Knitting & Purling

Best-quality wool, classic patterns, and quality workmanship make for a sweater that wears like iron. My mom knit me this gorgeous classic when I was in high school in the 1970s, and I've been wearing it ever since. She has always been a prodigious knitter of beautiful garments and accessories. And it's all the more remarkable because she finished it all the while working full time at Johns Hopkins University during the Vietnam War, the feminist movement, and coeducation at a previously male institution. (But then, maybe that's why she turned to knitting: its calming nature.) I'm third in our matriarchal line of knitters and started with a Knitting Nancy before moving on to a pair of needles. Between my grandmother's and my mother's projects, yarn and needles were never hard to find. We had deep chests of leftover yarns to root through.  With insomnia running in the family, I suspect there was a lot of middle-of-the-night knitting. My sister and I w...

This Christmas was the year of HATS. I loved knitting the Sidewinder and Slouchy Beanie pattern by Johnny Vasquez (shown below). He also has great "how-to" videos at New Stitch a Day Katie and AJ are wearing Sidewinders that I modified by adding brims, at the suggestion of my Mom. The yarn is by Rowan . John (left) is wearing a beanie in a wonderful non-itchy cotton blend by Berroco . Steve (right) is wearing the Sidewinder.

Is there a better way to launch a new blog than with adorable babies in cute hats at the start of a new year?  Here's Patricia in her new two new hats.   The Big Red Baby hat was knit in a luscious cashmere blend.  Watch for more on my Big Red hat series! I worked this up in a Paton yarn from my mother's stash. The pattern for this blue star number was a free download.