Alison brought in her Crown Mountain Farms Corriedale Roving. I talked her into letting me keep it to start playing with my blending of bright roving colors and the chocolate brown. I ordered more roving from Crown Mountain Farms so I will have enough to make a sweater and give one “hank” of roving back to Alison.
You can see that my English Paper Piecing experiment is coming along nicely. I do love working along, one hexagon at a time. It actually goes much faster than I had expected. I’m using the Fat Quarter Quilt pattern from Paper Pieces.
I would like to head home to start playing but it’s only 2:30! <

We have a new poll at the bottom of the page. Tell us which of your knitting tools gets the most use! <

I’ve been doing secret Christmas knitting, and I haven’t been able to post about it because I know some of my family members browse this site. I didn’t want to spoil their surprise. But, Kelley suggested I show a close-up, so you can’t really tell what they are – just proof that I have, indeed, been knitting! So here you go, in all sorts of bright, cheery Swish Worsted colors. (Machine washability is a very important trait for all my gift knitting!)
Can you tell what they are? I will send a prize to the first person who guesses correctly (post a comment below with your guess). I won’t be able to announce the winner, in order to keep the secret from my family, but I will send the winner a private message to let them know. I want to make sure the prize suits …

Today I started a KAL for a steeked cardigan called the Classic Lines Cardigan. It has many elements of sweater design that I love. Things that will help you become confident planning your own sweaters in the future.
I spent most of my weekend finishing off the details for the KAL launch. So, I didn’t do any spinning. That turned out just fine because my order from Crown Mountain Farms arrived today. I can return the roving I “took” from Alison and work from my own stash of chocolate brown Corriedale roving.
But, I’m so excited about the KAL that I probably won’t be doing much spinning for the next few weeks. I haven’t made the sweater yet so we will all be having a good time together as we each make our own colorful cardigan. <

Ever since we had the Speed Knitting contest featuring the Hemlock Ring Blanket (Ravelry link), I’ve been a bit blanket-crazy.
The Hemlock Ring Blanket is based on a vintage doily pattern, but it’s sized up and knit in rustic wool yarn. When you catch the blanket bug, it’s difficult to break free – now I’ve knit a Girasole blanket (Ravelry link) in stash yarn, finished my own “hemmie” in WotA Persimmon Heather, and I just finished up this bad boy in WotA Sapphire Heather.

With just under 16 balls of WotA, I was able to make a blanket that’s over 6 feet across. The pattern is Meg Swansen’s “Super Spiral Shawl” (Ravelry link) from A Gathering of Lace. It looks complicated, but the spiral is broken up into eight sections, and you add the optional mesh pattern to every other …

I cast-off my swatch yesterday. Since I strung the yarn along the back of the swatch, I needed to cut the yarn. I made simple overhand knots along each side of the swatch to secure the stitches before giving the swatch a nice warm bath.

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I will be ripping out my knitting and starting again with 6 inches fewer stitches. So, my new number will be 160 stitches. I’m taking off just a few more stitches to play it safe.
I will knit a couple of inches and try it on for a second time! Yep, then I will be sure that everything is fixed. <