Good News! I've passed Level 1 of the TGKA's Master Hand Knitter Program, and I'm on to level 2. You can peruse my submissions and the committee's comments in the shop.

The economy has hit Michigan particularly hard--so I've been looking for patterns and ideas that can help you use up your stashes. And what I've discovered is that these patterns are really very interesting to knit, stimulate your creativity, and produce an item that is "art".

One of the patterns was introduced to me by a customer, called the "Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf". It is a free pattern on line at http://douma.net/Karen/knitting/Accessory-Scarves/Multidirectional_Diagonal_Scarf.htm. I knit this scarf with the left overs of three different colorways of Noro's Silk Garden Lite. I knit a little swatch with a solid colored yarn, and it is also quite attractive, although the stitch pattern isn't as striking. The scarf can be knit with any weight or texture of yarn, so a little bit of novelty yarn might add some whimsy!

"Carol's Clever Little Shawl" is a pattern that was e-mailed to me by a rep. It was made available to her at a knitting group, and we have permission to distribute it. I knit the model on Noro's Yuzen, because I needed a model, and because I wanted to play with it! The yarn has its good points and bad. As always, the Noro colorways are fabulous, but the striping may detract from the lace pattern a little bit. Also, as I wore the shawl, the yarn tended to stretch some, leading me to believe that it needs to be knit into a firmer fabric than this pattern creates. The shawl is quite simple to knit, a series of short-row wedges. The ends of the shawl become the ties, which are drawn through a tube that is knitted in. It can be knit with sport weight or worsted weight yarn. I believe it would be great to knit this with your own patterning of stripes, using remnants or small amounts of yarns in your stashes. Again, a little bit of novelty would add some whimsy. The shawl is very comfortable to wear, because of its closures. We may offer this as a class in spring/summer.

Cottage Creations has a (fairly) new pattern: "Kyler's Kardigan". It is a top-down, in-the-round cardigan version of the wallaby. It provides a different treatment to the edge of the optional hood. You can choose a button or a zipper closure. Fun and fast to knit on worsted weight yarn.

As I complete inventory, I decided to place several yarns on sale--so watch for the notices in the near future.

I'm hoping that you all have a wonderful winter, be safe and healthy and have fun! Keep on knittin"!!!! Watch for our new class schedule, which will be published in February.

Wow, it's been awhile--this is a busy time of year for me, workshops, holiday shows, special orders for the holidays, fall yarns coming, etc., etc., etc.

Baby Bradley is growing, now 15#, and rolling over on his own. Here's a picture of him with his mom at his first football game. We spent the week with him (and of course, his parents) during the week following Labor Day and it was great. Our next visit will be in November, unless I can take a quick trip down to them!

New fall yarns:

ZAUEBERBALL CRAZY--a sock yarn from Schoppel-wolle, 75% wool, 25% nylon, 462 yds. Kind of a mouline with a gradual drifting rainbow stripe-thing going on. Really hot right now, I've sold most of the first order, the second is on its way. Price is $19.99 (4 cents/yd).

SUPER AUSSIE--100% superwash merino in a worsted weight, from Queensland. Eighteen gorgeous colors. 109 yds, $6.00 (5 cents/yd).

FILZ-WOLLE (LINIE 231)-100% feltable bulky wool, 55 yds, from ONLine, $6/ball (10 cents/yd). Should have been shipped with a pattern for felted slippers, but the pattern is on its way and should still be here in time for holiday knitted gifts.

EUCOOL--75%wool, 25%eucalyptus from Elsebeth Lavold. A dk weight yarn, 186 yds, for $8 (4 cents/yd). Twelve beautiful colors, and wonderful patterns! The eucalyptus makes this wool naturally moth-repellant.

and last, but not least. . . .

FIAMATO (LINIE245)--a 53%wool, 47% acrylic blend in a bulky weight, multi-colored, perfects for winter hats, scarves, and mittens. 99yds, $7 per ball (7 cents/yd), from ONLine.

Fall Classes have been put on hold. The spring and summer classes were poorly attended. I've been trying to figure out if it's the economy, if people were too busy, or if it's because I've recycled the same old classes for 4 years. So instead, I'm going to put my efforts into developing some new classes. I've started working on one for gloves done via the magic loop method. As always, if you have a need or an interest, let me know and we'll work it out for you. Just this past week, I did a class for mittens on the magic loop.

I got my packet back from the Master Knitter Program. Looks like I have a few redo's but I really haven't read through the comments yet. I will get back to it when things slow down a bit.

Our book club is now listening to "To the Nines" by Janet Evanovich. Very sassy, extremely funny and a little bit naughty. We were laughing soooo hard that we had to pass the Kleenex box around!!!! Join us if you can.

For those of you who might be interested in a knitting cruise: Go to www.craftcruises.com and view the info for the British Isles cruise in August 2010. Featured knitting instructors are Sally Melville and Beth Brown-Reinsel. I'm pretty sure I'm going, but thought it would be fun to have a group.

Well, my UPS delivery man just brought in 4 more small boxes. So I'll get to work unpacking them! See ya soon!

Master Knitter Level 1 is in the mail

Yup, I finished all of the requirements for Master Knitter Level 1 and mailed off my package this morning. Now I wait---for the evaluation and the do-overs! I really learned alot during this exercise, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to try it. It is somewhat intimidating to send your work for evaluation and criticism, but I think that it is an important part of the learning process. Here's a picture of my notebook.

the swatches

the questions

the report

and the project, a hat!

I'll keep you posted on the results!

Gonna take a few days off during the Labor Day Week--my son, his wife, and our new grandson are coming to visit. Connie will have the shop!

As always, if we can do anything to help you with your knitting needs, all you have to do is ask!

Shawls

Last week, I finished two circular shawls that I have wanted to do for a while!

The Shipwreck Shawl is my absolute favorite. I knit it on Tahki's Dream, which is now a discontinued yarn. Why do they always discontinue the stuff that I really like? It took six balls. It looked really weird while I was knitting on it, but, as you can see, it blocked beautifully. It has a bounce and a flounce that compliments the stitch pattern and drape. The outermost section is a simple "yo, k2tog", but beware----if you drop a stitch, you'll have a dickens of a time trying to pick it up. I strongly recommend the use of a lifeline every 3-4 rounds! This shawl is bringing more oo's and ah's than anything else I have in the shop! You can find the pattern for this shawl in the spring '09 edition at http://www.knitty.com/.

The second shawl is the Vortex Shawl. I have a bunch of Noro's Kureyon Sock yarn in stock, and as many of you have expressed, it's really not an ideal yarn for socks. So I've been looking for other projects that could benefit from this yarn. I tried this shawl because I thought the long color repeats could be quite interesting with this swirly stitch pattern. And I chose the gaudiest colorway that I could find, a throwback to my hippie days! This yarn also blocked wonderfully. I used a product sample of "Soak", which may be why the yarn became so soft after blocking. You can find this pattern online at http://www.knitterontherun.vox.com/.

Master Knitter Program Level 1 Progress Report:

I have been knitting, reknitting, and reknitting swatches! I had a particularly difficult time with the horseshoe cable: my knit stitches before the purl stitches were terribly enlarged! I thought I was going crazy when I looked at other cable work I had done, and there were no problems with the stitch tension. I must have done this swatch 6 times, trying different techniques to relieve the problem. Finally, I decided it wasn't my knitting tension,. . . it was my mental tension! So after a particularly potent vodka tonic, I did swatch #7, and voila--it was perfect!

Yesterday I blocked the first 8 swatches to be submitted and wrote out the answers to the questions relating to those swatches. They are still drying, but I'll have pictures of them in the next post! I'm learning a lot, simply by looking up information for the required references.

Baby Bradley is doing well, growing, and getting to know his mom and dad. He and his parents will be spending the week of Labor Day with us, so I'll have a chance to get to know him better. Here he is, at 4 weeks of age.

Talk to you soon!

Last week, I gave a workshop to members of the Congregational Summer Assembly in cut felted flowers. There were some non-knitters in the group, so I knitted and felted all of the fabric used, and the ladies went to town. Each of their flowers took on a different feel, and creativity was all over the place. I had fun, and I think they did, too! Thank you to Judy Norris for this wonderful opportunity!

In my last post, I told you that I had registered for the Level 1 Masters Knitters Program, from the Knitting Guild of America (TKGA). Well, I have received the packet of instructions: sixteen swatches, answers to a bunch of questions that will be referenced, a paper about blocking and a project ( a knitted striped hat). So, I've been busy organizing and collecting my reference sources. I also began to knit my first swatch. Because this is a learning experience, I decided to challenge myself even more and knit the swatch two different ways. I have been an English/American/thrower knitter forever, but since purchasing the shop, have taught my self to knit Continental/German/picking. Here's a picture of the swatches, one done English (the left swatch) and the other done Continental (the right swatch). They were both done on the same size 7 bamboo double-pointed needles, and both were done on yarn from the same skein, the same number of stitches. I was amazed! The continental sample knitted a full inch narrower, and had much more even selvedges. I have always believed in swatching before starting a project, and now I have the proof. I am going to try the same thing with size 7 Addi turbos, because theoretically, wood knits differently than metal, and straight differently than circular.

All of the learning activities for the Master Knitters program are submitted in a binder. As my journey progresses, the binder will be available in the shop to view until it is mailed to the committee.

It's a Boy!!!!

Bradley Robert Heckman was born 07-08-09 at 3:15 am. He weighed in a 8 lbs, 12 oz, and is 23 inches tall. He is our first grandchild, and we think he is absolutely perfect.

On another crazy note----I've decided to enroll in the Knitting Guild of America's Master Knitter Program. Call me crazy, it's okay. But I thought it would be a good learning experience. As I go, I'll let you know how I'm doing and share pictures of my swatches and projects, both good and bad!

I frequently peruse the blogs and websites of other shops across the country. Recently I came across one that determines and posts the cost-per-yard of a yarn. It seems a great idea to me, and I will gradually do the same for all of the yarns in our shop. If you are in the shop and want to know, especially for comparison shopping, I'll figure it out for you, right then and there!

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful summer!

The Sweet Ladder Scarf

Here's a free pattern that I developed specifically for Araucania's 'Ruca', their new yarn made from 100% sugar cane.

Materials: one hank (263 yds) Araucania 'Ruca' (colorway shown in picture is Color #1)

Size 6 needles

Finished Dimensions: approx. 4" by 72"

Gauge is not critical, about 7.75 st/inch in pattern.

Directions: Cast on 31 stitches loosely.

Row 1: slip 1, knit 1, knit 2 tog, knit 3, *yo twice, knit 3, knit 3 tog, knit 3, repeat from * once, knit 3, yo twice, knit 3, ssk, knit 2.

Row 2: slip 1, purl 6, knit 1, (purl 8, knit 1) twice, purl 6.

Repeat these two rows until desired length, bind off knitwise, loosely.

Please use this pattern for your own personal use, but do not copy it without permission.