Sunday morning 8:00 a.m. at The National Needle Arts Association Conference in San Diego I took Crochet Tips and Tricks with Lily Chin. Her class was lively and fun—even though Lily readily admits she’s not a morning person she was quick, kept the class moving and taught many cool “tricks.” (For instance, she uses an “afterthought foundation” crocheting onto waste yarn and adding her chain at the end of her project and crochets buttons right into the fabric so she doesn’t have to come back and do it later.)

(Set your TiVos!) During class, Lily mentioned she has a new television show–Stitchcraft–debuting March 5th at 3:00 p.m. on the Oxygen Network. Later, when I had a chance to chat with Lily, I learned more about the show and her other projects.

Lily says the show focuses on knit and crochet as fashion and targets a general audience-not necessarily knitters. “The goal of Stitchcraft is to increase awareness of knitting and crochet. There won’t be any tech speak, no SSK or DC2TOG. We are not the DIY,” she said confidently.

The show is billed as a rare behind-the-scenes look at how knitting is used in the fashion industry. “You’ll see how Oscar de Laurente designs his knitwear line.” She says. And she says we’ll watch Adina Klein of Vogue put together a photo shoot. “The show is not about me. I’ll introduce the segments and talk a bit between stories.” Lily says the first show will also include a profile of one of my favorite designers, James Coviello.

I asked Lily what else she’s working on—she’s very excited about her new book due out in October. Called Couture Crochet Workshop with Lily Chin. It’s a book of what she is calling “refined crochet.” She describes the book as having high-fashion patterns and techniques for achieving drape, fit and drama.

Every time I’ve talked with Lily or seen her at a public appearance she makes a big impression. It’s clear Lily sees herself as a fiber evangelist and takes that job very seriously—she makes dozens of unpaid public appearances per year to promote crochet and knitting. “A healthy industry from the top down is good for everyone.” She said commenting on recent worries from large yarn companies and craft stores about dips in sales. “People don’t wake up in the morning and say ‘Today I want to learn to crochet.’ Every time someone sees something about crochet on TV it brings them one step closer to trying it themselves.”

At this moment, Stitchcraft is a one-off pilot, no other episodes have been created and the success of Sunday’s showing will help determine if more episodes are made.

Technorati Tags: Lily Chin knitting crochet Stitchcraft

Olympians
Originally uploaded by plainsight.

Ahem, “In recognition of an olympic sized knitting project with many twists and turns, pushing the limits of the art form, Jenny is hereby awarded (for her entrelac tote) the Shaun White (Flying Tomato) Gold Medal”

“In recognition of knitting with intent to enrich the lives of others Beth is hereby awarded (for finishing a long-time UFO aran sweater intended for a good friend and making her first ever pair of mittens) the Joey Cheek Gold Medal.”

“In recognition of a newcomer to knitting (she just learned in January) who really scored big, Emily is hereby awarded (for her Irish hiking scarf) the Ted Ligety Gold Medal”

And finally, “In recognition of the intent to knit her olympic project (for training and swatching and buying lots of requisite supplies) but never actually starting her sock project, Amy (yes, that’s me) is awarded the Michelle Kwan Gold Medal.”

Thank you James for the creative and fun medals! We had a good time at the Olympics Closing Ceremonies party–eating and chatting, giving out awards and prizes, and knitting, of course. And I’m happy to say, that despite my sock dissapointment, I did manage to finish eight knitted and crocheted items on my todo list.

After such an intense couple of weeks, what will these 5,000 knitters, and I don’t know how many crocheters, be doing tomorrow?

Technorati Tags: knitting olympics knitting crochet

I finished this design for the folks at Blue Sky Alpacas late last year, and it’s finally available on their web site. I got to see proof for the pattern–and a beautifully done green version stitched by one of the Blue Sky Folks–on display at TNNA in January. But yesterday, I got my copy in the mail, and found it’s now listed on their web site. I have to say, I love the photography. Since I normally take pretty amaturish photos of my work myself, (and without an actual model) it’s so cool to see it professionally styled and shot.

The scarf is done in their alpaca silk which was so easy to work with. When I made scarves to sell in boutiques in Seattle, I leaned toward bulkier yarns, or I combined several strands because I was all about finishing quickly (and the multiple yarns gave the scarves a one-of-a-kind quality) but now, I’m much more attracted to simple, fibers, interesting textures and lighther weight yarns. I’m finishing up a vest now for Blue Sky which I hope will be available by TNNA in June. I’ll let you know.

My interest in fine-weight yarns aside, I did make a super-fast chunky scarf tonight for a class I’m teaching on Monday at StitchDC. The class is called Crochet Crash-Course so I’m hoping to get some beginners from zero to sixty in about two-and-a-half hours. This scarf took me about an hour, so I think we’ll be able to make some pretty good headway. [apologies for the sepia-toned low-res photo. good camera battery is dead. long live the camera phone!]

So I’m plugging away at my Team FO obligations. Today’s goal was finish swatches for a friend’s book proposal. (You’d thought I’d finished them on Tuesday? Me too. I had to redo one and add a third.) I’ve got one in a nice cashmere/wool/microfiber blend, one in my old stanby, Southwest Trading’s Bamboo (Their new colors, by the way are even softer and silkier than the old ones!), and just for fun, we decided to do one in Good ‘ol Red Heart (affectionately known as RH by most hookers online.) The RH swatch is for a a project where we weren’t too conerned about drape, and the yarn’s legendary durability is a plus in this case.

You know I’m all about the blocking now that I have my new steam-iron, but up ’till now, I’d only blocked knitting. Turns out, crocheting loves blocking too, and ‘tho I’d read some tutorials that cautioned against steam for anything other than wool, I threw caution to the wind. My bamboo loved the steam, only got silkier, and lost the tell-tale ridges between rows you often see in un-blocked crochet. Then, I thought, “what the heck? What’s the worst that could go wrong if I steam 100% acrylic?” Luckily, nothing did. The Red Heart breathed a sigh of relief, relaxed, and softened. Wait, what’s that I see? Is it… no, couldn’t be… drape? (Thanks to Baby Jay’s little Camel rocker for demonstrating the drapey swatch.)

Julie Jackson has been creating naughty and bawdy cross stitch kits for several years on her web site. She’s now teamed with chronicle books to produce a book, a calendar and note cards which will be released this spring.

The book has 33 designs with traditionally cute images of bumble bees and birds edged around text like “whatever” and “bite me” (or my personal favorite “babies suck.”) There’s an introduction to cross stitch techniques, blank charts for mapping out your own designs and a page of resources for more information.

What is cool about Julie’s book, I think, is that she began by converting store-bought patterns by adding “subversive” text. She encourages her readers to make their own designs. I love the idea that a pattern is merely a framerwork or guideline for creativity. Stitchers, knitters, crocheters should feel free to make a pattern their own–and even add text like Julie does. Cross stitch is an obvious place to start expressing yourself, since it is so easy to use text, but of course there’s embroidery, intarsia and tapestry crochet.

Have you added text (subversive or otherwise) to your fiber projects? I’d love to see pictures and examples.

After a long weekend at my parents where I was blocked from my e-mail for a couple of days by their firewall and didn’t get much knitting done because of all the activity, my sore wrists have been feeling very good. I came home to find that James had installed an amazing adjustable keyboard and mouse tray to my computer table. So now my wrists are even happier!

Olympic Team FO Update–I finished stitching a vest (will sew it together tomorrow) and I finished a couple of swatches I need to send in ASAP. Socks went untouched. But since they haven’t been started, perhaps that’s ok.

Planning for my Closing Ceremonies Finishing Party continues… I got to talk this weekend with folk musician and chef Beppo Gambetti who hails from the Torino region. He gave me some ideas of appropriate appetizers to serve.

When I had signed up for classes at The Needle Arts Association Conference in San Diego, the one I really wanted to take, a class on knitting ancient footwear taught by circular needle pioneer Cat Bordhi, was already full. Cat wrote the book Socks Soar on Two Circular Neeldes and also invented Mobius Knitting. I signed up for something else, but hoped I’d find a note on the board from a student who couldn’t make Cat’s Class. That didn’t happen, so I got up extra early the morning of Cat’s class and waited for her to show up in the classroom. I felt like a college freshman again trying to get into an upper-level class I probably wasn’t qualified for.

When Cat arrived, I offered to help her set up and I pleaded my case. She had brought extra materials, and we ended up squeezing in one other eager latecomer as well. I was pleased when Cat said she would have done the same thing I did to get into a class she wanted to take.

Cat began by describing her discovery of the Bata Shoe museum in Toronto. She’s a great storyteller (she’s written a novel called Treasure Forest, which of course I have to read now. She said she tried very hard to keep knitting out of her novel, but it didn’t work.) She showed us examples of socks and boots she’s created based on ancient footwear from the museum. And then we got to try making some ourselves…

Oh, I have to pause here to say that Cat had arranged for all the supplies in the class to be donated. Yarn for our first project of the day–the Plains Indian Felted Slipper was donated by a New Zealand wool company Ashford Handcrafts. The yarn, called Tekapo is soft and easy to work, and it looks like it felts well. We were using it double stranded to give the slipper some heft. Denise Needles donated enough sets of needles for every student to use during the class. Blue Moon Fiber Arts donated some amazing sock yarn for our second project, and Skacel Donated 2 sets of size 5 addi turbos to each student. Oh, and Clover donated stitch markers and their new Chibi tapestry needles. Thank you to all of them!

The first half of the day, we worked on knitting a Plains Indian Moccosin. Cat got everyone using the two-circular needles quickly and easily. She showed that you don’t need two identical sets of circs. With the Denise needles, you can just put the size you need for gauge on one end of each circular and feed the stitches off the (left hand) wrong size needle. This also makes it easier to see which needle you’re working with I got my moccosin mostly done before lunch, and of course, it’s still in that state.

I had lunch with Cat and another student, and I got to hear a lot about her books (she self-publishes them all!) and other workshops she holds, like the Magical Mobius Festival (“a seaside knitting adventure” in Oregon over April Fool’s weekend. Wish I could be there for that one!)

After lunch we began a mini-sock–we were learning a short row heel–it was my first time ever doing short-rows, and that was fun! it was a good thing I had taken intarsia the night before, because this little color block sock had some color changes (as did the morning’s slipper). The yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts is beautiful and wonderfully easy to work with.

Cat is an amazing teacher–she’s got a way of explaining technique that makes it seem fun and easy, and she drops little tips and interesting stories in with the rest of the information. One of the things she taught us was that in Japanese, the term for slip one purlwise is “point-to-point” since slipping purlwise is the default (standard) way to do it, it’s just called point-to-point because that’s what it looks like. For me, it’s little tidbits like this that make me feel like a better knitter bacause I gain a clearer understanding of how things work.

She also taught us how to wind a center-pull ball on your thumb! I’ve seen folks at knitting groups wind butterflies or balls on their hands in strange figure-eight like configurations, but Cat’s method of winding on your thumb is simple and elegant. She just starts to wind clockwise on her thumb, making sure to bring the yarn from the bottom of the thumb up diagonally towards the tip. After a few rounds are on the thumb, just turn the “ball” a quarter turn around the thumb and keep winding–this allows the ball to grow evenly. It ends up looking like one of those little balls of string from the hardware store. Of course, when I taught this method to my middle-schoolers, I realized you also need to specify not to wind too tightly, since one student’s thumb turned quite blue!

I’m looking forward to someday attending Cat’s mobius workshop–I was given both her mobius books, A Treasury of Magical Knitting and A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. They’re both beautiful books–and Cat’s conversational writing style makes them cover-to-cover reads even if you’re not knitting from them. I haven’t yet tried to make a mobius, but I’m looking forward to it–the first book has beautiful, mysterious wraps and scarves. The second book also teaches the basics of the mobius and goes on to show how to “grow” your mobius into amazing containers–bowls, bags and even a cat bed.

I’m officially considering myself a member of team FO. In the last few days I finished THREE projects. The first was a poncho that I didn’t actually knit, but agreed to do the finishing work on. The second is my Bethoven’s Rib scarf, so called because it’s a k3p1 rib and I kept hearing Bethoven’s Fifth symphony “da da da daaa” in my head while I was knitting it.

Now, I am not one to ever iron. Ever. I just don’t own clothes that require ironing. My husband James irons. He’s went to the United States Coast Guard Academy and he was actually trained to iron. So, why did I go to Target yesterday and buy the fanciest iron they had? For my knitting of course. Actually, we needed a new iron at the house, I had been coveting garment steamers with the idea that I’d start blocking things, finally. My friend Martha told me that she always blocks with her iron–she has one that has a vertical steam feature, and she found it at Target. Bingo! Two problems solved.

The Bethoven’s Rib scarf really needed blocking. As you can see, the blocks of stockinette curled heavily, and the scarf was not quite as long as I wanted it to be. Crazy Aunt Purl says that Blocking is the New Botox I have to agree. It’s like plastic surgery for your knitting. Knitty has a nice little tutorial about blocking and they suggest using a mattress to pin down your knitting. I used our downstairs Ikea couch-bed thingy.

As soon as I started steaming the scarf, it relaxed–it “asked” to be stretched and molded into shape. the wool seemed to like blocking.

I also finished a scarf for Be Sweet Yarns using their cool Ribbon Ball–it’s a mohair boucle with little ribbons tied here and there. The ribbons have about 5 different styles and they vary randomly. It was really fun to work with.

At this rate, I may even get to make my Olympic Socks after all!

I spent the early part of the day today at Future Green a new store near Dupont Circle specializing in eco-friendly products for the home. Leigh Baily, a local knitter has been working with the owners of the store to build an inventory of eco-friendly and fair trade yarns. She’s asked me to offer classes at the store.

It was a fun event and I got to sit and chat with Paula of Woolarina she spins and dyes gorgeous yarns in a studio in Silver Spring, MD. Future Green is the first retail shop to carry her yarns. Paula gets her fiber from small, local farms raising their sheep sustainably. I got to bring home a skein of their merino sock yarn to play with…

Andrea Price, another local knitting teacher was there and brought a cool project–a knitting bee shawl (see first picture, above) set up to be worked by three knitters at once. It was great because each knitter works with only one ball, but since each ball was a different color you end up with a fun stripy pattern.

When I got home there was a big box waiting for me in the foyer. I turned out to be stuffed full of yarns from Kraemer Yarns for me to sample and play with. Wheee! I’ll have to wait until I finish my projects with deadlines to start swatching with it, but here are some quick first impressions. I love their Bear Creek super bulky. It comes in enormous 200g skeins so you get a generous 130 yards. I also like their Mauch Chunky, a single ply yarn that felts and comes in some great colors, and there’s a cotton blend called Tatamy that I’m looking forward to trying.

Ok, back to that ribbed scarf for my upcoming knitting class. All that knitting on the metro, and I’m half-way done.

Technorati Tags: knitting olympics knitting future green

<rant>
Ack! As I set the Opening Ceremonies to TiVo, I’ve realized that the hardest part of finishing these socks for the Knitting Olympics is not going to be the socks themselves, but the other work I have to do:

• One yarn company design to finish
• two articles to write
• numerous new books and products to review and blog about (Stay tuned for post about all sorts of knitting containers on Monday)
• At least two designs for upcoming classes to complete (right now, I have my beginner scarf, aka Bethoven’s Rib on the needles instead of socks, hopefully that will be done tonight)

In other news, I’ve decided to do the socks on 2 circulars, so my investment in pickup-sticks, er I mean eensie weensie double pointed needles was perhaps in vain. I did however get a fantasic deal on the circs at Inez’s Stitchery, a yarn store that feels like it’s in a time warp in Kensington, MD.

</rant>

UPDATE: Lots of changes tonight–I changed needles–dpns to circs, I changed needles sizes–1s to 0s (gasp!) and I changed patterns… No longer doing Jaywalker, I’m doing a similar looking chevron from Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks because I really like how the patterns are written–they’re easy to follow and give a lot of flexibility regarding yarn and foot sizes. So, I had to re-swatch tonight, but it’s midnight now, and I’ll wait until tomorrow to cast on…

Technorati Tags: knitting olympics knitting UFO