Elizabeth Zimmerman updates...
Gwen's Conch Hat of Plymouth Yukon.

This is Gwen's Rib warmer. Now I can't wait to finish mine!
My Conch Hat still on the needles. It's easy to do; I had to rip because I didn't keep track of the rounds I was doing. Leave it to me to make something harder than it is.

This beautiful hat was knitted by our Beth out of
Woolbearers hand dyed Merino from Uruguay in English Garden.
Love the spiral!!!

On the Pennsylvania Turnpike...
Approaching the first of four tunnels.

Sabra straightening up our booth.

New friends! Mother and daughter shoppers; I hope I met them again someday.

Home From Pittsburgh..... I hope I didn't bring this weather with me, down the turnpike. It was so cold there; minus temps with the wind chill factor, snow every night.

The drive there felt like going on vacation. I love the mountains of PA. The first stop, I bought swedish fish. A perfectly inappropriate food to eat while driving alone. There is a method to eating swedish fish; you must bite the head off and then nibble down the body of the fish. By the time I had done that ten or twelve times, the sugar level in my body was so high, I had to pull over and nap for half an hour. It took longer to get there because I kept stopping....the drive home was quicker. I couldn't wait to get home!

The show was great; very well attended, wonderful booths. I saw a lot of great yarns. I think it will develop into a nationally known show in time. Also got to see old friends; Cynthia Spencer, who owns a shop in State College and also is author of Really Clear Instructions for Knitting Toe Up Socks, a well written booklet we sell in the store; and Dave and Deb Arbuckle from Shadyside Farms. They spin our fleece into the beautiful, ringspun yarn we dye for the shop. I brought home 25 lbs of 25% alpaca and Romney yarn. It has a luminous, pearlescent quality about it. We can't wait to knit up a swatch.

Sabra and her husband, Ron, drove all the way to help me. I couldn't have done it without them.

So now I am home, recovering from the drive and the cold. There is room now in the shop for more of the things we have been ordering. So far, silk and wool from Manos arrived, along with a lovely linen blend from Plymouth, and tons of new books.

More Elizabeth Zimmerman stuff! I wish I would have remembered to get a picture of Gwen's Rib Warmer; she is knitting it of Wild Flowers Ringspun. The I - cord trim is great looking. It does make a big difference. Above is Barb's organic cotton washcloth inspired from the Square Baby Blanket pattern. She tore it apart and used a crocheted provisional cast on. It is perfectly square and lays completely flat; EZ says if you follow her directions, it won't even need blocking!

This is half of my rib warmer. It is fun to knit and only needed a little tweaking. According to the book, Knitters Workshop, you stop your short rows at fifteen stitches.

I got a pretty pronounced 'booby' when I did that, so I tore it out and knitted to eight stitches. That worked better. The baby surprise is done. The Woolbearers wool boucle blocks wonderfully. Just need to find the perfect buttons.....






Betsy Snopes is one of our tapestry weaving teachers, and she is on the sock knitting band wagon, too. She comes in weekly with yet another pair finished. Aren't these great? She loves bright colored yarns.
Granny Squares of Dancing Fibers in one of their beautiful space dyed yarns takes crochet to a new place. This is a close up of Joann's wonderful skirt. She is working on the yoke and when it's finished, we'll take a full length pic.
Love that Einsein Jacket! Debbie made her's of Cascade 128. It looks great on her, too.

The sock class Two Socks on Magic Loop finished tonight. The teacher, Chris is amazing. She had everyone well on their way to knitting both socks the first night. Several students finished the first pair before the second class.

Carol finished a pair a week!This lovely cabled pair is her second.
Donna finished her's tonight and immediately started another pair!
Barb works full time in addition to going to school for her Masters degree in nursing, and has a husband and daughters and SHE finished a pair. The purple are her's. The great pair below are Claire's. She did a great job, too.

More customer photos; Chase's sweater, knit by mom Colleen, of Woolbearers Alfresco.

Little matching hat! How cute is he!!!

Sheep baby blanket, also knit by Colleen.

I have no idea who they are, but love the hat.

Joanne saving me. Who has time to weave anymore? I'm too busy knitting. She is warping the 12 harness loom for me so I can finally weave off the warp that I dyed over a year ago. Shame!

Look at the perfection and symmetry of those stripes!

Barb's cool socks!

Alice's hat of Lanamira Matt's Tats.

Abigail's washcloth inspired by EZ's Square Baby Blanket. Just needs Kitchnering. Knitted by moi.

Elizabeth Zimmerman for the masses......Miryeya finishing the first half of the triangle.

Kristen half way there!

Barb kept me on the straight and narrow. Look how good the first square of her facecloth looks!

This is Jill's cloth; it's coming along great!

Judith caught on right away!

Pricilla is doing a great job!

Well, how did I think that I could teach an Elizabeth Zimmerman class? Truth is, many of the classes we have are more lead than taught. I did the project, redid it, practiced the techniques, and felt fairly confident I could guide the women who paid for the class. The pattern we are using for the washcloth is a very nice line by line guide. As classmate Judith pointed out, EZ says that slipping the first stitch is an important technique for having neat and nice edges. For the washcloth, you slip a stitch every row; once on the edge, and once on the turn back. I missed that. So after a few confusing moments, and wanting to crawl into a hole, we got on the right track and all was well. Thank heaven we weren't doing the real baby blanket or there may have been anarchy in the knitting store....Except for the invisible cast on, which we will review before we start the real blanket, everyone was well on their way to finishing their washcloth. I came home and had a nice, big glass of Fat Bastard Shiraz.

Although it appears that these women are peacefully knitting, the truth is that one of them just finished telling us about her French internet penpal. Pretty juicy stuff!

Mallory's mask knit of Woolbearers Lanamira!

Micheal's socks knit by his new wife, Tola, Mallory's mother.

Friday night we had our monthly meet up group. We had a big crowd last night; one of the largest we've had since we started this almost four years ago. Join us!

Carol and her lovely Cascade Wonderful Wallaby, the first sweater she ever knit for herself; probably the hundreth sweater she's knit!

Melinda with her pink Fixation cuff!

Carol's socks, DONE! Show off.

Donna's Chocolate Rain socks.

Barb and her Purple Reign Socks; she is a fairly new sock knitter, but prolific as all get out!

Jennifer's Mahagony socks.

Claire is doing a great job!

The Wednesday night knitting class once again confirmed that our customers are amazing.

Elizabeth Zimmerman....just can't get enough of her patterns. Today starts our year long journey into the Knitting Workshop. We are starting our with the Square Baby Blanket, which we are calling the Garter Stitch Baby Blanket, to differentiate it from another baby blanket that is popular. It is really loaded with techniques; invisible cast on, short rows, Kitchner stitch. I found a great washcloth pattern online at Abigail's blog. She took EZ's baby blanket pattern and downsized it and it is perfect for testing the waters. I'm going to give the students our hand dyed, bulky organic cotton to knit the washcloth first. I've been using it myself and it is heavenly to knit with. The students and can get their feet wet first on something smaller before going on to the next phase. The class is so popular that we are having two; one today and one tomorrow. It will last for three weeks.

Friday's class was great fun; four of the gals know each other and Rene fit right in with their group. Melinda picked the pattern right up and noted where I was confused about which stitch to slip; more about that later. The other gals were amazing, too. They were very patient as I attempted to teach them how to do an invisible cast on. Eunny Jang's blog has a great tutorial on it and hopefully, the gals will feel more confident after practicing over the next week.

Kelly wowed us once again with yet another pair of great socks done.

Cate knit this adorable shrug for Boomer the dog.

Doris and her expert knitter friend visited us and browsed the books.

Judy knit this Monkey Suits sweater and hat out of Knit One, Crochet Too PJ's. Isn't it great?