Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Well, 2023 is definitely turning out to be not a year I envisioned ahead of time. It isn't all bad. It just isn't what I would have chosen from a menu. In January, I slept not at home 15 days. In February, 18 days. In March, 16 days. In April, 10 days so far, and another 6 coming up. The first 120 days of the year (which takes us up through the last day of April), I will have slept somewhere else 65 days and at home 55 days. I am spending about as much time at my mother's house in Pennsylvania as I am at home in Georgia with my Cuddly Hubby. Thank goodness Cuddly Hubby is home to take care of the house, the plants and the Siamese feline pharaohs. As I write this from home, I'm at the end of a quick fortnight in Georgia in between two three-week trips to Pennsylvania. I have not put a single stitch in the big orange blanket in over a month. It will likely be at least another month before I do. I hope I remember what I was doing! On th...

I realize I've been rather un-chatty the last few months. So, what has been happening? The autumn knitting did not all go according to plan. I started off with a plan to have a new class on short rows. Gabi suggested I pick a good project to sell the class, so I chose "Dreambird KAL" by Nadita Swings. There are over 3000 of these on Ravelry . It is a popular pattern, and I figured I would just knock mine out over Dragon*Con weekend. Well, it turns out this is not the easiest pattern to follow. There are a couple places in the pattern where people are making tweaks. I think I started and ripped this thing three or four times before I finally figured out what I liked. The pattern is worked in feather-like sections I call a "quill." Each quill typically took 2-4 hours for me to knit, depending on how much I concentrated and whether I made a mistake and had to rip back. My shawl has 21 quills. But, the final project is flattering. In the end, I completed re-w...

Since my goal for this year is to get the reversible lace technique out into the world in a big way, I have been designing items using the technique. When I was at South Carolina Knit Inn, Cindy from Stony Hill Fiber Arts insisted I take a couple skeins of Pacolet Valley Fiber Company Southern Exposure organic cotton. This is a sport-weight 100% organic cotton yarn grown and spun in the United States. If we want an American textile industry, we need to purchase their products. The cotton is 50% organic naturally-colored cotton and 50% organic cotton. (To learn more about naturally-colored cotton, visit Fox Fibre .) I was keen to try the green. I must admit, it did not look green in the skein. It looked beige or brown or neutral natural (photograph at right). Definitely not green. However, being the reader of knitting and spinning and weaving literature, I had read about these naturally-colored cottons and understood they will darken when boiled. So, after I finished knittin...