Pattern of the Month

If you frequent Kiwi Knitting as we hope you do, then you will have heard of our Kiwi Klub,and the wonderful benefits it gives members. In addition to a free Tech Class of your choice as well as other fun monthly benefits, members of the Kiwi Klub get a free Pattern of the Month. These patterns are exclusive to Kiwi Klub members, and every month there is something completely different, fun and challenging. This month, for the November Pattern of the Month, there is the Cozy Baby Cozy pattern.

The Pattern of the Month for July 2008 is called Catharine's Cap, designed by Lynn Davis, Kiwi's owner. Intended as a chemo cap, it is lined with a smooth stockinette stitch lining that is meant to be worked in a very soft yarn to comfort those sensitive scalps.

One of our favorite shop customers, Virginia Levinson made the version you see here using Silky Tweed from Elsebeth Lavold for the lace patterned outer cap, and a soft silk blend for the inner lining.

Virginia is a great fan of the Pattern of the Month feature of the Kiwi Klub. She tells me that this is one of the most challenging patterns she has tried, and also one of the most unusual patterns. It seems that no matter where she was working on the hat, lots of people had questions about how it was worked and compliments on her progress. Her daughter is now the proud owner of the hat and loves it.

Virginia tells me that she learns something new from all of the patterns of the month, and she finds the projects patterns to be very sophisticated. I know that speaking for myself, when choosing my next project I most often look for a pattern that is going to challenge me and teach me new tricks, as I firmly believe that this is one of the best ways to expand my skills as a needle-worker. This past summer and fall I have been knitting socks as holiday gifts for everyone in my family, and while you may think that there are only so many ways to make a sock, you'd be astounded at what you can learn from working a toe-up instead of a top-down, a different heel, or a new stitch pattern.

One of the other wonderful perks of Kiwi Klub membership at the moment is that it gets you the guild rate for classes sponsored by Old Pueblo Knitters guild. These classes are coming up next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and are taught by Galina Khemeleva, one of the premier lace knitters in the world today. It seems that the Thursday class is full, the Wednesday class has one opening left, and there are still openings in the Friday class.

Next time you stop into Kiwi Knitting, take a moment to talk to Lynn about the wonderful benefits of Kiwi Klub membership. You will probably find that it is ideal for you!

Southwest Fiber Festival

Well, my fellow fiberholics. Right now my house looks like a bomb has gone off and they just need to bring the dogs in to search for survivors. This is entirely due to the fact my house is in a different place than it was last time we talked. The good news is that the chaos cannot possibly last forever. The bad news is that it sure feels that way. The other good news is that now I have taken over the second bedroom as my studio. We'll talk more about that when it is all put together and ready for public viewing.

First, let's catch up by chatting about the Southwest Fiber Festival. I have to say, for a first time event of what I hope will be many more to come, it was really well organized. Setting up seemed to run smoothly and all the vendors seemed happy with how things were going. Having done booths at farmers markets longer than I care to think about, I just knew that I could sail down to Amado that morning and get all set up in half an hour. Piece of cake. Unless, of course, one forgets to bring one's table. I thought someone else was bringing it, she knew she wasn't and knew that I was bringing the table. But thanks to the kindness of another vendor I managed to locate a sub and my very panicked start to the morning went smoothly.

My friend Monica and I were right next to Lynn's booth for Kiwi Knitting. Lynn brought lots of roving, some hand-dyed yarns, baskets from Lantern Moon, and some great books. We saw a lot of our shop regulars there, as well as new faces that were excited to hear about Kiwi.

And, of course, her knitting bag. During down times I would look across to Lynn in her chair as we both sat in the shade and worked on Christmas gifts for family.

I had the great fun of sharing a booth with my friend and knitting student, Monica Durazo. Monica, I'm delighted to say, was a huge hit with her nuno-felted silk organza blouses. Some where all white, others started with her hand-dyed rovings and/or hand-dyed silks. They were just gorgeous, and it was great fun to see her hard work so appreciated by the festival goers.

My side of the booth was all about my knitted and fulled pieces, which were then embellished with some combination of hand-worked embroidery, beading, crochet or needle-felting.

Because of the heat, I didn't explore the other vendor booths as much as I would have liked, but here is one that I really loved. The business is called Bags by Coral Lou. They had wonderful hand-made felted bags. The bags themselves are knitted by Coral Lou, and her husband does the needle-felted embellishments. I think the man is an incredible artist.

They had a number of bags at their booth, in a wide variety of styles. Once her husband finishes embellishing the outside of the bag, he hand paints the fabrics for the lining. Next Cora Lou sews the painted fabrics into the most meticulous, detailed linings.

As you can tell, I was really inspired by their pieces.

This design, of bamboo, really caught my eye with the wonderful detail.

Then she flipped the bag over and I saw that the other side of the bag has another panel of needle-felted bamboo.

And I just had to get another picture of both of them together with their wonderful art piece.

The dates are already set for next year's show with vendors and classes, and I hope that you will keep an eye out for it. I'd love to see more people from Tucson make the trip down. Amado is only a very easy half-hour trip once you are on I-19, and it would be nigh unto impossible for you to miss seeing it from the freeway. You just couldn't get lost. This year I was a vendor, next year I'm planning to take the classes that I drooled over enviously this time around.

The Italian Tubular Cast-on

Last time I mentioned that I will show you a few cast-ons that are exactly the same - but done in different ways, and used for different purposes. I stumbled on this while hunting down various knitting technique videos last week. I was watching one of a cast-on and thought, Wait! that's the same thing as the Italian Tubular cast-on! Then during the week as I was pondering the wonder of all that, I realized that a certain designer's supposedly 'magical' cast-on was yet another slight variation of the exact same technique. I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but you watch and see what you think.

I first found the ITCO about a year ago and immediately loved it. Like many other knitters, I really like the effect that a traditional tubular cast-on gives but find doing it very fiddly and a pain in the neck. Consequently, I was overjoyed to find a way to get the same result without all the fuss and bother. I use this whenever I am working on a project that requires a 1x1 rib (K1, P1). Socks, sleeves, sweater hems, hats... Once you give this simple and fun cast-on a try, you'll find yourself using it every chance you get.

Because my camera will only record short videos I have broken this up into two steps - the actual cast-on itself and working the first two rows are in the first video. Go grab some light-colored yarn in a weight you're comfortable with and a set of needles in the appropriate size for your yarn, and follow along with me.

The original directions I found said a couple of things that I'd like to touch on. One was that this cast-on can only be used with a even number of stitches. I've tried it with an odd number of stitches as well and found that it works just fine.

Those directions also said that you can work either 2 rows or 4 rows of the K1, slip one as if to purl wyif. I've always worked just two rows of this pattern before diving into the 1x1 rib and been happy with the result. Try it both ways and decide which you like the look of best.

Finally, the demo that I saw of this cast-on showed the knitter holding her needle between her knees while she did the cast-on with both hands. It may feel awkward to you at first, but with a tiny bit of practice it is perfectly comfortable to do this cast-on while holding the needle in your hands as you work, and I think this is far less awkward than trying to hold the needle steady between your knees.

After filming the first video, and before filming the second, I next worked about 4 rows of the 1x1 ribbing before finishing off the cast-on. You may do as many or as few of these rows as you like before taking the bottom of the cast-on apart, but do work at least a couple of rows of the ribbing before doing this next stage.

And there you have it, the Italian Tubular Cast-on.

Next time I'll show you the second of these three cast-ons.

Lynda

PS- It apparently rouses the ire of the techno gods when you are smug enough to announce publicly that you have mastered any form of technology. Just so you can learn from my mistakes...

More New Yarns

You know, I don't generally think of myself as being technically incompetent. But with the computer problems that I have had over the last month, I am beginning to question that self-assessment. However, I do believe that at last I have everything sorted out - with many grateful thanks to my very-patient husband - and all my auxiliary bits are talking to the computer as they should, and the computer is listening. Witness the fact that I was finally able to download these photos to the blog.

You might also take note that once again, I have some delicious things to show you from the parade of new yarns that are making their way into the shop. Lynn assures me that there is even more to come, so you will be seeing more new yarns here as we go along, as well as some old favorites in new colors.

First up, I want to show you the new Malabrigo Lace. I know you are familiar with the Malabrigo worsted weight, a beautiful kettle-dyed yarn in the smooshiest merino wool you could ever hope to meet. Now we have the laceweight, and I can tell you, this stuff is gorgeous. The fiber is a baby merino with 470 yds to 50 grams. The colors are very pretty and well-saturated, just as you'd expect from Malabrigo. I'll admit that my camera phone didn't do justice to the purple at the top, especially.

These would make the prettiest lace scarves for a quick, easy and luxurious gift for someone you know - or even for yourself. I've been knee-deep in my holiday gift knitting since June, so I must admit that that is where my mind is at right now. My preference is to do my gift knitting now, and sit back and smugly enjoy the approach to the holidays without a care. while selfishly knitting for myself. You are welcome to join me.


As I was laying the Malabrigo Lace out on the front table to photograph and turning to talk with Lynn, I espied these beauties hanging on the wall by the register as you come into the shop. Also by Malabrigo, this is a beautiful blend of 30% silk and 70% merino wool, with 150 yds/50 grams. I never used to be a fan of silk, I'll admit it here. My experience with woven or knitted silk fabrics in commercial clothing is that more often than not they have had a musty smell to them that is very off-putting to me, to the point where I just cannot keep that garment on my body because the smell is so overwhelming and unpleasant.

Imagine my delight in discovering that this isn't at all true of silk blend yarns! Now I am in love with the stuff, with it's texture - sometimes matte and light-absorbing, at other times adding a lovely sheen to a yarn that no other fiber can give. To me, the idea of blending silk and merino wool is just a match made in heaven. It has a softness and a vibrancy that is just a joy to work with. Lynn assures me that she has been carrying this delightful yarn for some time now. I replied that when one is as absent-minded as I am, every day is a new adventure.

Kiwi also has a couple of new yarns from Noro! (To me, this is like saying that someone has figured out a new form to put chocolate into.) The multi that you see at the top and bottom of this photo is called Yuzen. It is a 56% wool, 34% silk, and 10% kid mohair. It has a nice hand and it feels as though the drape would be wonderful. The colors blend together in a tweedy sort of way, and next to chocolate, tweed yarn - and especially yarn from Noro - would have to be one of my favorite things in life.

It is a good weight and fiber content to use with another new Noro yarn pictured here, Maiko. Maiko is 35% wool, 30% kid mohair and 35% silk at 130 yds/40 grams, in several very nice 'solid' colors that again have an almost tweedy feel to them. The colors Lynn chose to carry in the shop are really very pretty, and you should be seeing those hit the shelves sometime this week.

Next time I'm going to post more of my amateur videos, this time showing you two different very handy cast-ons for very specific purposes, that I accidentally discovered are the exact same thing! Riveting stuff. Have your yarn and needles handy.

September Sock-Mania

I hope you had the chance to take part in one of the many classes that were offered during the last month in celebration of September Sock-Mania at Kiwi. The shop offered wonderful classes in various sock patterns and sock-knitting techniques, as well as several different sock heels, and Marianne's own wonderful sock design. I got to teach my modified version of the Sherman Heel and had a great time. You should be beginning October with at least some of these incredible projects and techniques under your belt, ready to take on any sock pattern that happens to catch your fancy.

My inner two-year old, I must confess, quite often looms larger than the not-inconsiderable bulk of my outer 50-year old, and my idea of a great time is when I can regress to my mud-pie-making days in the process of creating something both beautiful and practical. And the Paint Your Own Sock Yarn class on Saturday, September 27th with Heather Ordover looks like it was my kind of fun.

Armed with various flavors of Kool-Aid, glass canning jars, rolls of plastic, sock yarn and sock blanks, everyone had a fun, creative afternoon and walked away with their very own custom-dyed sock blanks and sock yarns. For those unfamiliar with sock blanks, they are a large piece of knitted fabric made up with a doubled strand of sock yarn. I've seen some that are pre-dyed but in my mind that takes half the fun out of it. How much better to dye your own and have custom socks! Once you have dyed your sock blank, you knit your new socks straight from the knitted fabric, unraveling it as you go. When I talked to Lynn on Tuesday she was showing off her beautiful green and blue sock blank and looking forward to tackling knitting two socks at once.

They began by mixing the Kool-Aid dyes in jars of water, with labels left near them to remind them which was which. Don a pair of gloves, an apron or an old shirt, and you are ready to dive in.

Here you see Judith playing with the dyes while Heather takes notes about their choices as they go. The table gave them plenty of room to spread out the dyes, yarn and blanks.

Judith paints her blank with yellow Kool-Aid.

It looks like Linda is having great fun working on her very colorful sock blank.


Lynn gets into the act, using my favorite colors on a blank of her own.

Judith with another blank.

When the painting is finished, the dyed blanks are rolled up in plastic wrap, ready to heat up and set the dyes.

They also dyed some sock yarn.

The blanks and yarns, dyed and cooling down after setting.


Some of the finished yarns and blanks, laid out to dry.

All in all it looked like everyone had a great time and I can't wait to see the finished socks that will come from these beautiful custom-dyed yarns. I hope they will allow me to share them with you here.

Many thanks go out to Linda McKittrick for the use of these photos!