Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

On the second day of the workshop, Rita showed us Irish and Aran crochet techniques. In class we worked samples using size 10 crochet cotton. Yes, the fineness of the materials can be a challenge, especially if your hands shake or your eyes no longer see in high definition. But the patterns are lovely and definitely worth the effort. For reference here on the blog, I've worked these motifs in the same worsted-weight yarn as the other posts. bullion stitches at top, limpet stitches at bottom Possibly the toughest stitch we did was the bullion stitch. Like the Tunisian stitches, this is another technique where a crochet hook with a long plain throat is better than one with a thumb rest. The bullion stitch makes fabulous texture by wrapping the yarn multiple times around the throat of the crochet hook and then pulling a loop through this long spiral worm. As you might guess, part of the trick is not catching the spiral loops on the hook. Scrunching the spiral worm together h...

In the afternoon on the first day of Rita's workshop we learned Tunisian crochet. Tunisian stitches are characterized by a right-to-left ("forward") pass creating loops, then a left-to-right ("backward") pass crocheting them off. You don't turn the work; the public side is always facing you. When you are at the right-hand edge of a piece of Tunisian crochet it looks like you are crocheting — there is a single loop on a crochet hook. But when you are at the left-hand edge, there is a strange hybrid of a crochet hook with lots of live loops on it as if it were in costume pretending to be a knitting needle. If you think of Tunisian stitches as a grid, you can think of the forward loop-creating pass as making vertical posts and the backward binding-off pass as making horizontal lintels. —   —   —   —   —    — |    |    |    |    |    | For class we were able to work swatches on r...

On the first day of Rita de Maintenon's workshop we learned two related techniques — broomstick lace and hairpin lace. In all the pictures below, the swatches are oriented in the direction they were worked, from bottom to top. a sample of broomstick lace Broomstick lace is a technique where large loops are created over a broomstick or other oversized dowel, such as a size 35 or 50 knitting needle. As in knitting but unlike ordinary crochet, there are many loops. These loops are crocheted together in groups, as in the example above. You can see how a group of loops forms and "eye," with a "crown" of single-crochet stitches at the top. In the photograph below, loops have been crocheted individually to make a mesh reminiscent of condo knitting. broomstick mesh alternating rows over two different-sized dowels In either case, this is a technique that would lends itself to showing off a pretty yarn. I can definitely see this done with a ribbon yarn; and ...

The first weekend of April I attended Fiber Forum 2019 . This gathering is every-other year. Since it is weaving-focused, it happens in the odd-numbered years. Convergence — the big weaving gathering organized by the Handweavers Guild of America — takes place in even-numbered years. In fact, next year Convergence will be nearby in Knoxville, Tennessee. Fiber Forum is held at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. From Atlanta, I prefer the drive up I-85, following the I-985 split into north Georgia and on up past Tallulah Falls, through Franklin, North Carolina, past the Cherokee reservation, then through Smoky Mountain National Park. Gatlinburg, Tennessee is, well, something to see. Very tourist-oriented. It is sort of like Las Vegas, but in Appalachia. And in that regard, Arrowmont is a bit like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You come out of 30 miles of national park into Gatlinburg. You drive down a main street of glittering tourist-focused...