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| Marcy, Pippa and Kim after recording |
What's in our Lesson Plan?
- On the PA System
- Show & Tell
- We are Uber Crafty
- What's on our Black Board?
On the PA System
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| Octopus for a Preemie Project. |
- We are very excited about the Octopus for a Preemie project. All of the information can be found on it's own page on our blog, here, and on the forum in our Ravelry group, here. We hope that many of you will take a little time and crochet an octopus for a wee baby too. ***It is important that we follow all of the guidelines for crocheting these stuffies, otherwise they won't be able to use them in the NICU. So please read all of the instructions carefully and check your tentacle length and gauge.
- Marcy pointed out that there're only 10 weeks until Christmas!!!! YIKES! We thought it might be helpful to make a list of gifts for knitters. ***You may want to share this with the non knitters in your life that will be buying for you this season!
- The amazing Sirka counter. Kim has 2 and Marcy has one and we really like them and highly recommend them.
- Gift certificates to your Lys if you have one, or an online shop if you don't.
- Interchangeable knitting needle sets; both of us like KnitPicks, which are also very reasonably priced.
- Marcy loves her Knitkit and has found it to be very durable.
- Project bags, scissors, tape measures and stitch markers are always needed and appreciated.
- A subscription to a yarn or fiber club. There are many of these available (check Etsy!) and can be purchased for a few months or up to a year long. Such a wonderful gift for those of us that are fiber obsessed!
The cute emergency case Marcy's
friend Brooke made for her. - Subscriptions to knitting magazines; there are the traditional monthly or quarterly ones like Vogue and Interweave Knits and now we also have the gorgeous Pom Pom Quarterly and Making magazines. (You can google 'knitting magazine' or spinning or weaving magazine to find many more.)
- Last, but definitely not least- you can make your knitter some cute wall decor. Marcy's friend Brooke made her the cutest 'knitting emergency kit' and Marcy made Kim adorable 3D K2TOG letters for her birthday! Head on over to the craft store or raid your stash and get creative!
Show & Tell
Since it's been about a month since we shared all of our knitting, Kim has a little parade of FO's. She finished her Handspun shawl. This is a project that began on her birthday in August when she dyed a bunch of fiber. She quickly spun a lot of it and was eager to get it on the needles. The shawl has brioche, garter and lace sections and was a very fun knit. Kim was thrilled to completely use up both handspun and hand dyed yarn from her stash.
From the same batch of hand dyed fiber, Kim spun up yarn for her "Birthday Sweater Spin #1." The pattern is based off of Andrea Mowry's So Faded pullover and Kim made some mods that are listed on her project page.
The Ninilchik Swoncho was such a fun and addictive knit and it's DONE! All of the yarn for this project was from stash and some was held double and some held triple. This great pattern is by Caitlin Hunter and Kim highly recommends it. All yarn details are on her project page.
After months of having zero sock mojo, Kim has finally finished the socks for her nephew. Sadly, they won't be gifted to him since they fit her DH perfectly and he really liked them and he's never asked for any knitwear before! These vanilla socks were knit 2 aat, top down, magic loop and with an after thought heel. The yarn is some very aged Regia (more deep stash used up!) Now Kim needs to quickly knit up a pair of socks to gift to her nephew!!!
Kim's current WIP's include the P-Rex by Susanne Sommer. This brioche and garter stitch cape/poncho/sweater hybrid is a fun fingering weight knit. It will take awhile to knit as it is a lot of fabric. Marcy and Kim are doing an informal KAL with this project and it's fun to see how different they look in different yarns and colors. Kim is using her hand dyed yarn. The MC is KnitPick's Galileo and the CC is KnitPick's stroll sock yarn.
The crochet shawl Hotel of Bee's hasn't gotten any love (due to the greedy Ninilchik : ) but Kim is looking forward to getting back to it and finishing this beautiful shawl. In addition, after finishing the Ninilchik, Kim was anxious to knit more fair isle and chose the Damejakka Loppa by Pinnegurri. This fair isle cardigan is knit in the round and steeked. She is planning on putting in a zipper and using the cardigan as a jacket. So far, the yarn has been chosen and she has swatched and she's looking forward to casting on and getting started on this beauty.
Kim and her DH are going on vacation next week and her 1st priority for packing is always knitting and books. She has wound some pretty cotton yarns in preparation to crochet some Octopuses (octopi? octopuses?!?) ***Check out this video from Merriam-Webster about which word is the correct plural form for octopus. ***
Also, since socks are the perfect take along project for flying and poolside knitting, Kim has pulled out 3 languishing sock WIP's.
- The Achilles Heal by Lucia Light is a free patter on Knitty.com and they were CO on 4/11/16. These socks looked so fun and different and the result is gorgeous...but the unusual construction proved to be a little too unusual and all of the Dpn's and magic loop needles that were needed to knit these concurrently became unwieldy. One of the needles broke and..well, they just need to be finished because the yarn is amazing and should be worn. It's Fishknits yarn Panache in the Sunday Brunch color. Kim is going to see if she can figure out how to finish these without ripping too much out.
- The Crazy Zauber Socks were CO 2/29/16 and were intended to fill the color gap in Kim's sock drawer. She doesn't have any black socks and this yarn (color =Cafe Flair,) is teal and black. Sadly, there's far too much black and it's no fun to knit. Hopefully these will work well for poolside knitting and come home as an FO.
- Hermione's Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder. This popular and free pattern on Ravelry is a fun and easy non vanilla sock pattern. They've got enough texture to keep your interest but are easy enough to memorize. The yarn is Malabrigo sock yarn in #416 Indiecita. These were CO 3/4/17 right before all of Kim's sock mojo went away!
Marcy has been working on a 2nd Octopus in a cute cotton that she picked up from Hobby Lobby. She is also prepping to knit a few more. Marcy is working on becoming a certified Ambassador for the Octopus for a Preemie project and she has talked with a few women from our LYS about a tutorial session for help with the pattern. Yay! hopefully we'll end up with a bunch of octopuses to donate to our local NICU.
Marcy is continuing to work on her P-Rex and it's looking beautiful. We are both excited to finish and wear these cute capes. She is using KnitPick's Stroll Glimmer in the kestrel color and KnitPick's Chroma Twist fingering in the Get Your Neon color way.
Marcy has CO the Hotel of Bees Shawl by Christina Hadderingh. This crochet shawl takes you through the 'Hotel of Bees' from Anthony Doerr's book, All the Light we Cannot See. This will be a Christmas gift for Pippa's daycare provider who is known as Mrs. Bee. Marcy is using the yarn that is called for in the pattern, Scheepjes Stone Washed which is a sport weight 78% cotton 22% acrylic yarn. It's looking so pretty and she's really enjoying having a crochet project on the hook.
We are Uber Crafty
Marcy has been sewing! She's working on her yearly formal dress that she wears to her husband's office Christmas party. This year she is also planning on wearing her beautiful dress to her brother in law's wedding. The pattern that she's sewing is based on Burda #6868. Her goal is to finish the sewing this afternoon; go Marcy! We have faith in you and know that you can finish.
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| Marcy's formal dress she is working on. The corset is done and the fashion fabric for the top is done. She just has to make the skirt. |
In her quest to use up stash yarn, especially deep stash, Kim spent a day overdyeing several sweater quantities of deep stash yarn. She knows that she wants to knit the beautiful new fade pattern, Comfort Fade Cardi by Andrea Mowry, and she will probably knit a gradient pullover or cardigan too. It's fun to give stash yarn new life by over dyeing it and also simply revisiting what you already own.
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| Kim's over dyed yarn |
What's on our Black Board?
In our next episode we will share all of our FO's, WIP's new CO's and our spinning, dyeing and sewing with you. In addition, we anticipate visiting one of our Lys's and we'll let you know all about it!
We hope your knitting, crocheting, spinning, sewing, dyeing and general making are going splendidly! Have fun and Happy Knitting.
