Mandy Moore's Blog, page 90
October 18, 2012
Obsessing on Project Bags & a Madbird Giveaway!
I’ve been a knitter, off and on, for 20-some years and have only recently started using project bags. Of course, now I have bunches and I love them all.
Before I used project bags I used plastic zip bags, which would tear, needles would poke through and I always stuffed them too full to zip closed.
A small selection of my current project bags.
Project bags are fun. They come in bunches of patterns and sizes. They stay closed. Best of all they somehow make a pile of UFOs, like the one above, seem downright happy. I always felt such accusation from plastic zip bags.
I can also tag them.
Project tag on a project bag
Name of the project, needles size, anything I need to know to grab the right bag. Another use for tags that I love, too.
For your own project bag obsession, we have a giveaway from Madbird.
Project Tote from Madbird
A Project Tote, gorgeous, no? I reviewed it in this current issue.
Alecia at Madbird has donated a Project Tote for a giveaway, winner’s choice of in-stock fabrics.
Prize value $34.
You know how it works: leave a comment on this post between now and midnight eastern time,October 22nd. One comment will be chosen at random to answer a skill testing question. If the commenter answers correctly they will win the prize. If you have already won a prize from us in the past year, please do give other knitters a chance.
October 17, 2012
WWW: Mulberry promotes the value of craft; the next generation; Nordic knitting eye-candy
You might recall us telling you about the Nordic Knitting Conference held earlier this month in Ballard, WA. A fab slideshow and report on the event. If this doesn’t put you in the mood to knit mittens, nothing will…
It’s great to see the work valued so highly.
As part of the Wool Week festivities in the UK last week, fashion label Mulberry launched a new item for the new season: a handknitted chunky scarf. What makes it special is that they have recruited knitters in the UK to make the scarves. I adore the video of interviews with some of the knitters who are doing the work: “they’re fairly easy to knit.. until you get to the pattern.” I want to hug these women.
Although the price of the scarf might seem absurd on one hand (£995), on the other hand, it’s good to see craft valued so highly, and I love that Mulberry is making their market aware of the work and love that goes into creating the items.
From the sheep to your needles
Terrible pun of the week: “Kath raises the baa with her wool”… a nice profile of knitter Kath Foster who, when forced to give up her career as a dental nurse, turned to raising sheep. Her business, Little Houndales Knits, is thriving, selling her own wool and other knitterly goodies.
The next generation
An 11-year-old boy in Vancouver, Canada, has received a grant to teach yarnbombing workshops in his neighborhood.Nathan Coburn has been crafting since he learned origami at the age of 6, although he picked up knitting 2 years ago when he read about yarnbombing: “I like how I can do something illegal and still get away with it.”
In addition to running workshops, he has a knitting blog, and he sells his work at his school, through his blog and at a lemonade stand in front of his home.
Quick Hits: It’s a DailyMail link, be warned, but I LOVE the sweater that UK TV personality Fearne Cotton is wearing in these pictures. Great yarn-bombing in Birmingham, Michigan. A yarn-bombed bike goes on display at Cambridge University.
October 16, 2012
Spinning Tuesdays: Enough Yarn for a Sweater
Finally I’ve spun and plied enough yarn for a sweater!
Southern Cross Fibres Falkland, color: Dirt.
This is about 1,000 yards of 13 w.p.i (DK-ish) Falkland 2-ply. There is 200 or so more yards on the ends of bobbins, still to be plied.
This is the first sweater’s worth I’ve ever spun, and it certainly won’t be the last.
I love the bits of blue.
I have pulled together enough fiber for three more sweaters from the stash – two will be mixy matchy, one is natural colored Bond fiber. This one is going to be Tappen Zee, one of the others will be a version of Party Mix.
I’m hooked and can’t wait to set these skeins and start knitting. It’s a good thing I’m not going to Rhinebeck this weekend or I would come home with many, many sweaters to spin and knit.
To all of my fiber friends heading to Rhinebeck travel safely, take lots of pictures, buy lots of fiber and hug each other for me!
October 12, 2012
10th Anniversary Issue: WIPs & FOs
I must confess: I love stalking the patterns from the latest issue on Ravelry.
Pauline and her BFF
liznight‘s fabulous Mr. Bluejeans
Love it!
kaete‘s Emmisha-Jay‘s hats – knitted for twins!
What a great baby gift!
teresat2t‘s beautiful – and beautifully photographed – Geschenk shawl.
Lovely.
Ruatha‘s Call Me Al socks.
Genius yarn choice.
onlylouise‘s perfect rainbow Stitch Surfer socks.
Can’t argue with those!
Practical.
October 10, 2012
WWW: Wool Weeks, 1800 ft Scarf, I Love Yarn Day
The winner of our Springtree Road Navarre sock yarn giveaway is Diana from Massachusetts. Thanks to Maya of Springtree Road for the prize.
There is so much to love in this story: Mrs. Thomas, a knitter in Shropshire, UK, has completed a project to knit a 1,749ft scarf to stretch across a local beauty spot. The slideshow is tremendous – I particularly love the shot of the rolled up lengths of scarf. Insane!
The scarf was designed to bridge the chasm in Titterstone’s Clee Hill, a hill that was divided in two in the 1850s when it was mined and quarried for coal. The scarf is the first time that the chasm has been bridged since then.
The project took 18 months, and knitting groups from across the UK contributed.
I wish I could be there!
Our own Amy is in the UK at the moment, and she’s speaking Sunday October 21st at Armley Mills, Leeds Industrial Museum, as part of the Yorkshire Wool Week festivities. Tickets are still available, but they are going fast.
Yes, yes I do.
This Friday, October 12, the Craft Yarn Council of America’s official “I Love Yarn Day“. (I have to be honest, I celebrate this particular holiday every day of the year.)
A fun video of the team at Toronto LYS Lettuce Knit yarnbombing their fence. I enjoyed the befuddled looks on the faces of the passersby.
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We are very pro-wool.
This week is Shetland Wool Week, part of the ongoing Campaign for Wool. Wool Week in the UK is marked next week. There are Wool Weeks in many countries around the world, but sadly not in Canada. I’m thinking we should start our own…
Celebrity knitter alert! Lauren Conrad is making a scarf for her boyfriend.
Love!
If you’re heading to Rhinebeck, and you’re not sure your sweater will be done in time, consider this t-shirt…
October 9, 2012
Spinning Tuesdays: It’s a Party (Mix)
Julia Farwell-Clay designed a spectacular sweater especially for handspun for this issue of Knittyspin.
Party Mix – All handspun
Party Mix is a lovely sweater and could be the ultimate stash busting sweater. Especially since most spinners buy dyed fiber in similar colorways. I know I do – anyone need purple/brown colored fiber?
Party Mix was an instant hit, lots of spinners are making it. Even non-spinners are knitting it. Two of my spinning gang started it last week, and I’m plotting one.
Party Mix – handspun plus Cascade 220
Julia wrote about her spinning and design process on her blog, Moth Heaven. I love how her brain works when she writes about design. I also love that she gave us two versions of the sweater, all Spunky Eclectic handspun and handspun plus Cascade 220.
I know my stash holds the makings of a gorgeous Party Mix , I have to finish something (anything) before I start on my Party Mix. I do know I’ll be making it into a cardigan and don’t know yet if it will be all handspun or handspun and millspun. So many options!
Have you started your Party Mix? All handspun or handspun+millspun? Planning one? Finished already and wearing it to Rhinebeck?
October 8, 2012
Yarn in the Barn
I ran away this past weekend. Two of my fellow fiber fanatics and I drove across the state of Michigan to hug people and buy pottery and yarn.
Chris Roosien of Briar Rose Fiber had her first (we hope, annual) Yarn in the Barn celebration. A knitting celebration featuring Anne Hansen teaching and a few artists, fiber and otherwise selling things.
The three of us aren’t going to Rhinebeck this year, so this was our fiber fun for the the fall.
There was a barn, for real:
Barn for Yarn
We ran into Chris right away:
Dying genius, Chris Roosien
Some lucky knitter is going to make a throw out of that gorgeous yarn Chris is holding.
There was a special guest star all the way from Minnesota:
Jennie the Potter taking a break from making Knitty Anniversary mugs.
Yes, she has a bunch of new stuff for Rhinebeck, she didn’t sell it all here.
We shopped:
Briar Rose yarn brings the love.
My wee haul. That is a crappy iPhone photo, the colors that look pink are really fabby lipstick red and the bluish looking skein is really indigo and a purple just as rich and deep.
One skein of Glory Days and two skeins of Peaceful.
I bought yarn for two shawls and a skein just because the colors were so beautiful (the indio/purple one). One shawl is the fault of the Empress of the Enablers, Karen from Shall We Knit. She waltzes in from Ontario wearing a Bolting that she finished on the drive down and steam blocked in her room the night before (go knitters!). I fell down, hard. I bought the yarn in the barn, bought the pattern on my phone, wound the yarn in the car and swatched the whole way home.
As son as I got home, I cast on and started.
A red, red Bolting for me.
A perfect Fall outing!
Are you going to Rhinebeck or are you making your own fall fun?
October 4, 2012
I Like Hand-Knit Socks. And Sock Knitting. And Especially Sock Yarn. Want Some? Springtree Road Giveaway
I guess it qualifies as an obsession.
My sock drawer is overflowing.
15+ years of sock knitting….
My sock yarn stash is an embarrassment of riches.
Spot the soon-to-be Halloween and Christmas socks. The Halloween yarn is from The Amy Lee show.
And I have a disturbing number of sets of 2.25 and 2.5mn DPNs and long circulars.
This doesn’t even include the needles in the 4 sock projects I have on the go right now…
Still, there are worse addictions to have. My feet are never cold, and there’s no gluten, caffeine or sugar in sock yarn. There are no calories or trans fats or artificial sweeteners. Sock yarn doesn’t rot my teeth or damage my health or keep me up at night. (Ooh… actually, that one might not be true.) And there are more expensive collections to have. Guitars, A/V equipment, golfing equipment, skis. And there are hobbies that require more space: gardening, motorcycles, cars.
But still, I do sometimes worry that I have too many hand knit socks, or I buy too much sock yarn… but then I fall in love with something like this…
Springtree Raod Navarre Sock Yarn, mmmmmmmm!
We have a sock yarn giveaway! Three skeins of Springtree Road Navarre sock yarn to make whatever your sock yarn loving heart desires.
Navarre sock yarn is 75% Superwash Bluefaced Leicester/25% nylon, 460 yards/420 meters, 4-ply, fingering weight yarn.
One winner will win all three skeins, colors are Corinth, Leafy and Ttanis. Prize value $78.
You know how it works: leave a comment on this post between now and midnight eastern time,October 8th. One comment will be chosen at random to answer a skill testing question. If the commenter answers correctly they will win the prize. If you have already won a prize from us in the past year, please do give other knitters a chance.
Thanks to Maya at Springtree Road for providing this giveaway!
October 3, 2012
WWW: Prehistoric beasts, Escher Knits, NYC Wool-storming
Sheep grazing in the park. Image courtesy the Fox News magazine website.
10 Reasons Why Wool is Wonderful! A nice piece on the Fox News Magazine website, with lots of great photographs of the wool-storming of NYC’s Bryant Park last week.
And a slide show of woolly photos from the event on the CBS website.
I must confess that after reading the headline I was expecting a slightly different story, but it’s still cool anyway: Knitting yarn made from a prehistoric beast. It’s about Qiviuk (or Qiviut, the spellings vary), the rather fabulous yarn spun from the hair of the musk ox.
Wow. Just wow.
This makes my knitting-mathematician heart beat very much faster: a wrap inspired by M. C. Esher‘s Koi design. It’s a fabulous and challenging work… as the designer says, if you “consider yourself a fairly experienced knitter and are in the mood for a very detailed, delicate and somewhat different knit”… but even if you’re not up for actually knitting it, it’s breathtaking to look at.
Le Collectif France Tricot, in action.
A really excellent slideshow of the work of a French yarnbombing collective, Le Collectif France Tricot, as seen on the blog of the Marie Claire Idees magazine. There’s some knitting, some crochet, and it’s all fabulous!
The tram was so late that there was time for a yarnbombing? Yarnbombs are usually more decorative. This time, the Edinburgh artist chose to send a message…
A vintage clothing shop offers a few styling suggestions for sweaters…
October 2, 2012
Spinning Tuesdays: Stumbling Over A Targhee Cowl
Sweet Grass Wool Targhee fiber
I spun my Targhee, fat and wooly. This bump had been marinating in my stash for mumble-mumble years and the shake and spin method didn’t work, since it was a little compacted. I split it lengthwise and fluffed it horizontally from tip to tip. Let me say that while I rarely attenuate my fiber before spinning I love to open it up by lightly pulling it horizontally. While I do this, I look for any vm, or lumps and get to know the color progression of a dyed roving or top.
Targhee yarn
My gorgeous Targhee fiber became chunky two-ply. A little more than 5 ounces became 60 yards of, 3-4 wpi, 2 ply. I set the yarn with a hot soak and it plumped up in the magicall way that Targhee (and Cormo) does. It changed almost a a whole wrap with the plumping – it was 4-5 wpi before setting and 3-4 wpi after.
Targhee Swatch
I did a little swatching. It came in at 1.5 stitches per inch on US 17 needles. I love how the big stitches look and the gigantic cable, but I didn’t love knitting with the 17s. They felt awkward and gave my hands cramps.
And the failed Targhee cowl
I fell in pattern lust with a couple stitch patterns put together and just started knitting, a fat cable and coin cables that would double as buttonholes. It’s a cowl, what could go wrong? And the knitting goddess said “Fail!”.
It’s too short, really too short, and maybe a little too wide. Back to the knitting drawing board and those size 17 needles.
What has gone wrong lately in your spinning or knitting?
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