Coffee Cuffs: the recipe.

You Need:

• YARN:  At least a third of a skein of yarn that makes a nice flexible stocking stitch that measures about @ 18 stitches to 10 cms or 4 inches (off by 2 stitches either way will work if the yarn has enough springiness).  I am really liking yarns that have at least 50% wool for this.  I say a third of a skein because you will get at least one cuff out of it, maybe more, and you can figure out how many you can get out of a skein if you want to make more than one.
• NEEDLES
• Some way to knit in the round - dpns or magic loop.  I advise size 7 needles for Russian or Combination knitters, and size 8s for folks who knit straight Continental or English style.  I like 5 needles (4 to hold stitches and a working needle).
• A larger straight needle (I like a 10 or 10.5).
• Crochet hook to finish, and scissors.

To Make:

1. Cast on in a flexible stitch - I like cable cast on - cast on 32 stitches on the big straight needle.
2. Transfer 8 stitches each to 4 of the dpns or your loop.
3. Knit 6 rounds of 1x1 rib (k1, p1).  If you want to mark the beginning of your rounds, do that, but I just figure out by the tail where that is and refer to it throughout the project.
4. Start the stocking stitch middle section with one decrease stitch of whatever of your decreases blends best into stocking stitch.  I do a SSK because my stitches mount the needle in the Russian/Combination way and this gives me a nice decrease without twisted stitches.  If you knit in the English/Continental way, you will probably do a K2tog.
5. Sooooo... Count that decrease as your first stitch and knit 45 stitches.  Do another decrease and count it as the first stitch and knit 45 stitches.  Do this until you have 24 stitches left.  If you lose count anywhere feel free to wing it - it's not like the cup is going to complain!  
6. Once you're down to 24 stitches knit around the cuff until you get to the "end" - knit to the needle that has the tail under the first stitch waaaaay down at the bottom where you started knitting.
7. Here you want to make it so that your 4 sets of stitches are 6 each to make the ribbing easier.
8. Do 5 rounds of 1x1 rib.
9. Cast off however you like very loosely.  I like to cast off using the big needle and a K2tog, transfer stitch to left needle, K2tog, transfer stitch to left needle, repeat until finished, bind off.
10. Use the crochet hook to make "finished" rounds with the yarn tails, and then hide them however you like (I slide them down a column of the ribbing, pull tight, cut, and stretch the ribbing out).

I am now at the point where I can make one in 40 minutes or so.  I especially like yarn with long color repeats, like the Noro Kochoran.

I've found that the top/widest part can be turned down to make a cuff to fit the shorter cups.

Salud!

Coffee Cuff 2010

Chptr 21 - In Which Our Narrator Pairs Colinette with Noro to Sublime Result

Talk about Noro and Nature!

This is Jen's Poncho from the AMAZING Sally Melville*'s book "The Knitting Experience Book 1: The Knit Stitch" which I highly recommend to any level knitter as a pretty darn cool book with great instruction, helpful information, and patterns that are not just interesting, but functional as well. If I was less ADD, I'd pick this as a book to knit through, reading whatever the Divine Ms. M has to tell me. I checked this out of the library originally and after keeping it long enough that the fines equaled what I could pay for a copy on Amazon (including shipping), I decided to get it for myself.

Someday I will knit the Einstein coat (for the story, hit this, and go down to the section on The Knitting Experience, book 1 - start at 2nd paragraph) - and I want to use Noro to do that.

This poncho was knit with Noro Silk Garden, 7 skeins total: 2 of colorway 279 (the stripes) and 5 of colorway 269. A Tangled Skein in Hyattsville, Maryland, did the honors of Noro supply. For suppleness and a bit of a friendly fuzzy aura, I paired the Noro with Colinette Parisienne (mostly kid mohair) in Soft Sienna (colorway #125). My stripe pattern was a 12 row total: 6 rows of the main color, 2 rows of complementary color, 2 rows of main color, 2 rows of complementary color.

After wearing a couple times, the neck was stretching out so I crocheted a cord and threaded it through the finishing border of the neck opening.

I literally had a woman stop me on the street and offer to buy it off me; and wouldn't you know, within 24 hours my puppy (NOT Chester, thank God or I would have to pose him in an all-out princess getup for his atonement) had chewed a little hole in it which I still have not had the heart to figure out how to fix and will take somewhere, someday, for repair advice.

This was has been an easy, very wearable, item... in fact, I will probably wear it today! To quote Jen S - it's very fallish.


_________
* Seriously - her story, especially after 1993, is really a testament to the therapy that knitting and crocheting can be - I swear there should be a T-shirt knitters can get when life basically craps on you that says "Knit through THIS!"
_________

Christmas is coming, let's pretend the stash is fat!

Yes, it is barely autumn. But my new toys (iPad and an awfully pretty mahjong app) are making it gosh-durn hard to take my 3 month timeline seriously. I mean, the leaves haven't even turned and I still don't know what all the bonus tiles look like so why knit?!

Therefore, friends and fellow fiber freaks, I issue a challenge to you: post your dream list of finished objects to gift at the end of this year. Go a little crazy - you can pare it down later and get real, but indulge yourself with me and roll around in a fantasy jacuzzi filled with Colinette, Noro, Artyarns... Silks, kid mohair, baby alpaca... (dammit, now I'm drooling, and it's sooooooo not attractive.)

I will start. [ahem]

for mom - machine washable something that she won't ask how much the yarn costs (she hasn't figured out that how much the needles & miscellaneous supplies cost would probably cause a seizure - "how much is in your retirement fund?! And you paid how much for that set of Addi Turbo Clicks?")

For dad - well, 3 years ago I gave him some Great Adirondack Yarn for Xmas that was supposed to become a sweater. Didn't. Various reasons, probably none of which are that he has a lazy and distractable daughter ("oooh, is that silk?" -casts aside daddy's sweater which is getting boring and not measuring to the gauge swatch i didn't bother to knit). Last year I bought a crap load of Eco Wool ('cuz It was Friday night and I had just got paid and it seemed like a good idea at the time) rationalizing that it was machine washable (it's not, I was hallucinating that little portion of the label, go figure) and it seemed like a good yarn to start my first cable project on (it was, but key word here is "start"). So for dad, hmmmm, something (anything) that makes it through mom's criteria and that he might use. I'm thinking afghan. I'm thinking family room. I'm thinking Lion Band Yarn.

For my sweet sweet beloved - let's see. A) I have three promised objects on the needles (OTN); B) this blog is monitored by beloved; and C) I have no clue.

This is harder than I thought! Must do research and return!

Happy clicking!

________