I have found my yarn…really it should be stash yarn because, as I have already pointed out, the stash is growing at an alarming rate. I feel though, that if I purchase yarn for this project and immediately start it, it doesn’t add to my stash. So the stash has lost this battle, right?

It’s Organik by the Fiber Company, an amazing blend of organic merino, baby alpaca and silk.

Anyways, since Stephanie stole my yarn from Knit Happens and is using it for another adorable pattern, I had to track it down online and scrape together what was left at Knit Happens in the hope that this will be enough for the hoodie. (Knit Happens still has it in a million other colors, of course, but I had to have this one. Go get it while it is there!) While the dye lots won’t match for sure, I am going to alternate the two in the hopes of hiding it. I hope to receive my yarn by this weekend and swatch. I leave for Montana on Tuesday so you will have a guest blogger next week (more on this soon) to get us started on the Knitalong. If you have your yarn, swatch away and feel free to send me links to your photos. I will put them up on the blog.

If you haven’t yet joined the CPH craze, come along with me and become obsessed!! This pattern has been knitted by over 1400 knitters on ravelry and has inspired a variety of variations. I am officially declaring a DC metro area knitalong.

How do you participate?

Comment on this post and let me know that you are going to participate. Include a link to your blog, if you have one.

Select your yarn for the project and swatch before July 18th. The Knitalong begins officially on the 19th, pending my ability to find wireless internet access in Montana…might have a guest blogger.

What are we doing?

Knitting the Central Park Hoodie together, to encourage each other, track our progress, share our modifications to the pattern, rant about struggles and generally have a good time.

I will provide the pattern errors on the blog, post about common issues with the pattern and post modification ideas. As I knit, I will post photos of my project and some tutorials on how to cable, seam, etc. to help you along the way.

What you will need?

Download the pattern here.

Buy your yarn and needles:

US 8

US 6

1098 – 3660 yards worsted weight yarn

 

It is free to participate!

 

If anyone wants to come visit

Noon to five

You haunt me. You must stop. Stop falling out of crevices in my closet and landing at my feet. Stop appearing in Knit Happens bags that I have forgotten about. Stop flowing out of the basket in my living room. Just stop. I am fighting back. I am making a pledge to knit five sweaters by February. That will show you now won’t it? That’s thousands of yards, more than five thousand  yards from your mass that will be taken. (well that’s a lie because I am currently on the hunt for 12o0 yards of Fiber Company Organik for one of the five sweaters). Ok, fine, that’s over FOUR thousand yards of fiber taken from you.  Then what will you do? You might actually have to keep yourself contained to three large plastic bins instead of five “or so.” The sock yarn will have a majority and might take over. How awful for you to become mostly sock yarn! ha! take that! Reduced to fiber that I will eventually put on my feet. What a fitting end for your years of torture!

Check out Amanda’s gorgeous Rusted Root…all complete!

I visited a college friend this weekend, who lives in Kent, Ohio. (my second trip to Ohio this month. Who knew that Ohio could be so interesting). She was kind enough to indulge my need for both Starbucks and fiber within a few hours of arriving in town. We set off for coffee and then hit the local yarn store: Miss Chickpea’s Funky Fibers, perhaps the most amazing yarn store in the world. It’s not the fiber in this store that makes it amazing, although I must say that she had quite a collection of fibers that I have never seen before, in addition to a pretty amazing stock of Colinette and Noro. As a marketing guru, it was the presentation of the store that struck me most. This gal knows what she is doing, right down to the little signs on the new fibers that read, “I’m new!” and featured a little baby and stork graphic. Her displays were dark wood shelves, which I have argued would work very well in a yarn shop. And she mixed in metal pots and pans, old fashioned strainers and a variety of other interesting items to display the fibers. Perhaps the most amazing thing in the store was the glass display of buttons that sat at the front counter, organized by colors and selling for “ten for $1.” I definitely stocked up on buttons!

I restrained myself and only bought two hanks of sock yarn to be used for a fall mittens class (more info on that soon!) but my partner in crime definitely picked up some amazing malabrigo for the Central Park Hoodie knit along that I am organizing next month.

While I know that most of you won’t be making a trip to the Akron Ohio area anytime soon, I would definitely encourage you to make it a day trip from any other location in Ohio that you might be visiting. Seriously, this store alone will get me out to Ohio more than once a year. It is that amazing!!

Every few months I dig into the basket of projects in my living room and start finishing things in a flurry. I think of it as a cleansing process, similar to what I do when I move or when I clean out my closet twice a year and donate clothes that I didn’t wear that season. For two days I have been cleansing. With so many amazing sweater projects waiting to be knitted, I am feeling a bit stressed about the number of projects sitting around the house waiting for an hour or so of attention so that they can be done. Last night I finished the Inga Hat. As you may notice, it is a tad on the enormous side. Just a tad. I think I am going to embrace the largeness and put a giant beanie on the end and wear it like a real hippy would, hanging off the back of my head. We have to work on Phil’s photo taking skills. He and the iphone don’t make pretty photos.

I also completed and blocked my Rusted Root. Very exciting! The sleeves aren’t as long as I wanted but I love it anyway. I used Debbie Bliss Cathay and the yarn is amazing with this pattern. It has just enough shine to make it pop and it feels lovely. Wearing it to work today!

I concluded last night that I have entirely too much yarn in my stash. The scary thing is that most of the yarn falls into one of two categories: sock yarn or bags of yarn intended for a sweater. At least there are themes to my buying habits.

So I have decided to challenge myself this fall and winter. I want to complete the following sweaters by February:

Durrow, by Jodi Green, using Debbie Bliss tweed. I love the cable on the sleeve of this pattern and it is the only pattern that I have ever showed phillip that he actually said he would wear. Now because of the sweater curse, I will hold off on this one until i actually have that rock on my hand…hoping that is before February.

The central park hoodie, by Heather Lodinsky. There are entire groups on ravelry dedicated to this sweater. I have seen them everywhere and on everyone. It is adorable and I want one!! I am thinking that the Fiber Company Organik will be used for this project. I have contacted the company to see how quickly they can ship the color that I want to Knit Happens since an employee there bought the last of it on FRIDAY (damn you Stephanie). I considered using this as a class but it would require several weeks and I am not sure that the cost would be worth it. If you are interested though, do let me know. I love this pattern!

The High Neck Cable by Kim Hamlin. I have long had a love affair with Blue Sky Alpaca yarn and patterns. They do an amazing job of attracting good designers that are able to develop patterns that really show off their yarns well. Having said that, I have decided to use a Fiber Company fiber for this pattern…simply because I have the yarn (from my MSWF buying spree) and this pattern looks perfect for it. I will use my Road to China, a luscious blend of alpaca, cashmere, camel and yak.

Ruffled Jacket by James Coviello. Such an awesome cable. I am not a fan of the huge ruffle on this sucker so I will probably make the ruffle a bit shorter or use a ribbed edge but the shape and back of this jacket is incredible. I am considering using the Fiber Company Terra that I picked up at MSWF (are you seeing a theme for the fall here…).

Balloon Sleeve Jacket by Olga. Love this jacket. HATE seed stitch but might be willing to “deal” just this once. Olga, if you don’t know already, has some amazing designs. She also happens to live locally and teaches at Knit Happens. This is one of her fab designs, featured on the cover of Sensual Knits. I plan to use the Cooper Circle color of Neighborhood Fiber Company’s machine washable merino…mmm…merino. Still waiting on my yarn from Karida, so this one might be the last project to get started but I am super excited about it.

So who else is up for a fall and winter sweater knitting challenge? If you have never knitted one before, perhaps just challenge yourself to complete your first sweater by February, tails tucked, blocked and all.