Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

My theme for 2014 is: Catch up from 2013. I'm also in the middle of Things Not Going As Planned. I was supposed to be visiting in Pennsylvania and Maryland right now. But I am home in Georgia because my sweet, cuddly, fluffy ball of joy and love -- Vincent -- turned up lame the evening of Friday the 13th. A fortnight later, he is doing much better and so am I. It was a scary several days where he was doing the zombie shuffle with his hind legs and I didn't have a prognosis. He is on medication twice a day right now and I expect he will have follow up appointments with his veterinarian or the specialty veterinarians who performed a myelogram and MRI on him. So right now, I'm recovering from being emotionally and financially drained, but I am very grateful I still have a two feline household. This also means I now have two unscheduled weeks in front of me. After all, I was going to be away, so I cleared my schedule. So, it is time to catch up. Updating my Ravelry projec...

When I teach at shows, I am usually asked to provide a biography. In that biography, I usually mention that I learned to cross stitch at age four. My mother sat me down and taught me. I'm not sure why she decided -- maybe I showed an interest? My dad said I was too young. I didn't even yet write my own name. Well, here is the proof. During my childhood, I tried many, many different types of needle arts including cross stitch, embroidery, crewel, bargello, hardanger, needlepoint, and canvas work. My mother, sister, and I were all in the local chapter of Embroiderers' Guild of America . Of course, now that I'm in two knitting guilds, I see how strange it is to have a minor in the guild! But as a teenager, it didn't seem strange to me at all. I was just one more female in a big group of other females who all liked stitching. My mother was always very encouraging as I tried different stitching techniques. It was a hobby that connected all the women in my family. Even...

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...

In the midst of teaching at three shows in four weeks, I decided to cast on the Six Point Tee by Cathy Carron from the current issue (spring/summer 2014) of Knit.Wear magazine . I had been doing a lot of writing handouts and knitting swatches for classes. I really needed a quick knitting pick-me-up project. I also wanted something fairly mindless that I could work on at Unwind. I wasn't planning on purchasing Knit.Wear , but I did my due diligence by thumbing through the pages when it arrived at the shop. The Six Point Tee has a couple things going for it that intrigued me. I was pretty sure the styling and sleeves would be flattering on my small-busted figure. The top-down modified raglan construction looked like an interesting knit. Instead of establishing four double-increase lines, you establish four double-increase lines and two lines that increase only one stitch every-other round. I altered the pattern so those lines also became double-increase lines, but every fourt...

Yarn Graffiti courtesy of Central Maryland Knitting Guild From Unwind I headed north to visit my husband at his Maryland man cave. This was a brief intermission, as I taught at Maryland Sheep and Wool. Thursday evening was the teacher banquet. I already knew Beth Brown-Reinsel would be there, and it is always a delight to see her. But I didn't realize also in attendance would be Maggie Casey, Sarah Anderson, and Deborah Robson. It was all I could do to pull myself together and behave like a professional knitting teacher and not like a fan girl. (By the way, Sarah showed off an amazing piece of fabric she wove that had the stretch and elasticity of knitting or even spandex. And someone had a fleece that was black at the cut end and white at the tips. The animal had changed color completely in one year!) I thought I knew a little about what to expect from Maryland Sheep and Wool. After all, I've been to Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair a few times. I knew MDS&W was ab...

I knew the spring was going to be very busy. It was. Now I'm back home in Atlanta and enjoying the transition from spring to summer. Extra rain and the unusual cooler-than-normal weather means the region is lush and green. The screen porch is ready for regular habitation. And the used knitter's cats seem very happy to see me. The last weekend of April I was up in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to teach at Unwind retreat. I believe this was the fourth year for Unwind. Nancy Shroyer of Nancy's Knit Knacks and Sue Homewood do a fantastic job organizing this event. Unlike a major show, this is a retreat. The whole group stays at the Meadowbrook Inn. There are four teaching slots -- morning and afternoon on Saturday, and morning and afternoon on Sunday. Students sign up for three classes. And teachers teach three classes. Everyone has one free period to just explore the town, soak in the hot tub, hike the mountains, eat ice cream and chocolate for lunch, or just knit or nap....