Dydd Sant Dewi Hapis A Chi, Happy Saint David's Day To You

Dydd Sant Dewi Hapis a chi. Happy Saint David's to you.

Saint David is the patron saint of Wales. His day is on March 1st.
Welsh is the Celtic language of that country and the above is a Welsh language greeting for that day.
Be sure to eat leeks on that day, leeks are a Welsh custom and used in Welsh cooking.

"Denise" small plastic interchangeable knitting needles and connecting locking plastic cords in a kit

Love "Denise" knitting needles, short plastic needles that come in the most commonly used sizes in a plastic kit cover (the whole named "Denise") and can be interchangeable. There are plastic cords with twist-on ends that lock into the rear of the needles, and of couse two needles of the same size number for each size of needle required.

This saves buying piles of knitting needles for all the sizes. And the cords of course are same the idea of circular needles, only better. The cords can be lengthened by adding a plastic connector between them locking them together for projects of greater width such as blankets, etc.

I am knitting the back of a size 2 baby sweater on size 8 "Denise" knitting needles, I really picked up sped on "Denise" and best of all, these plastic cords in a "Denise" kit do not required soaking in hot water (as is needed to take the obnoxious curling out of a regular circular needle cord).
With "Denise" needles, the connecting plastic cords do not curl to high hell when knitting. Unlike that of another brand that I thought I had soaked in hot water and gotten uncurled, only to curl badly while knitting.

"My First Sweater" class

Enjoyed my sweater knitting class tonight with "Knit + Stitch" . This is a size 2 cardigan sweater wsith buttons for a very small female child done on size 8 (U.S. size)knitting needles. Yarn is this nice Merino Superwash. in lavender color. I don't putting a young boy in a lavender sweater (did I say that?) just have to put the button holes on the left side and the buttons on the right.

But this is a female-run class and we all get the same pattern which is for a female style which means of course buttons are placed on the left side and button holes on the right which is just as well.

We get practice doing the back part and then the left front first before next class 2 weeks later. We work on learning how to shape the neck on the left front. next comes the right front and we learn how to knit in the button holes in the right front.

This cardigan sweater has 5 parts to be knitted separately, in American style, back done first, then left side, right side next with button holes, then each sleeve right and left knitted separately.

i plan to do on my own a small boy's cardigan in the same size but using more traditionally male colors for American society. exact same sweater design but with masculine colors and the buttons placed on the right hand side for male clothing.

I'd like having the same yarn shop to measure me so that I could attempt making a adult male cardigan for myself. The concept would be similar, but in a men's size this time in traditionally masculine colors.

Tonight is the first I ever made a knit swatch for checking gauge.

The back of the child's cardigan hass 57 stitches cast on, the first inch done in garter stitch, the rest iof back in stockinette stitch.

The left and front sides each done separately, casting on 32 stitches. each starting garter stitch on the bottom edge and then changing to stockinette. Same for the middle of each front piece along the verticle side edges that will meet together in front of finished garment when buttoned up. You will see garter st. along those edges as well with the rest in stockinette.

Stockinette has the tendency to always cause the knit fabric to curl, edging it with garter for an inch inward along the bottom and side edges will stop that curling process, I was told by our sweater knitting instructor.

Since our assignment is to knit the back and left front of this baby sweater by the second class (neck shaping is next) I will have to spend the next 10 1/2 days doing the back and the last 4 1/2 doing the left front.
Some knitting to be done every day.

I may work this sweater onto metal needles from wood needles to knit fasting as the yarn doesn't slide as easily on wooden needles I am finding and maybe I am knitting a little too tightly at the same time.

Meanwhile, still thinking about a flyer that looks ok for announcing the start of a men's kniting group at the Aspen Hill Caribou Coffee shop.

Springwater Fiber Art Workshop, the Manning's store and classroom for fiber arts, weaving scarves, knitting sweaters

Nice store in Alexandria, Virginia (state with very ugly antigay politicians), Seriuosly, Northern Virginia is culturally different and more gay-friendly than the rest of VA, and should ideally let the rest of the state just drift off by itself.

oh well back to reality but, there is a balm in VA with such nice places as this nice place where weaving, knitting, spinning, crocheting is taught.
Weaving looms are in the back of the store for learning. Beautiful yarns of all kinds there like Manos of Uruguay, yarn hand dyed in kettles in that country. Beautiful wool from Peru in the natural colors of the sheep, brown, off-white, grey, etc.

I can't wait to get done with my friend's scarf and onto these beuatiful yarns. I want to go through my sweater class and take a weaving class at Springwater. One weaving classI'd like to do sometimes is at the Manning's in East Berlin, Pennsylvania.

One woman into weaving had offered me the use of her cabin so that I could stay there while I did a week-long class on weaving rayon chenille scarves which are like velvet. I really hope the offer is still open.

On the knitting side of things, I am wanting to get my hands on Michael DelVecchio's knitting book when it come out in the fall. I want a knitting book on men's knit fashions written by a man.

Most knitting books are written by women and the majority of patterns they publish are to do with women's and/or kid's knit fashions.

I bought a Daletta (Dale of Norway) pattern for a handsome-looking men's sweater. Pattern is called "Rustikk" (a Norwegian word). Maybe I could turn that one out one day. Norwegian sweaters I read are "knit in the round". I find the idea of "knitting in the round"a little intimidating as I am still used to dealing with fairly flat items like scarves. I can relate better to the idea of 4 separate knit sweater parts like front, back and 2 sleeves sewn together.