knot another hat

Happy Hour Project Club has launched!

Our first month's installment of the Happy Hour Project Club launched on Wednesday - cheers! 

Sometimes after a night out, you might feel a little ... swirly. Sometimes, you feel a lotta swirly. Either side of this cute colorwork cowl will have you covered, no matter HOW you feel! 

Introducing Swirly:

Swirly is a stranded colorwork cowl, knit using Stonehedge Crazy (each skein is completely one of a kind!) and Berroco Ultra Wool DK. The cowl is two-sided and extra warm, with a large swirl motif on one side and a small swirl motif on the other. 

The rest of the Happy Hour package included a della Q project bag ("Work Less ... knit more!"), a custom made knitting themed stone coaster, and a recipe for one of my favorite cocktails, the Basil Gimlet. 

Cheers! 

It was an Olive kind of week ...

With fresh inspiration from the Olive Knits  book signing party, I immediately casted on the North Channel Collared Cardigan the next day. A week later (roughly 4.5 days of knitting time) - I bound off the last stitch! And can I tell you how much I LOVE this sweater? 

Marie gave me some important advice sometime last year ... she said we women often have the compulsion to knit something long enough to cover up our less favorite parts (for me - my derriere). While longer cardigans have their place (and are definitely some of my favorites to wear), sometimes it's better to go with a shorter piece that can be layered over a longer piece. I decided to take this advice and make this sweater the length intended and resist my usual urge to go longer. Her pattern notes also indicated that this design had more positive ease than most, so I took that into consideration and chose a size that would fit closely, as intended (a size that is for a finished bust that is actually smaller than mine). Ending result? Love love love. 

So of course, having knit one sweater in a few days convinced me that I should immediately cast on another. This time I'm going for the Shoreline Cardigan, and using The Fibre Co Luma in Sherry. This time I am knitting my normal bust-aligning size, due to more (brilliant) pattern notes that describe the fit and stitch of this particular piece. And I can tell I'm going to love this one as well. 

All this new thinking regarding sweater length nudged me to pull out an older Olive, the Stillwater cardigan. I don't tend to wear this one much because it is a shorter length, but I grabbed a swingy little black dress and paired the Stillwater over the top, and it was perfection, and a great ending to an all-around Olive-y week of knitting. 

Today in the shop we kicked off our three-day Cocoknits Sweater Method intensive. These knitters are rockstars! Everyone surpassed our expectations for Day 1 and is off and running on their sweaters. I can't wait to see what progress they have made by tomorrow's class! 

 

Our weekend with Olive Knits

Whew! Are we lucky or what? 

I had the good fortune to spend several days with Marie Greene of Olive Knits a week back, and boy do we have a good time! 

We kicked off Marie's visit with a book launch party celebrating her new book, Seamless Sweaters in 2 Weeks. Marie brought aaaallllllll the sweaters from the book for us to drool over. I immediately picked out three must-knits (and I mean, I'll start them now). (I actually mean I just finished one yesterday.)

Marie graciously spent the evening chatting it up with our great customers and signing their books. (Signed copies of Marie's book are available in-store or online at Waucoma Books.) I have to give a huge thank-you to Ingrid (#saturdayshopgirl), who snapped most of these pics! 

Sisters Sara and Amy (travelling from Boise and CA, respectively), showed up with the GENIUS idea of having their books spiral bound for easy pattern reading. 

After the book signing, we packed up and headed out to Dufur, OR for our annual Spring retreat, Knit Away From It All. We spend three days doing just about nothing, except knitting, snacking, and chatting. (We had a few adventurous knitters who got in some cross-country skiing.)

One of my favorite parts of the retreat is planning out the swag - I love giving my knitters gifts as much as Oprah loves giving her audience gifts. Swag this year included a mini-skein bundle from sew happy jane, a sheep enamel pin by gingiber, bath bombs, a hand-stamped bracelet by Lemon Kissed, chocolate by Mayana, and snacks by Siren Snacks. On top of this goodness we had swag from attendees, including hand-made bath salts from Melinda, a little llama and mini skein from Yvonne (LavenderSheep), champagne splits from Kate, lavender from Jill, a little tool set from Marie, a gorgeous hand-sewn tool caddies from Kara, and amazing hand-sewn zipper bags from Kathy (who ended up sick and couldn't come, WE MISSED YOU KATHY!).

While at the retreat, our knitters had exclusive access to a special pop-up shop of sew happy jane yarns and INK bags ... some of us may have found some new sweaters ... 

The entire weekend was magical, and the Dufur Valley did not disappoint on the beautiful, wintry, knitting weather (but with dry, safe roads - yay!). 

We even remembered to get a parting group shot to commemorate the weekend. :) 

Thanks to Marie and thanks to everyone who came to the book party and the retreat, from near and far! 

Oh - and those sweaters I want(ed) to start? Finished one yesterday, casting on another tomorrow. Stay tuned to Insta for the finished pictures of my North Channel Cardigan!