You Know What I Love...

...checking the analytics for this blog and seeing that a full 50% of the visitors originate from a country other than the U.S.

That's just cool.

Special Promotion: Free Pattern with Purchase of Winter 08/09 Collection

For a limited time, if you buy the Knitty Professors Winter 08/09 Collection, we’ll send you one other pattern of your choice for free!

Just email us at knittyprofessors@gmail.com after purchase, and tell us which pattern to send you!

The Winter 08/09 Collection features three top-down sweaters—each one is knit in the round with raglan shaping. The collection also features tons of cold-weather accessories—scarves, mittens, hat, and a shawl. That’s a total of 8 patterns for just $17.95.

Some of highlights of the collection:

Estella

Fezziwig hat and mittens

Gamekeeper

Miss La Creevy

See the complete collection here or on Ravelry.

As a thank you gift, you can choose any of our patterns—look under Katie’s Patterns or Jordynn’s Patterns at right. Why not get started with some spring projects, like Nella:

Or Plath?

 

Winter 08/09 Collection – Now Available

Our new collection is finally available!

In this collection, you will find 3 sweater patterns, for men, babies, and women:

Gamekeeper

 

Tiny Tim

Estella

And lots of accessories:

   

Fezziwig mittens (and hat!)            Chartres lace stole

Cratchit handwarmers

 

Miss La Creevy                         Nickelby

If you’re counting, that’s 8 patterns for just $17.95! Buy now!

Knitting While Being Body-Snatched

So, I find myself knitting shawls lately. There are two main reasons for this:

1. My Wisp [pattern here, designer Niamath's blog here] and Lady Eleanor needed revising. Ellie was too short, because I totally underestimated the width and sheer massiveness this shawl and ran out of yarn. So, I ordered 2 more skeins of Boku and added another foot. Now she's perfect. (Pics in a bit.) Second, I found I never wore Wisp, because it also seemed too small. I like the stitch pattern, but the buttons seemed fussy. Fortuitously I purchased Victorian Lace Today [order from great indy bookstore here] around the same time I realized my discontent with the shawl, and decided to put a vandyke border on the thing, all the way around, and take off the buttons. (I had more yarn in my stash, purchased on my trip to Japan.) I realized that (1) I flipping love VLT, and (2) I love my Wisp. Not quite done yet, pics soon.

Reason for shawl knitting #2: I'm the size of a house.

I'm over half-way done with this pregnancy thing and running about 20 pounds heavy. Which is right on target according to my doc, but feels INSANE. Nothing fits right. I keep knitting garments, and they keep looking like crap on me. So I put them on my skinny sister (her baby turns 1 this month) and that makes me feel a little better. I might be the size of a house, but my knitting doesn't suck. Ugh. So I'm knitting a sweater for my MAP, another Gamekeeper, and a mini version for unborn little-MAP--matching father and son sweaters out of this stash of green cascade 220 I acquired a while back. At least my husband is still a noodle, which is a GREAT build for modelling knits.

Thrift Store Yarn

For some reason, as I was walking home from the dentist today I had a feeling I should check the thrift store by my house for yarn. They have a drawer for yarn that is usually empty, but today I found a big bag that contained this:

(10 skeins of Ornaghi Filati Amour).

And this:

(8 skeins of Berrocco Chinchilla)

Granted, the Chinchilla is basically a novelty yarn, and neither of these are colors I would necessarily pick out at full price. And since they were in the same bag, I wonder if the original owner had in mind a particularly hideous project of some kind. An afghan pershaps? A stripey scarf? Ugh.

But I think I might be able to make something with them. The burnt orange Amour reminded me of the scarf Audrey Tautou wears in the film Happenstance (see below), so I might make it into a scarf or shawl.

This yarn haul comes on the heels of this find, from the Mennonite Central Committee thrift store near my sister’s house in Ontario:

(6 skeins of Rowan Big Wool Tuft). I think this will either be a cowl or a scarf.

BTW, if you live near Elmira, ON, definitely check out this store. It includes BINS of yarn, organized by color. And when I was there they had needles (plenty of them new and in packages). So perhaps a yarn store went out of business and donated their stuff to the MCC?

Winter 08/09 Pattern Preview

Our Winter Pattern Collection is just days away. Here’s a preview of one of the patterns, Fezziwig Hat and Mittens.

The hat features a simple cabled pattern…

That is repeated on the mittens

I knit these in Malabrigo Merino Worsted, but any worsted weight wool will do.

Check for the pattern book soon! We’re featuring 8 patterns this time, including projects for men and babies. More previews coming!