Last weekend, I traveled out to Ojai, California to learn the Cocoknits method from Julie Weisenberger herself. It was so much fun to learn something new and to connect with other knitters in the beautiful Cattywampus Crafts shop, run by my dear friend Anna Nozaki. I knit the Amy Sweater pattern and hope to inspire you to do the same! See all the embarrassing selfies below of me in the 2 samples I knit. The pattern is available on her site here. I made the slight modification of making my sweaters short sleeve which I LOVE! I like to layer a lot in winter and the short sleeves make it ideal for just that! I made the first one in Spun Cloud color Bodacious Pink in size Small and only needed 2 skeins to complete it ~ 200 yds of yarn. The second sweater I made is with our Friendship Bracelet yarn in color Good Thoughts. For this version, I needed 4 skeins (60 yds per skein) for size Small (you could probably get away with 3 if you made the body 2 rows shorter too!). There are many of our yarns that will work with this pattern and here they all are: Cast Away, Daisy Chain, Sister, Wildflower, Friendship Bracelet and Spun Cloud.

Last but not least, we have Cocoknits products now available here on the site and these were designed especially with our chunky yarns in mind! Julie designed Jumbo Stitch Markers and Stitch Stoppers and they are so beautiful I'm extremely happy to say goodbye to the hideous ones I've been toting around for years. I especially love that the stitch marker sets come in a 30 count because no matter what I do, holding on to stitch markers is a losing battle!!! Lastly, my husband can rest at ease that my stitches are safe with the large needle stitch stoppers. He is constantly worried about this because I never keep the stitches safe, whew, here's to changing my ways! Shop her products here.