Forest Canopy Shawl, kinda sorta wordless

I started this shawl back in October. It's knit from the handspun Romney that Voracious Reader and I dyed with Marigolds. It turned out beautifully, though it's much smaller than I expected  it to be (blocked: 56" x 25"). I've knitted this shawl before, and though I found the posts, I didn't note at the time whether I worked extra repeats. I must have, because that shawl is much larger while being knit with yarn that is far more fine.  This one is too small to be an adult shawl, at least as a full-size shawl (it would be fine as a neck decoration), so I think maybe it'll go to VR.

Okay, that's enough words- the pictures tell the story.

Leftover, and not so much

I've finished a couple more hats.

 The above hat was knitted with a single ball of leftover yarn. I love how the yarn striped all on its own, though I'm not so thrilled with the pooling up where the decreases start. The transition from the wider stripes to the narrow ones is a bit jarring. I think maybe I should have switched to plain black yarn for the decreases.  This one is going into the BT'oKT.

While this hat wasn't knit from leftover yarn, it's certainly a testament to why a Big Stash is not always a shameful thing. My grandson (the only boy in a veritable sea of girls) is a big Harry Potter fan. A Harry Potter fan whose feet seem to change size daily. I'm not knitting socks for him until his shoe size stabilizes a bit. But I still wanted to knit something for him, and so I came up with the notion of a Gryffindor hat. I had no deep red (the hat is a bit more burgundy than it looks in the scan) and not enough gold in the leftover bag for the project, so I broke my Leftover-Yarn-Only-Rule and rummaged around in the New Yarn Stash. This yarn is not *new* as in newly purchased, it's *new* as in never used. In fact, these particular yarns are easily 9 years old, from back when I bought yarn willy nilly, as protection against The Great Yarn Drought that never materialized.

So, my while my stash is still embarrassingly large, the upside is that when I needed deep red and gold sock yarn, I rummaged in the boxes and bins, and low and behold,  found deep red and gold sock yarn.

Yay me. And Yay for stashes!

And now I have deep red and gold yarn in the leftover bag.

HopHeadSaid New Year's Giveaway

Curtis Taylor, intrepid artist and author, blogger, radio personality, beer expert, and not incidentally, my oldest son, is hosting a giveaway contest on his HopHeadSaid blog for this wonderful apron:

 It's a heavy-duty canvas apron with the HopHeadSaid logo on it, from CafePress. I have another CafePress apron (with the Sex and Salmonella eBook cover on it) and can attest to its durability and functionality (in other words- it's a really good apron). And I love the way the ties are attached through casings, so it really does fit all sizes. The giveaway apron is like the one above: navy with the white logo.

Here's the logo, a little more visible. I'm wearing my HopHeadSaid sweatshirt right now (gray fabric, black image).

In order to enter, head on over to HopHeadSaid and follow the instructions (it's easy- post the contest on Facebook or some other place, and leave a comment). Easy peasy! And when you get done, head over to the CafePress shop from HopHead Said for other cool beer related items.

Good Luck!

Friends and Fiberworks Winter Retreat- Jan 13-15, Asheville, NC

There is still room in all of my classes at the Friends and Fiberworks Winter Retreat, which is being held next weekend in Asheville, NC. I'm teaching all three days of the festival, Jan 13-15, and then staying a couple of extra days to teach more classes at the shop. Registration is still open, and don't tell anyone, but except for the steeking class, the homework for the rest of the workshops can be done afterward (or during the class itself). I hope to see some of you there!

The class schedule has now been posted, and registration is open. Click on the Classes link on the main Retreat page, and then on Knitting. Scroll down to find my class listings (sorry for all the third person references). I'm excited to be teaching some old standards and a couple of new classes:

Friday January 13, 10:am-4:00pm: All Day Fair Isle- Knit a Toddler Size Hat.
Discover, or improve, your Fair Isle skills by knitting a toddler-size Nordic-Style Snowflake hat in this all-day workshop with author, knitter, and designer Kathleen Taylor. This workshop will cover chart-reading (including decreases worked from the chart) and yarn wrangling, as you work on a two-color hat (don’t let the pictures fool you- you’ll only be using one solid color yarn, and one self-striping yarn).


Friday January 13, 5:00pm-7:00pm: Writing Patterns for Publication
Learn tricks and tips for writing up your original pattern for publication, from 30-year pattern-writing veteran, blogger Kathleen Taylor, author of six mysteries, five knitting books, over 500 magazine articles, and many other original sewing and knitting patterns. Whether you plan to submit your design to a magazine, or will publish and sell it yourself, you need to know about pattern format, photography, pattern testing, copyright information, and contacting editors and publishers.

Saturday January 14, 10:00am-4:00pm: Mitered Square Cuffs
Learn to knit easy and beautiful mitered squares. In this class, students will learn the basics of mitered square knitting, and then make cuffs for mittens or socks, with self-striping, worsted weight yarns. 


Saturday January 14, 4:00pm-6:00pm- Little Tips and Knitting Tricks
Spend two hours with author and designer Kathleen Taylor, learning fun techniques that will make your knitting easier: a Substitute for the SSK that is faster and simpler, Knitting Back Backwards (for heels and bobbles), adding beads as you knit, using wire, fixing cable and Fair Isle mistakes, and other time-saving tips. 

Sunday January 15, 12:pm-6:00pm- EEK! A Steek!
Fear Not! You can cut your knitting without fear (or wine, though wine is nice). In this workshop, we will take a pre-knit tube and turn it into a doll sweater, learning techniques that can be used on any project that requires steeks. It’s fun! Really! And not scary at all! I promise.

Monday January 16, 10:00am-2:00pm: Design Your Own Fair Isle Hat
Expand on your Fair Isle skills, and design your own Toddler- Size Fair Isle hat in this half-day workshop with author, knitter, and designer Kathleen Taylor. We’ll discuss color choices, design elements, and motif repeats. We’ll do specific designing exercises, and then combine those motifs to design original Fair Isle hats. 


Monday January 16, 4:00pm-8:00pm: Design Your Own Fair Isle Christmas Stocking
Expand on your Fair Isle skills, and design your own Christmas Stocking in this half-day workshop with author, knitter, and designer Kathleen Taylor. We’ll discuss color choices, design elements, and motif repeats. We’ll do specific designing exercises, and then combine those motifs to design an original Fair Isle Christmas Stocking.

Tuesday January 17, 10:00am-4:00pm: All Day Nordic Christmas Stocking
In this all-day workshop, students will learn yarn wrangling techniques, chart reading, etc. Students will begin work on a 14” long, toe-up, stranded Christmas Stocking, with an afterthought heel.

Thursday Tab- Pert and Pretty Round Robin- Original Outfits

Back in 2000, I was part of a paper doll Round Robin, where we were each to design outfits for dolls from Merrill's Pert and Pretty paper doll set. The original set is fantastic (I have the Shackman reprint- I've done some searching, and it appears that the reprint is no longer for sale), with nine dolls, all fancy-schmancy showgirls.

I don't remember exactly how the robin was supposed to work, and like many robins, it fizzled before it got very far. I think we uploaded our outfits online, rather than mailing them to each other, but I'm not sure. I have four of the dolls in my file, and outfits for three of them, so obviously, I never finished my portion either. But I thought you'd like to see them anyway. The dolls are from Merrill's Pert and Pretty set, the pages of outfits are my own designs (all done on the computer). I must have decided to do every-day clothes for the girls, rather than Show Costumes.

Enjoy!

P.S. you can see the original cover, all of the dolls and some of the outfits here. Click *newer* for more pages

Leftover Hat Recipe, and some wonderful knits

 Here's the latest leftover yarn hat. Not very manly, is it? Pretty? Yes. Masculine? No. This is yarn I bought at the '09 Sock Summit, and used as Road Knitting to make socks on the way to the Michigan Fiber Festival last summer (and which were gifted to my niece). I love how the stripes are working out (it's not officially a self-striping yarn).

Elizabeth asked in the comments, for the basic recipe for these leftover hats. It's easy peasy:  Approx 34gr fingering weight sock yarn, 16" size 2.75mm circ and DPNs (or whatever needles will give you 8sts=1"). CO 140 sts, join (without twisting). Work 6 or so rnds of K2P2 ribbing and then K until the hat measures 5" (more or less, depending on who is the recipient). Decrease every other rnd as follows: Rnd 1: *K 12, K 2 tog*, rep around, Rnd 2: K, Rnd 3: *K 11, K 2 tog*, rep around, Rnd 4: K. Continue, working one less st before the decreases on the Odd Rnds, until you K2 tog around. Cut yarn, weave the tail through the remaining loops, tighten and tie off. Weave the ends in, wash and block. This makes a snug beanie. If you use slightly heavier yarn and 3mm or 3.25mm needles, you'll get a looser hat. If you want a smaller hat, CO 10 or 20 fewer sts. As I said, easy peasy.

 Robin knitted these gorgeous Macaroni Socks (from The Big Book of Socks). She adapted the pattern a bit because the yarn she used was finer than what is called for in the pattern (yay for adaptation!). She said that she hasn't even gotten to try them on because her 12 year old daughter has appropriated them (yay for daughters who love handknit socks!). Thanks for sharing!

Susan took my Nordic Christmas Stocking class at NCFF last September, and made this wonderful stocking! It turned out beautifully! It happens that I'm teaching that class at the Winter Retreat in Asheville next weekend, too.

Next weekend? Yikes, I'd better finish getting ready.

Restocking the BT'oKT

Somewhere along the line, I thought I had an extra week before I headed out to Asheville for the Winter Retreat. Imagine my surprise when I actually looked at the calendar and counted those little boxes... It's a good thing that I got all of my workshop materials mailed last week.

One of the things I did notice in December, as I chose hats from the Big Tub 'O Knitted Things, is that I'm obviously not drawn to masculine or neutral colorways. Only one or two of the three thousand hats that I knit last year even came marginally close to being Man Colors (and yes, I know, there's no such thing... but a great many men still do not want to wear pink. It is what it is). So one of my jobs this year is to stock the Tub with some Manly Hats.

 This one comes close. It's all made from teeny little balls of leftover yarns- I used up an entire baggie of them. Woohoo!

I'm pretty sure this one doesn't qualify, but boy is it pretty. It's from some Twisted Fiber Arts bamboo yarn (I don't remember the colorway, but it doesn't matter, EVERY Twisted Fiber Arts colorway is beautiful), and I'm thrilled there was enough to knit a whole hat with the single yarn (and not just because there were no ends to tie in).

The hat I'm working on now is all Neon Pink, Yellow, and Green, so... nope... not Manly, but it's awfully pretty too. But if maybe one out of every five hats or so is sort of neutral, I should have enough for my guys come next Christmas.