Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

My knit-night friend Ginny will be a first-time grandmother later this summer. It has been delightful to see the enthusiasm with which she is greeting this event. And the little one will be a girl, which just opens so many wonderful knitterly possibilities! I was grateful when Ginny remarked one evening that she was going to knit a Baby Surprise Jacket. She had a nice queue built up of items for this baby. (I keep wondering if anyone has ordered a large cedar chest to accommodate this bounty.) So when I stepped in and asked if I could buy the yarn and it knit it for her, she agreed! In conversations about classic knitting patterns, the Baby Surprise Jacket comes up again and again. And, yes, I know I've written about it here before. So let me just show you what I did this time. The yarn is Ella Rae Seasons, which is a rather new yarn. It is chain plied, so it has nice elasticity. The size is heavy worsted. And it has long color changes, similar to Noro. While I didn't tr...

I find myself finally letting my life drop out of 5th gear overdrive and down into 3rd gear -- getting things done, but not being quite so crazy. Over the last couple weeks I've driven up and back to Columbus, Ohio for Knitters Connection; visited dear friends in Kentucky; toured the Cincinnati Zoo; dealt with my Yahoo! e-mail account getting hacked by a virus; cleaned my house; hosted a game night and a Pathfinder game; combed and prepared several ounces of raw mohair; ran a knitting guild meeting; oiled the patio furniture; baked a batch of scones; and taken cats to the vet. I had a wonderful time at Knitters Connection. A huge thank you to everyone who took a class with me! I had one crash and burn moment in the Unventions class, but by the end, I also heard several gasps of awesome delight. I was also very pleased by how several people in that class were experimenting and coming up with their own unventions by the end of class. And I was totally shocked to see 14 people in th...

The TNNA show is coming up later this month. Because I'm now teaching and designing (and being a guild president), I sometimes get to see several sides of the same event. For example, at STITCHES South I've seen the Market being set-up and taken down because I've been involved a little with the guild booth. While I won't be attending TNNA, one of the behind-the-scenes things that becomes an in-front-of-the-scenes thing is the Great Wall of Yarn. This is a chance for the yarn companies to show off their new offerings and get some creative ideas into the minds of the shop owners who are attending the show. Barry Klein from Trendsetter asked the STITCHES teachers if we would be willing to make swatches. This is a great chance for us to play with new yarns -- some barely on the market. And it is also a chance to show the various yarn companies what we can do. I volunteered to make four swatches. So here is what I did. First up is Moonshine from Crystal Palace Yarns. ...

My reputation for bizarre knitting being what it is, I've been asked by both North Georgia Knitting Guild and Atlanta Knitting Guild to teach a little bit about how to double knit. For NGKG, I'll be teaching a mini-workshop at our Beat the Heat Retreat on Saturday 21 July. AKG was planning on having a program on double-knitting later in the summer, and originally it was going to be during a month when I couldn't attend. But that changed. So on Thursday night, I'll be presenting a program on double-knitting to AKG. This works out fine, as I got my act together and knocked out the project and handout for NGKG. The NGKG VP of Workshops, Mary, asked me to come up with a knitted soap sack as our double-knitting project. This is a really easy project for double knitting. And it doesn't take a lot of yarn. I used about 12 yards each of two colors of Lily Sugar 'n' Cream, which is a basic kitchen cotton. This would be an easy project to kit up for a guild. The ya...

Oddly enough in the busy aftermath of STITCHES South, I managed to keep focus on a little project. I started the Blue Shimmer/Blå Skimmer cuffs during Susanna Hansson's "Bohus Stickning" class. Partly because I wanted the picot edging to match on both cuffs, I was motivated to get the second cuff cast on before I misplaced the scrap of paper reminding me of what I had knit. These are still on the needles because I'd like to expand them into gloves. I plan to acquire some nice indigo-dyed cashmere. When I knit the gloves, I'll just knit plain. I don't want to detract from the fabulous Bohus pattern. I did not buy the cashmere when I saw it in the Market at STITCHES South because I felt that buying cashmere would be motivation for finishing the cuffs. It is! I'm sure not all Bohus patterns are similar to this one, but I do have a few observations. While you do have to strand colors across the back -- and sometimes carry more than two colors in a round -...

Alpacas, some sheared and some not sheared. On Saturday I drove up to Thunder River Suri Alpacas to see the alpacas being sheared. Rose has been a wonderful supporter and member of North Georgia Knitting Guild and Atlanta Knitting Guild. Her alpaca farm produces animals for other people who would like to start a farm, as well as a range of alpaca products from raw fleece to yarn to dyed yarn to finished garments. Suri alpaca has a lovely sheen and drape similar to silk. It is soft and warm. For spinners, alpaca doesn't need to be scoured before spinning because it contains very little lanolin. This also means that when you buy raw alpaca fleece, very little weight is lost after washing and spinning. If I recall correctly, Rose has her herd divided up into several groups and keeps them in separate but adjacent pastures. She has a bachelor group of males, a bachelorette group of females, and a group of mommies with babies. Like other camelids, alpacas will spit to express disp...

Insouciant people with pointy sticks. What's not to like? Debbie Radtke & her famous hedgehog. Besides the Market and the classes, there are plenty of other activities at STITCHES South. Part of the fun is the chance to bump into famous knitters, such as Nicky Epstein or Debbie Radtke. There is lots of opportunities for networking and discovering the latest new and awesome products coming to a yarn store near you. I especially enjoyed the Friday night Pajama Party, which is held after the Fashion Show and Banquet. This is a great chance to hang out with other knitters, and you never know who will be there. One of the great moments this year was Benjamin Levisay standing up to an over-zealous security guard who felt that the party was too noisy. I'm not sure the guard was savvy. After all, he wanted 200 knitters (mostly women) with pointy sticks to be quiet. Perhaps he is not yet married and, therefore, did not have the worldly experience necessary to accurately asse...