Six Chicks in attendance today. I'm the one behind the camera. ;)

If you look at the bottom of the picture you can see the socks I'm making using TAAT magic loop. It gets a bit tangled and fiddly but it's nice to get a whole pair of socks done at once.

We started off with our FO's. My mobius ring/cowl was made with a heavy sock yarn and size 7 needle. I used a picot bind off to give it some personality.

Barbara B's Roman Holiday Cowl was made with a lace stitch which opened up the fabric, using same needle size and yarn weight as the one I made with more stitches than I used too.

Carol's Rafa Hat used almost all of the Berroco Jasper yarn. Yup! There's still a small ball of it.

Cinzia finished a Copilot Cowl and just had to weave in the ends.

Margaret is making progress on her mobius cowl and had a refresher on shadow wrap stitch to use when making the turn.

And Barbara K's mobius is coming along nicely too.

Carol started another Easy scarf with Knit Picks Chroma yarn. They make the prettiest gradients!

After a while Margaret switched projects to work on a helix hat using yarn my daughter dyed with Kool Aid to make a peachy gradient. One of these days I'll have to ask her how she does it.

Cinzia started a pair of baby booties that look adorable. 

That bright blue yarn will be nice and warm too.

Ok, that's all folks! Keep those needles clicking!

We're learning something new

Some people, when they wake up in the middle of the night, shop on Amazon. I watch YouTube videos to learn new techniques or find new patterns. One such pattern was by a German designer named Sylvie Rasch who speaks only German in the video. Luckily, so does Janna so I enlisted her help in translating the important details which I couldn't figure out by watching Sylvie knit the project. This adorable cowl can be worn as shown in the picture or can be pulled up over the head or draped long and loosely around the neck or wrapped twice to wear it doubled. It's very versatile! 

The cowl is based on a mathematical trick called the mobius strip. When the Chicks saw I was making one, they decided we should do a KAL and have me teach them how to make this mobius cowl. So today was lesson day. Margaret, Dorah, and the two Barbaras, K and B, were up to the task. The first step was learning how to cast on for this technique. It's not like a regular cast on in that this one has to deliberately have a half twist.

Barbara B. watched the video over the weekend and got a head start. 

She's about an inch into her work and you can see the needles overlapping the cable cord, as it should. This technique actually has the work growing from the cast on row in both directions. It's a bit confusing until you have some length of fabric on the needle.

Dorah managed to survive the casting on step and eventually knitted a full round.

Barbara K. got the hang of it too after a fiddly start. Most projects start out with fiddly bits. You just have to hang in there to get past it to find the fun parts.

Margaret had an easier time casting on since she used metal needles. Bamboo or wooden needles are fine for beginners and some projects but when they grab the yarn too much, it can make the experience a bit frustrating. I always say, it might not be that you're a bad knitter, it might be you have the wrong needles for your project.

My mobius is a bit further on so you can see the twist. I'm making the pattern in stockinette and reverse stockinette every 4 rounds.

Carol opted to make the Ophidia hat, a free pattern on Ravelry.

She is just casting on and knitting the first few rounds here.

Jan chose a purshased pattern called Ex's and O's from Lonely Hearts Club, also on Ravelry.

We were saying how annoying it is when you have to cast on a whole bunch of stitches using the long tail technique and you wind up running out of tail end yarn before you have all the stitches you need or worse, there's about two yards of yarn left over! Barbara B. suggested casting on about 10 or 20 stitches and then pulling it off the needle to measure how much you used and then measuring out how much you will need for your required number of stitches.

Dorah finished her Easy Scarf and it turned out beautifully! She loved how soft the yarn is against her skin but she vowed never to knit lace weight again! I'm with you Dorah!

Margaret finished her jaunty beret (my husband photo bombing in the background LOL!)

And she finished her Helix Hat, both of which turned out great!

And Barbara B. taught herself two color Brioche knitting from watching a YouTube video. I can't tell you how much I've learned on YouTube! It's a wonderful resource for learning so much! Her Brioche headband started out to be a cowl but after a dropped stitch caused her anxiety, she made the executive decision that it should be a headband. I like your thinking Barbara! Here you can see that the fabric created is reversible with opposite colors being dominant on either side.

The Chicks decided if we survive learning the mobius cowl that we should have two color Brioche as our next KAL. Stay tuned for further progress. And as I always say, keep those needles clicking!

Labeling Day

It's that time again when we gather all we've made over the past few months.

And marvel when we see all the things we've made and have forgotten. Cinzia made this beautiful batwing shawl using a self striping yarn.

Like a quilting bee, everyone goes to work to attach labels.

And we sort through to separate hats from shawls and cowls from scarves.

We collected 9 cowls, 39 hats, 1 pair of fingerless mitts, 1 sweater, 7 scarves, and 6 sets of matching hats, scarves, cowls, and mittens. These are the items which will be donated to Knit the Rainbow, the organization which supports homeless LGBTQ youth in the NYC area.

Once everything is inventoried, we congratulate each other and sit right down to start the next cycle of giving.

Barbara B. started the Ice Cube Hat, a freebie on Ravelry.

Dorah is almost finished with her Easy scarf. She was hoping to have it completed to include in today's donation but has a few more rows to go. That's ok, there will be need in the next cycle.

Margaret started a Helix Hat with two soft yarns that look nice together. It will have a subtle stripe in neutral colors.

Cinzia started the Copilot Cowl with a pretty variegated yarn. This is also a freebie on Ravelry.

Janna's Helix Hat is looking good! I love those colors together!

I'm trying a design experiment. I knitted a headband and I will pick up stitches on one edge to make the crown of a hat using the black yarn with the green. I haven't decided if it will be stripes or mosaic. The final result will depend on how much yarn it takes. It's a baby hat so it shouldn't take too much. 

Wish me luck.

That's all for now. Stay warm and keep those needles clicking!