KDO is soon!

It’s almost time for this year’s Knitters’ Day Out event in Summerdale, PA (on the campus of Central Pennsylvania College).  I’m registered for 2 classes next Saturday:

Patent Stitches with Merike Saarniit

Supplies: Sharp scissors; blunt tapestry needles (large & small); calculator; pen/pencil/eraser; notebook & paper; stitch markers; flexible tape measure; crochet hooks of various sizes.

1 oz light/medium colored yarn and 1 oz variegated/multi colored yarn in smooth worsted wt or slightly heavier. Straight needles and 16" or 24" circular needle (or double points) in size appropriate to your yarn.

Homework: None

Material Fee: None

Prerequisites: Beginner level skills plus increase, decrease, and follow simple patterns

RIB-IT, RIB-IT with Dottie Kurtz

Supplies: LIGHT-COLORED SMOOTH worsted weight yarn, needle size 7 or 8 (your choice of straight, double pointed

or circular).

Homework: None

Material Fee: None

Prerequisites: Can cast on and bind off, knit, purl, do yarn overs, decrease, and follow simple patterns.

Kris and I are planning to go up Friday evening to check out the marketplace.  Of course, we’ll take this opportunity to have a nice dinner out beforehand.  She has a lead on a (new?) Lebanese place in Camp Hill that we’ll try.

Part of the registration fee is knitting a cap for Caps for Kids.  Here is mine: Poor teddy bear- this really isn’t his best look.  I wanted to try a new technique on this hat: the jogless stripe.  I first read about this on Grumperina’s blog (see her entry on Spiraling for details) and have wanted to try it on socks ever since.  Specifically, I thought this would be a neat way to use some handpainted or self-striping yarn paired with a solid yarn.  I still haven’t tried it on socks, but here it is on a hat.

You can see where the spiral begins if you look carefully at the back: I really enjoyed this technique and will be sure to use it again on socks sometime soon!

I could also make another hat if I wanted to.  These balls of Valley Yarns Sugarloaf yarn were 50 g each to start with; I have 20 g of gray remaining (plus another full ball) and 29 g of green.

Kid Cap

Knitters’ Day Out is coming up quickly – just 2.5 more weeks!  Part of the registration “fee” is to knit a hat for Caps for Kids.  I started one last night. 

I’m using Valley Yarns Sugarloaf from my stash.  I bought it for another kid hat project where machine washability was important (it’s 52% superfine merino/48% acrylic microfiber).  It’s interesting!  I’m going to go all Clara Parkes on you and talk about yarn construction.  Look at this:See how it’s made?  10 tiny little double-plies all plied together with a tight twist ratio (Kristina, this reminds me of the white yarn from your yarnstorming box).  The yarn is a heavy worsted weight, but it feels light and squishy – that’s because of all the air trapped in those little 2-ply strands.  It’s actually very soft and quite nice to work with. 

I’m making a simple hat with a solid ribbed band and one row stripes coming out of it.  The stripes have no jog, because I started with one color on one of my two circular needles, and the other color on the second circular.  They spiral around like the stripes on a barber pole. I know you can’t see the jogless stripes in this photo, but you get the idea.  The light is a little off here.  The gray is a nice deep charcoal gray, and the other color is a light springy green.  I think it could potentially work for a boy OR a girl.  What do you think?

I’m working this on 2 circulars, size US 9.  Shouldn’t take long.