Mandy Moore's Blog, page 14

WWW: Crafting in space; knitting reduces stress (yes, we know); make a new friend in Philly

NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg explains how to quilt in space. pic.twitter.com/IGslXU4CRY

— Seeker (@Seeker) May 29, 2018

Another potentially predictable piece about how knitting might (might? duh!) help reduce stress for students during exam time. Fun to see “knitflixing” in an article, though. And it goes on to cite specific examples that you can use to explain why you need to knit during meetings at work.

Are you in Philly? Want a new friend? This woman wants to meet you.

Seattle Spinning, Knitting, and Weaving – Suggestions, Please!

Olympia and Seattle here I come!

 

This week I’m teaching at the  Northwest Regional Spinners Association Conference in Olympia, Washington.

It’s going to be an outstanding conference with a big list of creative teachers, an outstanding keynote speaker, and , of course, all of the visionary spinners attending. I’m ready to teach and to soak up all innovative thinking at the event.

 

 

 

 

Kinokuniya – where are the pens and stationery?

I am very grateful to my friend Lisa who has invited me to stay with her in Seattle for a few days after the conference. I haven’t been to Seattle since the 90’s, and I’d love to know what you suggest I do while I’m there.

My friend Lisa is an amazing weaver and spinner. Guess what my brain will be full of when I come home?

Right now the only thing on my list is a trip to Kinokuniya, the Seattle location is giant and there are pens and stationary.

What fiber, food and generally soaking up the atmosphere spots do you recommend for two days in Seattle?

 

Rhinebeck Spinning Retreat, Spinning and Knitting with Louet in May

Beth wrote this awesome book!

My friend and amazing spinning teacher, Beth Smith, is having a spinning retreat at Rhinebeck.

The retreat is October 18-22. The price includes two days of classes,class materials, lodging, meals, a weekend pass to the Sheep and Wool festival and a goodie bag.

Beth explains the whole weekend in this post.

This is a great opportunity to take classes with Beth. She won’t be teaching much in 2019 because she’s spending the year learning and working on something new.

 

 

 

 

Will you buy a prize winning fleece?

The classes she’s teaching are ones I’d love to take (but I’m teaching elsewhere).

There is a full day breed study, taking four breeds from fluff to a knitted or woven sample. I need to take this class to figure our different ways to sample, that may be a little more detailed than my quick and dirty method.

On Saturday, the morning is spent discussing the ins and outs of buying a fleece, then the afternoon is all about shopping for a fleece with Beth. I have witnessed this woman shopping for fleeces – she has a magical ability to find the most delectable fleeces.

Louet S10 Concept Wheel

 

 

 

 

This month Louet is celebrating spinning and knitting! If you pop over to their blog, you can read a post I wrote about knitting with handspun yarn.

I have wheel lust. I think a Louet is going to be my next wheel. I have always liked the look of an S10, and they treadle so smoothly.

Do you have a Louet wheel? Tell me what you love about it!

 

WWW: Beautiful knitted wedding; knitting crochet stitches; stockings for a huge spider

A beautiful handknitted wedding resplendent in the freshest green

This gorgeous wedding is full of knitted and yarny touches. Both the bride and groom can wear their special knitted pieces again and again!

The lovely and talented Vickie Howell shows us how to knit crochet stitches. Wot?

Well, we’re all about multicraftualism at Knitty…this is taking it up a level!

An awesome and huge statue of a spider (not scary, though) has been intensely yarnbombed in Roppongi, Japan. It’s an especially fine example of yarnbombing, with the knitted pieces fitting the sculpture like custom-made striped stockings. Which, of course, they are.

Kate Atherley’s Buttonholes for Handspun

Kate has a smiling face and a gigantic brain!

Ok, these buttonholes aren’t only for knitting with handspun. This article is so perfectly succinct in the construction of six different buttonholes for hand knits that every spinner who knits needs to have it as a reference.

Knitty’s own Tech Goddess, Kate Atherley, wrote this buttonhole article for Mason-Dixon Knitting. It shows how to make eyelet, eyelet in ribbing, horizontal, vertical, and afterthought buttonholes. Plus my new favorite, Slipped-Stitch Cable Buttonhole, I’ve never seen that one before and am in instant love.

Being ever helpful and wickedly smart, Kate tell us how to fix a stretched out buttonhole. The answer doesn’t have to be, buy bigger buttons!

Slipped-stitch cable buttonholes forever! All photos by Kate Atherley for Mason-Dixon Knitting.

What is your favorite buttonhole for handspun hand knits?

WWW: Mystery Twit-along starts TODAY!; Vintage Shetland book launch in London; whatup with those crazy vintage needle sizes anyway?

From Kathleen Sperling, aka @wipinsanity (and designer for Knitty), comes this new fun project: A Mystery Twit-Along. “I’ll tweet out a bit of the pattern instructions every two days, and you can follow along with your #knitting and see what takes shape. Sound good? It’ll start May 9…” That’s today!

Click here to see the pattern requirements and basic instructions. I wonder what it will be…

The Vintage Shetland Project by Susan Crawford

From Susan Crawford: if you’re in London (the UK one), you’re in luck! This Saturday, you can join Susan at the launch party for her new book: The Vintage Shetland Project. 

Susan is an acknowledged expert on vintage British knitwear, and this has been an 8-year project of love.

I can’t wait to see this book myself.

Vintage Beehive knitting needle gauge. Size 1 is the largest. That’s confusing.

I was talking with a friend about the origins of the needle gauge system, specifically talking about needles from the beginning of the last century, and she pointed me to this article. It’s written for Anesthetists, but I think the same principle may apply to craft needles of all kinds. It all goes back to the milling of the wire.

My google-fu isn’t coming up with anything that officially links the information in this article with knitting. Does anyone have more information that I can add here?

New Sett Checker for Weaving

I’m so curious about weaving and how weaving works. Usually when I start a new craft I jump in the deep end and just start thrashing around. I do a lot of guessing with mixed results. What I realize after all of these years is that by not doing any methodical learning, it takes me twice as long to learn things; I stay an advanced beginner for a long time.

This time around with weaving (the first time around is a story for another day – there was a lot of thrashing) I am vowing to be more methodical. But I also love a short cut (I’m lazy that way). Which is why Liz Gipson’s new Sett Checker is perfect for me.

Yarnworker’s Sett Checker

This handy dandy new tool lets me peek at three different setts for a any yarn. A sett is how many ends per inch (EPI) are in a warp (the vertical threads on a loom).  Really, if I was being completely methodical, I would weave small samples to check the sett, and if I were thrashing about I would just pick one because it sounded good that day.

These Sett Checkers are made by Purl and Loop, who also collaborated with Liz on the 3 in 1 Swatch Maker Loom, and are the fine folks who make the amazing Bracelet Looms, the Stash Blaster Looms, and the Swatch Maker Weaving Looms.

Setts are 8, 10 ,12

This Sett Checker is as easy to use as a WPI gauge. It works great with commercial or hand woven yarns.

A full Sett Checker is a happy Sett Checker

I will caution you that just like a WPI gauge, you can make the Sett Checker lie. If you pull tightly when wrapping your yarn on, it will change how your sett looks. Take a look at this handspun. I wound it on with just a little tension for the first 3 slots, then pulled it taunt as I was wrapping. Big difference. Don’t be in a hurry or feel like pulling things tight when you check your sett.

I pulled on my yarn and it gave me a wonky sett.

My weaving right now is all on my rigid heddle loom (I have a Schacht Cricket). I’m just starting to experiment with dyed handspun yarn and weaving and boy is it a fascinating rabbit hole. I’m doing a lot of following along with Liz’s weaving column that she wrote for Knitty for three years, Get Warped. Liz is a fantastic teacher and really understands the balance between jumping in and being methodical. She’s set herself up an online weaving school this year. You can find her school, her teaching calendar, blog, and shop on her website Yarnworker.

WWW: Flat sock patent; Sam on ABC; one-piece machine knitted sweaters; auction to pay Tully’s vet bills

patented design for socks knit on 2 needles, by Nell Armstrong (1946)

Via our own Ethnic Knitting columnist, Donna Druchunas, this very cool patent for knitting socks on only two needles.

With the most groan-worthy headline ever, here’s more press on the ABC News site (!) for Sam Barsky, the clever knitter who designs sweaters featuring famous landmarks, then visits them and takes pictures with them, wearing the sweaters. (I haven’t had enough coffee to make that sentence more compact.)

You go, Sam! We’re proud of you.

Video of that cool one-piece sweater knitting machine: it knits a sweater in about 40 minutes, with no waste. This improves on the usual process of cutting already knit fabric into pattern pieces and then sewing them together, which produces 8-10% waste.

I blogged about this last year, and it’s pretty cool to see the machine in action!

Tully and his new reverse mohawk. 

Some of you may have been following my Tully rabbit’s health situation over the last few weeks on Twitter. He’s doing well and we’re hoping for a full recovery.

However, the vet bills are brutal. So I’ve decided to hold a little auction of knitted pieces I’ve made but have never used (or have used so lightly that you can’t tell) in order to help pay those bills.

If you’re interested in bidding on the Charlotte’s Web shawl I knit in Koigu (reminder: I’m allergic to wool) that started my whole No Sheep For You movement, as well as other pieces (TBD), keep an eye on my Twitter or Instagram feeds.

Backstory: Tully has an abscess on the whole top of his beautiful head. I rushed him to the Ontario Veterinary College clinic late one Friday night a month ago. They started by reducing his (very dangerous) fever and went on to do tests and get him stable. (They loved him, btw.) He was there for a full week and got excellent care. He’s been on up to 4 antibiotics at the same time, and now has the top of his head packed with antibiotic-soaked gauze, which seems to be finally making progress. The vet bills are at $3000 and we’re not done yet. Hence the auction.

By the way: I will post the detailed vet bills when I run this auction. Full transparency.

Sampling Miss Babs Fiber

Miss Babs BFL

Did you know Miss Babs has spinning fiber? I saw it announced on her Instagram and hopped right on over to shop.

Miss Babs has colors that are beautiful with so much variety in tone and depth. Plus Babs and all of her employees are the nicest people!

I bought 8 ounces of two colors on BFL, Coffee Break and Deep Sea Jellyfish. She has added more colors since the last time I looked; someone hide my credit card.

She has BFL, BFL/silk, Merino, Merino/silk, and Merino/bamboo/silk bases.  Her descriptions say they are roving, but they sure look and feel like top to me.

Her colors are divided into Wild Iris – not repeatable and Babette – repeatable-ish, every braid is a little different.

 

 

Just a pinch

The fiber came very fast (yay!). I have no idea what I want to do with any of the fiber, so I did my most favorite thing. Everyone cheer together – I sampled.

When i have a finite amount of fiber, I strip off a little bit. I used .5 ounce of each color for four samples.

I spun my default yarn – woolen draft, dk-light worsted weight in a 2-ply. I plied each color on itself, I plied them to each other, and I drafted the colors together and plied it on itself.

These are super quick samples, more for color and feel. I ply the samples off of my hand and knit tiny swatches, about 12 stitches.

I just want an idea. If something makes me curious, I would do another bigger sample.

 

Spun up and finished

 

 

Here are my tiny skeins.

Left to right, Coffee Break on itself, Deep Sea Jellyfish on itself, Coffee Break and Deep Sea Jellyfish plied together, and Coffee Break and Deep Sea JellyFish drafted together and plied together.

 

 

 

 

12 stitch swatches

 

My tiny 12-stitch swatches tell me so much.

First off, I do not like the the colors mixed or blended together in any way.

It took this exercise for me to notice that there is a fair amount of dark in the Deep Sea Jellyfish. In my mind it was relentlessly and fabulously just bright pink.

Putting it together with the darker Coffee Break stole the brightness.

Plus, I like them very much plied with themselves.

The Miss Babs team does a great job dyeing. The fiber wan’t compacted at all and there was no dye residue when I finished my yarns.

I already want some more, but first I have to spin these little jewels!

 

 

 

WWW: New Knitty Surprise patterns, glitches in knitting on purpose

Butterbloom by Laura Chau

The Spring+Summer Knitty Surprise went live at the end of last week. Didja see?

Butterbloom is a lovely lace-bottomed short-sleeved sweater with a v-neck, designed by Cosmicpluto, aka Laura Chau. It’s designed in Mrs Crosby’s Train Case, which comes in the wonderful variety of colors Lorna’s Laces is famous for. Which color will you choose?

Rainbow Roads socks by Carolyn Macpherson

And for your tootsies, a beautiful pair of rainbow lace socks knit in Dragon Strings Phoenix Wing Gradient Shimmer. Carolyn Macpherson has created a beautiful bit of prose to go with the pattern too. Don’t miss the introduction.

Our Wiseknit video column this issue is Kate Atherley’s take on Kitchener Stitch for stockinette, reverse stockinette and garter stitches. Kate has some great tips for you as she demonstrates all three techniques.

Don’t forget to check the Cool Stuff page…we add new reviews in every Surprise!

“Digital Knits” by knitting machine manufacturer Stoll

Ever wanted to wear a glitch? Now you can, thanks to knitting machine manufacturing company Stoll. Their Digital Knits line looks like what happens when a PC blows a gasket. Not only do they manufacture the machines, but they have created software that connects designer with the thing. “Stoll–Artwork is a brand new design tool that adds knitwear–specific features to adobe photoshop. ‘Using features like automatic control tools and stitch distortion simulation, to name a few, the system helps the creation of artworks substantially easier for the knitwear designer,’ said Jörg Hartmann, head of Fashion & Technology for Stoll.

Neat.