How to Host a Knitting Party

It might seem like we all have quite enough social obligations this time of year, thank you very much, but wouldn’t it be fun to take time in this buys season to unwind with some friends and just knit together? (Or just after the season, if one more party is just too much to bear.)

I did this over the weekend in the form of attending a fiber festival and it was so nice to just sit and knit for hours on end with no obligations to anyone. Granted, I was knitting Christmas presents, but still.

The folks at Martingale have some good ideas for how you can host a fiber-filled party of your own, including printable invitations, ideas for party favors and tips for setting the mood. And here’s a tip from me: keep food and drink away from the knitting!

Have you ever hosted a knitting party? I’d love to hear about it.

[Photo via Martingale.]

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

Comments

RuthKnits says
December 13, 2012 at 7:23 pm
I taught at a knitting party this week. Thirteen new knitters! Well, one had knit before. They wanted to take home a finished project so we made flowers. That was a lot of people to help at once but everyone left with a flower. I don’t think they “learned to Knit” enough to be independent but they got a taste. It was a simple flower – cast on 30 stitches, worsted yarn, size 8 to 10 needles. Knit 4 rows, change colors, knit one row in another color – bind off. Sew a running stitch where the colors change, pull both ends to gather, and voila you have a flower. If anyone has other ideas for a super quick project like this let me know!

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