This Sunday, the Washington Post Magazine will feature an article on Knit-a-Gogo and its wonderful owner (shameless, aren’t I). Knit-a-Gogo will be featured in the weekly article “Making It.” So pull the insert from the Sunday paper and check out the article!

Tomorrow night is the Third Thursday of the month and that means Knitalong!

See you at Buzz Bakery “after work” (aka around 5:30 ish onward)

Photos Courtesy of Berroco

Laura sent me another Holiday knitting idea for you all..and while my initial reaction was to poke at my eyes with sock needles, the more I look at these little guys, the cuter (and more reasonable) they get. The site features 12 free mini sweater, shawl or dress patterns knit from Berroco yarn. Wouldn’t these make great accessories for gift wrapping? Or put a crochet loop on them and hang them around the house or on the tree? I am even thinking they would be hilarious as wine glass charms!

I just added a Holiday Stocking workshop to the class schedule. Join me on Thursdays in December for a two week class that will show you the Turkish cast on, increasing for the toe and turning a heel. (Olga, do not yell at me for this photo. the stocking is in the attic and I can not convince Phil that he should go up there and fetch it so that I can take a proper photo of the thing. I am sorry. I have failed you and your high standards for photography)

Anyway, this class is a great way to learn to knit socks, while working with worsted weight yarn and US# 8 needles to create a festive holiday stocking. If you need additional class time, join us the third Thursday of the month for our regular Knitalong for free!

Register here.

Join me on Thursday evening anytime after work at Buzz Bakery on Slater’s Lane for this month’s Knitalong. Bring whatever WIPs you have around the house and join me for some sugar, alcohol and coffee (good times!).

They have two parking lots and street parking and it is much larger than our old meeting location.

See you there!

Photo Courtesy of Interweave Knits

This weekend I finished up my first project from my new book: Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin. It is done in the red cashmere that I picked up from Hunt Valley Cashmere at their Stitches East booth..because waiting for my first shipment of blanket yarn was just going to take too long! The hat pattern even tells you how to make your own buttons, and Aimee and I had a great time picking out different swatches of fabric at the fabric store to match our red yarn. (yes, we are both making the same hat in the same yarn…)

LOVE my new hat but knitting with this yarn only made me more excited about my future thousand dollar cashmere blanket. And then on Saturday, loooong after Laura got her yarn (this is some sort of conspiracy. We both live in Old Town!), my mailman FINALLY arrived at the house. And he brought me this!

So exciting! So if you have already signed up and received your first shipment, meet me this Saturday morning at Buzz Bakery to cast on for our first square. What time works for everyone? I have a private party there at 1pm so something earlier would be good. We could even hit Rustico for lunch…

Oh, so back to this book. I already cast on for the hat on the cover and am using Rowan Felted Tweed held together with Rowan Kidsilk Haze, and I love the vintage look that it is creating. It will be perfect for the hat project.

I hope to have this one done today so that I can go back to knitting the four sweaters that are in the works right now: Phil’s Celtic Cabled hoodie in Debbie Bliss Tweed, Lace Tunic from Glam Knits in Manos del Uruguay Silk Wool, this cabled sweater project on Ravelry (link) with some Alchemy that I shouldn’t have purchased this month, and lastly, a sweater that I am designing as an easy pullover for a class in the Spring semester…yikes, this is a lot.

Photo Courtesy of Knitting Daily

Cameronne passed along this adorable pattern by Eunny Jang for a knitted holiday bulb. It is part of a five pattern download from Knitting Daily that includes four other great holiday ornament patterns all in one download. So this little guy should only take an hour or so to knit and would be a great gift on its own or event an adorable addition to wrapping on a larger gift for someone special. It uses DK weight wool or merino and US #6 double pointed needles.

Don’t know about Knitting Daily? Well you should! Great source of patterns, many of which were published in Interweave Knits at some point.

I just want to sit on a couch, get fat and knit all day. Is that so much to ask?

Stitches East was a huge success from a money spending standpoint although I think my bank account would argue that it was a huge disappointment. I started my spending spree at the Just Our Yarn booth and was delighted to find out that they are local! I picked up a kit to make this awesome necklace thingy and then had a complete panic about an hour later when I realized just how many packages of beads were included in the kit. WHAT was I thinking?! Then we hit the Sanguine Gryphon…oh my goodness! I can’t even begin to explain how incredible their colorways are! If you like rich deep colors, this is the yarn company for you. And they have at least three different sock yarns. I am in love…And as a marketing person, I was impressed with the booth, the costumes that the staff were wearing, the consistent theme, pattern support, professional displays. You name it, they did it and did it well. I an amazing cashmere and silk blend that I plan to make into a lovely scarf type accessory and then the same colorway (what can I say, I was in love) in a sock weight fiber and I might need to get it on needles asap. mmmm….sock yarn

I stumbled upon Miss Babs yarns in the last aisle and it was so exciting that I bought almost a 1000 yards for a quick knit pullover sweater that I am designing. I picked it up in this amazing green color. Can’t wait to start knitting with it.

Then there was my little mishap at the Hunt Valley Cashmere booth. I have already begun to suck some of you into my addiction yarn club with me. So here’s the deal..I’m standing in this booth looking at the most amazing cashmere that I have ever felt. I can’t believe how soft and non pilly the stuff is. Of the knitted samples that she had there, several were many years old and not a single one of them looked any older than a day. No fuzzy, pilling, stretching or pulling. Laura and Aimee and I were sorta drooling over these afghans that they had in pure un dyed cashmere. They were amazing aran squares, all different and beautiful and were part of their Great American Aran Afghan Club. The yarn club goes like this: Your first shipment includes a book of aran square patterns and enough yarn for one of the squares. Every other month they ship you another box of yarn with enough for a different square. You can speed up the shipments or slow them down or cancel anytime. They charge you as you go. The end result is the most amazing thing I have ever felt and I just wanted to steal it and run away to my house, strip down all naked and roll around on it have it in my home to sleep with forever. The official scoop is on this blog post from the company.

So I asked Laura and Aimee, “what do you think about doing this?” By the time the little conversation was over, we had determined that the cost of the medium weight blanket “was only $24 per month” with a shipment coming every other month…and we somehow managed to convince ourselves that it wasn’t “that bad” and that we would meet up monthly to knit our yarn and get our squares done.

Now what we didn’t exactly do a good job of calculating was the following:

1. one square every other month means about two years of squares until we have a blanket. And then there is that cabled border to knit!

2. At a rate of $48 per shipment for the medium weight yarn, we are looking at an $800 to $1,000 blanket when its all said and done. GoodNESS and it will be worth every bit of it…

So if you want to join us in our cashmere addiction, I have the form here is the form that you can fill out and send in to the company. I also have three hanks of their yarn that I purchased for a hat and wrist warmers in a gorgeous red. You can touch it and try to resist joining the little club… I am planning to meet up to knit our squares on Saturday mornings right before a regular independent study session that I will be putting on the winter schedule. So really, this is a great deal all in all, if you have a twisted mind like I do. So join me!

I promise to post lots of holiday knitting ideas in the coming weeks. I know that I don’t have the time that I thought I would have for gift knitting, so I imagine others are in the same boat. Given the recent success with my father’s birthday socks, (yes, I knitted during the opera, even picked up a dropped stitch in the dark, no one kicked me out or scowled at me, had the socks done in two days and 12 hours of knitting) I have decided that sport weight socks are one solid and simple way to get a holiday gift together on the fly. Here is what I did:

Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino - 1.5 skeins of green, 1/2 skein brown (this means that you can knit two pairs of socks using three skeins if you switch the main and contrasting color for the second pair)

US #3 circular needles (2 sets) or a set of US#3 double points

Using turkish or figure eight cast on and the contrasting color, cast on 22 stitches and work two rounds even. (fewer for a women’s sock)

Begin increasing for the toe: Knit through the front and back of the first stitch of next round, the 11th and 12th stitches and then the last stitch of that round. Essentially, you will be increasing twice on each side of the toe of the sock.

Then work one round even.

Work increase round again. Repeat these last two rows until you have the desired sock width or until you have 54 stitches (for a men’s 9.5 size shoe).

Switch to the main color and knit in the round until the sock is approximately 1.5 inches from the desired foot length or until it reaches the point on the foot where the leg and foot join. (see photo, ignore mess in the background)

Begin short row heel with contrast color. For full instructions, download my simple sock pattern from the sidebar on this blog page.

After completing short row heel, continue to work in the round (stockinette stitch) with the main color until one inch from desired height and then work 2 stitches in main color, two stitches in contrast color for three rows. (creates the subtle fair isle pattern on the socks shown above).

Switch to contrast color, breaking main color yarn, and work in 2×2 ribbing for rest of sock. Cast off loosly using US#7 needles.

There you go! Should take an insane knitter about 12 hours of time and a “normal” knitter about 15 hours of time.

I promise an update on my purchases and other exciting bits from Stitches East when Olga returns my camera to me:)