Interweave Knits' WebWatch

2007-09-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

Organic!

It's a linker's paradise, this topic! So much to read and digest, so let's get to it!

- "Have You Any Organic Wool?", an interesting article by Donna Drachunas with great links at the bottom

- The National Organic Standards Board Definition of "Organic"

Note this key sentence: "Organic agriculture practices cannot ensure that products are completely free of residues; however, methods are used to minimize pollution from air, soil and water." Yup, nothing is perfect. But still, minimizing pollution is better than doing whatever the heck you want and letting the environment suffer!

- IFOAM [International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements]: their goal is the worldwide adoption of ecologically, socially and economicaly sound systems that are based on the principles of Organic Agriculture - Third-Party Certification. Read this one. It's much less dry than it sounds, and very interesting. Lots more content there, if you're interested.

- from the American Society of Plant Biologists Plant Physiology website: Internalizing the Societal Costs of Agricultural Production. "Societies and social groups within them are becoming aware that food and fiber are not gifts of nature that come to us cost-free from the natural world because their production involves consumption of renewable and nonrenewable resources as well as expenses for capital and variable inputs in the production process, plus outlays for transportation, processing, marketing, and food preparation." This realization is something that many of us are becoming more aware of. Interesting reading.

- Third-party certification is handled by Control Union Certifications (formerly Skal International). Their certificates are accepted by authorities in nearly every country.

---

Okay, enough research. Let's find some nifty products that fall in line with organic standards:

- an assortment of organic yarns for the Australian market and renewable fiber for spinning -- read the intro page for an interesting perspective on cotton and wool yarns

- organic, vegan, recycled, fair-traded and other yarns at this US online shop

- Treliske organic merino from New Zealand, sold in the US

- organic handspun yarn from Tanager Song Farm

- Tierra Wools of New Mexico

- Garthenor Organic Pure Wool - Soil Association Certified 100% woollen yarns from traditional and rare breeds of Organic British sheep

- Cornish Organic Wool including organic wool batting and organic knitting kits

- Irish wool and woollen products -- fully organic from sheep to processing

- Pakucho Organic Cotton, naturally colored and very soft

- O-Wool, Vermont-grown organic wool yarn

- Green Mountain Spinnery, Maine-grown, Vermont-processed wool yarn

- Organic textiles sold by the yard or Fat Quarter [for quilters] and lovely organic towels in natural and blue. "Our fabric is dyed using traditional dye methods that have been used in India for thousands of years. The dye materials include: indigo leaves, madder root, aal wood, cutechu, turmeric, pomegranate rind, onion skins, alum and iron. This alternative to conventional dye processes eliminates the use of thousands of chemicals, many of which contribute to high levels of toxicity in the environment."

- The Organic Directory -- a UK directory of organic goods, with over 2,000 listings of retailers, producers, wholesalers and manufacturers

---

And finally, how are you affecting our environment by the choices you make? Take the Ecological Footprint Quiz and find out. Maybe it'll encourage you to take some new steps toward reducing your impact on the planet.

2007-08-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

please stand by

Due to illness [I recently had emergency gall bladder surgery and am recovering well, for those who worry], this update is late.

I apologize for the delay and will get the fall issue organic information up here as soon as possible. Your patience is appreciated!

signed, healing Amy

2007-05-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

Do you like cruises?
I do. So when Patricia Babischkin [of Cruise Planners] asked me -- thanks to a connection made by Mama E -- asked if I'd like to join her and her guests on the 2008 Sea Socks cruise to Alaska, can you imagine how long I hesitated? Yup, barely a millisecond.

Well, details are now finalized, and guess what: we have another cool cruiser coming along with us. Are you sitting down? Brenda Dayne. Yes, you read right. The patron saint of knitting is coming from across the sea to sail with us! She and I will both be teaching classes, and there's way more going on than I even know about.

You can find full details here -- or if you're really keen, just call the lovely Patricia at 888-286-9827. We'd love to have you join us!

We sail May 9, 2008, from Seattle for 7 days aboard Celebrity's Infinity, with stops in Victoria, Ketchikan and Juneau. I believe I need to lie down now.

2007-05-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

The Etsy of Europe?

Just spotted this: DaWanda. It seems to be the new Etsy for European artists, though I recognize some of the work on the front page from Etsy artists located elsewhere [North America, Australia].

Not every seller there takes Paypal [which is quickly becoming the ubiquitous universal web currency exchange], but a lot do. I think this requires further investigation. Race ya!

2007-05-07T18:38:00.000-07:00

Shop Indie!

Indie is a huge movement and it's only getting bigger. If you love unique goods and think it's cool when someone starts their own business, here's how you can do your part to support this movement. Spend a little of your disposable income with someone who makes everything by hand. It's just way too cool.

First, you're probably going to want to bookmark Etsy.
Etsy tips:
- register so you can save your favorite shops and items for later on - don't forget to check out their feedback system if you're going to make a purchase [kind of like eBay]. There has been recent talk of a shop on Etsy who got so much negative feedback about the quality of their product, they closed their shop and reopened under a new name [and bye-bye went the bad feedback]. Buyer beware!

[In my experience, most indie artists are the coolest people you'll ever meet, but there are bad seeds in every area of life.]

By the way, the links that follow are in no particular order.

These yarn and fiber shops are all indie, or specialize in indie artists:
- The Sweet Sheep
- Kpixie
- Yarn Rescue
- Hello Yarn
- Pick Up Sticks
- Miss Hawklet
- Scout's swag
- Woolgirl
- Pippikneesocks
- Ernst glass knitting tools and buttons
- One Planet yarn and fiber
- Happy Fuzzy Yarn
- The Urban Knit
- SuperCrafty
- Spritely Goods
- Briar Rose Fibers
- Fun With Yarn
- Woolly Wonka Fibers
- Jenkins Woodworking
- Lisa Souza
- Spunky Eclectic
- HollyEQQ

Indie collectives [shops that sell items from a variety of different indie artists]:
- I Shop Indie
- Cut + Paste
- Modishoppe
- Indie Shopper
- India Romeo
- Anezka Handmade
- Shana Logic
- Buy Olympia

Indie-spotting blogs, websites and magazines:
- Indie Collective
- Miss Malaprop
- Indie Finds
- Indie Obsession
- Indie Designer Labels
- Jrosebud
- Culture Junkie
- Squidoo's list
- Craft Revolution Magazine

And I'll leave you with this:
- Buckaroo Style's definition of Indie...and then check out the cool stuff this indie shop has to offer.

2007-03-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

Spotted at the Nake-id Knits blog, a new yarn source...yarns from Russia! The website's done by the North American distributor and everything's in English. Happy browsing!

2007-02-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

Well, like most people (:-), it turns out I'm human.

I wrote in the spring issue that "few" of the patterns at the Garnstudio website were translated into English. If you came at the site from the main page, you might wonder if perhaps I were blind or just deeply confused. Actually, my Googling turned up a side-door entrance into the site where the English pages were quite scarce, and I was not clever enough to check further.

So my apologies to Garnstudio, who have translated MORE THAN HALF of their huge pattern selection into English. You'll find patterns in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, English, German, Dutch and French. Just click on the appropriate flag.

Here, peek for yourself: Garnstudio

And now, on to the rest of the links, for your clicking pleasure!

- Get your Norwegian knitting lessons here, at Theresa's house of knitting delights!

- Super-handy knit terms glossary at needlepointers – in Spanish, French, English and German. Print and save!

- Ever wonder what those mysterious, supposedly "universal", care symbols on yarn labels mean? Find out here
click "Wissenswertes" in German, "Know-how" in English.
I couldn't find the French version on the site. If anyone finds it, please let me know and I'll post the link.

Yarn companies:
- Bouton d'Or
- adriafil
- anny blatt
- Austermann
- Katia
- Lana Grossa - get the "model of the month" as a free downloadable PDF
- Phildar - go shopping crazy, wherever you live in the world!
- Schoeller Stahl
- Steinbach Wolle

Happy knitting!

2006-10-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

This issue's column is about one of my personal favorite aspects of knitting...how the Japanese do it. I suppose what's most surprising is not that their approach to pattern writing is different from most of the world, but that their approach is so unique. That kind of stuff fascinates me.

But wait...let's go to the source: The Basics of Japanese Knitting. It's worth printing out, reading and saving. It will open doors to you, to patterns you couldn't read before, and to a whole new way of thinking about knitting.

And now the rest of the links:

Knit Japan -- a site focusing on Japanese knitting patterns, based out of the UK.

- Puppy yarn

- rather rough website forNoro yarn.

- Tezukuritown ["tezukuri" means "handmade" in Japanese].

- Crafting Japanese blog -- handy blog that shows Japanese crafting books including their ISBN numbers [you'll need these if you're going to order any of them from....]

- Amazon Japan. But how do you order from a mostly Japanese website?

- You read this website. With the information you'll find here, you can quite simply order any book from Amazon Japan. The last time I had a bad cold, I read this tutorial and ordered quite a few delicious Japanese knitting books with no trouble. They arrived to my home in Canada within a month.

- An easier-still way to order Japanese books, toys and other cool stuff is to visit Yes Asia. It's a little more expensive, but it's very friendly to non-Japanese speake- rs. Choose the country you live in and it customizes the site for you. Shipping is slowish, but not unbearably so.

- Personally, I love visiting Kinokuniya in person [they have stores in the US in Manhattan and all over the west coast]. It's a real treat to be able to page through each book before you choose it. But they also offer an online ordering service. It's easiest if you know the ISBN before you order. Otherwise, use the English search and punch in a keyword or two and cross your fingers.

Enjoy!

2006-09-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

Get inspired!

Here are the links for the fall issue...inspiration awaits, so click on!

- project spectrum

- Summer of stash -- can we go all summer without buying yarn?...click to see how they did!

- Project colorswap

- Keri Smith...and while you're there, spend some time clicking around her whole site. She's inspiring!

- Learning to Love You More
[from their website: Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Yuri Ono designs and manages the web site.

Participants accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, text, video, etc), and see their work posted on-line. Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience.

- Poetry Thursday

- Self-portrait challenge

- Illustration Friday

2006-05-14T06:42:00.000-07:00

Howdy!
There were a few things in the original Summer 2006 column I submitted to Interweave that didn't make it to print. I think the whole thing explains itself a little better, so what the heck -- here it is, for your reading enjoyment, with appropriate links in place in the text.

---

If you’ve been reading this column for a while [hi!], you may remember I wrote briefly about lace a few years ago. That was when I first realized lace was not my enemy, not solely the domain of ancient women with amazing eyesight and infinite patience. Lace has become my friend.

There’s a debate about nomenclature. Supposedly working a pattern with lace detailing on both sides is knitted lace, whereas doing what I love best – finding a pattern where every alternate row is simply knit or purled – is called lace knitting. They’ve both got “lace” in the name, and the resulting projects are beautiful and full of intentional holes. I’m not going to quibble about what’s what.

All over the web, lace has continued to grow in popularity since the Charlotte’s Web shawl first made its splash on blogs worldwide. Some people have added lace to their socks and sweaters. Some knit doilies. Endlessly. Some think their washcloths deserve a little lace. Some believe only in the glory of the lace shawl. There’s room for all of us.

What continues to fascinate me is how giving bloggers are of their time and knowledge. Two amazing bits of sharing have emerged recently. First, we have Ted Myatt and Katherine Matthews, who are co-blogging about their experience as they knit the dazzingly complex Princess Shawl designed by Sharon Miller. It’s a delicate, intricate work befitting the title “heirloom”, designed in fine crochet-weight cotton and called “one of the most complex Shetland lace patterns ever offered for sale”. I’d say.

And then we have the ever-generous Eunny Jang, who’s sharing everything she knows about lace, a blog entry at a time, with clear pictures and illustrations, and detailed explanations and instructions. Her “Majoring in Lace” series is a gift to anyone who wants to knit lace, and absolutely worth reading, printing and saving. Check her archives for more.

---

You want more? THIS should keep you busy for about a lifetime. :-)

And a little peek at my latest love, the Tuscany shawl:

This is all I can show you. This is the first lace shawl I've designed, and it'll be published in the book I'm writing for Interweave about knitting without wool. Spring 2007. I'm knitting the final sample for photography right now, and I still love it. Lace is a wonderful thing. Silk lace doubly so.

2006-03-05T15:12:00.000-08:00

There are so many sock links to share with you that this time, I'm going to go for a leaner listing. Hope your clicking finger is ready, cause it's in for a workout.

Here goes!

- The universal sock pattern

- Kim Salazar's sock patterns

- Tons of sock info at about.com

- Knitty's Socks 101

- Knitting socks online class

- Terry's Socks 101

- Knitter's Review Sock Knitter's Companion

- How to knit socks on 2 circulars

- Wendy's list of sock links

- Sock Knitting webring

- The Secret Knitting podcast offers a step-by-step sockalong, with surprising results

- Too lazy to knit 'em yourself? Look at these!

- The sock pattern that I learned to knit socks with

- Insanely huge list of sock patterns

- Build your own sock pattern! [the gussset problems with the pattern builder have been corrected...go nuts! :-) ]

Pretty pictures to inspire you:
- 352 sockapal-2-za knitalong participants...holy cow! And the new Sockapaloooza [spell it with 3 Os, mind you] has just begun!

- Very long, very neat socks

- Gifted picot-topped socks

- Baby socks and grownup cable socks

- All socks, all the time

- Sarah's socks

- Finnish socks

- Lucy Neatby's beautiful sock patterns for sale

- 5,276 pairs of socks knitted for soldiers in WWI

- These beauties are based on the poem "An Ode to my Socks"
and the writing on the socks reads, in Spanish:

beauty is beauty
twice over
and good things are doubly
good
when you're talking about a pair of wool
socks
in the dead of winter.

2006-01-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

Knitting travel, revisited

Last November, I wrote about knitting travel. But if you'd have asked me back then what I'd be doing in April 2006, I wouldn't have answered "going to Italy". Read on...

Evan Kleiman, who you may know from her cool NPR show Good Food, is also owns her own restaurant and catering company. And several times a year, she hosts cooking classes in her favorite country -- Italy -- where she teaches the lucky attendees secrets of Italian cooking. Of course, there's shopping too. In Firenze. [That's Florence, for people like me who haven't cracked open the "Learn Italian" podcast just yet.] Evan books an entire villa, so the attendees stay in one beautiful location, where the classes are also held.

And now, the news! This April, Evan's going to hold her first cooking/knitting class. And she's asked me to be the instructor! I will be teaching "Learn to Love Lace", and we'll be knitting an original shawl I'm designing in Handmaiden Silken. I'm designing this shawl specifically for the class, so that it's an easy, encouraging knit for lace newbies, with a surprisingly sophisticated result.

Oh. And there are YARN STORES in Italy, people. And I believe we'll be hitting at least one.

So...this isn't an inexpensive adventure, but it will be an amazing, memorable one. For more information, you can download Evan's brochure here.

You can find a quick overview of Evan's tours here. This fabulous cooking/knitting adventure in Tuscany is set for April 20-29, 2006. Hope to see you there!

2005-12-27T06:55:00.000-08:00

Connect with knitters far away

Online knitting forums are popping up everywhere! Since writing my column for the winter issue of Knits, already I've spotted a new one at Flickr, the handy place people store and share their digital photos. Without further ado, the list, for your clicking enjoyment!

- Flickr's knitting discussion center
New and neat!

- the Knitty coffeeshop
My home turf. Religion and politics free, but full of knitting and almost everything else!

- Knitter's Review
Huge and lively! Great way to find knitters who like the same stuff you do.

- Men Knit
Small, but perky. Check out their Links page for a listing of male knitter resources. Sadly, the forum still doesn't work.

- Men Who Knit
Rejoice! A man's knitting site with a lively discussion group, and other great info.

- Craftster
Excellent resource for more than just knitting. Amazing crafty projects with pictures and step by step instructions can be found.

- about.com's knitting forums
A smidge more old school, and quite a busy place!

2005-11-14T07:28:00.000-08:00

Knitting with paperclips
You're at the office. You've got some dental floss in your desk. Might as well knit when no one's looking!

Here's a link to a page about a student who knit with paperclips for his school project. Cool teacher, if you ask me.

2005-10-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

Something you thought you'd never see...
An immense pink knitted rabbit, flat on its back, on top of a mountain in Italy. Enormous soft sculputure, meant to be climed upon, observed, and allowed to decompose.

You'll need to visit the artists' website to get the full story, in amusing English. "Happily in love you step down the decaying corpse, through the wound, now small like a maggot, over woolen kidney and bowel." Right.

Pictures on the Gelitin website, too. Someone get me a plane ticket to Turin.

2005-08-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

More booky bloggers!
A new crew, and they keep on coming!

Shannon Okey is the knitting world's Donald Trump, but with WAY better hair and taste in spouses. This girl has so much going on I can't even report it all. Multiple media, books up the wazoo. Really, really cool stuff. Like Shannon herself, nothing is traditional, everything is fun. So here's her first book [the first of many]: Knitgrrl: Learn to Knit With 15 Fun and Funky Patterns, coming this fall. Aimed at the young, new knitter, this book is all about fun and not a bit about boring. A sequel will follow in spring [full disclosure: I've got a pattern in that one!]. Called Knitgrrl2? We'll have to see!

And from Kim Werker, the woman who brings you Crochet Me, the online crochet mag, and Cecily Keim, we have a new book coming out at the end of the year: Teach Yourself VISUALLY Crocheting. If you've seen my crochet, you'll know this is a book I need to read.

Oh, while I'm here, I should mention this: I'm thrilled to be working with Interweave on a new knitting book, to be published in Spring of 2007. It's absolutely NOT about knitting with wool. And that's all I'll say for now.

2005-07-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

First I talk about it...
Then I do it!

Following in the footsteps of Interweave Knits' Editor Pam Allen, you can now hear my too-fast-talky voice on Marie Irshad's Knitcast. There's a little Interweave-related announcement at the end, too. :-)

2005-07-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

Podcasting
I rhapsodize about podcasting to anyone who'll listen. Which is exactly one person: my husband.

Podcasting is the coolest thing to happen to communication since the internet got big in the mid 1990s. Podcasting allows any person anywhere the ability to reach the whole world with their own radio program. Podcasts can be found on almost every subject you can imagine, including knitting. Marie Irshad's Knitcast has featured people from Pam Allen [editor of Knits!] to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Lily Chin. Very cool.

If you are reading this blog, you have access to a computer. Which means you can listen to podcasts. [While it's cooler, I think, to take them with you on an MP3 player, not everyone likes or wants mobile sound.] So, to get yourself linked up with podcasts from around the world, start with iTunes. It works on Mac and Windows systems and is free. With the newest release -- version 4.9 -- podcast support is built in. This means you don't have to get a utility to download the podcasts and keep track of them, because iTunes will do it for you. Just click on the music store [no, you won't have to buy them...at least not yet, because they're all free at the moment] and then look for the purple icon and button that says "Podcasts are here". Click that and you're in the podcast browsing environment. Each podcast should come with a little blurb that tells you what it's about.

You may not be able to take it all in on first visit, cause there's a lot, but here's a way to get your head around it:
- Podcasts are little MP3 programs [condensed audio files that sound great] that individuals produce for your enjoyment.
- Podcasts are produced for almost every possible area of interest, including science, health, religion, media, news, technology, entertainment, leisure, and personal blather.
- Some podcasts sound like professionally produced radio shows, cause that's what they are.
- Some podcasts sound like your dorky cousin recorded himself singing in the shower...cause that's what he did.
- A good way to find podcasts you like is just to play around, clicking on areas that interest you and then downloading the ones that sound like your kind of thing. Just click "subscribe", and the iTunes utility will go and get all the files that are available. If you find you hate any podcast, click "unsubscribe" and iTunes will delete all the files and never make you listen to them again.
- If you don't use iTunes, try iPodderX...currently only for Mac, but a Windows version is coming soon. [As a Machead, I love when that happens, cause it's usually the opposite! Mac people usually have to wait for the cool stuff.]
- Podcast Alley was the first big place to find podcasts, but that may all change now that iTunes has podcasts built in. Only time will tell. Still handy for finding out what's popular and discovering new Podcasts. Listeners are allowed to vote for their favorites, and that's how the top 10 list is built. Don't miss out on the heavy-duty selection of NPR and CBC public radio podcasts. They're the coolest. Just type "NPR" or "CBC" in the search window and they'll come up.

My favorite podcasts:
- This Week in Tech [TWiT], brought to you by the former hosts of The Screen Savers tv show, now defunct. The perfect example of why I love podcasts. When a big cable company bought out the cable channel Tech TV, they pretty much gutted the channel, cancelling the interesting shows. So the stars of The Screen Savers -- a great resource for people who wanted to learn more about their computers -- decided to do the show themselves as a podcast. It's probably not for every geek, but I love their honest approach. If they like a product, you'll know and if they don't, ditto. Very rare in this highly commercial world where sponsors often rule.
- Offramp. Weird, weird, weird comedy brought to you by a well-established improv troupe from Florida. I liked the earlier episodes better than the recent ones, but they're all weird and make me giggle.
- Claybourne -- an audio mystery/drama from New Zealand that's just plain spooky. It comes in tiny 5-minute bites or shorter, and at least 1 minute of that is the theme music. Which is very cool. I have no idea if this thing ever ends or if I just get to hear fun twangy accents and spooky theme music forever, but it's fun to listen to.

Oh, and one more caveat: there are no rules governing podcasting, which is the whole point. Free expression. That means there may be profanity or content you might not think suitable for you or your kids. You'll usually be able to tell from the description if what you're subscribing to is your kind of thing. Just be aware that the responsibility is placed on the listener when it comes to deciding if content is appropriate for them or not.

I don't know that podcasts will ever stop being free, but I imagine some of them will. Kind of like pay-per-view? In the meantime, download everything that interests you and enjoy!

2005-06-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

Mea culpa.

See, this is the blogging phenomenon [quite a popular one, actually!] called being a bad blogger. I haven't updated here since April.

I suck!

Sorry, folks. If you've been coming here, looking for content, I have let you down. I'll do better.

---

Okay, better! First, the new IK is out and it's time to talk tech.

You want to map your route? Try Google Maps.

You want to translate the lederhosen pattern you've found on the web that's only in German? Try Google's language tools. Also good for Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The language tools come in really handy when you're browsing Yahoo Japan [my favorite source for Blythe stuff I can't afford but still like looking at]. Just plug in the URL, and as you click through the site, each page is translated quite badly into some sort of English-related language. It's machine translation and it's free...so no complaining. Besides, it's usually enough so you can get the basic idea of what's being said. And the badly translated phrases are fun. Lee mosquito! [That's my favorite, and I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. I think it refers to something small, though.]

You want to find the best price on the black leather Gizeh Birkenstocks you've been craving? Try Froogle. Yes, also from the people at Google. We love Google. Google bought Blogger, by the way -- which is the utility we use to make this blog. We really love Google. They're cool.

Okay, enough Google. [I can never get enough Google, but that's enough for now.]

More to come!

2005-04-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

See?

Book-writing knitbloggers are everywhere!

First, we's got ourselves the Yarn Harlot.
Then there's Wendy.
Knitty's own Kristi Porter has one, too! Woof!
And the most recent announcement: Ann & Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting are doing it, too.

I know of a few others, but I'm not sure if they're for public consumption just yet. If you're a knitblogger with a book coming out, drop me a line at amy A.T knitty D0T com and I'll let folks know about it here.

2005-04-01T05:45:00.000-08:00

And another Martha wannabe....
Berroco's "Famous Poncho"

This may be the last of them, but you never know.

2005-03-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

The onslaught has begun!
We've all been knitting ponchos for ages, but Martha wears one as she leaves prison, and suddenly the rest of the world has gone mad for them. Okay, she did look kinda cozy all wrapped up in that bubbly grey yarn, getting on a flight home.

Okay, let's oblige the rest of the world, then. My linky list of online Martha lookalikes, for your clicking pleasure. I'm fairly sure this list will grow over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

- I hear from my uber-secret sources that Interweave will have their version, called the Freedom Poncho, on this very website on Monday, March 14th. Designed by Lily Chin, no less!

- Bernat's version, in both knit and crochet.

- Lion Brand has a crocheted version up now, and a knitted one is promised within a week

It's madness, I tell you.

2005-02-27T07:26:00.000-08:00

Have you seen this? Knitty's techniques columnist Theresa Vinson Stenersen has started the Bunny A Long, just in time for easter.

You might know me and my hub have a bunny. That's her. We love our bunny -- she's our little furry child. We knew nothing about the bigger pet abandonment issues when we got her many years ago. Soon after, we learned about the House Rabbit Society, which sounded like a cute name for people like us. But what it is, in fact, is an organization that works to save abandoned rabbits. Cause, see, people buy and give baby petstore bunnies to their kids at easter -- meaning well, of course -- and don't realize that when these bunnies hit their teens just 6 months later, they will begin to destroy their house and be much less adorable than the fluffy handful they'd bought. A good number of these "easter" bunnies get dumped, back at shelters, or worse -- outdoors where they can't possibly survive.

The HRS works to educate people who want to live with rabbits. The main issues are spaying/neutering at the appropriate age [this is essential if you don't want your female bunny to die of uterine cancer in later life, and to keep your male bunny from driving himself and you mad with his unsatisfyable urges], and bunnyproofing your home so you and your rabbit can live together happily and safely for a long time. There's much more on the HRS website. If you are thinking of caring for a rabbit, read it all, please.

We adore our fuzzybun. She requires different care than a cat or dog would, and gives us very different rewards. A bunny is a surprise and a delight at every moment. The fact that she allows us to be part of her life, knows her name, tells us where she'd prefer to be petted...all of these things are part of the joys of living with a bunny. The thought of the countless rabbits in shelters who have no homes and may not ever find them...

So don't give a living rabbit for easter this year. Join Theresa's Bunny A Long and give a fuzzy knitted friend. Then after you've done the reading, if you're sure a rabbit is the right friend for you or your kids, find the closest HRS chapter and adopt a rabbit who needs a home.

Thanks for listening.

2005-02-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

I bet you're looking for the goods
I can't blame you. So let's get right to it. Links from the spring issue:

- the Sex and the Knitty issue [no nudity, but adult-themed garments are featured in this issue]
- Southwest Trading Company, home of Soy Silk, Silk Latte, Bamboo, Ingeo and much more
- Habu Textiles, where you'll find the stainless, linen, silk and plant materials I wrote about
- Diana Rupp's Make Workshop yarns...sign up for her mailing list so you'll know when she's ready to offer them for sale!
- Axelle de Sauveterre keeps a blog here, and a handy list of her beautiful colorways here. She takes orders by e-mail.
- Adrian Bizilla's Hello Yarn continues to inspire. I'm looking forward to when she starts spinning silk [hint hint], but in the meantime, she's spinning larger dyelots of her gorgeous, inspired colorways.

2005-01-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

New season, new yarn?
It doesn't much feel like spring up here on the Canadian side of the border with windchill values in the -21c range, and a good part of the US just got pounded with a huge dumping of snow.

So what else is on a knitter's mind? The new spring yarns, of course! After all, the TNNA [that's The National NeedleArts Association] has just held it's annual spring trade show in sunny California. Most of us aren't lucky enough to go...it's restricted to the trade. But if you own a yarn shop or fiberish company, maybe you were there, ordering yarny goodies for the upcoming warmer season.

Sadly, I couldn't make it. But I do know that, twice a year, many yarn companies update their websites with their new lines. And so, I present to you...a mini showcase of what'll be in your LYS any day now!

In alphabetical order, so as not to play favorites:
- Art Yarns
- Berroco
- Knitting Fever, for Debbie Bliss, Noro, Gedifra, Katia and more [click on the yarn company name and scroll to the bottom of the page to see the newest yarns]
- Lang
- Muench
- Rowan...is currently undergoing a site makeover, scheduled to launch by January 28th -- and I'll bet there'll be new yarn there when it does!

But what colors should you be wearing this spring?
Read Pantone's spring color trends, thanks to the folks at Numei yarns [Acrobat Reader required to view the PDF file]. And you can shop a little when you're done.

I'm sure more yarn companies will soon be showing off their new stock, and I'll add them here when I find them.