Just like Spring Yarn!

A reprieve from -20C weather! Hooray!
Is it possible that Spring is actually on it’s way? It appears so!
More evidence that this is the case comes in the shipments we have been receiving this week – yarns for springtime knitting! Double Hooray!

Koigu KPM has arrived in the shop. Endlessly delightful, hand dyed skeins come in 50 gram bundles of joy so you can fill your boots with colours to make fine shawls and scarves and light weight sweaters for this coming spring.

If you need just a bit more colour in your colour pallet, there are koigu mini skeins too. These wee skeinettes have 10 metres of yarn on each so you can add a dash of this and that to all your knittables.

The Knit Café has designed several patterns with Koigu and the skeinettes , and now…..drum roll…. they are available as

Knit Kits

504 King West

This is one of our most popular patterns and it is a great pattern to knit right about now, so you can be wearing it in the following weeks and months as the frost leaves the air and is replaced with merely a nip. The 504 King West Knit Kit comes with the pattern and two 50 gram skeins of koigu KPM and 3 skeinettes too. You can choose the original colours of our sample 504, or you can choose from a selection of other colour pallets we offer up for your perusal. Each colour combo is named for a stop of the 504 King streetcar’s route along Roncesvalles Avenue. Have a look at them all HERE.

Baby Harem

These sweet pants are also made courtesy of Koigu KPM and our friends the skeinettes. Koigu – I should mention, is a soft merino wool that is machine washable and therefore perfect for kids duds. The Baby Harem Knit Kit comes with all the yarn, including the complimentary mini skeins, you will need to make these cozy pants. The pants are sized 6-12 months, 12-18 months, and 18-24 months but you can read all about them and find the Knit Kit HERE.

If you would like to pick out alternative colours for these projects and others, Koigu KPM is one of our featured yarns selling in the webshop right now! There are many fresh colours to choose from, but like all our featured yarns they will be available to purchase online for a limited time only.

If you are in the Roncesvalles neighbourhood we will be most happy to give you a guided tour of the new Koigu KPM and the mini skeins too and help you choose your very own custom colours for any project.

see you soon
Craftily yours
Kristin

Tee

Today I would like to highlight the final pattern in The Knit Cafe’s Wee Collection Fall 2014. It’s called Tee!

It’s a small size t-shirt, to fit baby and up to 3-years in size. Knit in organic cotton it is meant to be casual and comfortable, the polka dot embellishment is meant to be a whole lot of fun!

This is the front!

This is the back!

You may add the polka dots where you will as they are added on after with a marvelous and easy technique called duplicate stitch.

Duplicate Stitch is a wonderful way to add coloured embellishments to your knitted garments.  It is more akin to an embroidery than a knitting technique and is so simple and fun to do. I will demonstrate in the form of a tutorial!

DUPLICATE STITCH TUTORIAL

You will need: a darning needle, and contrast colour yarn in the same thickness as the yarn you used to knit your garment, and sharp scissors too.

Cut a piece of yarn. The length of which will depend on how large an area you intend to cover, tempered by how long a piece you can handle pulling up through your work repetitively without getting tangled up. It takes approximately 147cm length of yarn to make a polka dot but we made each polka dot with two separate lengths of yarn. We started with a piece of yarn about 80cm long.

Thread your yarn on your darning needle and thread it through your knit fabric just under the stitch you intend to cover. Duplicate stitch is always worked over stocking stitch so each stitch will resemble a V in shape.  The needle will come up at the base of the V, shown here with a  red dot!
Leave a length of yarn on the reverse side of the fabric which is long enough to darn into your work once you are finished the duplicate stitching.

Next, thread your yarn through the stitch above the stitch you intend to cover.  The needle goes under one arm of the V and through the other arm.  See illustration above.

Then insert your needle through the original spot where your yarn first appeared.  Pull just so that the yarn covers the stitch, not so tight that it puckers the fabric and shows the stitch underneath and not so loose that it looks untidy.

To place a duplicate stitch beside the one you just finished, bring your needle up under the base of the V beside the stitch you just covered (indicated with blue dot) and repeat the steps above.

Or you can place a stitch above the duplicate stitch you just completed by bringing your needle up under the base of the V above the completed duplicate stitch as shown by the blue dot in the diagram.

Repeat as necessary to finish your polka dot or whatever pattern you fancy.

We used Anzula’s Mini Skeins in For Better or Worsted yarn to make our polka dots. One skein in each of the 3 colours was plenty to make the polka dots we required. Hooray for mini skeins!

Other patterns in the Wee Collection Fall 2014 are Baby Harem.  and Tremblant Blanket and Bunting for Beginners too. You can see all The Knit Cafe’s Pattern on our Ravelry Page HERE.

Craftily yours
Kristin

 

 

Baby Harem Pants

These roomy pantaloons we call Baby Harem are from our newly released series of knitting patterns. Along with Tremblant Blanket, Tee, and Bunting for Beginners they make up our Wee Collection Fall 2014.

These pants are knit in one piece from the cuff up. The pocket is knit first and then knit into the pants, also with no seaming required. Extra room in the trunk for diapers is achieved with short row shaping. The elastic waist keeps everything in place for crawlers and walkers too.

We used sweet Koigu mini skeins for the accent colours. The delicate, stripe details that decorate the ribbed cuffs and the pocket lining are really the delicious, defining details in this garment. Have fun picking the colours!

To make Baby Harem you will need:
2.5mm /US1.5 DPN, 2.75mm/US2 DPN, 2.75mm/US2 16” circular needle.
Yarn: 2(3,3) Koigu Kppm (160m/175yds each). 4 Koigu Skeinettes, 10m each

Sizes: 6-12, (12-18, 18-24) months
To fit: Waist measurement up to 20 (22, 24)cm/ 8 (8 3/4, 9.5)”

Skill Level: Knitters must know how to knit in rounds on circular and double pointed needles. Short row shaping, decreases including “knit two together” and “ slip, slip, knits”, as well as “make one” increases are used in this pattern

Find Baby Harem Pattern on Ravelry HERE

Craftily yours
Kristin