The first pattern of Kate Davies Seven Skeins Club was released on Friday evening here in Melbourne. They are called Baffies and they are the loveliest slippers. Sadly, I was unable to start until Saturday and only after I cleaned the house (I bargained with myself).

First thing was first, we were instructed by Kate to weigh our skeins before we began. She’s quite bossy about it, but it’s probably for our own good.

I decided I didn’t want to do the prescribed colours, I wanted to choose my own. Kate has given us a nifty little yarn calculator, in order to give us the autonomy to do that.

A lot of people in the ravelry group were getting cold feet (pardon the pun) about starting until seeing all the patterns. I think it’s quite sad that people can get paralysed by colour and choices. If anything I’m quite prepared to mix up my colour choices from week to week (even though I think I’ve mapped out the first 4 weeks on the aforementioned yarn calculator). If I get it wrong and I run out of colour, so what? I’ll just add in another colour.

Kate has done an amazing job of nutting out all of the details to the club. It’s the best organised club I’ve ever been apart of. Not since ‘Owls’ have I knitted a Kate Davies pattern, but I have a couple of her designs ready to cast-on… they just got bumped up the queue. I’m amazed at how easy she made the Turkish cast-on seem. I’m sure I’ve followed other peoples directions to this technique and it’s not worked out half as well.

As I write, I don’t know where Sharon is up to knitting her Baffies. She’s been absent from social media, or at least ‘not letting on’ where she’s up to. I suspect she’s knitting at her usual speed and posting a FO photo or a blog post any minute now. Or maybe she’s giving me a head-start, a handicap. This is a race, didn’t you know?! I expect I’ll have finished my Baffies by Tuesday or Wednesday… at the latest. I’m half-expecting Sharon to show up to knitting tomorrow night with her completed pair and a second pair in stash yarn cast-on, because how great is this project?

So comfy to wear, I’m even tempted to knit the alternative pattern (without the stranding) this week, a pair for Damian… yeah.

I’m looking forward to seeing week 2’s pattern, I have a strong suspicion it’s going to be a hat. It’s been hailed as a ‘signature’ Kate pattern. Thoughts?