Mandy Moore's Blog, page 78

WWW:

Looking forward to reading this.

A lovely essay in the New Yorker about the history of knitting in literature, excerpted from the upcoming book “Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting“. Can’t wait to read it!

Friends of Knitty Jill Draper, Cal Patch and Paula Kucera are featured in a beautifully-shot video “Slow Yarn“, discussing the shift towards local yarn, and change in attitudes towards knitting and the materials we knit we. If you’re at work, it’s even worth watching with the sound off for the fantastic scenery and lovely sheep.

Not to stress you out or anything, but now that September is here, it’s time to start thinking about your holiday knitting. There are only 111 days to Christmas…

Sounds like an excellent way to spend an autumn weekend.

News about an exciting new knitting event at the end of the month in Skipton, Yorkshire. Yarndale, to be held September 28th and 29th, will be a festival of creativity celebrating traditional and contemporary crafts using wool, cotton, linen and silk in an area which is still the home of many yarn based businesses.

A non-computable sock?… A joke for a very particular type of nerd (i.e. me ), following up on the articles about the computational model of knitting we posted about recently.

The Royal Navy is seeking knitters to help with a project to make a scarf to wrap around the conning tower of the submarine HMS Alliance.

Jillian’s Spinning: Spinning Slow

Anzula Baby Alpaca

I spin most days. Usually, I spin like hell hounds are at my heels. How fast can I finish? How fast can I get to the next thing? Sometimes I’m forced to spin slow. I have bouts of wicked insomnia.  The kind filled with worry and restlessness, not the kind where I can get up and work. The days after insomnia nights are rough. I’m exhausted, clumsy, sometimes weepy. But I still spin. I spin slowly. As slow as it takes. 2oz in a few hours? It’s OK, that’s 2 oz I didn’t have done before. With spinning I’m able to be kind to myself when I’m having a rough day.  I didn’t sleep much last night, so today I’ll be spinning slowly.

How will you spin today?

WWW: Close Knit Gansey Exhibition, Fibre Flurry with Amy, Real Body Croquis

A typical croquis template.

Love this: Real Body Croquis. Fashion designers and illustrators often use ‘croquis‘ – outline sketches of models – as the basis of their sketches and drawings, and in the design process.  The industry-standard croquis templates have a very “Barbie-doll” like form – tall, skinny and almost entirely unlike real people.  A group of volunteers, led by two young women, has launched an initiative to create and distribute more realistic, more representative croquis templates.  There are all shapes and sizes of women – curvy and not, petite and plus-sized, tall and short. They templates are available for free on their website.  The group is also encouraging everyone to submit photos of themselves to be turned into these templates for others to use.

Realistic, real, and beautiful.

Gorgeous pieces.

Blogger The Knitting Genealogist writes about her visit to the “Close Knit” exhibition at the Hull Maritime Museum, in Hull, U.K. The exhibition features many beautiful ganseys - the traditional British fisherman’s sweater, quite different from the arans we often think of when we the phrase “fisherma’sn sweater” is mentioned. The gansey is a practical garment, designed for everyday wear, with details like easily removable cuffs to be replaced when they wear out. Close-fitting, and worked in fine wool yarns at a tight gauge – usually in greys or blues – these sweaters were worn day-in, day-out by fisherman all around the UK; the lighter-colored ones were saved for Sunday best.

There are many historical examples in the exhibition, as well as contemporary textile and knitwear designs inspired by them. There’s also a collection of 19th century knitting tools. Sounds like a must-see!

A design created by a student on a PUCHKA tour.

A little further afield, Textile/Folk Art Tour company PUCHKA Peru is advertising some upcoming tours. Mixing history, beautiful landscapes and classes and workshops in indigenous Peruvian fiber arts, the tours look absolutely wonderful. A past traveller on one of the tours writes about her experience here. The tapestries created by the students are fantastic, and the in-progress shorts give you a sense of the process and the artistry involved.

Looks like a flurrying-good time!

If you’re in UK or Europe, considering joining Amy Singer, Rock-and-Purl Ruth Garcia-Alcantud, Rachel Coopey, Anniken Allis, Ann Kingstone, Woolly Wormhead and a host of other top-tier teachers in Birmingham this October 26-27th, for the Fibre Flurry. Classes, workshops and a retail fair.

I’m ready!

If you’re in North America that weekend, consider joining Kate Atherley, Fiona Ellis, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Kim McBrien of indigodragonfly, Kim Werker and many others  in Vancouver for the second annual Knit City weekend. Classes, workshops, demonstrations and a retail fair.

The work of our fore-knitters.

Fascinating insights into the knits and knitters of a previous generation: a blogger writes about a set of patterns published in Australia in 1943, with patterns for servicewomen, and works through a very clever pattern for gloves worked on two needles.

Jillian’s Spinning: Yarn Vision and What’s Your Spinzilla Team?

Spunky Eclectic, Polwarth singles

What is a Yarn Vision?

When you sit at your wheel to create yarn do you know what you want to spin?

If you are spinning for something other than just the spin of it, do you know how to get there? Can you see the finished yarn in your mind’s eye, feel it running through your hands as you knit? Can you see the finished project beautifully created from your yarn?

Do you ever take more than a second to think about the yarn you want to make, to use? Even before you sample, before you buy or shop your stash for fiber?

Taking time to really describe the yarn you want to use can be the difference in loving your final yarn and project.

When I express all of the details of a future yarn I call it a Yarn Vision. I do it when I am spinning for a specific project, I do it when I want to learn something new and I do it to stretch my creativity in spinning.

I started doing it because I would spend most of my time just spinning aimlessly and even when I had a project or yarn in mind I would sit at my wheel and hope for the best. Needless to say I was disappointed most of the time!

So now I dream part of the time and plan a bit of the time to make a Yarn Vison and I spin with clearer ideas and intent. I find spin more because my time is better balanced between dreaming and spinning. I also find I spin with more creativity because my best creative moments come from veering from a path (what if I do it the way everyone says you can’t?) or combining paths that I’ve never put together before.

My planning usually consists of asking myself questions.  I love questions, I love lists and I’m a visual person, so my Yarn Vision frequently looks like an explosion of fiber, paper, tags, markers and photos.

 

Briar Rose lofty merino 2-ply

For a project I ask myself:

 What is the project?
 How do I want it to look and feel?
How does it have to hold up, how much friction will it get?
Does it have to be machine washable?
Type of fiber?
Amount of drape?
Smooth, shiny or wooly fuzzy?
Gauge?


Is it for someone?
Do they have favorite colors, fiber allergies?
Do I have all of the measurements I need?


Practicals
What yardage do I need?
How much fiber will I need?
How much for sampling?
Is there a deadline?

Bricolage Studios batt, learning to love yellow

For stretching my creativity spinning I base my yarn on something non-fibery.

A word
A phrase
An idea
An inspiration – book, movie, person
A photo

 

Cjkoho BFL, singles as cables

For learning spinning I pick a skill or challenge, like:

Spin longwool woolen
Spin and knit something to wear with less than 2oz of fiber
Spin 8 oz of fiber worsted
Read a chapter in a spinning book and spin as lessons
Make a color I don’t like work with a color I love

 

How do you envision yarn you’ll spin?

 

 

Spinzilla is coming!

Spinzilla is Coming! Who are you spinning for?

 Spinzilla is a spinning competition that will raise awareness of handspinning and raise money for the Needle Arts Mentoring Program.

Join one of the more than 30 Spinzilla teams and see how much yardage you can spin during Spinning and Weaving Week – October 7-13.

The team that spins the most yarn will win fabulous prizes and have bragging rights until next year.

The Spinzilla teams created by a variety of spinning-related companies – retailers, wholesalers, publishers, etc. can  have a maximum of 25 members each and sign ups end on September 23rd.

How much can you spin in a week?

 

More folks are going to be talking about spinning and Spinzilla on their blogs over the next few weeks. Be sure to check them out!

2013 Spinzilla Blog Tour

8/27 – Jillian Moreno  – That’s Me!– Creating a Yarn Vision: Knowing What Yarn to Spin

9/4 –   Deb Robson – Fast and Easy Wools to Spin

9/11 – Felicia Lo – Spinning Hand Dyed Yarns

9/18 – Beth Smith – Fiber Prep for Production Spinning

9/25 – Sarah Anderson – Twists and Singles

10/2 – Liz Good – Resources for Measuring Yarn

 

 

 

 

WWW: Banned from the Library?; Ricefield Collective Project launch; Knitting and Music Festival

Supporting her family and her chosen lifestyle through craft.

Following up on a story from a few months ago: The Ricefield Collective website is up and running, and hand-knit hat and cowls are available for preorder now. These items are created by members of the Ifugao people, for the Phillipines.  The Ifugao people have traditionally farmed rice terraces, and their income is dropping. The families are being forced to move, away from their homeland.  The objective of the business is to sell their handwork worldwide, to enable the Ifugao people to continue to support themselves and live in the manner they chose.

A knitting group in Northumberland UK has been asked to move their meetings to another location, after others have complained about the noise they make when they meet in their local library, and because their needles could be ‘dangerous’. Although I can’t imagine that the knitters are causing any serious trouble, I do know that any stitch night event I attend does tend to be noisy… and it’s true that I might be tempted to stab someone who interfered with my knitting… .

Singing along while you knit…

Love it: British yarn company Toft Alpaca is hosting what is possibly the first ever Knitting and Music festival, at their farm in Dunchurch, Warwickshire. The event includes a a tour of the alpaca farm, a farm to yarn talk, barbecue and refreshments, and a musical performance by singer-songwriter Lisbee Stainton. Ms. Stainton encourages attendees to knit through her performance! More info and tickets here. Sounds like a great day out!

Not knitting, but adorable: a crocheter makes a new nest for baby birds. Crochet designer Janet Taylor turned a hat into a nest for baby goldcrest birds whose own nest fell out of a tree.

Great hats, and a good cause.

Woolly Wormhead, master hat designer , has published a collection of some of her favorite hat patterns. The book, Hatopia, is being sold to raise funds for the legal support of Mutonia, the artists’ community in which she lives, in Italy. The residents are under serious threat of eviction from the community, and funds are being raised to help fight for their right to remain on the land. You can read the background on the story here.

 

 

WWW: The Computational Model of Knitting; Ontario’s First Mobile Yarn Shop; Knit the Bridge Complete!

Absolutely fascinating: the Computational Model of Knitting. The wiki K2G2, – “krafty knerds and geek girls” – has a marvellous series of posts about “Computational Craft”. The posts examine knitting (and other crafts) from the perspective of computer science. Knitting instructions can be seen as programs, and the motions can be seen as computations – straight needles acting as a LIFO (last in, first out) queue, circular knitting is a FIFO (first in, first out) queue.

As a mathematician, for a long time I’ve drawn parallels between patterns and programming languages, but I’ve never made the leap to seeing the movements that way. Love it.

Part one, part two.

Related: a web designer contemplates parallels between her knitting projects and her professional web design projects. Agree completely: prototyping is critical in both! For web designers, a prototype might be a limited version of the website or application… for knitters… you know what this means, right? A swatch! Or at least a mini version..

Ready for installation…

An update on a story we reported on a while ago: the Knit The Bridge project in Pittsburgh, to cover the Andy Warhol Bridge with knitting… an excellent video report. Some fantastic photos of the complete project on the blog.

What a great event!

Oh to be on the west coast of the US: the weekend of September 13-15, the annual Vashon Island Sheepdog trials are to be held, and this year the event is adding a yarny component: Skacel knitting is sponsoring a fiber arts tent, hosting local yarny vendors, classes and demonstrations. Dogs a knitting: sounds like a perfect day out!

Roving around Ontario…

Following the success of the Yarnover Truck, Kingston, Ontario-based knitter Joan Sharpe has launched the first mobile yarn shop in Eastern Canada, Purlin’ J’s Roving Yarn Company. (Ha!) The truck, ‘Lil’ Dorothy’, named after Joan’s mother, is a former fire service vehicle that has been specially kitted out to carry yarn and related goodies. Joan is a life-long knitter, and she is looking forward to taking the yarn to the knitters, at festivals and events all over Eastern Ontario.

WWW: Extraordinary yarnbombings, Clever Girls on Switch-Boards, Yarny Magazine Covers

Yes, that is life-size. An actual train.

Ok, I know it’s not knitting, but it’s a big enough project that it’s worthy of mention: Yarn-bomber extraordinaire Olek has crocheted an entire four-car locomotive. Yes, that’s right. A train.

Love it!

Also not knitting, but also very cool yarnbombing: Marcy Kraft created “Rubik’s Cubes” for the Children’s Park across from San Diego Convention Center. She installed slipcovers on 30 of the grey concrete seating cubes for Comic-Con this year, and hopes to cover all 60 of them for Comic-Con 2014, next year being the 40th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube puzzle toy.

More about the project and Marcy’s other yarmnbombing efforts – including an excellent giant Etch-a-Sketch board – here.

And matching bikini, naturally.

And then there’s this: a knit Vespa with sidecar.

Over 100 prisoners have been trained to knit and crochet since the program started in 2009.

Both knitting and crocheting, both interesting, and controversial: Brazilian fashion designer Raquel Guimaraesis is employing inmates from a maximum security prison Arisvaldo de Campos Pires to knit her designs for her. In addition to being paid for their work, for every three days of knitting or crochet, an inmate gets one day off their sentence. Those who wish to participate in the program receive training, and their work is check for quality, to ensure it meets the requirements set by the designer. The designer herself has provided training, and works with the participants. The finished items are sold in over 70 stores in Brazil, and around the world.

That should be “Clever girls on Skype…”, maybe?

A blogger in the UK shows off an excellent find of vintage 1950s era Vogue Knitting Magazines. Drool-worthy indeed! I love this ad that was on the back of one of the magazines… Yup, I knit when I’m on the phone, talking on a headset, it’s true.

So cool.

Wow. Danish artist Inge Jacobsen has created yarn replicas of covers of some of the world’s best-known magazines. Combining yarn, cross stitch and embroidery, the pieces are fantastic, and are an invitation to look not just at the subject of the photography, but the photograph itself. More info on the artist’s work on her site, here.

Jillian’s Spinning: Who’s Going to Rhinebeck?

Maybe it’s because the weather where I live is unusually cool for August – it was 73 yesterday. But I feel fall coming.

To a lot of spinners the event that makes our hearts beat faster in the fall is – Rhinebeck, the New York Sheep and Wool Festival.

This year it’s October 19th and 20th, with extra class time on October 17th and 18th.

Who’s going? Where are you staying? What will you buy? The vendor list is up!

My sweater yarn, swatched.

What are you knitting for your Rhinebeck sweater? I’m knitting a cardigan using Ann Budd’s  most excellent  Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters with handspun of course.

 

Are you taking classes? Have you looked at the list? There are lots of spinning classes taught by teachers from all over the county.

Annis knit out of handspun

This year I’m teaching for four days which means I can’t take classes or shop much. Usually, I take a least one half day class, even if it’s something I’ve taken a class in before. There are always new ideas, and new perspectives, plus the classes usually give my shopping new direction.

The half day classes I’m teaching this year are all about knitting with handspun, because that’s what I love.

Straw into Gold: Knitting with Handspun
The Difference a Ply Makes: Choosing the Right Ply for Your Knitting Project
I Like Big Yarn and I Cannot Lie : Spinning Big Lofty Yarn
Square Peg in a Round Hole: Using Your Handspun for Knitting Patterns Written for Commercial Yarn

What are your Rhinebeck plans?

 

 

 

WWW: Help Build indigodragonfly’s Studio; The Sweater Curse Onstage; Late-starting 102-year-old Knitter

Friend of Knitty and yarn dyer to the stars, indigodragonfly, has launched an indiegogo campaign to help them raise the $10,000 needed to build a yarn dying studio. They currently work in the kitchen of their small house, and they need more space to be able to bring us more of their wonderful work.

We love Kim and Ron of indigodragonfly because they use wonderful yarns, produce fantastic colorways, and have the most hilarious color names. It’s not just red; it’s “Don’t wear this on Star Trek”. They have entire series of colorways inspired by pop culture: Buffy, Doctor Who, Firefly, Gilmore Girls… They have a colorway named “Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock”. And needless to say, they do a rather lovely TARDIS, too.

You’ll have seen their work in such Knitty patterns as Aven,

TARDIS!

Little Purls of Wisdom (a special Knitty anniversary colorway!)

“50 Shades of Bazinga; or, When Your Stitch Count is Off, Your Skein is 2 Yards Shorter Than the Pattern, and the Yarn Gods Have Decided Now is the Time for a Needle Malfunction”

To learn more, and to contribute, visit the indiegogo site. Contributors receive special benefits and thank-you gifts, including a limited edition “thank you” colorway. If you’re not familiar with the work of indigodragonfly, visit their site here.

Absolutely stunning.

More royal baby knitting: the Campaign for Wool last week presented Prince Charles with a hand-knit Shetland lace Christening Robe. The work of master Shetland knitter Sandra Manson, it took six weeks to design, and only two weeks (“flat out”!) to knit. A lovely piece on the Jamieson and Smith blog – worth a visit to see photos of Sandra’s other work.

Knitter, theater critic and now playwright.

Dallas theater critic Elaine Liner is launching her one-woman play, The Sweater Curse, at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play interweaves (pun intended) stories, some funny, some bittersweet, about her loves of knitting, great literature (that mentions knitting, like The Odyssey and Macbeth), old movies (in which Bette Davis knits) and men worth knitting for (or not).

The show runs every day, August 1-26 at Sweet/Grassmarket International 4 at the festival.

A charming profile and video about knitter Olive Dodds, who at the ripe old age of 102 is the oldest serving volunteer at Toronto’s East General Hospital. She’s been participating in the knitting club since 1984, making clothes for newborn babies, and knitting dolls that are sold at the hospital gift shop. She credits her knitting with keeping her young… although she didn’t start knitting until she was 80.

I will never tire of these stories: a new attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most knitters knitting simultaneously, this time at the Big Knit 2013 event in Dundee, Scotland, September 8th. 3,100 knitters are needed to break the current standing record. More info here.

Jillian’s Spinning: Sometimes I Just Have to Slow Down

What I’m thinking about

On a recent afternoon my Hansen miniSpinner stopped working. My heart stopped working too. I was rushing some yarn trying to ply as fast as I could – all of the knobs turned to eleven. And my wonderful spinner just powered down. I got on the Hansen Ravelry group and tried all of the things, nothing worked. I emailed Kevin Hansen and he told me lots of things, but the one that stuck is ,” I think your trying to go to fast, dial back the uptake”. I did and it worked.

I love a strong pull when I spin, and I tend to do the same thing in my life, lots of deadlines, lots of pressure on myself, and it backfires in my life just like it did in my spinning. I took up yoga and meditation to help slow down the rest of my life. But I forget.

Now the uptake on my Hansen is set on barely. I think about it like breathing, my wind on is like an exhalation, slow and steady and I’m getting a lot more spinning done. I also have found my way back to my yoga mat and life has become slow and steady again too.  I never failed to be amazed by what spinning teaches me.

 

 

Did you see my review of my Hansen miniSpinner in the latest Knitty? Here it is in case you missed it:

Buy now from Hansen

Hansen miniSpinner

Hansen flyer & WooLee Winder tested

Specs

Weight: approx 4 pounds

Size: 5.5 inches wide, 9 inches long, 9.25 high at highest point of the flyer

Finishes: 9 different wood and mixed wood options.

Comes with:

– your choice of flyer (Hansen or WooLee Winder)

– one jumbo bobbin

– 100-240 VAC universal 12-volt power supply

– foot switch

– 12-volt cigarette lighter adapter

– orifice threader

– carry bag

Price range:

$775-1095 with Hansen flyer

$875-$1175 with WooLee Winder

depending on wood choice

Extra bobbins:

Hansen $35 / WooLee Winder $49-$59

Hansen miniSpinners are almost mythical in the spinning world — have you tried one? Are you going to buy one?

Until about a year ago they were mostly seen in the wild on the west coast since they are made in Port Townsend, Washington. The year I was lucky enough to go to Madrona. They made up almost half of the spinning wheels used by fellow students in my classes. The miniSpinners are slowly making their way east. The last spinning class I took in Michigan, three out of the eighteen wheels were miniSpinners, with one on order.

The miniSpinner comes fully assembled and tested. They even include a little puff of fiber and an orifice threader, so I could just plug it in and spin.

But how does it spin?

For me it spins like a dream, pretty much perfect. I’ve had mine since February and I’ll admit that some of my other wheels are getting a little dusty. I was a little overwhelmed spinning on it at first. Partially because I tried to spin all of the types of yarn I know how to spin simultaneously. Once I relaxed and focused on my default yarn, I really started to enjoy it.

The mechanics of the spinner are pretty simple. There is a foot switch that turns it off and on. It has two settings — tap on/off or deadman switch (take your foot off the switch and it stops the spinner, sort of like a sewing machine foot control). There is a toggle switch to choose S or Z spinning. There is a knob for brake tension and a knob for speed control. The miniSpinner spins with Scotch tension.

Bobbins are easy to change. The back of the spinner opens with the flick of a latch. Slip off the brake band, slide the old bobbin off and the new one on, put the band on and off you go. The bobbins are enormous! Both the Hansen and the WooLee Winder bobbins are the size of jumbo bulky or plying bobbins on other wheels. I’ve spun 10 oz of fiber on a single bobbin and it wasn’t full.

Flyers are easy to change too, in a similar process as the bobbin change. I have both the Hansen flyer and the WooLee Winder flyer. The Hansen flyer works easily. The yarn guides are smooth as silk and easy to move.

I am a fan of the WooLee Winder, but I know some spinners feel like they have less control with it. It works and feels exactly the same as the WooLee Winder on my Schacht. Plying with a WooLee Winder on the miniSpinner is a magical experience: fast, smooth and even.

It took a bit of spinning time to get the right balance of speed and take up on the miniSpinner. I use what feels like a lot less take up on the miniSpinner than I do my other wheels, because it pulls so consistently. Playing with the speed is fun. When I first started, I was spinning with the knob at 9 o’clock (if it were a analog clock) now I’m spinning at 1 or 2 o’clock.

I bought orifice reducers (see below) for spinning finer yarn. They are inexpensive and work great for reducing the vibration that happens when spinning a fine yarn in a big orifice. An amazing thing about the miniSpinner is how quiet it is. I don’t have to turn up the volume on the tv when I’m spinning and I can hold a conversation at a normal level.

Orifice regular size is 5/8″. Insert in photo at right is 1/4″

I love the portability of the miniSpinner. I bought a Zuca bag for mine (see below), the wheelie kind. It holds all of my bobbins and parts and fiber. It also works as a spinning table to hold the miniSpinner as I use it, but any flat surface that’s the right height for your spinning will work, too. When I’m meeting friends at a coffee shop, I put my miniSpinner in a big knitting bag and go.

Bag shown above is the Offhand Designs Marcella

There is an amazing Ravelry group for Hansen miniSpinners. I stalked it before I got mine and have been back frequently with questions. It is all there. The members are passionate spinners and miniSpinner lovers.

There are spinners who claim that using an electric wheel is cheating. Well, it’s still spinning, no cheats. I can say from my own experience that spinning with the miniSpinner has improved my spinning on my non-electric wheels. Really, it has. I can spin faster on my treadle wheels and my worsted style of spinning has become much more consistent and controlled.

The Hansen miniSpinner is worth saving your spinning money for. It is an excellent and well-built spinning machine.