I was greeted in Denver with a snowstorm, which was a little shocking after Austin but within a few days we were driving out to visit the yaks in brilliant sunshine. The yaks are from the Himalayas so Colorado’s crazy high altitude climate is perfect for them (running in Denver was er… interesting!). I’ve admired Bijou Basin’s yarns for a long time and there’s a pattern coming soon(ish!) in one of their yarns so it was really interesting to meet a few of the animals that provide their fibre. And we really did meet them, they were super friendly and eager to eat treats out of our hands.

We even snuck in a little photoshoot – the yaks were rather too interested in the socks though!

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Visiting Bijou Basin Ranch was one of the highlights of my trip. So much so that I know have 1000+ photos of yaks to go through, here’s just a glimpse at the cuteness.

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I had a wonderful time in Portland, shopping, visiting Lantern Moon to talk about something super exciting, teaching at Happy Knits, an awesome early Thanksgiving party. It was so fun and busy though that the only photos I actually took were on a walk I took yesterday.

Hotel’s wifi was down, or I would have posted this yesterday. You might have gathered that I’m once again attempting to blog everyday in November. I’m not going to let tech problems put me off though, since the challenge isn’t really about succeeding but in getting back to this space a little.

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Today, via a knitter who had just returned from one of her retreats, I received an awesome gift from Cat Bordhi. You might remember that she tried to freeze my mousie at tnna in dry ice so this is a little mouse. And, because this is Cat, h’s has a nest that jingles.

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Thank you to The Knitting Nest, Lizzy and Fran for making my time in Austin so wonderful. Cupcakes, bats, boots, yarn bombing and weird old stuff pretty much sums up my trip.

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On my recent travels and in support of Little Red in the City, I’ve been teaching sweater workshops. I always begin with a question, asking students to share their sweater knitting experiences and pointing out that failures make better stories. Of course, this is a lead in to talking about some of the common pitfalls (inappropriate yarn, gauge issues, fitting, etc) but it’s also resulted in some great stories and opportunities to learn from others’ experiences. So it seems like it would be interesting to open up those questions here and see what stories you have to share.

I’ve probably told this story before but my first sweater was from the first version of A Stitch in Time, meaning that it was really from a 1940s pattern. Luckily the single size it was written for turned out ok but I was very disappointed when I realised that the front was two different shades of black. And so I learned that when the nice but intimidadingly experienced woman in the shop who’d probably been knitting for fifty years tries to help you be asking if you checked the dyelots that you should admit to not knowing what she’s talking about. Don’t just say yes. My only excuse is that I was a teenager.

So how about you? Did you make a sweater with 3 sleeves or that was big enough for two of you? Or maybe you made some really great modifications to make something fit your body and style perfectly. Either way I’d love to hear about it.

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A unisex hat featuring twisted stitch cables that can be worked in beanie and slouchy versions. The hat can be worked in a single colour or the fact that the cable stitches are slipped on alternate rounds mean they can be worked in a solid colour against a striped background.

I promise that you want to use the yarn shown, A Verb for Keeping Warm’s Slick, a tightly twisted wool silk blend with excellent stitch definition, so it’s not too unfortunate that the pattern is currently only available as a kit.

In the future it will be available in Whimsical Little Knits 3 and as an individual pattern in print and pdf, but if you’re eager to get started kits can be ordered from here.
KnitCulture has kindly offered a discount of 10% off you just need to enter KNITCULTURE10 at the checkout.

Thanks to Stephen West for modelling and for attempting the shockingly hard 2 person coordinated knitting with me.

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I love Rhinebeck, but it isn’t really about the yarn, its all about the people. Spending time with dear, far flung, friends and meeting some of the knitters who make my stuff.

A gorgeous blue Emily capelet.

Sarah and Carson modelled some Vintage Button Gloves for me.

This, just begun, Lauriel was glowing

and this knitter had made Lauriel socks.

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This is literally the first time I’ve sat down at my computer since I left home 2 weeks ago. It’s certainly been a busy couple of weeks, I started things off quietly in New York City (if anything in that city can ever be quiet) visiting yarn stores and yarny friends. It was the perfect beginning to my trip, I’m so glad I got to spend some time with Connie and her sweet family. Her daughter is developing excellent yarn taste already, showing particular interest in this silk cashmere blend.

I needed to pick up a couple of knitting supplies that I didn’t want to spend my limited Rhinebeck time searching for so it seemed like the perfect chance to visit a yarnstore I haven’t been to yet, with a manager I remembered fondly from an event I did way back when at a different store in the city.

Annie and Co on the upper east side turned out to be full of colourful treasures, with a nice communal table that filled up with knitters as the afternoon wore on, along with a very cute puppy.

And Alyssa very kindly took the time to untangle my yarn – so that I could at least continue knitting on my “no way on earth would it be done on time” Rhinebeck sweater.

One thing I love about visiting yarn stores is seeing knitter’s projects, like this badass Ishbel with it’s visibly darned (in cashmere!) scar.

Alyssa had a pretty wonderful scarf to show me too, the scarf itself is beatiful, but the best part is the secret message knit into the hem. Can you see what it says?

The pattern can be found here, although I think the message was Alyssa’s own addition.

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