Knitting – Page 10 – Fallingblog

Sometimes the Mountain climbs you

You’ve probably heard a lot in the past week about the My Mountain contest I’m a finalist in. The prize is a feature on Schachenmayr’s website, a Ravelry ad, and an iPad Mini.

Last night, my wife and I had a conversation. She said, “Why do you care so much about winning this contest?” I said, among other things, “because I want to see one of the hats that does something really interesting and unique with their yarn get recognition … and I could use the publicity”.

The contest started out as “one vote per person”. Then, “one vote per person per IP”, because they couldn’t keep people from voting twice using multiple machines. Finally, they changed it to “one vote per person per IP per day”. When SMC made this last change to the rules, this contest became something different from its intended goal. Originally, it was a contest at least partially based on the merit of the design — sure, people with larger/more active social networks and/or smartphones would be able to get more votes, but people whose designs were interesting and innovative would still have a fighting chance. Now, the contest is unfairly skewed toward people who have large and loyal followings — the very people who don’t need to win. Now I’m not saying that I need to win — after all, I’m ostensibly a successful designer in my own right — but I feel like most of the other hats that are truly creative and unique are not getting the votes they deserve.

Perhaps this is because, like me, their creators spend time being creative and unique people, and don’t spend as much time being social butterflies. Unlike me, they probably realized they weren’t going to be able to compete on this playing field a while ago and just let the votes fall where they may. But when one person can add 200+ votes to their total in a matter of hours while the rest of us are asleep, I cannot hope to compete. Also, I found myself in the unenviable position of competing with someone who I consider a friend, and if I can help him win by letting myself fall behind, then that is the better part of valor.

My conversation with my wife ended with a realization and a resolve — not to double-down on my vote-whoring, but to back off. The contest is not about who has the best hat anymore. It’s about who’s able to get Schachenmayr the most Likes on Facebook, and who’s able to keep their vast networks engaged long enough without alienating their followers. I barely post on FB and Twitter. I don’t even make one blog post per month! I am clearly not going to be winning this one.

The other part of the conversation was to ask myself what’s really important to me? Is it to spend the week worrying about a silly game? Or would I be better served by working on my many unfinished knitting projects? Do I want to be a prolific knitwear designer, constantly jumping from contract to contract, deadline to deadline? Or do I want to continue developing techniques and working on new patterns in pursuit of an eventual second book? The answers are fairly obvious, if you know anything about me.

All that said, I’m going to stop with the daily posts and go back to my usual periodic updates. If by some magic I win anyway, I’ll be happy but I’m not going to hold my breath. All I ask is that you vote for the hats — not just the people — you want to win, because only by rewarding unique and creative knitting will you get more unique and creative knitting.

On mountains, and the sad lack thereof in Boston.

On Saturday, I was honored to be chosen as one of the 18 semifinalists in SMC’s “My Mountain” contest for the hat I designed earlier this summer. As a semifinalist, I now need to write up a pattern and send it — as well as the hat itself — in for eventual publishing (and yes, I do get paid for this). I guess it’s time this hat had a name. Thinking back to my childhood in Vermont, I have many mountains in memory, but I’d like to honor one that gets overlooked because it’s small and doesn’t have a ski area on it. But I remember it well from many happy childhood days swimming in the lake at its base, and hiking to the waterfalls along its slopes. So we’ll give this whimsical hat a whimsical name. Hat, I dub thee “Moosalamoo”.

So please, do me and Moosalamoo a favor, and vote for it at the My Mountain contest page. The contest is run through Facebook, but I know of some folks who have voted without Facebook accounts, so never fear! Please also ask your friends and loved ones to vote for me — it doesn’t cost, and it could help me out greatly. I had previously been under the impression that folks would be allowed to vote once per day (like many other similar contests) but actually you can vote for any number of hats but only once per IP (basically, per individual computer) in an attempt to keep people voting only once per person.

Working on Moosalamoo Prototype — At the base of Moosalamoo, so to speak

The story of Moosalamoo is partly told in a previous post — but the reason behind it is yet untold, so I’ll tell it. A friend on Facebook said it “represents [my] personal challenges in life”. That’s a flowery way of putting the point of the contest. The question was “What’s your mountain?” which was meant to be interpreted as a query on some personal (or professional, or spiritual, etc) challenge you have or strive to overcome. As I understood it, the question and the hat design were separate, and perhaps some people’s submissions were just that. I wanted to intertwine the answer to my question with the design of the hat.

Here’s how I answered the question:

“What’s my mountain? You know, the funny thing about mountains is that they don’t typically appear alone. If you’d asked me this 15 years ago, I’d have said my mountain was, ironically, the city. I’m from Vermont, land of beautiful mountains and abundant nature. But I’m an IT guy, and the jobs for people like me are in the city. I went to school In Boston, but I burned out 3 years in and had to take a few years off back in the country to decompress. Later, I steeled myself, returned to school, and got a job in Boston where I’ve since settled down, gotten married, and currently own a condo. So it’s safe to say I’ve conquered this mountain. But like the bear in the song, I see another mountain beyond this one, and it’s actually a mountain this time. I want it so badly it brings tears to my eyes – I want, someday, to leave the city so my wife and I can finish out our lives in the beautiful green mountains of Vermont again. That’s my mountain now. This hat is both mountains together – the pattern of pine trees and saplings is all about Vermont, and the colors are both a reference to the returning 80s fashions in Boston and the cold-weather sports in Vermont. The fact that the yarn is called Boston couldn’t be more perfect.”

So why did I choose that, of all things? I’ve had many challenges in life — I was bullied constantly in middle school but graduated with high honors; I’ve been suspended or expelled from nearly every school I’ve ever gone to but persisted and finished strong; I’ve overcome clinical depression, kicked a prescription drug dependency; I’ve lost loves and loved ones, but married a wonderful woman … and of course, pale next to all of that, there’s the everpresent challenge of being a knitwear designer with a full-time job and a family. So why Vermont? Well, the others just don’t make for good knitwear — imagine knitting a hat about drugs and depression! Besides, that mountain is well behind me at this point. And a hat about knitting? I won’t say it’s too meta for me to consider, but it was too meta for this challenge.

But Vermont? There are all sorts of possibilities there, and rigorously-designed organic forms are sort of my thing these days. Vermont’s a distant mountain, the way the foothills and hills and mountains all layer on top of each other approaching the horizon, but if you zoom way in, maybe you’ll see a little house in the woods, by a brook, and I’ll be there on the porch, knitting the next creation in the lifetime’s worth of ideas currently bumping around in my head. Amanda may be nearby, sketching beautiful inspiration from nature and imagination, and I’ll be further imagining how I can take pieces of her imagery and incorporate them into my next piece, or the piece five or ten projects away.

I hope you come and visit. I’ll put on some tea for you.

Summer knitting, winter garments

I’ve recently finished a couple of pieces I thought you might like to see, and I’m well past the middle on my other current project. I’m going to make this quick and to the point, for a change!

At TNNA, there was a contest flyer circulating around the designers and some free yarn offered by SMC. I took the yarn, not certain I’d be able to do anything with it, but willing to give it a shot. It’s bulky, neon, acrylic-blend yarn. In short, nothing I’d normally work with. But I had some ideas, and if I either couldn’t hit the contest submission deadline or didn’t like what I came up with, at least I’d have a hat I could wear to raves in the future. So I knit a prototype, but it was too small. The rave I went to that weekend didn’t have blacklights and was probably 90 degrees indoors, so no loss that I didn’t have a hat that fit. Around that time, SMC extended the contest deadline to the end of August, so I requested more yarn from them and knit another. This one was too big, and the rave it was destined for was outdoors but again had no blacklights so again no big deal. I made the final one and the size is “just right” — but now I have no more raves in my immediate future. So I submitted the hat to the contest after all, and I’m not too worried — if it wins, I get some more publicity, and if it doesn’t win I get a chance to wear the hat to a party that actually has blacklights — and I’ll probably rework it in different yarn and in double-knitting to release as a pattern in the future.

I’m modeling the hat in question here. It’s using increasing and decreasing to make a motif of pine saplings and tall pine trees meeting at the crown. It was lots of fun to knit and the bulky yarn made it really fast to knit up (not to mention that it’s stranded, so even faster). You can check out another view closer to the crown here.

Intarsia/duplicate stitch insanity for Willow Yarns

Meanwhile I was finishing up the stitching on Pattern 5 for Willow Yarns Colorwork Club. I had originally planned not to do an intarsia project but I felt it was probably a good thing to teach simple intarsia and duplicate stitch for the sake of completeness. Thanks much to my friend Doria for weaving in close to 100 ends for me (don’t worry, I paid her to do it)!

Last but not least, the gorgeous Pattern 6 for Willow Yarns — a full-size double-knit shawl with tessellated Scandinavian traditional “snowflakes”. It’s about 2/3 finished now. Having done this, I’m actually pretty psyched to get working on the other shawl pattern I have in my mental queue. You can also check out another view of it (with the tip flipped up so you can see the opposite side).

Final Pattern for Willow Yarns' Colorwork Club — Final Pattern for Willow Yarns’ Colorwork Club

Apologies to Anna Dalvi, who is a fellow Cooperative Press designer and already has a similar shawl which I didn’t see until after I’d designed this one. It’s still pretty different due to the type of tessellation, but it has a similar feel. Not to worry, Anna, since I’m not selling this one myself I doubt it’ll make much of an appearance on Ravelry anytime soon.

Looking forward to getting done with all this contract designing so I can get back on the Parallax patterns! October, here I come!

P.S. I’ve just revamped my workshop offerings as well as my website where they are offered. It does this funky CSS popup thing for each workshop offering, which was what I originally envisioned but couldn’t figure out how to do. Anyway, I’ll be sending out my 2014 Spring workshop dates to shops on my Workshop List soon, so if you want to be one of the first people to take one of my new workshops, get your shop to sign up soon!

in which our hero learns something important about TNNA a little too late and has his last visit to a Jeni’s Scoop Shop

TNNA began on a high note this year — I touched down in the Columbus airport and found that the Delta terminal has — of all things — a Jeni’s Ice Cream vending machine. I took pictures in case you don’t believe me. You swipe your card, pick your flavor, there’s some churning noise and the thing spits out a cute little 1/4-pint serving. I had a serving of Pistachio-Honey ice cream while waiting for my hotel shuttle. It was delightful and just a little bit salty. Columbus, I have missed you.

Prior to TNNA, I did a whole bunch of prep — I had a couple of patterns in a pack for SampleIt this year (that’s an exclusive event where buyers have a chance to get special items for super-discounted prices from a bunch of different vendors) and printed/mailed over 200 copies. I also rebuilt my “crazy mannequin thing” so it’s actually significantly more portable, and I was able to fit it plus all my samples and clothes into a checked bag which was still under the 50-lb limit.

During the show, I tried to split my time fairly between staffing the booth, walking the floor, and food-tourism. I was happy to visit with old friends and make some new ones. I was especially excited to connect with Patty Nance, whose newly-published Bargello Knits seemed to be everywhere this year. As she said, there may be a collaboration of techniques in the future here — once I figure out a good way to do double-knit intarsia.

As with last year, I attended Marly Bird’s designer dinner on Friday night. There was no masquerade this time so I didn’t have a chance (or a need) to outdo last year’s outfit. It was a more casual affair, with a sort of “Let’s Make A Deal” game show theme, with prizes going to audience members who were the first to produce some obscure item. The items seemed overwhelmingly to be of the category “things one might find in a lady’s purse” so I got a hearty cheer when I was the first to produce a pair of tweezers (from my SwissCard). I received a lovely bag of 10 red balls of merino wool, but gave it to one of my tablemates who was eyeing it. Easy come, easy go!

During the course of the weekend, I was asked a number of times if I was teaching double-knitting this year. I’d never thought of TNNA as a teaching event since the attendees are there to scope out new yarns and notions for their stores and place orders. Here is where I learned something important a little too late — store owners are also taking classes from teachers to scope out teachers they might want to bring to their stores! How did it take me 3 years to figure that out? My primary reason for coming to TNNA is to network with shop owners and get more teaching gigs! The networking with yarn companies is just gravy. Next time, Gadget, next time! Although, next year TNNA will be in Indianapolis and in May on the same weekend as Maryland Sheep and Wool (WTF, TNNA?). Farewell, Jeni’s Ice Cream!

Speaking of networking with yarn companies, I just wanted to send shout-outs to a few awesome folks I met. First, a dyer I didn’t visit until later but her colorways are gorgeous and I want to knit with them — but can’t afford the $400 wholesale minimum (mostly in stash capacity, honestly): Happy Fuzzy Yarn. Her website makes yarn sound positively erotic, and when you see her colors, you’ll understand why. Even if I can’t afford to design in it right now, I hope I can drum up some business for her by talking her yarn up a bit. Also, while wearing my beloved “Know Your Cuts Of Lamb” t-shirt, I ran into Lorilee Beltman, who designed the t-shirt. She gave me a bunch of little Moo-cards that she uses to promote that design, and I ended up having just enough of them to pass out to every person who wanted to know where I got that shirt. If you saw it and didn’t ask — now you also know. Anzula Luxury Fibers had a booth with a bunch of vintage suitcases and army-surplus duffel bags that looked as if they were meant to be some kind of decoration, but it turned out that they were actually full of yarn! Any designer who wanted to use their yarn just had to ask and it was given. I got some amazing merino/cashmere/silk fingering called “Dreamy” that will get used in a new pattern I’m Dreaming up now. Other designers in the CP stables took much more than I did and I hope to see it all put to good use. Lastly, I reconnected with Dianna from the Knitting Boutique (where I taught earlier this year) who wanted me to design a new cowl in her new store-brand yarn. The dyer came by and passed me probably way more than I’ll need of a beautiful BFL/silk blend DK. I’m looking forward to that design, probably in early 2014.

In non-yarn-related news, I visited Jeni’s Ice Cream a total of 3 times (low for me) but visited the vending machine 3 times as well. I did not brave the “Everything Bagel” topping, although I’m sure I would have managed to try it eventually. I ended up searching for dinner alone on Saturday night and found a little hole-in-the-wall pizza place where I got a personal Mac and Cheese pizza for $8 including tax and tip. I ended up hooking up later with my friends from The Village Knitter and heading to a local Italian restaurant to disappoint the waiter by not drinking and ordering a salad. As a matter of fact, I ended up eating twice again on Sunday night — I joined my friends from CP, Anzula and Cephalopod Yarns at a local Thai Fusion place, then hopped over to another Italian place to have “appetizers” with the Craftsy crew and a bunch of other instructors. Let it never be said that Craftsy skimps on supporting its instructors!

With TNNA over, it’s time for me to batten down the hatches and get moving on my next few projects. I sent off Pattern #4 to Willow Yarns when I returned, and since Pattern #5 isn’t due until August, I’m working on my cards for the kClub. I’m actually kind of surprised that I’m going to be returning to my roots and doing the largest card in Lion Brand Thick & Quick. I also did one and will do another in (gasp) cotton! And it looks and feels great! More on that project later, though. The other major project I need to finish before the end of July is to split off the majority of my patterns from Extreme Double-Knitting to individual patterns. They’ll get listed and sold on Ravelry, Craftsy, Etsy, Patternfish, etc — so if you’ve been itching for a specific pattern but don’t want to spring for the whole book, your lucky day is coming!

Thanks for staying tuned and I’ll see you soon!

Taking a break from knitting for a bit

… to do a blog post! Hah, gotcha!

Anyway, I’ve got a whole bunch of news, and I’m going to start with this new pattern. Well, it’s only sort of a new pattern. If you’re in my Craftsy class, you might recognize it. Originally, I designed the Duvino cowl/headband/cuff thing with a grapevine — you know, with grapes — rather than just a sort of “could be grapes, could be ivy” look. But I fixated on the yarn I wanted to use, and I couldn’t get the colors I needed in the contrast I wanted, so I changed the pattern and went in a different direction. Well, because I thought people might be interested in seeing my creative process, I showed the prototype version with the grapes on it in the intro video, and that resulted in this influx of requests for “the pattern with the grapes on it.”

I should have known.

So, as soon as I had a moment to breathe, I recharted the pattern with the grapes in it, made a few other little tweaks, and reworked it in some different yarn. I’m afraid I didn’t dig very deeply — I was in a hurry — so I just threw it together with Cascade 220 and Araucania Nature Wool. Of course, any worsted-weight yarn will work fine, and I trust that people will be happy to make their own colorway and yarn substitutions if they want to.

In keeping with my Parallax v0.5 model outing, I ventured further afield and found the statue of Abigail Adams to model the cowl for me. It was a gray and rainy day, and there were some aspiring thespians having conversations with the other nearby statues so I edged in, snapped a few shots, and headed off.

This pattern is available on Ravelry, but it’s also available for free to anyone taking my Craftsy class.

In other news, I’ve got a couple of last-minute class additions — if you’re in the Boston area, and especially if you’re one of those people who never cross the river, I’ll be at Newbury Yarns teaching my Intro class and my Advanced 3-color class on June 8th and 9th! I haven’t taught there in years and I look forward to teaching in her new shop. Space is limited so sign up now!

The kClub (where I’ll be showing off some new modifications to the 52 Pickup pattern) is now open for registration, and if you’re interested in attending a live webinar with me and trying some other neat things with three-color two-pattern DK, you should sign up.

And last but not least, my Willow Yarn Colorwork Club patterns continue to come out — the newest one is this lovely pair of mittens. If you join now, you’ll still get the previous patterns as well as the next 4 that haven’t come out yet. Learn stranded colorwork, corrugated ribbing, intarsia, and of course double-knitting, from yours truly.

Thanks for your continued interest and I’ll see you next time I can get around to posting!

Willow Yarns and Craftsy and Lucy Neatby, oh my!

Well, my Spring classes have been going wonderfully so far, and I’ve gotten to some great new shops which I hope I’ll be visiting again in the future! Thanks to the good folks from Montpelier, VT, York, ME, and Mt Holly, NJ for your hospitality and enthusiasm! I’ve gotten in a bunch of good knitting time while in transit, and I thought you might like to see the fruits of my labors.

But first, I wanted to mention a change in schedule — I’m going down to Glen Burnie, MD (right outside of Baltimore, but you probably already know that if you can make it there for a class) in a couple of weeks, and teaching at the Knitting Boutique. We decided to run my full complement of workshops there — an intro, a two-color advanced workshop and a three-color advanced workshop. The three-color advanced workshop is one of my favorites to teach, and it’s happening on Sunday, April 21. The intro and 2-color advanced workshops still have space and are running on April 20th. You should come if you’re in the area and free!

Recently off the needles is this shadow-box hat, which is a two-color modification of my Falling Blocks hat. Get another view of the inside here. But where can I get the pattern for that, you ask? This will only be available in the Willow Yarns Colorwork Club, where it’s Pattern #3! The first pattern is already up — an elegant stranded hat with cable motifs — and the second, a pair of stranded mittens with corrugated rib cuffs and Eastern thumb gussets, is going live on April 15th. After that, there’ll be a basic double-knit hat, then a scarf in intarsia and duplicate-stitch, a cowl in stranded inc/dec colorwork, and finally a full-size double-knit shawl. This Club works in an unusual but smart way — because each pattern takes a different amount of yarn, it’d be difficult to market it with patterns plus yarn for a single price. Instead, they sell access to the club which gets you access to the patterns for $19.99, and discount your choice of yarn when you start each pattern. Stay tuned and I’ll post some of the other patterns as soon as I’ve got good photos.

Last but not least, the Craftsy class is going really well — I’ve been averaging about 1000 students per month, although it’s slowing down now. I wanted to mention that the Craftsy Spring Sale is on now until Monday. There’s a different selection of discounted classes each day, so keep coming back and trying again if you don’t see the one you want. I think mine is on today (Friday) but if you miss it, you can always use my permanent 50% off discount code. Also, if you’re into double-knitting or haven’t been living under a rock in the last decade, you’ve probably heard of Lucy Neatby. She’s got a class on Craftsy in double-knitting as well! Hers is mostly on the tubular style, with a little colorwork thrown in at the end. She takes a different approach and I think her class would be an ideal one to start with and then move into my more advanced topics. Or, if you’ve already taken my class, take hers as well to gain a deeper understanding of the foundations.

Thanks for keeping up and keep me in your RSS feed so you don’t have to keep checking back for my very infrequent posts!

Winter is half over, and Spring workshops are … springing up?

It’s almost time for me to start my Spring workshop season. It’s a short season this year, but that’s OK with me. To be fair, it’s probably the busiest season I’ve ever had, with just under 2000 students currently signed up for my class on Craftsy! Haven’t signed up yet? You can still sign up for half price by using this link!

For those of you who want more hands-on experience, and are lucky enough to live on the East Coast, I’m teaching in MA, VT, ME, NJ and MD this year! You can poke around in my calendar, or just look at the synopsis below. Unlike the last time I posted this, the links now go to the workshop page where all of my workshop details are now posted. By the way, if you’ve taken my Craftsy class, you are now qualified to jump straight into the Advanced workshops if you so choose!

Cambridge, MA: Mind’s Eye Yarns. Intro workshops on Feb 17th and March 24th; 2-color advanced workshop on April 6th.
Montpelier, VT: The Knitting Studio. Intro workshops on Feb 23rd; 3-color advanced workshop on Feb 24th.
York, ME: The Yarn Sellar. Intro workshops on March 2nd; 2-color advanced workshop on March 3rd.
Mt Holly, NJ: Woolbearers. Intro workshop on March 16th; hat design and construction workshop on March 17th.
Glen Burnie, MD: The Knitting Boutique (schedule in PDF). Intro and advanced workshops on April 20th and April 21st.

Want more hands-on experience and don’t live near any of these places? Get someone from your LYS in touch with me! The easiest way for them to do this is to have them sign up on my workshop scheduling list. This is a list for shop owners, so they can find out when I’m scheduling workshops each season. It only gets used 2 or 3 times per year, so it’s not too intrusive.

But enough shameless self-promotion. You probably want to know what I’m up to!

First of all, I’m spending time designing a series of 6 pieces in various types of colorwork — not just double-knitting — for Willow Yarns (a Universal Yarns/Herrschner’s imprint). I don’t know whether it’s kosher for me to post them here ahead of their release, but the first one — a stranded roll-brim toque with a vertical Celtic motif in worsted wool — will be released on Feb 11. As soon as I know it’s OK I’ll post photos!

Second, I’m making good progress on Parallax v1.0 (while commuting) and Parallax v3.0 (at knitting groups). Both are in Kauni, but v3.0 shows something few others have done with Kauni — 3 colorways! I don’t know what color combos I’m going to get until they happen — and I’ve added an extra element of unpredictability by adding a border around the main body of the piece. The border uses up the two colors that comprise it more quickly than the third color, which travels inside it but doesn’t get used to make stitches. This means that even if the period (the amount of space it takes for the entire color sequence to repeat) is the same across all three yarns, it won’t look exactly the same because one of the three yarns isn’t being used at the same rate. It also adds an attractive “frame” to the final piece (check out the other side). When these two pieces are done, I will finally get around to releasing the Parallax eBook. I have a Parallax v3.5 and v4.0 in mind but I will release those later as separate patterns due to time constraints and complexity.

P.S. I just got an AWESOME review on Amazon. OK, it’s probably not from an actual knitter, but I can’t help grinning (maniacally, of course). Please post this around — maybe this’ll be the start of a new “Three Wolf Moon”? But really, I could use more reviews on Amazon, even if some are tongue-in-cheek.

Join the largest double-knitting class ever!

photo7-lores — Not the best photo of me — but so be it.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve had a Craftsy class in the works for the past month or so. It went live first thing in January, so if you’re interested in double-knitting at all, you should perhaps go check it out! Given my precarious balancing act between work, knitting, family and social life, it’s not easy for me to travel all over the country (or the world) to teach classes. However, I’m happy to say that Craftsy is available worldwide (mostly) and you can now take a class from me even if I’m not actually there.

Despite my absence from your office or living room, I’m always here to answer questions through the Craftsy platform (vacation schedule dependent, of course) and of course the hundreds of other folks taking the class can help as well.

In this class, I start you off with a little flat double-knit swatch, then I switch to double-knitting in the round for my new wristband/headband/cowl pattern Duvino. Then I teach some double-knit increasing, decreasing, and traveling cables (by the way, the traveling cables are not documented in my book — this is a new technique that only a few people in my advanced workshops have learned), and we begin building a new hat called Atyria. After that, I give you a taste of some new techniques I’m working on, and show how to do a couple of them. Then I’ll show you how to deal with some common double-knitting issues in my troubleshooting lesson.

SONY DSC — Better photos once Craftsy gets my samples back to me!

You’ve already seen Duvino in progress in an earlier post, but I’ve kept Atyria under my hat, so to speak. Here’s a photo of it, done in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport, and a couple of other views here and here.

Want to sign up? Right now there’s an intro sale price but it’ll go up eventually. You can get the sale price anytime, however, by clicking this link.

P.S. – Next weekend I’ll be running a shortened version of my Intro to Double-knitting workshop as well as a workshop on Charting with Illustrator at FiberCamp Boston. Tickets are still available and the price doesn’t go up until the day the event starts (Jan 12) so if you’re in the area and free, you should consider coming down to MIT. Also, I’m planning on going to VKL in NYC for Saturday or Sunday the following weekend and will have some of my 52 Pickup books and kits there. Check my Facebook page for more details on that soon.

Spring workshops announcement

VK-workshop-small — Thanks to Ann Falcone of the Village Knitter for this great photo!

Hey folks! After my packed Fall, I’m happy to relax for a little while — but I know you’re itching to learn some double-knitting, so I’m posting my workshop schedule for the coming Spring 2013 season. For more info and updated times, check out my calendar of events:

The Eliot School, Jamaica Plain, MA: 6-week double-knitting intro and hat design workshop starting Jan 3rd
FiberCamp Boston 2013, Cambridge, MA. Jan 12th and 13th, intro workshop and other awesomeness.
Mind’s Eye Yarns, Cambridge, MA: Intro workshops on Feb 17th and March 24th; 2-color advanced workshop on April 6th.
The Knitting Studio, Montpelier, VT: Intro workshops on Feb 23rd; 3-color advanced workshop on Feb 24th.
The Yarn Sellar, York, ME: Intro workshops on March 2nd; 2-color advanced workshop on March 3rd.
Woolbearers, Mt Holly, NJ: Intro workshop on March 16th; 2-color advanced workshop on March 17th.
The Knitting Boutique, Glen Burnie, MD: Intro and advanced workshops on April 20th and April 21st

If you don’t see the workshop you want to take on the shop’s website, don’t hesitate to contact them directly. All shops post their workshops on their own schedules but most have ways of reserving your space even if you get in touch early.

Don’t see a workshop in your area? Sorry about that! I don’t pursue specific shops or venues — they have to request me. If you want to get me to your area, send this link to your local yarn shop and ask them to get on my list to find out when I’m scheduling dates for the next teaching season. I am also willing to schedule into the early Summer this coming season, but I find many people don’t want to learn double-knitting in the warmer months. I’m not sure why!

In addition to my traditional, in-person workshops, there’ll be a new opportunity for everyone in the whole world to take a class with me on Craftsy, starting sometime in January! This affordable, interactive, online platform allows me to reach worldwide to spread the word about double-knitting to a much larger audience. In addition, I designed two brand-new patterns just for this class, which I’ll post photos of when I announce that the class has gone live!

52 Pickup Kits are now available!

In pattern news, the long-awaited yarn is arriving tomorrow according to tracking numbers and those who preordered 52 Pickup kits will still get them before Christmas if the Postal Service cooperates. I’ve got yarn enough to make a few more kits so if you’ve been waiting on purchasing one, now would be the time. Of course if demand is high enough I may be making more kits after the holidays, but I can’t make any promises about precise timing. I’ve also upped the shipping price (for Priority Mail) on the books alone to make sure any new orders still arrive before Christmas; the price will drop again after Christmas to the normal (Media Mail) price. Shipping to Canada is still the same price since I can’t guarantee Christmas delivery anyway at this point. Shipping on the kits is already at Priority Mail levels. But time is running out if you want to get any of this stuff before the holidays, so order now if that’s what you’re after. I’ll always ship the morning after payment reaches me.

The 52 Pickup pattern book is now available for holiday delivery!

Well here it is, folks, the surprise I meant to tell you about. I was hoping to have this out sooner but not everything fell together exactly on time. However, enough has come together at this point that I can extend the offer.

I’ve already posted this to my mailing lists, and now I’m going to reach further. In January of this year, I released the pattern for 52 Pickup, my first true “magnum opus” double-knitting piece. At the time, I didn’t think it would be practical to print it as well, but I realize that many people value having a nicely-printed and bound version of certain patterns. Binding it poses certain difficulties — for example, if the charts are stuck always in the same order, how is it practical to “shuffle” the charts so that the cards are in a random order?

52 Pickup Covers.indd — A perfect gift for your obsessive knitter.

But I decided to go for it anyway, after Shannon at Cooperative Press gave me a lead on a printer that could print them cheaply and cleanly and in any number I required with a very short lead time. I printed a very small number — 50 — to start with and see how they sell. 10 of those are set aside for use as kits.

To solve the issue of the un-shufflable (is that a word? It is now) pages, I’m offering a free PDF copy of the pattern from Ravelry to anyone who buys the print copy of the pattern book. The book also includes a reprint of my article on the mathematics and design behind this scarf, originally printed in Issue Zero of Knit Edge Magazine.

The book alone is $19.95 plus shipping, and the kit (which includes the book, the free PDF download, 10 balls of Regia 4-ply in the proper colors, and a deck of cards) is $109.95, plus shipping. The kit is currently only on preorder — I am still waiting for the yarn to arrive but I’ve been assured that it’s Not Going To Be Long Now. I’m under the impression that I’ll be able to ship kits at least to US addresses before Christmas. If it turns out I need to eat my words, I’ll be happy to send the book alone to those who preordered, and the rest of the kit when it arrives.

I was planning on selling them on Etsy, but I decided instead to simply sell them directly on my website with a WePay widget, so that I only owe fees to one company rather than two. So if you’re interested, go visit my website’s patterns page!

Stay tuned for more announcements here soon (or sooner than usual, anyway)!