My Student's First Finished Project

One of my students finished her first project today - she started to hold needles just a week ago and now she finished two cowls - amazing!! She made one for herself and another for her son. She chose mustard yellow color and it looked really nice on her.

The one she made for her son is a natural light beige/tan color, and this was nice as well. Looks a bit more sophisticated, sort of. I really like to play with different colors and every time when I see my students picking up some colors that are unusual to me, it gives me an opportunity to realize and learn  that there are many variety of colors that exist in the world. 

She already started her third project - another cowl for her another son. This was a green color, and she told me her son likes the green color and that's the reason why she picked up that green color. But she does not like the yarn itself - it was Paton's classic worsted, a very standard yarn for knitters. Her cowl and the other boy's scarf was made with Paton's classic roving yarn, and this was softer and more squishy.

I do love roving yarns because they represents true beauty of the fiber itself - the softness, the squishiness,  the sheen, etc... multi-ply yarns are usually a bit more harsh and just less interesting to me,

But these days, I started to fond more and more of multi-ply yarns over single ply roving yarns - because rovings are so delicate and weak with rubbings, and they tend to stretch and don't bounce back that much while multi-ply yarns are sturdier and retain shape better.

It is always a pleasure to see other people knitting their own projects. They truly represents their own personality and I really enjoy observing everyone's works.

We still have some spots available for knitting class, so if you are interested, please contact me by email. Thank you!

New Pattern Release - Practice Shawl

I finally released my new pattern - Practice Shawl. I first wrote this pattern back in 2010 when I was teaching a knitting class in Manhattan - this shawl was designed to learn basic stitches including knit & purl, lace, wrap stitches, ribbing and cables - my students loved it back then.

Since then, I had no time editing/checking to see if the pattern works fine, but one of my knitting friends did an enormous amount of test knitting - and here it is! I am so happy I didn't give up on releasing this pattern.

I have been using this shawl for almost 5 years now and it doesn't look worn at all - habu linen XS-21 is a pretty strong yarn with beautiful behavior. It is not too hard to knit with this yarn (some of Habu's yarns are so beautiful but pretty hard to knit with); linen is not as stretchy as some wool yarns, so it may be a bit uncomfortable for those who never used linen before, but other than that, it is a nice crisp yarn to work with.

I would like to see this in many different yarns - maybe wool, alpaca, cotton, silk, etc.... and heavier weight or double width. There are so many possibilities for this shawl.

Most of sections have only 12-16 rows, so before you start to get bored of repeating a same pattern, you will move on to the next pattern. I made it so that my student won't get too tired of repeating a same thing - especially for those who just started knitting, too much repetition sometimes turns them off from knitting, and I designed in a way so that people won't get too tired from repetition.



Hope to see many practice shawls around!

My First Class at Home

I just finished teaching my first class in knitting - too bad my phone is dead and I was unable to take photos.  I am very happy that I was able to have a class here - there are so many things to show.

One of my students started to make a cowl for herself - she chose Paton's Classic Wool Roving in Mustard Yellow - that is something I would not pick up, but it is a beautiful yellow color and I was very thrilled to see that color in my house.

I tend to pick up same type of neutral color and those vivid yellow color is something very refreshing.

That's one of the reason why it is nice to have a class here to see a variety of projects.

Another student is working on a loose fitting sweater in giza cotton. This is going to be a big project and I hope she will complete the project by spring so she gets to wear it a lot!

I am looking forward to the next class, and hopefully next time I can take some pictures to show the progress of everyone's project.

My New Product

This is my new line of product - matching bonnet and mittens. They are just so adorable! Made out of quality organic merino wool yarn, these are my favorite right now! I am thinking about making a matching scarf/cowl that goes with them.