Mood:
a-okTopic: Knitting
I have so much to tell everyone I learned about knitting, the knitting tradition, history of knitting, etc. from my trip that I don't know where to start. I took two 6 hour classes from Beth Brown Reinsel. http://www.knittingtraditions.com/ Beth's first book, Knitting Ganseys is a step by step guide to learning the traditional techniques of creating ganseys, the British fishermen's working garment. By knitting a small scale sweater which features these many techniques, the reader can acquire the necessary skills in a short time. Beth's second book, Knitting Scandinavian Sweaters, is being published by Nomad Press.
In my two classes Beth taught us a mini red and black Swedish pullover called the North Haaland Men's sweater. The next class was a classic Norwegian Mitten. Beth is steeped in the tradition of this knitting and the classic designs. Her hand outs were great and she spent a lot of time explaining yarn dominance in stranded knitting. By keeping your hands consistent in the way you use your main color and other color you avoid those distinctive change in look half way through a garment. She also explained that in North Haaland they didn't use steeks much because they were always thinking about the next use of the yarn. I learned to effectively purl in stranded knitting without going crazy (a first for me).
She also taught a style of continental purling that keeps the yarn at the back all the time which is ideal for seed and ribbing. She calls this Norwegian purling. This is the style she was taught as a youngster. I had several projects half done to knit on the trip, so I couldn't change to this version of purling in these projects because of change of guage. I did use it in both of Beth's classes and I really liked it. Can't wait to cast on something new to really get this technique in my head.
Neither my mini-sweater or my mitten are done yet, but I will post them when I have made more progress. When I signed up for these classes months ago, I wasn't sure how interested I was but knew I'd learn a lot from Beth. In the meantime, I've started working on designing Fair Isle patterns and this two color knitting primer couldn't have been better timing.
Beth also taught a class on twined knitting which I couldn't take because I was in a Nancy Bush class (poor me). I did hear from others and confirmed with Beth that yarn for twined knitting often should be spun s and plyed z. Normally yarn is spun z and plyed s. Twined knitting adds more and more ply twist and gets the yarn quite tight. Beth says she uses regular yarn as well. I'm not very knowledgable about twined knitting, but if you are interested keep that in mind.
Beth and Sally Melville are teaching on a cruise that goes to Scotland, Ireland next year. I almost signed up while on the boat to get their discounts. But reality set in. I'd definitely go cruising again and I'd definitely take more classes from Beth but might have to wait awhile for all that.
Linda
Linda
A new book Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren seems to be the answer. This book includes almost everything my daughters discuss and enough cute items to thrill any baby knitter’s heart. Kristen has taken old patterns from books and magazines and reworked them in contemporary yarns with schematics and sometimes charts. Patterns include a shrug, cardigan, hoodies, cape, kimono, socks, bonnet, christening gown, nursing shawl, a baby blanket, 2 soakers, several sacques, several toys, hats and more. 
happy
I have started dyeing sock blanks for sale at Wild Purls. I took the first 4 there a few days ago. I have dyed sock blanks off and on for several years since taking a class by Nancy Roberts at SOAR (Spinoff’s Annual Retreat) and even knitted some items with them. I find the machine knitting of the sock blanks was my big stumbling block. But Julia found a nice superwash 90%merino/10% nylon preknitted sock blanks for me to dye. These are very fun to dye and each blank is 384 yards enough for 2 socks, 1 scarf, 1 shawlette, or 2 hats. The blanks come complete with dire
ctions for socks and other items. Each colorway I dye is unique and depends a lot upon my mood that week. They are labor intensive, but oh is it fun to play with color. 
You knit directly from the sock blanks and although the blanks look quite intense colors, they always blend a bit more in the knitting. I feel you have to start with intense color or it will be too grayed out. 
I LOVE DYEING Linda
. The pattern is dead simple and I have used it before in my circular sampler bag. What caused me the problems was which yarn. Last year I had bought some Baby Twist, a sport weight alpaca from WP at a sale. I didn't have enough of any one color to make a scarf. I decide to make a color block pattern with purple, several greens, and a goldy yellow. I had the scarf half knit and I just didn't like it. At WP a young girl suggested that she liked the green parts. I always knit my patterns twice in 2 different weights of yarn. I came home and cast on some fingering weight yarn semi-solid yarn I dyed in a green blue. This yarn was varied enough that it didn't show the seed stitch stripes. So it turned into a swatch. I finally decided to start over again in the Baby Twist, this time only using green. It worked. Most of the scarf will be one green, but I have 2 other greens at each end also. Yeah I'm happy.
I had shown you my first Reversibility! in a handdyed dk weight yarn. Can I resist little bits of color--no. Pagewood has a very pretty handdyed Yukon sock yarn that is partially bamboo which gives it a sheen. They market leftovers as Sock Bites and I just couldn't resist a package. I started a multicolor version in the sock bites which after fussing with picking out the colors I like. It will lay flat after I wash the finished scarf. The scarf is about half done. I will have it on display after Labor Day at Wild Purls.
Because I like this color and this yarn, I perceive that the pattern is much nicer than I thought when I used yarns before that didn't please me as much. It is a cool pattern and it is an easy lace and reversible. 
This is quite an easy pattern--no harder than seed stitch. In the proper yarn this pattern would look masculine. 
on fire
The grey is a natural color. The blue was a light grey, but I overdyed it. The black is llama. I dyed it to darken it up a bit more. I also spin the grey and black thinner than the blue 
My moment of fame arrived today. A few friends and I run a silk scarf dyeing booth at Summerfair, a large craft fair benefitting the Yellowstone Art Museum. The fair is at Veteran's Park at 13th and Poly and runs this Saturday and Sunday July 18 and 19. We teach people to dye silk scarves and all the proceeds go to benefit the museum. Today, they featured an article about this in the Billings Gazette. The reporter, Jaci Webb, had come over and we had walked a couple of girls through the paces of dyeing a scarf which is very easy and immediate playing with color. We just teach 3 easy Shibori techniques. The first uses garbanzo and/or fava beans as a resist. The second uses a simple hill and valley technique. Then we teach pole wrapping on small pvc pipes. Everything is then steamed in a roaster.