Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

I am intrigued by garments. I am especially intrigued by simple garments. For much of human history cloth was painstakingly handspun and handwoven. Every square inch required significant time. Thus, for ordinary clothing, using all the cloth efficiently was important.  Last summer I experimented with this. I prefer to sleep in pajamas. However, pajamas can be a little hot in the summer in Atlanta. I've had silk pajamas, but I always end up tearing them, probably because I don't roll in bed but rather scooch so I don't roll over onto sleeping cats. I decided it would be nice to make something silk for sleepwear. The caftan seems to be having a fashion moment. As it turns out, it is one of the easiest garments to make. It is fundamentally just two scarves with some strategic seams. My example here was made with plain silk scarves that were ice dyed after the fact. This same process could work for marbled fabric, too. For a skinny person l...

On a recent trip to Pennsylvania, my longtime high school friend Pam introduced me to Peggy. Peggy is in her 90s. She is a talented fiber artist, known mostly for her hooked rugs. We spent an afternoon walking around Peggy’s home. She showed me her beautiful rugs made with wool strips she dyed herself in up to eight shades of a color. She showed me a cedar chest filled with her hand knit sweaters. She showed me a closet of clothes she made herself in silks and suede. She showed me ethnic textiles she collected from her travels abroad, including three years living in Palestine. Peggy is downsizing to move to Vermont to be closer to family. She is boxing up her stash of fabric and yarn. She opened one of the boxes of fabric. Inside was this: It is a vintage Kaffe Fassett kit! The tag in the upper right indicates Peggy bought it for £49.00, probably in London. From what I can tell, it looks as if the kit is intact. There is a pair of straight knitti...

A wise person told me that running for Penn State Board of Trustees would take up all my time for two months. I can confirm that is true. Before things got busy, I was able to get a special Knit the Earth kit from Purl's Yarn Emporium in Asheville, North Carolina. My kit features sock-weight yarn instead of worsted-weight yarn. Thus, I should be able to knit an Earth that I can justify in my home. The normal size is a 22-inch yoga ball. I have nowhere to put that. For my smaller version, I need to keep track of my yarn usage. Hopefully, Rik Schell will be able to use my experience with yarn consumption to offer kits in this newer size. I haven't gotten as far as I would like. But, I thought you might like to see the bottom of the world? I started with Antarctica. The other pentagons are the eastern part of Australia as well as New Zealand and the South Pacific. The project is mindful — definitely not television knitting — but also a lot of...

Over the weekend I visited Museum of Design Atlanta. MODA is in midtown, across Peachtree Street from the High Museum of Art. Because I don't like driving or parking in the city, I took MARTA to N5 Arts Center. If you don't have mobility issues, it is easy to walk up a couple flights of stairs, cross the Sifly Piazza, and cross Peachtree Street. MODA is one of those places that always seems to have enthusiastic, young, artsy energy. The gift shop is full of tempting books and products. Because it focuses on design rather than art, MODA has the freedom to showcase riskier or uncommon works. The current exhibit, Threads of Change: Design & Data , is full of textile-based objects. The exhibit runs through Sunday 25 May 2025; that gives you until Memorial Day to get over to see it. The central object is the Black Gold Tapestry by Sandra Sawatzky. The inspiration is obviously the Bayeux Tapestry , depicting William the Conqueror in 1066. It ...

The Knitting Guild Association's Next Level Knitting Conference is coming up in about six weeks. This annual virtual event continues to be a great opportunity to improve your skills, whatever your knitting level. I've been very fortunate to teach for this group multiple times. This year I'm teaching "Legible Double-Knitting," which is a subset of my old " Practical Double-Knitting " class. Whenever I teach for TKGA, I review and update my handout and samples. In this situation, I took a piece of a class and made it a stand-alone lesson. I added in some new material. I needed a new swatch. The obverse side of my swatch has the letter "k" for knit five times. The blue letter is on a white background. The reverse side has multiple options. From top to bottom: random identical legible with inverse colors (Rik Schell's method) legible with inverse colors (traditional method) normal non-legible double-knitti...

Of all the color tools I have, Color Grid by Gail Callahan is probably the most unusual. It costs $7.95 plus $3.50 for shipping and handling, although the $3.50 will cover shipping up to four grids. Most of my color tools are cards or decks or color wheels. This one is a glossy-print grid with a viewer. In some ways, it is almost like a slide ruler. The grid has 12 colors based on the classic red-blue-yellow painter's color wheel. Pure hues run down the middle of the grid, with five tints above and five shades below. There are no tones. The viewfinder has a 3 by 3 grid of holes. The center hole is larger than the surrounding eight. And the viewer has a thin rectangular box. To use the tool, place the viewer on the grid, centering the large hole on the color that most closely matches your main color. The viewer then shows you surrounding colors that make a good analogous color scheme, as well as complementary colors way over on the other side of the colo...