The last couple of weeks have been an epic speed-knitting marathon for me, which should mean that I have lots to show today; problem is, I can’t actually show it to you yet. One of the wacky things about working in the knitting industry is that everything is done 9-12 months ahead of time, which …
Kind of Like Fruitcake
It’s quirky. It’s chaotic. It’s associated with grandmothers and great-aunts, and it’s festive. I am talking about fruitcake, of course; but my holiday knitting and crocheting bears some resemblance. It’s been a hectic month of crafting, even by my standards. Despite my festive delusions of working on potential Christmas gifts all year long, it just …
July Show-and-Tell
Despite the fact that it seems to barely get squeezed in around the more important parts of life (laundry! vacuuming! puppy training!), quite a lot of knitting has been happening hereabouts and it’s time for an update! The Tourist Shawl is progressing nicely, in spite of only coming out for an hour or two a …
Something Fresh
No, I have not been recruited to nab a rare Egyptian scarab from the collection of an absent-minded English Earl; but I am indeed trying something completely new to me. I’ve been hearing about brioche knitting for many years, even before entering the knitting industry. Most of the projects I ran across in those early …
Summer Forecast
As hard as it is to believe (well, for me, at any rate), summer is almost here. However, as it isn’t here yet, this is what we’ll call an extended forecast, and as such is subject to change (like when you check your handy-dandy radar app and it says “Rain in 204 minutes”—ask me how …
Ammonite
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 …
Not One, But Two!
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 …
Colorwork Frenzy
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, …
Facets Joy
If you go to my Ruth Nguyen designer page on Ravelry, you’ll see that the Facets Cowl is my most popular pattern. The design was published just over 3 months ago, and truth be told that was an accident (a happy one; that’s another story!). But that means that today I get to show off …