Why We Knit

I’ve written before about how knitting and other needlearts are about so much more than the crafts themselves. Let me tell you another story today.

One of our customers came in a few weeks ago looking for yarn and a pattern to make a hat for a dear friend who was about to undergo chemotherapy and likely to lose her hair. She loved the Delilah hat and wanted to make it for her friend, but she wanted to make it more appropriate for wearing indoors and to personalize it.

This customer made the hat using the Delilah pattern using Luscious yarn, just like our shop model. However, she chose to make the brim much smaller, making it a hat that’s easier to wear indoors.

What I really love about this hat, though, is the buttons. They are white heart-shaped buttons on which our customer wrote the names of people praying for her friend. In fact, she had to write on the backs of some of the buttons because there are more people praying than she had room for buttons! The buttons were then sewn on the base of the brim of the hat.

Knitting and crochet are fun crafts, but they can be so much more. When we put them in service of love and friendship, they are powerful tools for human connection.

 

A Few of My Favorite Things–Knit Noro Accessories and Debbie Macomber Gerbera Print Yarn

Debbie Macomber Blossom Street Gerbera Print Yarn from Universal Yarn has to be one of my favorite variegated yarns.  It is 100% wool, single plied, worsted yarn, but the colors are what make it stand out.  Each colorway has several rich colors that complement each other and give a beautiful effect when knitted.

The Knit Noro Accessories book is full of beautiful patterns originally knit in Noro yarn.  However, they work up beautifully in many other brands of variegated yarn, particularly Gerbera Print yarn.  There are a variety of types of accessories in the book and the patterns are well-written and easy to follow.

I chose to use Gerbera Print yarn in color 204 – Lazy River – and the pattern Riverbed Rib Hat.  I’m immensely pleased at how it looks.  The colors are bright and beautiful and the hat fits very well.

The next time you are looking for a book of patterns for accessories, particularly for variegated yarn, you really can’t go wrong with the Knit Noro Accessories yarn.  And I really love the Debbie Macomber Blossom Street Gerbera Print yarn and I think you will too.

Come check out both items at The Knitting Nest!!  We’d love to see you!!

A Few of My Favorite Things–My Kind of Saturday in Kollage Riveting

 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have knitted items with that same comfortable well-worn feeling as an old pair of jeans?  You can!  Kollage Riveting yarn is made from recycled blue jeans (80% post-consumer content) and it feels amazing!!  Right now, we carry the DK weight in night denim, lava denim, forest denim, sand denim, and pebble denim.  You have to see and feel this yarn to believe it!

Kollage also sells the pattern “My Kind of Saturday” which is a one skein lacy cowl.  So, of course, I had to make one.  And it is just luscious.  We have had customers pick up the cowl and ask if it is silk!  No, it’s not silk.  In fact, after I was done with it, I machine washed and dried it!  The pattern is well written with the lace pattern both written and charted.  (And, it doesn’t use the whole skein, although it does use more than half, so you can’t quite get two cowls from one skein.)

 

Kollage is very clear that you need to swatch and block your swatch before you start your project.  Riveting is easy to care for once it’s knit up, but the row gauge tends to shrink on blocking so you have to take that into account before you start your project.

Stop in and check out this yarn soon!  We also have several more patterns from Kollage written specifically for this yarn.  We look forward to seeing you!!

A Few of My Favorite Things–c2knits

Despite the recent temperature drop and threat of snow for us here in and around the Northwoods, spring really IS on it’s way.  And that means knitting short-sleeved sweaters, bags, hats, and other spring and summer items.  I’m especially excited about this because I really have very few spring and summer knitted items in my wardrobe.  How has that happened if I’m such a dedicated knitter?  Simple.  I give away much of what I knit.  This year, though, I decided that I wanted to make some sweaters to put in my own wardrobe.

My first sweater is a top-down short-sleeved raglan T-shirt made with Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton yarn using c2knits pattern Zoe.

I love the sweater and the pattern!  The pattern is easy to read.  It tells the knitter exactly where to put the stitch markers and how and why to use two different colors of stitch markers.  There is some flexibility in making the sweater a bit more fitted by casting on fewer stitches under the arms (which I’ll probably do next time), but that really doesn’t add complexity if you just want to work the pattern as written.

One issue I had was that the sweater turned out longer than I’d like, but that is because I was lazy and did the measurement while holding the sweater in my lap.  Next time, I will get up and measure the sweater while laying it out on the table.

The other issue I had is that the pattern called for the edging on the bottom to be done in reverse stockinette.  I have never had success with this kind of cuff on the bottom of a sweater – it always flips up unless you steam iron it every time you wear it.  I was very loathe to try it again, so I tried doing a hem, but that was flipping up as well.  I ended up switching to smaller needles and just finishing it in stockinette which made a nice rolled edge, which I also like.

Since I loved this pattern so much, we’re carrying several of the c2knits patterns in the shop.  I’ve got another sweater on the needles using Sierra (a cotton/wool blend) that I think is going to be lovely as well.

Stop by the shop and check out our new patterns and we’ll help you find a wonderful yarn to complement the pattern and give you a great new summer sweater!!