Good morning from drizzly Seattle! With the return of Seattle’s more typical autumn weather, and the end of daylight savings time, the days are feeling a lot shorter and the desire to remain inside curled up with a good book is getting stronger every day. Consequently, all I want to do is knit myself a pair of Hearth Slippers to up the cozy factor, so it’s good news that Fancy Tiger Crafts and Tolt Yarn and Wool just announced a joint Hearth Slippers KAL!

Both stores have posted about the knitalong on their blogs – you can read the Fancy Tiger post here and the Tolt post here – but I figured I’d share the pertinent details here as well. So here they are:

– The KAL officially runs from November 18th to December 16th

– Both Tolt and Fancy Tiger are offering 15% off supplies for the slippers before the KAL starts (for the Fancy Tiger store your discount code will be “hearthslipperskal” and for the Tolt store the code is “HSKAL214”). The discount is good for both Heirloom Romney yarn and the Fiber Trends suede slipper soles.

– Progress photos and discussion can be shared on social media with the tag #hearthslipperKAL

I’m going to do my best to join in and keep up, but I’ll be traveling for much of the duration of the KAL, so I won’t be making any solid commitments. I’ll be using Fancy Tiger’s Heirloom Romney, of course, and my yarn is pictured above! On the left is my main color, the new Dark Natural colorway, a beautiful undyed dark grey (a bit darker in real life than it looks in the photo). On the right is my contrast, Hubbard. I fell in love with that blue when I chose colors for the original samples and I’m still in love with it. For the third color, which is really more of an accent, I’m pretty sure I’m going to use some red Tomato leftover from the samples, but I’d like to swatch with it first to make sure there will be enough contrast with the dark grey. I think the dark main color will lend my slippers a different mood than the original samples, and I’m looking forward to getting started in a few weeks.

I would encourage everyone thinking of joining in to knit a gauge swatch (in the round) before the KAL officially starts, especially if you’re planning to substitute yarn. I think the Heirloom Romney is the perfect well-wearing wool for slippers, but I also know that not everybody does wool (and sometimes it’s easier to knit from your stash). If you are planning on substituting yarns: Heirloom Romney is heavy for a worsted weight, and a bit of a sticky wool to knit with, so if you sub another worsted weight yarn (especially something like a smooth merino), you may find that your gauge comes out significantly smaller. I would highly recommend swatching with something closer to an aran weight, particularly if your colorwork tends to come out tight without a lot of stretch. Due to the nature of colorwork fabric there tends to be quite a bit of variation in gauge and elasticity from one knitter to another, so it’s important to always swatch!

I hope some of you will join in and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s slippers!