“Demoralizing” is not a word I use lightly; it lives in a secure lockbox and only gets to come out for special occasions. To use in a sentence: Carefully trying to recreate the Gibson Girl hairstyle is demoralizing. Or alternately: Learning to knit, as I’m now openly doing while surrounded by abnormal prodigies in this office, is demoralizing.

But pish-posh, I say. You guys have approximately 250% more confidence in my knitting future than I do, which is the OPPOSITE of demoralizing. Now I’m just afraid I’ll let you down! Regardless, I poured over all of your thoughtful comments on my last post and a few major themes emerged:

1.) The internet and its largess of educational wealth is the best thing since sliced bread.

2.) “Girl, it’s just YARN. Use some pretty stuff. Have fun with it! You’ll be fine!”

3.) Practice, practice, practice.

4.) Crocheting creates a different mindset; it’ll take time to rewire your mind for knitting.

And there you have it. My biggest mistake thus far is an essential misunderstanding of #4. In setbacks, I’ve been acting as though I’ve failed at “crocheting-with-needles”, as opposed to “knitting”. Yes, all forms of fiber crafting share some similarities and a mutually supportive community, but assuming that a crocheting background would give me an intermediate entrance into knitting is like saying, “I’m fairly adept at volleyball, so I must be decent at water polo”. There’s no gorgeous guarantee that you’ll be able to translate those skills to a different medium, and there’s certainly no way to do so without oceans of practice.

In the midst of a challenge, I really like to break momentarily and rest on my laurels. As I knit my first garbled swatch, I repetitively thought: “You can still crochet, you’re okay at crochet, you’re alright at that, you can definitely make nice crocheted scarves, you can make pretty crocheted collars”.

CrochetCollar-CloseUp

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Summer knitting – hot water bottle covers?

Yes! Now stay with me and you will appreciate my logic.

Hot water bottle covers are small, portable knitting projects. Not heavy in your lap and easy to tote around while you are on vacation or just heading out for a picnic.

You can use up bits of yarn from projects you knit last fall and winter.

There are tons of fun designs – knitting and felting.

And, they make phenomenal gifts! Just be sure to include a bottle with the cover.

You can buy the bottles in the first aid section of your local pharmacy or even on Amazon!

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Curious About Our Swatches?

I’m sure some of you out there love a good puzzle and we’ve
definitely been seeing some wonderful guesswork about the swatches on
our latest catalog cover! I’m here to solve some of them for you by
listing what yarns, colorways and stitches we used in this lovely photo.

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Your go-to sweater

I really think I’m on a sweater kick this year, and it’s got me
thinking an awful lot about favorites. You see, now that I’m knitting a
little cardigan for myself, and I’ll be starting one soon in Tropical
colors (thanks for your votes, everybody!), what I find most interesting
is that in both cases I pretty much want to make the same sweater. A
V-neck, lightly shaped cardigan. That’s pretty much The Cardigan I Want
all the time.

I must admit that being a designer has its advantages. I can knit the
same sweater several times but it doesn’t really look the same.
Different weights, different colors, different sizes, and maybe a
different finishing touch, but I can essentially just plug those things
into a formula and get my same, favorite, familiar sweater. My ‘go-to’
cardigan is based on a simple, light grey alpaca cardigan that I picked
up at a thrift store for $5. But I love it so much that I want to
re-create it over and over again. So, I just plug a new gauge into the
same shape, and out pops a ‘new’ sweater.

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How to Dye Tonal Yarns

Have you seen our new selection of tonal yarns yet? There are so many reasons to love adding the subtle shifts of color found in tonal yarns into your projects. Tonal yarns are a wonderful way to add the subtle variations of a color to your project without fearing that it will distract from textured stitches, cables, or even lace patterns. Each of our tonal yarns are made up of seven different shades of your favorite colors, which combine together to create complex, monochromatic colorways. Not only do tonal yarns add lots of visual interest when worked up with simple stitches, but they also beautifully highlight intricate stitch patterns.

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Shhh, Don’t Tell My Coworkers: I’m Learning to Knit

Well, I’m finally letting the cat out of the bag. Or letting the needles out of the…cherry red PVC backpack? Anyway, welcome to my shame! I’ve been secretly teaching myself to knit for a couple of weeks and I wouldn’t say it’s going well.

Untitled

You may remember me as the resident spirited/mediocre crocheter with questionable tastes; don’t worry, I’m definitely retaining that title as well. However, I’ve surprised myself with an ever-inching desire to knit, even though I’d been resolute on these matters in the past. I’m keen on blaming my coworkers, who constantly parade beautiful knit projects around the office. But in total honesty, the turning point came when my own harassing curiosity met with a pair of Harmony needles in the office free-box. GAME OVER. Not even a lack of tools could be my excuse.

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Podcast Episode 187: Interview with Kathleen Taylor

Listen in on this week’s podcast to hear Kelley catch up with designer Kathleen Taylor to talk about all things fair isle! As author of the book Fearless Fair Isle Knitting, Kathleen Taylor chats with Kelley in depth about the different techniques for successful fair isle knitting in addition to common mistakes and issues that newcomers to fair isle might encounter. Kathleen truly has a fearless approach to fair isle knitting and has honed in her techniques specifically for knitters new to fair isle through years of teaching. Also, hear Kelley share memories of her first fair isle project in addition to chatting about favorite techniques for fair isle. Kathleen’s love and enthusiasm for colorwork is infectious and Fearless Fair Isle Knitting is sure to have you craving colorful knits for your next project.

One of the projects from Fearless Fair Isle Knitting that Kelley & Kathleen chatted about was the Dragon Ride Shawl. Kathleen was kind enough to share pictures of herself wearing this amazing shawl.

 

3 easy ways to listen…

Subscribe in iTunes Episode 187: Interview with Kathleen Taylor RSS feed

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Spinning Angora

As some of you know, I live with a delightful little (well, fairly large) angora rabbit named Linus. He was the little spokes-bunny for our Special Reserve Sugarbunny line
when I first started working here and periodically comes to work with
me here at the office! Every three months I give him a big shave and
wind up with about 2-3 ounces of useable fiber. I’ve had several years
to practice spinning angora fiber and have figured out a few things
about this specific fiber type that I thought I’d share today!

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Weekend Hats

I’ve gotten so much in the habit of knitting socks that I have forgotten that hats have many qualities that make them ideal, portable projects.

When I received a review copy of Weekend Hats it reminded me of the advice Elizabeth Zimmermann gave regarding knitting hats as swatches for sweaters. She suggested watch caps for quick swatch hats. But, I don’t really want to knit such simple hats. In their book Weenend Hats, Cecily and Melissa have provided me with a selection of stylish hats for our favorite waitress and I can pick out something for myself to swatch for the cardigan that has been on my To Do List for waaay too long.

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