I just realized that I never told you that registration is open for Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat! I was away in the woods near Mount Hood when registration opened, and meant to blog when I returned. Oops.
The retreat is February 15-18 in Tacoma Washington. It’s a lovely event at the Hotel Murano.
Starfall Cowl
I’m teaching Assigned Pooling using my Starfall Cowl as a backdrop for several bonus pooling stitches,
Favorite Shawl Shapes
Favorite Shawl Shapes (learn the construction of basic shapes and use them to design your own shawls),
Aspen Leaf Coasters
Aspen Leaf Coasters (intro to brioche increases and decreases, and knitting brioche flat),
Brioche Pastiche
and Brioche Pastiche (beginning brioche in the round and a little more: choose your own adventure hat or cowl, plain rib or fancy increases and decreases).
I also signed up to take Xandy Peters’ Color Blocked Brioche class. I love seeing what other designers are thinking about brioche. Come knit/spin/weave with us in Tacoma!
Alder?
A leaf (maybe alder) on the railing of the bridge over the creek, in the woods that I mentioned before…
The marketplace at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival opens on Saturday. Friday is a quiet day, just classes and a lot of setup.
Some of the steekers
You have to make your own excitement, and we did that in the morning by reinforcing and cutting steeks, eek! (And I see that my students are suggestible, using the same colors I did in the Sheepy Steeky Coasters pattern!)
We had the assigned pooling class in the afternoon, which is another kind of excitement. I think of these skill builders as party trick knitting.
On Saturday morning, there was a complete annular eclipse (95% of the sun blocked by the moon) right after class started. Unfortunately it was foggy AND cloudy in Albany, so we just saw gray sky. Five percent of the sun’s light is still a lot of light; we didn’t really see any difference, although Karen and I were ready with our eclipse glasses. Mine were leftover from the 2017 total eclipse.
We went back in for the Minerva Entrelac class. The party trick in entrelac (besides the entrelac), is knitting back backwards without turning your work. It’s a great skill to have when your rows are only 8 stitches long!
I didn’t have an afternoon class, so I made a quick tour through the market and the exhibits. (I had to get home to deal with some…stuff, so I didn’t get to visit the animals in the barn. Next time.)
Wanda Jenkins
Wanda called me over in the market to show me Ed’s newest spindles, the Merlin (left). It has 6 legs, and it’s magical. The smaller one on the right is so new that it’s still being worked out. Ed Jenkins makes the loveliest Turkish spindles.
My favorite pieces in this year’s Fiber Arts Exhibit were felted!
Wet Felt Raven #6 by Mady Wolsfeld
I love the raven, and the moody sky behind it.
Maisie’s Menagerie by Dana Nishimura
This piece took the Grand Champion Award. Here’s the description:
A lot of work and an impressive FO.
As I said, I didn’t have much time to spend, so that’s my abbreviated OFFF report for this year! Did you go? What did you love?
Update: I have requests for more yarn than I have left. I’ll go through my email and let everyone know if I have yarn for them. Thanks so much your interest!
I’m back from Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival; I enjoyed teaching and a quick spin through the market and exhibits. But first: I have a bit of extra yarn from my pooling class, and wanted to offer it in kits with my patterns that go with it. The kit includes 1 skein of Yarn Snob’s A Wondrous Worsted in the Times Square colorway and download codes for my TWO patterns that were designed with it. You get to choose which project to knit!
The kit is $36 including shipping to USA addresses. The retail value of this kit before shipping is $43 (yarn and two patterns). Interested? Please leave a comment and I’ll email you back. (You can tell that kits are not my usual business; I’m not set up to do this automatically.)
Pooling really is a cinch! Here’s longtime OFFF volunteer Sue, happily pooling away during class. You can do it, too!
Over the past 4 years I’ve taught a lot on Zoom, and a little at select retreats and events. This past weekend, I taught in person at a local to me LYS, which is the first time since 2020. We had a good time with Petite Brioche! (I didn’t think to take a picture til after class, so not all 9 students are pictured, oops.)
Brioche Pastiche, Cap and Cowl
I’ve just listed the followup to that class at Hook and Needle Fiber. It’s on Sunday Nov. 5 at 1:30 pm. We’ll be using my Brioche Pastiche pattern for a gentle introduction to brioche increases and decreases. Register here. Come knit with me!
I’m teaching at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Albany OR on Oct. 13 and 14. Friday’s classes are Sheepy Steeky Coasters (your first steek!) and Assigned Color Pooling. Minerva Entrelac Cowl is Saturday morning’s class, and we may take a break in the middle of that one for the annular solar eclipse. Bring your eclipse glasses!
Virtual VKLive October classes
Not local to me? I’m also teaching for Virtual Vogue Knitting Live Oct. 27-29. I’ll be teaching slip stitch knitting (Slip Away Cowl), Brioche Pastiche, and syncopated brioche (Syncopation Shawl or Scarf), and giving a lecture: Blocking: It’s Magic! Registration opens tomorrow; you can preview classes today. Scroll down to find the right event; there’s a lot going on including registration for January’s big show, VKLive NYC.
It’s shaping up to be a fun month! Are you knitting more, now that it’s fall? Or spring, depending where you are? I knit year round, but I feel like fall is the beginning of the year. Birthday, school year, a chilly great awakening. What’s on your knitting bucket list for learning this year?
Posted onAugust 21, 2023|Comments Off on Register now for Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival
It’s time to register for classes at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival! I know it seems early for October classes, but it really helps us plan for you. The festival is October 13-15.
sheepy steeky coasters
This year I’m teaching Sheepy Steeky Coasters on Friday morning. (Your first steek? totally non-threatening!)
Pooling is a Cinch (hat or cowl)
Assigned pooling on Friday afternoon, using Pooling is a Cinch as a jumping off point to explore several pooling stitches. I’ve ordered this yarn (my favorite, A Wondrous Worsted in Times Square colorway from Knits All Done) for class. I have a limited number of skeins, so sign up soon!
Minerva entrelac cowl or scarf
I’m also teaching entrelac on Saturday morning. This technique looks woven, but it’s knit a square at a time and is simpler than it looks! You get to look clever while taking it easy.
The new venue in Albany, Oregon is pretty spiffy; the tradeoff from the closer Clackamas site of previous years is worth it. It’s just about an hour down the road from Portland. Come knit with me, or one of the other fine teachers at OFFF. And the shopping at the marketplace is pretty wonderful, too. I’m looking forward to teaching AND shopping!
Comments Off on Register now for Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival
Virtual knitting summer camp? Sign me up! Mitered square dishcloth class with Lorilee Beltman via Modern Daily Knitting was too tempting to pass up.
I completely forgot about the Zoom until midnight the night before, so Bisquee supervised my homework this morning. Knitting in bed with cats is the best.
The box came with yarn, needles, yarn needle, pattern, camp patch, and a cool kitchen tool. I knit the first homework i-cord with the enclosed needles (US 7 Clover straights). While I love the needles, I don’t like straight needles for i-cord because you have to keep moving the knitting back to the left needle. That was cumbersome, and the sliding back to the left needle made my knitting much looser and messier than just sliding to the other end of a dpn. I pulled out some Brittany birch dpns for the other three i-cords, and whoa! You know what they say about swatching on the needles you’re planning to use for your project? Check out the difference between the first i-cord and the other three. Seeing is believing! I eventually frogged that first i-cord so it would match the rest.
That patch!
Here are the three mini dishcloths I knit during camp/class this morning. Mitered square, 2 color intarsia, and a slip stitch pattern. All the dishcloths are started by picking up in an i-cord, so we had lots of practice with that. And they all have knit in i-cord edges, like the ones I used on my Thrumbelina slippers.
I really liked the i-cord edges on the 2 color slip stitch pattern. It was hard to see the edge pattern emerging until the 6th row…kind of like brioche! Just keep knitting, trust, and believe. Now that I see it, I may have to try it on my Slip Away Cowl pattern. If I like it better than my garter stitch edges, you may see a pattern update!
I also enjoyed the intarsia dishcloth. Intarsia is fun when it’s geometric shapes. I don’t love picture intarsia that keeps you tied to a chart, but straight lines are my happy place. I knit 2 Vogue Knitting Grumpy Cat sweaters for my kids a very long time ago. I started a third one for me, and I never finished it. That was the end of my intarsia knitting, until now.
Box o’ joy
All in all, this was a very fun way to spend a morning in the company of other knitters. Lorilee Beltman is an excellent teacher, very organized and well prepared.
If you have a hankering to knit mitered dishcloths with hanging loops, you can purchase the Sinkmates Dishcloth pattern (full size dishcloths with lots of skill building variations) on Ravelry. Use code FRIEND for $3 off; I think the coupon is valid through the end of July. And if you want to knit with this dreamy Rowan Handknit Cotton, you can find it on the Modern Daily Knitting site in a ton of beautiful colors. There’s a coupon for 10% off in the pattern, and that one is definitely good through July.
Now it’s back to the neverending bind off on my assigned pooling shawl. Not even halfway there yet…
I had a fabulous weekend! It began on Friday with Romi Hill’s Embrace Your Lace class, which went deep into adapting lace patterns into repeatable blocks that fit into the shaping of your designed piece. Her lace work is next level up, always gorgeous. Check out her work on Instagram, @romidesigns
Saturday morning I sat in on Julie Rosvall’s First Impressions class, which was about printmaking, including printing from knits. I only watched, because it was at 7 am my time (11 am her time in Canada!). You know I love block printing, and you know I’ll be trying this! @julierosvall on Instagram.
Both of these classes were through Virtual Knitting Live from Vogue Knitting. I also taught during this event on Sunday, Next Steps in Brioche: Increases and Decreases, using my Deep End hat, cowl, and Madrona cowl patterns.
I also had a fun chat with Josh Bennett and Amy Snell on Sunday before teaching my class. So much fun! But this was only the VKL portion of the weekend.
Saturday was Worldwide Knit in Public Day, and Knit Picks knows how to throw a party!
I didn’t knit a stitch at WWKIP Day, but I *talked* about knitting, non-stop!
With trunk show designers MKNance and Emily Kintigh
Yes, I have the t-shirt too, but I really wanted to wear this preview of an upcoming piece for Knit Picks. Honey Bee Mine will be in a book coming this summer.
They gave me this tote (thanks for the grafting reminder!) stuffed with yarn
including these yarn samples, and several skeins of a new yarn that I don’t think I can show you yet. Stay tuned! I love that the above samples fit my 2 skein attention span rule. That purple Luminance could be a spectacular shawl.
I also snagged 3 sets of interchangeable wooden needles: Caspian, Rainbow, and Rosewood (inside the silver case), and this notions bag and pin. Swag is fun, yes?
The venue was lovely, Hidden House in Vancouver, Washington. It was great to have indoor and outdoor space. Lots of snacks, and a no-host bar for coffee or adult beverages.
Now I’m back to finishing up hat crowns for the Brioche Pastiche revamp! Knit knit knit…
I recently had a fun chat with Lee, Stacey, and Andi on the Knit Picks podcast. We talked about my designing and teaching, and about the upcoming World Wide Knit in Public Day, which is this Saturday, June 10. Have a listen here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
I’ve been participating in Knit Picks’ WWKIP festivities since 2017. They stopped in 2020 (hello pandemic) but are starting up again this year. Their events always have raffle prizes, free yarn, free books…and snacks!
This year’s event will be on June 10, from noon to 3 pm. The venue has both indoor and outdoor possibilities, so we’re covered in case of rain! Here’s a link to their current post.
I’ll be there as a special guest designer. I’m bringing knit samples, including the assigned pooling pieces we talked about in the podcast. And books! Brioche Knit Love is back in print, and I’ll have some with me for sale.
See you there, local-ish peeps?
There are many other events in the Portland metro area, and all over the world. Pick one or many! Go forth and knit, and have fun.
This is the original Brioche Pastiche (Ravelry link); I designed it to be a quick start introduction to brioche in the round for a 3 hour class back in 2018. It begins with a bit of 2 color brioche rib to learn and get comfortable with the technique. Increases and decreases happen next, to form the leafy pattern.
Alternate crown
Last year I added a different crown shaping to the pattern, just for fun.
And now I’m planning to add a cowl to the pattern. This one is pretty short; I’m hedging my bets to make sure that two 100g skeins of worsted weight yarn can make a cowl and hat set. I’m keeping careful track with my handy yarn scale! (Some would call it a kitchen scale, but I know better.)
So I’m re-knitting the hat with the alternate crown, too. I want the pattern to look more cohesive, so I want new pictures for hat and cowl in the same color set, with the same yarn as the original (Malabrigo Worsted). Three color sets and two yarns is too jangly in one pattern.
While I’m at it, I’m making the pattern “choose your own adventure” style. I like offering both hat and cowl in a class, because not everyone wears hats, and not everyone wears cowls, either. Also, in class, a student can choose to complete a project in plain brioche rib, if they’re not ready to tackle increases and decreases. Lots of options! Those options are also good for knitting at home.
That’s a lot of updating! So I’m going to make these all these changes to the pattern, and make it stand alone. It will no longer be part of the Brioche Hat Trick (Ravelry link) collection when the updated pattern is released. If you already purchased Brioche Pastiche (Ravelry link), or the Brioche Hat Trick collection, you’ll get this updated pattern for no additional charge. If you want the updated Brioche Pastiche pattern, buy it now at the current price (pattern or collection), and you’ll get the update without paying the new price.
This pattern will be my teaching pattern on the Vogue Knitting Cruise to Alaska in September. That’s what’s driving this update! We had thought about using Whale Watch Cap and Cowl, but we have some repeat cruisers and wanted to do a different brioche project. We’ll pretend that those leaves are sea kelp, and stay on theme. I’m really looking forward to this cruise; I haven’t been to Alaska since working at a salmon cannery to pay for college.
WWKIP is World Wide Knit in Public Day! Will you be knitting with maximum visibility?
I’ve been participating in Knit Picks’ WWKIP festivities since 2017. They stopped in 2020 (hello pandemic) but are starting up again this year. Their events always have raffle prizes, free yarn, free books…and snacks!
This year’s event will be on June 10, from noon to 3 pm. The venue has both indoor and outdoor possibilities, so we’re covered in case of rain! Here’s a link to their post.
Find my patterns on Ravelry: Michele Bernstein Designs
Here are some of my favorites, and the newest. Many of my designs are also available through my Payhip store.
PDXKnitterati 