Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Sometimes the creative process takes you in a different direction and on a different timeline. We are past the busy autumn festival schedule. While it seems crazy, my body actually began to bother me. I had so much fun! How could I be hurting myself? But at some point, my body started to say, "Um, hey, could we maybe take a break? Rest a little? Sleep in our own bed for a whole month?" I'm not accustomed to making such accommodations. This has been a good reminder that right now we are entering the restful time of the year. The harvest is over. Yes, we are coming into the holiday season. But at the same time, the holidays should be joyful, not exhausting. Cuddly Hubby and I spent a delightful Thanksgiving holiday weekend together at home. We played games with friends. We saw a movie in a movie theater. (Yes, with popcorn and a Slurpie. Sadly, Pepsi not Coca-Cola. Zero-world problem.) I am looking forward to spending the whole end-of-year hol...

This new year is starting off with promise. We shall see if it delivers. I spent the holiday break at the Maryland man cave, helping pack up. I spent three-quarters of December at home — repairing, reorganizing, recycling, donating. There will be more. This meant I did not spend the end-of-year break gaming or crafting much. Since I could see this was where the schedule was going, I decided to force myself to take a break. I signed up for Esther's "Sculptural Corespinning" class at STITCHES Expo at Home . You may remember I have taken art yarn classes from Esther before . Esther has fabulous creative energy which, of course, attracts other people with similar energy or a desire to have such. And this is one of the advantages of taking a class over watching a video or reading a book. There's interaction. Someone else in class does something that I wouldn't have done, but gets an intriguing result. There's a reason the history of gr...

I get so caught up in stunt knitting that I sometimes forget simplicity is often the secret to good design. And so it has been with Scrawling. This is a scribble lace shawl I worked up last summer. It is one of the few fiber things that was started, worked upon, and completed during the personal mayhem of 2013. I had made a scribble lace years ago when I taught for Purly Gates. My recollection was the project was fairly quick and fun. And the finished fabric was like knitted Silly Putty -- highly malleable. Scrawling started with Esther Rodgers' "Corespinning for Fun and Function" class at STITCHES South 2013. The art batt was lovely, and the corespun yarn was fabulous. You'll recall I made this skein: I liked the skein so much, I decided to wanted to use it in a project right away so I could show it off. But I'm not usually a fan of bulky knits or projects made with only corespun. And the skein was only 73 m/80 yards long. Handspun art yarns are like high-qu...

I mentioned the Leicester longwool in the post about Maryland Sheep and Wool. I have an upcoming swirl jacket class at The Whole Nine Yarns. I've worn my first swirl jacket a lot . I thought that this time when I teach the class, it would be fun for me to make myself another. I'm also trying to knit from stash because, really, I do not need more yarn. The problem, of course, is that one doesn't need more yarn, but the next project in the queue seems not to match any of the yarn in the stash. Why is that? With some consideration, I did decided I could make my jacket using two handspun yarns already in my stash. #1 Blue-tiful:  #2 Louet Northern Lights: I also decided it would be fun to have a trim of long locks around the outer edge of the jacket. Fortunately, I took Esther Rodger's "Tailspinning" class at STITCHES South this year. And I took Merike Saarniit's "Microwave Rainbow Dyeing" class last year. So I know a little bit about how...

I am very fortunate that there are several weekends I look forward to each year. One of them is, of course, STITCHES South. The older I get, the more I know the calendar lies, because it can't be possible we've just finished the fifth STITCHES South. I signed up for Almost the Works. I've done The Works once, and while I love taking classes, that is a lot of classes even for me to soak up in one weekend. I'm finding that Almost the Works is the right pace for me. This STITCHES got off to a bit of a bumpy start for the organizers, as some of the nice XRX people were stuck in Sioux Falls SD due to a late-season snow! I know everyone was very grateful to arrive in Atlanta, and not just to see proof that spring does exist. Rick Mondragon was one of those delayed, so Laura Bryant gave the Opening Day talk instead. This did not bother me at all, as I had immediately acquired her new book Artful Color, Mindful Knits . Those of you who have many hand-painted yarns in your...