Welcome

Hello knitters and coffee addicts and welcome. Even if you're not a knitter or like the taste of coffee - welcome anyway - to the site that promotes the learning and appreciation of knitcraft and coffee. The hope is that you'll leave here keen to knit, charmed to coffee and hankerin to return.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Fetching on Knitty - Clarity on Thumb, I Hope

Alice was having problems with my instructions for making the opening for the thumb and emailed me for some help (by the way, it's so cool that people other than Sandy and my sister are reading this blog).  So I quickly whipped up this video.  It was a quick knit - I went straight into the thumb opening after only one cable and a few rounds of the 4k1p pattern; on the real one, the piece would be bigger than the one I have on the video.



After seeing the video, I'm pretty sure that I'll have to make another one since some of the shots were out of frame - the camera was lower than I had thought.  


Sunday, March 1, 2009

Pretty in Punk Review

To tell you the truth, the cover was the reason why I bought this knitting book.  The mohawk hat looked like a challenge especially with the intarsia union jack.  The hat pattern is the signature pattern from the two author's online knitting store, knit-head.com.  The book, Pretty in Punk, is what I see is progressing in knitting - the move to fun, patterns that appeals to younger knitters or young at heart knitters (I'm one of the latter).  No longer is knitting about dull scarfs and sweaters. 

The two authors, Alyce Benevides and Jaqueline Milles, probably started  knitting like all of us with a simple stockinette scarf pattern.  But their creativity and resourcefullness lead them to create pieces that they wanted to wear, and in this case it was punk and a bit of goth.

Initially, I had thought that I would tackle the mohawk hat for my first attempt at intarisa, but after skimming the pattern and realizing I had no idea what intarsia entailed, I decided on the wrist band.
Not bad for my first attempt at knitting with colour.  The book is a good one with lots of interesting patterns.  The only thing is that it was lacking in instructions and pictures on how to do some of the skills.  I had to use the good-ol internet to learn how to intarsia.  This is deffinately not a beginner book.  I would say intermediate or for the beginner that wants a challenge (again, I am the latter).

It's Roll-Up-The-Rim Time!


Roll Up the Rim season is here!  It seems that it came a little earlier than usual, but I'm not complaining.  It started last Saturday when I spotted a woman crossing the street carrying the distinctive red and yellow rollup cup from Tim Horton's.  I stopped my car, rolled down my window and asked her if it was indeed a rollup cup.  she confirmed it and added that she wouldn't of gotten an extra large coffee otherwise.  Sandy was in the car with me and instead of sharing in the joy of the rollup season, she just looked over at me and said, "you're such a loser."  But no, she is wrong, I am a winner, we all are winners because it's Roll-Up-The-Rim Season!