A nice animal rescue group sent me a free 2006 calendar. Plus I just ordered the new Peaches 2006 calendar from Lulu to benefit the CO HRS.

Still, what I REALLY want is this calendar thanks to Simone's mom:




DH is offended that he wasn't photographed for the calendar with Peaches. All money from the calendar goes to a Vancouver rabbit rescue group.
I'm waiting to do something with more complex charts until I get the charting software. I do want to include a rainbow project in the next booklet so here is a sock that is really easy to knit. The little bobbles on the top are knitted separately and attached to the picot hem. They're knit with size 2 dpns and a variety of sport weight wool from the stash.




Here are the turkey mittens I made a few years ago. The pattern is from the booklet A Year of Mittens which I bought at Patternworks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! This year for our alternative feast I'm making the Mushroom Turnovers and Caramelized Onion Gravy from Moosewood Celebrates.
I finished the gray socks and am now starting a pair of Fair Isle socks for the new booklet. I'm trying out Knitpick's new Palette yarn along with some Shetland from my stash. I think Shetland is becoming too expensive lately (it really isn't very soft) so perhaps Palette can pick up the slack.

Here are the colors I chose:


Here are the updated web sites for color knitting for those who you already have the booklet. Some web sites left the planet and others just changed locations.

Actual Size Graph Paper at http://www.tata-tatao.to/knit/matrix/e-index.html prints out graph paper to your exact knitting gauge in a PDF file.

The Color Scheme Generator web site at http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html allows you to click on a color and then suggests analogous, monochromatic, and several different types of contrast color schemes.

Fair Isle 101: The Absolute Basics of the Two-Handed Fair Isle Technique at http://www.sheeweknits.com/fair_isle_101.htm is the best all-around online resource for stranded color knitting. Anne Featonby of the web knitting store She Ewe Knits offers an excellent tutorial with plenty of photos. She covers “picking” versus “throwing”, catching long floats, weaving in the yarns, and the different types of color knitting charts.

The Kick Back Two-Color Socks cyberclass at the Socknitters web site at http://www.socknitters.com/kickback/index.htm is an online class by knitter Judy Gibson with photos on the two-handed method of holding the yarns, Meg Swansen’s jogless jog technique, and weaving in long floats. If you like knitting socks this online pattern is a great first-time color project.

Sarah Peasley, at http://www.sarahpeasley.com/classes.htm is an experienced knitting teach who offers online Fair Isle and Continental knitting classes. She’s a talented knitter and can work with you via email to answer all of your questions.

Kim Salazar’s knitting blog has a terrific reference on using the Strickfingerhut at http://string-or-nothing.blog-city.com/read/578674.htm . She shows several different types and explains how she uses one for her stranded color knitting. Kim also shared her brilliant idea of using a flat cookie sheet and cut-up business card style magnets to hold several color pattern charts.

Stranded! at http://www.bonniefranz.com/Stranded.html is a newsletter devoted to stranded color knitting. The web site offers free patterns and the choice to subscribe to a printed or online version of the newsletter by knitwear designer Bonnie Franz.

Studies in Jogless Stripes at http://tiajudy.com/jog.htm shows one popular method of working jogless jogs and also details another helpful method developed by knitter Judy Gibson.

Two-Color Knitting Tip at http://tiajudy.com/2color.htm also at Judy Gibson’s web site has some great photos that show the difference between holding the background color above the foreground and holding the background color below.

Wiseneedle, An Online Resource for Knitters at http://www.wiseneedle.com is maintained by Kim Salazar. The Yarn Review Collection has a large database of yarns you can search to learn more about any yarn. This is an invaluable resource for yarn substitutions.
Stranded Color Knitting has moved to a new publisher. If you go to my Knitting in Color page at Lulu you can now purchase it as a book for the same price of $8.99 or as an ebook .PDF download for a mere $3.76 so that is a money-saving option for international knitters . Lulu's shipping is less expensive than the previous publisher so you'll be saving a bit of money and they have free Super Saver Shipping for orders over $25 if you'd like to order a few copies. You can also rate and review Stranded Color Knitting online at that site so if you'd like to take a few minutes to offer your opinion of the booklet, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Please note that Lulu does not take returns (unless the product is damaged in shipping) or allow order cancellations as they begin printing immediately. As before, 100% of the booklet's earnings to the shelter for abandoned and abused pet rabbits at the Colorado House Rabbit Society. CO HRS is an all-volunteer 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The book's info web page that includes some photos from the book and many reviews remains at http://home.earthlink.net/~nanetteblanchard/id5.html

When I transferred the booklet to the new publisher, I also updated it slightly. There are some changes in the recommended web sites section of the booklet's Bibliography. I'll post the list of web site changes here tomorrow for those of you who already own the booklet so you can print it out and keep it with your copy.

This will be a busy week as DH is only working two days. Instead of waiting forever to show you the socks I'll just show you one and you'll have to trust that I finish the 2nd.




I love this idea of taking a photo and reproducing the colors. I don't even think the patterns need to be duplicated - you just have to remember to use the colors in the amounts and sequence from the original photo to get the same effect. I'm planning to look through a bunch of catalogs and magazines tonight so I can start a file with color ideas for future knitting projects.
I found an online publisher that prints in color. I have been thinking of doing a small book of color knitting patterns, also to benefit the CO HRS, but refused to do it if I couldn't do the charts in color. Lulu will do this for free (they print when people pay for the items) and if any of you have ever thought about selling your own knitting patterns, this might be a simple way as they do smaller items like brochures. Lulu also does ebook .PDF downloads very inexpensively.

I am hoping to do a small color booklet that includes several fun patterns including this:



and these:




and this:




I donated the hats to the Albuquerque Rescue Mission so I'll have to knit them again. I wanted to make some more rabbit finger puppets to bring with me to DH's work Christmas party for the treatment foster care kids. I doubt this booklet will be finished before Christmas and I'm not sure I can keep this one under $10 (printing in color is significantly more expensive) but I promise to try.