Ready, get set, GO! It's time for another Knit-A-Long!

This time it's a Knit Red KAL! We will be knitting Diane Soucy's Knitting Pure & Simple pattern from the Knit Red book, the A-Line Hoodie. We chose this pattern not only because it is one of our favorite patterns from the book (although I think they are all favorites!) it also has the highest number of favorites on Ravelry of any of the Knit Red patterns!

We’ve been receiving such positive feedback on using Diane’s pattern and are so excited that everyone loves the A-Line Hoodie as much as we do! Many of you may not know this, but Diane is one of the people who helped inspire Laura to start Jimmy Beans Wool; which, we’re sure you read about in our Hand Dyed catalog. She's actually been with us since the beginning and her Knitting Pure and Simple Patterns are always our go-to knitting patterns for simple, top down designs. It's such a natural fit for her to be included in this next KAL! 


What’s even more exciting is that Diane is going to be participating in this KAL right along with us by filming some videos with me (Terry) that will take you through the steps of how to knit a top down sweater! We'll learn things like how to decide what size to make, the importance of gauge and how to find it, how to cast on and what are all those markers for? And the big one I know you all want to know because it was a much discussed issue in our last KAL, how to pickup stitches for the underarms without holes!

The KAL will start on Monday August 6^th and run for 6 weeks until Monday September 17^th.

We'll be blogging each week right here on the JBW blog and the Stitch Red blog as well as having on-going discussion, camaraderie, and support in threads on both Ravelry groups, Jimmy Beans Wool and Stitch Red.

For our local customers, I'm willing to hold KAL Knit Nights on Tuesday evenings every other week if enough interested people respond to this blog post by Sunday August 5^th .

Diane's
"A-line Hoodie"

The A-line Hoodie pattern can be found on page 22 of Knit Red by Laura Zander

The pattern calls for Debbie Macomber's Blossom Street Collection, Cashmere Fleur de Lys in color #416.

The Cashmere Fleur de Lys is an absolutely lovely and soft yarn and as always you are welcome to use any worsted weight yarn that you want. If you have questions on if a yarn is worsted weight check the yarn band for the suggested gauge. A suggested gauge of 18 - 20 stitches to 4” (4.5-5 stitches per inch) on a US 7-8 needle will work for this pattern.

Personally, I'm going to be sticking with the Stitch Red color theme and making my sweater out of Berroco Vintage in their Stitch Red color #5150 Berries. I'm choosing this yarn because I'm not always as gentle with my hand knits as I should be and I want this sweater to be an everyday sweater that is durable and easy to care for. In addition, I don't look my best in the blue-reds so I need to stick with orange-reds or reds with a hint of black and the Berroco Vintage fits the bill for me in every way.

I would also like to suggest a few other Stitch Red colors you can consider (if you’d like to join me in supporting Stitch Red):

Encore Worsted color #475
Fantasy Naturale color #3611
Shepherd Worsted Bold Red

Shepherd Worsted LLE color Stitch Red (we still have some!)
Merino 5 #1012
Bamboo Ewe #5280

Red Heart Soft Solid color #5142

My swatch! So excited to start!

I've already swatched for my sweater with the Berroco Vintage on US 8 and 9 Knitter's Pride Cubics and after washing my swatch I got gauge perfectly on US size 8.

So choose your yarn and get swatching--we hope you'll join us for what is sure to be a fun and educational KAL!

Happy knitting!
Terry

P.S. We are also planning some Heart Healthy goal-setting throughout and will be incorporating that into this KAL! We'd love for you to join us in encouraging each other to set some new goals and work towards them while we knit! Be sure to check in on the Ravelry groups for more info!