Welcome, Kelley Petkun!

I am thrilled with how excited and enthusiastic everyone is at my Knittin' Mittens KAL!

I just launched two videos for casting-on and knitting the cuff ribbing. Please join us or even just follow along over the next few weeks. You will learn something whether you actually have some yarn and needles in your hands or not.

I launched my Mitten Tutorial KAL last week and, after reading the posts, I r… Continue

Well, I have been working on a mitten knitting video series, and a Knit-A-Long so that we can all have mittens!!

I think the middle of winter is a perfect time to learn something new and quick to… Continue

Maybe the holiday season is hectic so that we appreciate the quiet that follows. Time to ponder plans for the New Year, as I have been doing. Lots and lots of rain combined with a fire in the fireplace makes for a productive weekend. Sorry, Linda, but it was raining so hard on Friday that I didn't want to go out to find a Hot Chocolate Pot. But, it will be a priority for next week!

Let's play the "Remember This?" game!… Continue

....and my color selection.

I know y… Continue

Well, if I wanted to be grammatically correct I would say, "Remember this?" Because I still only have one sock finished.

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After reading through Respect The Spindle, I have become an avid drop spindler. After running over my Golding Aromatherapy spindle with a golf cart, I decid… Continue

I was chatting with a friend yesterday and she had discovered a mistake in the ribbing of her current project.

I loved her solution to this knitting disaster. As she said, "You can't really go back and fix ribbing easily. So, I slipped my Julie/Julia DVD into the machine and laughed my way through 10 inches of ribbing ripping!"

That got me thinking. When I had to rip out my Shiver Scarf, I chose to wait until we wer… Continue

I had planned on beginning the New Year by sitting down with a pad of paper and assessing the status of my Works-In-Progress and the projects I would like to tackle in the future. Then I thought, "How much more fun would it be to share the process with you?!"

That way… Continue

But you certainly believe I had much spinning experience given the result of my first "enthusiastic" drop spindling session fueled by my reading of Respect The Spindle. Remem… Continue

I left for dinner last night carrying my purse stuffed with my mis-knit scarf and new yarn. My plan was to do the heartbreaking ripping while in the company of loving family members and then get started again right away.

And, I am very happy!! I am knitting with one strand of new (fresh) yarn and one strand of ripped (used) yarn. The difference in the fabric is just like Erica's scarf in our office! Much, much, much better!! Today I am going to enjoy reading The Help by and knitting. We will be… Continue

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Ok, yesterday was a crazy day!! I was running behind schedule and grabbed the first pair of socks that I touched in the sock drawer. And, look what I had to deal with all day!

Store bought socks!! Yes, I have, what? - eight pairs of lovely hand-knit socks in th… Continue

We are heading into the third week of renovation chaos in the office. Thankfully my office space is shaping up nicely and I've been able to be productive all day! What a nice change!

The problem is that Xena is not at all comfortable with boxes in hallways, strange men walking around pushing big, heavy carts and people in new spaces! When she does find someone in a "normal" space, she demands attention. Kate offered some love and comfort.

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As modern knitters we are blessed with a potentially mind-boggling array of new methods for knitting.

For centuries knitters used Double Pointed Needles (DPNs) for knitting small circumference items like sleeves, sweater necks, mittens, etc. But, with the advent of circular needles, knitting with two circular needles became another method.

When Socks Soar on Circular Needles came out, we had quite the civi… Continue

Actually it arrived on Monday but our office renovation has left me so exhausted at the end of the day that I couldn't do anything other than read and rest every evening. This morning I not only woke up ready to bond with my new little friend but I was determined to learn how to "Navajo Ply on the Fly"! More about that later.

Let's start with the comfortable feeling that came back amazingly quickly! Remember that my "crushed" spindle was a Golding Aromatherapy Spindle. I loved it but I decided… Continue

We are painting and re-carpeting one entire floor of our building. One section each weekend spread over a month. On top of that, we are moving departments around as well. That means that nothing will settle back down until the middle of January. What chaos!

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Here are a few shots from her book.

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I have been impatiently waiting for Abby's book to come out and it is a treasure!!

The life changing lesson I learned from Respect the Spindle is that spindling is eve… Continue

We are in Mexico with my sister and her husband. Sissy, Michael and Bob play golf. I prefer to sit in the cart and enjoy the day. Sissy and I had already decided that she was only going to play nine holes and then we were going to head back to the pool.

Well, Sissy totally muffed a shot on the 7th hole. For those of you who are not familiar with golf, that means she hit the ball so badly that it sort of hoped all of about twenty feet! I decided that I would be helpful and drive the cart up to h… Continue