Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Welcome to I’ll Knit (& Spin!) If I want To! I asked y’all to send in some of your questions (from everything from fiber arts, to designing and on!) so I could put together a little video for y’all every Friday doing my best to answer your questions!
Sign up for my newsletter here: Sign up for the DRK Newsletter: eepurl.com/diPxsr
In this week’s episode we cover:
1. You might have already answered this question before, but what do you think about running, hiking, or otherwise exercising in hand knit socks? I want to get as much use out of my hand knit socks but am also worried that these types of activities would just be too hard on my precious hand knit socks. Of course I’d use a durable sock yarn with nylon and high twist and make sure my gauge is tight. Do you have any pattern suggestions that would be suitable for athletic socks? Any other things I should consider? Thanks so much!
2. Hi, Andrea! I have a design question for you today. Sometimes I buy knitting magazines such as “The Knitter” and similar, just to get some inspiration. However, I rarely knit the actual designs I see there because they’re almost always knit in pieces and sewn up. I have even seen colourwork sweaters and raglans designed to be knit in pieces, which always makes me puzzled. Why would someone go through all that trouble to knit a raglan in pieces instead of in the round? To be clear, those are new designs, not vintage ones. Are there any advantages of designing and knitting sweaters in pieces? I’d love to hear your thoughts :)
3. Hello Andrea! How do you wash your garments with buttons? When I wet block a cardigan, I do so before adding buttons. But after 5 years of knitting I'm just now encountering this predicament in w hich I want to handwash a cardigan with buttons attached. They are wood and I'm afraid soaking the buttons will warp them. I thought about steam blocking, however I'm aiming for a deep clean before storing my hand knits for winter. So a second question I'm sneaking in is, if the solution to protecting the buttons is to steam the garment, does steam remove the dirts and oils from your skin the same way soaking it does (so you can comfortably store away)?
4. I'm knitting the comebackigan cardigan. Looking at the schematics, I think I'm two different sizes. I want the 46" chest circumference but I want the 16" instead of 14" upper arm circumference. I'm wondering though, if I make the upper arm 16" around and the body 46", am I then going to run into problems with the raglan decreases once I join the body and sleeves? How would you go about adding circumference to the upper arms?
5. I'm currently working on the DRK Everyday Cardi and was looking ahead to the buttonband instructions and wondered if I will need to pick up extra stitches if I'm planning on adding 1-2" of length to the cardigan. I'm making a size 3, but will probably add a little length. Will I need to pick up more buttonband stitches than the 174 on each side as instructed? If so, how do I determine how many more I need to pick up? I'm new to the applied buttonband idea and want to get it right. Thank you so much for all your support and encouragement.
Today I am wearing So Faded:
Ravelry: ravelry.com/patterns/library/so-faded
My Website: dreareneeknits.com/shop/so-faded
Ask a question for next week’s Q&A:
https://forms.gle/pKM9gF9SixkdQwmS7
Welcome to I’ll Knit (& Spin!) If I want To! I asked y’all to send in some of your questions (from everything from fiber arts, to designing and on!) so I could put together a little video for y’all every Friday doing my best to answer your questions!
Sign up for my newsletter here: Sign up for the DRK Newsletter: eepurl.com/diPxsr
In this week’s episode we cover:
1. You might have already answered this question before, but what do you think about running, hiking, or otherwise exercising in hand knit socks? I want to get as much use out of my hand knit socks but am also worried that these types of activities would just be too hard on my precious hand knit socks. Of course I’d use a durable sock yarn with nylon and high twist and make sure my gauge is tight. Do you have any pattern suggestions that would be suitable for athletic socks? Any other things I should consider? Thanks so much!
2. Hi, Andrea! I have a design question for you today. Sometimes I buy knitting magazines such as “The Knitter” and similar, just to get some inspiration. However, I rarely knit the actual designs I see there because they’re almost always knit in pieces and sewn up. I have even seen colourwork sweaters and raglans designed to be knit in pieces, which always makes me puzzled. Why would someone go through all that trouble to knit a raglan in pieces instead of in the round? To be clear, those are new designs, not vintage ones. Are there any advantages of designing and knitting sweaters in pieces? I’d love to hear your thoughts :)
3. Hello Andrea! How do you wash your garments with buttons? When I wet block a cardigan, I do so before adding buttons. But after 5 years of knitting I'm just now encountering this predicament in w hich I want to handwash a cardigan with buttons attached. They are wood and I'm afraid soaking the buttons will warp them. I thought about steam blocking, however I'm aiming for a deep clean before storing my hand knits for winter. So a second question I'm sneaking in is, if the solution to protecting the buttons is to steam the garment, does steam remove the dirts and oils from your skin the same way soaking it does (so you can comfortably store away)?
4. I'm knitting the comebackigan cardigan. Looking at the schematics, I think I'm two different sizes. I want the 46" chest circumference but I want the 16" instead of 14" upper arm circumference. I'm wondering though, if I make the upper arm 16" around and the body 46", am I then going to run into problems with the raglan decreases once I join the body and sleeves? How would you go about adding circumference to the upper arms?
5. I'm currently working on the DRK Everyday Cardi and was looking ahead to the buttonband instructions and wondered if I will need to pick up extra stitches if I'm planning on adding 1-2" of length to the cardigan. I'm making a size 3, but will probably add a little length. Will I need to pick up more buttonband stitches than the 174 on each side as instructed? If so, how do I determine how many more I need to pick up? I'm new to the applied buttonband idea and want to get it right. Thank you so much for all your support and encouragement.
Today I am wearing So Faded:
Ravelry: ravelry.com/patterns/library/so-faded
My Website: dreareneeknits.com/shop/so-faded
Ask a question for next week’s Q&A:
https://forms.gle/pKM9gF9SixkdQwmS7
