I spent the last week at TNNA. It’s The National Needle Arts Conference for the trade–yarn manufacturers, publishers, designers. It was a great time! Most of all because I got to meet some friends who I’d previously only known via e-mail: Kim Werker, the editor of CrochetMe, Cecily Keim crochet designer and author with Kim of Teach Yourself Visually: Crochetand Shannon Okey, knit designer and author of Knitgrrl and Knitgrrl2 reviews of all these cool new books will follow soon…

On Thursday morning, I took top-down raglan sweater construction–something I’d tried on winging my own, but had never learned the ins and outs. It was a good class–the project was a teddybear sweater. The class was taught by Mareen Mason-Jamieson. The little sweater I’d made on my own was a pull-over and in this class we were making a cardigan which turned out to be great because I learned a lot about fit, neck shaping and sleeves. As you can see I didn’t finish the sweater in the class (of course some of the faster knitters did), but I got through all the essential details. I’ll finish it up so Selma can use it on one of her dolls or bears.

Thursday evening, I took “Intarsia without Fear” — Intarsia is another skill in knitting I’d been wanting to tackle — from Edie Eckman. Edie and I met this fall on the Mall in DC when we both served as Crochet Doctors at Knit Out. It was fun to see her again. In the beginning of class, she said “I can’t promise you’re going to like intarsia, but you’ll leave class knowing how to do it.” Edie was right–she’s a great teacher and she got practically everyone to feel at ease with this challenging skill–about half-way through the class I thought–”I’ll probably never do Intarsia again.” but by the end of class, I could handle it just fine, and I don’t know if I’d do an intarsia project on my own, I’ve already used lots of the skills she taught in the class in other ways.

Edie is also the author of The Crochet Answer Book A great guide to just about every little technique question you might have. It seems like it would be accessible to beginners, but it also has lots of information to help the more advanced crocheter. It has clear illustrations and concise explanations. Also it’s a great size–perfect to fit in your project bag and travel everywhere with you.

After class Edie and I picked up Lorna Miser (knitwear designer extrordinaire and former owner of Lorna’s Laces) and went to a late dinner at the little Mexican restaurant in their hotel. The restaurant was getting ready to close, and when I asked what vegetables were in the vegetable quesadilla the waitress said “Oh, we ran out of vegetables yesterday.” We thought she was joking, but she wasn’t! After some clarification we found out that they did have some onions and mushrooms so I did end up having the quesadilla after all, and it was pretty good. We had a fun time knitting and chatting about designing and I found out a lot about the The Professional Knitwear Designers Guild, an organization I’ve wondered about in the past. Edie an Lorna both volunteer for PKDG, and they’ve convinced me to sign up for an associate membership and get to know the organization even better.

Edie was on the floor of the convention center on Saturday signing copies of The Crochet Answer Book, and her other new book Knit & Crochet Ponchos, Wraps, Capes & Shrugs!. Edie edited this great little collection which includes designs by Lorna Miser, Gwen-Blakley Kinsler, Jill Wilcott and more. It’s a well-designed book with lots of photos and clear instructions, charts and technique tips. There’s a comprehensive index, and an appendix about how to find the yarn in the book. Oh, and crocheters will be happy to know that not only is the cover pattern crocheted, but there’s lots of crochet in the book as well. I do wish that real models rather than mannequins had been wearing the garments in the photos. One other great feature is that some of the garments are actually shown twice in two different yarns.

Jill Willcot has my favorite knit pattern in the book–it’s barely a capelet–more like a cowl-neck that just happens to fall past the shoulders. It’s a beautiful, modern design done in fall colors and it looks fun and easy to make. Kathleen Power Johnson has a shrug that uses a cool, unusual stitch pattern–it’s a vertical zig-zag done using a crossed stitch pattern that gives great dimension to the piece.

Hmm… Well I’ve just covered Thursday but I think this post is long enough! Next up–Cat Bordhi’s amazing knitting techniques.

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Since I don’t read Spanish and Google’s translator wasn’t much help, I’m only guessing this site is from Chile… There’s some amazing little objects here… I found the site wandering through a japanese amigurumi site which I’ll post about soon. The author of this spanish-speaking blog has photo-tutorials for a lot of her projects that make them pretty much language independent–I might try making the little pin cushioh she’s been working on lately.

The new issue of Better Homes and Garden’s Knit It! (basically a 112-page ad for Lion Brand yarns) does have a couple of pieces that aren’t about Lion. One that caught my eye is an article about a breed of sheep native to the American Southwest–the Navajo-Churro. “Once on the brink of extinction,” according to the article by Susan M. Strawn, a professor of Textiles at Dominican University in Illinois, the sheep and their wool are having a revival. The wool has always been prized for its deep natural range of colors and was used in the making of traditional navajo rugs.

So, how do you add this new-old yarn to your stash? Well, unfortunately many of the links listed in the article were broken. But after some sleuthing, I found a couple of relavent sites:

Try stopping first at The Navajo-Churro Sheep Association page. They’ve got history, and charming sheep pictures. One of their Members, Cerro Mojino Woolworks does have a page where you can call and order yarn and color cards.

Some of the breeders apparently have received organic certification. One company, Tierra Wools sells organic churro in dyed colors in various weights and also blends it with other wools. Tierra has other organic wools as well.

I’d love to hear if any readers have used the Churro yarn and what they think of it. I’ll try and get my hands on some so I can write a comprehensive review.

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Apple computer makes some of the hip-est ads around and even they know how cool crochet can be.

I’ll be posting again soon with articles about TNNA–(The Needle Arts Association Conference) and recent classes I’ve taken on intarsia, knitting with 2 circs and more! (Oh, and lots of great book and product reviews…)

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IMG_0838.JPG
Originally uploaded by plainsight.

I got a mannaquin for Christmas–yeah! We finally got it put together last night. My daughter Selma wanted to name it Barbie, but I decided to call her Amanda.

Amanda’s wearing the first modular crochet garment I’ve created… No great creativity here–I followed Ms. Copeland’s schematic pretty closely because I wanted to learn the process. It’s made with aoubt 1 1/2 skeins of Wool-Ease. The vest came together quickly and easily–about two evening’s work. I love how the ribbing hugs the body. It’s a little short vest meant to be worn over a shirt–but I Amanda looks cute with it as is… It might look nice with just a cami underneath too… I’ll have to try that.

I may make a modular dress next for Selma… Copeland has a great tip for making a fitted bodice with a less fitted skirt–she just does the top of the dress in ribbed single crochet and the skirt in half-double or double crochet.

Thanks to everyone who’s been sending me their great modular crochet project links. I’ll try and get some more up here soon.

Here’s a link to a poncho Dee (of Crochet with Dee) made published using the modular concept.

I’ve written some notes at crochetville about how I went about making the vest… I believe you have to be a member to read it, but signing up is easy and it’s a great group!

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Apparently there’s a group of, yes, LEGO enthusiasts out there and they have message boards and web sites where they build things–structures, machines, etc. and share pictures, video…

And… there’s a guy named Tom Johnson who has bult a mechanized lego knitting-noddy. Yes, now you don’t have to crank out your own i-cord… you can get the kids in the neighborhood to make you a knitting robot! Here’s Mr. Johnson’s newsgroup post about how he made the thing.

I’d like to know how he got the idea? In case you haven’t seen enough there’s actually a really cool video of the machine working–the soundtrack gives it a very dramatic mood.

Thanks to my brother John Markos for alerting me to this technological marvel. He let’s me know whenever the tech world and the fiber world intersect in new and strange ways.

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Crochet Fantasy came in the mail yesterday. I hold my breath whenever a crochet magazine arrives because I’m never too optimistic about what I’ll find inside. I still wish someone would take the time and money to add the production (photography, lighting, paper, graphics, layout) value to crochet magazines that seem to be inherent in most knit mags (Vogue & Interweave esp.), but that’s another blog post…

This issue had a couple of pretty patterns (Including Carol Ventura’s amazing Whole World Coat in tapestry crochet) but what really caught my eye was an article describing Judith Copeland’s Modular Crochet — classic crochet book from the seventies — in great detail. The article had a really nice biography of Ms. Copeland and instructions and schematics for producing your own version of her sweater construction.

The Modular Crochet method is similar to other new-sew methods of construction–rectangles of fabric are crocheted together and the garment builds as you go instead of creating the pieces one at a time and sewing them all together at the end. (I suspect she was one of the first to publish them) but the one thing that makes sweaters made with her method fit so well is that the crochet is turned on it’s side. The fabric which is created from top to bottom is turned 180 90 (doh!) degrees and assembled “sideways.” The resulting fabric has an unusual drape which is hard to achieve in crochet. The sweaters are a bit boxy because there’s no real shaping, but so much less so than many crocheted garments I’ve seen with lots of shaping that I’m eager to try. Coincidently, the vest I’m designing right now also uses sideways crocheted fabric but a different sort of construction…

I had heard of modular crochet for some time, but Ms. Copeland’s book is out of print and apparently hard to find (there were no copies on e-bay, but I got lucky last night and found one for sale on Amazon for much less than it’s normal $100 price tag…)

This sweater was made by Linda Grafton of Grafton Fibers in the vein of Judith Copeland. I’d love to see how it looks on a person…

When I was searching for examples of modular crochet to show in this post, I came upon the amazing blog of a longtime crocheter and new knitter. She has such detail about how she designs and constructs her garments–it’s really fun to read about her successes and challenges. I can’t find her name anywhere on the blog, but here’s a link to a sweater she made in the modular style.

Ever since I tried to teach myself top-down knitting construction and made a little sweater out of soy silk yarn for the folks at Now and Then where I teach knitting in Takoma Park, I’ve been fascinated with top-down construction and I’d like to modify it for crochet. (I designed a skirt from the top-down recently, which was fun, but didn’t involve the fiddlyness of sleeves and necklines, etc.)

The blogger I spoke of earlier has done this with some success, here are the online resources she used:

http://www.io.com/~cortese/crafts/raglan.html

http://woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html

http://glampyreknits.tripod.com/glampyrephotos/id44.html

UPDATE: Erica at Bound by my Hook” has a cool capelet she crocheted top-down raglan style…

If you’ve made any modular crochet garments or top-down crochet sweaters e-mail me and I’ll post pictures here.

Oh, and speaking of crochet from times past, I got a new book in the mail today: Vintage Styles for Today edited by Nancy J. Thomas of Lion Brand Yarn. It’s a big, glossy full-color book that takes patterns from Lion’s extensive archive and updates them for the modern stitcher. There seems to me to be about a 60% success rate with this book–in 30% of the patterns, the new version is *right on* and looks a lot like the model, and it’s cool–like the grey jacket featured on the back cover or the white, ribbed knitted shrug called the “Huge me tight shrug.” In 30% of the patterns, the new version looks *better* than the original lik in the Alpine Toque or the Sandal Sock. But in about 30% of the cases, the old picture is cooler looking than the remake–it seems to be for a couple of reasons–either the new yarn chosen just doesn’t work–i.e. to bright, too furry, too chunky, or as with the “Third Time’s a Charm Shawl” it’s because the designer changed the look of the pattern. In the picture which must be turn of the 20th century, this shawl has an almost sweater feel, and fits snugly and the sides look like sleeves. The modern version is a simple triangle shawl that’s oversized and doesn’t have the same fit…

The book is neatly laid out with clear instructions, schematics where appropriate and charts in some cases. There’s an index and a bibliography, but little information about where the original pictures came from or which designers created which modern versions. Oh, one other plus for crocheters out there–finally, a book with more crochet than knitting patterns!

Technorati Tags: crochet review magazine knitting Crochet Fantasy modular crochet

It was hard to resist the beautiful new magazine I saw on my last trip to Barnes and Noble. Selvedge caught my eye as much for it’s georgeous trade-paper back style binding as it’s high-end art photography and high price tag: $20.00 US! (The subscription price is $80 US for 6 issues or $40 for an online only verstion) The subtitle of the magazine is: “The fabric of your life: Textiles in fine art, fashion, interiours, travel and shopping.”

The beautiful pictures and unusual textiles contiued throughout the magazine, but the depth of the writing does not match the beauty of the photography. Articles are short, top-level at best, and seem to be almost long captions for the photos. (And yet in an article about lace there was work described that I would have loved to see photographed, but it was not. An article about Swedish mittens leads with a description of a one-of-a-kind mitten that’s not pictured. A story about tapestry collector Shiela Paine has a nice portrait of Shiela Paine but no pictures of her collection.)

Pluses: There’s an international listing of textile art events worth reading. If you’re in the UK, you might also like the listing of fiber classes. The advertisers are enticing–there’s a wealth of suppliers, designers, and manufacturers advertising in here who’s websites I’m dying to visit.

This beautiful magazine makes a great addition to the coffee table–it’s somewhat like a museum show catalog or a book of abstracts on amazing subjects, but with few or no leads on how to gather more information…

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Since the time of year is right, and I’ve been getting quite a bit of interest in these, I thought I’d re-post the picture and link:

here’s what I wrote back in October:

In other news, I have a new pattern published in the brand new MenKnit magazine! It’s a hip new publication for and about men who knit. While I don’t think it’s any harder for men to knit than women (and therefore no more remarkable) there is a clear absence of fashionable patterns out there for men to knit or wear, and MenKnit has set out to correct that problem–they’ve got lots of cool patterns including some great socks; an update on the classic “muscle tank” and a cool shadow knit scarf. The zine is published in PDF form. I love that because the patterns are formatted for printing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually knit in front of the computer. You can download the zine here.

Since lots of knitters have told me they’re making these–I’d love to see how yours turned out! Please send me a picture and I’ll post it here..

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tree sweater
Originally uploaded by Dabbler.

Carol Hummel is a sculptor who uses yarn as her medium and trees, at least this time, as her canvas. She’s covered this tree in a synthetic yarn designed to last the 2-years the exhibition is to be up. According to Hummel, the fabric won’t impede tree growth or harm wildlife (though they might be a little confused by it, don’t you think?)

The flickr photographer who captured the “tree cozy” has a more detailed article about Hummel and her art which you can read by clicking on the photo.

I love how it looks in winter–adding color when the leaves are all gone–I hope to see more photos of the tree when the leaves have returned. If you live in Cleveland, send me a tree pic this spring, and I’ll post it here!

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