Hey Yarnies,
I was busy this morning updating my class list, which can be found HERE. There’s going to be some great classes heading your way this spring, and in the next few weeks keep your eye on my teaching schedule as it starts to fill up.
Hope to see you at the classes.
Michael has a super power, which I don’t talk about often, but is just shy of miraculous. You see, Michael can find free food anywhere. I kid you not.
For example: My senior year, Michael was a junior and studied abroad (well, technically on a ship, but that is another story) and came back home a month before the semester was over. Rather than going home and bumming around, he persuaded his boss at work study to hire him as an intern for a month and a half. Then, he arranged to crash at a friend’s place (and really, let’s be frank, he mostly crashed in my room) while he worked on campus. The only problem? He didn’t have a meal plan, or even a place he could really cook meals, since dorm rooms are short on anything other than a microwave. Instead, he arranged to have various friends bring him sandwiches and wraps from the eating hall for brunch (our school had a rule that if it could fit in a coffee mug, you could take it out of the eating hall. You’d be amazed what you can fit into a coffee mug) and then for dinner, he would find some club or other event that was offering free food (like pizza, pancakes, hamburgers, etc). He managed to keep himself fed (and even gain a little weight) this way.
Nowadays, this manifests in Michael’s work network. You see, he has people at work who owe him favors or want to ensure that their computers get taken care of quickly. So they “bribe” Michael by inviting him to eat the leftovers from various luncheons, breakfasts, or other events. Most days Michael ends up bringing his packed lunch home because he’s managed to fill up on free bagels, cookies, sandwiches, cupcakes, and other sundry items.
It truly is a super power.
This past weekend I had a great time teaching my Dress Forms and Sweater Design class at A Tangled Skein. Despite the snow we had a really great turnout.
Dress Forms and Sweater Design is one of my favorite classes to teach, for a variety of reasons. First, it’s completely different than a lot of my other skill-based or project-based classes. It runs completely different than them, and it’s a refreshing change of pace.
Second, and perhaps even more important to me, is the type of students that like to take the class. While skill levels vary, most students take this class because they have a genuine curiosity about how knit, crochet, and even sewing work when put on a body. They are interested in more than just following a pattern. They are interested in WHY a pattern works the way it does, and want to be able to think critically about their knitting and crochet. It’s a great attitude.
But my most favorite part about the class? The way everyone looks halfway through. About half superhero and half avant-guard runway model. There’s no way not to laugh when everyone is in that state.
Thanks guys for heading out to Tangled Skein despite the snow. I look forward to seeing ya’ll again.
Hot off the press, a cowl design for Yellowfarm.
Yellowfarm is a small but vibrant farm and yarn business back from my hometown Guilderland, NY (technically, they’re from Altamont, but Guilderland and Altamont are practically the same place). They grow Wensleydale and American Teeswater long wool sheep. Both breeds are know for their beautiful silky lock structure, which simply can’t be ignored.
Yellowfarm will be featuring this cowl design when they head to Vogue Knitting in NY, NY, and I will be releasing the pattern sometime this spring.
This versatile cowl can be used as both a button-up scarflet or a cowl, and uses thrumming and entrelac. But instead of thrumming to the inside of your piece (which creates some of the warmest mittens you have ever seen), the thrums go to the outside of the work, creating a distinctive pattern.
Working with Yellowfarm was truely a pleasure, and I hope to do it again in the future. Thanks guys for letting me work with your beautiful wool! Good luck at Vogue!
PS: Recognize the model? It’s Ellie again, being a great trooper as I pushed her around on a cold winter day.
Many people come into the yarn store where I work, and will say it’s their first time knitting or crocheting and they want to make a scarf. I always try to steer them away from this.
Why?
Because a scarf takes a long time. And especially if you are doing a garter stitch scarf or a scarf in single crochet, after the first 8-10″, you’ve got knitting/single crochet down. Now you are going to be working that same stitch for at least another 50″. Chances are you want to move beyond that one stitch. Maybe learn to purl, double crochet, increase or decrease. You start loosing interest. And there, that scarf languishes. You might even give up knitting or crochet altogether.
Please don’t do this to yourself. It would be like a person who went into a weight loss program saying they needed to loose 100 lbs. Well, you might want to loose 100 lbs, but chances are you are going to focus on more attainable, small term goals. Perhaps just the first 5 lbs.
In a similar way, give yourself a more attainable goal. Perhaps you’d like to make a pair of finger-less mitts. Or a cowl. Here’s a list of a few different projects you can do easily, as a beginner, and still get satisfaction from completing a project.
A shopping bag made out of squares.
A Pair of slippers. – they fold up really easily, and then you just whip stitch them up the sides.
A knitted bunny pattern – made of squares.
A garter stitch kitty made out of squares.
A teddy bear made of squares.
Good luck learning, and may you set some accomplish-able goals!
Every once and a while, I come across something really cool, and I feel the need to share it. About a week and a half ago, though Jennifer, of the Magpie Knitter, I met Trisha Paetsch. She was looking for someone to review her pattern. As someone who always loves to see what other designers are doing I was interested in taking a look at the pattern. And then, I found out that the pattern was about hats.
Seriously. I love hats. (Michael, my fiance, and I have a huge collection of hats. Standard rule in our household… you play a boardgame, you wear a hat. We can have more than 25 people over to play games with us, and not run out of hats. We love hats.)
So I was a little biased going into the pattern, because I really love hats. But I will also say that because I love hats, I’m rather picky about my hats. I want them to have nice shaping. I want them to be finished well. I want them to be stylish and functional. I became a little worried after I got the pattern from Trisha. What if her patterns didn’t match up with my expectations?
Let me break the suspense here, Trisha delivers a solid set of hat patterns in Grande Prairie Hats. The pattern is constructed as a narrative of several lovely ladies going out and getting photographed in their hats. And what hats they have! There’s a little something for everyone. Now, while I will admit, not all the hats are to my taste. I’m not too fond of the wide headbands that are featured (Bregdan and Leanne). They’re lovely, the color choice is great, and they’re definitely something say, my sister or mother would wear, but I like something that covers my head. However, the details and the color choices and both are lovely.
And that’s fine, because she also has some lovely traditional(ish) style hats, like Frippery or Frivolity. Much more my type of thing. Trisha also includes a few types of beanies to round the number of patterns out. There’s also a really cute, solid mitten pattern that you get in the ebook.
The only drawback is the document is rather large if you want to print it off in it’s entirety. It’s 35 pages, and parts of it are rather picture heavy. That isn’t necessarily a drawback because I can select which pages I want to print out, but as someone who (aims, but admittedly doesn’t always achieve to have) prefers a a few carefully chosen pictures instead of a bunch, it wasn’t necessarily my thing. But if you are the type of person who likes to see a project you are doing from every single angle, Tracy definitely delivers.
One of the parts I like the most about the ebook is actually all the finishing details Tracy includes. Part of the reason I like her hats so much (especially Frippery and Frivolity) is because of the details used to finish the hats with feathers and other little bits and bobs. Tracy walks you through finishing your own hat, and the details and decisions you make in regards to that.
Overall, I would say Tracy’s Grande Prairie Hats is a very solid new release, and I would encourage you to go purchase the book, or the individual patterns. I think you’ll get your money’s worth.
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| Cookies and engagement rings make the best combination, I think. |
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| I was using Ellie and her dog, JoJo to take some test shots. They turned out remarkably well. |
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| Interestingly, it takes a longer time for adults to relax in front of a camera than children. It took Rob accidentally shoving a cookie in Ellie’s mouth to make them stiff. |
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| Hey, I got to also play around and take some more artistic shots. It was a win-win. |
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| Rob threatening the to-be-photoshopped in dinosaur. |
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| Running from a dinosaur. Not a t-rex, but perhaps some other type of theropod. I was informed that the dinosaur we see most often portrayed as a T-rex is often another type of theropd. I’m sure I’m spelling theropod wrong. |
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| Another lesson learned, if I change my settings, change them back. But not before this happy accidental shot happens. |
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| Ahhhhh! Theropod! |
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Things learned from this photoshoot: Happy accidents happen. Get people to do silly things. Get people to relax. Adults may perhaps he harder than children to work with. Ellie and Rob are really cute together. | |||
| Cuteness. |
When I went with my grandmother on a cruise about a month ago, I created a list of things to do for Michael (now my fiancee!). It went a little like this (edited for brevity):
Michael immidately looked at it and asked if it was an ordered list… ie, did you have to do one thing before you went on to the other. He then made note that some of the things were contingent upon other, while others were not. Could he race through the list and get everything done right away? And on and on. Clearly I needed to take a programing class so I knew how to make lists correctly. *rolls eyes* Apparently an “amalgamation of thoughts” is not a list.
So, this is a non-ordered list, with things not contingent upon previous things getting done. Instead, it is a list of thoughts for today.
So what are ya’ll up to today? Got any thoughts to put out there?
I’m excited to announce that Michael, my boyfriend, is now my fiance (that’s the fifth time I’ve introduced him as such, and while it’s rather silly, I’m going with it).
He proposed at Camp Chimney Corners (it’s in the Berkshires of MA) while we were walking around Smith Pond. It was very romantic.
I’m pretty razzed about it, but I’ll try not to talk about it too much.
In other news, I’m in the process of submitting a few new designs to magazines. I’ll let you know when I can tell you more, and there’s some sneak peaks forthcoming!
If someone had told me two years ago that I would be teaching a class on style, I would have laughed at them outright. What did I know about style? I’d just graduated from college, was working for my college’s theater department and spent nearly every day in a t-shirt and jeans, and most of them had glue, paint or bleach stains on them. I was happy having my knitting and crochet just being a hobby rather than a career, and I thought more about comfort than fashion.
Style was something I couldn’t be bothered following. It was something that happened on runways, and only peripherally affected me. But after a flurry of changes that resulted in me moving to Washington, DC to follow my boyfriend, I found part time employment teaching knit and crochet, and for the first time in my life, it occurred to me that what I loved doing might actually be able to be my career. As I explored this potential career I began thinking about what I could offer to my students, and what expertise I could use to set myself apart. I attended a women’s wellness retreat in Becket, MA, as part of a process of defining where I wanted to take my burgeoning teaching career. While there, I attended some classes by Julie Foley, Style Consultant from the Boston area. I wasn’t sure exactly what I could get out of it, but if nothing else felt that I might be able to learn something about presenting myself in job interviews.
This class was a revelation. For the first time, Julie enlightened me to the fact that style wasn’t this undefinable concept and rather a diverse theory of different types and categories. It wasn’t only what people on runways were doing, style was the choices I made everyday when I picked out clothing. I was already working my own type of style, it was just very different than the types of styles I saw in the media. She helped her students understand how we fit in those categories, and how one could mix up their styles through the course of a week, so long as you keep in mind what you are dressing for – and why.
I left the class with a new understanding of both the theory of style, as well as my own renewed sense of it, and in the following weeks I realized that these categories could be applied to knitters and crocheters as well. This information could help the crafter choose the right pattern for their own sense of style, so one doesn’t end up with something that doesn’t make them happy. I began working closely with Julie Foley, creating a series of classes that utilized the style and fit information she taught in her classes. I feel it’s important when a person is working on something that it be what they want, and I want to help people get there.
In the Stitching and Style class at the Tangled Skein, I’ll be taking may of these concepts and giving students the tools to integrate crafting with their own wardrobe. The class features a lesson on style, and working style into knit and crochet. It then moves on to the practical aspects of making a sweater, from yarn choice, to fit, to adjusting the pattern so it fits the wearer uniquely. We will learn about how our measurements affect how a garment fits, and how to use knit and crochet techniques to make the garment look just perfect.
