Today it’s cold.  Again.  Really cold. 18 degrees.  Actually, around here, lately, that’s warm.

But, it’s the perfect day for knitting and going to The Spinning Room yarn shop  where Robin was offering a free workshop on how to steek your knitting.  Steeking is used when you have knit an item in the round (in a tube) and then cut your knitting open to then put in a button band or a zipper.  Sounds scary to CUT your knitting, but we are doing it on a coffee cup cozy (using this pattern: Steek This Coffee Cozy) as a way to practice.  Here is a picture from the Ravelry page:

That button part was added after knitting this in a tube and cutting from the bottom to the top.  So cool.  Steeking is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while.  One of my knitting goals is to make a sweater to steek and put in a zipper.  I’ve never steeked and never put in a zipper.  Stay tuned for that project.  Which I will do after I finish all the knit-a-longs and other things on my must-knit-now-or-I-won’t-be-able-to-stand-it list.  (Like this hat I just found and will be casting on for today.)

So today was choosing the 5 colors we will use to knit the fair isle patterned tube, then starting to knit using the color chart which includes a 6-sttich section that will later be steeked.  There were 10 of us there today and here are the tables with all the various color combos:

Those purples, blues and white on the bottom are mine.

Those green/red squares in the middle are Robin’s finished-knitting-but-not-yet-steeked samples.  The next session, in a few weeks, will be the actually steeking so stay tuned for that post.  I hope I remember to take pictures that day!

But the really cool thing about visiting The Spinning Room on this cold, cold day was seeing the window Christine has created with yarn!:

A wonderful winter wonderland, accented with hearts and candy for Valentines Day!

Yes, CANDY!!!……

She knitted some chocolates to put in the candy box!  She has done wonderful things with the window here.  Over the summer, she knitted ice cream cones.   Do we dare temp ourselves with thoughts of summer and ice cream cones when it’s still so far away?  Can’t hurt.  Might help chase away the shivers.