted products.
WYIB – With Yarn in Back
WYIF – With Yarn in Front
YD – Yard – 36 inches
YFWD – Yarn Forward
YO – Yarn Over – Where The stitch will be made with the yarn going over as opposed to under.
YRN – Yarn around the needle
YON – Yarn over the needle
Knitting Online Success Story – JJ from begintoknit.com
Monday, September 21st, 2009
This is a great interview to listen to if you are keen to get your knitting or crochet online, and we’ll be following up with the teleseminar on Thursday/Friday to answer all your questions (check out the post below to register). As I mentioned in my last post, I really enjoyed this interview and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you!
Just click on the play button below and you’ll be able to hear the recording which runs for about 50 minutes, or you can read the transcript in the two posts below.
Knitting Online Success Story – JJ from begintoknit.com Part 1
Monday, September 21st, 2009
This is the transcript from my interview with JJ so if you prefer reading to listening, or you want to check a resource that is mentioned you’ll find the entire interview here – enjoy!
[Liz]: Today I’m talking to Jenny Vasquez from www.begintoknit.com, or J.J. as she actually likes to be known because that name includes the other half of her team – her husband who is also a knitter. Now J.J. has a wonderful and inspiring story which I wanted to share with you.
Because of the economic conditions at the moment in the U.S. she made the decision to take control of her own future and she’s taken the most important steps towards achieving this by starting her own business. She’s using a combination of strategies in her business; including teaching and the volume strategies. So now she’s using the power of the internet to get herself and her fabulous products and services going.
So J.J. would you like to tell us a bit about your background and perhaps introduce your husband and how you discovered his secret talents?
[J.J]: Absolutely – well my husband whose name is Juan; he’s a wonderful, wonderful man and an incredibly talented man, who was actually quite shy about his ability with knitting. We had been married about a month and we had very much a very quick relationship, so we hadn’t probably known each other more than about seven months all told, after we had been married about a month and I actually pulled out a magazine that had some crochet patterns in it and I said— Oh look I wonder if I can make this and he said well can’t you just make it by looking at the picture? And I said no… I absolutely have to go by the pattern, I’m a good knitter, but I’m not an exceptional knitter. I have to have a pattern to follow. He says well I can do that by just looking at it, and I didn’t take him seriously I thought he was joking with me. And the next thing I knew we started hitting the local discount stores and bulk retailers and getting all kinds of knitting needles and crochet hooks and yarns of all different colors and variations and shortly thereafter I found out we were expecting our first child, we’d only been married a couple of months and here’s my husband with this incredible skill so we started making all sorts of stuff for the baby before she was even born.
[Liz]: Fantastic and were you actually selling some of your products at that point?
[J.J]: At that point immediately? No – mostly because he was just shy about anyone knowing that he did this. And for myself, it wasn’t really something that occurred to me because even though I knew how to crochet, it didn’t seem like something that I would be able to make lucrative because I did it for my own hobby. My husband on the other hand, he was very proficient – I had no idea, but because he’s a man, he’s a Hispanic man and that’s not typical hobby for a Hispanic man, he was very shy about it. It took probably about two years before the cat got out of the bag. That he had this incredible skill and then we started occasionally selling some stuffed animals and the occasional baby layette and stuff like that and I kinda had to take the hit for a while – “Oh yeah I made that”- even though I felt horrible about fibbing about it but he justified it saying— you know the two are one, you’re my wife so it’s just as much you as me. But once the ball started to roll on that- yeah we had people that were very interested in the products that he was making, for purchases…
It started really slow, it wasn’t something that came regular or frequently, it was sporadic just people would see something that they were interested in. Most of the stuff initially that we made was just for our own personal use as family members and as gifts for other people. But this past year we really saw the value of his ability to knit not only is he a creative knitter but he’s a prolific knitter. He knits very quickly, very accurately with a great deal of skill. We could be sitting there watching a movie and he’s knitting away. He could finish a scarf by the time we’re done with the movie!
[Liz: Wow !] Yes he’s incredibly gifted. Now mind you that wouldn’t be something that’s a terribly complicated pattern but you’re basic just switching out colors or something like that- he could do that fairly quickly.
Now winter around here business is not very good, this area is highly industrialized and we’re hit very hard with winter. Because our local economy is so based on the RV industry and mobile homes, in the winter time business drops off, sales drop off and business all over the place in one fashion or another just drops off. Well this past year was particularly bad – there were about three weeks solid that he didn’t work at all. One day I just happened to be wearing one of the scarves he knit me (it’s just something he does every now and then – he’ll come up with something and surprise me – and I really love it I feel so special), and a girl at work came up and said “Oh, I love that scarf – where’d you get it?” And I said well my husband made it for me… She’s like “no way! I don’t believe you” Oh yeah- I’ve got three of them just like it but different colors and different patterns. Well how much for him to make me one? I said well how much would you pay, and it just kinda blew, up from there all of a sudden.
I happen to mention to someone else – oh yeah my husband made this. “Oh really” You know? And it just kept growing like that- and she mentioned it to someone- that my husband was making her one, and I couldn’t believe how fast the orders started coming in. Even with the economy as bad as it is, around Christmas time people wouldn’t think anything of spending ten dollars on a gift for someone. And it’s just really surprising- and they’re very…. handmade high quality and we can do them custom. Around here, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the university of Notre Dame but it’s a big deal around here there’s a lot of Notre Dame fans. And we can do them custom- there’s just all kinds of ways that we were able to really tailor make the business for the area.
It really was tremendous. We actually covered the income that he lost through that time of not working- we were able to almost completely replace it with the knitting orders.
[Liz: Fantastic] I can tell you he was tired, but he worked hard and he was so proud of the work he did. And it felt really good to me because I was able to see other people- see I really did the marketing on it, and I assisted him on picking out the patterns and there were some things that he wasn’t really sure what the best way to edge it may be or something along those lines. I helped him do the tassels and I helped him do the edging on some of them. I basically did the cleanup work because I was still working regularly at that point- I worked for a retailer and Christmas is a big time for us. So I was actually working a little overtime. But it was wonderful for me, because I’m so proud of his skill and his tremendous talent. I was really, really happy to see him really take ownership of that and he was able to say “I did this”, and it really felt good.
[Liz]: What a really fantastic story! So now from there are you going to keep doing that or are you now going to focus on your online business? Give us an idea of what you’re up to now, you have your scarves..
[J.J] That’s one thing that my husband does- he’s actually proficient in both knitting and crochet, so as our business grows we will become more inclusive of other crafts and hobbies of that fashion. He has a wide selection of- he’s actually begun to develop his own knitting and crochet patterns for rugs different kinds of home items- home décor items. He does doilies- he just covered a whole realm of possibilities. We’ve noticed that knitting is a very good seasonal business, we have been put on to a few bazaars in the area, where knitters would actually get together the day after thanksgiving- it’s the biggest day in the states here. Thanksgiving falls on the third Thursday of every November- so it’s the almost the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
So as we go forward he’s been building up his stock, because I’ve been focusing more on the online business, he’s been focusing on what we call the hard products, which are the actual knitted products.
I have been working on developing his information products which are the patterns that he’s creating, and his techniques – the way he learned to knit, because the way he learned was very organic. As a child he would watch his older sister knit and crochet, and he’s a very visual learner. He picked up a huge amount just by watching her and then he actually fell ill for a period of time where he was unable to do physical work, but he didn’t want to just lay there like a lump, he needed to do something- he’s one of these busy bodies that is not happy unless he’s active and he’s a highly motivated individual so he was very frustrated at that point.
He picked up the knitting again and he kinda taught himself some specific techniques, and this is the kicker- he taught me how to knit! Yes absolutely, I knew how to crochet, I was familiar with the idea of how yarn is manipulated but as far as manipulating it with two needles- I felt very awkward with that, I actually tried to teach myself to knit a number of years ago and was just like blahhh forget it, it’s not working for me. But using the techniques that he has developed – he taught me to knit in very short order; I was very impressed as to how easy it was with the methods that he was teaching me. And I’ve actually been working on developing his teaching methods into usable, easy to follow programs that anyone- I feel- can pick up these skills.
[Liz] Fantastic, is that where the idea of begintoknit came from?
[JJ] Yes, absolutely. I knew I wanted to do something on the internet. Because aside from all the other things that fascinate me, I’m fascinated by interacting with people of all different kinds of cultures, all over the world. And its fun to interact with all these people all over, not only that but if you widen your scope to an internet business, you are not limited to the local economic issues [Yes that’s true] Yes and I mean, why not cast your net very wide? If we have something to offer people, something like the information products- and it’s so easy to provide that to people. And we’re giving them quality information, we’re not just coming up with something hodge-podge and half made, it’s stuff that we’re really putting some effort into creating for people.
We’re excited about the products that we’re developing and the internet really is the best place to do that. So as I began to kind of investigate how can I work this out, what’s going to be the best way to do this, I stumbled on a couple programs that led me in the right direction.
Now understand; I have tried so many different home based businesses. I have been in any kind of market that you would want to try to be in, I think at one point I mentioned to you I did data entry-which is a very nebulous kind of term which basically means filling out data on a computer that completely flopped. I’ve done the multi level marketing that completely flopped, for me- mind you these are things that can work for other people. But for myself- they weren’t working simply because I wasn’t really able to feel comfortable hitting up everybody that I knew individually. I didn’t want to be like- oh my goodness here she comes, she is going to sell me something today- you know? And I personally knew people like that and I didn’t want to be that way, so I just really didn’t want to, I was just completely turned off by that idea. So with all of the things that I’ve tried to do; internet marketing and the way I’ve begun to learn how to do internet marketing really has become the way for me to get the message out there on how wonderful knitting is as a hobby, how wonderful it is as a way to augment your income….it helps so many different aspects of your life, it makes you feel good, you look at something that you created and you’re like wow I did this, you know?
My husband recently taught my nine year old daughter to knit using the program that we developed. She grasped it in a matter of a couple of hours, I mean it was very quick – and she’s all excited, she’s like’ mom look at this’, and she’s making a scarf for herself and she is so thrilled with it and it’s just so awesome to see. And we’re teaching our son to crochet and knit as well. [That’s great!] I think s,o and as I begun to really try to connect with other people on the internet I am really impressed as to how many men are out there unabashedly and unashamedly admitting to their knitting skill and I pull my husband over and I say ‘look honey look I just found three more guys that know how to knit isn’t this cool?’ And he’s like ‘well I guess I’m not alone’, it’s like “no you certainly are not!”.
So that’s why we really decided to go with the internet, because there’s so many more people like you out there it’s easy to relate and yeah. This is my joy I’m the internet person and he’s the creative person and I make his creativity shine.
[Liz]: Fantastic, you’re a great team!
[J.J]: Oh yeah. It’s amazing, I don’t know- I can’t help but think god planned this out; he planned him just for me you know? And it’s so funny because in so many ways we’re so opposite of the normal gender roles, I also happen to home school my children- I have four children their ages are three, five, seven and nine. Yes they are a handful, they’re very beautiful, smart, amazing kids and I couldn’t be more proud of them. But in our family when it comes to the schooling of our children I’m the one teaching them the math, I’m the one teaching them the science; I’m the one teaching them all the nuts and bolts of everything they need to learn. And my husband is doing all of the home economics and the creative teaching- he teaches them the cooking; he teaches the knitting and crocheting. It’s a really amazing teamwork that we put together to teach our kids.
The second part of this transcript will be posted tomorrow…
Knitting Success Story – Ruth From nonstopknits
Friday, March 6th, 2009
This month’s Real Live Knitting Success Story is featuring Ruth Boelkins from nonstopknits, who has taken her knitting hobby and passion, and turned it into a thriving small business.
Here’s how this "beginner knitter" made her home-grown knitting business a success…
How did she start her knitting business?
Ruth is relatively new to knitting. It took years of persuasion, but 5 years ago she finally allowed her mother-in-law to teach her how to knit. She was instantly hooked, and hasn’t stopped since! She now creates a beautiful range of knitting patterns, as well as finished hats and purses for her very appropriately named knitting business, nonstop knits.
Ruth first started selling her creations at local Bazaars where her hand-knitted items sold very well. She had discovered one of the keys to success in selling hand-crafts, which was to make her knitted products unique and different. By using interesting styles and colours, and adding knitted flowers and decorations to her work, she presented knitted pieces that people could fall in love with and desperately want to own.
She then started taking custom orders, and it wasn’t long before her knitting business grew. Most of her sales are still local, driven by art sales and word of mouth. She also sells knitting online through her etsy.com shop at www.nonstopknits.etsy.com
A profitable knitting niche by accident?
Ruth found another knitting niche market by chance one day when she created a knitted hat for her son to wear to Ice Hockey. "My intention was that Adam would have a cool knitted hat," she says. He started wearing it to the rink and a coach commented on it, so she made knitted hats for all the coaches. Then, parents started requesting knitted hats for their kids, and suddenly she had a whole new income stream!
How did her knitting business evolve into knitting pattern design?
Ruth didn’t aspire to become a knitting pattern designer either. She started getting requests for her knitting patterns when visiting yarn stores with her daughter, who often wears her mother’s original knitted designs. After many requests for knitting patterns from other parents, she was lucky enough to get the support and encouragement of a local yarn store owner who said she would sell her knitting pattern for a felted purse if Ruth would write it down.
This apparently gave Ruth the push she needed, and she hasn’t looked back. Ruth had hit on another niche market with her knitting patterns. They are appealing to both new and experienced knitters because the projects are quick to knit, and the directions are very detailed. Her knitted hat and purse patterns are made using circular needles and don’t require expensive yarns. If someone knows they need a couple of gifts, or want to whip something up quickly, many of the projects can be made in an hour or two.
Looking back, Ruth says she is glad she finally picked up the pointy sticks. "I love that it began as something within my family," she says, "I have on my knitting patterns that I’m a home-grown business, and that couldn’t be more true." Ruth says the experience has also made her a more avid supporter of other local businesses and connected her to other creative people. "That’s been a really enriching thing, to bump into other knitters and discuss what we love to make".
Ruth’s advice to up and coming Knitterpreneurs:
‘Many of my knitting patterns are for small fast projects, which is a great way to begin. A hat on circular needles is easy to hold and a fun way to knit, you can make a range of sizes, you only need to purchase limited supplies and you can experiment with color changes as you go. Projects with no seams make for nicer finished products as well.’
‘I am on a steep learning curve as I make my knitting hobby and passion into a business. I constantly try to keep my focus on doing what I love. Designing, creating and fitting art into life is the edge where I like to work. If you want to sell your knitted items, my advice is to listen to the comments people make about your work and watch how they react to your products. This will show you where your marketing opportunities are.’
If you would like to see Ruth’s knitting patterns and products, have a look at her etsy shop at www.nonstopknits.etsy.com If you have a knitting or crochet success story, we would love to feature you here as part of our real live knitting success series! Just drop me a line at liz@knittingforprofit.com
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About Liz
Welcome! My name is Liz and I am a work at home mother of two. I am also the author of the new book “Knitting for Profit”. I have created this blog to give you more great information, ideas and resources for making money from your knitting passion! [more]
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