Yarn Gallery Blog

This is fun to watch, in case you didn’t see it on TV:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6341081n&tag=api

On the one hand, I’m not feeling very chatty today.  On the other hand, I have lots of pictures to show you, so I don’t need to be chatty today.  Thanks to Lynne for posting about National Crochet Month – I hope you crocheters are hunting for those scavengers and crocheting-along like mad.  Next week I hope I’ll have a photo of a new crocheted cardigan that will be a free pattern when we get it tested.

First, I’ll show off my time-consuming but very satisfying cabled vest in Debbie Bliss’s new yarn Amalfi.  It took awhile to knit, but I love it and I love the way it feels.  It looks crisp but feels soft, don’t ask me how they did that.

Here are the colors of Amalfi, mostly still in stock.  The pink is calling to me -

I’ve been hankering after a pink project for weeks and knit a goofy baby blanket but that didn’t cure me.  I have nothing to wear with pink and would have to go out and buy something, unless – here’s a brilliant idea – I knit both a top and pants to match.  Wouldn’t that be purty?  And talk about pink elephants!  I’ll have to come up with something better.

Chris Dreazen waltzed in with another beautiful sweater, one week after she bought the yarn.  I’m going to enter her into the Fastest Knitter contest at the next Stitches event, because the woman knits like the wind.  She looks great in this top-down cardy done in Noro Kocheron, and because it got cold again, actually had the chance to wear it this season:

Norma Jean Burns knit this (also) top down sweater for her grandson Evan.  She’s just getting into knitting and came in with a heavy heart because the sweater wouldn’t fit over his head and she was afraid she’d have to rip it out.

The problem is that little kids’ bodies are small but their heads are nearly grown-up size. It’s easily solved by ripping out just the bindoff row and working the bindoff either with much bigger needles or working a stretchy bindoff.  Here’s the one I like because it looks similar to a normal bindoff but is much stretchier:

Knit two stitches, *insert the tip of your left needle into the fronts of both stitches and knit them together.  Knit one more stitch and repeat from * across.  This takes a lot of yarn and time, but Norma Jean re-did her bindoff and Evan has his favorite sweater now.

Donna Guthrie is a fabulous knitter (and does many other things fabulously) and she taught a class this past session on the Puzzle Me This Jacket from Knitted Jackets, a terrific book.  She made this one for her friend Pat Burkhart, who looks wonderful in it, doesn’t she?

Perfect fit, perfect color, and perfect knitting!

And Donna also took a class from Karen Walter at the same time, and made the Abstract Leaves Vest for herself.  Another beautiful job:

Lynda Slovitsky (who is looking very svelte these days, darn her anyway) took Janet’s February Lady Sweater class, and look how beautifully it turned out.  Lovely color for her and the fit is just perfect.

If I had thought to ask her to take off her glasses, you would see how this color really brings out her eyes!  And the King George yarn is lovely.

And here is April Jones’s first pair of socks, a truly fine job.  April took Janet’s sock class, so her first pair, unlike mine, was not loose enough to fit Bozo the Clown.  Very good job! And perfectly matched, which pleases April no end.

Good knitters!

See you soon.

Trish

Happy NatCroMo!!, originally uploaded by yarngal628.

March is National Crochet Month. For those of you on Ravelry, check out the
NatCroMo group. There are lots of celebratory events going on..a party (with
food and a bathroom line!), scavenger hunt, karaoke, Mystery Pattern CAL
(crochet-a-long), Freeform CAL, slumber parties, and several parades!

The Crochet Lesson.jpg

Happy Stitching!

Lynne

Well, after an exhausting week, the spring yarns (most of them) are finally out front where they need to be and, although there is a lot still to do, the chaos of last week has been somewhat tamed.  I have to say, it was exhausting to move everything and showed me just how physically wimpy I’ve gotten.  I came home every day absolutely wiped out!

Here is a shot of what we did most of the week:

That’s Karen vacuuming behind the shelves.  We moved winter yarns, fluffed and culled (the bargain bin is full!), then cleaned the emptied shelves and brought out the new goodies.  Bending, stretching, carrying, squatting, kneeling – whoof! But the new yarns look wonderful, and we’re supposed to have great weather this week so we’ll all feel very spring-y.  And I need to go into spring training!

Stop in soon…

Trish

Check out Kelbourne Woolens’ blog, which this week is all about the conifer shawl that Karen Walter is going to start teaching in a couple of weeks.  It’s spring – you need a great shawl!