Pavo real knitted lace shawl

So in my excitement and KAL inexperience (it’s my first time as a KAL organizer), I realized that while the Pavo Real KAL began yesterday on ravelry, I completely neglected to post about it HERE.  FAIL*.  Hopefully, it will sound like so much fun, some of you will still want to join in and forgive my gaffe.

So without further delay, here are the details:

The KAL’s homebase is in the KSD group on ravelry.  The only real rules are use KSD yarn (because it’s a KSD knitalong, right?) and check with me if you have any major pattern issues before freaking out mid-forum (I’m not expecting any real problems since the pattern’s been knit by several different knitters, but you never know.).

If you’re on twitter, tweet with the hashtag #PavoKAL to join in on the conversation there.

The KAL’s flickr group can be found HERE.

This is a month-long knitalong for February, so join in at any time and share your projects.  I can’t wait to see them.  We’ll aim for finished shawls by the 28th, but since life sometimes has other plans, just show us what you’ve got along the way.  It’s the journey, right?

And again, not to plug it too hard, except I think it would help new laceknitters, but if you love the look of these lace shawls but are intimidated by hole-y knitting and charts and markers, consider signing up for my online Pavo Real lace class.  I promise to make you more confident and capable with lace knitting, and you’ll get a lovely shawl to boot!

*I could blame it on the groundhog.  He is awfully compelling.

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Are you ready for the Pavo Real knitalong? We’ll be casting on for our shawls tomorrow, Feb. 2nd, and I’m super excited to see what variations y’all are working on!

The knitalong’s home will be on KSD’s ravelry group, and I’ve also set up a flickr group to share photos of your projects.

I’ll start a fresh forum thread tomorrow morning for you to post your progress, photos, questions, and ideas. And, because this everyone loves prizes, there will be random prize giveaways for KAL participants during the event!

Get out your needles and KSD yarn and get ready, this is going to be awesome!  Want to participate but feel a little out-of-your-league?  This project is much easier to learn than you would think! CLICK HERE for more information on the Pavo Real online class, where I’ll teach you step-by-step from cast on to bind off how to knit this fun (and addictive) lace project.

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To try to do my part to help the people of Haiti get back on their feet, I’m donating 50% of all of my Ravelry pattern store sales now through the end of January to the Red Cross.  Help me help Haiti, and get some great knit and crochet patterns for your pattern library!

Visit the Ravelry Pattern Store

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Our Luxe Merino Fine is the featured yarn on Ravelry this month!  Jess and Mary Heather picked one of my favorite colorways, Peabody, a rich saturated blue.  We have this and many, many more colors available, pick your fave from our colorways and we’ll dye to order just for you!  And many colorways are in stock now for quick shipping.

 

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Want to see what inspired the rich blue of the Peabody colorway?

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The saturated blue glazes of Egyptian ceramics, like this adorable hippo from the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, were the color idea behind Peabody.  The color name is a tribute to one of my favorite geeky childhood havens, the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, CT, where I spent hours and hours scouring the exhibits, sketchbook in hand.

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Ok, after a weekend to decompress and recover from my delightful cocktail of a headcold and jetlag, I’m back in the land of the living!  The backlog of KSD orders have shipped, and fiddle-dee-dee, tomorrow is another (DYE) day to get out yarn for Sock Summit orders.  I don’t think I’ll tempt fate by saying everything’s back to normal, but I’ve definitely made a dent!

Sock Summit was amazing, communal, eye-opening, joyous, over-the-top, exhausting, and exhilarating.  That many sock knitters in one place, and good things had to happen, right?  I got to geek out on my knitting heroines: Nancy Bush, Ann Budd, Priscilla Gibson Roberts, and (HOLY COW!) Barbara Walker, the doyenne of handknitting knowledge.  Here she is, with KSD yarn in hand:

OMG!  She's touching Kitchen Sink Yarn!

OMG! She's touching Kitchen Sink Yarn!

 

My neighbor down the aisle at market was the delightful Ed Jenkins, whose handcrafted spindles are just amazing.  I couldn’t resist a cute ‘turkish delight’ mini-turkish spindle:

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(pssst!  that’s not KSD fiber!  I strayed and bought some lovely plant dyed goodness from A Verb for Keeping Warm.  Hussy.)

The Ravelry party was lots of fun; I got to meet lots of great knitters while I hung out at the door prize table, showing off the lovely gifts donated by the party’s sponsors.

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I scored an amazing little doo-dad benefitting a great charity that any browncoats among you loyal readers will totally dig!  As soon as I find the charity’s contact info (in my massively disorganized swag pile), I’ll post more info here!

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Here’s Rodger and Kristin (Girl Friday), hanging at the ravelry shindig.  Note the excellent combo of good people, beer and knitting.  This pretty much sums up my week in Portland. 

Kristin and I went to a restaurant whose food doesn’t warrant much comment (sorry, but true), but the way they wrap to-go leftovers is pic-worthy:

That tin-foil crab is trying to make off with my drink....

That tin-foil crab is trying to make off with my drink....

More pics later this week!

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