by all counts, a festive occasion

My father's birthday sweater, modeled by the recipient himself...on his birthday! The picnic table is also handmade, homemade. Except, well, I didn't make it so I can't take credit for it at all. I can still say it's pretty cool and that we had a delicious birthday dinner served upon it, though. The sweater was perfectly appropriate, especially considering the weather on Sunday- it was cold! So we built a fire and cooked out, plus Dad got to wear the sweater and not be too hot.

It's amazing how quickly knitting gets done when you put yourself (or myself, as this case would be) on a deadline; by limiting myself to this one, singular project for a week, I got an unfinished project out of my closet and my Dad got a sweater that looks great on him and fits well. I still can't say enough about Pure and Simple patterns. Big, big fan.

I also have to thank, again, all my Kniterary Club attendees. You guys are fabulous. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to meet everyone and share ideas; I'm sure we will meet again and I can't wait to see what everybody will be working on. I really couldn't come up with ideas without inspiration from knitters around me! So, although the group itself is on hold for a while, I still feel like Sunday was a great day to celebrate birthdays, new friends, knitting, and spring. (That of course means sparklers.)

a sad announcement

Well, it's been a great couple of weeks for the Kniterary Club group...we've been meeting since March 1st at Old Village Yarn Shop. Sadly, this weekend (May 17th) will be our final gathering. Of course, my blog will go on...as will the concept and practice of Kniterary Club. It might relocate, recalibrate, re-think knitting and art, but there will always be large quantities of amazing yarn and always, always there will be coffee.

Above is a picture from May 3rd's Kniterary Club. I had received a request for a group project, so I came up with the idea to knit nametags! We all graphed our ideas and then used scrap yarns to knit them. I am always astonished to see how different people react to the challenge and how they realize their ideas. (It's also my philosophy that nothing can go wrong when you have a 50-pack of Crayola markers to share, either.)

See everybody on Sunday. Let's knit.

kc update #3

Carrying on my theme of inspired knitting, the KNITERARY CLUB members brought pictures that they found interesting. We went around the store and selected yarns that we thought could be used to re-create the pictures. It was great fun, and look at some of the different colorways we picked out! One is a postcard with a Russian artist's painting on it, the other is a jewelry ad from a magazine. Two of us brought the free Eunny Jang pattern from Knitting Daily as a possible project for our color combinations! How funny is that?

further down the rabbit hole

If you've come here for the answer, you'll have to wait...come see on Sunday.

thought process --> wait, what?

Late it may be, but here is last week's KNITERARY CLUB update! I brought in a picture of a waterfall (see here) and wanted to combine yarns that were inspired by the colors and luminescence of the water. It was a group process, but we narrowed a large field of choices down to a very beautiful combination. Tomorrow at our meeting we'll all bring something- anything- that inspires us and play around with yarns that relate to that picture, object, literary passage, etc.

This has been a long time coming, but my Quail Purse is done! I am so happy with the result. Probably the rest of the world thinks I'm insane and/or that it's bizarre...but it's a good size to carry around and I succeeded in lining it! Sewing machine vs. Caitlin...1-1. Enjoy the beautiful weather and please, come knit tomorrow!

tah-dah!

So our first meeting of KNITERARY CLUB was last Sunday and we're meeting again this weekend (you should come, it's at Old Village Yarn Shop in Plymouth). We talked a little about basic knitting skills you should have/know and books that are helpful to have if you're a self-taught and/or adventurous knitter. My favorites are The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and both the Knitter's and Crocheter's Companion. I just think it's really important to have a go-to reference so that when (as inevitably happens) you're stuck on something at midnight and can't ask for help...you have something to turn to. After that, we knitted and talked about...knitting! I started playing around with Louisa Harding's yarns (sooooo pretty, all of them) and embarked on my newest design:

This is knit using Louisa Harding's Thalia...a really cool wool/acrylic ribbon with a tiny hint of metallic thread. I began randomly alternating between garter stitch and stockinette...which worked until I got halfway through and realized that I only wanted it to be MOSTLY random but mirror itself from the halfway point...which, naturally, I hadn't written down! So that was annoying. But I knit obsessively for basically a whole afternoon/evening and it was done the next day!

If you want to know where I got the idea...I reluctantly admit that I watch MTV while knitting and was fascinated with a neckwarmer that Chris Brown wore in his video for "Head of My Class". Plus those kids are amazing dancers.

A love/hate relationship. Aren't they all?

A hat! A hat for me! I don't know if this happens to other knitters (I'm sure it does), but I really hate anything I make for myself to wear. There's always something wrong with it, or I didn't really put that much effort into it, something. But I can't stop knitting, and my family gets tired of knitted objects after a while...thus I've been knitting for myself. So this hat is no different...although the overall result is positive, I have a few complaints.

For this hat, I used Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora Pure...it's 100% angora and the colors were fabulous. I was drawn to this instantly because it's such an unusual blue-grey. I didn't originally have a plan for the yarn, so I improvised a hat with a few simple lace panels evenly spaced throughout. For the lace, I just used a staggered yarnover pattern- it doesn't really show up well in the photo, sadly. Because angora is so warm, I knit this hat relatively loosely. I discovered that it was a very good thing that I did, though- this yarn is super fragile and breaks if you even look at it the wrong way. I'm sure my abusive treatment (ex: travel habits with my knitting, getting stuck in zippers, etc...further examples of how I treat knitting for myself vs. for others) didn't help, either, but when I was finished I had to weave in about 6 ends for one skein of yarn. Finishing the top was the trickiest because you can't pull on the yarn at all...so here's to hoping my minimal weaving stays put. I'm counting on the self-felting tendencies of the yarn to help me out here.

Still, I love the hat and wear it all the time. It's a nice change for me to like something I've made...and better yet, to wear it!

Kniterary Club met this morning at Espresso Royale! Caffeine + knitting + good friends = a great Sunday morning. Time to get to work, though: I have some serious work to do playing the oboe so the afternoon will be spent practicing and making reeds. Sigh.

Idle curiousity: is there an Ann Arbor Knitter's Guild? Mental note: look into it and join.