Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

As we come up on the return of the light in a few days, this is a traditional time of the year to pause and reflect. We reap what we sow, so make sure you plant something you want to harvest. This year I am feeling especially blessed for a variety of reasons. Cuddly Hubby is here at home. We have two happy, healthy cats who provide slack. A nice teaching schedule is coming together for me for 2026 (see right sidebar). The holiday season has featured time with some of my dearest friends, many of whom are at contented points in their lives. After watching so many people I care about work through a variety of struggles, I am without words to describe how lovely it is to watch them enjoy the fruits of their labors. For myself, I finished the baby hue shift blanket. It may not be perfect, but it is undeniably beautiful. I've started a new log cabin blanket. The yarn is Premier Puzzle from a big-box store, but I think Marble Chunky would work, too. I'm usin...

Atlanta Knitting Guild is celebrating its 40th anniversary by making 40 blankets for Project Linus. I don't do a lot of charity knitting or gift knitting. Usually I am knitting something complicated for myself; or I am knitting something I need for a class sample. And knitting a blanket is a big ask in terms of time. On the other hand, it is possible to choose a relatively mindless knit that I can work up over several weeks in the evenings or at meetings when a more complicated project requires too much attention. In this case, I cast on before an October road trip to Virginia. Cuddly Hubby did the driving, which gave me lots of knitting time in the passenger seat. This object isn't quite finished — I'm still working on the border. It is one of the most beautiful objects I have ever knit. The pattern is based on Hue Shift . The construction is the basic modular block I teach in my modular knitting class. Hue Shift works the block in garter s...

Many of my knitting unventions come from solving a problem. I tend to work backward in my design process. I start with a vision — oh, wouldn't it be nifty if I made thing X? — and then try to figure out how to do it. I like excellent construction. I believe in the value of fine craftsmanship. That brings me to the problem of Volute . cover photo of Volute As you can see, this is a mohair cocoon. There's nothing wrong with making a mohair cocoon. The part I don't like, and that my student who is making it doesn't like, are the seams across the back. back view from the pattern booklet The seams look like scars. The fabric is diaphanous. This is also a mohair stockinette death march — a full 2 yards of knitting. Yes, it is 6 feet of knitting, or 2 meters if you want to think in metric. I borrowed this project from my student and worked on it at Dragon Con because I'm a fast knitter. But if you are not a fast knitter, this is a slog . On t...

I am on a bunch of e-mail lists. One of them — I don't remember which one — recently mentioned the book Bog Fashion by Nicole DeRushie. I was intrigued, so I ordered a copy. The About the Author page near the back of the book says, "Nicole DeRushie is a Canadian historian and educator based in the UK."The Acknowledgements page near the front thanks people at the Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, as well as the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. In the foreword, Ms. DeRushie mentions studying for a Public History MA at Royal Holloway, University of London. The book is published by ChronoCocia Publishing AB in Furulund, Sweden. Ms. DeRushie writes about bog finds in both the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. She includes a timeline for both Celtic and Nordic peoples. Thus, this book is about the textile material culture of northwest Europe in the bronze age and iron age — think Celts and Vikings. The book is a wonderful mix of scholarship and craft techniqu...

One thing I love about knitting is that it can be three-dimensional. Sample E, unfolded Knitting doesn't have to be. Making a scarf or blanket is usually a two-dimensional process. It is creating a flat plane of fabric. Sometimes there are texture patterns, but we think of them as embellishments or decorations. We think they aren't fundamentally changing the nature of the item as a plane. Socks are a great example of three-dimensional knitting. They are typically worked in the round. They have special shaping to turn the heel. If they are knee socks, they might even having shaping through the calves. And, of course, there is shaping at the toes. Think about all the socks you own. Are any of them made from flat fabric sewn together? Even commercial socks are typically worked in the round with a seam at the toe. While I find weaving intriguing for its mathematically prop...

Earlier this summer I completed repairs on a commercial sweater. One of my students had a friend whose favorite sweater looked like an alligator had chewed on the cuffs. I suspect a backstory but I don't know it. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the sweater. I probably should have. One of the challenges was the sleeves were worked cuff up (bottom up) rather than top down. This meant repairing the damaged sleeves included recreating the cast-on, re-knitting the damaged fabric, and grafting the hole closed in pattern. If the sleeves had been worked in the other direction, it would have been a much simpler repair involving ripping back and re-knitting. The repair was further complicated by the stranded construction of the sweater. I was using similar but not identical yarn. I eventually figured out I needed to pull some plies off the replacement black yarn to bring it down to match in girth. This also meant all the knitting and grafting used multiple...

Yesterday's post was about how to make a caftan. Today's post is about how to make a poncho.  After I made my summer silk caftan, I realized it did sometimes get a little chilly, especially with air conditioning. Wouldn't it be nice to have a matching cover up?  Materials & Tools: two 35 by 84-inch silk veils or appropriate-sized fabric silk thread straight pins sewing needle scissors ruler There are two steps to make the poncho — sleeve seams and cuff seams. Sleeve seams: Start with two large silk scarves. Lay them wrong-sides together. Find the center line at the long end and place a pin through one layer. Measure the head circumference of the intended wearer. Place pins centered a little more than half that distance apart. Place more pins across the long edge all the way to the sides. Try poncho on. Adjust pins until poncho slides easily over head. Take poncho off. Sew sleeve ...

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...

A smaller set of cards designed to work with a specific product line is the Lunatic Fringe Yarns Playing with Color Cards . They cost $37.50 on the Lunatic Fringe website or can be found at some weaving supply shops. butter yellow on left; information side of yellow card on right This is a set of 44 cards that match the 44 colors (including greys) in Lunatic Fringe's Tubular Spectrum™ line of yarns. The cards are a nice large size (3¼ by 5⅛ inches, or 83mm by 130mm) and come in a metal tin with a clear window. There's also a paper insert explaining how to use the tool. That same information can be found here on their website. The first thing you are likely to notice is some colors have the number 10 and some have the number 5. As the insert explains, Tubular Spectrum is based on the Munsell Color Wheel , which has 5 primary colors and 5 secondary colors, resulting in a 20-color wheel. A color with a "5" is one of the primaries or secon...

The Essential Color Card Deck by Joen Wolfrom, comes from the same source as the Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool. It costs about $30. The sturdy box contains 200 cards each measuring 2½ inches by 4 inches (64mm by 101mm). In addition to the cards, the box contains a folded piece of glossy paper that shows all 200 colors and a color wheel. As with the Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool, the Essential Color Card Deck is based on a 24-color Ives CMYK wheel. Colors are numbered 1 through 24, starting with yellow and moving through green and blue around to purple, red, and orange. There are seven cards for each color: 1 pure hue 2 tints 2 tones 2 shades The back of each card shows the color wheel, the location of the hue, and the color schemes of two different split-complementary, complementary, triadic, and analogous. Each card has both a number for the hue and a letter, so you can put the cards back in order. The bottom has the RGB, CMYK, and Hex codes for ea...

This is a tool I've had for several years, long enough I don't recall where I bought it or when. It is the Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool by Joen Wolfrom, updated third edition (2010) from C&T Publishing. It currently sells for about $22 on the publisher's website, but it looks like Amazon and even WalMart carry it? tool fanned out; back of golden yellow; front of yellow This has long been my go-to color tool for several reasons. It is based on the printer's primaries of cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMYK). It uses a 24-color wheel. Each card shows complementary, analogous, two versions of split-complementary, and triadic. The tool has 6 cards at the beginning to provide an overview of color theory and how to use the tool. There's a color wheel with all 24 colors numbered, beginning with yellow as #1 and working through greens to blues, through purples to...

I love color! I tend to be drawn to vivid, pure colors. But that's not always appropriate. Sometimes, you want something quieter, more subtle, more sophisticated. Recently, I've acquired some color tools. I thought it would be helpful to post a series of reviews about different color tools. Which ones are best suited for which circumstances? Which ones would be most helpful based on what type of help you most need? First up, Palette Scout from Zollie. pure hue upper left, plus 2 shades; bottom are two light tones This one is the most expensive of all my color tools. I bought the full bundle which includes the card pack plus the online color theory course, match guides, and palette suggestion pdfs. The whole thing normally sells for more than $100. I purchased it as part of a Black Friday 50% off sale. Good for me. If all you want is the card pack, that costs about $30.  Bullet points: based on painter's primaries (red, yellow, blue) 18 hues ...