Are you planning your 2025 knitting? It’s just around the corner!
VKL NYC lineup
I’ll be teaching at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC January 17-19. My newest class is Whale Conga Line, which includes brioche, syncopated brioche, and increases and decreases. I’m also teaching YO? YO! Fun and Fancy Stitches, Minerva Entrelac Cowl, Log Cabin Knitting, Tink Drop Frog (Fixing Mistakes), and Sheepy Steeky Coasters, which is always a favorite. The New York show is always amazing, especially the market and fashion shows. Come knit with us!
Red Alder lineup
Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat is February 13-16 in Tacoma, Washington. This retreat is at the Hotel Murano, which is lovely with lots of art glass on display. The classes are wide ranging, including knitting, spinning, weaving, and crochet. I’m teaching Brioche Pastiche (beginning brioche in the round), Whale Conga Line, Brioche Doctor, and Fun Stitches for Assigned Pooling. Come play with us!
I’m planning to attend Nash Yarn Fest in Nashville with the crew of Modern Daily Knitting March 14-15. This one’s just for fun for me! I’ll go to the all day festival, and the before and after parties. There will be lots of vendors that are new to me, so let’s see what comes home with me! I may have to spend some extra time before or after; I love the music scene in Nashville. And the boots!
Are you planning to attend any fiber events in 2025?
I left town before dawn last Thursday to teach for the Minnesota Knitters’ Days retreat. Our topics for the weekend: brioche, more brioche, and assigned pooling. All my favorite things!
Look at all the smiling brioche knitters! We worked on Brioche Pastiche, my choose your own adventure pattern for hat or cowl, plain or embellished. (I’m teaching this class again at Hook and Needle on Saturday; if you’re local and want to learn to knit brioche, please sign up!) We also worked on Whale Conga Line, as an introduction to brioche knit flat and syncopated brioche. That’s a lot of brioche!
Ursula and Beth finished their hats over the weekend.
And Janet simplified and fancied up the cowl pattern. I love it!
On Sunday morning we played with assigned pooling, which was a great palate cleanser. It’s fun to let the yarn boss you around…a little. You’re still the boss of your knitting, overall.
The knitters were a great group, with lots of mad skills! (Thanks to Stacey for recommending me; she was in my class at YarnOver Minnesota a couple years ago, and here too.)
Kris’s purple sweater on the left is amazing; I love the lively ribbing pattern on the collar and cuffs.
Sheryl (on the right) is the organizer of this well-run event. This is the 40th anniversary of this retreat; Sheryl was a long-time participant and took over when the previous organizer retired. Many of the participants have known each other through this event for a very long time!
Sheryl’s show and tell sweater was a fantastic example of yarn color dominance. Those stripes aren’t ribbing; they’re 1×1 stockinette stripes.
Linn brought her cardigan to show me what she did with Yarn Snob Keith’s Cabana Boy pooling colorway. I love how the white stripes lightened things up; you can see on the bottom band that the colors are pretty intense! And look how the hot pink pooled on one sleeve, and the orange pooled on the back of the other. You could never get it to do that if you were planning it.
Cabana Boy yarn
We were at a Franciscan retreat center in Prior Lake, and the grounds were lovely.
Labyrintha quiet place for tai chiOne of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakesSame sunsetMount Hood on the way home
Why yes, I choose my seat for the Mount Hood view! And now I’m home, and prepping for this weekend’s classes. Brioche Pastiche at Hook and Needle, and a stranded colorwork class at For Yarn’s Sake on Sunday, based on the Shetland Wool Week Islesburgh Toorie.
I was so blown away by the lovely colors that I forgot to do the phone trick. There’s not much tonal contrast between the Peony and Cameo, so I’ll use the Yorkshire and Peony together. I may need to downsize the pattern to make it work with these two 50g skeins, which is easy to do.
But what about that tote bag? Nash Yarn Fest will be MDK’s first foray into hosting a fiber festival. It’s happening March 14-15, 2025, and tickets go on sale TOMORROW, October 1. There are lots of ways to participate: Festival only, opening night party, after party, workshop with Arne and Carlos, or a longer destination travel getaway. Read all about it here.
Last goodies: Two MDK field guides; one for brioche, and Renewal, which is a collection of textural sweaters and accessories by Norah Gaughan. I don’t have time to knit a sweater, but I may knit these lovely mitts!
Austen Mitts, photo from Renewal field guide
Norah has such an inventive mind, and she’s a delightful person, too. She was the other teacher and my cruise buddy on the Vogue Knitting cruise to Canada and New England in 2022.
I spent last weekend at a friend’s family house on the Alsea River, near Waldport on the Oregon Coast. There were four of us hanging out and having fun.
Trailing Leaves sample
I finished one of my Trailing Leaves samples, and started another. I need two of them for yardage requirement information, since the first one isn’t knit according to the current version of the pattern.
I beaded a new ankle bracelet, and re-strung an older one with shiny new metal bits.
Salad is always more delish with fried halibut on top!Looks sea-worthy, yes?
I started a second sample for Trailing Leaves, and found a clumsy join in the yarn (two unrelated colors together), so I started over.
The top one is the first clumsy join. I found the second (middle) one when i was casting on again. And the third (bottom) one? I was about at the same point I had been before. What are the chances of 3 joins in the same ball? And with a gradient, it really matters.
I decided that I wasn’t going to start over again; it didn’t look like the color was that different.
But it was; see where the dark blue starts again after the first pale bit at the bottom? It all works, but it could have been a bit more graceful. Hoping I don’t find any more joins! Next time I use a gradient like this, I think I’ll just rewind the whole ball before starting.
Alsea River
It was so nice to just be away with no to-do list!
I was supposed to be away this weekend, too, but my classes at Sitka Center at the coast didn’t fill. When we scheduled it, I didn’t know that it would be the same weekend as Flock Fiber Festival in Seattle, which is a big draw. I thought about going to Flock this weekend, but I really just needed a weekend at home.
Currently knitting in the backyard, with Cheetos. Perfect.
My friend Linda’s yellow plum tree is having a stellar year, which means I was invited to pick plums! Last year there were only 20 plums, so I’ve been out of my favorite jam for quite some time.
I picked 8 pounds, enough for 2 batches, 22 half-pints of jam. This is the basic Sure-Jell jam recipe, with the addition of 1/4 cup of chopped candied ginger, and 1/4 cup of bourbon. Yum!
Calvin approves
Orange jam, orange cat! I made jam, and then ran off to Sisters, Oregon to visit friends.
We had some time at Suttle Lake, which was lovely even with a bit of wildfire haze from somewhere not too nearby.
The Pie Birds
And we sang at B’s church on Sunday. It’s so nice to get together to sing songs of hope, joy, and peace.
The friends, including a birthday girl
Now I’m home and knitting another sample along with my test knitters. And more yarn has just arrived for what I’m hoping will be the perfect brioche/assigned pooling combination. More on that soon!
A hot dry weekend is always better under the trees!
It was our very timely ladies’ camping weekend. We went to Panther Creek Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, just north of Carson, Washington.
Rocks in Panther Creek
The water in the creek is clear and cold, perfect for a bracing dip on a hot day. The rocks are such pretty colors, too.
Panther Creek Falls
Panther Creek Falls is a twisty drive of 4.7 miles up the road, and then a very short hike. You can go down to the bottom of the falls. Stunning!
Panther Creek Falls, from the bottom
What a gorgeous beetle.
Tai chi
The tent pad at the vacant site next to ours made a great tai chi space.
I played with beads (ankle bracelets)
and I almost finished this project. We’ll see if blocking makes the brioche patterning show up better in the green section. Super fun to knit.
We also played games and just had a great time hanging out. It was a perfect weekend with friends.
How was your weekend? Hot? Do you knit when it’s hot? I always knit!
I took a little road trip down to Albany, Oregon on Saturday to visit Black Sheep Gathering. This year is the 50th year of this fiber festival, but it was my first time ever. I wanted to take a class with Galina Khmeleva, master lace knitter. We’ve been at many of the same festivals, but I’m usually teaching instead of taking classes. This was my chance!
Orenburg lace is knit with 10 different motifs, combined in many ways. It’s usually on a garter stitch background. Some motifs have patterning only on the right side rows, and some have patterning on both right and wrong side rows. All the stitches are either knit, yo, k2tog, or k3tog. There’s no directionality to the decreases; the work is so fine that it really doesn’t show.
We didn’t have time to knit through all the motifs, but the magic is really in the combining. We knit our swatch samplers with Jaggerspun Zephyr, a laceweight blend of wool and silk, 1120 yards/100g. Skinny, but not hard to knit with. I knit my swatch on US 2 needles, and I loved the stitch definition.
Handouts!
Galina gave us enough handouts to keep us busy for years to come. And she regaled us with many stories of the history of Orenburg lace, and more.
Orenburg shawl
Gossamer web, indeed!
Orenburg warm shawl
The Warm Shawl is a heavier version of Orenburg lace. Simpler patterning, but it’s not really that heavy, either. It’s knit in pieces and grafted together with a special grafting method, which was the subject of the next day’s class. Alas, I was not staying over.
I did visit with the sheep in the barn, and also viewed the fiber work exhibits.
Sorpresa, a Valais Blacknose sheep
Look at this beautiful wool! This is Sorpresa, a Valais Blacknose sheep from Honey Hoof Ranch.
Even horns are beautiful.
There was a sheep to shawl exhibit from 9 am to 2 pm.
Carding, spinning, plyingWeaving!
And the fiber work exhibits were beautiful.
This shawl by Lucy Swift was my favorite piece in the exhibits.
All right, back to knitting! I’m knitting another sample of the leafy brioche cowl now that I have it figured out. I need to decide if I want to publish an assigned pooling/algorithmic knitting version in addition to the regular one. More on that later…
I’m on my way to an Emotional Support Chicken. I’ve been seeing these pop up in my Instagram feed, and they’re all really cute. I bought the pattern last month, but I wasn’t inspired to actually knit…until Franklin Habit announced a chickalong on his Patreon. Sold!
My chicken will be mostly purple, because it takes about a full skein of worsted (200 yards), and that’s what I have in a full skein. It’s Malabrigo Rios. My stripes will be that blue/purple and orange/purple; I don’t have enough of either color for all the stripes, so I’ll need to choose one for her body stripe and one for the 2 stripes near the neck. The orange stands out more, so maybe it should be by her face, but there will also be a yellow (?) beak and red comb and wattle. Too much excitement all together? Would the blue/purple be better by her face?
This half of her tail is almost done, then I’m on to the other half. This is definitely a short row eggstravaganza, but it’s wrap and turn in garter stitch, so no big deal. I’m working on a name for her, maybe Egglantina Rose, or Aubergine (a shade of purple, and also EGGplant!).
Beignets, ben-dYAY!
What else have I been up to in my nearly 3 week radio silence? DH and I went to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Lots of music, and we made time for beignets and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde, and crawfish-stuffed beignets and cocktails, too.
I went hiking with a friend in the Columbia River Gorge yesterday; the wildflowers were beautiful on a perfect spring day.
Catherine Creek trail, Mount Hood in background
So much variety.
I’m also still knitting my brioche and assigned/algorithmic knitting shawl. It’s a really fun knit, but I haven’t had a lot of time for it in the past couple weeks. Now I’m back at it, and I have chicken knitting, too. Which isn’t the same as yarn chicken. Yet.
What’s on your needles? Are you tempted by the chicken?
I’m teaching a weekend workshop at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology August 10-11 on the Oregon Coast. The setting is lovely, nestled among the trees on a slice of land on Cascade Head near Lincoln City.
This knitting workshop offers several ways to make your plain knitting fancy! Drawing inspiration from nature, we’ll start with elongated fancy stitches that evoke the beauty of flowers, stars, butterflies, and bees.
Moving forward, we’ll delve into the art of color pooling, a hot technique that is the current darling of indie dyers.
To add a finishing touch, we’ll learn herringbone and other braids to elevate our knits to new heights. Join us for a creative journey where you’ll learn to infuse flair into your knitting, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Sound fun? Register here. The workshop fees are for the workshop only; you’ll need to book lodging of your choice. It’s a wonderful relaxing weekend away. I taught a brioche workshop here last year, see that post for a taste of the experience.
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.
Loom RoomOn the loom
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!
Heart Heart Heart Mini Minder
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!
Cordsmith i-cord maker
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!Zoom in to see everything!
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.
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 