KIC It! or Going for Level One.

Time to work on my certification. I have been knitting hats and handwarmers since the first of the year instead of working on my Knitting Instructor's certification program from CYCA (Craft Yarn Council of America). Bad on me!

So this weekend I have to set aside the production knitting and get in gear with swathces to turn in for my first level evaluation. I have the first 3 done and have 5 or 8 more to go. I will also be knitting my very first cable. Little scared here. My excuse this past week was I did not have a serviceable cable needle and I ran out of time(do you sense procrastination?)

It should be fine now because I have on order from Knit Picks the new Harmony Wood cable needle set. And I have Melissa Leapman's book Cables Untangled from the library to read up on the awe-inspiring cable technique that I am about to venture into. I know some of you are laughing at me right about now because you have seen the Knitting Daily logo of Knitting Fearlessly on the blog. However that may be more bravado than truth...okay, I'll just believe.

And do you love the graphic for this post? I found it online at Arg! Cartoon Animation Studio. There are several that are so cute and I made sure I credited them so no one gets upset with copywrite issues.

Hope you are enjoying a warm and productive winter so far.

Hat Attack!

With weather like this wouldn't you want to knit everything you could to stay warm? This may be what brought on my Hat Attack!


I started out the new year with nothing to knit - if you can believe that. I finished all of my Christmas gift knits for 2007, on time, (that could be because I started them in August) and nothing left on my project list.



So I was free wheeling and antsy to get started on a new project list for the first quarter of the year. I went to my new One Skein Wonders: 101 Yarn-Shop Favorites book by Judith Durant and perused the multitude of patterns. I found the cutest hat, the Twirly-top Toque. I found some yarn and cast on, got started and realized that I did not own the necessary size of double pointed needles (DPNS) to finish the top. So after shopping three major craft stores I ended up ordering them from Knitting Warehouse. Once I finished that first hat, I discovered that the headband portion makes up beautifully on its own. So I made a couple of those.


By January 3rd, I was fully enraptured by hats and headbands at it became more so when I received my Knitting Daily newsletter that mentioned Cecily's Beanie. It is a free pattern obtainable by registering at Knitting Daily and it is a wonderfully simple, fast hat pattern, that so far fits everyone I have tried it on. Since January 3rd I have completed a baker's dozen of these hats. The picture only shows a few that I managed to keep in the house long enough to photograph them.


The pattern calls for it to be knit in the flat and seamed up the back. I retrofit the pattern to knit it in the round and can share that trick with you if you want, just let me know.

Pedro tried to keep warm on the couch and eventually shamed me into bringing his kitty igloo out and setting it up on the couch. Once that was done I did not have to look far for him. Even my dad was feeling it when he came to visit.























And, of course, there were more hats. I found that knitting them helped keep me warm. One, because I was wearing one in the house while I knit and even to bed one night, and two, because I was focused on my knitting and not on the temperature.



Hope your knitting is keeping you warm this year and that you are following your passion.