Category Archives: Inspiration

Colorful rovings waiting for the New Year

This is a much less romantic view of my hand-dyed rovings but I thought it would be good to record the process. Notice how I have already started ‘fluffing” up the golden roving on the right. Once the tops of the dangling rovings were dry, I couldn’t resist! <

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Knit Picks holiday yarn giveaway!

It’s the holiday season, and we know many of you have been busy the last couple of months knitting gifts until your fingers are numb. If you’ve blown your yarn budget on yarn to knit gifts for other people, and you’re slightly worried your friends and loved ones didn’t get the memo about buying you a Knit Picks gift certificate for your stocking, we’ve got the perfect holiday gift just for you. Free Knit Picks yarn! Now wait. Keep reading. There are important details to come, and if you don’t follow the instructions below, you’ll take yourself out of the running. We’ve picked 3 of our favorite patterns from the new Winter Knitty, and we’re going to pick 1 lucky Knit Picks customer per pattern and give them the yarn they need to knit that project. We’ve already picked the perfect Knit Picks yarn substitution for each project, and we’ve selected three ...

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Hurried Gift Knitting

As soon as I saw the Winter 2008 issue of Interweave Knits, I knew I had to knit the Positano Tote for my sister – for Christmas! Yikes! My yarn, Wool of the Andes in Amber Heather just arrived yesterday, so I cast on right away. I’m going to be a busy knitter for the next couple weeks – I hope I can make it! What about you? Any gift knitting goals you’re worried about reaching? <

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Sock yarn special delivery!

Packages are slowly starting to arrive from our vendors with some of the new spring yarns. I couldn’t resist sneaking a peek at the new colors of Felici and Risata. That’s a photo I snapped of a box of Felici we just opened. I didn’t get a picture of Risata, but I can say that anyone who loves bright, cheerful colors is going to be over the moon about the shades we picked to fill out the Risata line. Deidre’s got a big job ahead of her sorting all the yarn as it comes in and trying to keep tabs on it as we snag skeins for photography, project development, and color correction for the web. We’ve only got a few more weeks to get it all together before these new colorways go on sale! ...

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I Love Spin-Off Magazine

I know I’ve talked about Spin-Off before, but Winter 2008 is a particularly appealing issue. You don’t have to be a spinner to appreciate the fiber information, excellent patterns and inspirational articles. This issue focuses on color. The article on managing color as you spin was particularly dangerous! The basic concept is how to work with two colors of roving, as you spin, to design wonderfully dynamic yarn. I read the article on Wednesday and spent the entire evening dyeing four colors of roving. I knew all the roving, that’s been sitting in a bin in my closet, would have a good purpose. If you are interested in dyeing roving, here is a fantastic tutorial. I used only one color for each group of my roving. I started by laying out the dry roving on the living room floor. I kept rearranging it until I had ...

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Hot Water Bottle Cover Pattern

Kelley has always extolled the merits of hot water bottles, and I didn’t pay much attention for a long time. I thought they were old fashioned and maybe even a little frivolous. Hah – well, now I know better. I finally caved in a bought one and now I love, love, love the gentle comforting warmth it provides on cold winter nights. But, hot water bottles definitely need cozy covers. Their rubbery surface isn’t very conducive to cuddling. So, here’s my offering for a custom-fit hot water bottle cover pattern. My goal was a very snug-fitting cover, of densely knit stockinette so there is only a thin layer of fabric between me and the warm bottle. I’ve seen cabled hot water bottle covers, but I think the cables add extra layers of insulation that don’t let the warmth come through as much. Yarn: Bare Superwash Merino ...

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Knitting and spinning supplies for Australia

Last Sunday I laid out clothes for our trip. Having gotten the “boring” task out of the way, I enthusiastically contemplated what fiber-related projects to take with me. I knew I wanted to take my Spinsanity spindle and my Golding Aromatherapy spindle. I have bright, colorful rovings for each spindle. I also wanted a very low-key knitting project. A Moderne Baby Blanket fits the “easy” requirement but the yarn takes up a lot of room and, once the blanket gets going, it isn’t really portable. Then I remembered my long-neglected Stonington Shawl from Knitting Workshop by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I had made a good start but then was sidetracked with Prayer shawls and baby blankets. The yarn is Shimmer – Bayou. What a perfect travel project! Lots and lots of plain garter stitch with a lacy edge to entertain me on ...

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Road Trip Knitting

Over Thanksgiving, my parents and I drove down to visit my sister in San Jose. It’s about 11 hours each way, so that meant lots of knitting time. I took along my mindless, feels-so-soft, comfortingly warm garter stitch afghan in the Bayou color of Suri Dream Hand Dyed. I’m using size 11 needles. With 9 balls of yarn, at 150 stitches wide, I think the afghan will end up being close to 65 inches square. Sitting in the back seat, with no additional knitting tools available to me, I discovered that the spit-splice joining method (more elegantly known as the felted join) works wonderfully for Suri Dream, except you don’t need to (and really can’t) splice – all you need is spit, which I did happen to have with me. I know…good thing I had the back seat to myself, right? ...

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Wristlets and hat–a Thanksgiving present

My family has decided not to exchange Christmas gifts this year, it lowers stress and credit card bills and instead we’ll all go for a hike and have a great meal together on Christmas day. Well, that doesn’t stop me from knitting. Since my Mom taught me, I think she deserves a little something from time to time so I’m going to give this set to her this weekend. The yarn is Swish DK in Hollyberry and Egglant. It is the first time I’ve worked with Swish and I really, really loved it. It’s just so soft. I can see why people use it for baby blankets. I’m looking forward to trying something with Swish bulky soon. The hat is just a basic 2 x 2 ribbed hat, I cast on 88 stitches and decreased after 6 inches. The fingerless gloves are from here: http://lifeincleveland.blogspot.com/2008/03/mmmalabrigo-glovies.html ...

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Shawl for Xena’s “Mommy Lora”

Xena’s breeder, Lora, has been waiting for her Suri Dream shawl much longer than I care to admit. The greatest obstacle to my getting started was finding a pattern that would work well for Lora. The pattern I choose for another friend’s Prayer Shawl turned out to be my answer. As soon as I finished Elizabeth’s shawl, I cast on the Black Forest version. Lora travels a lot and prefers to wear black, grey and white for simplicity’s sake. I love my long, narrow Suri Dream shawl that I use as a blanket when I’m sitting in an airplane seat. It also works well as a pillow or even as a true shawl. Lora is the first non-knitting person to whom I’ve given a shawl. It dawned on me that “blocking” was not something she would appreciate having to do whenever she washed her shawl. Handwashing ...

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