Tag Archives: clara parkes

Clara Parkes was here!

Posted on October 29, 2019 | 9 comments

Clara Parkes came through Portland last Friday on a tour for her new book, Vanishing Wool. We saw her at Powell’s, our lovely independent bookstore.

While waiting for Clara, I noticed that Mary Mooney, our friend who works for the Oregonian and used to keep a knit blog there, had a blurb on the back of the book jacket. Go Mary!

Clara gave a great introduction musing on the changes in the American wool industry post-World War II. It’s a little sad, but it’s also uplifting to know that there are those of us who care about it and want to support good wool. Her book chronicles her Great White Bale project, when she bought a bale of unprocessed Saxon Merino wool and used it to learn the process of yarn production. The bit I’ve begun has me captivated already; I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

As soon as Biscuit lets me have it back. We’re also sharing the Goodwool Ambassador pin.

9 Comments

Posted in book review, cat

Tagged clara parkes, Vanishing Wool

FO: Stopover BangOutASweater

Posted on February 24, 2016 | 6 comments

Well, that was a hoot!

I knit this Stopover in 8 days, and then set it aside to wait for my color pop swap yarn to arrive in the mail. What a difference a color pop makes!

The swap yarn arrived shortly after I got home from Madrona. (Go back to the previous two posts if you missed the Madrona fun.) I auditioned all but the purples, which were too dark against the lapis background. And I tried my green one more time.

Orange, yellow, green? Yellow! It looks like daffodils and bluebells in spring.

I’m super happy with this sweater. Thanks so much to bluecanarygirl (Ravelry) for organizing the yarn swap. The yellow makes my heart sing.

The sweater fits perfectly, with a bit of ease but not a ton. It did not change size with blocking (I didn’t want it to). I did spin some of the water out of it, but I put it into the top loading washer in an up and down orientation so the spin wouldn’t elongate the body or arms. Short spin, rearrange, short spin. Pat out to dry.

The Lett-Lopi wool isn’t super scritchy; it’s like wearing a cloud. Except at the neck. I took the FO picture without a turtleneck under it, because I wanted to show the neckline (you can see a bit of my black T). But yesterday I wore it with turtleneck, and it was perfect.

Thanks to Mary Jane Mucklestone for a perfect pattern, and Ann Shayne and Kay Gardiner at Mason-Dixon Knitting for dreaming up this very fun KAL! You can see a collage of FO’s over at the MDK blog; I see me in there! That post has links to all the help you’d ever need if you want to bang out a Stopover of your own. My Ravelry project page with notes is here.

Other recent fun? Clara Parkes was here to read from her new book, Knitlandia, at Powell’s in Portland last Saturday. Guess who won a Claramel?

The green knitting in the photo is done! Time to block, and finish up the pattern. Reveal coming soon…

6 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit, yarn

Tagged BangOutASweater, clara parkes, mason dixon knitting, Stopover

Claramel! and a whirlwind weekend…

Posted on October 14, 2013 | 2 comments

I had a great weekend, full of knitting and blogging fun. Saturday afternoon I taught Tink Drop Frog at Twisted, a class on how to identify and fix mistakes. I love teaching this class; it’s very empowering for students. We had two knitters who had very different knitting; all the knit stitches were twisted! The fascinating thing was that each had arrived at this look by very different paths. One was knitting all her stitches through the back loop. The other was purling with the yarn running clockwise instead of counterclockwise around the needle; this commonly happens with continental style knitting because it’s easier to pick in that direction. So we talked about ways to keep or change that (Eastern Combined Knitting, anyone?), because ultimately knitting is about how to get the look *you* want. And then we learned about tinking, laddering down, and how to get your knitting back on the needles when you frog. And yes, I’m aware that this paragraph confirms my knitting nerdiness.

After class I headed down to Powell’s Books to hear Clara Parkes read from her new book, The Yarn Whisperer. Clara is smart, charming, and witty. She had a little knitting limerick contest to give away some of her famous Claramels, and I won one! I *think* it was chocolate and espresso; I *know* it was delicious.

I’m looking forward to reading my autographed book!

On to the next event! Local journalist, blogger, all around great guy George Rede has a Voices of August feature on his blog, with guest bloggers all month. This was my second year guest posting on his blog. George has a meet-up for his guest posters, and it is so much fun to meet the other bloggers in person!

That was quite the afternoon/evening. But it was all good. Sunday was a little bit calmer. It was gorgeous out, but I had to take a nap between events, so I missed the sunshine! The day ended with the kids over for wonton soup. (Recipe in the linked post.)