After a message from our landlord telling me that she doesn’t want to renew our lease and a ton of soul-searching on my part, I have made the hard decision to close Knit Happens. This isn’t because I don’t love yarn and teaching anymore (because I do) or because of fibre space™ (because it’s not – I wish Danielle lots of success), but because it’s time for me to move on.

I’ve been with the shop since May of 2004 – just two months after we opened to the public – and became the manager in August of that year. In all of that time, I’ve had the honor and privilege to be a part of our community’s life. I’ve taught so many of you to knit or to expand your knitting horizons, I’ve seen relationships, marriages and families start. In letting me into your lives, you’ve also become such a part of my life – being a cheering squad when times got tough a few years ago, checking in to make sure that I had company on the long days I was by myself, giving honest opinions when needed, encouraging me to challenge myself and start to design. Thank you all so much for that. When I started here 6 years ago, I thought I was the luckiest person in the world because I got to work with a new passion of mine – yarn. What I didn’t realize until later is that while working with yarn was (and is still) awesome, the shop gave me so much more: friendships and a huge extended family! For all of that, thank you. Thank you so very much.

What will I do when all is said and done? (I’m egotistical enough to think you’re wondering…) Well, while I will have to get used to having a job where I can’t wear jeans daily, I’m hoping that I won’t leave the yarn industry/community completely. Perhaps I’ll be able to take on private lessons and finishing – I’m still planning on working on my design skills. (I’m tossing around a series of socks in my head right now…)

Enough of the maudlin… The silver lining to all of this (for you) is that everything in the store will go on sale starting Friday, August 13! No, I’m not going to tell you exactly what the sale prices will be (they’ll be different for everything), but I will say get here early for sweater quantities. If you wait, there may not be sweater quantities left. However, Tiara and I will have lots of ideas on how to use all the yarn – we’ve got tons of patterns and of course we’ll have Ravelry pulled up on the computer to help figure out amounts of yarn needed! Also, there are tons of books (trust me, my back is telling me there are lots of books! ) – if you’ve been waiting for a special occasion to build your knitting library, this is the time.

I know that many of you out there have completed Insatiable Knitter Cards saved for projects – you will be able to use those towards your purchases on top of the stated discounts! (I know, it’s a steal!) However, we won’t be marking Insatiable Knitter Cards. We will be unable to take phone or emailed orders and will keep things on hold for one day only.

Do you want any of the fixtures? (You know, the bookshelves, table, chairs, and the like.) They’re up for grabs, too! Just let me know and make me an offer – I’ll put your name on it. (No, the poster in the sock room is not for sale. Sorry!)

While I know that this is a sad time for many of you (and for me too), I hope that you’ll join in and celebrate the last 6 years with us. Share your memories with us – on here, in the store, on the Knitters Happen group on Ravelry, wherever. All of us – past and present employees and myself – have loved being a part of your lives, thank you so much!

We will be closed Sunday, July 4 so we can all celebrate the holiday with family and friends. We will reopen at 11am Tuesday.

We hope that you all have a happy and safe 4th of July holiday!

Actually, after finishing my Featherweight Cardi (I’m so glad that my idea of a knitalong is taking on a life of its own… but I digress), I immediately got back to work on a Green Gable (Rav link) that I’d started ages ago in the Classic Elite Premiere – and finished it. Which left me floundering for another project… and I pulled one out of my UFO pile, but the Cotton Bamboo I was using was not being kind to my hands, so down it goes for a bit.

Again, that left me floundering for a project. Until I was reading blogs and saw Elspeth’s latest post and saw this beauty. (The shawl, although the model is gorgeous, too.) Lavalette (Rav link), by Through the Loops!’s Kirsten Kapur. A quick dive in my sock yarn stash, provided the ideal yarn (a recent acquisition from another shop, sorry! However, I might just make another one… or two…)

Lavalette is proving to be just what I’m looking for in a project right now: quick and easy. I cast on late this morning at the shop and that picture was taken after just a couple hours of knitting! (I’m actually much farther along than that, that’s how quick this knits!) Worked up on US7s, it has a great drapey feel that’s going to grow effortlessly when I block it out. So, as I’m knitting on this, I start to think about how the Featherweight Cardi became an informal knitalong (and is going really well – I can’t wait to see some of those finished!) and thought that for those who just need a quick and dirty project or want to give some easy lace a try, this would fit the bill perfectly!

Pattern available from Kirsten’s site. Go download it and join me!

P.S. The photo was totally bogarted from Elspeth’s site – go visit her and tell her how much you love the shawl. Just sayin’.

Now onto the technology portion of this post. Recently, I gave up my Blackberry for an iPhone again and have been having fun relearning the phone. I had forgotten how many ways that this simple phone can make my knitting life easier – there are row counter apps galore, knitting needle/project organizers (and hopefully there will be a Rav app sometime in the future)… But what I hadn’t anticipated was that iBooks would also be a HUGE help to the knitting life! No, I haven’t gone on there to see if there are knitting books available, however, I discovered that you can store PDFs on there. What does that mean? Well, if you have a PDF of a project (that you own legally, natch), you can email yourself a copy of it and open it using iBooks, keeping a copy with you on your phone (or iPod, or iPad), lessening the need to have a printed copy with you. I may have gotten a bit excited over discovering that – and I think that I’ll be emailing tons of my PDFs to myself just to have them in iBooks. 

I used 2 skeins of the FDC Centolavaggi yarn held doubled (each skein has a total of 1533 yards) on a size 6 needle. The yarn is gorgeous and soft – though if I knit this again, I’ll either be going down a needle size or a full bust size in the pattern. This sweater grew a lot in the width during the washing/blocking process, however, it dried in no time, so there is that. I ended up making almost no modifications to the pattern, which is unusual for me, I know.

Since finishing it last Wednesday (just in time for Late Night), I’ve already worn it a handful of times and have gotten lots of compliments on it each time. In the picture, I’m wearing it how I’ll probably wear it most of the time: casual, with a tank top and jeans, but it dresses up really nicely and was perfect for an outdoor wedding on a warm day with a light breeze.

If you’re knitting along, don’t stop! You will LOVE this cardigan, I swear! Right now I’m clearing two projects out of my WIP bin – socks and a summer top – and when I’m done with those, we’ll have another knitalong! If you didn’t join in at the start, after seeing it completed (in just over three weeks, no less), do you think you’ll give it a try? It’s a great addition to a wardrobe and dead easy to knit.

I’m using Filatura di Crosa’s Centolavaggi yarn in Ruby.  Gorgeous, no?  (That picture really doesn’t do the red justice.)  I know, I know, y’all are saying “But Holly, the Centolavaggi has 1531 yards – and is less than $40.  The math doesn’t add up.”  (Wait, y’all weren’t asking?  Humor me.)  Well, you’d be right – the math doesn’t add up for just one skein, but does if I’m doubling the yarn.  The Centolavaggi is ever so much lighter than a laceweight and I thought it wouldn’t make too much of a difference when swatched, but I just didn’t like the fabric I was getting.  (See, another reason to swatch!  Just sayin’.)  So, after discussing it with Carol and Rachelle, I decided to double the yarn.  LOVE the fabric now – and am still hitting gauge.

This is going to be an ideal, lightweight cardi for year-round use.  You know how I love those…  It’ll be really helpful here at the shop this summer while I’ve got the A/C blasting, or on a cool evening out (we get those occasionally).  It’s lots of stockinette stitch, which can get a little boring, but the thought of having this in my wardrobe is keeping me going.  Who wants to knit one along me?

The pattern is available for $4.95 on Ravelry or at Hannah’s website.

(Photo from Hannah’s Flickrstream for the Featherweight Cardigan.)

Arabella had picked up the last of the Araucania Lonco from the clearance bin – the Lonco is a gorgeous mercerized fingering weight cotton with amazing stitch definition, but it’s a bit of a b!#&% to wind.  I am convinced that drunken monkeys were hired to reskein up the yarn once it was dyed.  In almost every skein that I’ve wound, there has been an extra twist put into the hank, making it a tangle.  I gave Arabella some warning about it (probably not enough) and she was off winding.

Fast forward an hour: she’s got 5 ends to the yarn and she’s about ready to quit winding and just cut her losses and run. Bolstered by my fourth (very small) cup of wine, I tell her that we’re not going to cut the yarn, that we can save it.  Fast forward another hour or hour and a half: it’s after 9pm, we’re still hand-winding the yarn into 3 different balls, just trying to find the end that’s attached to the ball on the ball winder.  The entire time, we’re cracking jokes about the mutating ends of yarn and how we’re lucky we’ve got the swift because neither of us know anyone who’d be willing to hold the yarn for that long!  I offer to wind the rest of the skeins for her before Knit ‘n Nosh, so she doesn’t have to deal with it, besides, I’ve had decent luck with getting the Lonco wound before, right?

The next day, I spent another three hours with a tangled mess of yarn – the drunken monkeys have been at it again.  However, the next few skeins weren’t bad at all.  (Apparently, the drunken monkeys only work on about half of the dyelots.)  Yesterday I handed it all back to her, wound of course, and she told me that I had convinced her that she needed to get a swift to have at home. 

I got a ball winder about a year before I splurged on a swift and it was a huge pain in the rear to get anything wound into balls – I had to have someone standing right there holding my hank of yarn while I wound it, or laid it on the ground and wound slowly – not good when there are pets around…  Once I got my swift, life was a lot easier.  I could hand-wind or use the ball winder – and my yarn was (relatively) safe from my cats (who love to think of it as theirs).

So, weighing in on this debate, I’m going with get a swift first if you can’t get both.  However, if you can get both (or are dropping very last minute Mother’s Day hints to husbands and children) you can save 15% off of the set!

So, on that note, we will be closed both Saturday, May 1st and Sunday, May 2nd for the festival.  If you see us there, stop us and say hi!  It will be Rachelle and Tiara’s first time at the festival, so share any good tips you’ve got with them.  (I’ve shared mine with them – and it looks like Rachelle has got a plan to her shopping!)

Also, starting Tuesday, May 4th, we will be going to our Spring/Summer hours.  That means we’ll be closing early and opening late a few times a week, but our weekend hours will stay the same.  Also, it means that evening classes will start at 6pm instead of 7pm, so you’ll get home while there’s still light out.  Our new hours will be:

Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 11-5:30
Wednesday: 11-9
Thursday: 11-5:30
Friday: 10:30-7
Saturday: 10:30-7
Sunday: 12-5

(Photo taken from the Maryland Sheep & Wool page – visit them for more details on the festival, vendors and maps of the fairgrounds!)

If you’ve ever been in my beginning class, you know I try to make it as much fun as possible, as well as teaching a new skill, which always seems to work out well… and last night’s class was no exception.  It was a small class, even by our “small class” standards, but everyone had so much enthusiasm – even if they were a bit dubious that they could actually knit.    By the end of the class, I had some really excited knitters walk out the door, and I was reminded why I do this – because I love it so.

Wait, you’ve never taken a class here before?  Or you didn’t know that the class list was up?  Check our Classes and Events page and take a look at the calendar for the latest classes we’re offering.  We’ve got two classes starting later this week with lots of room in them:

Pattern Reading, Friday 4/16 7-9pm  $35

Do you sometimes look at a pattern and wonder what the heck they’re asking you to do? Or what all those abbreviations actually mean? Holly will explain the mysterious world of knitting (and crochet) lingo, tell you the difference between British/European and American patterns and tell you just what to look for when looking for a pattern to knit.

Bring to class:
pen/pencil; paper to take notes

Circular Knitting Techniques, Saturday 4/17, 9:30-11:30am  $35

Does idea of knitting in the round just confuse you? Are you knitting one way in the round and the idea of other techniques intimidate you? This is the class for you. In this class, Holly will show you how to cast on and get started on DPNs, two circulars and magic loop. By the end of the class you will have mastered the techniques and will know which one is the technique for you.

Bring to class:
200 yds DK or worsted weight yarn; appropriate size needles in DPNs, two circulars (can be different lengths) and a 47″ circular.

If either of these sound like a class for you, just call us at 703-836-0039 and we’ll get you signed up in no time!

Yes, I’m sure that you’ll be seeing this video pop up a lot over the next few days on every knitting blog you follow (both shops and personal ones, I bet) – Mo Rocca making peace with knitters all over the world after his statement on Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me that “homemade sweaters are itchy.” He has his slice of humble pie by learning to knit and finding out that it’s not as easy as it looks – and gets hooked. (He even knows the difference between knitting and crocheting. My abandoned Mo Rocca crush? Back in full force after this.)

She whipped up this little number from the book, Blueprint Crochet: Modern Designs for the Visual Crocheter, in just a couple of days.  Don’t I wish my sweaters would knit up that quickly… maybe there is something to this crocheting thing, huh?    She is finishing a second sweater from the book as we speak.  She says that the patterns are generously sized, so gauge swatches are a must!  But a gauge swatch doesn’t seems so bad when you get such a great fitting sweater out of the deal, no?

Doesn’t this just make you want to give crochet a try?  We’ve got 3 Beginning Crochet classes scheduled in the next two months – hopefully one of those classes will work with your schedule!  Click on the “Classes and Events” tab at the top of the page for details.

(Yes, we do have Blueprint Crochet in stock!  Need me to hold a copy?  Just call and let me know!)