Knitting Winter into Spring

The groundhog recently predicted an early Spring, and we've definitely seen weather changes here! I like to knit smaller projects when it gets really warm, but in the last days of Winter and the first days of Spring, I still love to knit socks (for my small-size projects) and shawlettes (for my medium-size projects). I just finished two pairs of socks, and I'm in the process of helping a couple of ladies learn to knit socks by the magic loop method, so I'll probably be knitting at least one or two more pairs before Spring is actually here by the calendar.

Yesterday we got a good-size shipment of Regia sock yarn at the shop, so I think I'll try one of them for my next pair. Regia is well known for it's easy care and sturdiness. We also got 6 colorways of Regia Lace (100 gram ball with approximately 659 yards). It's a beautiful yarn with long color changes (kind of like Noro only more subtle). It would be lovely for so many of the shawlette patterns that are so abundant on Ravelry. How about Annis from Knitty? Don't forget about our class for the Annis shawlette that starts tomorrow evening! We still have a couple of openings.

So if Spring is just around the corner, what are you planning to knit?

To Stitches Midwest & Back

This past Friday and Saturday I took a mini vacation and road trip to Schaumburg, Illinois with three friends (Ann, Dana and Stacy) from the shop. Each of us had signed up for an all-day class for Saturday. The class I took was called How Do Your Socks Get Striped. Elise Duvekot, author of the book Knit One Below was the teacher. I'm so glad I took the class, because when reading her instructions in the book the technique had seemed kind of confusing. After taking the class, my friend Ann who took the same class, and I talked about class potential for what we had learned! Maybe in the near future we will have a class at the shop to teach the technique.

Dana and Stacy took a class in a Swedish color knitting technique. They really loved all of the history that their teacher gave them which included lots of slides for them to see.

Our other goal was to visit the Stitches Market! For me the market exposed me to some really fun yarns that were new to me. (Some have potential to be new yarns for the shop.) If you've ever gone to Stitches, you can surely relate to the frenzy that all knitters get when confronted with an entire show floor with different booths filled with gorgeous yarns they can purchase!

On Saturday after our classes, we packed the car and started back after a quick dinner. On the way back Dana and I laughed about feeling like we'd been in the car for days. Well, technically we had ... we drove over on Friday morning and drove home on Saturday night, so more than 10 hours was spent in the car! We were all thankful for Ann's expert driving skills, since there have been so many accidents on I-80 lately. I arrived home at midnight and was glad to sleep in my own bed!

I missed the Wrap Group while I was gone, but hopefully this Friday they will enjoy listening to my Stitches class and shopping stories.

Keep on knitting!

Too, too busy!

Sorry about my lack of blogging lately. I've been busy planning and writing up classes and Knit-Togethers for the shop. We've also had a bad flu at our house. Thankfully so far I've stayed well, even if poor Tim and Katie had it. I hope you all are washing your hands and using hand sanitizer. You don't want this bad virus ...

I recently finished my Feather & Fan scarf using gift yarn that was really lovely! Now I'm knitting Truly Tasha's Shawl from Nancy Bush and I'm also making the French Press Felted Slippers. Both of which we will be doing here at the shop. Check out our class list for June for the slippers (it will go up next week after I finish the slippers) and check out our event list for the May Knit-Together on Thursday nights. The shawl is a mindless knit so far. I'm not on the lace edging yet, but hope to be there very soon. As for the slippers, I cast them on this morning and will plan to felt them this weekend. They are a really quick knit, that's for sure!

Happy knitting!