Mandy Moore's Blog, page 43

WWW: Vogue Live Marketplace Pass giveaway; Tumgluttons; Giant Tea Cosy

Amy & Kate (that’s me!) are both teaching at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC next January, the 15th-17th. We’re giving away two 3-day passes to the marketplace. To win: leave a comment on the post below, by midnight Eastern Time Saturday December 12th. We’ll draw two names, and get in touch. The usual rules apply: winners must answer a skill-testing question, and if you’ve won something from us in the past year, please let someone else have a chance.

Love this: Narrative Threads is a virtual museum of Canadian artifacts, intending to tell stories of Canadian life through everyday items: clothing, household items, treasured mementos. Many of them items are handcrafted. In particular these early 20th-century hand knit trigger mittens – known as “Tumgluttons” – are wonderful.  (In related news, tumglutton is my new favourite word, although I’m more likely to use it to describe the dog than a pair of hand-coverings!)

Author and crafter Mieke Zamora-MacKay has launched an initiative to support women in the Philippine region of Tacloban. This area was hard hit by Typhoon Haiyan in late 2013, and although many parts of life there have returned to normal, many families are still in need of work and livelihoods. Mieke is collecting donations of knitting needles, crochet hooks, yarn, and pre-owned pattern books to be donated to the women of this region. These donations will allow women to create items for sale, to enable them a safe and dignified way of generation incomes for their families. If you have unused materials, you might want to think about donating.

Adorable dogs in knitwear alert: Jan Brown, of Seaburn UK, has established herself as the pre-eminent knitter of greyhound sweaters. She started this as a hobby, and 300+ sweaters later, has turned this into her vocation, raising funds for greyhound rescue organizations around the UK.

Love this: a giant tea cosy, covering an entire tea shop in Bristol.

Fab: Banana Republic “Sweater Print” tote bag. My birthday is coming up, you know. (Kidding!)

Jillian’s Spinning: Brake Band Report – Seine Twine

Seine twine left, carpet warp right

 

I finally got a hold of some seine twine to use as brake band and boy-oh-boy is it different than carpet warp. Just like the carpet warp was tighter twisted and a little more grabby than the chalk line, seine twine is even more sturdy. Seine twine is 6 plies and I didn’t even have to touch it to know how tightly plied it is, the high twist is visible in the spool. Cotton seine twine is used for rug and tapestry warp and a nylon version of seine twine is used to make fishing nets, it’s strong stuff.

 

 

 

Seine twine, left and carpet warp, right.

Beth was absolutely right about seine twine being grabby on the wheel. Even with my varnished Lendrum bobbins I didn’t have to use much tension for the seine twine to grip. If I sat at my wheel and just looked at the loose tension setting on the brake band with seine twine I never would have believed that it have much uptake, but it does and with vigor. It took me a few tries to get the brake band set right. My yarn kept breaking and whipping out of my hand and I kept turning the tension down and down. I like a stronger pull on the wheel, but this was intense.

This isn’t a brake band material to use if you are spinning fine or like a very light pull or uptake.

What have you been experimenting with this week?

WWW: Underappreciated FOs doing good; Canadian PM wears the ‘Gay Sweater’; Knitting Manicure

Love this: The Under-appreciated Finished Object Fundraiser. For the second year running, yarn shop Shall We Knit is hosting a rather wonderful sale. Local knitters bring their unloved finished projects: you know, the things you desperately wanted to knit but for whatever reason don’t seem to wear. A jury of knitters will price the items, taking into account the cost of materials, and all funds raised go to Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region.

Frivolous and fun: cable-knit nails! An excellent knitting-themed manicure. More ideas at the link.

Did you see my review of the Shetland Knitting belt in the Deep Fall issue of Knitty? I’m utterly enamoured of these devices, and I was thrilled to learn that June Hiatt has invited Shetland Master Knitter Hazel Tindall to join her at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC this coming January, to demo the belts, and to participate in Ms. Hiatt’s class and lecture about the supported-needle method of knitting. More info here. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

You may recall me writing about “The Gay Sweater” project earlier this year. The sweater has become an important talisman of the gay rights movement in Canada, and it was taken to Ottawa this summer to go on display as part of a celebration of 10 years of equal marriage rights in Canada. The leader of the Liberal Party and now Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was photographed wearing the sweater.

Image from Tom of Holland website, as linked.

A friend of a friend was recently telling about how she darns her socks: using a mini-mending loom that she had inherited from an elderly relative. I’d never heard of these things, and a little bit of research revealed this: the Speedweve. A tiny loom to aid in mending. Brilliant!

Jillian’s Spinning: Pretty Fiber Pictures – Sheepspot and Happy Fuzzy Yarn

I’ve had my head down over the next issue of Knitty (soon!) and have been mainly just petting my fibers. I’ve had two new ones come to me that are so lovely that I wanted to share the pretty with you.

Sheepspot Coopworth Roving in Amethyst

My Sheepspot November Club is Coopworth Roving. I wish you could feel this. It was so carefully handled through the whole process of processing and dyeing that it feels next to the skin silky. Sasha doesn’t have any in her shop right now, but take a look at her Dorset Down roving. I’m sitting on my hands trying not to buy it.

 

Happy Fuzzy Yarn, 50%Merino/50% Yak top in Crete

You want soft and squishy? This Merino/Yak top from Happy Fuzzy Yarn exactly fits the bill. The colors in this kill me, earthy blues, reds and green with a hint of the natural yak peeking through.

Just looking and touching both of these make me smile. As soon as Winter Knitty goes live they will become yarn!

Black Friday Craftsy Sale!

Craftsy’s Black Friday sale starts today and runs through Monday. Want to learn something new, brush up on technique or, my favorite, just watch and listen to an expert talk about your favorite things? Grab a few classes for yourself!

 

I see Franklin!

 

Here’s what new in fibery classes:

What will you choose?

In full disclosure when you buy from any link on the KnittyBlog, Knitty gets a little bit of money as a thank you for bringing Craftsy business.

 

WWW: What Should I Knit?; On Variegateds; the Izzy Doll

Football player learns to knit, world marvels. I’ll say this: he has good taste in yarn.

Next up in SpaceCadet’s series on yarn colors: Understanding variegateds.

I’m enjoying this fun Twitter account: “WhatShouldIKnit“: it makes suggestions, random combos of projects and yarns and techniques. Silliness ensues.

You should knit a striped Great American Aran Afghan in eyelash yarn.

— What Should I Knit? (@whatshouldiknit) November 24, 2015

Image courtesy The Ottawa Citizen

The Canadian Military is looking to recruit knitters. The Canadian military considers the hand-knit Izzy doll an important part of their kit when they are overseas on peace-keeping missions.

For the past two decades, Canadian soldiers and health care workers have given out more than 1.3 million of the tiny toys to children in worn-torn countries and regions affected by natural disaster.

Organizer and knitter Shirley O’Connell is appealing to the public to make dolls so that they can be given to the thousands of Syrian refugee children who are expected to arrive in Canada by the end of the year.

Want to work in yarn? Ontario-based indigodragonfly is hiring an assistant for their dye studio.

Image from Sweet Paul magazine.

Jillian’s Spinning: When Seine Twine Is Not Seine Twine – Brake Band Report

This week I spun using what I thought was Seine twine as my brake band and it worked spectacularly! But with a little more digging and picking apart the twine, I discovered it’s 8/4 cotton rug warp not Seine twine. I’ve ordered some Seine twine for my experiments.

Cotton warp is second from the left.

This 4-ply cotton warp is not mercerized and tightly twisted. It’s also thinner than the chalk line I was using before, the warp is 18 wpi and the chalk line is 14 wpi. The combination of the tighter twist and that it’s unmercerized made it grabby which I liked.

rug warp

I was talking to Beth Smith about brake band materials and she said she doesn’t like a grabby material for her brake bands. Hmmmm, why could it work for me and not for her? It could just be a matter of preference, but I thought maybe it had to do with our wheels, more specifically our bobbins.

I’ve been spinning on a Lendrum and Beth has been spinning on a Schacht. I looked at the bobbins and sure enough they are different, their finish is different. The Schacht bobbins are treated with oil only, which soaks all the way into the wood leaving them matte and not slippery. The Lendrum bobbins are varnished all the way down into the groove, making them shiny and slipperier. So it makes complete sense that I would like a brake band that grabs since my bobbin is slipperier than a Schacht. I love figuring things out!

Shiny Lendrum on the left, matte Schacht on the right.

Of course this means I’ll have to try all of the different brake bands on my Schacht too.

What have you figured out in your spinning this week?

WWW: On Color; On Failure and Creativity; Legal Advice for Creatives

A profile of “Knitted Knockers of Canada”, a group making hand-knit cotton prosthetics for breast cancer patients and survivors.

Powerful: a BBC magazine piece about a new exhibition at Mount Ida design college in Massachusetts: “Permission to Fail”. By showing the work that happens before the “aha”, the many rough drafts and failures and incomplete attempts that are required to come to a final product or project, the college aims to examine the process of how creativity happens. Too often, when telling the story of inventions or discoveries or art, we focus only on the final version. Creativity is more about all the attempts that come before the final, and learning and growing through that process.

This connects very nicely with friend-of-Knitty Kim Werker’s “Make it Might Ugly” book. The message is all about getting over your perfectionism, getting over the fear of “not good enough” by deliberately challenging yourself to make something ugly – specifically, to make a failure. After all, if the first attempt is ugly, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Amy and Kate will be in NYC this coming January 15-17, teaching at Vogue Knitting Live. Kate’s teaching a slate of sock classes, and a new class: Getting Gauge – in which she aims to demystify the whys and wherefores of gauge: explaining why it matters, when to check it, what to do about it, how to handle it if you can’t match, and when you don’t need to worry about it.  Amy’s teaching her Tuscany lace shawl class, and a fantastically practical short-row bootcamp. Join us!

(And just to tempt you, there’s an earlybird pricing deal on right now!)

From yarn dyer Space Cadet comes this wonderful blog post on color. Specifically, she addresses the frequently-used terms ‘solid’, ‘semi-solid’ and ‘tonal’, explaining what they actually mean, how they are created, and how they work in your knitting.

Not strictly knitting, but very very useful and interesting: an examination of copyright and usage restrictions on sewing patterns. The author, Kiffanie Stahle, is a lawyer, knitter, photographer and creative business owner, and her website and newsletter are full of wonderful resources on legal and business issues for creative types. To quote from her site, Kiffanie is “on a mission to teach creative entrepreneurs that the law doesn’t have to equal scary.” Important stuff.

Jillian’s Spinning: Brake Band Experiment

I’m not a spinner that’s been big into the intricacies of wheel mechanics, but that may be changing. My brake band is driving me crazy.

Right now I’m using my Lendrum and I’m not happy with my brake band. It stretches out quickly and I think it’s just too soft of a cotton to grip well.

So I’ve decided to experiment over the next few weeks. I’ve rounded up several cotton strings and yarns to try out as brake band material. I have cotton chalk line, seine twine, #3 crochet cotton, cotton string and #10 crochet cotton.

L to R: cotton chalk line, seine twine, #3 crochet cotton, cotton string and #10 crochet cotton

Right now, I’m using cotton chalk line, I like it for a drive band, but not for a brake band, it’s not very twisted in the ply and kind of big for the groove in the bobbin. Seine twine is what rug weavers and tapestry weavers use for warp, it’s tightly twisted cotton and a little finer than the chalk line. I’m trying string that I found at the hardware store because why not? It’s a little finer than the chalk line and seine twine. I know lots of spinners that use crochet cotton; I’m trying two different sizes. It’s mercerized cotton so I expect it to slip some, but it’s really twisted and bonus(!) it comes in colors.

L to R: cotton chalk line, seine twine, #3 crochet cotton, cotton string and #10 crochet cotton

Why am I using only cotton? I like cotton, it holds a tight twist and I don’t think it stretches as quickly as polyester strings. But if I’m not happy with any of the cottons, I’ll move on to trying polyester.

I’ll spin some thin and fat yarns, singles and plied, maybe four ounces with each different string. I can’t wait to see what happens.

What do you use for a brake band?

 

Did you see that Esther Rogers a.k.a Jazzturtle has a new Craftsy class? It’s all about fiber prep. I’m watching it this week, so far it’s fab!

Jazzturtle preps fiber to spin wild

Don’t forget that the Craftsy links over on the sidebar will get you 50% off of my, Amy’s and Kate’s Craftsy classes.

Knitty Friday: Learning from your Tech Editor; podcasty goodness

We’ve heard this so many times since launching Knitty in 2002: “Please pass on my thanks to (insert Tech Editor’s name here) for her work on my pattern. It’s so much better than when I submitted it, and I’ve learned a lot from the process.”

Backing up, let’s talk a bit about who our designers are. We do have a few established designers, and some that design for a living. But we also have a variety of people of all levels of experience who have designed something great and send it to us to see if we’ll publish it. Our Tech Editors are women (so far — we haven’t had a male Tech Editor yet) with superior skills in math who also understand handknitting and garment creation in a way that the average knitter might never achieve. They’ve gone out of their way to learn how to convey the creation of some 3D object in words alone so clearly that anyone with an appropriate skill level can reproduce it. It’s really a form of technical writing. And it’s a hard craft to master.

Some, usually most, of our Designers embrace the feedback that they get from their Tech Editors. They answer the Editor’s questions promptly and very often learn from those questions themselves. (“What didn’t I convey clearly enough, so that the Editor had to ask about it? How could I have written this better?”) Some, thankfully not many, don’t make the Tech Editor’s job easier. They fight. They’re sure their way was the right way. They feel that the questions being asked by the Editor are challenges to their skill level. Which is kind of silly. Because just as designing is not my primary skill, I would expect lots of Designers to be not much of a Magazine Editor. It’s okay to be really good at designing, and to allow the Tech Editor to be really good at their job. When Designers and Tech Editors work in harmony, all that results is a much better pattern.

The best Designers are ones who learn from the collaboration. And we’re lucky to have had many of those grace our pages.

I was lucky enough to be interviewed for the official Patreon Podcast, and the result is below! The Knitty part starts about 21 minutes in. There’s stuff about how we started, how we work, how Patreon is affecting our future (hint: for the better). Enjoy!