Free Knitting Patterns, Instructions, Projects & Designs.

I was lucky enough to go the the Best Workshop Ever this weekend. Kris and Oz, owners of the fantastic Ball & Skein & More in Cambria, California, combined their talents as crazy-fun hosts with Gwen Bortner’s excellent instruction style. The result? An intensive workshop sandwiched between sociable wining and dining.

Gwen’s workshop had something for everyone. The new skill for me? Using plastic canvas to add structure to a project. The pace of instruction made it so we could follow along, without getting overwhelmed. And we ended up with a versatile, cute little project at the end (or at least one we could finish up at home).

Gwen’s teaching style is clear, and she makes it a lot of fun.

For people coming from out of town, the workshop included accommodations at the Cambria Pines Lodge. It was the perfect location. It’s beautiful, set in the pines overlooking the village of Cambria. We had our own dedicated room for the workshop, and our own dining room as well. Kris and Oz greeted us at breakfast every morning.

Kris welcomed us into the shop Friday night for a special shopping spree. While most people ended up with armloads of gorgeous hand-dyed yarn, I finally gave in to temptation and bought a set of Addi Clicks lace needles – the ones with the very cool slit in the cord for carrying a life line.

The meals in our Very Own Dining Room gave the students a chance to get to know each other. On Saturday, we were treated to an extraordinary dinner at the local Madeline’s restaurant. Not only was the food and camaraderie fantastic, but we got to learn about Oz’s talents with a blow torch. If you want to find out what THAT was all about, you’re just going to have to come to the workshop yourself next year!

Day two of TNNA in Phoenix. It’s been fun showing some of the yarn companies sneak peaks of my book. I’ve had the pleasure of walking the convention floor with one of my very favorite designers, Stephannie Tallent. She has a fantastic book coming out, called “California Revival Knits”, also to be published by Cooperative Press.

Stephannie and I also have In common that we’re part of Knit Picks Independent Designer Program. Here’s me in my brand new February Lady Sweater, Stacey from Knit Picks, and Stephannie. Stephannie is wearing her gorgeous Wrought Iron Cardi from her upcoming book.

When I signed up for Cat Bordhi‘s Moebius workshop, I had only the vaguest idea of what a Moebius actually is. Wikipedia describes it as “a surface with only one side.” In knitting, I knew of it from intriguing shawls, scarves and cowls that look like strips with a twist in the middle.

The picture below shows the surpise supplies that greeted us in the workshop. No, the apple is not a lilliputian variety – I just put in in the photos for scale to show that  the ball of yarn is really, really huge!

I couldn’t understand, why the giant yarn? Turns out the big yarn and big needles are just right for learning the special Moebius  Cast-On. It also helps when creating a new design – it means fewer stitches to rip out when the unexpected happens. See the variegated yarn in the center of the work? That, oddly enough, is the cast on that Cat so brilliantly teaches. Yes, the knitting starts in the center and works outward! This is just the beginning of where the design process is turned on its head.

Wikipedia says, “If an ant were to crawl along the length of this strip, it would return to its starting point having traversed every part of the strip …without ever crossing an edge.”

Here’s the strip I made to start conceptualizing how to create a pattern for the Moebius shape. Not only does it start in the center, but also patterns that slant one way in the beginning slant the other way when they come around the second half of the knitting.

If this sounds like gobbledy-gook, I can highly recommend Cat’s workshops. She also has a terrific YouTube video  called “Intro to Moebius Knitting.”

My Moebius design will soon appear in… well, the Really Big Project that I can’t talk about yet.

ShiBui provided the lovely Highland Wool Alpaca yarn for Cat’s students, and the fabulous Addi Turbo needle came from Skacel.

What can I say about meeting Alasdair Post-Quinn at TNNA? That he’s the ace of double knitting design? That he shows great heart in the face of writing complicated patterns? No longer a diamond in the rough, he will soon be joining the club of published designers with a book?

If you suspect a playing card theme here, you’re right. I had the privilege of meeting Alasdair in the Cooperative Press booth at TNNA:

It turned out he was knitting playing cards!

He tells about his ingenious double knit scarf design in his Fallingblox Designs blog. A hint as to the fun, unexpected twist to this pattern is in its name: “Fifty-Two Pickup”.

I wanted to learn more about Alasdair, and was delighted to find him in Ravelry, as (no surprise) fallingblox where I found more examples of his patterns. Some very exciting news is that he will soon be coming out with a book titled Extreme Double Knitting. Anyone wanting the scoop on when the book will be available for pre-order can sign up for the Cooperative Press mailing list.  Shannon Okey, of Knitgrrl fame and Cooperative Press publisher, tells me, “Extreme Double Knitting is going to be featured in an upcoming issue of Interweave Knits.” I’m really looking forward to that!

I leave you with one final image. Are these not the cutest baby booties ever?

Once again, TNNA was a lot of fun. I took great classes from Melissa Leapman and Cat Bordhi, re-connected with friends, and of course ogled beautiful new yarns.

I was lucky enough to stay on the 19th floor of the Hyatt. The view was incredible!

The down side to being that high was that when a terrific storm whipped up Friday night, the building swayed creepily. Even though I understand that tall buildings are designed to sway so they don’t break, I found little comfort in that knowledge as I watched the water in my glass gently slosh back and forth, and the drapes sway. I high-tailed it for the lobby, ending up on the elevator with a fellow wide-eyed knitter. We hunkered down in a first-floor room together, happily knitting and getting to know each other until the storm blew through.

Stitches West was an amazing experience – again! I capped it off with a wonderful workshop taught by Alexis Xenakis and Benjamin Levisay. Alexis is the photographer for Knitter’s Magazine and the gorgeous XRX books. Benjamin is CEO of XRX, assists Alexis, and is a Photoshop expert.

Alexis is an animated, enthusiastic teacher!

Here you can see our class reflected in the front windows of the Hyatt where Stitches was held. We photographed in different spots around the hotel. One of the best things I learned was that you can make wonderful images in unlikely  locations.

I have no idea how Benjamin holds up the scrim for as long as he does. My arms would fall off if I tried it. Alexis taught us the importance of using diffused light.

A valuable lesson is the use of long lenses. And if an even longer lens is called for, use an extender. My local camera store is going to love me when I get home with my shopping list!

We learned how to position hands to capture the beautiful sleeve details on this sweater.

During the last afternoon of the workshop Benjamin taught us some tools of Photoshop.  I will never process photos the same way again! I felt like a giant sponge, soaking up valuable and surprising information. It was great.

I’ve joined the tradition of knitting a project for Stitches. With Stitches West just around the corner, I put the finishing touches on my second Tangled Yoke Cardigan, this time in a mossy color.

I still take delight in Eunny Jang’s ingenious cabling around the cardi’s yoke. If I wasn’t worried about appearing obsessed, I’d make a third of theses sweaters in a straw color. Or maybe red. Or grey. Or… oh dear, how many colors does Rowan Felted Tweed  yarn come in?

There’s nothing like a good challenge to spice up life! I had a blast (in panicky sort of way) participating in Ravelry’s knitting mayhem otherwise known as Ravelympics 2010. Thousands of knitters make projects with the idea of casting on during the Olympics’ opening ceremony and being done by the closing ceremony. Knitters can choose different events to “compete” in – hats, afghans, sweaters or dozens of other categories.

I, of course, had to choose the Designer Biathlon. I love the biathlon events in the real Olympics, and I love to design. But here was the challenge -  to cast on, design a project, write the pattern for it, photograph it, have it tech edited, and then publish it during the allotted time. Whew!

Here’s the result!

I chose Cascade 220 as the yarn, since it comes in so many great colors. The braided cable cuff is made first. I include instructions for grafting stitches together in pattern. When the hat is complete, the cuff is folded up. The circumference is about 20″, which will fit most women.

You may download the pattern for free here:

I knew the Mid-State Fair was on when I looked at my car’s thermometer. And this was after I pulled over to stop in the shade!

(Note to hubby, who worries about my driving… I know the tach says “D” for Drive, but truly, I wasn’t barreling down the freeway when I shot this.  111 is degrees, not mph. I promise.)

Rather than waiting for the cooler evening hours, I rushed right over to check out my friends’ knitting entries. Here are just a few of the local prize winners from the talent-filled SLO Knitters group:

You know I have a thing for fair isle. Diana’s hat is stunning! Love the colors, love the critters.

It’s always a delight to see what sweater Anne is whipping up. I like the way the variegated yarn works out in this pattern.

And what can I say about Betty? She’s amazing. I should have known she’d be great at tatting, as well as knitting and who-knows-what-else. And here we are talking about teeeny tatting. I wish I could show scale on this because the stitches are minuscule.

On a totally different subject, aren’t these veggies beautiful?

Once every year or two I eat a funnel cake. It was so hot, I actually waited for mine cool off before diving in this year. Why they bothered with a fryer is beyond me – they could have just thrown the batter on the sidewalk and it would have cooked up just fine.

Anyway, yum.

This weekend in Portland was Yarn Heaven. I attended the TKGA Knit & Crochet Show, taking some great classes and checking out the wares in the shopping area. It’s like a mini Stitches event. The market is smaller, but I got to see some wonderful locally produced yarns. The classes are smaller too, which gave me a chance to learn more.

I met up with my friend Alana, who you probably know as Nevernotknitting. We did a major Yarn Crawl, spanning a 24-hour period of fiber bliss. Happily, yarn stores in Portland stay open late. So on Thursday night we hit Dublin Bay, which was a beautiful store featuring lots of my favorite Rowan yarns.  Sadly, I didn’t get a photo inside the store. A blogger without a camera is, well, a space cadet I guess.

Next came one of my all-time favorite places on the planet – Knit Purl.

We stayed until closing at 9pm, hoping they’d just lock us in and let us browse and knit until they re-opened the next morning.

We saw so much yarn on Friday that I swear by the end of the day if someone had waved free cashmere in front of me, I would have missed it.

Here we are at the first stop, Twisted. Alana’s natural sense of style has her perfectly color coordinated with the sign.

The next store deserves a posting of its own, which I promise to get to another time. Abundant Yarn and Dyeworks is incredible – a large store with a deli in it (yarn AND food? oh my!), and its own line of hand dyed yarns. This “Socks Without Borders” afghan will be auctioned off at the Sock Summit to benefit Doctors Without Borders.

My trip home was… eventful. I adore taking Amtrak’s Coast Starlight from Portland to my home in California. I get a sleeping compartment and for 24 hours I have my own little world of knitting, gorgeous scenery, and no distractions. This time, however, there was a freight train derailment ahead of us. Apparently when cars fall off the tracks, it puts a kink in the rails. They must have worked like mad to pick up the freight cars and put in new rails. I would loved to have watched that whole operation! Still, we were 11 hours late getting home.

And then when I did get home I found this guy who had decided to claim our terrace as his new residence. He ran away from home and walked a long way to find to find the area’s biggest pushovers.

I have to go buy alfalfa now…

The SLO Knitters Guild presentation went great. (And no, SLO doesn’t indicate we’re so backward we can’t spell “slow” – it stands for San Luis Obispo!)

Adrienne and I were happy to meet new knitting friends and have the opportunity to share about our experience with Level I of the Master Hand Knitting Program. We passed around our swatches and talked about the work involved. Adrienne had a good list of especially helpful references, like Monte Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook. We described the fantastic review process – the TKGA volunteers who critique the submissions are incredibly generous with their time and expertise.

Judging by the number of good questions, there’s a lot of interest in the program. Or else everybody was just hyber from the delicious coffee, tea and sweet goodies people kindly brought.

I hope local knitters will continue to attend the twice-a-month SLO Knitters guild meetings. You don’t have to be a Guild member to attend. The group is wonderful (they are knitters, after all!), and willing to pass along their considerable knitting knowledge. Come on by, the second and fourth Saturday of the month at 10:00 am at St. Stepen’s Episcopal Church in San Luis Obispo.

You may remember my ugly hat from the TKGA Hand Knitters program.

Adrienne and I will be giving a presentation about Level I of the Hand Knitters program, so you’ll get to meet both our hats in person! Oh, what an opportunity!

We will be providing a short program on our experience in completing Level I of the Master Hand Knitting program. We’ll talk about the process and provide handouts that go into more detail on the program. We’ll have a completed project notebook for you to look at, including swatches. And of course there’ll be the Ugly Hats.

The event will be part of the SLO Knitters Guild, and all Guild members as well as prospective members are welcome.The meeting will be on Saturday March 28th, 10:00 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church at the corner of Nipomo and Pismo in SLO. All members and prospective Guild memebers are welcome.

If you’ve ever wondered about what it’s like to work on Level I of the Master Hand Knitting program, come on by and we’ll hope to shed some light on it!