summer fun: now including projects and classes

Hello dear readers, it's been longer than I would have liked to go without posting, but it's because I've been busting my butt to make samples for summer classes! I have quite a few classes on at Loopy for this summer, and getting samples out in the store is the best way to grab students. So sadly I haven't made a whole lot for myself lately, but I am really proud of these samples and eager to show you. This is a photo-heavy post since I've got two projects I'm really excited about. I just finished both of them. The cathedral motif scarf is something I've been chugging away at for a while now. This is crocheted scarf made with sock weight yarn (I used Cascade Heritage Silk, which I absolutely LOVED working with. The silk gives the yarn a great sheen, and it's pretty durable for a sock yarn that doesn't contain nylon.

I love the results here, but I must say I didn't anticipate how long it would take me to make all those little squares. And then the finishing was another task unto itself. The squares are quite small. I took a shot with my lens cap for scale:

You may notice from the stack of squares that I didn't join my squares as I went: HUGE MISTAKE. I'll be working up a little mini-sample before the class starts so students can see how the squares look when they're joined in the last round. Live and learn.

My other completed sample is - *gasp* - KNIT! I'm not even sure who I am anymore. I think this is only my second or third knitting project so far this year. Apparently I'm going through a crochet period.

This is a holiday/snowflake potholder that I'll use to teach double-knitting. The pattern is called TPHPE (the prettiest hot pad ever) and this is actually the second time I've knit it. I rarely do repeat projects, even of small things! (Long time readers will of course recall that I crocheted like 9600 lumberjack hats a couple years ago, which is the other exception to my no-repeat policy.) The first time I knit this potholder I used Cascade Ultra Pima. This time I wanted to use something just a little bit thicker, so I went with Berocco Ultra Alpaca. It's a bit of a luxurious potholder.

It took me a minute to get back into the swing of double-knitting. When I knit Minty's Tapestry Cowl a few years back I followed her sage advice and held both strands of yarn in my left hand. This time that method just wasn't doing it for me, so I held a strand in each hand. It may have taken me a bit longer this way, but it was way less irritating since I wasn't constantly futzing to keep the strands separated over my knuckle.

To sign off, I'll just mention for local readers that I've started keeping a comprehensive schedule of my classes on a page on my own site. For non-local readers, never fear - once I finish with one more class sample I'll be back to posts about other things.