I am super excited to finally start my first Custom Fit sweater. The brainchild of designer Amy Herzog, the Custom Fit program allows you to create sweaters that fit perfectly because they are created for your specific measurements. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that during our recent yarn crawl I ended up with a ridiculous amount of …
From time to time I like to provide things for local charities that are close to my heart. You might get requests for auction items, too, so I thought it might be fun to share what I just finished putting together – maybe you’ll get some ideas for auction items of your own. The auction item may be something modest for …
I love learning just the right technique for a given purpose. When I need to cast on for a sock, I’m always worried about whether the top will stretch enough. Same thing for cuffs for mittens. When I first started knitting, I quickly learned the hard way that the standard long-tail cast-on tended to be too inelastic for the cuffs, …
I want to share a particularly entertaining and thought-provoking book with you. Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure is a gem. Part of the book’s description is, “Deceptively simple and surprisingly addictive, Not Quite What I Was Planning is a thousand glimpses of humanity—six words at a time.” It’s amazing the way short little sentences …
Once a year I go crazy for sweet and spicy pecans. This year I tried making them with maple sugar. They’re not overly sweet. Traditional winter-time spices and the hint of maple… YUM. I thought you might like to make them, too, so here’s the recipe: MAPLE SUGAR AND SPICE PECANS Preheat oven to 225 (convection) or 250 (conventional). In …
You may remember I’ve been working on the second level of the TKGA Master Hand Knitting Program. I’m learning to be a stickler for gauge (oh dear, I’ve become one of those people). In Level 2, we have to write instructions for our swatches, including gauge. A tool that I’m finding to be helpful is the Gaugefy app for Apple devices. It’s …
I first discovered Chic-a knitting bags and accessories during the recent SLO Yarn Crawl. Their trunk show at Nordic Mart offered up fantastic bags and needle organizers, all in the most delightful patterns! Here’s their line-up of pouches: Chic-a uses oil cloth for easy cleaning and durability. My favorite thing in the world is to sit in my yard and …
Have you been following the Fiber Factor? If you haven’t heard of it yet, it bills itself as “a knitting design competition being held to find the next great knitwear designing superstar!” Twelve extremely talented contestants compete to win 6 challenges, with an overall winner receiving a trip to Germany. The first challenge, called “Knit Your Life” is underway. I love watching the …
Congratulations to the four winners of the AudKnits 4-year blogiversary drawing! Lovely custom stitch markers are on their way to Jen, Janice, Andrea and Susan. If you weren’t among the winners, but have a hankering for these gorgeous markers, you can order some for yourself from my friend Laurie at LimaPopShoppe on ArtFire. She has the special AudKnits colors, as …
You may remember a few posts ago I talked about the amazing National Geographic Genographic Project which traces human migration across the globe. Steve and I submitted our DNA to add to the database, and also to find out what our roots are. The results are in! Let’s just say it was a really long walk. All of us can …
If you read my blog, you know that I recently knit a February Lady Sweater in a ridiculously short amount of time. I garter stitched my way into bleary-eyed mental exhaustion. So when I got to the instruction that called for working 41 increases evenly over 239 stitches…well, I almost cried. The few brain cells that were left knew that …
Sometimes the little things in life bring great happiness. Especially during times of turmoil, they come to mean a lot. Podcasts are like that for me. Listening to them makes me happy, no matter what else is going on in my life. I have a giant list of favorites, but one which always puts a smile on my face is Marly Bird’s …
