My first double-knitting workshop of Spring 2010 is scheduled for February 13, from 1-4, at Mind’s Eye Yarns in Cambridge, MA. If you haven’t been to this store before, it’s the place to go in Cambridge nowadays for great yarn, roving and spinning supplies. Lucy has been very good to me, always among the first to schedule when I run my workshops, and at a reasonable price. Sign up for my workshop — there’s not much time. I have info out at the various other shops I teach at, and will be posting here as soon as dates for my other workshops are nailed down.
Month: January 2010
Falling Blocks hat pattern now up for sale!
I’ve been working on my signature hat pattern for some time — the first draft went out to the guys at the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat last May. I had some test-knitters working on it last Fall, but with the wedding and all the other stuff surrounding that, I didn’t get to processing and finalizing the pattern until last weekend. I incorporated as many of my test-knitters’ ideas into the pattern as I possibly could — there was one other good one I may incorporate later but I will have to test it first. So, many thanks to the worldwide group of test knitters who helped me get this out, and now I hope people will try out the pattern for themselves.
One of the great strengths of this pattern is that I have developed a way of notating my technique that will allow anyone — even people who have never double-knit before — to succeed with this hat.
If you are a Ravelry member, check out the pattern page, otherwise 
…and Thanks!
Circles are boring … Spirals are fun!
I’ve done a bunch of posts today and given them fake dates as if I posted them when I should have. Shhh! don’t let anyone know. I’m not a good blogger but I do eventually get around to posting what I mean to. So now I’m up to date and I’ve got so much news, but I can’t really let you all know until I get some confirmation back. Suffice it to say I am working on a bunch of new designs and trying to clean up my work and make it easier to document. This tasty little number is one of my current projects. It’s based on the work I was/am doing in the rivers on the Victorian Raffia Scarf, but subtly modified to make it more interesting and brain-twisting. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly how the spirals were going to interact when I started this, and they don’t do exactly what I planned, but they’re growing on me. I have two necktie designs in the wings. This is a sketch for one of them (the other side is here); the other is actually knit on the bias.
This one is knit from the tip — cast on with one stitch, then double-increased up as the spiral builds. The final design will be a little different — there will be a selvedge rather than the mottled edge you see on this one (I have worked out a beautiful DK selvedge that I will be using in all my future pieces that have edges), the side edges will be flatter (you can see I worked out a glitch in the design if you look at the first set of half-diamonds along the edges, and then the second one), and of course it won’t be knit in Lamb’s Pride Worsted on #6 needles. No, it will be in some fingering- or lace-weight wool-silk blend, probably, and the spirals will have more density to them. The narrow strip of the necktie will be one spiral wide, and the wide end will be two spirals wide. I’ll work out the gauge once I decide on the yarn.
Oh, and before someone comes in here and accuses me of ripping off this entry’s tagline, it comes from an album by psytrance group Saiko-Pod. While the album may not be one of my favorites in the genre, I cannot help but agree with the sentiment …
FiberCamp! FiberCamp! FiberCamp! … (it’s only a model)
FiberCamp Boston was this past weekend at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, and even though I was running the registration desk for much of the time, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Attendance was down from what we had hoped — only 64 registered attendees — but this was our first year and the collective experience was overwhelmingly positive. People who have never attended an unconference before were understandably wary of the format, but those who bit the bullet and attended anyway were pleasantly surprised. It came together perfectly, with dynamically updated workshops and presentations offered by the attendees themselves. Of course, I taught two sessions of my double-knitting workshop, somehow managing to get the majority of the material into everyone’s heads in the space of an hour and a quarter.
I taught the first one with a projector and document camera borrowed from work. I hope someone got a photo of that because it must look ridiculous.
I also learned a new cast-on, got to stump the resident expert on unusual knitting styles, and enjoyed delicious lunches at La Casa De Pedro right next door. My wife came the second day and ran a popular workshop called the “Alice Starmore Library” where she just brought in all her old rare un-reprinted Starmore books and let people leaf through them.
Also, we were asked to contribute a handmade fish to a project done by Adrienne Sloane and Jodi Colella where they hung a giant knitted net outside the venue and hung fish all over it. This finally gave me the chance I needed to do Linda Taylor’s felted fish. I don’t know felting well enough to try it on this, so I just knit it on needles two sizes too small and stuffed it without felting. As is characteristic of me, I changed a few things — I double-knit the tail (A+ for theory, C for execution), rolled the “brim” to make lips and sewed the end in to cinch them closed, and gave it duplicate-stitch eyes.
I’m hoping everyone who came this year will bring a friend next year!