Happy new year, gift knitting roundup

Happy New Year, lovely knitters!

I hope your holiday season was restful, warm, and as joyous and raucous as you like it to be.

Ours was utterly lovely this year. Close to home, we hosted our annual solstice open house, and made it through the longest night surrounded by friends, warmth, and laughter. I then took a full week off of work (!) and spent some wonderful time up in Maine with my family. We rang in the new year like we always do, with our best friends, feeling about as lucky as it’s possible for people to feel.



And now, I’m back in the office, making all kinds of exciting plans for the year. It feels like it’s been so long since we’ve caught up – how were your holidays? What are you knitting? Where will you travel, this year?

Travels and Teaching

My teaching schedule is light this winter/spring, but I absolutely love the events I’m doing.

  • First up, I’m off to NYC for a full teaching weekend with Vogue Knitting Live. Will I see you there? I’m going to try to hit the marketplace after classes on Friday, and Saturday at lunchtime. If you see me, say hi! (I’ll be the disheveled one with dry-erase marker on my nose.)
  • Then I’ll be road-tripping up to WEBS on January 20th for an afternoon talk and trunk show for their CustomFit program. If you’re local(ish), I hope you can join us! I’ll be stepping through some of the new CustomFit features, having a selection of samples to play with, and answering questions. It promises to be a lovely, informal, gathering and I hope I’ll see some of you there.
  • After that, it’s out to Tacoma February 15-18 for the lovely Madrona Fiber Arts. I’m teaching a full schedule, and hope to see you at one of the evening events.
  • Finally, on February 28 – March 3 I’m off to the lovely Berkshires for a cozy Vogue Knitting Destination weekend with Catherine Lowe and Courtney Kelly. I can’t wait to put my feet up and knit by the fire with students.

I hope to see you at one of these events!

Gift Knitting Galore

I’m not a super-serious gift knitter, but I do always manage to make a few things for those I love around the holidays. One thing I never miss is a collection of indoor caps for the boys, especially my husband, who shaves his head. They’re not very photogenic projects, but I did grab a quick snapshot of my favorite this year! I used some delicious chocolate brown Rosy Green Wool and equally-delicious green Crave:

I squeaked this one in juuuuuust under my deadline. In fact, I knit on it in front of Jon for an entire day without him realizing what it was! (You’d think he’d know better after 26 years together… 🙂

For my big gift this year, I whipped up a Drumlin Cardigan for my sweet goddaughter Brenna, who was overdue for a sweater she could grow into. I used Kettle Yarn Co.’s Islington DK in “Neckinger Green”, which is such a lovely hue. As is often the way with kid items, I got a few well-lit shots of it on the sofa in my office:



And a hasty, less-well-lit shot on Brenna herself one evening:

But despite the lack of photographic evidence, she adores it. I’ve seen her in it twice in the past couple of weeks, so I’m calling that a huge win.

Bring on the Selfish Knitting!

Finally, I ended 2017 knitting something solely for my own pleasure. I’ve been struggling to finish my A-line version of Verglas since September! I’ve just had too much other work knitting to do. So while I was on vacation, I put work aside and banged out the rest of the garment. Just in time for the super-cold temps here in New England.

I can’t even express how much I love this sweater in an A-line version. It’s comfy snuggly, and roomy enough in the hips that I could make it super-long and it’s just… perfect.



I knit it out of the same yarn as the original, Spirit Trail Fiberworks Zaiti, in a beautiful blue-gray Jen sent me. I used an A-line close fit, which reads A-line from some angles and not from others.

And I used 3 fans to dry it quickly after blocking, because I could. not. wait. to get that lovely scrunchy neckline on my body:

I hope you like it too! If you want one of your own, when you customize your own Verglas just choose the A-line Silhouette – and for maximum awesomeness, lengthen the sweater to a tunic, as well!

The A-line Silhouette is available on lots of CustomFit designs now, in case you missed that development earlier this fall. I’ve got my eye on an A-line version of Copper Mountain, next.

Stay tuned for more KALs and fun in 2018!

Whew! That was quite an update – this year, I hope to connect with you more regularly on the blog, and share some of the really exciting things I’ve been working on these past several months. Want a sneak peek of the project that’s got me most excited at the moment?

I’ve embarked on a long-term effort to photograph my sweaters on a wider variety of people. I hope you’re as inspired by the results of this work as much as I am! It’s been super amazing so far.

Until next time, happy knitting!

1 thought on “Happy new year, gift knitting roundup

  1. Planning trips to warm southern CA, Southwest France and Boulder. Working on Profusion by Karen MaCall in luscious Madeline Tosh while my Steven Be Ponchini is in time out.

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