Tag Archives: knitting

Bicoastal knitting in 2025

Posted on October 21, 2024 | 3 comments

Are you planning your 2025 knitting? It’s just around the corner!

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 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?

3 Comments

Posted in classes, events, travel

Tagged knitting, knitting classes, Nash Yarn Fest, red alder fiber arts retreat, vogue knitting live

New brioche knitters, upcoming classes

Posted on October 16, 2024 | 4 comments

Mount Hood, and clouds above the Columbia River

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.

We were at a Franciscan retreat center in Prior Lake, and the grounds were lovely.

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.

Come knit with me!

4 Comments

Posted in classes, Knit, travel

Tagged assigned pooling, Brioche knitting, brioche knitting classes, islesburgh toorie, knitting, Minnesota Knitters Days, stranded colorwork

Steeking fun

Posted on September 29, 2024 | 5 comments

I taught a steeking class at Hook and Needle yesterday. I’ve been teaching my Sheepy Steeky Coasters class with a crochet-reinforced steek, no sewing machines for me. Too hard to carry to class! Also, I don’t trust a machine to not eat my knitting.

I knit an additional sample this week so I could demonstrate a couple more reinforcement methods in class. This is my Boxed Hearts Coasters that I designed for a class with the Knitting Circle during the pandemic. I knit it while watching video classes the other day; can you spot my oopsie? If not, no big deal. It was fine for class!

I added a hand sewn backstitch reinforcement for students to practice, and a felted steek. Everyone got to poke all stabby-stabby on this sample, down the center red stripe. It’s already been felted in the picture above; the front looks completely normal.

But you can see that the backside is all fuzzed up. This edge isn’t going to fall apart when it’s cut!

Completely stress free. From there, the process is the same. Pick up and knit stitches along the sides, then knit the garter stitch edge that matches the upper and lower borders. Just like a buttonband. After that, sew everything down.

I love small projects for teaching new techniques. It’s much less fraught to cut a coaster than to cut a sweater as your first steek project.

These happy scissor-wielding knitters agree!

Have you cut a steek before? It’s not scary!

5 Comments

Posted in classes, Knit

Tagged boxed hearts coasters, knitting, knitting classes, sheepy steeky coasters, steeking

Another weekend, away

Posted on August 11, 2024 | 3 comments

Mosquito Bites (vodka/coconut rum/cranberry & pineapple juices)

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.

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!

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.

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.

3 Comments

Posted in beading, Knit, pattern design, travel

Tagged Alsea River, knitting, trailing leaves cowl

Trailing Leaves test knit call

Posted on July 23, 2024 | 20 comments

Trailing Leaves is back from my tech editor, and it’s ready for test knitting. This is a brioche bandana cowl knit in the round beginning at the neck. It gently increases down to the bottom edge. A central leaf pattern is created with syncopated brioche; syncopated brioche also makes the bottom edge pop. Trailing Leaves is knit with two skeins of fingering weight yarn in contrasting colors.

If you’re interested in test knitting, please let me know in the comments, and I’ll contact you. (Your email is visible to me, but not public.)

current sample knit in Dream in Color Smooshy

I’m currently knitting a second sample; it was perfect airplane and deck knitting this past weekend! We visited friends in Chicago and had a fabulous time.

The Bean (Cloud Gate) in Millennium Park

Bronzeville tour with Dilla of ChicagoMahogany.com

50th Anniversary Tour, Prairie Home Companion

And a blues show (Stephen Hull Experience) at Rosa’s Lounge, and a late night show at Second City. Whew! We also ate ourselves silly…Filipino, Cambodian, English pub, Chicago deep dish pizza. Our friends Susan and Patrick are phenomenal hosts, as is their sweet dog Luna.

Back to work for me! Let me know if you’d like to test knit!

20 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged Brioche knitting, chicago, knitting, knitting-wips, test knit, trailing leaves cowl

Powering through this brioche knitting

Posted on July 1, 2024 | 5 comments

When you want a snack, but you don’t want orange dust on your knitting, chopsticks are the perfect snack tool. Just sayin’.

I tried a different brioche 4 stitch decrease on this project. It’s a lot faster. But it’s also prone to dropped stitches, so I’m not going to recommend it. Which means I don’t have to make a video tutorial after all! My tried and true slowpoke method is a better choice for me.

In case you’re daring and want to try this one: Slip 3 stitches as if to knit 3 together. Knit the next two stitches together. Pass the 3 stitches back over the k2tog. (Don’t forget to pass the yarn overs along with the stitches when slipping/knitting/passing.) That’s it! But I found 3 dropped stitches in that round, so I won’t be doing that again.

I did manage to fix the dropped stitches, and I just finished binding off. Now it’s soaking. Looking forward to seeing how much this grows (I hope) with blocking!

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, tutorial

Tagged Brioche knitting, dropped stitches, knitting

Will it block out?

Posted on June 28, 2024 | 4 comments

As I said in the previous post, yarn still surprises me.

This is where I left you in the last post. The further I knit, the more the ribbing biased. I think it’s because this yarn is a single ply, rather than a plied yarn. It wanted to lean hard to the right. I didn’t have another project going, so I soldiered on, figuring it would block out…or not. A science experiment!

Fresh off the needles. Quite a lean, and also a loose column at the beginning of the round.

The front was quite askew, and the the leaf pattern was wonky at the bottom, too. Place your bets!

Blocking is magic. This project is essentially a big swatch. It’s longer than I want it to be, but it’s the right general idea. I did some math, and I’ll knit another one. Remember, as a designer I make the mistakes so you don’t have to!

I’ve been knitting outdoors all week; the weather has been spectacular. Not too hot.

The hydrangea is coming into glory; it’s going to be a big year for these blooms.

I’ve been reading while I knit; it keeps me on task. I highly recommend Things Past Telling by Sheila Williams (I also read her Dancing on the Edge of the Roof which was good, but not as good as Things Past Telling). I also read The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl; her descriptions of food are incredible. I just finished First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston…so twisty! I enjoyed all of these. Now I’m starting Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Our library system uses Libby, and I read all these as e-books on my kindle.

What are you reading? What are you knitting?

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged blocking, blocking is magic, Knit, knitting, yarn

Knitting in public, but not while biking

Posted on June 11, 2024 | 5 comments

Knitting at a Portland Pickles baseball game

Well, I didn’t manage to knit in public on Worldwide Knit/Craft in Public Day, but I did knit at a baseball game last Thursday. I’ll knit anywhere, on MY schedule. That piece of knitting has since been frogged; I decided I wanted it to be narrower. Each cast on is a swatch, until it’s not!

The previous cast on went along for quite a while until I realized that I made a math error on the decrease shaping. Along the way I decided to flip it from bottom up to top down because increases are prettier than decreases, and I’d start with fewer stitches. Bonus! That’s what I was experimenting with at the baseball game.

No knitting while bicycling! DH and I went on a bike ride along the Columbia River. We had great views of the river, birds, Mount Hood (see it at the top of the picture?). This is an urban ride on a path alongside Marine Drive, which is very busy! I’m glad we could be off the road for most of it.

Fundraiser for Parkinson’s support

We’re participating in a fundraiser for Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon this month. DH was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease last year (early, mild symptoms, doing great). Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon has very helpful programs including informational seminars, activities, and support groups. If you’d like to donate, here’s my link. Thanks for considering it! And here’s a link to DH’s Parkinson’s blog, if you’re interested.

We’re making the most of a string of perfect summer days. Not too hot, not too cool. I hope your weather and knitting are…perfect!

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, Portland area fun

Tagged bicycling, bike, knitting, parkinsons disease, Portland Pickles baseball, WWKIP Day

If at first you don’t succeed…

Posted on April 20, 2024 | 8 comments

I worked very hard at not working on my current design project during the week before I went to the coast. I wanted to have an established work in progress so I could be sociable while I knit.

I want to combine brioche and assigned pooling, two of my favorite types of knitting! I was planning to use a V’d stitch like in Fanfare. In my imagination, they’d be airier because there would be the brioche purl stitches between the knit stitches, and I was going to dip down and out to the side to make upside down Vs. But I found out pretty quickly that it would not be very much fun to make those Vs if the pooling color happened on the wrong side of the fabric. I need a pooling stitch that will work on both right and wrong sides. And it needs to fit into the rhythm of brioche.

I used brioche increases to make my Vs instead. So sweet! I set the project aside, ready to knit at the coast.

It took 70 rows of coastal knitting, but I finally realized: All of those cute stitches *really were* increases, and they were going to throw off my shawl shaping. You can see in the picture above where all the increases have thrown off the straight edge on the right. Oops. Also, I had elongated the Pear Leaf edging from 10 to 12 rows, and it didn’t really look like a leaf any more. Double oops.

So this is my project, frogged, at the coast. Since then I’ve knit and frogged and restarted it at least 5 more times while settling on the syncopated cream colored edging pattern (not pear leaf after all) and how to handle the pooling stitches. Remember, I make the mistakes so you don’t have to! And now I’ve figured out where it’s going. I’m kind of obsessed, and all I want to do is knit this gorgeous yarn. Why yes, that’s Yarn Snob Keith’s Bellina colorway again, this time paired with cream. I love the combo; it tones down the green just a little bit. No previews yet.

What are you knitting for spring?

8 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged assigned pooling, Brioche knitting, knitting, yarn snob yarns

Coming soon: Bellini Bubbles? (Test knit?)

Posted on April 18, 2024 | 15 comments

I thought I was done with assigned pooling for a while, but during my Starfall KAL with Yarn Snob Keith I fell in love with a colorway used by one of the participants.

The colorway is Bellina, named after one of dyer Keith’s orchids. When I saw it, I had to have it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

When I asked Ann Berg to test knit Prosecco Pop in a smooth yarn, she used a pooling yarn instead of a slubby one. I loved the idea, but I wanted more pooling, and fewer eyelets. It took a few tries to figure out the proportions, and I even changed my mind after my sample was finished, but here’s the basic idea.

I was going to use a different assigned pooling stitch, but these star flowers are so perfect here. This was knit with one skein of fingering weight yarn, dyed for assigned pooling.