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Silvalume

First, Happy Thanksgiving, Canada.  I love the way Canada beats the rush of the upcoming Holiday Season and celebrates with a three-day weekend the second week of October.  Eating heavily that early gives one plenty of time to work off all the calories before Christmas!  Way to plan ahead, Canada.  I am spending the day with a few of my besties eating a 15 pound/7 kilogram turkey Paul purchased for the occasion plus there will be all the fixings.  So as I need to prep that meal today I will keep this post short.

A silvalume is a knitting repair tool I was introduced to by taking Laura Nelkin's, Save our Stitches: Fixing Lace Knitting Mistakes from Craftsy.  It looks like this:

Image from Joanne's Online Shop
I can hear you saying, but this looks like a crochet hook only it also has a pointy end; and it is true, it does.  In fact when I saw Laura Nelkin use it I thought the same thing.  I own crochet hooks, why not just use one of them to fix mistakes.

Here's a few reasons why a crochet hook might not perform as well as a silvalume in repairing knitting mistakes.  The silvalume is short, generally only 4 inches/10 centimeters long.  Crochet hooks are longer and that length can be a problem in correcting certain situations.  The pointy end of the silvalume works great in fixing other types of knitting problems something a crochet hook could not do.  Finally the silvalume costs less than $2 USD, so they are cheap to own.

As I mentioned earlier the yarn I am using to knit the Close to You shawl splits easily.  My trusty silvalume has been used often, which means it has been out for little paws to knock off my chair.  I have tried hiding it and if I don't do an excellent job I play hide and seek for a while trying to find the poor thing.  Remember the silvalume is small so it hides well.  After the second game of let's look for the hook I came up with a solution that keeps it handy and yet is not easily accessible to the cats.



In my work area I found a tiny nearly completed mitten.  It was supposed to grow up to be a Christmas ornament; but it was not working out as planned so it had been abandon but not frogged for some reason.  I cut off the top, pulled the yarn through the live purple stitches and made myself a silvalume holder.  This thing fits perfectly on the middle finger of my left hand keeping it well away from the project and yet close enough for easy access  This holder would work equally as well for cable hooks or needles, or for safety pin like stitch markers.  All are short in stature and don't interfere with the left hand's knitting work.

Take that cats, it took me longer than it should have, but I foiled your plot to completely lose my silvalume.

Now I have to excuse myself, there's a dinner waiting to be prepared.

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