The Sweatshop of Lovers Blog

Sunday morning I was walking to Sweater Club in tiny shoes with no socks. I didn’t have a coat on and was rocking my Madison Cowl and Hand Warmers. Sure, I was a little chilly, but it was worth it! Just think of the days ahead when we’ll be warm enough in just our hand knit accessories while frolicking down the streets of Chicago.

Knit and wear my Bow Headband and Stefanie Fail’s Ruffled Bib Necklace without needing to pile on more clothes over them!

The Sweatshop of YELP! Have you taken a Sweatshop class and want to leave some feedback about your experience?! We are now rocking Yelp.com! Thanks to everyone contributing to the page and saying such super nice things about me and my Sweatshop! Haven’t gotten around to sharing? Do it to it here.

And be sure to order a The Sweatshop of Love’s Knit Kits before the Madison Cowl and Madison Hand Warmers classes so you can take those classes for only $10!

Email me if you have any questions about these classes or if you want to sign up. I look forward to hearing from you!

See you soon,

Allyson

Winter Classes:

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Ruffled Crocheted Bib Necklace Workshop: Ok the crocheting is out of control this season! Put this whole Stefanie Fail of A Common Thread Ruffled Bib Necklace together by the end of this three hour workshop! Saturday March 20, 1-4pm. $40 with materials

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Madison Cowl: A little daintier than the my Cabled Cowl, this cowl is great for staying warm during the Chicago thaw and unbuttoning for some stylish warmth inside. The Madison Lace pattern is fun and intuitive, and the buttons add a fun pop! And don’t forget to knit up some matching hand warmers! Wednesdays April 7 and 14, 7-9pm. $40 And buy the Madison Cowl Kit here and get the class for $10!

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Madison Hand Warmers: No more mittens! Quick to knit, a great introduction to lace pattern-work, and the perfect last minute gift. Wait, what am I saying?! WE AREN’T KNITTING GIFTS! You know you want a pair of these cute hand warmers for yourself to match the Madison Cowl you just knit yourself. Thursday April 15, 7-9pm. $20 And buy the Madison Hand Warmers Kit here and get the class for $10!

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Beginner Knitting: Did you get on this mailing list in the hopes that eventually you will have the time to learn? Sign up for this beginner knitting class and learn how to cast on, bind off, and knit and purl. Monday April 12, 7-9pm, $25

Beginner Crochet: This is a great opportunity to learn the basics of crocheting! In this class we will learn to make a chain, single, half double, double, and treble crochet stitches, and how to crochet in the round. Use these mad skillz for Ruffled Crocheted Bib Necklace, Granny Square Workshop, and Granny Square Slippers. Tuesday April 13, 7-9pm, $25

Group Knitting and Crocheting: Come get help starting a project, finishing a project, picking a project, picking materials, or learning something new! 2 hours, $15

Knitting Book Club: Our next book club meet up will be this Monday, April 5th at 7pm. We are reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz! If you are interested in joining the book club, send me an email. Please don’t come with knitting questions as I won’t be teaching anything (so the book club can be free of course), just come to knit and chat about our book!

March is flying by just like February did and most of the Knit a Sweater a Month Challengers are working hard on their March sweaters this week. There are a few fun sweaters to highlight, though!

Top-Down Reglan Cardigan

Wendy finished her February sweater/Ravelympics sweater (as you can see!), the ultra popular Top-Down Reglan Cardigan in amazing colors! I love top down sweater striping – it adds so much to a simple design. Great job Wendy!

February Lady

Tracey knit this beautiful and super popular February Lady Sweater! She totally finished it in February, I just missed her post about it somehow! I had to add it in now, a little late! because it is so beautiful. This sweater is knit in dark colors mostly, but the pink is so pretty! And aren’t those buttons perfect?

Two Tone Cardigan

Gloria finished this beautiful cardigan in two different reds. How fun! I love the combination; it really makes the sweater stand out. I’m going to have to remember that technique for when I don’t have enough of one color yarn! Two is ok!

Riding Coat

Zayna knit is amazing Debbie Bliss Riding Coat that I didn’t even think of until I saw her version of! Zayna’s just looks swing-ier, more wearable, and more comfortable than the original. This coat is for her grandma and she will obviously be so happy with it!

Where is my March sweater, you ask? It’s blocking. It happened so fast I didn’t even take progress pictures of it! Before I knew it it was drying on my dinning room table!

More on that later.

Get out there and finished up those sweaters! You guys freak me out when there are only a few sweaters finished. It’s like the calm before the finished sweater crazy storm!

Librarian HOTT

I promised a Style Your Knits was coming really soon and here I am to deliver!

Even more than just a regular Style Your Knits, though, this is a Style Your Knits: Brother’s Wedding Edition.

(And yes, it is perfectly acceptable to dress like a sexy librarian when your brother gives you a one week notice he is getting married.)

I’ve got to give myself some credit for rocking this look as hard as I am. These pictures were taken at about 2:30 EST. After I drove 4 hours (traffic getting out of Chicago was nuts and added over an hour to the normally manageable drive). After I trained up to O’Hare to rent the car. After I woke up at 7 CST to finish unpacking from Portland and packing for Michigan.

Not that I’m complaining. I’m just stating facts. It’s not every day your little brother gets married and I would have driven a lot farther, CTAed a lot longer, and woken up a lot earlier, to be there.

LOVE That Sweater!

I’m just saying that I pulled it together in the clutch. Just like Kirk Gibson during the 1984 World Series, commemorated on the wall behind me.

Sexy Lean

My mom’s house is a pretty great background for these pictures. She weaves all the baskets hanging from the ceiling and on the walls. The wood walls make everything look better. There are books on every wall and hand made things sticking out of every corner.

That pile of red on the table is my Mrs Darcy Cardigan.

And full disclosure: I haven’t taken Dollar and a Half off since I’ve finished it. This is officially the fifth day in a row I could have shaped a Style Your Knits around this sweater.

It. Is. Perfect.

Sweater: Dollar and a Half Cardigan

Top: Target, a million years old

Skirt: Old Navy

Tights: Meijer

Shoes: Ann Marino, and yes I wear them any time I have to dress up

Bag: Estate sale in Portland

Adam and Emily

It is hard to wrap my head around the fact that my brother is totally married. Like, MARRIED married; like a real person gets married.

I’m a little slow with changes. I still have a hard time believing I’m an adult, much less that my retarded little brother is one. I’m surprised when I’m allowed in bars, and that I have to buy myself bras. I feel like I’m going to be found out for the 12 year old I am at any moment. But if I’m 12, then Adam is 10, and he for sure shouldn’t be getting married at 10.

But he isn’t 10. He is 24 and the size of a professional wrestler.

So, Adam, congratulations. Way to be an adult. Way to get MARRIED!

Now I’ve got Barbies to go play with. And Full House is on.

I mentioned before that my brother Adam and his girlfriend Emily were having a baby. I knit the DinoSweater for Nolan, who is due in June.

Well they decided last week to get married today! So I’m jetting off to Michigan to be there. And by jetting I mean renting a car and driving.

While I’m on the topic of relationships, PT is moving to New York City at the end of the month for work, which spells disaster for our relationship.

If someone told me a year ago that I would be sitting here writing a blog about how PT and I broke up and my brother is getting married/having a child, I would have lost my shit. I really hope that I can look back at this a year from now much happier than I am at this moment.

I keep thinking about the story that Ethan Hawk tells in Before Sunset or Before Sunrise, one of them, about the happy people who win the lottery or are paralyzed. After that initial shock they go back to being happy people; either happy in a wheel chair or happy with millions of dollars. And angry people who win the lottery or are paralyzed go back to being angry once they get over the change, too.

I know I’m a happy person. I’m a happy person who has just been getting kicked in the face a lot lately.

I’m rolling with it pretty well, I think, since that is the only option. I’m going to put on a pretty dress and watch my brother get married and drive back to Chicago and teach some knitting Sunday morning. And then that would have happened.

I can’t wait for baseball season to start.

Dollar and a Half Cardigan

It feels like this sweater has taken me forever, but I started it on January 30th, intending it to be my February Sweater. I put it aside for two weeks for the ravelympics or I would have been finished with it much sooner.

Couldn't Fit Any Better!

We’ve been through a lot, Dollar and a Half and I. The cable band side should not at all be striped, and the front shaping should have started much lower.

Stupid Cabled Stripes!

It kinda looks like it should be striped, right? When I look at the original sweater, the way it should be, it looks… wrong.

STRIPES!

I’m in love with the stripes! And could I look skinnier in this sweater? So much for horizontal stripes making you look fat.

Fabric Buttons and Stripes Galore

I messed this sweater up royally and it still turned out great. This is a great example of going with the flow! The cable looks great against the mistake-striped background.

I love how the reverse stockinette stitch isn’t bubbly because I used size 4s for those sections and size 6s for the lace sections.

And I love my buttons! I used the plaid fabric I found at the estate sale in Portland to cover my buttons and it couldn’t be better. I had plaid fabric in mind the entire time and it came together beautifully. The buttons are so small, 5/8 inch, that it wouldn’t have mattered what I covered them with, but I love the plaid pop.

I’m still standing by my statement that I will never use normal buttons ever again. I should take out stock in fabric covered buttons right now.

The yarn is perfect, too. Knit Picks CotLin knits up really well. It’s nice and light and the color is beautiful. I will use this yarn again really soon.

I Love You!

I can’t wait to show the girls tonight in Sweater Club! And get ready for a Style Your Knits starring Dollar and a Half REALLY soon.

Pattern: Dollar and a Half Cardigan, Interweave Knits Spring 2007

Yarn: Knit Picks CotLin in Planetarium

Needles: Size 6s and 4s, both circulars

Ravelry Page Here

I get comments all the time from students and friends about the frequency of my blog posts. I usually just shrug and giggle and say that it’s part of my job! I know some people struggle with keeping up with their blogs and ask me how I do it.

Here are 10 tricks I use to keep blogging:

1. LOVE What You are Writing About

I love knitting. I love teaching knitting. I love writing patterns and planning classes and talking to other people who love knitting. It is easy for me to sit down every day and write about something I love so much. But if you aren’t passionate about your blog theme you won’t keep up with it. Find something to write about that you love and that permeates your every day life.

2. Take Pictures

When I have pictures on my camera I instantly have blog posts. Write about your pictures! I take pictures of my projects, my food, my kitties. Pictures are great catalysts for writing.

3. Read More

Other blogs, books, magazines, news online. People are always saying ridiculous things, taking ridiculous studies, publishing ridiculous books, wearing ridiculous things; all of which can be turned into fun blog posts. Like my Jersey Shore post, and my Ode to  Joseph Gordon Levitt.

4. Don’t Write Yourself Out

I have an unhealthy love for Ernest Hemingway and would do absolutely anything he told me to do. One of this biggest writing techniques was to not write himself out. Always stop writing knowing what happens next. This helps motivate you to both make time to write again soon and to think about your writing when you aren’t writing. It’s easy to translate this tip into the knitting world – I try to make my project posts extend over the course of many blog posts. I knit more and write about that project again.

5. Sit and Do It

I went to school for writing and had to do a ton of it for multiple writing classes. I would think I had absolutely nothing to write about until I made myself sit down in front of my computer and start typing. Sometimes I would type nonsense until words formed, then sentences, and before I knew it I’d have fully flushed out stories. Some days I sit down with a blank blog page in front of me with no idea where it’s going, but I start typing anyway and usually funny, publishable nonsense comes out. Win!

6. Take Risks and Do Things

I’m not a naturally just-do-it kind of person. I have to force myself to leave my house, to do things, to take risks, and find people to play with. I do it because it’s good for my life and good for my blog. If you don’t do anything you won’t have anything to write about! If you don’t do anything you won’t have anything to talk about with strangers and you will be boring. I run around acting crazy to make my life better and make my blog better.

7. Carry a Notebook/Keep a Google Doc Open

This is another left over writing school tip. Sometimes sentences just pop into my head that can be turned into great blog posts when I have a chance. I keep a Google Doc at the ready for these sentences and blog ideas so that when I have time to come back to that idea I don’t have to rack my brain trying to remember it. In writing school we called this a ‘notebook’. The idea was to carry said ‘notebook’ around with you, along with a ‘pen’ so you can write these ideas or observances into the ‘notebook’ and look back on them later. You know, like a Google Doc!

8. Establish Relationships with Your Readers

I like you guys. I like talking to you! I like your comments. I get sad when blogs I like don’t update. Like Eat Me Daily. What the hell, Eat Me Daily? I like to think that we have a pretty good thing here. I would hate to let you down. I like being a part of your life! We’ve got a good thing going! Holla!

I make it sound pretty easy, don’t I? Because it is for me. And when it isn’t easy I come back to these tricks.

No need to go get that writing degree now! I just saved you $100,000.

Bow Headband: Quick, easy, and adorable, this double moss stitch Bow Headband is the perfect way to start working hand knits into your wardrobe! This is a great project for beginner (and knits up ridiculously quick if you’ve got some experience under your belt!). Monday March 15, 7-9pm. 2 hours, $20

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Ruffled Crocheted Bib Necklace Workshop: Ok the crocheting is out of control this season! Put this whole Stefanie Fail of A Common Thread Ruffled Bib Necklace together by the end of this three hour workshop! Saturday March 20, 1-4pm. $40 with materials

Madison Cowl: A little daintier than the my Cabled Cowl, this cowl is great for staying warm during the Chicago thaw and unbuttoning for some stylish warmth inside. The Madison Lace pattern is fun and intuitive, and the buttons add a fun pop! And don’t forget to knit up some matching hand warmers! Wednesdays April 7 and 14, 7-9pm. $40 And buy the Madison Cowl Kit here and get the class for $10!

~~~

Madison Hand Warmers: No more mittens! Quick to knit, a great introduction to lace pattern-work, and the perfect last minute gift. Wait, what am I saying?! WE AREN’T KNITTING GIFTS! You know you want a pair of these cute hand warmers for yourself to match the Madison Cowl you just knit yourself. Thursday April 15, 7-9pm. $20 And buy the Madison Hand Warmers Kit here and get the class for $10!

~~~

Beginner Knitting: Did you get on this mailing list in the hopes that eventually you will have the time to learn? Sign up for this beginner knitting class and learn how to cast on, bind off, and knit and purl. Monday April 12, 7-9pm, $25

Beginner Crochet: This is a great opportunity to learn the basics of crocheting! In this class we will learn to make a chain, single, half double, double, and treble crochet stitches, and how to crochet in the round. Use these mad skillz for Ruffled Crocheted Bib Necklace, Granny Square Workshop, and Granny Square Slippers. Tuesday April 13, 7-9pm, $25

Group Knitting and Crocheting: Come get help starting a project, finishing a project, picking a project, picking materials, or learning something new! 2 hours, $15

Knitting Book Club: Our next book club meet up will be this Monday, April 5th at 7pm. We are reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz! If you are interested in joining the book club, send me an email. Please don’t come with knitting questions as I won’t be teaching anything (so the book club can be free of course), just come to knit and chat about our book!

1. Eat delicious waffles from The Waffle Window.

Apple Pie Waffle, Farm Fusion

Laura and the Blueberry Waffle

2. Look at mountains! MOUNTAINS!

Mount Hood

3. Eat at Burgerville when you have the tiniest amount of room for food.

PT Taking Large Bite, Take One

Lucas and Laura are PUMPED!

4. Play bocci ball in the West Hills!

Action Shot!

Lucas Wins! Kinda

5. Get two skirts, two hunks of fabric, five 7″ zippers, a bag of thread, three bags of old yarn remnants, two vintage postcards, and a super cute vintage clutch for $3.50 at an estate sale!

I Win!

6. Celebrate financial gain by buying very expensive knitting books I’ve been lusting after at Powell’s Books.

Reversable Knits, and Interweave's Stitch Guide

7. As soon as you’ve got the tiniest bit of room, get a lot of Voodoo Doughnuts.

DOUGHNUTS!

8. Eat yourself sick.

PT Taking Large Bite, Take Two

Chocolate and Peanut Butter? Yes, Please!

Laura and the Bloody Voodoo Doughnut

And remember, upon returning to Chicago, to make a meal of your native food:

Burritos!

Hipster burritos!

So many knitters got their February sweaters in this week that my Dollar and a Half Cardigan, sitting in the other room blocking at this second, is just going to have to wait.

And March is here! I know this challenge is filling my closet nicely. Two sweaters down, ten to go!

Shrug

Blue Shrug

Becca knit these cute shrugs! I’m pretty sure it’s our first shrug in the Knit a Sweater a Month Challenge. That wide rib closure is so pretty and it looks like a quick knit!

Eyelet Patterned Cardigan

Lin (rav) knit this beautiful Eyelet Patterned Cardigan! That eyelet pattern is so pretty! I love lacy patterns in sweaters and this one is stunning.

Sweater Dress

Mellisa (rav) finished this adorably sweater dress for her daughter! It totally reminds me of sweaters I had when I was that age in the 80s that I wish I still had!

Vogue Cropped Jacket

Zaynab knit this Vogue Cropped Jacket. Look familiar? I love this sweater! It makes me happy that there are other knitters rocking this sweater out there in the knitting universe. And it turned out so well!

Ribbed Sweater

Clara finished this cute sweater for her daughter, which she finished in 10 days thanks to the deadline set by the ravelympics! Two birds with one stone, Clara!

The Nicolas Cardigan

Alexandra (rav) finished this absolutely beautiful little Christening sweater. This sweater would be great for any occasion, though! The cuteness is universal.

St Brigid Cardigan

Vicki knit this beautiful cabled cardigan, the St Brigid, for both the Ravelympics and KaSaMC. The idea of knitting all those cables in 17 days blows my mind! Well done!

Neck Down Cardigan

Wickleweste

Amy (rav) finished her January sweater, the neck down cardigan, and her February sweater, the Wickelweste Junghans! I love the bright colors used in both of these sweaters. And the sideways buttons on the vest are so cute!

Shalom Cardigan

So far the Shalom Cardigan is the most popular sweater pattern in the Knit a Sweater a Month Challenge! I think Sernakl’s beautiful Shalom is our third one! And it’s no wonder; they have all turned out so well!

Andrea's Sweater Dress

Alexandra (rav) knit and designed this beautiful sweater dress! This is another ravelympics creation so she designed and knit this all in 17 days! All these sweater dresses sure makes me want to knit one myself!

Bombshell Sweater

Valentina (rav) finished up this Bombshell Sweater and bombshell is right! What a flattering fit and color! I love a good short-sleeved sweater and the bust shaping is perfect.

Congratulations to all the KaSaMCers who are right on the knitting track! Every time I write a Tuesday Knit a Sweater  Month Challenge update post my mind is blown, my ravelry queue gets bigger, and I’m inspired to knit immediately. I can only imagine it’s doing the same for you!

So go get knitting!