I am organising a knitting workshop with Sue Cullen for Saturday the 21st of November.  We will be teaching two classes, Finishing Touches – Edging with a difference and Knitting Socks from the Top Down.  The classes will be taught in both the morning and the afternoon and if you want to take both classes there is a reduced price (€30 for one class and €50 for both).

We want to keep the classes fairly small so numbers will be limited, please get in contact early if you are interested.

For more details on the classes see http://www.stolenstitches.com/classes/

I’m really looking forward to teaching this class, I get to teach one of my favourite subjects – edging!  The two edging techniques that I’ll be focusing on create very professional and clean finishes and with can be achieved without much difficulty by all knitters.

I have been a very bad blogger for the last few weeks.  Life became very busy and writing (or actually even thinking) about knitting just didn’t seem to happen.  While knitting itself is the most wonderfully relaxing of activities designing and blogging definately take more brain activity!  I’ve been trying to dredge up some interesting project ideas for new summer tops and I think I’ve got a few that may work.  Now I just need to get them written and knitted!

But I do at least have a finished project that has come out nicely.. My Clapotis in Rowan Tapestry is going to be a very useful addition to my wardrobe.

and for a closer look…

I’ve also started with my version of Monkey in Araucania Ranco Multi sock yarn.  As soon as I get the hang of our new camera I will take a photo of it.  When I wound the skein first of all I though the colours were too muted looking but as I’m working with it they are growing on me!  I am finding the yarn beautiful to knit with, soft but solid feeling and the needle rarely snags it.  I think I’ll be using this yarn again – maybe I’ll go for a brighter yarn next time.

I am also working on a couple of projects on my knitting machine (I got a  Silver Reed LK150 for my birthday a few months ago).  I find it just great for large areas of stocking stitch, that you would use for a children’s jumper (sweater) but it is way to fiddly to use for any detail or ribbing.  I have perfected doing the edging by hand – hook it onto the machine to knit the stocking stitch and then put it back on the needles for the finishing around the neckline.  Unfortuately though my boys really like coloured stripes so I end up with an unimaginable amount of weaving in when I finish!  I’ll post the work in progress later this week.

I finished the second sock for my toddler last weekend and he really likes them.  I’m happy that they aren’t too thick so I have no problem fitting his shoes over them.  Their feet are so small I was a little worried about the extra thickness of hand-knitted socks causing problems with the shoes.

I am being very good and also finished the second one of my husband’s socks.  I will not allow myself to start on anything new until this is done.  I better finish up fast – there are two many interesting projects sitting waiting for me to get started on them!

I think that this sock is the slowest item I have ever knit. I got the Lana Grossa Mega Boot stretch yarn last year and 12 months later I am still not finished with the first sock. They are for my husband who would like just a plain simple sock and as they are knitting up they look like the will be very comfortable to wear. Unfortunately there really isn’t much interest in knitting a plain stockinette sock! Also, the yarn is two strands twisted together which keeps on snagging. This means that even though it is a simple stitch you have to keep watching what you are doing. Hopefully I’ll have the first one finished this weekend!

I am knitting there using my lovely Addi circular needles using the magic loop. I find it very hard to go back to dpn after using circular needles!