What's on your needles? I have a second baby sweater with ribbed borders in sock wool. This is to follow up on the Basic pink baby sweater and the idea of a pattern which will ask you to add in some design work yourself.

I must admit to preferring heavier yarn in general. I have mastered knitting socks with sock wool but this is the first garment I have tried to knit at a sweater-type gauge with sock wool. No, that's not true, now that I think of it I have knit a hat in sock wool and a couple of shawls too. But this is my first sock wool sweater. You might guess that the switch in gauge from a sock gauge of 8 sts = 4" on 2.25mm needles to the sweater gauge of 7 sts = 4" on 3.0mm is for some reason throwing me a bit. I keep wanting to tighten it up. It's going slowly.

I also have a hat on the go for our Christmas charity knitting at the Aurora Knitting Guild. They especially need hats for men and boys so I will have one ready for next week.

And I'm starting a newer project which although it's knit with sock weight wool will be worked with 2 strands held together. And it's going to glitter.

It will be black and blue! -Deb

I was signed up to teach a class this weekend on Top Down Designing for the Faint of Heart. But unfortunately it's not running due to lack of students. So . . . I thought I might go ahead and do a many paged pattern or a small booklet on the same subject. Because I think it could be a lot of fun. I might will do a KAL-DIY (design it yourself) once I have it all done. How does after Christmas sound? We might all have more time to play around with our knitting by then.

My idea is to do a NO-SEW Top Down blank canvas sweater with all the numbers worked out so that we could have some fun jazzing it up. And because little tiny sweaters are so much faster to knit up and also rip back on to try again, that's the sizes I'm writing up. Here's the first blank canvas cardigan, size 6 months.

Can you imagine it with cables, a favourite knit/purl pattern, some lace (wouldn't that be nice), a collar or a wide decorated buttonband? I'll let you think about it while I get my calculator warmed up.
-Deb

On my little holiday we took advantage of all the public transport we could. My friend's husband drove us to the GO station in Barrie where we took the GO train to Union Station, walked to the Royal York Hotel where we boarded a shuttle bus to the ferry which took us over to the island airport.What a hoot that was.

At the other end, in Chicago at the Midway airport, we took the elevated L train right downtown. A seamless and marvelous way to travel. Can you tell I don't get out much? I have no other photos being a camera carrying non-photographer. But I did get a tiny bit of knitting done.

But my production is limited now because I've screwed up my shoulder (that repetitive knitting thing I suspect). I'm getting some advice today on how much I can do until it settles down. Very frustrating which you know if you've had any problems this way. But I'm keeping busy crunching numbers on some other knitting projects.
Deb

Comments: Hey Gerry, great to hear from you. I'm sure you'll be enjoying Paulina's store.

I'm off for a little weekend holiday and giving the sock knitting a break (although some other people are hard at it on http://kalcabinfever.blogspot.com/ if you want to check it out). I'm going to be doing some baby sweater knitting.

I'm working a on baby Top Down sweater in several different weights of yarn. These are my yarn choices for testknitting: Shelridge Farm W4 in a rich brown, blue hand-dyed sock wool that Lynda dyed and Cotton Tweed in soft pink.

All this is for a class I'm teaching at the Unwind Yarn House on November 27 and December 4. It's the Top Down Designing for the Faint of Heart class. Does that sound intriguing? If you're in the Newmarket, ON area I hope you'll join us because this is going to be fun. Everyone is going to do a little designing on a baby sweater. They're fast because they're so small and I hope knitters will do a couple over the 2 week course. It will be interesting to see what everyone comes up with starting from the same basic pattern (which I am now writing up). They will be very different, that's the great part. And they will all be the designer's own creation! Yay! I'm really looking forward to it. I'll have 3 samples done by then.
-Deb

A brand new store has opened in our region. Congratulations Paulina. She's been open almost one whole week. And I've heard it's been going really well.

This store is in Sudbury, ON. So if you're around that area be sure to drop in at 2354 Long Lake Road.

Last time I saw the store it looked like this.

It seems to have filled out a bit now. There's Paulina's very supportive husband ready to man the till. Great.

Paulina and Alison run the Sticks, String and Stewardship Retreat in Sudbury which is a great time. I know all the retreaters were looking forward to this opening. And I heard there was going to be knitterly cupcakes. Sorry I missed them.

-Deb

Comments: Hi sock knitters at the Grey Heron and Nature Girl. I'm really glad you're going to join in with the KAL with the Need A Sock? book. I can't wait to see some new socks being made from the book.

Daylight Savings is in place and now it's dark by 5pm so that means it's time to knit socks. I've started a sock knit-a-long on http://kalcabinfever.blogspot.com/ working with the Need A Sock? book. This book will teach you how to make a sock without a specific pattern. It's based on percentages. You don't have to go hunting for your calculator because we give you all the numbers to go along with the percentages. (I do realize that not everyone carries 2 calculators around with them just in case they might need to make a quick calculation, like I do.)

You can also catch the KAL on ravelry at http://www.ravelry.com/groups/cabin-fever . I hope you'll knit along. I'm going to see if I can work out the administation part so you can put photos on the blog too.

Let's knit a pile.

-Deb

Need A Sock? is available at http://www.cabinfever.ca/ OR http://www.patternfish.com/ or http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/need-a-sock .

I had a blast in Gananaque this weekend at the Eastern Ontario Needlers' Retreat. I taught a class on Top Downs That Fit and Pat finished her little sample sweater later that evening.

And since I was teaching and never thought to get my camera out I have only one more photo from the weekend.

Debbie Wilson in the centre runs the Needlers' Retreat from http://sheepsahoy.com/ . It's a fun weekend and if you're free next year at this time come on down. I'm on the left with two other teachers: Nancy Knot, Style Your Knit to Suit You and Patte Fullwiler, Two-ended Knitting with Colour. A good variety of classes offerred. And the Show and Tell was, well, it was just terrific. So thanks Debbie for a very well run retreat and thanks to all the participants for making me feel very welcome.

-Deb

I'm getting ready to go to the Gananoque area for the weekend. The Eastern Ontario Needlers' Retreat is this weekend and they are going to learn about, what else?, top down knitting.

My notes are being printed out.

I have one more demonstration sample to knit up tonight. That will keep me busy.

And my car is packed with not much room left. I think I'm ready to get going.

-Deb

I did a little more work over the weekend at my favourite winter knitting place - the curling rink, Brampton this time. I finished 2 yoke swatches.

Knitting while watching curling is perfect, it keeps me from biting my nails. We follow these girls from bonspiel to bonspiel, Team Spenser. Our daughter is on the right.

And it gives me a chance to do some straight knitting because sometimes an idea is good on paper but it has to be tried out in a normal sweater-sized swatch. And once again I think I almost have something. But I've been saying that for a week or two so you might not want to believe me. And I had another really good idea yesterday driving to Sudbury so now I'm fine tuning and need to knit . . . another swatch!!
-Deb