I got chills. They're multiplying.

When I woke up this morning I could sense the change. My bed was particularly cozy. The room felt, dare I say, cool. Then I looked out the window. Hooray! Drizzly and dreary. Knitwear weather has arrived, my friends. I don't care if temperatures skyrocket this weekend and I'm forced to visit friends who have air conditioning. The official end of summer might be a few weeks off, but I'm declaring it knitwear season. I might even bust out a hand knit sweater this afternoon! After a summer in protective plastic bin storage, my sweaters will be singing, "Free, free at last!"

I'm sorry, dear reader, but the knitting secrecy of last week's post must continue. In fact, now I can barely show you what anyone at Stitch 'n Bitch is knitting. But there is an end in sight. Two weeks. Just two weeks and at least one reader *cough*Kaitie*cough* will be able to sleep easy again. 

To distract you, let's focus on how generally awesome Stitch 'n Bitch was last night. Even with some members missing due to illness, we still had a great turnout. Here's proof!

Just look at the diversity! Men, women, professors, a child! We're a regular melting pot. 

I was tempted to make that picture extra big to try and make up for the fact that this post is rather light on pictures. 

There was one finished project from last night that I can share. Chelsea finished a very, very cool looking hat. 

Superb color choice!

I'm off to do more clandestine knitting. If you knit, rejoice in the arrival of knitwear season. If you're reading this and I personally knit you something, go find the thing I knit you and wear it. You know who you are! Report back about how warm/cozy/loved it makes you feel. No excuses.

Sneaky

It was a sneaky week at Stitch 'n Bitch. 

Kat, in a homework frenzy, had to sketch ten people during the meeting. When she had exhausted the resources available in the circle, she took to creeping on other HUB patrons. At least she has an academic excuse. For me it's something of a hobby. 

Kat, gettin' her creep on

I demanded to be one of the ten subjects. But I couldn't sit still long enough to be a good model. Kat took a photo of me on her phone to work off of so I was free gesture, trip, and dash off to my heart's content.

It's MEEEEE!

Some parts of the meeting weren't very sneaky at all. Like this "knitwear in action"picture of Madeline. I made her stand there for several minutes while I tried to take a non-blury photo.

Then there were the parts of the meeting that are too sneaky to even mention. They were too sneaky to photograph. All I can say is that they will lead to legendary, hilarious shenanigans. But I can speak no more of them...I can only say that they are the reason interactions with me recently have gone something like this: 

My apologies if you've been on the receiving end of this interaction. Soon, all will be made clear. 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Hello there fellow knitters! Hello to those of you who don't knit but for some reason find yourself reading this blog anyway! Truman Stitch 'n Bitch is back after a bit of a summer hiatus. That doesn't mean the knitting stopped, just that I was a bit too busy to update. As you may recall, I spent the summer doing research (and a bit of knitting) outside of Boulder, Colorado. My summer can be summarized in a collection of three photos.

So that was Colorado. Any questions? 

I did manage to knit a bit. The crowning glory of my summer knitting was my hedgehog hat. I'm not sure if I've mentioned my fascination with hedgehogs on the blog before, but it's something that comes up rather frequently at SnB meetings. Sometimes when I'm sitting around knitting I think, "Gee, if I had a hedgehog, he could just snuggle in my lap as I knit this." Now if I actually did get a hedgehog, I'm sure it would be a squirrelly thing that would hate sitting still. Instead I'll just spend a few seconds (or half an hour) looking at adorable hedgie pictures online when I feel like it. Perhaps I'll even knit another one of these creations: 

It makes me soooo happy. It might be some of my finest work. Seriously. Just look at the color combinations! Taylor obliged to be my male model, but I kept the final product for my own head. I really love the stocking cap shape. I might have to make a few more hats in this style. 

And now to more recent knitting adventures! Stitch 'n Bitch has moved to a new time. We now meet on Tuesdays from 7:00-10:00pm. The location, HUB of Truman State's Student Union Building, remains the same. Just look for the awesome people with yarn. We glow. 

All the regulars showed up for the first meeting of the semester. 

Chelsea and her curent hat progress. Superb color choice.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Kat is knitting fingerless gloves on SIZE 000 NEEDLES. 

Clara is working on her first garment, a bright, striped top.  

Here's Madeline knitting with abandon, as usual. Yes, that's another skein of Harry Potter sock yarn. Well spotted!

I'm itching to get some new yarn in my stash. I have several hats to knit for my fellow summer interns and my current yarn supply simply will not do! 

How ewe doin'?

Summer is officially in full swing. I knew this was the case when I spent six hours knitting in my front yard yesterday. Since I've been home from school, the weather has been rather variable. That being the case, yesterday's blue skies and light breeze has been replaced with dreary cloud cover and oppressive humidity.

I didn't even listen to any music during my knitting marathon. Besides a delightful bit of stranded colorwork knitting, my entertainment was watching my dogs lick each other (as seen below) and feast on cicadas. At first I was repulsed, but had a change of heart when I considered what a delight it would be if I were a dog. The human equivalent would be something like chicken nuggets dropping out of the sky. Of course a miracle like that would undoubtably require an aviation blunder and a considerable amount of paperwork.







Anyway, more about the knitting. After finishing a monster of a shawl for Mother's Day, I was a little burnt out (no you can't see a picture because I was too worn out to even take one). So I spent a month watching HBO and providing my parents with cheap (free) labor. The other day I was organizing my knitting things and found a pattern that called out to me. Behold, the 36 hour hat (pre-blocking).

I'm kind of in love with this pattern. It's "Setesdal Love Hat" from Knitscene Winter/Spring 2011. It turns out Setesdal is traditional district in southern Norway. They're well known for their sweaters (hello, Dale of Norway!).

I think I've also put off blogging so I didn't have to say that the wonderful Anna will be leaving us. She's transferring to bigger and better things in Oregon. Here she is finishing what turned out to be a rather huge sock.

I fully intend on making her Skype a SnB meeting or two.

I'm going to attempt to ride this Setesdal Hat momentum through the summer. I need not remind some of you that my knitting came to a halt last summer. I'm determined this will not be the case this summer. I'll have to keep knitting if only to keep my hands warm at my internship (yup, I'm leaving for the Mountain Research Station on Friday!).

For my fellow wool lovers, here are some sheep frolicking near Kirksville.

<Insert sheep pun. Ex: I'll be seeing ewe soon, or, Be right baaaaack.>

Squirrels!

Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

The time has come to reveal one of the knitting secrets that was mentioned a few posts ago. I am pleased to present the pair of "Squirrel Sampler Mittens" Madeline crafted especially for Ann, University Counseling Services' secretary extraordinaire/bouncer.

Why yes, that is a squirrel motif.

A mitten within a mitten! Here the mitten is shown with the snazzy red lining exposed.

I didn't get a good shot of the acorn pattern on the palm, but rest assured that it is equally awesome.

Although I can't really top those mittens, I'll supplement Ann's gift with a few of the most adorable animal pictures my iPhoto library can offer.

Aaaaand, one last nose shot. Must be the most adorable part of a dog.

Reflections On A Knit-tastic Weekend

I had a totally-fantastic-intensely-fun-knitting weekend. Did you?

Last Saturday, the Where My Stitches At? Knitting Workshop went down. Sure, I suppose the turnout could have been better, but we had a great time anyway.

We brought plenty of projects to show off.

There are some who suspect that the workshop was an elaborate ploy to get Alex to come back to Kirksville for the weekend, but let's not focus on such suspicions. Let's focus on the fact that Alex did come to Kirksville for the weekend and it was a splendid time!

He brought some beautiful handknits for Madeline and I.

"Orange Blossom"

In addition to beautiful shawl that I foolishly failed to photograph, I also received a new pair of socks.

"Ribbing of Doom Socks"

A knitter with a keen eye will notice the ridiculous amount of ribbing found on these socks. In order to prevent himself from stabbing his eyes out in a heated moment of ribbing frustration, Alex mastered a new knitting style. It's called Portuguese knitting. Although it looks a bit peculiar (the yarn is draped around your neck!), the technique makes ribbing much easier.

Of course we made him demonstrate.

Alex also brought a bag of old yarn for the workshop. To our delight, the bag also contained some of Alex's early crochet and knitting projects. It was practically overflowing with his early adventures with acrylic yarn.

I bet we could sell these on Etsy and make it on Regretsy. That's a twofer.

Behold, the crochet scarf that would. not. end.

Alex's first nearly completed sweater! We had a lot of fun with this one.

I wanted to sleep with this blanket, but there was some concern that the acrylic would melt to my body in the event of a fire.

Crochet. C as in "cozy."

No one was really sure what the next one was supposed to be. When in doubt, model it as a scrunchie.

After a weekend full of knitting and a breakfast full of waffles, Alex returned to St. Louis. Unforunately there's no time left to plan another elaborate scheme knitting workshop before the end of the semester, so life must return to normal.

My friend Erika presented me with a challenge this morning. She asked me to mend her mittens.

After watching Madeline darn John's socks this weekend, I was eager to accept the challenge. It only took me an hour total to darn three large hole, but the results weren't exactly pretty. Silly me, I forgot to take a picture of my mediocre darning to share with you.

Gone Fishin'

Hold onto your seats e'rybody!

There was a baby at Stitch 'n Bitch.

AND

That baby was wearing a handknit cardigan made by SnB's own Madeline Nash.

Ms. Eleanor Best is simply ADORABLE

She is also a polite young lady. She feigned interest when John read her a book.

"I've heard it before, old man."

She even graciously allowed me to take a picture with her.

I impressed myself by not going into cardiac arrest.

Madeline would be very upset if I didn't include a shot that highlighted Ellie's well-defined chin.

Impressive, no? Like a young Geena Davis.

It seems to be a good time to knit socks (I know, I know, when is there a bad time to knit socks?). Katherine, Madeline, and Anna are each diligently working on a pair.

A close-up of Katherine's ribbing.

First of Madeline's April socks.

Secrets don't make friends, right? Well that doesn't apply to the knitting world. Keeping a knitting secret usually means you're going to make someone very, very happy. So, really, secrets make best friends. Madeline and I are keeping a few. Here are a few Zooma challenges (any Cranium fans out there?).

Madeline's masterpiece. Any guesses?

Just a little something I'm working on...

We haven't had any new knitters in a few weeks. I bring the beginning needles and yarn anyway. We discussed the possible need for more aggressive recruiting strategies. Fishing for newbs, anyone?

Can you believe I didn't catch anything?