I bought some more yarn today for the Charmed Knits KAL (ignore the striped yarn, that's for me *smile*). I have been eager to start a Gryffindor hat, but could not find the right colors until today. Lucky me! I'm finishing up a Hufflepuff hat (hat number 8) and will start the Gryffindor ASAP. I hope some of you are doing some knitting too...

Remember SFC members, if you got my mailing and are interested in coming to the knit-along event next month, please email me. I am planning to order yarn and needles for us and need to have some idea on how many people are coming. You don't have to dress up in a costume, but I'm going to (come on, it'll be fun!). Start looking for your wizard's robes now!

Finally, I've been thinking about making this a Team Blog open to those of you in the group (sorry other blog readers--you are certainly welcome to comment). Let me know what you think. That would give you the chance to post directly about what you are working on and ask questions or make comments. The jury is still out on this idea, but I'll take your feedback into consideration.

I've met a few times with my friend who owns Sophie's Fine Yarn Shoppe and we were able to schedule a Louisville area Charmed Knit event in July! If you're local and would like to come, click here for the details. Please pass the word to other knitting friends. We'd love to see a big crowd of Muggle knitters!

Big mailing going out today to Stitch for a Cause members, so check the mail this week for details on the knit-along and other stuff. I will have information about what to bring. Start planning your costumes too! I'll have some prizes for my best dressed members!

In addition to being busy with this, I've been knitting a few more Ravenclaw and Slytherin hats this week. I've been listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as I work and have now finished six hats. I've read all of the books previously, but have never listened to them and it's very entertaining. I finally ran out of yarn, but since I couldn't find any Gryffindor colors, my next batch with be for Hufflepuff.

Well, I've finished my first two hats for the Charmed Knits Knit-along! I did a medium Ravenclaw hat and a small Slytherin hat.

The Ravenclaw was my first and since I'm so used to knitting preemie hats, it seemed like it took a really LONG time to complete (not really though!). I had it done by the last day of school and one of my advisees insisted on wearing it for most of the day, so at least I know it'll fit a child.

I realized that the official beanie pattern uses a multiple of twelve stitches, so for the hat I'm working on now I only started with 72 stitches. I'll try another larger hat soon though. The knit-along folks have said it's ok to make modifications to the pattern, so one of my completed hats has a different decrease and an i-cord on the top.

I have a meeting this week to help plan a Louisville area Charmed Knits Knit-along in July. Look for details soon!

The school year is over and my classroom looks like a knitting bag exploded. Kids had gotten into the habit of leaving their knitting in the cubbies in the back of my room and sometimes never picking it up again, resulting in many orphan who-knows-whats, dusty balls of yarn, and mismatched pairs of needles.

These cubbies were originally intended for book storage (a cast-off from a lower school teacher), but I think I'm going to make it yarn storage (off limits to kids' hands). We received a nice donation of yarn at the end of the year from a knitter who was moving, and I've run out of storage space.

This is what it looks like so far....looks like I'm running a yarn shop!

Welcome to our blog! It is still under construction, so check back later! Coming soon, updates on our recent projects and a summer knit-along with Charmed Knits for Charity. In the meantime, visit our newly updated site at http://www.stitchforacause.org.