This weekend I finally cast-off Delilia’s baby blanket. I still have a few details to add and then I will send it off!
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I’m excited to see how many people have signed up to participate in our speed knitting contest.
The race isn’t on quite yet, but we’ve made a new video to help you get ready to knit FAST! This is a new take on the tips we’ve gleaned from Miriam Tegels, the world’s fastest knitter. At your request we’ve filmed it from a new perspective so you can get a better view of how to minimize your movements, keep your tension, and knit faster.
You’ve still got a couple more weeks to practice, Practice, PRACTICE!
Check back next week for a look at what techniques you’ll need to know to complete the mystery project successfully. Don’t worry, we consider this pattern an advanced beginner pattern, and we’ll provide a list of tutorials next week to give you a little time to master any you haven’t tried before. …

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I just finished my latest project…

I loved using double-stranded lace yarn on my Tempest cardigan, and there are so many good colors of Shadow that I wanted to try something similar but at a lower price point. I already had a ball of Shimmer in Cumulus in my stash, and I thought it might go nicely with another favorite, Shadow in Basalt Heather. I swatched them together a few different ways to see if my idea would work, washed the swatches, then got down to business.

I knit a basic raglan sweater in the round using two strands of Shadow held together. Every 6th row, I’d triple strand using two strands of Shadow and one of Shimmer. I was working at about 5.5 stitches per inch, so the miles and miles of stockinette went by pretty quickly. I …

First off, I’ve consulted with our judges and since our warehouse has been incredibly overwhelmed recently, and your packages have been taking a few extra days to go out (even though all the staff at the warehouse are putting in extra hours right now!), we’re going to delay the start date to make sure everyone who ordered the first week of January has time to get their yarn. The speed knitting contest will begin sometime during the first week of February. So if your yarn hasn’t arrived yet, don’t fret!
Secondly, our judges have decided that you will be allowed to knit the pattern on sizes 9″, 10″, 10.5″, and 11″ needles, depending on your gauge. If you have ordered size 10’s, you should be a-ok. Since it’s a home decor project, gauge isn’t as important as if it was a garment, but we wanted to allow a little more wiggle …

Did you get a chance to watch or listen to Obama’s inaugural speech yesterday? A few of us here in the office tuned in online. The quote that really struck home was, “The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.”
That made us think about what we could to help our local community here in the Portland area. As you may have noticed, some of our yarn colors are on clearance right now and are being discontinued to make room for new colors. Most of our yarn lives in our warehouse in Ohio, but we do keep skeins of every color and …

I’ve just added some new desktop wallpapers of the latest Felici & Risata images, the Palette Tranquil Bag, and a new image of Imagination yarn. The Imagination image shows two of the four new colors that will be debuting later this week (Friday I think). Can you spot which ones are new?
Imagination is a yarn line that marches to the beat of its own drum, as we plan to add a few new colors to it periodically throughout the year to keep things fun (rather than launching new colors with spring or fall yarns once a year). I always have such a great time coming up with the new colorways and the imaginative names to go with them. The good news is that soon you’ll be able to come up with your own colorways, as we’ll be offering Imagination in a Bare …

Tina and Karen came up to the house last Friday night for a sleepover!! At our company-wide stash exchange a couple of weeks ago, Tina brought some absolutely delicious caramel/chocolate covered pretzels. Karen and I asked her to show us how to make them so we would be able to snack on them Friday and Saturday. Well, I kept a few to eat on Sunday.
What I have learned from a weekend of filming is that I say “ok” WAAAAY too often. I promise to work on that bad habit in future videos. 🙂

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