Knitting

Traveler’s Club: A Knitter’s Journey

four picture postcards with postmarks and the words traveler's club 2025

After hosting a Kuster cousin in July and Müller cousins in October, my knitting will vicariously take me to the land of my Swiss grandparents. In 2025, knitting maven Marie Greene will guide knitters on virtual travel tours to Switzerland, Germany, France, and British Columbia. Each quarter, she will share culturally specific patterns, history lessons, and recipes. As with her other workshops, there will be instructional videos to help participants learn new techniques, suggested books to read, and a music list, as well as random prizes, possible even in situ knitting notions. In January, along with my fellow travelers, I will begin this knitting journey at Kleine Scheidegg in the Canton of Bern. It is a magical place which I visited in 1982 and 1991 as the Jungfrau was my grandmother’s favorite mountain. While the sweater that will be the focus of the coming year’s annual Knit Camp sweater knit-a-long (KAL) is still being designed, a sneak peek at the top-down cardigan reveals slipped stitches in red and white, just like the Swiss flag.

Happy Knitting! Or, more appropriately, Viel Spaß beim Stricken!

Knitting

Before the next sweater…

Since my knitted contributions to this year’s church auction (the Mallory Shawl and the French Oak Scarf) were successful in raising funds and as Brezel, Marie Greene’s new design for her 2023 January Sweater Workshop, is waiting in the wings, I just completed several smaller projects.  Using worsted weight tweed yarn in vibrant magenta, the matching beanie and scarf combo with reversible cables was a quick project.  Plus, this set gives me a head start on next year’s auction donations.

And for a sneak peak at Brezel details — With a release date of December 30 for Knit Campers like me, Bretzel incorporates Bavarian twisted stitches and German short rows to create an overall design resembling a platter of carefully crafted pretzels.  And, yes, the name of the sweater is the German translation of this symmetrically twisted, salty snack.  In the weeks ahead, in addition to the knitting lessons shared during this sweater workshop, there is a promise of pretzel baking lessons.  Yumm!

Knitting

Together / Zusammen

I can attest that the normal excitement felt when the FedEx truck parks in front on your house is compounded when knowing that the only expected delivery is an international priority from Damsdorf, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.  My Strickmich! Club yarn arrived today making it a Valentine’s Day treat!  Inside the FedEx mailer were four individually packaged projects.  The recyclable opaque paper bags were designed to keep the mystery alive, but carefully color coded 1-4 to match the Strickmich! Club logo and the corresponding cast-on dates.

  • February 26
  • May 21
  • September 17
  • November 19

The four (just begging to be opened) bags hold one-of-a-kind skeins representing the artful collaboration between four independent European dyers and designer Martina Behm.  Each exclusive skein was specially colored to compliment a new original pattern.  But even if I succumb to a sneak peak (which I have not, as yet) the patterns will remain a mystery since they will only be released electronically on the specified cast-on dates.  And, on those dates, just as this year’s club theme Together celebrates, I will join other knitters from around the world as Martina hosts two Zoom parties – one in German and corresponding to Central European Time (CET) followed by an English workshop at a time conducive to US participants.   As Martina explains:

In Strickmich! Club 2022, the people who make our yarns come from very different places, and every project I design for the club will reflect that. But what’s important is that knitting brings them – and us – together. That’s why our motto for 2022 is “Together”, and we will celebrate that with every design and club project we knit.

Just 12 days until I can open package #1.  Happy club knitting!

Photo credit: © Martina Behm