Letters
Red Alert: Colorwash Scarf Knitalong Begins Now!
Dear all,
We have incurable, chronic startitis, and we want you to catch this highly contagious condition. The only cure for startitis is . . . more starting.
Let’s go: Mother’s Day is coming up—an excellent target to aim for. Kirsten Kapur’s Colorwash Scarf, featured in our new Field Guide No. 3: Wild Yarns, couldn’t be much springier and giftier. One size will, we are pretty sure, fit any neck in need of an airy, drapey swoosh.
This quick little flounce is one that we are confident we can cook up by Sunday, May 14.
Of course, Mother’s Day is never a competition.
But.
Seriously.
This is how you win Mother’s Day.
I have had my two skeins of Lichen and Lace sitting on my desk for at least a month now, straight outta Sackville, New Brunswick, crushing me with their Canadian-ness and extreme knitability.
The Ground Rules
The only rules for the Colorwash Scarf Knitalong are:
a) Knit the Colorwash Scarf. Pattern can be found in Modern Daily Knitting Field Guide No. 3: Wild Yarns. (Available as downloadable ebook or print edition with download code.)
b) Pick yarns that you really love. The pattern calls for two 400-yard skeins of lovely hand-dyed, fingering-weight yarn. It works with either two different colors, for a striped effect. Or it works with two skeins of one color, 800 yards total for the scarf.
c) Try to finish by Sunday, May 14. As you can tell from previous knitalongs, we do not hew too closely to deadlines. However, sometimes a deadline is strangely motivating. Yet easy to ignore when it comes right down to it.
d) Share your handiwork on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag: #MDKcolorwashalong. Or don’t, if you’re not into such frippery.
Not coincidentally, we happen to have the perfect yarn, the abovementioned Lichen and Lace, all kitted up in the Shop. It’s flying out of here like little Eastern Canadian Maritime province butterflies, or Annes of Green Gableses, or the rising tide in the Bay of Fundy.
I have been struck in recent months by how much knitting I am accomplishing, and it’s clear that the reason is because I’m knitting with other knitters who are knitting the same thing. We are the wind beneath each other’s simultaneous wings. Or something!
Join us!
See you in the Lounge, where the Colorwash Shawl Knitalong conversation is already under way. Topic: is swatching necessary? SUCH a good question.
(True confession: I’m making my Colorwash Shawl for . . . me. Treat myself!)
Love,
Ann (and Kay, who loves a knitalong more than just about anything except fancy tonic water and Trader Joe’s Plantain Chips.)
I hope I never have to choose between knitalong and fancy tonic water. Knit like the wind!
Kay, some of us gin drinkers would love your recommendations for fancy tonic waters.
I’m not Kay, but it’s Fever Tree all the way here.
Judy and Quinn,
I love the Fever Tree, and it’s a sentimental favorite because on a hot, sunny family hike of the Costa Brava in 2015, we came upon a bar cart loaded up with Fever Tree as we passed through a town, and I thought it was a mirage. Then, later in the same trip, my house frequented a shop on Ibiza that we called “Costco for Lushes” and they had Fever Tree by the case. Will not disclose how many cases we used in one week. They also had 2-gallon tubs of “bar mix” snacks and I’m not disclosing how many of those we went through either. It was hot! And vacation! Corn nuts are delicious!
My favorite when I have a choice is Q Tonic. It’s the lightest of all the tonics I’ve tasted, with no aftertaste. Super refreshing.
I also like Jack Rudy’s tonic concentrate. You use a half a jigger and top up with seltzer/club soda and you don’t put so many tonic bottles in the recycling bins that you share with your neighbor that way.
Final tonic tip, and I just ask that you not judge: if you are really hard up and there is no Good Tonic, use half as much of the super sweet stuff (Schweppes etc.) and top up with seltzer or club soda, and it’s not terrible. One can SURVIVE.
[Starting to think I should maybe not have such encyclopedic knowledge of tonic.]
Cheers!
Kay
My yarn arrived!!! Wish I could call in sick and cast on but I will traverse to the office and swatch this evening on the couch after supper!!!!
You’re looking a little peaked, you know. Probably ought to head on home. ; )