Marvels of Knitting

The new classes have been up for a week now and the sign-ups have been going really well. Putting up the classes always increase the number of people checking out my site.

While looking at stats to see what was going on, I realized that I actually have people reading my blog.

Yup, not only are people coming during the week I have put up new classes, they come back on a regular basis.

Yup, there are people reading this blog. And the numbers are actually higher then the number of my friends and students.

I find this amazing. I am not a writer by any stretch of the imagination. I am so greatful that someone, or as it turns out several someones, are actually taking the time to read my pages and then come back and do it again.

Thank You Thank You Thank You.

On with the knitting!
Since putting classes up, I have been busy knitting the samples for the classes. I selected the classes a little differently this time around. Instead of thinking about what I thought you, the student, might want to knit I decided to pick things I really wanted to knit.

What a difference that made. I have found that because I am excited about what we are going to be knitting so are you. I am also having a blast knitting everything up.



First up is the Mosaic Stole. This is a slip stitch pattern and it has been really fun knit. I have had to do some color managment with the noro silk garden lite I am using. There are 4 shades that are in the same family (pinks and corals). I don't want them coming up at the same time because, well, that would be too much pink and coral going on.

Solution? I rewound the balls so I could see what was happening with the colors and then figured out where I should start the two strands so that, in theory, those color families will not show up at the same time. I have a feeling I will have some more management to do before I get to the end of this project.

In hindsight, (don't you just love hindsight? I only wish we could have it more often as foresight), I would use noro colors that had more, distinctly different colors in one skein. The whole project would probably flow better.


Next up is the Hemlock Ring Blanket. It is finally on my needles. I have wanted to knit this for a very long time. I have had the yarn in my stash for maybe a year now. Any time it came to the top of my list I would place it back down to the bottom in favor of projects that were more pressing at the time. Now it is on the "I need to knit list" and guess what??



I am loving this pattern. It took me a couple of times out of the gate to get it going but it is moving right along now.

I started with an alpaca yarn I bought for this project a long time ago. It was a light worsted weight yarn and this pattern really needs the heavy worsted. I could have gone down needle sizes and it would have worked just fine but I really wanted to use heavier yarn so it would be a thicker blanket and it would work up faster.

So into the stash I went and came up with 7 skeins of City Tweed from Knitpicks that I had originally bought for a cardigan. Now it will keep me warm as a blanket. I am about done with my 3rd skein as I write this and it really is coming out lovely.



Next on my needles will be the rainbow scarf (rav link) and the Nona's Garden Pillow. I know, it is a shawl, but I just have this feeling that I will end up with a pillow. Which suites me just fine.