I have mentioned before that, along with 3 of my knitting friends (not one of them has a blog!), I am working on The Knitting Guild Association’s Master Knitter program. I decided to borrow (again) from Marlene over at Wovenflame, and set aside Mondays to post about my progress. Hopefully, being accountable to the Blogosphere will help keep me moving this project along.

Candidates in the Master Knitting program knit up a series of swatches, a few specific kinds of projects, and prepare a research notebook, all of which is sent to be evaluated by a review committee. A pin is awarded upon successful completion of all three levels of the program. It is actually very interesting work and I am looking forward to improving my knitting skillz and to learning some new techniques–especially the Arrrgyle sock (sorry, my inner pirate got the best of me there. Aarrgh).

So far, I have knitted and blocked nine of the required sixteen swatches and have three I plan to reknit. Also, I have knitted the two lace swatches, but have not blocked them. Here are some swatches about to be blocked:

See the lace one? I decided not to do that one. Here they are, all blocked and behaving nicely:

So, there are 9 swatches blocked, tagged, and bagged, plus two to be blocked. That leaves 5 more to go, plus the project–a stripped hat. Also, I will need to answer the research questions and write the paper. I’m still feeling a little ambivalent about that, but I think I’ll manage.

Finally, did I tell you my cat was cool?

I, along with a couple of my knitterly friends, have decided to take the knitting geekiness to the next level by joing the Knitting Guild Association and entering their Master’s Program. Clearly, I don’t know everything there is to know about knitting. I figured this would be a great way to challenge my existing skills while also gaining new ones. Is it geekier than the Knit Geek code block? You bet. In fact, it’s one louder.