Mandy Moore's Blog, page 110
August 23, 2011
Spinning Tuesdays: Phat Fiber Fluff Box
I got a Phat Fiber Fluff Box in the mail. Did you hear me squee?
Don't know what Phat Fiber is? There is a detailed description here, but in a nutshell it is a box of samples, either fiber, yarn or a mix. Fiber artists contribute a certain number of small samples that they have dyed, carded and packaged as they are inspired by the theme of the month. Phat Fiber boxes go on sale once a month and there is a limited number of each box, so you have to click quickly.
The theme for August is Bollywood!
Look at the beautiful box full of fiber:
Phat Fiber Fluff Box for August
20 little fiber packages, not counting the extra goodies like buttons, henna and a cool bangle to wrap in handspun.
I knew you wanted a closer look
The fiber artists that contributed obviously had fun with the theme, it shows in fiber sample and in the individual packaging. The detail is wonderful from special fonts and photos to silk ribbons to tiny bells.
Packaging details - look at the tiny bells
Unwrapped the fiber looks like this : 7.75 ounces of fiber to spin.
Almost 8 ounces of fiber - look at the sparkle!
The variety of fiber combinations and color is huge. So what doesn a spinner do with .5 ounce amounts of 20 different fiber blends?
This spinner corespins.
Corespinning in the sunshine
I plan to corespin all of the fiber, grabbing the fiber randomly from a big bowl. Sometimes I use all of the .5 ounce in one shot, sometimes I only use half. I am amazed at how it's all coming together. Corespinning really showcases the fibers and makes a cool looking yarn. I am working on making my corespun yarn balance so I can use it to knit with.
Anyone have tips for balancing corespun yarn?
Let me talk about the collection of fiber artists that contributed to this particular box.
I am an unapologetic fiber wh*re – I have a big stash, I look at fiber and touch fiber every day, I talk about fiber and fiber people every day (yes, I love my job) , but most of the fiber folks in this box of fine fluff were new to me. I love that.
August 18, 2011
Book Giveaway!
I can feel fall sneaking in around the edges it must be time to start new knitting projects!
Today we have a giveaway for a book to inspire you to start some new projects.
We have 2 copies of 10 Secrets of the Laidback Knitters to giveaway.
Let's knit!
A wonderful collaboration between Vicki Stiefel and Lisa Souza that may just change how you think about knitting.
The usual rules apply. Leave a comment to this post before midnight, eastern time, on Monday, August 22, 2011. Two comments will be chosen at random to answer a skill testing question. If they answer correctly they will each win a book.
Happy Knitting!
August 17, 2011
WWW:
Artist Anna Hrachovec has recently completed a fabulous installation of her little creatures, Mochimochimochimochimochi, at the Lion Brand Studio in NYC.
Adorable! Brilliant!
Anna reports that there at least 372 little guys in the heap, but she's pretty sure there are some tiny ones hiding under the larger ones that didn't get counted.
It will be there until October – visit if you can!
Anna's new book, Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi, was released yesterday — it's overflowing with tiny adorableness. More than 40 tiny little things you can knit with yarn probably already in your stash.
Spoiled for choiceFollowing up on a story from June… we posted that the Battersea shelter for dogs & cats in the UK had put out a free pattern and a call for knitters to make cat toys to entertain their feline residents as they wait to be rehomed… Knitters all around the world responded, and the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home reports they have many happy kitties. Lovely slideshow.
A lasting gift from Britain.
Also in the UK, a group called WoolSack has launched an initiative to collect hand-made wool cushions to donate to athletes participating in the 2012 London Olympics & Paralympics events. Part of the official Cultural Olympiad, the organization's objective is to promote the use of British wool products and help people gain craft skills using a sustainable material with a long and important history, as well as sending the athletes homes with a little bit of Britain.
Inspired by his recent trip to Iceland, our own Stephen West and Ragga have started Lopilove, a photo blog collecting sightings of Lopi sweaters in the wild. A gorgeous appreciation of knitwear and how we love, wear it and use it, they are also seeking contributions – if you see a Lopi sweater, take a photo.
The Toronto Star, local paper in the hometown of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, has a great piece about Sock Summit. The writer has coined what might become Stephanie's epitaph, "whisky-voiced vegetarian".
The eminently reasonable Miss Manners weighs in on a question about the appropriateness of knitting in public. (Scroll down.)
New knitter alert: Lily Allen has taken up the craft as she prepares for the arrival of her baby.
August 16, 2011
Spinning Tuesdays: Dyeing with Deb Menz
This past weekend I took a 3-day dye class with Deb Menz. I am still recovering. She completely cracked my brain open about dyeing color. I've perused her books but I find it hard to learn solely from a book, especially about a topic that intimidates me.
This class was intense, 2 full dyeing days and an entire day assembling a 33 page dye book.
Here's a quick photo essay of the class:
Deb talks about process
We had four dyeing stations and Beth let us make a mess
We dyed lots of mini skeins in quart jars
The Spin Doctor interviewed Deb for her podcast
We hung our mini skeins everywhere to dry
Many sample sheets make a book
We went home with 400 different samples to ponder
Deb explains how to use the dye book
Deb told us that she's winding up her days as a traveling teacher. If you get the chance to take a class from her do it, it will be the most exhausting and fulfilling 3 days that you've ever treated yourself to.
August 10, 2011
W-W-Wales, lace style
Brenda, Tonia and I in Tenby, Wales, last October
Amy here, hijacking our usual report of what's happening all over the web for a really good reason.
I have a confession to make. I love Brenda Dayne.
Philly (he's the one I'm married to) and Truman walk on a Welsh beach
Since she and I are both married, and not to each other, I guess it's good that it's a different kind of love. The kind where you first meet someone online through their words — or in this case, her words and her voice — and they turn out to be more than advertised when you're finally face to face. I last got to spend time with Brenda in October 2010 at her home in West Wales, and I fell in love again, hard. With Wales itself. Bonus: It seems we both have a love for lace, too. That's a whole lotta love.
So it made all the sense in the world to plan a teenytiny Retreat in the Welsh countryside that focused on my approach to lace, with Brenda and I teaching different applications of the principle. How small is teenytiny? Only 20 students. That's it. You can't get much more intimate than that.
The principle is actually pretty simple: I call it Plug+Play, and it's about seeing lace patterns as whole units and then applying those units to knitted fabric. It makes designers out of knitters with as little or as much complex brain involvement as you want to devote. It's pretty cool, if I may say so myself. We'll be working on your own original shawl design, and then moving on to a top-down sweater template that Brenda is creating just for this Retreat. (I've seen it and I can't wait to start my own.) And you will be able to do it all, absolutely. It's going to be awesome.
So the teenytiny retreat? It's called Plug+Play Pembrokeshire [P3 for short], and it takes place this October 15-17. Brenda has found a charming inn with fabulous food [that was a must]. It's got the most perfect sunlit room for us to have our classes in, and cozy rooms for you to tuck yourselves into at night when you're all tuckered out from fresh fall air and brainwork. We'll have great goodie bags and are excited to announce that we'll have a teenytiny marketplace, too! Right now, Fyberspates and Nimu Yarns have both agreed to bring their wares for us to sample, with more to come.
Everything you might want to know about the P3 retreat is here. And we've opened a Ravelry group to answer questions and help you guys coordinate your plans for before, during and after the event. Come. You're going to love it.
Brenda's just recorded her 100th podcast. ONE HUNDRED. That is cause for celebration, and I am toasting her with caffeine as I listen. You can listen to the whole glorious thing here, or just the part where she and I talk about P3 here. And then send her a message of love, because she deserves it.
August 7, 2011
Coffee
It's not secret that I like a cup of coffee (or twelve). And I'm pleased to report that Portland, Oregon, seems to be my kind of town. The residents of Portland, seemingly, love coffee as much as I do.
There are excellent coffee shops on every block.
I had terrific cups of coffee wherever I went:
A simple cup of their dark roast.
at the legendary Stumptown Coffee
A double americano, extra short.
heck, I even had good coffee at the convention center.
Venti Bold
Yes, there is a Starbucks at the Oregon Convention Center, although apparently they ran out of coffee on the first day. I will only take partial responsibility for that – there was also an Open Source convention on at the same time. Seriously, guys, knitters and techies in the same room – you are going to need more coffee than usual.
August 3, 2011
Sock Summit Round-up
Wow wow wow. Wonderful wonderous wonderment.
Last week, 6000 knitters converged upon Portland, Oregon, for the second Sock Summit. And what an event it was. So amazing was this event that the Mayor of Portland, Sam Adams, officially declared last week "Sock Knitting Week" in the city.
International Capital of Sock Knitting. At least for a week.
Amy & Kate were there.
Amy and Kate pose in the Sockgate, a surprise from organizer Tina to organizer Stephanie (and lots of fun for the attendees to pose in)
Amy's roommate, Denny, was happy to find she was properly acknowledged:
Denny welcomes you to her kingdom. Not really. But they can poach a nice egg.
We taught classes.
We shopped the expansive Marketplace.
One of each, please!
Buttons from Indigo Dragonfly, featuring the names of their most popular colorways. note the payment options.
Jennie the Potter's famous sheepy bowls all got socks for the occasion
We attended classes.
We danced.
We proudly saw our place in Sock Knitting History – Monkey in the Sock Museum.
We love Monkey!
We drank coffee and ate donuts.
Breakfast of sock knitting champions
We found our names and those of many of our fellow teachers on bookshelves at the legendary Powell's.
Amy ran across her own name on the bookshelves at Powell's, and couldn't stop grinning for hours afterwards.
We giggled over the not-yet-tiresome Portlandia references.
Denny believes that birds should be on everything.
We met amazing people.
We admired fabulous knitting.
Baby Sophie, the first of the next generation of knitters, wearing a custom-designed baby swirl jacket from Sandra McIver.
We watched sheep go from fuzzy to naked.
Meet Gusset, Heel Flap and Instep
now that's a naked sheep!
Many hundreds of us danced in our first flashmob.
And we had ourselves a very, very good time.
Many, many thanks are due to Steph, Tina, the ST-2 crew, and all the amazing volunteers who pulled together to make the event happen and the thousands of sock knitters that made this crazy idea not crazy at all…just a wonderful experience.
August 2, 2011
Spinning Tuesdays: Spinning with Jacey Boggs
This past week I took a 3 days of classes with Jacey Boggs, Corespinning, Boucle and Cable and Crepe yarns. It was a lot of new things for me, I've had one other class in Boucle yarns, spun along with Jacey's DVD, poked around on You Tube, and tried to figure highly textured yarns out from books, with not a lot of success. I was prepared to work.
corespun
What I wasn't prepared for was how Jacey taught.
Many spinning teachers teach in a style that I call, "Want this? Do this." Sort of like paint by numbers, following along exactly how the teacher spins – how they hold their hands and treadle – you make the class yarns. It works, and sometimes spinners can adapt their style of spinning to make it work for them away from the class.
But for me these aren't the classes that make a change to my spinning or truly open up a new pathway in my spinning thinking.
big boucle
Jacey teaches the thinking kind of classes. Actually, she can teach both kinds at the same time. If you are there to learn to replicate, fantastic, she's a crack demonstrator – she'll show you, then make sure your hands are doing it right, until you leave with yarns similar to hers.
But if you are there to learn, to have your spinning brain cracked open and shaken like a dusty rug, you are in for the best kind of class.
no loop boucle
She explains the how and the why in detail. She wants her students to make yarns that are balanced, repeatable and useable. She has spent hours and years figuring out all of this and how to best explain it. She is excited by it all and it's infectious.
tailspun sari silk
I was ready for it. I went to class open minded, open brained. We went through many steps, many explanations and many fibers. Some of the best were the ones that didn't work – it looks like corespun or cabled yarn but you wouldn't want to knit with it.
cables and crepes
While she's teaching, demonstrating and making you think, Jacey also talks about what's exciting her now and what she's puzzling on. A peek into future books and classes.
Fat cables
The best analogy I can come up with is that Jacey is a living, spinning version the the David McCauley book, The Way Things Work.
Like this, but spinning
All three of her classes so fully engaged both my hands and my brain that I was wholly present for each – no worrying about what wasn't getting done at home , no mental or actual list making for the week to come – just thinking and spinning. My yarns didn't come out perfect, the are all over spun, but I didn't care because I was learning so much. I was tired, but not exhausted at the end of each day and mentally excited.
Clouds
Now looking at my yarns from the classes I know exactly what to do to repeat them, make them better or make them different. I feel really ready to step on the textured yarn path.
Jacey has a book/DVD combo coming out in late Fall, Spin Art: Mastering the Craft of Spinning Textured Yarn. So, if you can't take a class with her you can still get her to explode your brain. If you follow the book link and scroll down there is an 8 page preview of the book. Just try not to swoon.
Jacey's new book
July 27, 2011
Because Size Matters: Foot Size Survey
Everyone
As Knitty's technical editor for socks, I get to talk to a lot of knitters and designers about sock patterns. The number one question I hear from designers and knitters is how to size socks.
When sizing socks, foot circumference is the key measurement. For the vast majority of sock designs, the length of the foot is controlled simply by working fewer or more rounds in that section- totally independent of the number of stitches you cast on.
The challenge is that information about foot circumference is very hard to find. When sizing shoes, foot length is the primary measurement; and so all of the information out there in the world about foot size is focused on foot length.
Since foot length is remarkably unrelated to foot circumference – small feet can be wide, long feet can be narrow – telling me your shoe size tells me very little about how big your socks should be. A lot of the time, when designers are creating socks, we're guessing about how they should be sized.
With help from our friends and collaborators at Sock Summit and Cooperative Press, we're trying to change this. We're launching a foot size survey, and we're hoping you can help us out.
Send email to footsurvey@wisehildaknits.com with the following info:
Your shoe size: US or European size & gender (e.g. US Women's size
Your foot length
Ankle circumference around the narrowest part of your ankle
Foot circumference around the ball of your foot
Circumference around your foot at your ankle
Diagonal measurement around your heel, from the base of your heel up over the top of your foot
Circumference of your calf six inches (15cm) up from the ground
The measurements we need
And if you can talk your friends and family into letting you measure their feet, we'd love that info too.
We'll crunch the data and come up with a set of measurements that we will publish here and on the Cooperative Press website, for all sock designers to use.
Thank you! Your reward for participation will be better sized sock patterns for everyone – and our eternal gratitude, of course!
WWW: Knitters Around the World Helping Out & Having Fun
Olive and some of her creations.
A heartwarming round-up of knitters young and old donating their work to good causes:
schoolchildren in the UK learning to knit as part of a program about World War Two have donated their efforts to a local animal shelter
schoolboys in Australia are knitting squares to be donated to the Wrap with Love program
a group of knitters in Australia meet weekly to create items for hospitals, homes for the elderly, and children in developing countries
and halfway around the world, a group of seniors in South Carolina meets with the same goal
95-year old Olive is knitting teddy bears to sell to raise funds for a prostate cancer research fund
Age Concern in the UK has launched their 2011 Big Knit program, to raise funds to help pay heating bills for the elderly this coming winter.
So cool!
A cute little profile of Tara Wheeler, Doctor Who fan and knitter extraordinaire, who knits and maintains an online guide to the 4th Doctor's scarves. The site includes bonus links to the patterns for the TARDIS socks, and some notes and photos of the 7th Doctor's sweater vest.
An art student in New Zealand is showing her "finger-knitted" woolly interpretations of jewellery at a local gallery, and will be teaching workshops on the technique. Neat video on the page.
And add another name to the list of celebrities who knit: Pink.
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