Oops! I totally spaced, you guys. I was going to give you a 100-day warning about Christmas, but… I forgot.
So this is your warning.
81 days until Christmas.![christmas-bmo[1]](https://ontheneedles.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/christmas-bmo1.png)
I’m so sorry. I know it’s early- Halloween isn’t eve here yet. But, we’re knitters, and Christmas Knitting is our Superbowl- you can never prepare for it too much. So get out your Christmas giving lists, dig through your stash, and start trolling Ravelry for good gift ideas.
Good luck!
This is silly, but I’ve never had a nice shawl pin.
I’ve made some out of wire, and I even made a couple out of clay, when I was working in a ceramics studio (but those broke almost immediately). And, honestly, if I needed one, I’d grab a pencil or a DPN. I’ve bought them for other people, and I always admire them when I’m at a yarn store with a good selection.
Anyway, a few weeks ago my husband and I went on a little day trip to visit some friends on Bainbridge Island. It’s one of my favorite things to do- I love riding the ferry across the sound and spending the day in delightful little shops, drinking coffee and visiting brew pubs.
And, there’s a super fancy yarn store on the island, Churchmouse Yarns and Teas (even the name is fancy). I love visiting there, even though I always feel like I’m not fancy enough to be there. But that’s how I roll- super casual.
I was at the checkout (getting some yarn that will become someone’s Christmas present- ssh, it’s a surprise!), and I saw a little glass full of silvery shawl pins in the shape of twigs. How adorable!
I decided to take the advice of two of my favorite characters from Parks and Rec, and one of the shawl pins made it into my shopping bag.
Now, I am the proud owner of a JUL Bronze Twig Shawl Pin. It’s adorable and shiny, and makes me feel very fancy. It’s perfect for my Stranger Cardigan and Campside Cardi, since they don’t have buttons.
Do you have a favorite too-fancy store? What was your latest “Treat Yo Self” purchase?
For my “day job” I get to hang out with elementary school kids and teach them sewing and arts and crafts. It’s kind of the best- I’m still half-surprised it’s my job. And for a couple golden weeks each summer, I get to teach my absolute favorite class- knitting.
We have a range of ages- last week we had a dozen children from 6 to 10. Some had knit before, and some had never even touched a knitting needle. We started with finger knitting, letting the kids get used to playing with yarn, and getting them used to the idea of pulling loops into other loops (a surprisingly difficult concept for some of the little ones).
One girl was enjoying her finger knitting so much, she did it all week- ending up with a finger-knit tube almost 60 feet long. She then took her finger-knitting and sewed it together in a spiral, making a multi-colored rug that she was really proud of. 
When a kid gets bored of finger knitting (which most do), we move on to loom knitting with the Knifty Knitter. I am completely in favor of the Knifty Knitter now- a position I would never have taken even a ouple years ago. What I once thought of as “cheating,” I now see for what it is: a way for kids (or anyone, really) who don’t quite have the motor skills to actually knit.
The kids this year made adorable hats (with pompoms), fingerless gloves, bags, and even a tiny hedgehog stuffed animal. (This is a glove in progress:)
And every class, we get a kid or two who wants to try their hand at “stick knitting.” This year 9 of our 13 students broke out their needles. It was a record!
There is nothing more adorable than a whole classroom of kids, needles clicking, concentrating on their projects and chatting about whatever it is that kids chat about. (I wanted to take a picture to share with you, but I figured their parents might have reservations about having their kids pictures up on the internet. So, you can look at my student’s knitting project- her second ever! I believe it ended up being a very small pot holder.)
Have you ever knit with kids? How did it go?
We had friends visiting over the weekend (Hi friends!), and we dragged them all over Seattle. We had lunch at Pike Place, we explored local parks, and ate and drank our way across the city.
And we visited the EMP, a weird pop-culture museum in the shadow of the Space Needle. It’s full of movie and music memorabilia. It’s an odd collection, but a pretty fun way to spend the afternoon. (Want to see Princess Buttercup’s gowns from The Princess Bride? A collection of phasers from Star Trek? Nirvana’s old set lists? Then the EMP is the place for you.)
This summer, the EMP is hosting a traveling show of “clothes” from the World of WearableArt Awards Show. This show/competition is apparently held every fall in New Zealand, and now I need to visit New Zealand.
The “clothes” are only clothes in the sense that you could put a person inside of them. They’re really wearable sculptures made out of plastic, leather, metal, wood and every other imaginable material. They’re truly stunning. If you ever get a chance to see the exhibition, definitely take advantage. It’s really amazing.
One piee particularly piqued my interest, and (surprise, surprise), it featured wool.
This is “Totally Sheepish”, by Sarah Peacock (whose website I couldn’t find, so if you can find more information about her, I’d love to see it.)
OK, it’s a little weird, but look at the craftsmanship! Most of the wool for this piece was harvested from the artist’s pet sheep, High Jump, and processed by hand. Some was spun into yarn, which was then knit and crocheted. The teardrops were wet felted, and the corrugated pieces woven around the waist were hot-molded (a process that I don’t know much about).
Can you imagine all the work that must have gone into making this thing?! It must have taken months and months, maybe even years.
Be sure to check out the WOW website, or just Google the World of WearableArt to see the amazing creations. And if you happen to be in New Zeland in October, go to the show and tell me all about it!
I’ve finally got my act together. I’ve sulked long enough, and I think I figured out a solution. I think I can make this sweater work. I’ll live to knit another day.
But first, I had to rip an entire sleeve. It was… an unfortunate amount of ripping. I poured myself a nice stiff drink and went to town.
God… look how different that yarn is. (New yarn is on the right, old, scraggly yarn is on the left.)
I remembered someone telling me, or maybe reading somewhere (not sure where… I just know I didn’t make this up), that if you had two different dye lots that you had to make work, you can work them in stripes to blend the two colors together. It was worth a shot.
First I tried 2-row stripes, but that ended up looking really stripey. (I didn’t even bother taking a picture of this one- it didn’t look good.)
But, when I tried narrow, 1-row stripes, I managed to get a pretty even color. And, since I’m using a big circular needle, I can slide the needle back and forth after every other row. That means I don’t have to break my yarn or juggle extra balls of yarn! Winning!
See? The sleeve (the bottom portion of the picture) is pretty close to the rest of the sweater. It’s still a smidge blue-ish in real life, but only so much that someone looking really closely would notice it.
The only problem is that the combination of new yarn and old, frogged yarn makes the fabric a bit of a mess.
But at this point, I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope that it looks OK after blocking.
Have you ever had to get creative to get around poor dye-lot matching?
Warning! Warning! Alert! Alert!
![51G8hWAw6mL[1]](https://ontheneedles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/51g8hwaw6ml1.jpg?w=292&h=300)
This is your 6-month warning. Christmas is in 6 months. Begin your plans now. (Or wait until mid-November, like I usually do.)![Beautiful-Christmas-Tree-christmas-27617948-1024-768[1]](https://ontheneedles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/beautiful-christmas-tree-christmas-27617948-1024-76811.jpg)
That is all. You have been warned.
I know you were all waiting with bated breath over the weekend- Will Allison’s socks turn out? Or will she be cursed to forever have lopsided footwear?
Well, I have an update for you.
But first, look at my artsy picture of my socks as they were blocking over the weekend. I call this picture “Morning Sunlight with Wet Socks.”
(OK, maybe I’ve had too much coffee this morning… or not enough. One or the other.)
Once they were dry I took them down, and they looked OK. Maybe a little lopsided, but not too bad.
I know it’s silly, and something that I should have gotten over so long ago- after all I’ve been knitting since I was a little kid. But, I can never get over how pretty blocked fabric looks. Especially socks. All those precise little stitches. Aren’t they just beautiful?
Anyway, enough stalling. Long story short, the socks came out fine. They’re almost the same size- one is still a smidge big, but no one other than me would notice (or care). 
Isn’t it funny how your gauge can change over time. I used the same needles and the same yarn (I know because they were all packed away nicely waiting for me in a little project bag). I did the same number of rows and stitches, and for whatever reason I was way more relaxed for the second sock. Sigh.
I guess it’s just another reason to avoid Second Sock Syndrome, I suppose.
Has your gauge ever led you astray?
Imagine this: You’re in the back seat of a minivan, somewhere on the Ohio Turnpike. You thought you brought enough knitting for the day, but your project has gone faster than expected (yay), leaving you with three more hours of driving, and nothing else to knit (boo). You’ve got plenty more yarn, but it’s tucked away in your suitcase, which is buried in the trunk, under everyone else’s luggage.
What’s a girl to do?
Just keep knitting.
I finished my gloves earlier than I had expected, but I had a little extra yarn. Not even enough to make a third glove, much less any other garment. But, it was enough to make a coffee sleeve!
I already had the gauge (after all, I was using the same yarn and same needles as I had used on my gloves), and I could guess at the proper dimensions for a coffee sleeve. And, since this stitch pattern is super stretchy (it was the same one I used for the gloves), I didn’t have to worry about being perfect.
It worked like a charm! Now I’ve got a lovely matching coffee sleeve to go with my new gloves. I think I just might start making coffee sleeves with all my leftover scraps!
Have you ever been in a similar situation? What did you do to keep yourself occupied?
On my Epic Road Trip, I spent a day with my in-laws, visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.![71ed32[1]](https://ontheneedles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/71ed321.jpg)
I’ll be honest, I was kind of “meh” on the idea of stopping by, after all I’m not a huge fan of classic rock. But, I really enjoyed myself! I saw Michael Jackson’s rhinestone glove, the Supremes’ pink sequin-and-feather dresses, and the white guitar that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock. There was a fantastic exhibit about the history of rock (starting with blues and jazz through modern day) and a cool display talking about the intersection of politics and music. I’d definitely recommend stopping for a day (or at lest an afternoon), if you’re driving through Ohio.
“But Allison,” you ask. “Why are you talking about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on a knitting blog?”
Well, reader. I’ll tell you.
One of the newest inductees to the Hall of Fame is the band Cheap Trick.![cheap-trick[1]](https://ontheneedles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cheap-trick1.jpg)
And in the display about the new inductees, was one of the outfits that Rick Nielsen, the guitarist wore at a bunch of his shows.
It’s hard to see in such a small picture, but that cardigan… it’s knit. Black and white checkers at a tiny gauge (I think it’s double knit, but I couldn’t get close enough to really examine it). And the two big black squares on the front are giant pockets with “Cheap Trick” worked over and over again in white. Can you imagine knitting something like that… it’s such a small gauge, and would be such a pain to knit!. (And can you imagine performing on stage under all those hot lights in a wool cardigan? Ugh!)
According to the plaque, Rick Nielsen designed the sweater and someone named Sally Walton knit it up. It might not be my style, but it’s a pretty impressive piece of knitting. Imagine one of your finished objects ending up in a museum!
What’s the most surprising knitting you’ve come across?
I did it. I finally did it! I steamed blocked my husband’s sweater! It took me long enough, but I finally got up the guts.
And it wasn’t even that bad!
I guess I was afraid of accidentally messing up the sweater I had worked so hard on. After all, I rarely iron anything, and never anything that’s as heat sensitive as acrylic. I was 90% sure that I would end up melting the sweater.
Anyway, here’s what I did to avoid the Big Melt:
I flattened out the sweater on my ironing board and set the iron to the lowest steam setting. I covered the sweater with a cotton tea towel, and delicately hit it with the iron- almost skimming across the top of the towel, not pressing down. Once each area was thoroughly steamed, I put down the iron and peeled back the towel. Then, I kind of tugged on the still-hot sweater to make it grow a little bit while it cooled.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to see the difference in these pictures, but here’s the before (a little wrinkly):
And the after (lovely and smooth):
I even steamed the textured yoke a little bit.
It looks good! And I think it’ll fit my husband better- which was the goal of this whole thing, in the first place!
On the Needles 