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Carrying Davidson With Me

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I’ve been talking a bit the last few days about Davidson College (my alma mater), which has been on my mind since Michael and I are currently driving our way from Washington, DC to Davidson, NC.  As previously mentioned, we’re going for Michael’s brother’s graduation.

I’ve been talking about how Davidson College played heavily into the designing I do today.  From resources like The Needlecraft Center to the art program at Davidson, this town and college started the transformation from a casual stitcher to fiber-arts professional.  There is, however, one other major thing I’ve taken with me away from Davidson that has been instrumental in leading me where I am today.

My husband.  Michael.

Back then, of course, he was my boyfriend, whom I had been dating for three years.  As a freshly minted graduate, I had an English Degree in hand, a job working for my alma mater (which I was very happy about, as the job market had just plummeted), and a plan to live with Michael and two other friends in a house off campus.  Michael and my friends were all seniors, and a year younger than I.

Early design project that has been revised,
and will be published later in the year.

I found myself with a profusion of free time.  Having no course load and a job that lasted from 9-5, I had evenings free for the first time in my life.  It was amazing. I was doing more spinning than I had ever been able to do, and was knitting and crocheting up a storm.  I quickly tired of other people’s patterns, and began to work patterns of my own.

There was one such time, working on a pair of socks, that I began to write things down, so I could remember what I did for the second sock.  And it was about that time that Michael began to say, “You could make money from that.”

At first, I scoffed at the idea.  There aren’t many entrepreneurs in my immediate family, nor did I run into many people where I lived who ran their own business.  In contrast, Michael’s father has run a successful small business most of Michael’s life.  What seemed inconceivable to me seemed obvious to him.

Michael kept at it, though, asking thoughtful questions and encouraging me to learn enough about the industry to make an informed decision.  It was there
where I began to seriously think about what it would take to be a designer.  I wasn’t ready yet to take the leap, and I had a lot of learning to do, but it was at Davidson that the seeds were planted.

Reminiscing about Davidson

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’m heading to Davidson College (my alma mater) over the weekend for my husband’s graduation.  It’s got me thinking about how my experiences at Davidson have lead me to where I am now, designing knit and crochet.

Yesterday I told you about the Neelecraft Center, my very first LYS.  Today I want to tell you about the second of three things that heavily influenced where I am now.  The first was the Neelecraft Center, and the second would be Davidson’s Arts program.  You see I was an english major and my senior year I had fulfilled most of my general requirements.  That meant I was taking classes mostly toward my major.  As things happened, my first semester Senior year I found myself taking three reading-heavy English classes.  There were weeks where I was reading nearly three books a week, plus associated articles with the text we were studying.

It was right about that time that Lauren Cunningham, one of my close friends and an art major, told me I should take a sculpture class.  (She said this, actually, as we were sharpening pencils for one of her really cool sculptures.)  I was dubious, but a few weeks later we were working on another one of her sculptures and it was so much fun I decided ‘what the heck?’

Sculpture was amazing.  I’ve always liked to create things with my hands, and here I was being given the tools to be able to do that.  I learned how to work with wood, weld with metal, and cast in lost wax.  I got to play with plaster, and best of all, I was constantly incorporating crochet and knitting into my work.

Some of my sculptures were pretty weird.  I made a hand that’s dressed up like a clown – it was made in a rush on an impulse, inspired my the “hand anteaters” my father used to make when I was a child.

I also made a piece titled “Rebellion against the Sampler.”  The piece was inspired partly by the then incipient Crochet Coral Reef Project, partly by scrumbling, and partly by a desire to see just how far I could push crochet.  It inspired some rather visceral reactions from my peer reviewers, including one student who claimed it looked like something out of “Dr. Seuss trying to eat my foot.”  At my professor’s encouragement  I entered it into the student art exhibition, and won second place – beating people who were art majors!  It was the first time it occurred to me that I might actually be good at the sculpture and art thing, instead of just enjoying the heck out if it.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the third things at Davidson that brought me to where I am now.  Stay tuned!

Going back to where it all started…

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Davidson Mascot, the Wildcat

This weekend Michael and I are returning Davidson, NC, the home of our alma mater, Davidson College.  Michael’s brother is graduating, ending an eight-year run of family members attending the school. (His poor parents) Davidson is a small school that nobody really knows about.  If you’ve heard of Davidson you’ve probably heard of either Stephen Curry or free laundry.  In the fiberarts world Davidson is the alma mater of Ann Shayne ’85, better known as one of the co-author’s of Mason-Dixon Knitting, and the blog by the same name.  While I don’t know her personally – she graduated far before I went to Davidson – I’d like to think that some of her coolness rubs off onto me.

I’ve got mixed feelings about going back.  I’ve been told things have changed quite a bit since I was there last (in July 2010) – and I’m nervous to see what has changed, and what has remained as I remember it.  I’m excited though, because Davidson was a major influence on where I am now.

Davidson introduced me to my very first LYS (local yarn store), in the form of The Needlecraft Center, right across the street from the campus.  God bless them.  I was a poor college student who could barely afford the yarn out of their “Discount Drawer.”  Still, the staff took me under their wing, listening to me cry about classes or homesickness, teaching me to push myself to become a better stitcher, and occasionally helping me fix my mistakes.

Elaine McArn is the owner of the Needlecraft Center.  She’s one of the first people who taught me there are different ways of knitting.  She’s also the woman who pointed out I was knitting with entirely twisted stitches – and that just might be the reason that my sweater had a mind of it’s own.

Then there were the knit-nights at The Needlecraft Center.  Happening every other week, I loved to hang out with the group of women there.  I made some really good friends, like Garret Freymann-Weyr, who later helped me get my nanny job working with Sweetness and Light.  I liked seeing what the women in the store were making, what was happening with jobs and relationships and family.

There’s more to the story about the Needlecraft Center, and how it intersected with Davidson, but I’ll have to share that tomorrow, in another post. Stay tuned for part 2!

Highlights from Maryland Sheep and Wool

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Maryland Sheep and Wool happened this past weekend, and Michael and I attended today.  It was my third time going, and Michael’s first. As always it was a feast for the senses.

Buttons at Maryland Sheep and Wool
How do you explain Maryland Sheep and Wool to someone who hasn’t experienced it? To be silly about it, I’ll tell you what I told Michael today.  Maryland Sheep and Wool is where “my people” are.  Every third or fourth person I passed had on hand-made clothing: from socks, shawls and ponchos, to water-bottle holders, hats and fingerless gloves.  It was a joyous sensory overload; here it is not strange to find someone looking closely at how your handmade garment was put together.
We stopped by to see the people competing in the Sheep to Shawl competition.  It’s interesting to see the festival from a non-knitter’s perspective: while I’m looking at the spinners envying their speed, Michael’s wondering what the optimal ratio of spinners to weavers to carders is.  We went through several of the sheep barns, with me explaining to Michael what I knew of different breeds.  We went to go see a sheepdog demo – which was REALLY cool.  Perhaps the highlight of my day was a free talk about social media for farmers (which ended up being pretty helpful even though I’m not a farmer).
There was fair food, and (of course) dozens upon dozens of vendors to look at.  We didn’t nearly get through enough of them, but what we did see was beautiful and inspiring and fun.
This is the thing about Maryland Sheep and Wool: it drives home where are yarn comes from.  It tells a story from the farmer to the consumer of the finished product, and there aren’t many places you can go and be able to do that.

I’m Married – I’m now Jennifer Raymond

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I’m getting back into the swing of things, two weeks after getting married.  I’ve started the process of changing my name, from Jennifer Thomasin Crowley to Jennifer Thomasin Crowley Raymond. No hyphen, just two middle names.  That means for a while it’s going to be a little rough, as all my worksheets, information, etc. change over from Jennifer Crowley to Jennifer Raymond.  So if you see anywhere on the website that I’ve missed, let me know.

I’m still waiting on the pictures from the photographer, but I thought I’d give you a bit of a sneak peek:

It started raining halfway through the rehearsal the night before.

9 Lies and Excuses we Tell Ourselves About Our Yarn Stash

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I made these batts before I knew how to use a drum carder.
I finally admitted to myself that I’m never going to use them.
They are now cat toys – I felted them in the laundry.

I’m in the process of getting organized after the wedding.  This is actually stating it rather mildly – I didn’t realize how many things I’d let go in the last few weeks before the wedding, as small planning details took over much of my brain.  One of the things that has become truly noticeable is how my yarn stash has escapes it’s confines, and is now… well, everywhere.  This is even more of a problem because I have to keep track, and keep separate, stash for designing and personal stash.  I’ve had to confront a few lies and excuses I’ve been telling myself about my stash:

  1. It coordinates with XY&Z, so I should keep it. Some of the time, this is a good reason to hold onto the yarn – especially if you have plans for it.  But if it’s in a weight or fiber that you just don’t use… find a new home for it.  Ravelry has both groups and a stash page for trading or selling yarn you won’t use.  Make use of those resources.  Not familiar with Ravelry?  Then you should take my Ravelry 101 class.
  2. I spun it, thus I must use it. I know the pain of this one, I really do.  But some of the yarns I spun when I was first learning?  I’ll NEVER use.  I didn’t know how to spin what I wanted, so I either spun something too thick, or without enough body.  So, ask yourself some questions: can you give this to someone who will love it?  Can you re-purpose it?  Can you make it into something you can use?  If the answer to all of these is no, it’s time to donate that yarn.  It’s taking up space that could be for something you do use.
  3. But it was such a great deal! This is one point I used to have a lot of problems with.  Now, as a designer, I have an entirely different view about yarn.  But I come from a family of deal – hunters, and that type of upbringing is hard to resist.  Just remember – if you haven’t used it in the past two years, do you really think you are going to use it in the next two years?
  4. I’ll use it someday. Maybe you will.  But if you are like me, the appeal of something new and shiny is better than the yarn that is already in my stash.  Make room for new stuff.  Use it, or (deliberately) loose it.
  5. It’s too nice to make ___ with it. This is one I struggle with.  I have lovely, lovely yarn in my stash, and it’s so beautiful, so wonderful, I can’t find a single pattern that is worthy of it.  A lot of it is my hand-spun  which I have created with such care that I can’t possibly imagine a pattern that will highlight it’s beautify adequately  But I have to realize this: if I don’t ever use it, nobody else will ever see the beautiful hand-spun I made. Or the beautiful yarn that I found.
  6. Everyone has to have a little bit of ___, for emergencies.  This is true to a limited extent.  I recommend to everyone who makes socks to keep a couple of yards of the yarn just in case you have to darn something.  But you don’t need to keep half a skein.  You don’t need three balls of worsted weight black, so you can make eyes on your animals.  A little bit is enough. So save what you need and clear out what you don’t.  You’ll be happier for it.
  7. This dyer is out of business/isn’t available, so I have to keep it! Okay, you can’t get more of it, that is true.  But if you aren’t going to use it, it doesn’t matter how rare of a yarn that it is.  You know what I’m going to say already – be honest with yourself.  Get rid of it if you aren’t going to use it.
  8. I have such fond memories of getting this yarn. Great.  Now make something out of it, so you’ll have fond memories of making something out of it too.  Yarn is meant to be used.
  9. I got it as a gift – I don’t want to insult the person by not keeping it. I actually had a skein of yarn that my now-husband, then boyfriend gave me.  It was acrylic, and he didn’t know better, but it meant the world to me that he thought to buy it for me.  But I’d never use it for something for myself – it just wasn’t what I used.  So I made a quick gift for someone else, and kept a small ball of the leftovers.  I still have that small ball, but now someone else is made happy by what I made.
What things do you keep, even though you don’t use them?  Have you tried to bring down your collection?  How?

Guest Post by Andrea Pagano

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Venezian Handspun Cowl by Andrea

When I put out a call for blog posts, Andrea was one of the first people who responded to me.  I asked Andra to share a little about Turning Points in her knitting life/career, as I see a wedding as a turning point, and since she’s writing for me as I’m participating in my own turning point, it seemed appropriate.
known her through the designers forum of Ravelry, and I’ve enjoyed the designs she’s put out.  My favorite is the Venezian Handspun Cowl.

And now, Andrea:

When Jen told me the inspiration for this guest post, it immediately resonated with me. Turning points is what I am all about, you know, I am your your regular spinning ballerina. As I type these words I stand at a new turning point in my life. This time, I am pursuing a career as a knitwear designer (do new projects always sound so grandiose when you put them to paper?). As it is often the case with these changes, it has been fueled by an innner fire and encouraged by my ever-changing environment: I have been wanting to design clothes, particularly knitwear, for a very long time now. Then, suddenly, my life circumstances changed and I now find myself in throes of unemployment, contemplating a new twist in my path.

I must confess, however, that this is not the first turning point in my life. Rather, I think it has been a succession of turning points big and small. The funny thing about it is that every change of pace has been painful. At every juncture there was loss, and something important was broken, never to be mended. I sometimes thought that life would never be the same.

I was right. Life, in fact, was never again as it had been before. But at every turning point a veil was lifted and a new road was miraculously opened again before me. As I started to walk this new path, the way behind me started to dim, diminish, blur.

So it is then, that I have the impression of having lived may lives, as after every turn I tend to forget the past and look straight ahead. Statistics would have me believe that I might be at the middle point of my life; I can’t but wonder which one is it that we are talking about. The life I now have or the one I had 5 years ago? Or the plan I had envisioned as a young woman, maybe? I’ve been a child, a teen, a woman. I have been a student, a teacher, a salesperson, a subordinate, a boss, an artisan and an artist. I have loved people and lost them, I have met new people to love.

Where are all these other Andreas now? Maybe they have vanished into thin air. Or maybe, should the multiverse really exist, they may all be dancing to their own tune in a different universe. Tempting as it might be, I am more inclined to think that, maybe, they are all here now. Maybe every life I have led is still here somehow within me; every experience, every touch, every smell, an integral part of this person I am today.

Here I stand again, at a new turning point. My life, as seen from above, must show a curious path. How many turns can a line turn before becoming a full circle? I would love see it that way. But right now, the past is blurring again, the road is not yet clear. Standing at this turning point, I breath, and I wait.

Andrea has recently released a new hat pattern.  You should go check it out!

Short Bio


I am an aspiring knitwear designer who loves to make garments and accessories that are colorful and wearable. My aesthetic relates to urban pieces, since I live in one of the world’s megalopolis and that influences me to some extent. However, I like color a lot and I want my pieces to be interesting to make.

The bane of my existence are long, hot summers and my dog Pancho, who is always trying to eat up my stash.


Andrea Pagano
Rav ID: andreapgn
http://pingknits.blogspot.com

Lee Wittenstein: Getting Gauge is Making me Tense

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This isn’t the first time Lee Wittenstein has visited this blog.  Creative brain behind Harper & Figg, she’s created some stunning patterns!  Today, she’ll be talking about an important subject to any knitter: Gauge.
I’ll let her take it away from here:

Go on, admit it. 
You know who you are.  Yes, you in
the back corner.  You don’t always knit a
gauge swatch. Oh, I know.  There are some
of you thinking, “What’s the big deal? I always get gauge.”  Well, bless your hearts!  After many years of knitting and working in
yarn stores I know that there are others of us who do not “always” get
gauge.  And the knitting gods have
punishments in store if you think you do. 
Eventually it will catch up with you. So our first lesson is, knit a gauge swatch.

Even when you do knit a swatch you can have
problems. I have been thinking of this ever since a problem with a pair of mittens–Pinion
from Brooklyn.  These are knitted
sideways, so a mistake in gauge means that the mitten is too long and you can’t
just frog back and shorten it.   I knit a
gauge swatch and I did the first mitten correctly.  And then I knit a second one, defeating
second mitten syndrome. I used the same yarn, needles and pattern.  But my gauge changed.  Not a lot, but enough to make the second
mitten longer than the first. The lesson here–even if you knit a swatch and
got gauge, even if you knit a whole mitten and got gauge–keep checking your gauge.

So along comes LightWaves–a small shawl originally
designed to be knit with worsted-weight yarn. 
Now, shawls and cowls are among my favorite things to knit for many
reasons but one of them is that gauge is usually a non-issue.  Substitute yarn to your heart’s content and,
as long as you like the fabric you are making, you can always knit it a little
longer or a little shorter and voila!  I
wanted to use Noro Silk Garden(NSG) for part of my shawl and a coordinating
solid yarn for the rest.

Reader, I made mistakes. The first one–I didn’t
knit a gauge swatch. In my memory NSG was a light worsted weight yarn.  I dug into the stash and found a skein of an
alpaca/wool blend–a light DK weight.  Perfect.
I knit blithely along until it was time to add the NSG.  (Insert the sound of squealing brakes.)  The Silk Garden was way too heavy.  So I checked the gauge of NSG—4.5 st/inch.  Back to the stash, another yarn.  This time I read the label—4.5 st/inch.  So I cast on but not for a swatch, for the
whole shawl.  Not until a customer at my
LYS said, “That looks kinda stiff for a shawl,” did I realize that to get a
good drapey fabric I would have to knit this yarn at 4 st/inch or even more.
Not a good match for NSG. So the third lesson– read the label and swatch anyway.

To shorten this already very long story, the third
try was a charm. The little shawl is finished and lovely and just what I wanted
it to be.  And I think that all the gauge
rules can be summed up in two words–pay
attention. Read the label, swatch, check your gauge often as you knit.  This should take care of most problems.  But don’t say that out loud.  The knitting gods are always listening.

Check out Lee and her patterns at www.harperandfigg.com.

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