Last Chance for Yarn Club 2018 Membership

May 17th is the last day to become a member of
The Knit Cafe’s Yarn Club 2018. 

sign up HERE

Yarn Club is a year long subscription where participants receive beautiful yarns accompanied by original Knit Café patterns. The 2018 subscription will include four knit projects delivered or picked up every three months. The first one will be available in June and we are busy preparing for it now. If you would like to get in on the fun. You still have a few days to get your membership. Read all about it HERE.

The last project for our Yarn Club 2017 was made available to all club members in April, and I am happy to say that the pattern is now available to all through The Knit Café Shop or on Ravelry.
The pattern is called Sunprint. It’s a pretty spring shawl. Just enough to wrap your neck and keep the chill off as the weather changes from chilly to warmish. The pattern Sunprint was named after the yarn colour we called Sunprint.

The colour Sunprint was developed in a collaboration between The Knit Café and amazing Madelinetosh Yarns! That’s what we do for our Yarn Club. We choose the best and the brightest of yarn producers and we design a knitting pattern to suit their particular yarn. We also develop a custom colour that becomes only available to The Knit Café Yarn Club Members. So I am sorry to say that if you have fallen in love with this gorgeous colour we call Sunprint this love will go unrequited. Only Yarn Club 2017 members have received this colour and it is no longer available.

Here’s the silver lining. You can get the pattern for the Sunprint shawl and make your own version of this neck draper. We even have some Madelinetosh Merino Light in other gorgeous colours still available in the shop at 55 Roncesvalles.

Come and get it!
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