Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Having learned from the shibori experience (take pictures, document your work), I was better prepared for Jessica Kaufman's "Incredible Ice Dye" class at Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance last weekend. Jess is the owner of Waxon Studio in Asheville, North Carolina. Jess teaches dye techniques, sells materials, and sells finished dyed goods. This time, I took pictures in progress and afterwards. For our class Jess had five-gallon buckets of "mordant" ready — recipe is one cup of soda ash/washing soda to one gallon water. Jess said this mixture can be used repeatedly. As for any dyeing project, start with clean laundered fabric. We dunked our fabric in the soda ash water for at least 10 minutes. This makes the fabric ready to activate the dye by shifting the pH to alkaline. Jess mentioned soda ash is sometimes used in pool maintenance and comes in 50 pound bags. If you have a friend with a swimming pool, you might be able to ...

It seems 2022 is the Year of Learning. At least, that's been the start. In addition to some knitting classes, I've taken two dye classes already this year. The first was shibori and the second was ice dyeing. Both techniques are easy and fun. Both used cotton fabric. Both used fiber-reactive dyes . In January, Textile Appreciation Society of Atlanta held a shibori dye workshop at Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance . Our teacher was Sophie Monsibais. She was excellent — I definitely recommend her! She showed us three different techniques. The first is an accordion pleating technique which is the basis of many shibori patterns. The second was a twisting and binding technique that produces rings. The third — which I watched but didn't do — was binding rocks or pebbles. Sophie had the dye vats already prepared. Although we were using fiber-reactive dyes, Sophie heated them, because she said she gets better results if they "cook" for about 2...

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...