Knit Happens

We’ve had lots of people in looking for darning needles – so many, in fact, that we THOUGHT we had sold out!

But as it happens… we found a few hiding in the back!

We have the bent tip, the straight, and the jumbo straight sets.

Hurry in before we really ARE sold out!

That’s right: DC’s first real snow of the season! Okay, many of you know that I’m not the biggest fan of winter and snow (ironic, I know), however, this morning when I woke up I felt that giddiness that I used to feel when I was in school. You know, that feeling of SNOW DAY! Of course, as an adult, we don’t get to take Snow Days, but it’s nice to know that the feeling hasn’t left just because we’re All Grown Up.

It’s that perfect snow we used to dream about playing in as kids, too: big, fluffy flakes, not too cold outside -but just cold enough to stick to the ground… It almost makes me want to rush outside and start making snow angels. Almost. As it is, I’m settling for a hot chocolate before Olga gets here and I can go out and shovel.

Yes, that’s right everyone, we’re open today. As per our Inclement Weather Policy, we will be open for as long as it’s safe to do so. All classes will be held this evening, unless it is unsafe to do so. If we decide we need to close, I will post on here, change the voicemail and put a note on the door. If a class is canceled because of the weather, we will contact all students in the class and arrange a make-up class.

Please come on down and gather supplies – let the rest of the family go get bread, milk and toilet paper, you need yarn, needles and a project! – but PLEASE be careful out there! I only live 12 minutes away from the shop: it took me 40 to get here and saw no fewer than 3 multi-car accidents on the way in – all of them were caused by people who thought their car could do more than it actually could in snow. If you’re unsure if we’ll be open, give us a call: 703-836-0039.

Join Knit-a-Gogo and Knit Happens on Saturday, January 24th, from 2-5 pm for our second Knitting For Marines charity event to benefit our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Major General Douglass Stone will again be knitting with us as we gather at Rustico Restaurant at 827 Slaters Lane, Alexandria, VA.

A reporter from Military Officer Magazine will be interviewing knitters during the event.

We had a great turnout at the last event, keep that support for the troops coming!

Patterns will be provided the day of the event and yarn and needles will be available for purchase from Knit Happens (cash only) or you may purchase your supplies ahead of time (all supplies purchased for the helmet liners are 10% off):

• US size 6 and 8 circular needles (16”) and a set of US size 8 double pointed needles (or size to get 4.5 st/inch with larger needles).
• 100% wool (superwash is fine) in either tan, brown, black or charcoal (our Marines strongly prefer tan). Only 100% soft wool yarn will be accepted, because our Armed Forces are not allowed to wear synthetic fibers outside the wire. Wool is inherently non-flammable and won’t melt against the skin in the event of an accident and is warm even when wet.

In honor of Inauguration Day, Knit Happens will be closed. We will reopen on Wednesday, January 21st at 10:30am and will be open our normal Wednesday hours.

If you’re not heading into the city for all the inaugural festivities tomorrow and want to get out of the house for a nice walk in Old Town, stop and take a look at our window – Kel is having a ton of fun working on the new window to celebrate the inauguration of our 44th President of the United States. Tell us what you think!

Logo created using Logobama.

No, not anything huge from Twilight, like Robert Pattinson or Kristin Stewart visiting or anything (that would be a HUGE bit of Twilight here), but knits inspired by the movie.

A few of you Twilighters or Twi-hards (whichever you prefer) will recognize not only the pose in the picture to the left, but also the handknit featured. Bella’s Mittens (Ravelry link) by Marielle Henault of Subliminal Rabbit is a quick, enjoyable knit – and I made them out of just two skeins of Misti Alpaca Chunky and US7 needles in just a couple of evenings! Talk about instant gratification!

I know that some of you will be thinking: “You can’t be serious! Misti Alpaca? On US7s?!?!” Trust me, it works. Your hands won’t be the happiest, however, when you are done you have soft, cushiony warmth that will block almost any wind. (I say almost because it didn’t block last weeks frigid wind during our cold front, but I paired them with gloves underneath and I was quite toasty. And I’m always cold.)

I’m also looking for more suggestions of movie knits to knit up for the shop. I’ll be knitting another pair of these for the shop (these mittens are all mine – I’m hoping they’ll keep me warm on a ski trip next month), but I know there are more Twilight, Harry Potter, Golden Compass, etc. knits out there – what are some of your favorite free patterns? What movies have had some great knits in them that you absolutely had to find a pattern to make them? Leave us suggestions in the comments. We are thinking of doing a movie-themed knit window and we want plenty of ideas!

Wow, it’s 2009 already! We started the year as we always do: with our annual inventory. It took all five days we were closed (from New Year’s Day to Monday, January 5), but it was successful. However, we’ve got a ton of books and patterns! But, I digress. That’s another post/email…

What I actually meant to blog was that right after inventory Aimée and I got an email from Karida saying that she had more of our order ready to bring to us and did we want it now? (I do love having one of our favorite vendors live and work right in the area and she can just bring by the yarn…) Well, you know us well enough to know we said a resounding “YES!” to that question. And, oh! It is so pretty!

We got some more of the Victorian Bulky back in stock – I know that a ton of you have wanted more of it and now we have it! Karida brought us the Logan Circle, Truxton Circle, Brightwood and Brookland. Only the Sheridan Circle and Randle Circle are left from the last delivery – just a few short weeks ago!

The eagle-eyed among you will notice that we also have a nice amount of the Studio Worsted in stock as well. After being out of stock for so long, Karida was finally able to dye some for us – I know that a bunch of you have been waiting for this to come back in. She brought us the Logan Circle, Cooper Circle and Sheridan Circle – don’t they just look so pretty sitting there? (They’d look even prettier in a sweater from this class. Just sayin’. I knit mine in the Cooper Circle colorway.)

What else did we get? Well, we definitely were able to fill in some holes we had in her Studio Sock – we never place an order without getting more of that! However, last year we wanted to experiment and bring in some of the roving dyed in the Neighborhood colorways to see how they would do – and you all bought them up in record time! So, of course, we ordered more. Don’t they look so luscious all braided up in the bin? (They weren’t tagged at the time of the photo, so they were still in the bin, however, they are tagged and hanging on the pegs up front now.) We’ve got the Sheridan Circle on top, with Kalorama Circle below that, Mount Pleasant below that, and Logan Circle hiding down at the bottom.

And just because she can’t bring us an order without telling us about her world-yarn-domination plans, Karida brought us a sneak peek of her newest colorway, inspired by all the brouhaha going on January 20. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce…

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

It’s all about Change. And Hope. (To borrow our new President-elect’s campaign slogans.) Karida takes the two colors that represent our political landscape, red and blue, and combines them creating this purple colorway that still shows the red and blue. It’s all about the hope that we will come together in the new administration. As people, we may be Blue or we may be Red, but if we come together, we can create wonderful things.

A note: she does not have this ready for production just yet. She is going to contact her distributor to get her the base yarns and will be dyeing her little heart out to get some to us! She’s hoping to make it available in all her weights – and she’s even designing a beret for the colorway out of the worsted!

When you’re in looking at all the yarn, check out the items Olga and I designed for Karida’s book Pints and Purls – which will be out this April. We’re pretty proud of them…