Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

When I searched photographs for yesterday's post, I discovered I had taken some pictures along the way. Those of you familiar with Bohus construction immediately recognized my very non-traditional edges. The point of the Bohus cooperative was to create high-end luxury garments. The money from the sale of those garments provided important supplementary income in an area that was suffering economic difficulties. In other words, knitting beautiful fine-gauged sweaters for the very well-to-do enabled women who were not so well off to keep food on the table for their families. The couture element is important for selling to the high-end market. For example, Susanna Hansson stressed that buttons in Bohus garments are plain and unobtrusive. The luscious angora-blend yarn and intriguing pattern should be the focus of attention. When constructing my own Bohus edgings, I thought about the couture nature of these garments. What would a 21st century Bohus knitter do? What details would seem ...

I do not know what was going on in February, but whatever it was, it was bad juju. Pretty much everything I touched went wrong in some way. A sample: Asked the shop to order lace blocking tools before I left town for 10 days. Order didn't go through initially, thus taking more than a month. Sent broken Tupperware to South Carolina before I left town for 10 days. Replacement Tupperware arrived 5 weeks later. Ordered ribbons for Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance show and made an extra trip over to the trophy shop to double-check on the order. Ribbons came back late and with an error. Received lovely bouquet of flowers as thank-you gift for teaching a guild workshop. Feline criminal mastermind knocked crystal vase over, breaking vase and scratching a tile in the kitchen after a different previously broken tile in the kitchen had been replaced. (At least Replacements.com had the vase in stock.) Handyman installed new task lighting in kitchen and removed broken task lighting but broke...

Although many of us think about blocking our knits as an afterthought process, it can be surprisingly important to the success of our work. I have to admit that I'm not very good at blocking. Oh, yes, I go through the motions carefully -- I use wires and pins and water and the guest bed and wait patiently for my work to dry. But my results rarely seem to be pleasing. Part of the menace, I think, has been the blocking wires I've been using. They were budget-priced, and they've performed that way, too. At this point, they are noticeably bent. I am someone who prefers to purchase a tool once and be done with it. Having crappy blocking wires did not bring sunshine to my world. I have been on a fixing binge this year, so I have done something about it! A big thank you to Jenna the Yarn Pimp at The Whole Nine Yarns who was able to order some items for me from Lacis. I didn't realize when I asked Jenna if she could please get these things that she would have to order more ...

I'm a couple days behind on this post. Partly that is because the Cuddly Hubby is home this week. He decided to take a week of vacation to come home on his own personal spring break. He also wanted to see The Atlanta Opera's production of Faust , which we saw Tuesday night. And, yes, it was very, very good. Beautiful sets, emotionally-engaging music, impressive singing, and a story worth thinking about. This is all coming off a great weekend with TECHknitter! First off, a huge thank you to Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance primarily, and Atlanta Knitting Guild secondarily, for bringing TECHknitter to Atlanta! And thank you to all the knitters who signed up for workshops. This weekend was scheduled more than a year in advance. As TECHknitter is presently trying to write a book and also now has a home in a fairly remote location, I believe it will be harder to fit teaching into her schedule as well as more expensive to cover her travel. We were fortunate to schedule her when we...