“Knitcation” Planned in Nuevo Vallarta

We all know about staycations, but have you ever heard of a knitcation? I don’t know if the folks putting on this giveaway made up that word or if other people have used it in the past, but it’s a wonderful term for a knitting-related vacation.

And this trip to Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, slated for September 14-20, certainly sounds like an amazing experience. It would be awesome enough to gather with other knitters for this seven day, six night trip to a fabulous resort (attendees will have private rooms in a shared villa with kitchen and wifi) with three pools, a spa and beach access. Add to that the amazing swag bags, which will include yarn, books and other goodies (they’re sponsored by the likes of Bijou Basin Ranch, Quince & Co., Three Irish Girls and Never Not Knitting, among others), and three workshops from designer Stephen West, and you’ve got a great opportunity for learning as well as meeting new friends who are as passionate about yarn as you are.

The classes will include a top-down shawl workshop, a lesson in different ways to play with color and how color choices affect the look of a design and a tips and tricks session with West and his design partner Malia Mather.

No word on how much this extravaganza will cost, but there’s an e-mail contact on the site if you want more information.

[Photo of the resort via Knitcation.]

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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