Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Yesterday I showed you swatches from Gayle Roehm's "Challenging Stitches from Japanese Designs" class. Today I present the swatches from its sequel, "Even More Challenging Stitches from Japanese Designs." In this class, Gayle labeled the swatches with numbers instead of letters. Swatch 1 from "Even More Challenging Stitches from Japanese Designs"  This first swatch is a "basic" Japanese lace pattern -- that is, it has action on both right and wrong sides. Although it is a stockinette-based lace, the increases and decreases push the wales in different directions to create a surprising amount of movement and texture. Swatch 2 from "Even More Challenging Stitches from Japanese Designs" Gayle called swatch 2 a faux paisley. Like the dogwood lace swatch B in yesterday's post, the chart has large open area of white space that are disconcerting to the uninitiated. The top of each paisley also has a strange maneuver that i...

Last month I gave a short talk about Japanese knitting for Atlanta Knitting Guild. Pam is leading the guild on a knit-along incorporating techniques from around the world. Ideally we would have had either Gayle Roehm or Fleegle come talk to the guild about Japanese knitting. Since I had taken two of Gayle's classes, I filled in. This led me to pull out my notebook of class handouts. When I took that first class at STITCHES 2009 , I was not in the habit of keeping my swatches. Rather, I learned in class, ripped back, and reused the yarn. I also put all the handout pages in one page protector. Now I know better. Now I put each page in a separate protector and I put the swatch in with the page, so I can see what it was I did. After giving my presentation for AKG, I decided to knit the missing swatches and revisit what I had learned. If you have a chance to take a class with Gayle, I recommend it. Over the past five years I have gathered about half a dozen Japanese stitch dictionar...

Most weeks I follow the nightly news fairly closely. The last few weeks have been an exception, since I was traveling over the holiday. And this week I haven't followed too closely, as I've been catching up from being away for nineteen days as well making preparations for the upcoming end-of-year holidays. Like most Americans, I heard about the horrible mass shooting in San Bernardino on Wednesday. On Thursday, I skipped watching the evening news since it appeared the entire broadcast was still covering that story. And then this morning, my dear friend Andy sent me an e-mail. One of the people killed in Wednesday's massacre was someone I knew . In this picture of the speech team (scanned from my yearbook), my dear friend Andy (left), myself (center), and Hal (right) are leaning against the tree. Coach Phillips is on the far right, next to Hal. (If anyone knows whatever happened to Jim Phillips, Andy and I would both love to know. It may be a cliché that coaches make...

I recently had the opportunity to travel in the Washington, D.C. area. If Rome can be described as a place with a church on every street corner, then Washington, D.C. can be described as a place with a museum on every street corner. So many to explore! If holiday travel takes you near our nation's capital, may I suggest spending a couple hours at the National Museum of Women in the Arts ? I'll start with the premise you are using the trains, as why would anyone want to drive in Washington, D.C.? Disembark at Metro Center (red, blue, orange, or silver lines). Follow the signs to the 13th Street exit (it is at one end of the Red Line platform). Turn right as you exit onto 13th Street and walk two short blocks to the museum. You'll see the short end of the museum -- it is built on one of those funky wedge-shaped lots so ubiquitous in Washington, D.C. -- and need to walk around to the New York Avenue side to enter. The museum building is a beautiful example of classical arc...

Back in my teens and twenties, I was not knitting. Instead, I was working cross stitch, embroidery, and canvas work. All of these are slow techniques, with canvas work often being very slow. There are several reasons for this. First, the entire canvas is often covered. Even if you only worked say, five stitches per inch, that would be 25 stitches in every square inch. The squared part of the equation is not your friend. (Area = side × side) It multiplies up fast. Secondly, canvas work is sometimes done with novelty threads but sometimes worked in silk or cotton stranded floss. When worked in floss, the directions usually specific a specific number of strands to hold together. These strands are stroked into place so that they all lie parallel on the surface of the canvas. Every up and down of the needle is more like up, down, stroke into place, tug gently to settle. Not fast. But because the threads are highly directional, the effect is multiple subtle tints and shades of the same hue...

This year was the year of the big change for Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair . For as many years as I have attended — I think my first was in 2008  SAFF has shared the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center with a tractor show. SAFF attendees entered the fairgrounds on the Fanning Bridge Road (north) side of the grounds; and SAFF used the McGough Arena as the main vendor area and the Sales Arena as the overflow, with animals in the various barns. This year the main entrance was Gate 7 on Airport Road, which is at the southern-most end of the fairgrounds, just as Airport Road turns west and becomes Boylston Highway. Animals were in McGough Arena and the Sales Arena with some overflow to the barns, while vendors were in Davis Arena with overflow directly next door in Barn F. The fleece sale had its own space in the Boone Building -- a large log cabin. About the only area that didn't change was the Expo Center still hosted workshops. I taught my usual hectic schedule. I am deeply...

Last week was Spinzilla 2015. Spinzilla is the week-long spinning competition/excuse to ignore housework. Last year I spun lots of little sample bits from my stash. I still have quite a few sample bits in the stash, but most of those I didn't want to spin during Spinzilla. I didn't want to spin the cotton, because that isn't fast. I have quite a few undyed exotic fibers, but I'm thinking about dyeing them and making mad batts, so those weren't ready for spinning. And I have several fibers I hope to corespin, so those weren't ready, either. This year I chose much less interesting spinning than last year. I started with some Ashland Bay color fusion top. Last year I spun the same top in the mixed berry colorway. This year I spun the cyan colorway. This was commercial top with some color variation but not too much -- mostly tints and shades of the same hue or closely-related hues, rather than a mix of many disparate colors. I purposely spun a fine three-ply....

The title of this post is a mouthful! One of the themes running through my knitting life this year has been double knitting. For those of you who are regular readers, this is no surprise. I enjoy the challenge of double knitting. I also enjoy the finished result. Knitting can often have obvious right and wrong sides; and I love that double knitting can be a way to make something that is beautiful from every direction. Earlier this year I finally succeeded in purchasing a copy of the expanded 1994 Schoolhouse Press edition of Notes on Double Knitting by Beverly Royce . Most knitters think of double knitting as mirror-image positive-negative patterns in a thick fabric, such as the example below. Beverly instead explored tubular double knitting. What is that? Tubular double knitting is using double knitting techniques to create tubes or pockets. "Regular" double knitting uses two yarns on each row. In fact, it is a great way to reproduce patterns that can be reduced to...

I've just come off what was even for me a rather ambitious schedule. Cuddly Hubby was home for not quite two weeks. Hurray! Home really is home when Cuddly Hubby is here. Also visiting was our dear New Hire Buddy. New Hire Buddy and I get along well, as we both LOVE board games. Plus, New Hire Buddy was working on a five-person cosplay of Mystery Men for Dragon*Con. He accomplished quite the scavenger hunt on Ebay to find all the pieces of his Mr. Furious costume; then more time with scissor and glue to make the costume just right. It worked well to be finishing up in our house, where I could supply half-a-dozen different types of glue, or paint, or other craft materials. He even got contact lenses so he could walk around without his glasses; and he shaved off his beard and had his hair cut and dyed to match his character. That's serious cosplay!  Yes, we attended Dragon*Con, as usual. I did one new costume this year -- a rogue. I used a fabulous cloak I purchased at ...

I recently acquired a free skein of yarn and pattern. I could have tossed it in the stash, but I figured a one-skein hat pattern could be knit up almost as fast as I could put it away. And, really, I am trying to keep the stash at a manageable size. As it was, I cast-on one day and finished the hat the next. The pattern is Oh Yum, Bubblegum Slouchy Hat by Eleanor Swogger and the yarn is Kraemer Yarns Perfection Tapas in color 9038 Elderberry. By the way, they do have an adorable commercial featuring a car sweater on YouTube . I'll probably toss the hat in the guild charity pile. I don't typically wear hats all that much. Plus, I have a cloak with hood that I plan to wear a lot whenever the cool weather returns to Atlanta (probably not until October). At this point in the year, we've had 95°F weather for so long I don't remember when it wasn't summer. (I do love that summer is five months long in Atlanta.) I did want ya'all to notice I used a tubula...

I believe I am not the only knitter who likes gadgets. There's something charming and appealing about a trinket that makes a task just a bit easier. I am not only a fan of fiber arts, but I am also a big fan of board games and all things geek. Earlier in the summer I attended Awesome Con in Washington, D.C. Not quite Dragon*Con — what is? — but still very nice. The vendor hall was very, very large. And mixed in amongst that merchant horde was CritSuccess . CritSuccess is a company that makes dice rings. What are dice rings? Dice rings are spinner rings with the spinning part marked off in numbered increments. They can be used in place of regular dice. In fact, one of the advantages of dice rings is they can be manufactured to any number set you desire. Do you need a seven-sider so you can roll days of the week? No problem! Do you need weighted numbers -- a set where some numbers are more likely to come up than others? Again no problem -- some numbers get a larger space than other...

There's a reason I consider Vincent a top-ranked knitter's or spinner's cat. It is not just because he loves crafts. He can put into body language what humans instead put into words. Yes, Vincent, you can haz fleece.

Sometimes I think I might need a Twitter account just for these sorts of tidbits. An envelope arrived in our mail, marked as an "invitation" from Harry & David. This is, of course, the retailer known for glorious baskets of perfect fruit (at a price point reflecting the time and care needed to attain that level of perfection), typically given during the end-of-year holidays. I've sometimes wondered what Harry & David does during the off-season between January and September.  Apparently, they attempt to sell sand to the Saudis . . . or in this case, peaches to people who live in Georgia. -------- experience ------- THE FIRST PEACHES OF THE SEASON I already have. In fact, I regular patronize two different local farmers' markets, plus I live a mile from three groceries stores and a new Sprouts Market opened in Smyrna. We've had peaches for over a month already. Why would I want to ship in peaches from three time zones away when I ...

It has been a busy summer with lots of travel. While I usually don't mind travel, I've done enough at this point that I think I get one victory point for every day in August in which I do not move my car. I am ecstatic to be sleeping in my own bed, working on my own projects, and having time to share my most recent discoveries. One of these discoveries is an interesting maneuver and stitch pattern. It started when I saw my mother wearing a commercial sweater with this pattern: Non-knitters probably don't notice anything about it, but knitters may notice the pattern is symmetrical. Not a big deal, you might think. Think again! There are a number of ways to make a fabric with holes on the half drop. Most of them are not 100% satisfying. In the examples below, odd-numbered rows are always right side. Swatch #1: Multiple of 2 stitches. Row 1: alternate yo, k2tog. Row 2: p all. Row 3. alternate k2tog, yo. Row 4. p all. Repeat these 4 ...