Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Having Cuddly Hubby home has been fantastic! We are still unpacking. Essentially, we've combined two households. The theme in our home right now is abundance. Too many pillows. An extra bed. Boxes of coat hangers. Books! (There is a younger generation whose reading collection is entirely digital. They shall never know what it was to curse your literacy every time you moved.) Extra bottles of personal care products and cleaning supplies. If you have a bottle of something and a spare in each household, when you combine households you now have one active bottle and three spares. Cupboards are not designed for this. Eating ice cream every evening has been a requirement because, I kid you not, we had too much high-quality ice cream (Ben & Jerry's, Jeni's, Daddy O'Brien's) and were running out of room in the freezer. These are the sorts of problems I am delighted to have. I haven't had much time for crafting. Instead I'm mostly clean...

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...

Sometimes I start a blog post but, for whatever reason, fail to publish it. This is one of those. But now seems like the time.   The Echo I started by writing this in the autumn 2019: Sometimes the universe is just . . . strange. That's what makes it interesting. I am coming out of one of the most tumultuous periods of my life. A quick run-down of what has happened in 2018-2019. September: the passing of my knitting mentor, Jan Stephens. October: both cats sick November: the passing of Brûlée December: father-in-law ill January: the passing of my father-in-law as well as members of knitting guilds; Cuddly Hubby moves back to Maryland February: The Whole Nine Yarns closes June: return of STITCHES to Atlanta after a long hiatus October through June: intense care giving for Vincent, followed by his passing June: arrival of new cats, Ozymandias and Ramses August: arrival of expensive piece of fiber arts equipment, an Ashford 16-shaft table loom . There was also a lot of expens...

You never know where you are going to find something worthy of your attention. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I shopped at the JoAnn's in California, Maryland. Yes, this is a big box store. This particular JoAnn's is not large. It is maybe half the size of the typical grocery store? The aisles are narrow and the store is packed with craft materials. I was shopping for a roll of plain paper so I could draft a sewing pattern. They didn't have it because, as the nice clerk explained, they are a small store relative to other JoAnn's locations. Quilters and sewists must compromise much of their clientele, if the shelves of beautiful cotton print fabrics are any indication. As long as I was there, I figured I might as well browse the craft books. There was a cute Star Wars -themed recipe book. There was a crochet book with adorable animal blankets. And there was a copy of Adventure Cables by Meghan Jones. I didn't buy the book ini...

As we approach Thanksgiving in only a week, it seems a good time to reflect on the power of gathering and gratitude. One thing the pandemic taught us was not to take in-person contact for granted. Talking to people over the phone or Internet is not the same as being there. Yes, some things can be done via video chat. But humans are fundamentally social creatures. So much of knitting is about making for others and connecting with others. While that can be done over distance, it is much easier in person. Kathy Zimmerman's Fall Fling retreat 2021 Since July I've taught at Fiberworld (virtual), Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival, Kathy Zimmerman's Fall Fling retreat, Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, STITCHES Expo at Home (virtual), and Unwind retreat. Consistently, the best thing is not the shopping or the presentations, but connecting to other knitters. Seeing what people have been making is a special joy. Much of walking around the market at SAFF was for me simply greeting peop...

Recently I've been trying to focus on the half-worked projects lying around. One of those was a repair — a very difficult repair. Back in 2011 I reworked the Serpent of Eternity socks in a way that involved double-knitting. And then at some point, I wore them and put them in the wash. There was a weak spot in the yarn at the top of the sock. The movement in the wash broke the yarn. I ended up with a hole in the double-knitting. I had tried previously to mend this, but failed. Finally, I found a day when I thought the stars might be aligned. I started by putting pins in the hole to prevent further raveling. The pink is a cable needle in the interior of the i-cord edge. Then I spent a lot of time looking at the sock. I knit this a decade ago. Did I even remember what I did? The technique I used was a monochromatic double-knit. There was no purling in the sock. When I wanted a purl, I knit from the other side of the work. The result is the yarn ju...

The alternative title of this post could be "I Do Not Need a Rigid Heddle Loom, Right?" If you are paying keen attention to this website, you may have noticed the STITCHES Expo at home button. I'm teaching three of my most popular classes online the weekend of 8-10 August 2021. Last week there was a special Zoom meeting preview for previous attendees of STITCHES online. It was a chance to run down the class offerings. For those of us who are teachers, it was a chance to show class samples and answer any questions potential students might have. I've done this sort of thing before for other online classes. No worry. And then Myra Wood shows up with her Crazyshot class. I have an 8-shaft and a 16-shaft loom. I do not need a rigid heddle loom. I do not. I do not. I do not. Shortly after the preview ended, I went over to Myra's website and bought her book. I love Myra's sense of design, geometry, and color. Her work is jubilant, which is why I find it charismatic....