Greetings friends and knitters, be ye banger-outers or hangers-on,
Time sure does fly—it’s just past halftime on our Bang Out a Kiki Mariko Rug knitalong, in which we are knitting! And felting! And also steeking!—a fabulous zig-zag rug in the shortest month of the year. Before we review some of the highlights so far, we have an invitation for you:
Join Us For Steek Night Live!
Next Monday, February 22, at 4 pm central time, we’re hosting a zoom party like no other. In front of the assembled everybody, Kay is going to cut the steek on her rug, LIVE and unrehearsed. You’ll see how easy, how worry-free, and how thrilling it is to cut into the chewy, felted fabric of the Kiki Mariko Rug’s steek.
If you’re near the finish line on your own Kiki Mariko, you can cut your steek in the company of a supportive crowd of knitters. We’re there for you!
And if you don’t have a Kiki Mariko Rug ready to steek, but you’re curious about what a felted steek is like, we’re cooking up a way for you to join in the fun, too. In tomorrow’s post, Kay will offer up instructions for a tiny practice project to knit and felt over the weekend, so that you can cut a wee steek with us during our Zoom call on Monday.
Is Zoom the ideal format for a communal steek-in? Probably not, but we are working with what we’ve got.
Join us Here
We who are about to steek salute you!
Halftime Show
Wow. Just wow. It is hard to pry ourselves away from the MDK Lounge and the #BangOutaKikiMariko hashtag on Instagram. The joie de vivre of knitters is amazing and inspiring. Some have finished their rugs. Some have just started, and some are in the thick of it. Some are finishing rugs they started back in 2008, some are stash-diving, some are double-stranding, and there’s probably more than one person who is doing all three of those things. Here are a few fabulous Kikis in progress.
Corey in the MDK Lounge.
Susie @stuff.sooze.made winging the stash, and WINNING.
Elena , giving into into the irresistible urge to stow an entire person in the kiki mariko tube.
Chris and Allison at MDK World Headquarters had the same idea, socially distanced of course.
The Kiki Mariko is versatile: Here’s Claudia, killing it in her new tube top.
There’s Still Plenty of February Left
If you’re inspired to join us, it’s not too late, not by a long shot. The Kiki Mariko Rug pattern, a new-and-improved gem from the archives, has everything we need to be able to bang it out in a matter of days. You can find all the details here.
Whither the Kiki Kits?
The brutal winter weather out West is conspiring against the last few colors we are waiting on to be able to re-stock our kits for this project in all three colorways. We have our fingers crossed for more Lamb’s Pride Bulky and we will shout it from the rooftops when kits are back in stock. In the meantime, if you’re itching to cast on and feeling resourceful, the Kiki Mariko Rug is a flexible and forgiving pattern. As long as your yarn will felt, you can make it work for this project. If your yarn is worsted weight, doubling it should get you very close to gauge—we see a lot of doubled worsted-weight rugs in progress out there, and Nell Ziroli successfully completed her Kiki Mariko using deep worsted-weight stash.
See you Monday on the Zoom, and until then, keep on Kiki-ing on.
Love,
Ann and Kay
Mine is coming along really well, although using scraps leaves lots of ends. Should they be woven in before felting?
How to treat the ends is up to the knitter, and it’s very low-stakes due to the felting of the rug.
Since most of the color changes are in the steek area, I just knot the ends before felting the piece, as they will be cut away with the steek stitches later. When I change color in the body of the rug, I weave in the ends, but very slap-dash-ily, just tucking them behind the stranding so they can felt in there.
Thanks for the note about your web site; in recent winter storms our internet hasn’t been too reliable, so I thought it was me. Kiki Mariko 3/4+ done!
That felted coaster!❤
OMG, I thought Claudia was Jamie Lee Curtis! Just me?
Agreed!!!
Agree X 10
I think the version shown on the left, second row would be an awesome piano bench cushion. I’m waiting for a skein of charcoal gray to finish mine. Ordered but even the Post Office cannot beat Mother Nature’s wrath.
Hi
I started a KIKI rug and it’s taking over my tv room!!!! I keep finding more yarn to marl for yet another color combo! I may slice it and dice it to reconfigure the shape as I have no idea where this monster will live!!!! So much fun!!!
I so enjoy your writings. Fantastic tips. I have wips to finish then on to the kite pillow. Keep them coming.
I wanted to try the Kiki Mariko pattern but didn’t need a carpet. So, I Stitched it up last week and finished the knitting on Friday. Felted it Saturday in a portable “wonder washer” because my front-loader takes forever to felt anything and the little washer does a much better job. After felting the bejabbers out of it, I let it dry overnight. Then I got really brave and cut it into three pieces and stitched on some edging. Two of the pieces, sprayed rubber on the back and added straps to make chair pads for the kitchen table. The remaining rectangular strip blocks the downdraft on my stove. The bright colors look great in my kitchen. I’d add a photo, but I don’t see that as an option here.
Revisiting this post and the picture by Elena made me think if only we could shrink that rug down to Barbie size. It looks in Elena’s picture to have the same…um, undulations. Then we could call it Kiki-Mariko Barbie. Future Barbie-clothier and always-looking-for-new-ideas-er, Chloe