Close Knitters

There are lots of options and ideas in the store for wintry scarves.  Here are some of our favorites

Winter Scarves

Here are: Reversible Cable Scarf, Cable and Seed Stitch Scarf, Zig Zag Scarf, Single Reverse Cable Scarf, Reversible Chunky Scarf, Willow Lace, and Noro Wave.  All nice winter scarves which will look great in a lot of yarns.

Then there are the fast and fun scarves

Marshmallow and Ruffles

Marshmallow is the white one.  It consists of a row of puffs, separated by a thin strand of yarn.  You knit just the thin strand, and the puffs line up.  Very soft and cozy.

Ruffles is made out a self ruffling yarn.  The yarn itself is a knit tape.  To work it you poke through the edge of the tape rather than wrap it around the needle.  It makes ruffles!  The ruffly yarns come in solids with silver sparkles, and in stripes.  The one pictured above is two balls of a stripe, with a different edge, and color being worked for each ball.  These fun scarves work up quickly, which may be useful in December!

There’s  a lot of scarf knitting going on these days.  And several customers have mentioned that they plan on knitting several scarves as holiday gifts.

Here’s Kim’s latest

Noro Wave Scarf

Two skeins of Noro Kureyon.  Look at how beautifully the colors line up, nice even stripes.  An excellent choice for a gift, there are so many colors in a skein of Noro that the scarf will certainly match a winter coat!

Phyllis has a new one, too.

Willow Lace Scarf

This is willow lace, knit out of Blackstone Tweed.

And Jin came up with this

Ruffled Chunky Scarf

It uses two skeins of Sunday, a wooly blend in lots of nice colors.  Nice chunky yarn which works up quickly.

All of these are very versatile patterns- wider they would make lovely shawls or stoles.  Wider still (or maybe longer for the Wave pattern) they would even be nice afghans.  And the lacy ones are pretty straightforward knitting, with short repeats in their patterns.

All three patterns are available in the store, free with purchase of the yarn.

Socks are great little knits, they get worked on in bits and pieces, and suddenly there are socks.  And part of the joy of knitting socks is the wonderful self striping sock yarns.  You never quite know what you’re getting, so watching the color pattern evolve is fun.

Sometimes the striping pattern works into the heel shaping quite nicely, but sometimes a traditional heel flap will affect the pattern.  That was the case with this blue yarn.

Blue sock

I knit it from the top down.  As I was knitting the leg portion I realized that the stripes are so even, I didn’t want them to change as I knit the heel.  So I worked the heel using Elizabeth Zimmernan’s Thumb Trick- she used it for mittens, too.  See the white line between the blue stripes?   That’s where the heel will go.

Heelless sock

No heel yet!  How did I get into this situation?

When I reached the point on the leg where I would have started the heel, I used white yarn to knit across half of the sock.  Then I slipped the white stitches back onto the left hand needle, and knit them with the blue yarn.  And kept on knitting until I’d finished the toe.  Then I went back to the white yarn, and removed it.  This created the heelless sock above- there are live stitches around the edge of the heel space.  I put them onto needles:

Heel on Needles

The final step is to knit the heel- it’s shaped just like the toe!

Finished Socks

Nice even stripes!

More babies!

Lots of customers have been commenting on the baby boom in their lives- new grandkids, nieces, nephews, great grandkids and great nieces and nephews.  Some knit afghans to greet the new ones, some knitters prefer to knit sweaters.

Baby Sweaters

The two top sweaters are Sublime patterns,the bottom one is from Cabin Fever.  They’re all written for sport weight yarn, so work up well in a number of baby friendly (that means machine washable) yarns.

More Baby Sweaters

These are from a few different pattern sources- Sublime, Minnowknits, and Ella Rea.  More yarns to keep new parents happy- soft cottons and machine washable acrylics.  Vests are nice- you can dress up the baby but he or she will stay cooler.  The bottom vest is knit in Sweetness, our Yarn of the Month.

Not sure what size to knit? Make it a six month size, and the baby will wear it at some time in it’s first year.

Kristin came into the store a few weeks ago with a list of supplies- tape measure, scissors, yarn- the usual list of things for someone taking a knitting class or workshop.

She was headed to a two week knitting intensive at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine.  And since she had never knit before she needed some guidance.  So I told her to choose yarn that attracted her attention in terms of colors or textures.  Here’s what she chose

Kristin's Yarn

A pair of needles, a crochet hook for mistakes, and she was off to Maine for two weeks of free form knitting.

The Noro (at the top of the picture, slightly hidden) proved to be her favorite- we all love the soft texture and the colors- the shades as well as the color changes.

She did two things with her Noro

Noro and Objects

Kristin’s artwork involves lots of found objects- small plastic toys or pieces of toys.  Here they blend in a bit with the Noro colors.

Noro Mitten

She also used Noro for a mitten- knit on double points.  Pretty good for someone who had never held knitting needles. Other people in the group knit mittens and gloves too- one mitten with four thumbs, another large enough to cover the entire knitter.  It used two pounds of yarn.

There were other workshops at the same time- in baskets, metal working, book binding, and even a Buddhist making a sand painting.  Each group had to create a group project, which was auctioned at the end of the session.

Kristin won the knitter’s project

Haystack Scarf

There are knit ruffles at the ends, dyed roving, lots of texture, and an I cord edging.  Kristin of  did the Noro section on the left.

And what were the other knitters working on?

Knit Sculpture

Lots of people are knitting for lots of babies.  One of the nice things about working in a yarn shop is meeting all the happy grandmas to be.  For some the yarn shop is one of the first stops they make when they hear that a baby is on the way.

Irene has knit for a lot of babies over the years.  Generally she knits afghans.  There are twins on the way in the family, so there’s a lot of knitting.

Sexes were unknown when she started to knit, so we picked neutral colors.  She wanted simple knitting so it would go quickly.

Big Baby is a favorite for baby blankets- the multi color is pretty, the yarn thick so it works up quickly, and it’s machine washable.

Here’s the first blanket

Blue Green Blankie

It’s a big piece of knitting- simple garter stitch. We thought that maybe it was a little too simple, so it got a crocheted border.

Crochet Shell Border

Crochet shells- six double crochet in each one.  A nice way to dress up an edge.

Here’s the other blanket

Primary Colors Blankie

This one has it’s shell edge, too.

What’s your go to knit for babies?

If you’ve been in the store lately you can’t miss Jen’s baby- or at least her baby bulge.  She’s due in two weeks, and no she doesn’t know if it’s a boy or girl.  She and her husband want to be surprised.

So what does a knitting mom knit for her baby?

Jen's Baby Knitting

There are two sweaters, one afghan, a hat with matching booties, another pair of booties, and a little teddy bear.

Then there are the things we all knit for her.

More Baby Knitting

The blanket in the back was knit by soon to be Grandma Nell, the high top sneaker booties by Inge, the moccasin booties by Phyllis and the orange giraffe by Diane.  The giraffe was the hit of the baby shower.

And another blankie

Close Knit Blankie

This one was a cooperative effort by the yarn store staff- we all knit two squares, and Kim put them together and edged it.

Jen also knit a diaper bag

Diaper Bag

Complete with a bottle holder, she planned it out, knit it, felted it, and machine sewed straps on. Here’s the bag pre felting.

Unfelted Bag

Don’t forget our kids’ summer knitting camps for kids going into grades 5,6 or 7.  Summer is a great time to learn to knit, or to practice what you already know.  Links to the registration form are on the store’s main webpage.

We’re offering summer knitting camps for kids.  Two sessions, one to learn to knit and one for kids who can already knit.  Both will meet from 9 to 11 am, Monday, Wednesday,  and Friday.  That way there is time work on projects between camp sessions.  I Can Already Knit will make a felted holder for a cell phone or I Pod.  These camps are for kids entering grades 5, 6 or 7.

And for older knitters there are Teen Knitting Nights- for anyone entering grade 8 and above.  From 6 to 8 pm, on four Monday evenings.

There are links to registration forms, with all the dates, on the store’s home page.

There are a  couple of sweaters on the needles at the shop.

Renee's Sweater

Renee started her top down raglan cardigan in a class- Start Your First Sweater.  She’s finished the yoke, and wanted a little supervision to set aside the sleeve stitches and get started down the body of the sweater.

Sweater with Pattern

You can see the raglan “seams” in her sweater, and the pattern.  The Pure and Simple patterns are well written, nice for beginners, and have lots of potential to personalize a sweater.  The yarn is Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca.

Arlene is in the midst of a purple sweater with a fair isle yoke.  Here she’s working on both sleeves at one time.  Many knitters like to do two at once- you can make sure taht the increases or decreases match.

Arlene's Sleeves

Both sweaters will be ready for fall.

Vacation!

Depending on your point of view of a vacation, it may mean lots of time sitting on a beach, in a car or airplane, or on a ski slope.  For a knitter, a vacation is time away from the day to day routine of work, groceries, kids and driving.  So you can knit, right?

This was the view for a lot of my vacation

Palm Trees

Palm trees.  Blue sky and water.  And two socks in progress.  Socks are great for travel- they don’t take up  a lot of space and there isn’t a heavy pile of wool in your lap in a warm place.   You can keep them plain and simple, or knit something more complex.  I like to have both, so when I’m waiting for a flight or watching the waves at the beach I can pay attention to something like this

Blue Sock

Knit in blue Trekking, the pattern is from Nancy Bush’s Socks on the Road.  Twisted stitches that don’t need a cable needle!

And for times when I don’t want to pay attention to it, just knit

Gray Sock

The gray sock is out of Louet Gems, which is sport weight and knits up pretty fast.  The pattern is a rewrite of a man’s sock pattern from 1914 which was in the recent Knitting Traditions from Interweave Press.  The top is patterned, but since it’s knit three purl one it’s good for watching a movie on the plane.

What do you knit on vacation?

Once the weather warms up we know that the grandkids don’t need scarves, mittens, or cosy sweaters.

But they may like a vest-

Sweetness Vest

Provence Vest

Just think how cute the little ones will be in a vest- a little dressed up for a special occasion, but they can still run or crawl.

The top one is knit out of Sweetness, a sport weight variegated yarn.  The lower one is knit in Provence, the old standby worsted weight cotton from Classic Elite.  Both are machine washable, kid friendly yarns, so when the ice cream hits the hand knit it’s not a disaster!

Both patterns are commercial, the Sweetness from a booklet full of patterns for that yarn, and the Provence from Minnowknits.