FO, FO, FO!

(the following announcement was sent to anyone who purchase the snow tire scarf pattern on ravelry; for those who purchased in our own online store, you may download the pattern update by logging in to your knitspot shop account and navigating to your recent purchases page)

hello, red scarf heroes!
today i finished and blocked my snow tire infinity scarf and have updated the pattern to state the final number of repeats and yardages required. it’s not dry yet so we don’t have modeling photos, but i wanted to give you this update because there are some changes to the knitting you might need over the weekend.

the good news is, you will be knitting quite a few LESS repeats for the scarf to reach the correct length! and i know you’ll appreciate that if you are knitting on a holiday deadline or if you’d like to squeeze in a second one before the holidays (i know it was good news for me—i’ve been hoarding a skein of better breakfast fingering for my next one!)

now, in the course of knitting my prototype along with you (and this is precisely what test knitting is for), i realized i could be knitting it even MORE efficiently and more identically on right and wrong sides. so this new version includes a very slight change to the “all-knit” and “all-purl” rows.

you can, by all means, continue using the original pattern or, just for fun, switch tactics right in the middle as i did—honestly, i challenge anyone to spot the row where i changed my stitch pattern; it’s undectable, even to me.

i opted to wash and block my scarf flat, then graft the ends together when it’s dry (probably tonight while we watch late night TV)

a nice sudsy bath does this fabric a world of good, so don’t skip that step, no matter how much you love the texture as it is—i promise, the wash will not ruin the depth of the pattern; in fact, it should improve it. and definitely you will have a much cleaner fabric; mine ended up needing two baths to get all of the spinning oil off the previously unwashed yarn.

next, it went up to the third floor for blocking on the library carpet (the only large blocking space that’s left to me any more). i used up all the yarn i had left in my bundle—about 400 yards—to knit 38 repeats of the pattern and my scarf ended up measuring the length of the large size; bigger than i predicted. by the time it was all pinned out it had started getting dark, so excuse the crappy photo—we’ll get some really nice pictures over the weekend with as handsome a model as we can find, ok? BTW, there will be one more update once we have final photos.

i hope you are enjoying this knit; for me, it’s been a wonderful lifesaver this holiday season. soothing, simple, and makes me feel very productive, even when i’m not. it’s been my morning coffee knitting each day since i cast on.

thank you all so very much for your generous support of our 2014 red scarf fundraiser!

i’m excited because with this sample off my needles, i’ll be a bit more free to get my gift knitting underway. between the red scarf and my secret knitting for the month—which definitely ran away with itself—i seem to have fallen behind.

but fortunately both of those efforts crossed the finish line almost simultaneously and i’m now free to knit whatever i want for a week or so. do you think i have enough time to knit david a sweater? i mean, i have started later than this in the past. much later even, some years. if i knit it in confection worsted or kent worsted, i bet i could do it.

ok, someone slap me into reality, would you?

actually, after i write this, i’m starting some mittens to match the snow tire scarf in the heavier santa suit worsted weight yarn; some lucky clubbies still have some left from last year’s all in full color club.

i also have to get back to knitting david’s christmas hat. heh—can you believe i’d even mention knitting a gift sweater when i can’t even seem to manage a hat in under three weeks? jeesh.

and this one is so pretty too—i even love the wrong side of the fabric. i’m working with all the shades of our stone soup DK yarn for this one—which doesn’t just look soft, but feels so cuddly as well. it really doesn’t need the cashmere lining but i would do anything for david, so i’ll be adding one. it’ll provide that extra shield he needs from the wind.

and now, i have something really special to show you—look what cherie knit up for us

an over the top, beee-yoo-teeful morning glory wrap knit in our super-lustrous cabécou sport, the sheen of which makes it look like spun silver. talk about extravagant . . . with that motif and edging, it’s a real head turner.

and it’s so light—i can’t get over how little it weighs when i pick it up. this one was knit with just two skeins, one for each half. i think the lightness is partially due to the airy mesh sections at each end of the wrap

the solid sections are up around the shoulders where they do the most good and can be carried well, then the rest is a froth of light and sparkle.

it has a fine enough hand to scarf it up into a really BIG statement at the top of that LBD—can’t you just picture the entrance this would make to an after-work cocktail party or holiday event? stop. it.

i think i’m going to stop here and leave you with that pretty thing as a parting image. i’ll be back later in the weekend with christmas knitting updates and to release a couple of patterns that might help out with your own gift list.

or hey—if you’d like to see any or all of these in person, why not check out our holiday open house at the shop? it’s next week on thursday dec 11 or saturday dec 13; swing by just to say hello or reserve your seat at the yarn tasting we’re offering during the event.

alright, now i’m really off to knit; thanks for coming by.

(i also need to figure out what to do about this situation—the dang critters are using the squirrel baffle as a patio, arghh.)