Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

It is almost time again for Christmas in July at The Whole Nine Yarns. I've missed the last couple years because I've been out of town during the event. The challenge is always to come up with a quick gift knit. Since I've been doing quite a bit of double knitting lately (see the soap sack ), some double knit sachets seemed like a good idea. The yarn is Classic Elite Soft Linen, which is a linen, wool, alpaca blend. The linen gives it crispness and structure, while the animal fiber gives it softness. I came up with two different double-knit patterns. In the first, you start with Judy's Magic Cast-on, double knit the sachet, and bind off using purlwise grafting. The edges are rounded. Since some people are not going to like the cast-on and the bind-off, I designed a second pattern with a crocheted cast-on and a three-needle bind-off. The difference is that a line of chain stitch goes all the way around the sachet. The edge is squarer and sharper. It is this se...

You'll recall I used this burst of intense summer weather to dye some fiber. During the Independence Day holiday and following weekend, I spun that fiber up into yarn. I'm trying to decide whether or not this yarn can be labeled as "successful." I was aiming for a peachy-pink color that would emulate the traits of dewy European fairy-princess flesh -- pale, pink, soft, with a gentle glow. Pink Slime/Gore/Road Kill hand spun, hand dyed, hand carded mohair Yes, it really is this color, which is why I photographed it outdoors. A couple things happened along the way. Firstly, the core fibers I dyed with pink lemonade Kool-Aid had quite a bit of brown kemp. The brown didn't show much in the rolags, but it did show when spun into the core singles. I didn't take a picture, but the core singles were noticeably both pink and brown, rather than just pink. Also, the core singles required a lot of twist. Mohair is slippery! Duh! When spinning 100% mohair, it keeps ...

 . . . dye fiber! I don't wander into politics too much on this blog, but it needs to be said that at this point, the arguments against the existence of global climate change are cold comfort. (There is, however, plenty to discuss about possible causes and what our responses should be.) After that non-winter, I don't think there was a lot of surprise that summer came in with the fiery heat of a woman scorned. And I am giving a lot of thanks for all those lovely mature shady oak trees in my yard, thank you very much Atlanta developer who didn't denude my neighborhood in the 1970s. Still, there had to be something useful to do with all this heat. I've been thinking for awhile about dyeing some fiber, and had recently read this old Knitty article by Kristi Porter . She mentioned that you could dye yarn in the same way as making sun tea. So that's what I did. Yellow and pink mohair, blended with hand cards. My inspiration is a batt I suspect of being a wool a...

My knit-night friend Ginny will be a first-time grandmother later this summer. It has been delightful to see the enthusiasm with which she is greeting this event. And the little one will be a girl, which just opens so many wonderful knitterly possibilities! I was grateful when Ginny remarked one evening that she was going to knit a Baby Surprise Jacket. She had a nice queue built up of items for this baby. (I keep wondering if anyone has ordered a large cedar chest to accommodate this bounty.) So when I stepped in and asked if I could buy the yarn and it knit it for her, she agreed! In conversations about classic knitting patterns, the Baby Surprise Jacket comes up again and again. And, yes, I know I've written about it here before. So let me just show you what I did this time. The yarn is Ella Rae Seasons, which is a rather new yarn. It is chain plied, so it has nice elasticity. The size is heavy worsted. And it has long color changes, similar to Noro. While I didn't tr...

I find myself finally letting my life drop out of 5th gear overdrive and down into 3rd gear -- getting things done, but not being quite so crazy. Over the last couple weeks I've driven up and back to Columbus, Ohio for Knitters Connection; visited dear friends in Kentucky; toured the Cincinnati Zoo; dealt with my Yahoo! e-mail account getting hacked by a virus; cleaned my house; hosted a game night and a Pathfinder game; combed and prepared several ounces of raw mohair; ran a knitting guild meeting; oiled the patio furniture; baked a batch of scones; and taken cats to the vet. I had a wonderful time at Knitters Connection. A huge thank you to everyone who took a class with me! I had one crash and burn moment in the Unventions class, but by the end, I also heard several gasps of awesome delight. I was also very pleased by how several people in that class were experimenting and coming up with their own unventions by the end of class. And I was totally shocked to see 14 people in th...

The TNNA show is coming up later this month. Because I'm now teaching and designing (and being a guild president), I sometimes get to see several sides of the same event. For example, at STITCHES South I've seen the Market being set-up and taken down because I've been involved a little with the guild booth. While I won't be attending TNNA, one of the behind-the-scenes things that becomes an in-front-of-the-scenes thing is the Great Wall of Yarn. This is a chance for the yarn companies to show off their new offerings and get some creative ideas into the minds of the shop owners who are attending the show. Barry Klein from Trendsetter asked the STITCHES teachers if we would be willing to make swatches. This is a great chance for us to play with new yarns -- some barely on the market. And it is also a chance to show the various yarn companies what we can do. I volunteered to make four swatches. So here is what I did. First up is Moonshine from Crystal Palace Yarns. ...

My reputation for bizarre knitting being what it is, I've been asked by both North Georgia Knitting Guild and Atlanta Knitting Guild to teach a little bit about how to double knit. For NGKG, I'll be teaching a mini-workshop at our Beat the Heat Retreat on Saturday 21 July. AKG was planning on having a program on double-knitting later in the summer, and originally it was going to be during a month when I couldn't attend. But that changed. So on Thursday night, I'll be presenting a program on double-knitting to AKG. This works out fine, as I got my act together and knocked out the project and handout for NGKG. The NGKG VP of Workshops, Mary, asked me to come up with a knitted soap sack as our double-knitting project. This is a really easy project for double knitting. And it doesn't take a lot of yarn. I used about 12 yards each of two colors of Lily Sugar 'n' Cream, which is a basic kitchen cotton. This would be an easy project to kit up for a guild. The ya...