The Hook and I

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 . . . → Read More: An Interview with Lily Chin

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 . . . → Read More: I should have knitted a pedastal

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 . . . → Read More: New Scarf Design Published!

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, . . . → Read More: Who Knew? (Well, I’m sure lots of you did.)

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 . . . → Read More: Book Review: Subversive Cross Stitch

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 . . . → Read More: Happy Wrists!

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 . . . → Read More: TNNA: The Magical Cat Bordhi

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 . . . → Read More: Go Team FO! And a blocking convert

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 . . . → Read More: Busy day, still no socks… UPDATE–PICTURE ADDED

<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 . . . → Read More: Olympic-sized Hurdles