Category Archives: Product review

Stitchmastery charting software

Posted on September 7, 2024 | 8 comments

I use software called Stitchmastery to chart my knitting patterns. The software then turns out the written instructions for me, so I know they’re accurate! Stitchmastery has brioche stitches in their charts, which is very important to me and my tech editors. There are also colors, cables, increases and decreases…everything I need for writing patterns.

I was invited to be interviewed about my knitting and design process, and how it works with Stitchmastery. You can read the interview here.

I used Stitchmastery for my book, Brioche Knit Love, and continue to use and love it.

Thanks to Stitchmastery for the feature!

8 Comments

Posted in pattern design, Product review

Tagged stitchmastery

Away, time to play

Posted on April 6, 2024 | 3 comments

I’ve run away to the coast with friends. Apparently the unofficial first year for Crafty Moms was 2003 with kids and husbands, and the first year with just moms was 2004. This is the 21st year? Egad.

I have my knitting with me, but this is a great opportunity to explore some other fiber fun, too.

On the way to Rockaway, we stopped at Latimer Quilt & Textile Center in Tillamook to see the Homage to Audrey Moore, founder of the Damascus Fiber Arts School near Portland, Oregon.

Homage to Frida, Feeling Pink, Summer Days (Audrey Moore)

These are pieces from her series, The Ladies. They’re tapestry weavings on a Navajo style loom.

There are many pieces by Moore, and many pieces by her students. Reading their comments on their own pieces gave a good idea of her teaching style: Suggestions, comments, but she’d let you figure it out yourself. Perfect.

Besides the exhibit room (you can tell that it was a school auditorium at one point), there are two other large rooms. One is full of looms and other fiber fun, and the other is full of quilts and even more fiber fun. Some of it is for sale, and some are just for exhibit.

I found some beautiful hand painted roving for sale by Mary Torrey of Manzanita. It’s 75/25 BFL and silk.

Wait, I don’t spin! Why do I want roving? Well, I saw a reel on Instagram where someone was using a Lemonwood mini minder to hold her roving while spinning. I commented on it, and Veronica from Lemonwood offered to send me one. I love it. It’s so much more ergonomically friendly than throwing roving over your elbow and hoping to keep it out of the way of your spindle!

I love how the hearts look like knit stitches.

I think the Mini Minder is really meant for holding a cake of yarn so you can knit or crochet while you walk (or not); your yarn unwinds off the outside of the cake. I’m usually knitting 2 color brioche, so that wouldn’t work for me. For a one skein project, sure! Many of my assigned pooling projects would love this. And you can take it off the spindle at any time, too.

Thank you to Veronica for the Mini Minder. She offered it to me with no expectation of a review, positive or negative.

I thought I’d practice with old fluff on hand. The Mini Minder works great; it doesn’t unwind before it needs to. Clearly my cop winding skills could use some work; I got distracted and suddenly I was off. Oh well; this is practice, and my new roving awaits!

I also took some time to play with the Cordsmith that I bought at VKLive NYC. If you need yards and yards of 3 stitch i-cord; this may be your jam. It’s a little fiddly to get started, and then it starts rolling along. Occasionally I accidentally drop a stitch off the needle, and have to figure out how to get it back in sequence. Practice is helping, for sure.

I don’t actually mind knitting i-cord on double pointed needles. Also, I’ve made i-cord on any number of stitches on dpns, 3, 4, 6… And my usual fake way to make a cord is to cast on a big whack of stitches, and bind off on the next row.

It was lovely when we arrived yesterday; Carole and I walked up to the jetty and were pleased to see sea stars, and a seal frolicking in the waves.

Sea stars and anemones and barnacles, oh my!

There are several bald eagles hanging out here. They like this post outside the house. Sorry for the blur; I can’t get close!

I hope you’re having a fiber fun weekend, too. And food. OMG so much food when we get this crew together! Delicious.

3 Comments

Posted in Knit, Other craftiness, Product review, spinning, travel

Tagged cordsmith, crafty moms, damascus fiber arts school, icord, latimer quilt and textile center, lemonwood mini minder, navajo loom, Oregon Coast, sea stars, spinning, tapestry weaving, weaving

Still catching up, bicoastally

Posted on February 21, 2023 | 3 comments

How much can we pack into February? A LOT. I’ll never get to completely blog VKLive NYC and Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat in Tacoma, but here are some highlights.

Fun classes with great students, both at VKLive

And at Red Alder. why am I showing both Sheepy Steeky Coasters classes? Because the joy of scissors makes a great photo op!

So happy to meet up with Keith Leonard and Shaina Bilow again after Knit Maine. And new friend Dario Tubiana, too. (Check out the sheep on the door of La Pecora Bianca.)

The Empire State Building makes a great tiara…or unicorn horn. You decide.

I didn’t have a full length mirror in NYC, but I did in Tacoma, so I could do my traditional what did I wear collage. Coffee Breakers Shawl (from Brioche Knit Love), Camellia Wrap, Ebb and Flow cowl.

Ebb and Flow looks good on everyone! New Beginnings statue outside the Federal Courthouse in Tacoma. It was the train station a long time ago.

Hanging out with Alasdair Post-Quinn (double knitting king), Michael Kelson (Spinpossible), and Xandy Peters.

We had fabulous markets on both coasts. What did I buy, since you know I don’t stash yarn?

Super fun yarn and NYC-themed project bag from Maker’s Mercantile. And it comes with a notions box that fits in the pocket, too. Look closely to see all the fiber-related pictures!

Also from NYC, Jūl’s new toolkit. Choose your shape: round, square, or triangle.

You can make the shape into a shawl pin with the stick pin, or a shawl cuff with the leather band. You can use the stick pin by itself. The other two leather pieces are to close a cardigan front. And the buttons have a round ball at the end of the shank, and a leather back to pop over the ball. You can move your buttons from one piece of knitwear to the next. So far I’ve only used the cuff, but I’ve used it a lot.

From Tacoma: a silly cats in hats project bag, also from Maker’s Mercantile. Did I need it? Yes. It will help corral supplies for a class.

Oh look, yarn! I bought this peacock green to teal gradient from Schmutzerella to knit one more Ebb and Flow. I love how smoothly the colors melt into each other. I can have both the taller neck and the longer triangle with this much yardage. It’s not stash if I have a plan to cast on soon! Right now I’m trying to decide if I want the blue on top or bottom. The piece gets wider towards the bottom, so the stripe down there will be narrower, but more visible. What do you think?

Always nice to see Mt. Rainier from my hotel room window.

So very different from my hotel room view the week before!

Currently on the needles: I’m finishing an Embellishment Cowl sample. I used it in class last week at VKL, and now I need it to display at For Yarn’s Sake as a sample for my class on May 7. It’s almost done. I need to have it bound off and steam blocked by Thursday morning, just in time for my trunk show. Wish me luck!

3 Comments

Posted in classes, events, Knit, Product review, travel, yarn

Tagged Jul Designs, Red Alder Fiber Arts, Schmutzerella Yarns, VKLive, VKLive NYC

Knit Picks Reflections interchangeable needles

Posted on December 8, 2022 | 10 comments

Recently, Knit Picks sent me some new needles to try, before they became available to the public. They sent me two sets of their new Reflections stainless steel interchangeable needles, one in US sizes 4-11, and a new lace and sock set in US sizes 0-4. Borrowing this picture from their website because I forgot to take pictures!

My usual go-to metal needle is the Hiya Hiya stainless steel interchangeable. The new Reflections needle tips are very similar. The points are perfect, not too pointy and definitely not dull. I love them! The join between the cables and the needle tips are very smooth, and that’s important for me when I’m working stitches with multiple yarn overs.

Right now all my projects are on US4 needles, so I did a deep dive on the US4 from the lace set and the regular set. The points are the same (perfect). The lace set and the regular set have differently sized cables, because the lace set has smaller sized needle tips. US 4 needles are in both sets, with different cables/joins; this is where the sizes overlap. I prefer the skinny cable on the lace set to the heavier cable on the regular set because it feels more flexible. Since my work is topping out at a US 4 right now, I can choose between the two.

The 24” cable for the regular set combined with the longer needle tips made the circle of the circular feel a little tight, because it doesn’t curve right at the join. Like the cable on my 16” US 7 Chia Goo needles, it wants to make a pear shape instead of a true circle. The 24” cable for the lace set was paired with a shorter needle tip, and it’s a pleasure to work on.

The new regular sized Reflections needles will work with all of Knit Picks’ regular interchangeable cables. In which case I’d probably use the nylon cables from my other KP wooden interchangeables rather than the newer coated stainless ones. I’m glad I have choices.

When I sent my feedback, I asked if KP would consider making cables for a 20” interchangeable circular. Apparently that’s my new favorite length! I’m doing a lot of 20 to 22” cowls, and they’re just a little too small to fit on a 24” needle. Same for hats for big headed people. I know I can knit these items on a 16” needle, but I like having a little more room to stretch out. And yes, they’re considering it as an option for separate purchase. Yay!

Do you have a favorite needle? For me, it depends on what kind of knitting I’m doing. Sometimes I need to balance a slippery yarn with a more grippy needle, in which case I’ll use wood. But when I want my stitches to fly, I really like stainless steel.

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, Product review

Tagged knit picks reflections interchangeable needles

New Lantern Moon needle

Posted on November 11, 2022 | 12 comments

Old friend, new friend.

New needle above, old needle below

I loved my old Lantern Moon ebony needles, from the very first stitch. The wood was warm, and smoother than bamboo. The needles had enough grip for my stitches to slide, but not descend into chaos. The tips were just pointy enough for me. I even loved the *sound* of the needles gently clicking.

The only thing I didn’t like? The join between the cable and the needle. There was a distinct gap where the swivel cord came into the brass connector. It wasn’t a big deal, until I started designing with a lot of fancy stitches that required multiple yarn overs. It was hard to scoot my stitches and yarn overs from the cable onto the left needle so I could work them with the right needle. That eventually drove me to another needle, which turned out to be the Hiya Hiya stainless (regular point, rather than sharp). It’s nice to have a variety of needles for different projects; each needle has a purpose.

When I found out that Lantern Moon had been sold to Knitters Pride, I wanted to try the new needles to see if they had a cable join more to my liking. Sally at Close Knit ordered a needle for me to try out.

New needle above, older needle below. See how the taper on the new needle connector comes down to meet the cable? No hard bump between cable and connector for stitches and yarn overs to catch on. And it’s still a swivel cable, which is nice. Will the lovely lettering stay put after years of knitting? Maybe not, but it’s not a deal breaker. I have many needle gauges.

I took the new needle with me to Knit Maine, to use for my YO? YO! Fun and Fancy Elongated Stitches class, which is all about the multiple yarn overs!

lantern moon ebony knitting needle in knitting

Verdict? A very smooth swivel join. It was a pleasure to knit with these (US6 24” circular) needles. No problem moving my stitches and yarn overs up to the needle! I also knit a brioche cowl on these with worsted weight yarn. At some point I’d love to try the interchangeable needles too; they offer both a fixed join and a swivel join. And that would give me a chance to compare joins at different needle sizes, too. Someday!

12 Comments

Posted in Knit, Product review

Tagged knitters pride, lantern moon, lantern moon ebony needles

knitCompanion review

Posted on May 30, 2019 | 22 comments

How do you keep track of where you are in a pattern? I was recently invited to try knitCompanion, an app for iOS and Android devices. I’m happy to say that this is a very useful tool.

Read to the bottom for ways to try knitCompanion for free, including a chance to win a year’s subscription to the upgrades!

The basic version of knitCompanion is free. kCBasics works with any PDF pattern. It can link to your DropBox and Ravelry accounts, so it’s easy to import your patterns. I also emailed a pattern to myself, and opened it with no problem.

Here’s my Snowy Woods hat pattern in Knit Companion. The pages are displayed at the top, but you can hide them when you’re actually working the project. You can zoom in and out as needed. I’m zoomed way in, in this picture. I like big letters!

KCBasic has a sliding row counter and stitch counter. You can have a different set of markers on each page of your pattern. There’s a project timer, and an area for project notes at the bottom of the display, which you can also hide when you don’t need it. If all you want is something to hold your pattern and your place, you’re golden!

The next step up is called Essentials. This adds a lot of features. You can highlight parts of your pattern, which is great when your pattern contains multiple sizes. Sweater knitters will love this. You can put notes right in the pattern, next to where they apply. You can also link videos to the pattern (love those tutorials), and my favorite thing? You can customize your row and stitch marker colors and width, and invert your row marker so the highlighted row is the one that really shines.

There’s also something called QuickKey, which lets you access your chart key at the bottom of the display, so you don’t have to hunt through pages for it. (Not pictured)

The highest level of knitCompanion is called Setup. There are some very powerful features here. The most useful one for me is called magic markers. You can ask that every time a particular stitch is shown in the chart, it’s highlighted in whatever color you want. You can have all your SSKs be one color, and all your K2togs be another color. Left and right crossing cables? Sure! Magic Markers can even let you know how many of the same kind of stitch are in a section; you just have to tell it the minimum number to count. 5 is good for me!

Setup also lets you cut and paste charts all onto one page, so they’re not spread out over several pages. This is a pretty high level function, which I don’t particularly need, but you might. But for the cost of a fancy coffee, the magic markers would be worth the upgrade from Essentials to Setup for me.

There are a lot of features that I haven’t tried yet. But I like an app that I can learn as I go. Right now the sliding markers are the most helpful to me, because I’m using them for editing patterns that I’m writing.

Remember that I said that Knit Companion works for all pdf patterns? That means all pdfs. I’ve been using it for pdfs of patterns that aren’t even written yet. I can paste my chart in progress into a pdf and open it in knitCompanion, using the row and stitch markers while I edit the written instructions that are generated by my charting software. I can also make a pdf of my Excel spreadsheet’s written notes, and use that while I chart. No losing my place. Magic.

I don’t necessarily take my iPad everywhere I go. It’s an older model, and it’s heavy! But I do take my phone. And Knit Companion can sync projects through my DropBox account. Cool! No DropBox? It’s free, if you keep your account under a certain size. I finally upgraded my DropBox after several years, but didn’t need to before last month. There’s a lot of stuff in it for work!

All in all, this is a nice addition to my knitting tools. KCBasics is free, and Essentials is $9.99 for a year’s subscription. Essentials + Setup is $14.99 for a year.

How do you keep track of your projects? Paper? App? Magic wand? Tell me all about it!

Have you tried knitCompanion? Sally Holt, the creator of knitCompanion, has given me a free one year subscription to Setup + Essentials for a lucky commenter on this blog. Note: I can only make this happen for an iOS app user through the Apple App Store, and only if you don’t have a current subscription. I’ll pick a lucky winner on June 8, Worldwide Knit in Public Day! (More on that later.)

And if you’re not the lucky winner, you can always try before you buy. knitCompanion offers a free 7 day trial of Essentials, or Setup + Essentials. What are you waiting for?

Note: Sally Holt provided me with a one year subscription to try knitCompanion. All opinions in this review are my own.

22 Comments

Posted in Knit, Product review

Tagged knitCompanion, knitting apps, knitting software

Coming soon: Concentric Bed Socks

Posted on December 1, 2018 | 4 comments

It’s a race to the toe!

It’s a pleasure to knit these single strand worsted weight socks with Knit Circus Ringmaster Panoramic Gradient. The yarn has held up perfectly after frogging the Concentric Slipper Socks. The added bit of contrasting color for heels and toes means that I can make the cuff as tall and scrunchy as it needs to be. The pattern will have three sizes. It’s off to tech editor and test knitters now.

You’ll note that I’m back to magic loop. The Flexi-Flips were nice, but when I picked up the stitches for the gussets, I had more stitches than I felt comfortable with having on the short Flexi-Flips needles, and was afraid they’d go sliding off. I’m back to a 32” circular, and very happy. If the Flexi-Flips were just a bit longer, or if they came in a set of four, they would have been fine. Oh, well, they’ll be great for fingerless mitts!

I have quite a bit of knitting help here, from the helpful knitting cats.

Yadi wants to chew the cables.

Biscuit has become quite a lap cat.

Hope your Saturday is going well!

4 Comments

Posted in cat, Knit, pattern design, Product review, yarn

Tagged Concentric bed socks, flexi flips, KnitCircus, magic loop

Crafty Moms 15.0, plus FlexiFlips needle review

Posted on March 22, 2018 | 11 comments

This past weekend was the 15th annual Crafty Moms weekend at the Oregon Coast, whoa. Fifteen years of friendship and fun.

Fifteen years of beautiful sunsets and walks on the beach, and projects we may or may not remember.

I’m putting the rest of the pretty scenic pictures at the end of the post, so I can talk knitting at the beginning.

I started Anna on her first brioche project. Petite Brioche, of course! Funny how her colors match her clothes. Everyone has a palette, right?

I finished my green brioche design project (no pix yet) and went back to my Nymphaea Shawl. This one is in Bumblebirch Heartwood, Atlantic and Hellebore. The colors might seem familiar to you; I used them in my Tumbling Leaves Shawl, too. It’s a very different look when you feature the blue instead of the green.

(Love this view)

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the rest of the beads, so I didn’t get very far. Oops.

The blue/brown yarn is Malabrigo Mechita in Cielo y Tierra (Sky and Earth). Perfect name.

I sketched and charted an idea for this yarn combo, but it wasn’t cooperating in the swatch, so I set that aside, too.

I’ve been wanting a pair of worsted weight socks, and I’ve been wanting to try Skacel’s new FlexiFlips needles. They come in a set of 3; these are US5. They’re like dpns except they’re flexible in the middle. One end has an Addi Rocket tip, and the other has an Addi Turbo tip, so you can choose your desired pointiness. I like the pointier of the two tips.

The idea is that you hold the work on 2 needles, like using 2 circulars or magic loop. The third needle is the working needle. This means you have one fewer needle than when working on dpns, and no flappy needles as in 2 circulars, and no loopy ends as in magic loop. I don’t mind dpns, but one fewer interruption in the knitting is nice. And I don’t mind magic loop, but that gets a little dicey with brioche and the YOs.

Verdict: I like them! I cruised through most of a cuff down sock, pausing only to puzzle out how I wanted to arrange the heel/gusset stitches. What I’m not loving is that this blue yarn is leaving dye all over my hands. I look like a Smurf.

The dye washes off my hands pretty easily, but now that I’m home the project is in time out. According to my dyer friends, I should treat the yarn with a good bath and some citric acid and heat. It’s a pretty big skein; I could:

Finish knitting the socks and then treat them
abandon this sock and just reskein and treat the rest of the yarn, hoping there’s enough for a pair
or frog the sock and reskein and treat all of it, then knit

What would you do? I’m afraid to wash some but not all of the yarn; there’s a good chance I’d end up with two different colors.

I also tried a small brioche sample with the FlexiFlips, and I liked them for that, too. Mmmm, brioche. I don’t know that I’d want to buy a set in every size; they’re $24/set. Maybe one more set in a reasonable sock size? This is breaking my 5 year sock knitting hiatus!

Now that I’m home, I’m back to knitting Nymphaea. This is the shawl for the Fall Shawl Retreat with me and Laurinda Reddig in November. I want to have a sample in semi-solids; the original is in gradient mini skeins. I may want one in a continuous gradient, too. It’s a pretty simple and zen knit!

As promised, more pictures below.

What’s wrong with this picture?