project linus blanket

I might have mentioned that we started a charity knitting group in my town. We meet at least once a month, often for happy hour, and knit/crochet/craft for one of the many charities that will accept such donations. Here's a few we've done so far:

Project Linus
Mother Bear Project
Knitted Knockers
Knit Aid

And future goals:
Alice's Embrace
Red Scarf Project
... and probably more knitted knockers. those are the most popular project so far...

To my surprise, many people have shown up to knit/crochet/craft with us. While it is great to knit for charity, I've also found friends in town and learned more about knitting from them... If you've ever thought about starting something like that for yourself, I recommend it strongly. No regrets.

For Project Linus, we knit blankets at least 36" x 36". Mine came in at 37" x 37". It is a slightly modified Colorful Wedges blanket, the pattern by Purl Soho.

You can find more notes on it at Ravelry, but I basically switched colors/wedges early to get the smaller ones. Each following wedge is 2 rows longer, until I got the right length. I'd like to say that this design mod was intentional, but really I had much less red/pink yarn, than I did the later colors.

All together, our group created 10 blankets. I'm so in awe of these people!

If you'd like to learn more about our knitting for charity group, you can subscribe to our newsletter here or search "Livermore Knitting for Good" on Facebook and request to join our squad. All are welcome!

our beautiful pups

The hills are brilliant green in the Bay Area right now, so we took the opportunity to do a family photo session in a local park. The dogs charmed the photographer, naturally, and there were a ton of great pup shots that resulted.

Enjoy.

Such handsome pups.

lace tank

I don't have many words to share about this one, since I gave it away and have forgotten the pattern name. But it was pretty to look at and the recipient wears it frequently, so...

cashmere cowl

Found some cashmere fiber lingering in my stash, which was a nice surprise. I'd also bought some yak down fiber recently, so thought they'd go well together.

Way more yak than cashmere, so a lot more yardage was 100% yak... But then- what to do with the result? 

I've had Purl Soho's Pivot Cowl in my queue for a while, but never need a cowl for California weather. Winter was drippy and cool this year, however, so I took advantage and made a yak/cashmere cowl.

It is exactly as soft as you'd imagine. 

By the time I had it done, though, there were only 2 more days of cool weather. Spring has since set in. It's too lovely to be terribly upset...

 And, finally, here' Bolt's first turn as a knitwear model. Good pup.

now on instagram

yep, we caved in.

You can find us as KateAndTatum and enjoy all the dog/yarn/knitting pictures you can handle.

Happy Monday.

last year's masterpiece

I finished the 2016 Big Project, aka Tatum Sweater, in only about a month, but am just now getting around to posting these pictures.

Here's the background about the design. Most importantly, it was my first run at designing colorwork and spinning dog fur. Both were a success, to my mind.

designing

Tatum rolags

Taters fur yarn

spun fiber guild samples

and finished! yarn variations sooo obvious, but good fit.

And Tatum loves it.

women's march mittens

I'm going to the Women's March in DC on Jan. 21!

Quick story about how this trip/design came about:

So immediately after the election, I was pissed and afraid and troubled. Very fired up. And I saw murmurs that some people were organizing a Women's March in DC. So I was like- hell, yeah. Found some ideal flights I could get with miles and proposed the idea to a friend. She kinda chuckled, but called back two days later with the same fire in her belly and it was on.
Well, we go back to book those flights and they were gone. EVERYTHING was gone. $900 to buy it straight up. Guess some other women in my area had the same idea!
Took some wrangling, but we got flights with a third party's elite miles (my husband's- that's not anti-feminist, right?). In a day or two, plane was totally full. Couple of weeks later, we get an email saying they've upgraded the plane and there's 50 more seats. Totally full again in a few hours. So I'm super looking forward to our flight to DC, full of women on their way to a march... Any of you out there on an SFO-DCA flight on Jan. 20th? Ping me!

Back to the knitting:

It could be cold in DC in January and since nothing about my warm gloves and mittens screams "I'm a feminist!", I thought I should knit my own. Thus:

Since it's a rough pattern, thrown together quickly and because I think anyone who wants to make a pair for the march should do it, the pattern is only $2. Get it here. And then share your pictures on Ravelry, as I'd love to see how other knitters interpret the pattern... In the first 3 days, there were already 100 downloads!

all-merino shawl

Got in the mood to knit a shawl recently and Berocco's Mrs Watson shawl has been on my Pinterest shawl board for a while. I had a lighter weight yarn, so my version is smaller and lighter weight than the full size, worsted weight version. The purple is Malabrigo Mechita in Eggplant and the secondary color is Malabrigo Nube in Arco Iris, so all merino with some handspinning involved. All roughly fingering weight.

The pups make great models, yes?

I expect to use this shawl as a scarf this winter, as we don't get that cold in the Bay Area. The pattern is easy to use and I love this color combination. I particularly like the way it looks with a dark dominant color and lighter secondary color. Many iterations may be coming...

bunny bolt

Bolt's First Halloween! Since he's a social, people-loving dog, I was excited to dress him up and go to costume contests. Given his sweet nature, I went with Lion Brand's Bunny Dog Costume Pattern.

The pattern knit up quickly, with the only challenge being how to get the ears to stand up. I moved them to the top of the head and stuffed them with filling, but they still flop around more than I'd like.

He tolerates it really well and loves all the attention it gets him.

Happy Halloween from Bolt.

coming soon

Working on Bolt's Halloween costume. It's going to be totally adorable, but he is less than thrilled.

more Bolt photos

The new puppy continues to be adorable.

He's continuing to grow and learn. Our current expectation is that he'll level out around 40 lb, but he's a total mutt, so there's no telling. And if you enjoy Pack, you can find Bolt's Pack page here.

new puppy

Introducing Bolt, our new roly poly, border collie puppy.

Tatum loves him so much already.