hi, guys and welcome to studio knit. today, as part of my summer knit series, weare going to save abandoned baby birds by knitting bird nests for charity! last week, an article on the cover of my localsan francisco newspaper caught my attention: knitters answer wildcare's call for neststo save baby birds. i just knew i had to help out their campaignfor cozy, warm nests that rehabilitated baby chicks who have fallen out of their nestsduring the spring nesting season. as of the posting of this video, wildcarehas received over nineteen hundred nests, but they still need over six hundred more.everyone can help and you need not be local,
since we can just mail our nest directly towildcare! wildcare provides us with patterns for feltedand unfelted nests of various sizes. i will put the link below to their pattern page. together, we are going to knit their mediumunfelted nest. and for this, the materials we will use are:yarn, in any colors of your choice. i recommend wool to give the baby birds extra warmth andcushioning. 1 #10.5 us circular knitting needle 16 inchesin length. their pattern calls for one that is 24 inches, but i find that 16 inches isperfect. 4 #10.5 us double pointed knitting needlesscissors, and a tapestry needle
oh, and if think knitting nests to save littlebaby birds is really sweet, please hit like. this lets me know you would enjoy seeing morecharitable ideas like this! first, we are going to be knitting with twostrands of yarn. you can do this with either the same color or a couple different colors. first, we will make our slip knot and caston forty stitches using the simple long-tail cast on method holding our yarn double. we will place a marker and make certain notto twist our stitches. let us begin knitting in the round, you can switch the colors or create patternsas you go! knitting in the round will give
our nest a smooth stockinette stitch. no needto purl! i must mention that knitting thick yummy wooldouble-stranded will slow you down a bit, since it is a bit tighter on your knittingneedles and takes a bit more strength to knit. i am using the yarn that i dyed a couple weeksago with kool-aid. oh yeah! i just love how the yarn has held its color and the colorsdon't run at all when washing... even after i accidentally put it through the washingmachine! so, once we have knitted in the round forabout 20 rows or until your nest reaches at least 4 inches in height, it is already timeto begin our decreases. let us switch to our double pointed needles.
to begin the decreases, we knit six stitchesand then knit two together. once we reach the end of that row, we will knit five stitchesand then knit two together, leaving us with six. and we carry that pattern around. andin this instance, we have five stitches left on our double-pointed needles. and with yourtapestry needle, go ahead weave it through your remaining stitches. weave the yarn throughand break it off. awesome, you have learned how to knit a bird'snest to help rehabilitate abandoned birds! our knitted nests provide the baby birds withwarmth and cushioning while they're cared for in wildcare's wildlife hospital. a hugethank you to the many rescuers at wildcare who feed the baby birds throughout the day,washing and replacing the nests with clean
ones daily. i really hope you have enjoyed this tutorial.and thank you so much for watching studio knit! when you subscribe, you will receivea new knitting lesson every monday. and check out my other videos. summer is agreat time to make a knitted birdhouse. and here's my video on dying yarn with kool-aid.oh yeah! bye!