Here in space, we’re starting to get in the holiday spirit…which reminds us of all the gift knitting that comes along! There are only 44 days left until Christmas, but there is still time to knit for the special people in your life. To help you get going, we searched for unique (and fast!) projects for everyone on your list, and wrapped these up with our favorite chunky yarns in a handy Holiday Gift Guide. Stop by the shop to pick up your copy, and view these lovely yarns for yourself. We are offering 20% off all yarns on the guide if you purchase everything on the list—our yarn elves have checked it twice! We have tons of project ideas for these yarns, so take advantage of this fabulous deal!

For mom
Make a luxurious Trellis Scarf with 4 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Bulky. She’ll stay warm all winter! Or, make the ever-popular Marian Cowl (pattern available at the shop) and matching Really Warm Hat with the same yarn requirements.

Quincy by Brooklyn Tweed

For him
Whip up a soft and cozy Basic, Ribbed Hat with 2 skeins of Sublime Chunky Merino Tweed. It’ll be his new favorite! For a more challenging knit, try Quincy by Jared Flood – part of the Made in Brooklyn book available at the shop.

For her
Cushy One Cable Mitts will have sisters and girlfriends wishing for cold hands! This project is made with just 1 skein of Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes. The royal alpaca in this yarn makes it both luxurious and snuggly soft!

photo by mistybliss

For baby
Keep little heads warm with a precious Pea Green Beanie, made with 2 balls of machine washable Sirdar Big Bamboo. For an alternative to this baby project, use this plush yarn for our free Cozy-Dee Cowl.

Wherever your holiday knitting takes you, let our gift guide lead the way!

Waist Shaping

Your waist decreasing begins after you have reached 3.75 or 4 ” from the bottom of the sweater (the bottom being the edge resulting from your turned hem, not the provisional cast on edge). The pattern tells you to K2tog and SSK around the dart markers, which should be a distinct color to prevent you from putting decreases where they shouldn’t be. The decrease row is then repeated every 8th row, (while continuing to work the first and last five stitches in garter and slipping the side seam stitch as before.) This means that you work the decrease row and then 7 more rows, decreasing again on row 8. If you aren’t using a row counter, you can count the rows by counting the “V” above the last decrease, the decrease being the slanted stitches.

7 straight "V' stitches should appear between the slanted decrease stitches

Even if you have a row counter, it is helpful to double check by counting the rows on your knitting, since we can be known to lose track while watching Weeds on Showtime. The decrease row is repeated “three times more” which means that you will work it a total of four times. Then the fabric is worked evenly until the piece measures 8.75-9.25 inches, depending on your size. By “work even” she means that you will continue to slip the stitch for the side seams and work the first and last five stitches in garter. Basically, you are working the fabric as you have been doing all along, but without decreases. Then you begin the increases. Notice that the increase rows are 10 rows apart while the decrease rows were 8 rows apart. This means that the top half of the sweater will increase more gradually. If this isn’t your body shape, you may want to make adjustments by working more regular stockinette stitch in the middle and then increasing for the chest more frequently than every 10th row.

Ok, back to the increases. Connie has you “M1,” which is described in the glossary as “make one.” With no further explanation, you are left to your own decision making on which make one you will do. I recommend slanting the opposite direction of the decrease below. I worked to the first marker, worked a “make on left” and then worked to the second marker, slipped the marker and worked a “make one right.” This way, the fabric increases out in the direction opposite of how it decreased in. Make sense? If you need a quick tutorial on the different stitches, see KnittingHelp. Next we will switch to smaller needles and start the patterned section…stay tuned!

Body

The pattern has us first cast on provisionally. My preferred method is to crochet a chain, using a smooth contrasting color yarn. Here I am demonstrating what a crochet chain looks like with roving (cuz its HUGE).

The backside of the crochet chain will look like a braid and be flat

When viewed from the side, you can see the "bumps" that are on the other side of the chain from the braid. It is these bumps that we will knit.

So, to start, find a crochet hook and some scrap yarn and chain about 5-10 stitches more than you need to cast on. This will allow you some extra “bumps” should you have difficulty finding a bump. Then, using your sweater yarn and the smaller needles, knit into each bumb:

insert working needle into the bump

wrap the yarn and "pop" the stitch through, as you would when knitting

Your chain will be below the first row of stitches, as when you pick up stitches

The directions then have you working the turned hem, which will have you work in stockinette stitch for a few rows and then turn the work and join the stitches from the provisional cast on with those that are currently live on your needles. To do this, I would recommend pulling out the crochet chain one stitch at a time, catching each live stitch with another needle. Once they have all been put on a second needle, put the wrong sides of the fabric together and the right sides facing out, folding the fabric over. Hold the provisional stitches at the back and the last row you worked closer to you. Now knit the first front stitch and the first stitch from the back needle together. Continue across until you have completed one RS row. And you have a hem!

so take off….all your wool? Did anyone else notice the sudden jump in temperature the last few days? My goodness! I finally broke down and closed the front doors and turned on the A/C. It looks like we are in for some cotton and hemp knitting the next few weeks.

Meet the furry friends of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which was last weekend. These guys are Angora goats…but not where angora comes from. They are the source for mohair yarn.

This adorable thing is where angora yarn comes from. He was for sale. Luckily Phil was with me and expressed very little interest in owning a rabbit. Phil also expressed his displeasure at being tricked into attending a yarn festival. I may have exaggerated how much he might enjoy eating gyros and fried dough and downplayed the “stand in line for an hour for yarn” part. After this and the drag queen bingo trick (another story entirely), he may never go anywhere with me again.

If you did make it to the festival this weekend, you probably visited this place at least three times. It was HOT. Not exactly the ideal weather for buying wool.

Perhaps you saw Veronica at the Miss Babs booth? Babs “borrowed” her for the weekend. She proudly wore her fibre space™ shirt, of course. She looks a little shell shocked. The booth was a tad busy all weekend We are super proud of Babs’ success at her first every MSWF show!

I finished my lace socks!

I realize that you have already seen this photo. I swear there is another sock. I swear it. I did manage to write up the pattern and it will be posted on the Inspiration blog soon. Check back later today! Because I used Socks that Rock medium weight (which you may have bought at the festival this weekend), I recommend using a heavy fingering or even sport weight if you want to get the same gauge.

Knit Tip for the Day

It is helpful to read a pattern before you start knitting it. Sometimes you might even want to read the heading on the section that you are knitting before emailing the designer to explain all of the errors in the pattern that don’t really exist because you are incapable of reading a heading. yeah…um, sorry about that Olga. I was knitting along at the Puzzle Vest pattern from Olga’s ori ami knits collection and thought that I was knitting the back of the vest when really, I was knitting the back AND left front. So when the pattern told me to bind off on the right edge and then somewhere in the left middle of the fabric, I was concerned that Olga had me making a big hole in the back of the sweater…until I realized that she had me making an ARMHOLE. I wish there was a “recall” button on gmail. I had the email sent and then realized my error a few seconds later when I looked down at the pattern and saw the big ol’ header “Back and Left Front.” So here is my back and left front, worked in Louisa Harding Mulberry silk in two colors that I did not pick out myself because I can’t be trusted to knit anything other than red or green or various shades of red or green.

Chevron is horribly ugly when it isn’t blocked, isn’t it?

So lets say that there is a customer, lets call her Lucy. Lucy is taking our blanket class, the Hemlock Ring blanket.  The pattern is a feather and fan pattern, after the initial section is complete. Lucy called the shop to ask if she could make the blanket larger by repeating the pattern more. We told her that, yes, she could make it larger by simply repeating the pattern. What Lucy was really asking was if she could make the blanket larger by repeating the stockinette stitch sections of the feather and fan more (so only a portion of the pattern repeat). Well, no, you can’t. That will actually make more of a helmet shape than a blanket. So when Lucy got to class this weekend, she had a helmet, not a blanket. Lesley here is demonstrating the affect of not having enough increase rows in a round stitch pattern that is meant to lay flat:

So the lesson here is: #1 fewer increases in the round makes a hat, more increases makes the fabric lay flatter and more “blanket-like”. #2 ask more questions! The more you ask / talk, the better we can figure out exactly what it is that you meant to say.  And of course, it always help if you are in the shop with the project Luckily “Lucy” is a good sport and was working away at the blanket again before she left class. I have no doubt that we will see a finished Hemlock Ring in the very near future.

So about once a week someone asks us for blocking wires. Veronica uses piano wire. Our friends at Uniquities sells a set that we can also get, if we carried the yarn that the company also sells.  We had long ago just decided to send folks to Uniquities or their local hardware store for a little DIY project. But someone was just in this morning and totally blew my mind with the news that Target sells them! yeah, you heard me. TARGET. What?! And the price is pretty fantastic at $23.99. Does Target even sell yarn? Such a random, yet wonderful thing for them to sell…Course, you can’t find them in the store itself, but online is a decent option. While you are there, also pick up those foam floor tile things that we put kids on so they don’t destroy the floors. They make a great blocking surface and the foam is great for poking with blocking pins. AND, since they can be taken apart and reshaped, they are very flexible for various project sizes.

for amazing crochet stitch patterns, that is. Check out the Mypicot site which features knit and crochet stitch patterns. A customer stopped in last night and was working on a swatch from the site and our crochet fanatics were in love immediately!

The site include great color photos and pdf downloads of each stitch pattern. It also divides the patterns into categories like “simple and textured” or “openwork or lace.”

and its not going to be intarsia, despite what I have come to believe. This is my father’s Christmas present: (yes, just a tad late…)

The back is done. It is going to grow up and become this:

by Veronik Avery from Knitting Classic Style: 35 Modern Designs

But it’s intarsia and so I want to poke my eyeballs out. Last night I started the front with the diamonds and had to wind a bunch of hanks of Vintage but was already home (where I have no ball winder). I asked Phil to hold the yarn and be a swift for me, which he did reluctantly with minimal eye rolling. He then told me that “this whole yarn storage thing is all wrong” and that he was going to “invent a new method for storing and winding yarn” that would “fix this whole mess.”  I asked him if he was going to make lots of money with his new invention and he pointed out, “no, there doesn’t appear to be any money in this yarn thing.” Thanks Phil.

So anyway, I then pointed out that the “husband swift” was a great way for him to exercise his arms and that he didn’t get much exercise anyway. So then he decided that surely my death would involve a hank of yarn (and might come sooner than I thought) and asked what kind of yarn I most preferred so that he could be better prepared for my ultimate demise. (I decided merino, by the way)

hrm

So anyways. Here is my preferred intarsia method:

Yes, this mess.  Each section of the pattern has its own long strand. No bobbins or balls, just a really long strand (about 2-3 yards). If they get tangled, I can just pull one of the strands and it comes right out of the tangle created by wrapping the yarns around each other for intarsia knitting. This method means that I will have more tails to weave in but I find it much faster than the bobbin method or the ol’ yarn ball in the jars method. What you see in the first photo is how far I got before I had to add another strand for each section. Not too bad.

I finally finished Michael’s holiday vest, which I started on Thanksgiving eve and had intended to get done before my parents went back home. I decided to use Berroco Pure Merino DK instead of the sport weight Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino that the pattern called for. It is from the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino Collection book. (I think you can find this at Knit Happens). I have to say, this is the third thing that I have knitted in Berroco Pure merino and this yarn is just amazing. After blocking, the fabric was even, consistent and drapey. It softens up even more and is machine washable with little wear on the fibres. We just got new colors as well and I am going to do more baby projects with it. It really holds up wonderfully.

For those of you that want to know how to substitute a different gauge of yarn, here is what I did:

I found the size that he should actually be wearing. I then figured out the gauge of the yarn that I wanted to use. So lets say (for practice sake) that the sweater is supposed to be knitted in 6 sts per inch gauge and I am using 4 sts per inch. Lets say the sweater had me casting on 40 stitches in their gauge. I set up a quick equation:

40sts/6 = X/4

After some quick cross multiplication, I had a number of cast on stitches for my gauge. I then checked the pattern and luckily my number matched one of their sizes. So for this particular project, I knitted the smallest size in DK weight yarn instead of the largest size in sport weight yarn.

The other way to do this is:

Check the squematics for the project. If the sweater is supposed to be 18 inches across, for example, and you are getting 6 sts per inch on your new yarn, then you would need 6sts times 18 inches in order to get this size across. Again, check the pattern and see if there is a size that matches the number you are getting. Then you don’t need to do math the whole way.

Keep in mind that you need to knit for the number of inches that matches your desired size, not the size you are now knitting because of the new gauge. So for example, with this vest, I worked it to the length described in the largest size even though I am technically knitting the number of stitches on the smaller size.

More finished sweaters around fibre space. Veronica finished her Eastlake sweater, which I am sure is also immaculately finished, tails all woven in and what not. That Veronica… The pattern is available in the Berroco booklet, Norah Gaughan Vol 3, available at the shop.

I whipped up this Lace Leaf Pullover from Teva Durham, available in the Loop d Loop book that we have here in the shop. It is my second time around for this pattern. My first one got a big ratty and went off to live on a farm somewhere (isn’t that what our parent’s told us happened to our pets when really, they ended up in the garbage can out back or the toilet bowl?)  The yarn I used was a gift from Karida of Neighborhood Fiber Co so it isn’t something that is available but we have pretty much demanded that this color be in her palette and she working on naming it and dyeing some yarns in it. I am looking forward to having a nice big floppy comfy sweater this winter and this is just what I had in mind.

On a side note, I have to say that working this pattern a second time around has been amazing. I typically hate doing the same pattern twice, but my first crack at this one was so many years ago. Actually, it was when the book first came out in 2005. I can’t believe how much my knitting abilities have changed since then. The first time around, it took two or three attempts to get the top and bottom sections of this sweater grafted together in a way that was clean and neat. This time around, it looked great the first time. I remember struggling with the seaming of the sleeves the first time around. Since then, I have finished so many sweaters that this one wasn’t a problem at all. It was just a really cool reminder that we are always learning and improving as knitters and even the same pattern can be a totally different experience the second or third time we do it….

Last week we also finished a Slytherin scarf (one of the “houses” on Harry Potter) for the manager at Greenberries Coffee Shop, who has been very kind in hosting our knitting classes for Arlington. He asked, jokingly, for this scarf quite a few times, so we took the hint and got him one done. It is a giant tube, worked in the round. I might have cheated…I might have used a knitting machine…it might have taken a couple of hours instead of a couple of weeks. But it is Malabrigo, so really, does it matter how exactly it was done?

Knit Tip

When working a tube scarf like this, I like to trim off my tails but leave about an inch not woven in. Since the ends of the tube are sealed shut (three needle bind off), the tails will never be seen but leaving them a little long prevents the tails from ever poking through the fabric.

I whipped up this pumpkin hat the last couple of days as a gift for my nephew. I am certainly not a big Halloween person (this annoys Phil a great deal because he was raised in a home where Halloween is a bigger holiday than Christmas). But I felt that my nephew needed something hilarious on his head for the holiday. A giant pumpkin seemed to fit the bill. The pattern is by Marina Hayes and is a free Ravelry download. It is done on US#5 needles and worsted weight yarn. I used Vintage since it is machine washable and came in a great pumpkin color. If it were worked up on US#8 needles, I think it would make a great adult size …for those of you that need a big pumpkin on your head.

Knit Tip

The hat ends at the very tip of the stem, where you bind off in the round. In order to make the first stitch bound off line up better with the last stitch that is bound off, I always do the following on socks, sweaters, hats, etc:

1. cut yarn and do not draw it through the last loop, as normally done. Thread it onto a darning needle

2. run the needle and tail under the “v” of the first stitch bound off at the beginning of the round

3. then run the needle and tail through the open loop and draw down tight. weave in your tail and you have a smoother edge!

1. Select appropriate yarn for project, being sure to check gauge AND quantity needed. It is not advised that one select a sock yarn that is only 390 yards for a project that calls for a 450 yard quantity of sock yarn. This may, in fact, result in one being a mere five rows from completion when one realizes that there is not enough yarn.

So to everyone who was in the store when I was deciding between one hank of malabrigo sock and one hank of Sanguine Gryphon for the new Damson pattern by Ysolda Teague (ahem BETH), you are on my list. By now you should know that I am incapable of making project decisions alone, as I do things like select yarn that isn’t long enough for the project. This is why I have customers and employees around to prevent me from doing things like this. (And also stopping me from starting sweaters that I will never finish).

So, folks, what shall I do now? Shall I use a different yarn to complete the project? Frog the entire project, which I started at the Steeler game on Sunday? (Redskins fans, its only PRESEASON. chill out. congrats. You won a preseason game with second string players. yippee) I digress. Or shall I try to find someone else who bought this yarn at Stitches East last year so that I can match the dye lot? hmmmm

Unfinished Damson with tiny ball of yarn

Be sure to keep an eye on the inspiration blog for new arrivals, project ideas and other inspiring tid bits!

Someone asked me last week what tools they would need as a knitter. I thought it would be a good time to take a peak into my toolbag, the little pouch of stuff that I carry around with me all the time:

Crochet hook – to pick up dropped stitches

Yarn cutter – in stead of scissors, I have the nifty Clover brand yarn cutter, which is airplane friendly just plain cute!

Tape measure

Stitch markers – of various kinds, sizes, colors. These things end up on metro floors, sofa cushions and a variety of other places, so I buy a new pack every few months. I believe that a student (who shall remain nameless) has a number of my stitch markers right now on her cashmere square…You never can have too many of those things.

Pen – so I can write down the changes that I make to a pattern, to remember for the next time, or to write notes on the pattern for the class that I am teaching. Or just because it is one place that I know I can always find a pen in my house.

Hand cream – I like my L’Occitane hand cream. Stuff works great! Wool sucks the moisture out of your hands.

Darning needles (yarn needles) – of various sizes. I lose these things too…

Stitch holders – for putting a project on hold so that you can steal the needles out of it to start another project that will inevitably end up on a stitch holder as well….because I can’t finish things.

Cable needles – in three sizes. I like the Brittany brand cable needles. They hold the stitches nicely without that annoying bend in the cable needle. They are quick and easy to use.

I think that is all in my little pouch. What else are you carrying around with you?

As I was knitting with the Fibre Company Terra, I realized that it felt a bit more rough than I remembered the first time I used it.  Wondering if the fiber content had changed, I went looking for my little swatch (they are all over the house, mostly being used as coasters) and found that my swatch was just as soft and wonderful as I remembered the yarn. Like a good wine that needs to breath a bit, many yarns change after they have been knitted up and blocked. Noro Kureyon is another example of this. When you work the fiber, the oils on your hands transfer to the yarn, changing how it feels. In addition, the process of putting the yarn into little stitches affects how it feels to the touch. Lastly, and most importantly, blocking or washing the fiber can dramatically change its drape and feel. With Kureyon and also Terra, the fiber softens up and relaxes after being washed, making it a much more satisfying yarn. Using a wool wash like Soak is another way to enhance the fiber even more. So before judging a fiber in the hank, be sure to check out a swatch of the yarn. If the store doesn’t have one, ask if they have a partial ball that you could play with. Try it out, block it and then decide if you like the fiber.