The Slipped Stitch

January 2023

Happy New Year! I hope that 2023 is a wonderful year for all of you.  With a new year many of you have your resolutions to start or continue something, be better, etc.  It’s a perfect time to start fresh.  And since it’s winter and we’re generally spending more time inside, now is a great time to learn a new crafting skill.  Whether it’s starting at the beginning to learn the basics of knitting, crochet, weaving, etc. or adding to your list of skills in any of those crafts, we’re here to help with any of that.  To that end, we’re starting the year with classes for a basic top-down sock, fair isle knitting, a simple crocheted baby afghan, and beginning weaving.  To learn the basics of knitting or crochet you can drop in Wednesday afternoon or Saturday mornings or schedule a one-on-one class at your convenience.  Check the class schedule for times of the other classes.

The Fiber House is open til 7pm on Wednesdays.   Come on it and hang out, get help, or schedule a one-on-one class. 

Event Round Up

Ranunculus Sweater Knit-a-long.  Ends in January. The Ranunculus Sweater, by Midori Hirose, is a popular design on Ravelry.  We’ll be finishing up our classes this month but will still provide assistance to those who have not completed their sweater.

Fair Isle KAL. Learn Fair Isle (stranded knitting) using two colors in a simple hat pattern.  Class Starts Saturday January 7.  If you are adventurous, we will then continue with a top down seamless yoke sweater with a fair isle design.

Beginning Weaving on a Rigid Heddle Loom.  Class is scheduled for Jan 29 and Feb 5.  Take the class for this first time or repeat the class as a refresher.

Jan and Feb Classes – 

Special Class – Beginning Rigid Heddle Weaving – Sunday, Jan 29 and Feb 5, 9am – 4pm.

Weekly Classes:

Wednesdays 1 to 4pm and Saturdays 10 to Noon – Learn to Knit/ Crochet.

Thursdays, 1-3pm - The Hub Group 

Fridays, Jan 6 and Saturdays, Jan 21, - 1-4pm – Ranunculus Sweater

Saturdays, Jan 7, 28 and Feb 18 and Friday, Jan 13 and Feb 10, 1-4pm – Fair Isle Hat/ Sweater

Saturday Jan 14 and Feb 11 and Friday Jan 27 and Feb 24, 1-4pm – Beginner Top Down Socks

Friday, Jan 20 and Feb 17 and Saturday, Feb 4 and 25 – Crocheted Baby Afghan

Fridays, Feb 3 and Mar 3, 1-4pm – Mini How To: Reading Charts and Symbols

January Special-

10% off All Sock Yarn

Just in time for our beginning sock class this month, we have sock yarn on sale.  We have lots of our favorite brands, like Regia, Gedifira, Mirasol’s Huasco, Brown Sheep’s Wildfoote, Hikoo’s Cobasi, Queensland’s Perth and much more.  Not a fan of wool socks?  We have sock yarn in 100% cotton and the Cobasi is a cotton/bamboo/silk blend and Universal’s Bamboo Pop Sock is a cotton/bamboo/elastic.  We have a whole shelf of sock books as well for inspiration on sock patterns. As always, sock yarn is great for more than just socks.  Check out the patterns and books available for shawls, mittens, cowls, hats and sweaters.

NEW! NEW! NEW!

Oooh, oooh, oooh we have the book Knitting the National Parks by Nancy Bates back in stock.  This is such a cool book featuring 63 hat patterns inspired by each of the National Parks.  Although many are fair-isle patterns, there are also cables, lace, and other designs.

For weavers, we have Lunatic Fringe’s new Hemp Bold on cones in stock.  Beautiful colors that make great dishcloths, placemats, etc.  We also have several kits for various project from Lunatic Fringe, including a color gamp kit.

Weaving and Spinning News

Reminder:  we will be moving our meeting to the 3^rd Sunday of the month to accommodate other scheduled events and we are also changing the meeting time to 1:00.  We will be meeting at the UU Fellowship building, Sunday 15, 2023 from 1 to 4pm.  Bring a snack to share.  

In Consideration of . . . (also known as – Donna’s Soapbox):

That OMG Moment

We’ve all had it.  That moment when you pause in your project and look back at what you’ve completed and it suddenly hits  - OMG there’s a huge mistake!  Not one that you can ignore or just make an increase or decrease to get to the right stitch count.  No, we’re talking here about something like missing a cable or knitting when you should have purled or any number of other problems.

What’s your response when you see that?  For me, it’s usually a huge disappointed sigh, a few cuss words, and putting the project aside for awhile.  Anecdotally, other crafters have more drastic responses, such as throwing their project across the room or out the car window!  Then there’s those times where a project just isn’t going smoothly and your significant other makes the comment “I thought that was supposed to be relaxing/ enjoyable?”  (The urge to hit them with something or maybe jab them with your needles is the proper response to that!).

But, recently one knitter had the PERFECT response to a huge mistake – she laughed! Admittedly it might have had a slightly crazy note to the laughter, but it was just hilarious.  Kathy was knitting a Wallably using the Cottage Creations pattern.  The sweater features a kangaroo pocket on the front and at the neckline is a placket opening.  This is one she has knit multiple times before with nary a problem.  She was getting ready to do the neck ribbing and suddenly started cackling like a slightly demented hen.  She had put the neck placket on the back side of the sweater!  This meant she had to rip out about 30 rows of knitting.  The whole time she was picking up the stitches and ripping out, she would intermittently start chuckling again and again.  And make jokes about wearing it with the kangaroo pocket in back so the poor kid would have to walk around with her hands behind her back or wear the hood over her face.

YES!  Crafting IS supposed to be relaxing and fun.  Sometimes we just take it and ourselves way too seriously.  The absolute worst that will happen to any project is that it will be stuffed in a box in the back of a cupboard and forgotten, ripped out completely and started over, or even just thrown out the window! It is not the end of the world.  Because we are all human and we WILL make mistakes.  We need to take a page from Kathy’s book and give ourselves the ability and permission to laugh at the mistakes, re-group and forge on.  At the end of the day, which projects do you remember the most?  The perfect ones or the ones with all the mistakes?  And really – the mistakes are the ones that make the best stories!

Happy Crafting!

Donna Stubbs

The Fiber House

146 Coffeen Ave

Sheridan, WY 82801

www.thefiberhouse.com

Knit . Crochet . Weave . Spin