Tailored Sweater Workshop: Feb 27 or Mar 27

You are invited   
I’m teaching The Tailored Sweater Workshop in the greater Seattle area this Winter/March. The class is a wonderful opportunity to learn Tuulia Salmela’s top down method and embark on sweater-making for yourself! You’ll learn to make set-in sleeves top down and design and fit as you go. Please contact the shop to sign up for the class.

Sleeves are knit at the same time as the body, top down.

The Tailored Sweater Workshop
Spend a day learning The Tailored Sweater method which results in custom set-in sleeve sweaters knit seamlessly from the top-down. The method inspires confidence; every sweater you knit fits. Class time is spent making a sampler to learn the method. Price includes a CD with a detailed e-book and software by Tuulia Salmela to help you make sweaters of your own design for years to come.
Class size will be limited to 8 people.

Class work is a fast easy sample sweater and will enable you to understand all the steps in the method.

This top down set-in sleeve method makes matching patterns (lace, stripes, etc) a snap.

Class Supplies (You’ll start the small sample sweater in class)

• 1 Skein of worsted weight yarn (Cascade 220 recommended)
• Knitting needles (size that you normally use with worsted, US 7 or 8)
• Flexible measuring tape
• Notebook

What you need to know for this class:
Cast on, cast off, increases, decreases, fundamental understanding of sweater parts (body front, back, sleeves). You don't have to have knit a sweater before but are familiar with the knit and purl stitch and basic shaping.

Offered at:

Village Yarn and Tea
Saturday, 27 February 2010; 11am-5pm
17171 Bothell Way NE 
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
Phone: 206.361.7256


Wild Fibers
Saturday, 27 March 2010; 10:30am-4:30pm
706 South First Street
Mount Vernon Washington 98273
(360) 336-5202

Seattle to Portland Yarn Train 2010, Part 2: The Stash

This year I decided to have a laser focus in my acquisition of new yarn: luxury or bust. Portland, as usual, did not disappoint. The rainy day definitely influenced my color choices and I ended up with a very Northwest palette with only one exception.

I came home with a shopping bag full of alpaca, silk, merino, and cashmere. Notice the new Jordana Paige bag? Purchased last week at her different-bag-an-hour seconds sale to benefit Haiti.

First up: ShibuiKnits Yarn, Sock, at Knit Purl. This is their own line, and the colors are amazing.

This is destined to become the Churchmouse Classics “Koigu linen stitch scarf”. Despite the hub-bub about Koigu, I prefer ShibuiKnits Sock.

Next, indulgence in the newer line at ShibuiKnits: 4 skeins of ShibuiKnits Baby Alpaca and 3 skeins of ShibuiKnits Silk Cloud (mohair/silk) to make the ShibuiKnits Cabled Rib Wrap.

 

At Dublin Bay Knitting Company, I found a few skeins left of their new luxury line: “Solstice”.  I picked up 2 skeins of Starlight Cashmere Silk in the “summer twilight” colorway. (The color is actually a bit darker than it shows up in my browser window.) I’m not sure what this will become – most likely something that will touch my skin. It is soooo lovely.

And finally, some wonderful stuff from Knit Knot Studio – Pur from Schoppel Wolle (left) and Karabell “Popcorn Merino”. I plan to design something that uses these two together.

I also purchased a pin that is by the same designer as the jewelry I purchased at Knit Knot Studio last year (here’s last year’s photo) – my pin this year is like this one, but smaller and has a dark patina.

I am so blessed to live in an area with so much creativity and art available to fiber folks. I hope next year you’ll consider joining us on the Seattle to Portland Yarn train.

Seattle to Portland Yarn Train 2010

In 2006, the Seattle to Portland Yarn train event started as my small group's one day getaway to hang in Portland and see all the local yarn stores. I had coordinated a couple of train trip excursions with other groups and we all concluded it could be a fun thing.

Indeed, it was, and every year since then, due to ease of getting the word out, the numbers of folks on the event doubled...bringing the event numbers this year to 125+ knitters on the train on Saturday 16 Jan 2010. That means we were about 70% of the train's riders, and we took up 4, FOUR,  train cars.

It was a fun event - we saw several old friends and met lots of new ones. Knitters are such a good lot! (Even if there is a crazy one or two amongst us! Not pointin' fingers, no no, I'm just sayin'.)

Due to the volume of riders this year there were funds to create really cool goodie bags for the participants. The bag included a notions bag, a measuring tape, coupons from local Seattle area knit stores, cool stitch markers from theknittingmama and a lollipop cabin yarn lollipop with a custom dyed yarn train colorway.

Prior to the event Katie had written and published a Yarn Train song that went viral on YouTube. Here she is playing on the train (which she did four times, once in each car.).

After we arrived at11am, we walked the Portland Pearl district for about 5 hours, stopping in at many of the amazing shops in the Pearl - especially Knit Knot Studio, Knit-Purl, and Dublin Bay. Many folks cabbed or bussed to outer shops: Twisted, Make One, Happy Knits, Yarn Garden, and  Yarnia. Portland is rich with knitting and we really enjoyed the bounty.

It misted outside all day - but instead of it being a pain in the neck, the mist offered some cooling as we exited the warm stores and made our way to the next one. As you can see from these few shots, knitters are a fun bunch! (The first is the kitchen sign at Knit-Purl)

Many thanks to all the folks that participated in the Seattle to Portland Yarn train. Thank you to the PDX folks that met us at the station, to our local yarn stores that provided coupons and doorprizes, to the Snohomish Knitters Guild for the sponsorship and to the Portland yarn shops that keep getting better, year after year!

SSK

SSK:
A very commonly used left slanting decrease .
...Slip one stitch, then slip the next. Insert left needle into the front loops of the slipped stitches and knit them together from this position (through the back loops).
but in my world:
Sip, Sip, Knit.
My small knit group, SSK took time out from their busy days prepping for festivus, and got together to sip and knit last night. I don’t know where I’d be without my SSK group. Thank heavens for them!
  I hope you have a family of origin and/or of choice to spend your time with this holiday. May you be filled with love and light.

It’s the busiest time of the year

Bobbins full of wool for the past 6 months are finally being completed and plied into finished yarn. Results:

First up: a mohair/wool 2 ply (left) . The small ball to the right is navajo-plied. I normally n-ply the remainder when I run out of single on one bobbin.

Next, a teal 2 ply that is yards and yards and yards long. It’s probably on 700 yards, but it feels like 1000. It is sitting in a basket of unspun purple/pink batts. There is a little skein (see the grey tie?) That’s Nply of leftover.


Yarn on the left is a scratchy Romney mix that I will NEVER spin again. (Life is too short). And the yarn on the right was dyed by Tuulia Salmela and was a 50th birthday gift to me in July. I started spinning it soon thereafter and just got it off the wheel. It’s navajo-plied and is Merino (and maybe some silk?)

Some recent wool out of the dyepot, subtle, to match the season. Soft alpaca wool:

And, for a few finished projects: a slouchy hat made using my Lifestyle Hats method made from an AllSpunUp Spinalong fiber of a year ago. Love, Love Love. This hat was so easy, and is so pretty.




And lastly, a “hipster-man-scarf” for my son. I dyed the blue/brown. Ordered the gold and put this on hold until it came in a few months later. Very fast knit. My son immediately said, ‘Oh, it’s a keffiyeh. It’s what hipsters wear.” So it instantly became his Solstice present. The pattern is Daybreak by Stephen West.