Social Knitting

Knitting is a relaxing, almost meditative activity for me. It can be very solitary and I enjoyed my time with my cats by the fire during January snowstorms. I also enjoy the social aspect of knitting in public and having someone inquire "What are you making?". It's a great conversation starter, especially while traveling. My goal for 2017 is to share knitting and fiber arts with the wider community. I plan to start with a weekly social knitting time at a local coffee shop. 

Relaxing by the fire knitting with my Kitty, (knitting a pussy hat)!

Social knitting takes a special project. My rules are simple: a pattern repeat that I can easily memorize, a few rows of mindless knitting so you can stop at any point, and the size of the project makes it easily portable. All the yarn I need fits nicely in my Fringe Supply Company Field Bag (see picture above & below).

Knitting a red Project Peace cowl at Caffe Ibis, a local coffee shop.

Looking at Instagram in the first weeks of December I found Project Peace. I knew I found a perfect project for social knitting and for peaceful knitting by the fire. It was designed by Christina Campbell to be knit one four row repeat each day for 21 days. I started it on January 1st, and finished it on January 21st, Inauguration Day, with a day of knitting in public. I used one of my indigo dyed gradient sets for this project. I started each day with a little peaceful knitting.

My Project Peace Cowl knitted with my indigo dyed gradient.

One of my goals about knitting in public is to get more people knitting. I have had a few people ask me about teaching them to knit and I decided that I wanted to teach by using a fun and quick project, a simple hat. I designed a quick striped hat that I called, "Find a Friend Hat" as in find a friend to knit with, find a friend to teach to knit or find a friend to teach you to knit.

Prototype for my "Find a Friend Hat" kits.

I recently gave a graduate student a quick one-time, 2 hour lesson on knitting, got her set up with a hat pattern and knitting in the round. She was so excited to have something she could enjoy doing on an upcoming 18 hour flight. She sent me this picture of her progress after the first leg of her flight. She is my star student. See the picture below of her beautiful knitting. 

Perfect knit stitches from a first time knitter.

Now to find that next perfect knitting project and a great location to host a community knit night. I loved the idea I heard on a recent podcast. Pub knitting, but that is not likely going to happen in Utah!