Truth. Goodness. Beauty. Yarn
These last several months have been a whirlwind. Now that Mélodies is out, I’ve had a chance to take a breath, survey, and hopefully reset. I’m a nostalgic and introspective bird by nature; and the culmination of my first capsule collection, a longtime dream, has set me thinking about my knitting journey and my lace …
Some things never get old. Of all the knitting books in my library, Romi Hill’s New Lace Knitting is my absolute favorite; my absolute favorite design from it (and it’s chock-full of beauties) is her Crystal Bay Shawl. I knitted myself one years ago out of some black merino/silk laceweight yarn, playing a white-knuckled game …
Anyone who thinks that birds in their little nests agree has never had chickens. How bad could these little featherballs be? Pretty bad, if last week was any indication. Nothing lasts forever, and inevitably comes the day when the flock has been thinned out by predators, illness, and old age; and it’s time for the …
When SweetGeorgia Yarns announced their Spring Make-Along, I immediately knew what I wanted to make; at some point I realized that I was the only participant daft enough to try for a sweater (in fingering weight, no less!), but amazingly there was no disaster. (Well, there was—a little bit; read on.) I bound off on …
We must have been at Corrie’s house, in the living room, some evening after supper. She was knitting a baby blanket, her favorite project, on the couch or in an armchair; I still remember the constant motion of her wrist (she knit English style and threw the yarn with her right hand) as she talked. …
Sweater knitters are many; but I’m not usually one of them. For one thing, sweaters are expensive—even something as budget-friendly as Wool of the Andes (which, in my view, is like the Costco rotisserie chicken of yarns) will add up when you need 10 balls of it. And then there’s the time commitment; design usually …
The few people who have modeled designs for me know that it is an undertaking not for the faint of heart. I grab an innocent and unsuspecting victim, forcibly drape them in a shawl or festoon them with a hat, and then prod and turn and mutter and mumble and occasionally take a picture. (There’s …
Don’t ask me why, but right now I seem to think it’s a good idea to have a thousand balls of yarn hanging off my work at once. I tend to go through spurts—last winter it was lace projects; right now it’s colorwork of all kinds. Even though Facets has been published for several months, …
Kodama No. 4 is finished! When I took on the project, I set a deadline of December 14; the shawl was bound off two days ago, blocked yesterday, and unpinned today 24 hours ahead of schedule, which means that the total working time (not counting Sundays, where I let the shawl rest) clocks in at …
Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I shall move the world. — Archimedes One of the best ways to scare a knitter or crocheter is to sneak up behind them (while they have yarn and needles/hook in their hands, of course) and yell, “Arthritis!!!”. I (unfortunately) don’t have the most scientific …