...Tis The Knitting Season

The holiday decorations are a big item in our house. The lights, the lights are EVERYWHERE. I truly enjoy knitting with everything festive. I have two sweaters, my son's and the Nordic, to finish before New Year's Eve (18 days and counting)because the annual Rip It Purge (RIP) will happen on December 31. I need to spend a day (soon!) to inventory what is not yet done, to see if I can salvage anything.

I have completed all my spinning projects for 2005, and my bobbins are empty, which is another necessary task I've assigned myself, so that when the New Year dawns, I am free to explore new ideas and projects as the mood strikes.

I plan for constant knitting in the last week of the year to celebrate and enjoy the season as much as I can, so I may make it.

If you are a multi-project knitter like I am, then you find that you have needles you didn't realize you owned, scattered in knitting everywhere. Not only does this tend to get expensive, it is wasteful when you realize you own four 32" Addi circulars in size 5 (!)and none in size 6.

Have you ever looked into your knitting bag(s) to see what was started and then abandoned? Did you realize it was a good idea when it started, but it took a bad turn for whatever reason? Do you get depressed about it? Do you urge yourself to finish that old project, even though it is no longer appropriate, before you buy any new yarn? Does it take the fun out of knitting?

Liberate yourself by Moving On. I pick this point in the year to make a clean break of it, and rip out projects that are no longer timely, workable or interesting. You can reuse the yarn and the needles. If you have decided you don't care for the yarn anymore (and sometimes we come to hate it after we have worked with it for a while) you can donate it to charity. If your project is almost finished, but the size, color, person it was intended for has changed, you can donate your almost finished project and the yarn to a charity knitting group.

I like to be creative in the finishing of some no longer desirable items. I cannot tell you how many one piece cardigans (knit from the bottom up) I have simply ripped back to 8" deep, and then bound off for a scarf. Or the socks I turned into slippers for wee ones for Children In Common as it takes almost no time to make a 4" foot. Or the sweater backs that have been folded into pillow covers with buttons sewn through all layers to make the closure. Anything square/rectangular can be incorporated into an afghan project for the homeless and donated to a knitting group that knits for Warm Up America!.

So, put the fun back into your knitting bag and get rid of the baggage!

Finding Time To Knit

We are all busy. You have no idea how many people tell me they envy my job because I have nothing to do all day but knit. Ha! I have to carve out time just like everyone else, AND I have shop patterns that need to take precedence over my own knitting desires.

With the cold weather moving in with a vengeance, getting to the wood stove to tend the fire looked like just another infringement on my time. However, at 5 o-dark this morning I decided to put a decent light next to the stove and picked up the headband I have been TRYING to get to for 2 weeks. In the 45 minutes I sat there, I got an inch knit. S0, now I will park there with my coffee and knitting each morning with a wood stove brainless project.

I might even get my next pair of socks done that way.

The second sleeve of the Nordic sweater gets cast on this afternoon if all goes well. I need daylight to get started on that project, along with a stable of needles and a good movie.

And there goes the first one this winter...
Topic: nordic knitting

When my son showed up at my doorstep this Sunday morning complaining of the cold, he asked me if I was "done" with the hat he had seen last week. I got one last picture of it as he walked away.

It's fabulous on him.

And we are off and knitting...
Topic: nordic knitting

My needles, yarn basket and I are sharing some quality time now. I am zipping along on the sleeve. I actually have it almost finished, after our marathon Knit Nite last evening.

Some thoughts on hemmed edges and jogless color jogs.

I have made 5 hems in the last 6 months and some have come out better than others. There is always a stubborn line-shadow when I tack them down. The amount of "tacking" seems to make a difference. Unfortunately, when the inside is so loosely attached to make the double thickness barely visible from the outside, the inside looks like a frogged mess. To help me deal with this, I have decided to make it a design element. So, the hem sewing line is the red stripe you see in the cuff.

Now, I boldly stated no straight color lines would be in the project. The fact that I added one tells you how desperate I was to fix this hem-shadow thing. So I am committed to including jogless jog information at the retreats next year when I teach these sweater skills.

Judy Gibson is another of my knitting gurus. Her jogless jog website is simply fabulous and always helpful in these situations. I opted to make the red stripe as follows: work the first stitch of the next round from the row below in red, slip the last stitch worked back to the right needle point (to keep my beginning of the round color pattern in sequence on the chart), cut the red yarn and proceed. Looks pretty good.

This week I am teaching 5 classes, all of which require 3 hours of preparation. So I am desperately working to keep blocks of knitting time in my life as I am totally, totally in love with this project. I can't wait to see what the body looks like!!!!

In the meantime....

I am trying to get enough of the sleeve done to sew down the cuff before I snap a picture, so I thought I would share my annual Christmas knitting project: Felted Footies...the ULTIMATE in warm footwear for indoors.

This is a before-felting/just-knit photo. I have two more pairs to make, and then I will felt them all at the same time. Stay tuned for "after" pictures.

These are my own invention, and they came to life in 1996 as the felting/fulling craze entered the knitting world. Worked on #13 needles with many strands of wool/angora/alpaca/mohair, with the same short row heel I use in all my sock patterns, they have become my favorite seasonal gift. I knit them, praying with every stitch, for the people I love each Christmas. There were years when those I knit for were lost to me, but as time has passed, issues have resolved and all is better. This project reminds me of where I have been in years past, and helps me keep Christmas giving handmade, humble and personal: the way I want it to remain.

Pine Leaves Nordic Hat
Topic: nordic knitting

The last 3 weeks of knitting have been duly interrupted by Mercury and Mars in retrograde as well as the annual Thanksgiving feast at our place. It has been work to get anything new to come together. But, here it is. I am tickled with the size, shape and fit of this hat (which had to be forcibly taken away from my 30 year old son for picture taking) but the colors are (again) not what I want for my sweater.

The good news is: the pattern is written. (I love finishing up things). And...AND, now I can see the sweater colors in my head. So, I cast on for the sleeve last night and I am off. Pictures to come soon, I promise.

A new sweater...so therefore a new hat
Topic: nordic knitting

I promised myself that as soon as the last knitting retreat was over, I would jump into planning the adult sweater for the Cape Ann and Rip Van Winkle Knitting Retreats next year.

I've vacillated over the colors for 3 months, so I guess I'll just have to make a pile of hats with alternate colors until I get what I am looking for. This first one will be black with pine boughs, wee Nordic charts, and hopefully some licing. I spent all afternoon yesterday with my books and favorite sweater pictures and everything is brewing in my head.

One thing is clear: no lines on this one. It occurred to me that a circularly knit Nordic sweater pattern should have curves and zig zags to help with jogless jogs when color changing. So, one hurdle down.

So, now I will just knit and see what happens with this first group. Stay tuned.

Fingerless Mitts with a Swedish Color Pattern
Topic: Knitting Retreats

This weekend I am off to teach at the Rip Van Winkle Knitting Retreat up in the Catskill Mountains. I love driving in the mountains this time of year. With just a touch of fall color left in the hills, there is a peaceful feeling that sends me to my yarn collection to start designing for the long winter evenings ahead.

One of the projects we are tackling at the retreat is Swedish Fingerless Mitts, with its accompanying Braided Cast On. This is a technique best done with knitting friends, as it is amazingly awkward to pull off the first time. In anticipation of this class on Saturday, I am making a second pair in Charcoal and Creme Kid 'n Ewe...pictures to come tomorrow.

New bag in town
Topic: quick projects

Betsi HAD to have a bag. She has been shopping for 2 weeks and could not find what she wanted. So I knit and ripped and reknit and reripped until I got the shape she wanted. "A canoe shape, mom, for all my stuff, so it won't fall out but it forms an "O" on my shoulder when I wear it".

Betsi's Slouch Pouch takes one skein of Burleyspun and #15 straight needles, with #11 double points used for the handle. One continuous knit with 6 stitches worth of grafting (or sewing). I have never increased or decreased like I had to for this bag! What a knit. 3 hours and I was done.

Did she want it felted? No. But that was the FIRST thought in my mind. (What did I know?)

The pattern and yarn pack is available here.

Block Stitch Tunic pictures
This is my FAVORITE sweater. It is almost 18 years old. Those of you who come into the shop in the Fall and Winter see me in this one more than anything else. It is a tunic that reaches down to mid thigh, and I wear it with leggings, wool socks and wool clogs. My Cold Weather Uniform:

And then there is the one in the front window:

And I am driven to make this in Mountain Goat, so I did a Block Stitch Tunic Hat to establish a gauge:

...and finally, the sweater is moving right along:

Some sweaters designs are so thoroughly wearable, that you CAN and SHOULD have more than one.