>> fun, exotic fibers are the perfect excuse to play up the unusual with beaded knitwear a cute cabled hat, filet crochet, and fringe. time for a little yakkety yak today on knitting daily. >> female announcer: this program has been made possible in part by: interweave: the handmade life. your craft community for books, magazines, videos patterns, events, and more. on the web at: webs, america's yarn store a source for knitting and crocheting yarns and supplies.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ >> on today's show, we're yakkety yaking, or talking exotic fibers like yak yarn. we'll also explore fun ways to play up the unusual. hi, i'm your host, eunny jang. we'll get started by showing how to give your knitting a new lift with techniques that carry a strand into the row above for a pop of color and texture. this technique is great for working with exotic yarns or any yarn that deserves to be showcased. i'll also show you how to create a float with beads if you need even more pizzazz. then on today's how to segment, deborah robson is back with the skinny on yak yarns. i'll show you a cute cabled cap

that is a great project for this fiber. then on crochet corner kristin continues her exploration in lightweight yarns and crochet with a lesson on filet crochet. she'll explain how to read filet crochet charts, take gauge, and display some great filet crochet pieces. i'll wrap up today's show with a quick tip on fringe. looks like those styles of the '70s are back, so jump into fringe with basic, knotted and braided fringe. let's get started. so this family of stitches which i call caught float stitches, are a great way to add some subtle color and texture. if you take a look at the wrap that i've got with me, we're working with just three different colors of yarn: a dark brown, a blue, and a pink. but these caught floats, which create this wonderful surface design, really adds another element of richness and texture to the overall fabric, even though it remains very flat, and it's pretty simple to knit. so come right on in, and i'll show you how to do it. i've got a swatch here. it's a little--i've narrowed it in a little bit at the top so i can knit it. i can show you every row a little bit more clearly. but you can see that we're

working this one with just two colors of yarn, and if you wanted to bring in different colors, you would just switch out, you know, one of the contrast colors from time to time as you wanted to. and you're not going to work with every color on every row, but on this row, we're actually going to create the floats so we will be working with both colors. so what i'm gonna do is-- you'llotice that i've got my contrast color, the darker green, i've actually got it to the front of the work and that's what's gonna create the float. so i'm gonna knit in the main color yarn for one, two, three stitches. and now i want to create my float. the way i'm gonna do that is i'm gonna drop my main color yarn. i'm gonna pick up my contrast color yarn. i'm gonna move it to the back, and the way that i'm gonna do that is just by slipping it between the two needles. i'm going to knit the next stitch with the contrast color yarn. and i'm gonna make sure that my float is not pulled too tight, that it's not gonna be puckering the surface of the fabric at all. now i'm going to move my yarn

back to the front of the work, pick my main color up again, and knit another three stitches. now i'm gonna do the same thing again. i'm gonna take my contrast color to the back, knit a stitch with it, bring it back to the front and knit another three stitches with the main color yarn. and you're gonna do this all the way to the end of your row. you want to make sure that you're not pulling those floats too tight, because you don't want them to pucker the fabric and they're going to have even more tension put on them when we catch that float. so i'm just gonna finish off this row with my last three main color stitches. and now i'm gonna turn my work and i'm going to leave this yarn just dangling--my contrast color yarn just dangling--because all the stitches of this row will be worked with only the main color yarn. so i'm gonna go ahead and quickly purl back. just work those contrast colors

as normal. make sure you don't pull them out of shape, because they have less sti-- they have fewer stitches around them anchoring them. so just try to work them with a normal tension. and now you're back to the beginning of your row. the contrast color yarn's over here, but that's okay. so we're gonna take our main color yarn, and now we're gonna catch those floats. i've knitted one stitch. now, to catch this float, what i'm gonna do is, i'm gonna insert my right needle into it from the bottom to the top. i'm going to insert my needle into the next stitch on the left needle as if to knit it. now, so both of those are on my right needle. now i'm gonna transfer them both back to the left needle, and i'm gonna knit them together through the back loop. let's move on to the next float, and i can show you again. i'm gonna knit three stitches. i'm gonna insert my right needle, insert it onto the next stitch as if to knit, put them both back onto the left needle and then knit through the back loop.

and you can see that you're actually catching that float and anchoring it. and when you're finished, you get this great sort of slightly raised contrasting texture. i'll show you that just a couple more times. and all the way to the end where you don't have an anchor for the end of this float, so you're just going to work it as if it did have an anchor. just treat it as normal. now both your yarns are on the same side, and you can do the same process working from the wrong side of the work. i'm gonna show you a simple variation on this, which brings a few beads in. and with this variation, we're only working with one color of yarn, so you don't have two strands of yarn to mess around with. so the first thing we're gonna do is, we're gonna set up our floats. and these are self floats, so they're floats with the same col--the same strand of yarn. and what i'm gonna do here is, i'm gonna knit two stitches. now i'm going to create my float. and the way that i'm gonna do

that is, i'm gonna move my yarn to the front of the work. the way that i did that was just by bringing it between the two needles. now i'm going to slip the next three stitches purlwise, and that just means as if to purl. so i'm gonna insert my needle as if to purl. i'm not gonna wrap any yarn, and i'm just gonna transfer it to my right needle. i'm gonna do that two more times. so i've got three stitches over on the right needle now. now, i'm going to move my yarn back to the back of the work by taking it between my two stitches. and you see that it's created this little float here. now, before i knit on and anchor that float, i'm going to move two beads, which i pre-strung onto my yarn. i'm going to move them all the way up so that they're just right on that float in the front of the work. i'm gonna move my yarn to the back of the work. now i'm gonna knit three stitches as normal. i'm gonna do that again. move my yarn to the front of the work, move up two beads, slip three stitches, and knit to the end of the row.

now i'm just gonna quickly purl back, because all the wrong side rows are worked the same. they're all just simple purl rows. so make sure that you don't catch any of those floats as you're purling back right now, 'cause we'll do that on the next row. and make sure that none of your beads try to sneak to the back of your work. make sure that they stay on the front. and now we're ready to catch our floats. and the way that we do that is i'm going to knit up to the middle of that slip stitch group, continuing to move my beads down my yarn. so this is the middle stitch of my three-stitch slip stitch group. i'm gonna separate the beads to the two ends of the float so that one is on either side of that stitch. and just like before, we're gonna insert our right needle up from the bottom to the top insert it into the next stitch as if to knit, put them both back onto the left needle

and knit them together making sure that the beads stay on either side of that stitch that you just knitted. i'll show you again. we'll knit to the next middle stitch of the group, separate the beads to make sure that they're nice and far apart insert the needle from the bottom to the top, slip the stitch, put them both back on the left and knit them together. and as you go, make sure to just kind of futz with your beads to make sure that they stay nicely seated on the front of your work and don't try to sneak inside of a knit stitch or to move to the back. and continue to move your beads down as you work. and you get this great, very subtle little hint of texture and a little bit of color with those beads. as you can see, caught floats are a really sophisticated way to add just a little bit of extra interest to your exotic yarn projects. deb robson is next. we're here with deborah robson to chat about a new exotic fiber. hi, deb. >> hi, eunny. >> so tell me about yak.

>> yak is fantastic stuff, and it's new to the market for people who use yarn--knitters, weavers, everybody else--because it's been difficult to separate the different types of fiber that come off the yak. >> and is this--so this is like, a raw... >> this is raw yak. so we have hair. we have the down, which is actually what we want in the yarn mostly. and there are mid-grade fibers in there, and it's been really complex industrially to separate those. but now we can do that, and so we are getting fantastic yarns like this pure yak. >> and we want to use just the down. is that right? >> well, traditionally, people use the whole mix, because the hair adds durability, and you can separate out the hair and use it for ropes and things, but we want the down because it's exquisite. it can be finer than cashmere. it's just gorgeous stuff. and it comes in a lot of different colors. it comes in brown, black, white, gray.

but what we really want is that, the down. >> and is that bleached, or is that just a-- >> you can get it both ways. yak is unusual in that you can bleach it, and it will not be damaged. what we are getting, though, in the finest yarns now is natural white yak. >> and that's just a different breed of yak. >> there are multiple breeds in multiple colors, so there are also different qualities. so some of it is like cashmere and some of it's more like alpaca. what we are seeing is the cashmere-like. and it is warm, it's lightweight, and it's short, so when you're spinning yak by itself, you're gonna spin it fine. >> like this. this is a pure yak yarn. this feels absolutely amazing. >> doesn't it? yeah. >> it really feels like cashmere. >> i really love knitting with it. it has a little more body than cashmere, but it has similar warmth, so it's fantastic. but you end up blending it then, to get some different qualities. so to get a bulkier yarn with more elasticity, you'll blend

with a very fine wool. >> and this does feel a little denser to me. >> yes. yeah. and it has more memory. so it's good for sweaters and things like that. >> and is that because it's a down fiber that it's not very elastic or because the fibers are so short or the-- >> the fibers are really short and they're really fine, and they don't have that much crimp in them. they have some. they do have some crimp, but to get a lot of crimp, you're gonna add some wool in. they're also blending it with nylon to do socks. >> oh, how great, so you really get the durability. >> yeah. yep. and then with bamboo, which lightens it up so you can wear it in situations where you might not want to be quite so warm. it also adds some sheen, and what's interesting is that this is--these are natural colors. this is natural bamboo and natural yak, so you get this heathery effect. but one of the beautiful things is, because they're bringing in the white, they can dye these exquisite hand-dyed color ranges. >> absolutely gorgeous. well, it's great to have that background. i've always been of the opinion that when you have great colors and a great yarn, you should really show it off with a really

special stitch. >> yes. >> this little hat with the cabled brim is a really great example of using a special stitch for a special yarn. i love the way that the colors show up in that cable. >> right, and some of the blending of that color in there is because you have a bamboo-yak blend, which also makes this a three-season hat. it's not gonna be so hot that you'll only wear it in winter. gives it some shine. gives it some lightness. hand-dyed colors are just gorgeous on that. >> yeah. that looks great. well, i love this two-color cable that's being used here. and i wanted to talk about-- just show you a couple little tricks here. the most--one of the really interesting things about this cable is that it's kitted in two colors, and so you need to actually cast on in two colors. so what i'm gonna do is, i'm gonna start casting on with my main color, with my yellow. and i'm gonna cast on three stitches just in the normal long-tail cast-on, and i am leaving quite a long tail. and we only need to cast on 24 stitches total, but it's quite a long tail.

now, i'm just gonna go ahead and cast on my next two stitches in my contrast color. then i'm gonna pick up both strands of my main color behind both strands of my contrast color and cast on the next two stitches. now i'm gonna pick up both strands of my contrast color from in front and so on. i'm just gonna keep alternating like that. >> so you're casting on the stitches in the colors that you're gonna be knitting them in. >> mm-hmm. exactly. i'm kind of setting up for knitting, and you can see the double ridge of the cast-on there. and then i love this technique. so we're working quite a complex cable, but there are no purl stitches in this cable. it's all knit stitches. and it's really fun, because the stranding of the unused color behind kind of creates a very slight sort of corrugated effect to them. so you do get the sort of cable rope kind of--you know, relief a light relief. >> and it's easy to keep track of what cables because of the colors. >> exactly. it's all right there in front of you. and there really isn't a whole lot more to it than knitting

a regular cable. i'm just gonna catch my stitch my unused color at the edge here. and knit a stitch in the main color. i should put my cable needle down till i actually need it. we do have some edge stitches in just a simple single rib: a knit one, purl one. and then i'm ready to cable the next eight stitches. and just like you said, it's really fun, because you can see exactly what you need to do. >> it'd be a good way to start people on cables, actually. >> yeah. yeah. if you're comfortable with stranded knitting, you know, this might be a fun way to do. so quickly, i've got, you know-- my next four stitches, i've slipped to a cable needle. now i'm gonna work my cable just as normal by knitting the next two stitches, but i need to, of course, strand at the same time. so i knitted my next two stitches in my contrast color. now i'm gonna knit my next two stitches in my main color. and then i'm gonna take my cable needle stitches slip them back onto the left-hand needle and then i'm gonna do it again.

it's just like working a cable all in knit stitches, except you need to make sure that you use the right color in the right place, which, with this great hand-dyed yarn, is really easy to see. so you would just keep on going. >> and really fun. yeah. >> well, thank you so much, deb. i learned a lot about yaks. >> and i learned something about cabling. >> we'll be right back. >> hi. on today's crochet corner we're going to talk about filet crochet. this is a very traditional technique in crochet that actually has a very simple beginning to it. it's based on open squares and closed squares. the closed squares are represented by three double crochets, and the open squares are represented by a chain two double crochet. let me show you some of the traditional samples that i brought. you can see that there's a pattern created the way you combine the closed squares and the open squares. the tight sections are sections of three double crochet, and the open sections of those

little tiny open squares are the sections of chain two double crochet. and this is actually shown in chart form, but it's different than the normal crochet charts that you may be used to. it's used as, like, a grid. and there'll be one color for the closed squares and another color for the open squares. so, like, this pattern would be done on a grid, and you would actually be able to see the flower pattern show up very easily, because the--well, the solid sections show up as the one color versus the other color that's the open section, which is actually a really great way for you to be able to design your own pieces in filet crochet. let me show you a chart so you can see what i'm talking about. in this particular chart, the pink squares are the three double crochet sections, and the white squares are represented by a chain two double crochet section. and in this particular swatch here, this is the one that replicates this pattern. and when i was looking at different charts to use-- different stitch patterns to use for on the show today, i thought

that adding this little flower was a really neat extra to show, because even though they look like they're flowers that you crocheted separately and sewed on--which we all know we'd rather not do. we'd rather do it as we go-- these are actually crocheted into the open squares as we go. and they're represented on the chart with a star. and that's what i'm going to show you how to make today so let's get started. this one, i've already begun and i've done the section that's in the dark section here. i've highlighted that to show that's the strip that we're doing here. and i started with the pink, which is the closed square which is the three double crochets. then next one is chain two one double crochet. and then the next one is chain two, one double crochet. but this one is located on the chart as a star. so i'm gonna show you what we do for that. so we're going to slip-stitch into the side of that last

stitch worked, chain three-- which counts as a double crochet--work two double crochets into the same side of the stitch and then a chain three and slip-stitch back down into that same side post. now we're gonna turn our work so that we're working into the chain two in the top of the last row worked. chain three, and work two double crochets into that. chain two space, then chain three slip-stitch into the same place. now we're gonna turn our work again and work into the double crochet in the current row. slip-stitch into it. chain three. work two double crochets. chain three, and slip-stitch into the side of that same stitch. now we'll go back up to the top chain-two at the top of this particular row, and we're going to slip-stitch into it.

chain three. work two doubles. two double crochets, that is. and a chain three. slip-stitch down into that same hole. and if you look, we do have our flower started, but we want to continue on our row, so i'm going to chain two and work our next open square. and you're gonna flip that petal over to the side so you can see where you're working, and you want to work over the last open square. so you work a--whoops. work a double crochet there. and then based on the chart, the next square is a closed one. so i'll finish that, and then i'm gonna show you where we are on the chart, 'cause there will be a trick to getting the next row worked. so now what we've done is, we've just finished-- we've just finished across. we did the flower, an open square and a closed square. so now we'll go up and do our next row, which is from the back side. chain-three counts as our first

crochet--double crochet. and we're going to do a closed square, which is three doubles. and then we're going to work-- our next three are open squares. and you're going to chain two. now, it's kind--this is where it's kind of hard to find where your stitch is, so if you look-- if you pull apart--pull the flower petals back a little bit, you can see where the stitch actually is. work into it, and get your double crochet. then chain two, and you're gonna go across. pull your side petal and your top petal back a little bit. and you can see the stitch then. yarn over, insert your hook, and pull up a loop. chain two. double crochet, and then your closed square, which is the three doubles. and then one other thing to point out is that when you're switching from one row to the next to go from a closed square to an open square-- here, i'll just finish this row, and i can show you on the other side what you're gonna do.

like, for example, on the next row, we're doing all closed squares. a closed square over an openork two of the double crochets into the chain-two space and then the next double crochet into theouble crochet. so that's what you would do. and then if you were working an open square over closed square you'd do chain two skip two stitches, and double crochet into the next stitch. i also worked this up in a worsted weight yarn to show you that, although it's the same exact stitches, it looks a little different on the larger-- in the larger yarn which i think this would make a really pretty scarf. that's a quick look at filet crochet on today's crochet corner. >> i've got a quick tip for you on a fun way to add a little bit of extra luxury to your exotic fiber projects. as you can see, fringe adds just a little extra yarn and a little more fun to even the simplest of projects. for a basic fringe, all you're gonna need to do is cut equal

lengths of yarn. and they don't have to be exactly the same length. you can just make sure to cut them a little bit longer than you need, and then trim them all even once you've got them on. the easiest way to do this is with a crochet hook. i'm using two strands of yarn in each piece of fringe. i'm going to insert my crochet hook into the edge of my work from the bottom to the top. i'm gonna hook both strands of yarn onto them. pull them through. and then i'm going to go ahead and grab all four strands of yarn from the now doubled yarn and pull them through the knot that i just made. you're gonna snug that knot up and you've got this nice basic little knotted fringe. and then later, of course, you can just go and snip all the strands of yarn to an even length. now, the next variation just goes with a simple basic fringe like we just did, but instead, we're taking a little bit of inspiration from macrame and putting in equally spaced knots to just add a little bit of extra weight and a little more

of a decorative element to it. so all i've done here is, i've put in my basic fringe, and i tied one row of knots, tying opposite--or alternate halves together of each piece of fringe. and now i'm doing th again on a second row but offset once more. so i'm taking my two strands of yarn, and we're just gonna work a plain square knot, which means just cross your yarns over each other, bring one yarn through, now cross them over in the opposite way, and bring it through again. and then you're gonna want to snug and square up that knot so that it's in line with the others. you can also draw a template out on a piece of paper and pin the work as you go to make sure that your knots are nice and even. now, my final fringe variation for you again starts with the same basic fringe, and i've left a lot more yarn on this one than i have on the other ones, and you'll see why in a second.

got my same basic fringe knotted nicely to the edge. i'm gonna separate it into halves. and now i'm gonna twist both of those halves of yarn. i'm twisting them separately but i'm twisting them both in the same direction. and you can do this at the same time, or you can do this one at a time if you need to, like me. and you can see that they're both twisted about the same amount, and they're starting to kink up on each other if i put a little bit of slack in. now i'm gonna cross them back in the opposite way that i just twisted, and let them roll. start them off, and then they'll roll by themselves. and then just go ahead and tie a knot. use a pin or a crochet hook to help you position the knot right at the position that you want. that's a little bit high, so i'm gonna snug it down a little bit. tie your knot, and then cut your tail. and your nice twisted cord should stay right in place. i hope you've enjoyed today's

show on fun ways to play up the unusual and exotic. join us next time as we travel throughout the world and learn global techniques for knitting and crochet. thank you for watching. and remember, make time for yarn every day. >> announcer: knitting daily: make time for yarn every day. the patterns and instructions for the projects on today's show are available on the web at: this is show 810. if you enjoyed today's show and want more tips, tricks and great guest appearances, a dvd set of knitting daily tv series 800 is now available on: enjoy your favorite shows from this season whenever you'd like. each dvd set is $39.99 plus shipping and handling. this program has been made possible in part by: interweave: the handmade life. your craft community for books, magazines, videos patterns, events, and more.

on the web at: webs, america's yarn store a source for knitting and crocheting yarns and supplies. take your knitting to the next level. visit knittingdailytv.com for your free e-booklet of 40 favorite tips and techniques for knitters of all levels from the designers

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