Monthly Archives: March 2011

Where are they now? The lives of handknits…

Posted on March 31, 2011 | 17 comments

That’s the topic for Day 4 of the second annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. The question sent me to my Ravelry projects page, and strangely enough, I know where most of those items are. I seem to knit mostly for me or for family, and things stay in house. Or I knit as a design project, and then I usually keep it. But occasionally things get away.

I loved this sweater that I knit for myself, Aguave by Katharine Hunt, from Knitter’s magazine Summer 2005. It was gorgeous in mercerized cotton (and not as bottom heavy as it looks from this angle). I wore it a few times, but I realized that it was way too big for me. I was swimming in fabric! Even the shoulders were too wide, so I tried stabilizing them with fabric seam binding. Nope, still swimming. I’ve since realized that most knits look better on me with either zero or negative ease. I’m not completely averse to frogging an entire sweater (been there, done that), but it was so lovely, and my friend Anna thought so, too. So I gave it to her! I just emailed her to ask if she still wears it…

Here’s one of the oldest knitted things I have.

I knit Gromit in 1996. The pattern is by Alan Dart, and was published in the magazine Woman’s Weekly in the UK. I was on the KnitList (still am), and someone offered to send me the pattern. (Thanks, Norma! I still think of you fondly.) Two other knitting mom friends also knit Gromit at the same time, and while they all looked like Gromit, they were all completely different from each other! Our little guys loved them. Before you ask, I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the pattern any more. But Gromit still sits on my piano, where I see him every day.

2KCBWDAY4

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Tagged 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY4

Tidy mind, tidy stitches…

Posted on March 30, 2011 | 16 comments

“How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised?”

I don’t stash a lot of yarn, so I don’t have a lot of yarn to keep track of. I like to choose yarn for each new project as I go. If I buy too far in advance, my fancies usually take me in a different direction when I’m ready to start a new project, and then the purchased yarn never gets used.

Most of my knitting stuff lives here. Needles in Lantern Moon silk needle cases, notions, a few skeins of sock yarn, UFO’s on temporary hiatus, FO’s, a basket of hand knit socks in the lower right corner, because they take up too much room in my sock drawer. I bought this shelving system at IKEA, and I love it. The empty cubby? It has a Lantern Moon rice basket of miscellaneous stuff that needs to get put away.

This is how the shelf looked last summer when I set it up, and pretty much how it looks, now. The only yarn that doesn’t live there lives in a couple underbed boxes; it’s mostly leftovers from past projects. I tend to buy an extra skein so that I don’t run out before the project is finished. Another lesson learned the hard way. It’s better to have too much than too little!

I generally have one or two projects going at any one time; more than that guarantees that something will get abandoned. I hate that. Current projects live in whichever knitting basket has my fancy. I have a lot of Lantern Moon baskets, LOL. You can see several on the shelf: the green Polka Dot Ring tote, my all-time favorite square Lantern Tote, the black fabric Gidget tote, several of the iconic rice baskets in different sizes and colors. I’ve acquired a couple more since that picture.

The Anna tote, and

the fabulous Bindi.

The one downfall of my basket system is that I tend to dump from one basket to another, so I can take the one I want on any particular day. Leftover yarn and tools from finished objects tend to stay in baskets and get dumped from basket to basket, too. It’s time for a clean sweep. Um, maybe next week. I’m blogging this week!

What about books? They live downstairs, on their own shelf. I have a lot…

2KCBGDAY3

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Mad Knitting Skills: 1 Up!

Posted on March 29, 2011 | 8 comments

Knitting skills: They’re cumulative! Each new skilled learned is another tool in the toolkit, leading to another idea. What else can I do with this skill? I love that!

One new skill that I’ve learned this past year is adding beads to my knitting. Actually, I learned the basics of this at a “one hour wonder” workshop with Sivia Harding at Sock Summit in 2009, but the new skill languished until I wanted to embellish a shawl I was designing, Pacific.

I love this method of adding beads as you go. It’s a little fiddly, but you only do it when you need to. That works for me. I once started a project that began with pre-stringing a hundred beads. I didn’t like the way it felt with the beads hanging on the working yarn, and I never finished it.

In case you’re interested, I’m donating 100% of my proceeds from now until April 30 from online sales of my Pacific shawl pattern to the Red Cross for Japan Earthquake/Tsunami relief. I’m paying the Ravelry and paypal fees myself; 100% of the purchase price is going towards disaster relief. I’m hoping the gentle waves on this shawl will help bring healing to our neighbors across the Pacific.

2KCBWDAY2

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Posted in beading, Blogging, Knit, pattern design

Tagged 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY2

Oh, yarn, how I love thee…

Posted on March 28, 2011 | 13 comments

…but not just any yarn. My favorite yarns these days are those with a long slow color change like many of the Noro yarns, the Crystal Palace Mochi line, Crystal Palace Taos, and Knit Picks Chroma. I’ve been designing with entrelac lately, and these yarns are perfect for it! I think you’ll agree.

Infinity Entrelac Infinity Scarf in Noro Silk Garden Lite

Infinity Entrelac Infinity Scarf in Crystal Palace Mini Mochi

Lacy Entrelac Infinity Scarf in Knit Picks Chroma

Athena in Crystal Palace Taos

I’m not the best at choosing colors that work well with each other. (I picked colors for my parents’ house once; what should have been vanilla and tasteful pine turned out more peach milkshake and garish green…) These yarns have the colors already set, and the entrelac makes it look like I changed colors as I was knitting each section, but really the yarn did all the work. Clever!

My other favorite yarns are semi-solid, tone on tone yarns for lace. I’m working on a design project now, with these lovely stormy gray yarns from Knitted Wit (individually, not together).

And here are some other semi-solid lace projects I’ve knit.

My Pacific shawl, in Malabrigo Sock yarn.

Evelyn Clark’s Shetland Triangle in Painted Skeins’ Merino Silk & Silver

Ysolda Teague’s Ishbel in Malabrigo Sock Yarn

Ysolda Teague’s Ishbel in Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Silk Lace

One color at a time. Safe, right? I love the way handpainted variegated yarns look in the skein, but I’m not always happy with the way they knit up. I find color pooling at the ankles of my socks irksome. That’s not going to happen with a semi-solid! Oh, here’s a picture of one of my least favorite projects, a Frankenstein’s monster of variegated and entrelac. Not a good combination. Check out the pooling/flashing, and general awkwardness. (This is not a handpaint, BTW)

Lesson learned. Long slow color repeats for entrelac!

2KCBW

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Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY1

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011

Posted on March 26, 2011 | 5 comments

Hey, bloggers: Are you doing Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011? I think I’m in. It starts on Monday, March 28.

Participating bloggers will all blog on the same topics for the week. There’s a wildcard topic if one of the topics just doesn’t work for you. If you want to search for posts by all participating bloggers each day, you can search with these tags:

I may be a little slow getting the first post up. I’m off getting in touch with my inner princess.

I had an enabler…

5 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged 2KCBW, knitting and crochet blog week

Baby Surprise, right on time

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 14 comments

Remember the Baby Surprise Jacket I was knitting last fall? I was knitting with my friend Kerri’s handspun, for a surprise gift for a mutual friend. When I sent it back, she took it to the NY Sheep and Wool Festival (Rhinebeck!) with a third crafty friend, Bernard, to choose buttons. You can see the backstory here (and progress pics).

Kerri lives in Massachusetts, so the BSJ has been across the country twice. The baby recipient lives in Canada, so now it’s an international knit! And apparently said baby arrived on the same day that the BSJ was delivered to his home. His mom sent a picture.

Kerri knit a hat with the leftover yarn I sent back. It fits big sister perfectly. What a fun gift project!

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Tagged baby surprise jacket

Start-itis…

Posted on March 20, 2011 | 16 comments

…but only in my head.

I’m still plugging away at my shawl, and it’s nearly done. Done enough that I’m hearing the siren song of new projects.

I bought yarn to make knitted cupcakes from Leigh Radford’s One Skein book. It was an accident. I went to look up the Baby Bolero when I was commenting on Bonnie’s post, and the cupcakes jumped out and grabbed me. I had a gift certificate at Yarn Garden, so it was easy. I was lost.

But I haven’t quite cast on yet, because I’m trying to finish the shawl.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t wind some yarn. This lovely yarn has been sitting in my stash since August 2009. I got it at Deb Accuardi’s pre-Sock Summit luncheon. It’s Knitted Wit‘s Ladies That Lunch. The springiness of the pink has been calling my name. Yes, it’s fingering weight, and I’ve never knit socks with fingering weight yarn. But what else will I do with it? I’ve had a sock design idea in my head for two years, and I think this could be the perfect yarn for it.

But I resisted casting on because I’m working on the shawl.

And then I wound this. This is also from the pre-Sock Summit luncheon. There was a different yarn with each course of the meal! This was from Abundant Yarn, which is now only online, but used to be here in Portland. Stevanie Pico was the dyer, and now she’s half of Pico Accuardi Dyeworks. The color is Accuardi Insalata, named for Deb herself, and looks like basil and tomato.

And I need a new pair of socks with some red and green in it. Because this just happened to my beloved Leyburns.

I made these with Mirasol Hacho in February of 2009. This isn’t really sock yarn, it’s DK weight merino, but I like dk/sport/worsted weight socks. They felted a little more each time I washed them, and got harder and harder to get on and off my heel.

Fuzzy! The last time I pulled them off, my fingers went through, right where the leg meets the heel. They’ve lived a long and serviceable life. But I haven’t cast on with the Accuardi Insalata yet, because I’m going to finish the shawl first.

I also have the lovely Madeline Tosh Pashmina, which will become Annis (not Caireen, as originally planned) but I haven’t even wound that yet!

Because I’m still working on the shawl…

…for now.

As you can see, I like to have one main project at a time. It keeps me honest. And makes it more likely that I’ll actually finish. Are you a monogamous knitter, or do you like to have lots of projects at once?

16 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged start-itis

Party on, designers

Posted on March 18, 2011 | 3 comments

The Yarn Market News Smart Business Conference took place in Portland at the beginning of this week. Lantern Moon sponsored the opening reception, and used their lovely dyed rice/lotus lantern/butterfly decorations from TNNA. I wasn’t able to be there, but it looks like it was fun! The conference was for LYS owners, teaching them ways to make their stores even better. The conference ended with a shop crawl on Tuesday, and the last stop was Pico Accuardi Dyeworks, where the PA gals hosted a cocktail reception for the crawlers and local Portland designers. I was honored to be one of those designers.

This was my second trip to the dyeworks in two weeks; I was just there for the Portland Yarn Crawl. It’s a cheery space. It was illuminating to talk to other designers about the business end of things, and great to meet LYS owners from near and far. Leila Wice (DekoBoko Design) and her baby S were there, chatting with Kristin Spurkland.

It was a who’s who of Portland designers, but I didn’t take pictures of everyone! I forgot my camera and made do with my iPhone. I know I saw Leila and Kristin, Leigh Radford, Lee Meredith, Sivia Harding, Judy Becker, Larissa Brown…

Joel & Sharon Woodcock and Steve Ham came from Lantern Moon, too.

I met Kate Perry, who is working on marketing for Pico Accuardi. She looked at my cowl, asked about the yarn…Knit Picks Chroma worsted. She recognized it because it’s her colorway, Midwinter; she designed it just before she left Knit Picks. Small world! Note her glasses and her shirt…she’s a blues person, too. We hit it off immediately.

It was great to see Erin Slonaker, editor of Yarn Market News, again; I met her at TNNA in January. She’s always cheerful and upbeat, and she was definitely happy to be finishing up a very successful conference.

Thanks so much to the Pico Accuardi team, and to Lorajean of Knitted Wit who shares their space, for a spectacular party!

But the party wasn’t quite over. The next day, I met up with Bethany Steiner of Jimmy Beans Wool. She came to visit the Lantern Moon offices and warehouse, so I went over to say hi. Sean gave her a warehouse tour; here they are checking out the highly organized needles.

And here she is with a Flower Power bag.

Bethany reminded me that the deadline for the Beans for Brains Scholarship applications is April 1. The Beans for Brains scholarship is a merit-based scholarship open to all students attending an accredited institution in the fall of 2011. If you knit or crochet, and are pursuing a degree of some kind, you should check this out!

That was a busy week. How was yours?

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Posted in Knit

Tagged jimmy beans scholarship, YMN Conference

Worthy causes, far and near

Posted on March 16, 2011 | 2 comments

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the subsequent devastation are on all our minds. We feel helpless, but we want to help. A monetary donation is the quickest way to do it. Our household is donating money to the relief effort through the Red Cross. (Knitters, don’t knit something to send to Japan. Getting it there is expensive and won’t help right now; distribution channels are shot.)

What else can I do? Send more money! All proceeds from now until April 30 from online sales of my Pacific shawl pattern will be donated to the Red Cross. I’ll pay the Ravelry and paypal fees myself; 100% of the purchase price will go towards disaster relief. I’m hoping the gentle waves on this shawl will help bring healing to our neighbors across the Pacific.

And here’s an opportunity a little closer to home…Fifteen years ago, the Great American Afghan was created by 25 designers for Knitter’s Magazine. I remember waiting impatiently for each issue of Knitter’s to come to my mailbox so I could see what the newest squares would be. My favorite is still Joan Schrouder’s twirly square. (next to bottom row, center)

(photo used with permission, thank you, Benjamin Levisay)

In 2007, Knitter’s re-worked the afghan in Cascade 220 for a book, Great American Afghan. This beautiful afghan (not the pattern or the book, but the actual lovely piece of work) is now being raffled off as a fund raiser for Sue Nelson, a long-time staff member at XRX, Inc., the parent company of Knitter’s. Sue has been battling ovarian cancer for the past 3 years, and is now facing experimental treatment because all standard treatment has been exhausted. These treatments will be expensive, and XRX is trying to help Sue with her expenses with this raffle.

You can read more about it, and buy a raffle ticket (or two, or twenty, or…) through XRX, Inc.’s KniTalk site. Tickets are $10 each, and the raffle closes on April 8, 2011 at 5 p.m. central time. I’m in; I hope you are, too. Let’s share a little love both here and across the Pacific.

2 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged japan emergency relief

Big cup o’ fail

Posted on March 15, 2011 | 7 comments

I’ve been knitting my current design project with Lorajean’s (Knitted Wit) beautiful Bling yarn, for what seems like weeks. Good thing I like it, because I get to use it again and again!

I first swatched with the storm cloud gray on the right, and figured out my stitch pattern. I left that on the needles, and started knitting my idea with the blue-gray. I knit for a long time, and on the needles, it seemed like all was well. I was basing the shape of this little shawl on a half-hex fichu, a shape I read about in an article by Jane Sowerby (author of the book Victorian Lace Today) in Knitter’s Magazine, Summer 2008. It’s basically 3 adjacent isosceles triangles, top points meeting at the center back neck. The shawl starts there and grows downwards, forming a half hexagon. The pictured shawls were all pretty long, which they’d have to be in order to have it be wide enough to wrap around oneself.

I know that there are triangular shawls that have increases at the beginning and end of both the right and wrong side rows, so I thought I’d try that to make a wider, shallower shawl. Sounds reasonable, right? I didn’t like my first edging attempt, so I decided to frog the 6 edging rows I had completed. When I took it off the needles, this is what I saw.

I blurred the stitch pattern because I just want you to see the shape. Hmmmm. If I’d wanted something akin to the collar of a maternity dress from the 1980’s, this would have sufficed. Square back, tie front. Ig. There was no way it was going to block into a satisfactory long-armed half hexagon.

This is what it looks like, now.

Yes, the one on the left. Again. I didn’t even take a new picture, because it’s back to square one. I’ve started another attempt with the same lace pattern and a different shape, this time in the storm cloud gray on the right. It reminds me of this:

The yarn is lovely to work with, but I would like to finish someday soon!

What else is going on? I had lunch on Friday at the Lantern Moon warehouse. They do a themed lunch about once a month. This month was a crab feast.

It was delicious, and I didn’t even break out in hives. (Thank you, Benadryl. It was worth your drug-induced afternoon nap.)

I helped Sharon & Cathy stuff gift bags for the Yarn Market News Smart Business Conference, which is going on right now in Portland. Lantern Moon hosted the opening reception, and these gift bags were headed there. There was some seriously nice swag in them, including straight and circular needles, and these shawl pins, which I love.