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by Knit Picks Staff on May 26, 2010
To celebrate Halloween, Knit Picks (and our sister companies, Connecting Threads and Artists Club), hosted a staff Halloween costume contest. Even our warehouse in Ohio got in on the fun, we’ve been e-mailing photos back and forth all morning. Alison and I took tons of pictures and video of everyone who dressed up. We even had a little parade! Of course Sheldon was all set, he had lots of costumes to choose from since we’ve knit all the shells in his animal and career outfit kits. Alison was a dinosaur doctor. She had charts with dinosaur skeletons for differentials, and a lollipop as a reward for good dinosaurs. This costume was inspired by her hubbie who told his parents he wanted to be a dinosaur doctor when we grew up when he was little. Katie was Olivier the Frenchman. Ooh-la-la! |
Category Archives: Inspiration
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by Knit Picks Staff on May 26, 2010
Happy Halloween, everyone! We had our first ever Halloween costume contest here at Knit Picks, and I think Angela is going to post about that today too so you can see everyone’s costumes. My post is about the versatility of Palette. You may think Palette is just a colorwork yarn, but it is so much more! When I was looking for a costume to wear last night, I pulled out an old bridesmaid’s dress from the back of my closet (the bride didn’t wear white), and I immediately thought of Princess Leia. When confronted with how to make the infamous “cinnamon buns”, I just pulled a couple balls of Palette in Bark out of my stash, and voila! Everyone here got such a kick out of it that Alison made a how-to video for your viewing pleasure… Palette isn’t ... |
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by Alison on May 26, 2010
I’ve been saving up this one until it was seasonally appropriate! When the Spring 08 issue of Knitty came out, I got all excited about the Tempest sweater. I picked out my colors, swatched, blogged, and knit myself into a frenzy. I should have carried the colors up between stripes, a lesson I learned the hard way as I wove in about 3,000 yarn ends. I have a bad habit of finishing sweaters to the 99% point and then leaving them to languish without buttons for ages. Even though I knit it up pretty quickly, this sweater fell to the same fate and I stuffed it in a corner of my craft room for about a month before finally picking up some appropriately-sized wooden buttons. Here’s the part of my story that’ll make a knitter’s ... |
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by Knit Picks Staff on May 26, 2010
A couple weeks ago, Kelley and I talked about the joy, the wonder, the magic of blocking lace (podcast 69), so I thought I’d share my finished lace project and include the dreadful before picture too. This is the Juno Regina pattern by Miriam Felton from knitty.com in the Sterling color of Gloss Lace. Lace blocking wires hard at work. They make blocking lace so easy compared to pinning every inch. Here’s the lace while it was still on the needles. Big difference, huh? < |
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by Kelley on May 26, 2010
Sometimes I like to follow charts when I knit lace. But, when there are a lot of changes in the pattern, like what happens with circular shawls, I prefer to use my tried-and-true 3×5 index card system. Marianne Kinzel is a very considerate designer. She provides charts and written instructions. And, the instructions have a space between each round. That makes it easy to copy the pages and cut each set of instructions into a small bit of paper. Then, I tape one round of instructions on its own index card. I used to divide the cards up by sections of the shawl. There is always a logical transition that works out well. I put the card groupings into a zip-lock sandwich bag. That way I can see the instructions through the plastic. When I finish a round, I move the card to the bottom of the pile and knit ... |
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by Kelley on May 26, 2010
I’ve come to the realization that drop spindles are becoming my ideal chocolate truffles. No calories and the pleasure lasts MUCH longer! And, there is the challenge of finding the “perfect” spindle truffle. I have discovered some favorites that I will always enjoy but I do like the excitement of finding a new spindle artist. Last week I could not focus on my To Do list so I went off to Etsy and typed in “drop spindle”. Just like heading off to a Godiva Chocolate shop, Moonstruck Chocolates or even Whole Foods for a quick chocolate fix. I clicked on SpinSanity Spindles and knew I had found a new truffle!! Meet Shannon Fukuyama’s Ornate Square Top Whorl Spindle. I had several concerns regarding this spindle but I felt that for the price of only $20.00, I would enjoy it as a bit of art. This spindle ... |
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by Kelley on May 26, 2010
My experience with my friend’s Prayer Shawl seems to have started a shawl knitting frenzy. It was such an easy and quick knit that I couldn’t resist using the same Lattice Pattern from The Prayer Shawl Companion to make the long-promised shawl for Xena’s breeder. Lora’s work causes her to travel quite a lot. As a result, her wardrobe is all about black, white and grey. I had already gotten Suri Dream in Stone for her shawl but the balls had been sitting in my closet for months. I’m making very good progress thanks to college football! Would you believe that I’m already thinking of making a Lattice Shawl for myself? I want to try one of the hand-dyed colors of Suri Dream. Ummm, I love Bayou! ... |
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by Knit Picks Staff on May 26, 2010
The leaves are turning beautiful colors outside our office, and this week we got to look at beautiful colors inside too! Believe it or not, we just had our yarn color picking meeting for next fall. Yep, we pick colors that early. I can’t give away what exactly we did, but I can tell you that we didn’t discontinue very many colors, and we did add a lot. This photo shows the boards we get from our manufacturers with color samples. So many choices! We mainly choose from these boards, but sometimes they don’t quite have the color we’re going for, and then we choose from a variety of other sources. And here’s a photo of Kelley pondering what colors to add to my favorite yarn line, Palette. Palette is just getting better and better with ... |
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by Kelley on May 26, 2010
My apologies! I completely forgot to show you photos of the cardigan with my corrected neckline. I decided to skip the buttonholes and use a stick as a closure. I love this sweater!! < |
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by Knit Picks Staff on May 26, 2010
Apples to Apples is my favorite game of all time. For the past three years, my friends have come over to my house to celebrate my birthday by drinking apple cider, eating apple pie, and playing Apples to Apples. This year, I decided to knit a special Apples to Apples hat to wear to my third annual apple party. I found this pattern for the Apple of My Eye baby hat on Ravelry, and I modified it to fit me by casting on 74 stitches instead of 66. I started it last Sunday, knit through a 2 hour roller derby league meeting Sunday night, worked on it at craft night last Tuesday, and I finished it Thursday night, just in time for the party Friday night. Here I am modeling it in my kitchen before the guests arrived. Ignore the lump, that’s from my ponytail underneath! |
