knittyBlog

WWW: Bridges, Knitting Reality Show mark II, G8 Yarnbombers

Kate — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:26:16 +0000

Color us intrigued…

The very clever JC Briar has just launched her latest project: Stitch Maps. A totally different way of presenting knitting charts, they are gridless, so that you can not only represent the stitches, but also the shape and flow of the fabric…

Not strictly knitting, but tremendous: a very elegant yarnbomb under a bridge in Bristol. Although they get the details wrong, there’s a nice close up photo of the work in this article.

Mr. Warhol would be proud to see his namesake bridge decked out so beautifully

Speaking of bridges, a group in Pittsburgh wants to yarnbomb the Andy Warhol Bridge. The “Knit the Bridge” team has applied for city council permission for the project – after all, a full bridge is not something that can be blanketed in secret. If successful, the project is due to be completed in August, and will be on display for about four weeks.

“Purl 6″, a yarnbomber from Newcastle

The Guardian has a slideshow of the yarmbombing crew planning to yarnbomb the G8 meetings that took place in Ireland. I love the “thug life” quality of the portraits: the juxtaposition of their stances and the details of children, dogs, chickens and knitting.

Cooperative Press, publisher of Kate’s two books, is hosting a multi-book Knit Along this summer, with the authors. Knitting! Fun! Prizes!

Apparently, the Norwegians love boring… err… meditative TV. Although this piece on the Wall Street Journal feels like an April Fool’s joke, I checked the calendar, and it’s definitely not. The genre, known as “slow” television, is embraced as a break from “the crazy media world”. The first hit show of the genre ran in 2009 – a full live stream of a 7-hour train ride from Oslo to Bergen, as viewed from a camera on the top of a train. In the planning for the upcoming season includes a show watching ‘experts’ knit.

I love the outtakes as much as the “good” photos.

Helen Stewart, the designer of this issue’s lovely “Glitz at the Ritz shawl” talks on her blog about the setting for her beautiful photographs, and the photo session.

Jillian’s Spinning: New First Fall Knittyspin is Live!

Jillian — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:36:40 +0000

First Fall Knitty is live, which means there’s a new Knittyspin too!

Have you looked yet?

There’s a beautiful sweater, Canoe, by Amy King, spun from wool/flax.

Can you Canoe?

A wear- all- the-time vest, Vertical Ridge, by Lyn Hale.

Knit side to side stripes.

My Knittyspin column this time is about ply and knitting.

How many plies do you like?

I spun and knit a pile of samples.

A pile of plying.

In Fiber Fiesta our intrepid spinners spun Porpoise Fur texel, Three Waters Farm alpaca, merino, tussah and Fibre Forager corriedale.

Yummy, yummy fibers

I also review the Hansen eSpinner, the TravelKate and Yarnometer cards.

Shopping anyone?

Let me know what you think of this issue, and anything you’d like to see in the future ones.

Enjoy!

WWW: Open hardware knitting machine; Lightsaber knitting needles; KIP-ing at sporting events

Kate — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:59:57 +0000

Love this!

A great ‘introduction’ to yarnbombing, courtesy the Canadian media and culture magazine ‘Spacing’.

And an interview with Brenna Macdonald, knitter, teacher and member of the Lettuce Knit team in Toronto.

Revealing your mind with your scarf.

An absolutely fascinating collaboration: Neuro Knitting. Artists Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet worked with Sebstian Mealla, a scientist from ‘the Music Technology Group’ in Barcelona, on the project. They use a knitting machine to make a scarf with colorwork patterns based on brainwave readings from EEG scans.

An EEG scan records brainwave activity over 10 minutes of listening to Bach’s Goldberg variations, and the results that would normally print out on paper are rendered into a one-of-a-kind scarf.

A related story explains ‘Knitic‘, an open source knitting machine control module that is used to knit the scarves. The Knitic module controls a Brother knitting machine, allowing any pattern to be fed to the machine by computer, and the pattern to be changed on the fly.

Revealing nothing at all.

The developers of Knitic, also the developers of the Neuro Knitting project, aim to explore the intersection of science, technology and art. Their first project with a knitting machine was “SPAMpoetry“, creating poetry from spam email messages, and giving them knitted form.

Maybe if the force was with me, I’d cast on the right number of stitches on the first go…

A tutorial over at Instructables for making lightsaber knitting needles.

That light up.

Yes, you heard that right.

Knitting needles that look like lightsabers.

During WWKIP, there’s been a rash of sightings of knitters at sporting events… scaring the muggles a bit, maybe? A Norwegian football/soccer fan was recently spotting knitting in public, at a international juniors match in the UK. And a baseball fan was photographed knitting (although that could be crocheting, too) at a recent Washington Nationals game.

Pub-goers in Bath, UK, are knitting a 2-mile long scarf as part of a charity initiative to support a local hospice. The scarf will line the route between the pub and the hospice. When the event is complete, the scarf will be divided into pieces to make blankets for residents of a local home for the elderly, and for animals as a local shelter. Worth a click to see the photograph of the pub landlord wrapped up in the scarf!

A fitting honor.

Designer Kaffe Fassett is to have a rose named after him. The beatiful floribunda rose is a fitting choice, given the designer’s love of extravagant color and texture in his work.

First weekend of WWKIP: Where did you knit?

Kate — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:43:21 +0000

Kate knitted in the audience at a comedy show.

A sock, of course.

Amy’s LYS, The Purple Purl, yarnbombed a 400ft fence in a nearby park on Queen Street.

Fabulous!

tools of the trade

Zoe carefully examines an apple core

Lots of abandonded WIPs turned into fodder for yarnbombing

Michelle, Debbers and Miko help make the park more Purple

Every post needs a pompom hat

Jennifer sews up tube after tube

daisy

Rosa gets to work.

More photos on their Facebook page.

Lettuce Knit knitted and spun in public on their patio – yes, a yarn shop with a patio!

Brenna demonstrating her vintage sock knitting machine

There may also have been snack breaks.

A brave knitter – some of us were too busy chatting to pay attention to lacework!

The weather was perfect.

On Sunday, WWKIPTO hosted a huge event in Toronto’s high park. Excellent picture here, courtesy KniterlyErin.

Knitters were spotted at the Relay for Life 24-hour road race fundraising event.

More events are scheduled for this coming weekend – check your local shops and guilds! Kate will be in Waterloo at the Shall We Knit Studiopalooza.

Last Saturday was also the third International Yarnbombing Day. Some fantastic photographs on the Instagram blog.

WWW: Putting the ‘Woolly’ in “Woolly Mammoth”; ‘Knitting Wars’; Virtual Wake

Kate — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:21:10 +0000

Can’t wait to see the pictures of the second installation – this time approved!

The Knitting Guild of the Desert, in Palm Springs California, is reinstalling their fantastic “legwarmers for Marilyn” yarnbomb – this time with permission from the city of Palm Springs! – to celebrate WWKIP on June 13th. More details here. All day, knitters will be gathered around the statue, knitting, spinning and weaving.

Bobbly Beaver!

Putting the “woolly” in “woolly mammoth”

Amanda of KnitSocial sent us these terrific photos from a recent visit to the Yukon in Canada. The work of Yarn Bomb Yukon, who yarnbombed a DC-3 airplane last year, these prehistoric animal cozies may well be the most Canadian yarnbombs ever…

A nice article about handmade fashion, profiling instructors and sessions from last weekend’s Handmade New Zealand festival. In addition to knitting classes, there were sessions on re-purposing older clothes, and creating your own one-of-a-kind style.

Outstanding quote from knitting instructor Tash Barneveld, owner of a Petone yarn shop: “Once you can purl and plain, you’re away.” (“Plain” is the older term for “knit”, common in the UK and Australia and New Zealand. It’s what my grannie used to say, and it makes me smile.)

We knew it was fake immediately – “sew”?!

Interesting discussion alert: are we offended or not? A NYC-based PBS station has kicked off a small fuss with a new advertising campaign… they made posters for fake reality TV shows, making the point that if you believe such shows as “Married to a Mime” and “Bayou Eskimos” actually exist, then that says a lot about the current state of TV. One of the fake shows they created was “Knitting Wars’. I love knitting, but I’d be the first to admit you’d have a hard time making an interesting reality competition TV show out of it…

A lovely virtual wake for Kathreen Ricketson of Whipup.net over at MasonDixingKnitting.com.

How could you say no to that face?

A group of knitters at a retirement home in Scotland is making blankets for service dog puppies. I would knit blankets in exchange for regular visits from adorable service dog puppies – seems like a win for everyone!

Intriguing discussion on Yahoo! Answers… school project, perhaps?

Jillian’s Spinning: Consistency

Jillian — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:27:50 +0000

I’ve been working on getting my singles more consistent. I’ve been using a sample that I regularly check my spinning against to make sure I’m on the right track.

A lot of spinners use a ply-back sample that they check regularly, but I find that doesn’t work for me.

Lately I’ve been using a wrapped card sample and I like it much better.

For me a ply-back sample works much better when I spin worsted, which is more than before, but not my standard spin.

wrapped card and ply-back worsted spin

For me the wrapped card and ply-back with a worsted spin are similar, but I still use both, like on the card above.

Here’s why I don’t like a ply-back for woolen – the puff.

wrapped card and ply-back woolen

The twist in the woolen ply-back sample is trying it’s best to crawl right off of the card, making the sample inconsistent. The wrapped singles stay put and consistent.

I use card stock, nothing heavier. I want to know if I’m pulling my single as I’m wrapping instead of just wrapping and card stock will buckle right away if there is extra tension. I cut the card stock into a rectangle-ish shape and cut slits at each end to anchor my yarn. I anchor one end, wrap 10 or so times and anchor at the other end.

Some times I add a ply-back sample, just as an extra check.

When I check my singles, I hold the wrapped card next to the bobbin and check that the singles are a close enough match. It just works better for me. As a bonus, it saves the little bit of time it takes to pull singles off the bobbin and do a ply-back test and wind the singles back on the bobbin, it’s not much, but I’ll take any time saving measures.

Checking singles. The fiber is Blue Moon BFL Rocktober colorway.

Sometimes I punch a hole in the card to hang it from my wheel. When I’m very organized I write all of the info I’d like to remember about the fiber, wheel settings and spin on the back of the card.

How do you keep consistent?

A big (good!) change for LYS owners who use Knitty

Amy — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:49:23 +0000

Until this past Saturday, our official line on printing copies of Knitty patterns was pretty strict for LYSs. Only the customer could print their copy, and only on their own computer. Well, times have changed. I know of many, many LYSs that have a dedicated internet workstation for their customers, and some have that workstation attached to a printer. So I decided it was time to update our rules. We hope this will please many of you…we think it will!

As of June 1, 2013, we are officially encouraging yarn shops to let customers print their own patterns on shop premises! We have heard that some customers are not familiar enough with the internet, or are too eager to get started, to have to wait till they get home to print out a Knitty pattern, and a yarn sale might be lost. Since one of our goals at Knitty is to support the Local Yarn Shop, a lost sale for an LYS is something we want to help avoid. So whether you allow a customer access to your own computer/printer or provide a workstation for customer use, both methods are officially approved by Knitty, effective immediately. Charging in any way for this service, however, is not permitted. We feel this is a fair compromise that works to benefit everyone in the knitting community.

This still means the knitter is printing their own copy. They just don’t have to wait till they get home (or get someone who understands the internet to do it for them). We hope it means more happy knitters, happy LYS owners and that makes us happy, too.

Why can’t LYS owners charge for this privilege? Because that’s exchanging money for a Knitty pattern, even if it’s just to cover the paper and ink. That’s still not okay and never will be. LYSs can set their own rules — like a free printout if you buy the yarn to go with the project. That’s totally up to them. We don’t want people taking advantage and printing out pages and pages, and then just saying “toodeloo!” (But knitters are better people than that, aren’t they?) If a knitter wants to keep track of a Knitty pattern to browse at home, suggest they add it to their favorites on Ravelry, perhaps?

Feel free to spread the word about this change. If anyone gives you a tough time, you can point them to the official LYS FAQ page on Knitty, which also includes much of the information in this blog post.

Long live the LYS!

WWW: TTC Knitalong, Sock Knitting Machine Museum, The Chatelaine

Kate — Wed, 29 May 2013 14:23:18 +0000

Stitch & ride

Toronto’s annual TTC Knitalong is scheduled for Saturday July 20th. Pack a portable project and jump on a bus, streetcar or subway car with a group of knitting friends, touring around the city. Yarn stores on the routes will have special discounts, prizes, giveaways and other goodies. At the end of the day, all teams will meet for snacks and a drink, and there will be lots of show and tell.

Visitors to Toronto note: even if you’re not participating in the event, the website has an excellent overview of the great yarn shops in our fair city.

Do other cities have such events? Let us know!

Vintage knit, modern adorableness.

More than 30 years later, a New Zealand knitter decides she’s finally ready to tackle a pattern published in the May 25, 1970 issue of New Zealand Woman’s Weekly… Cuteness ensues.

After posting about the recently found vintage sock knitting machine, a reader alerted me to the New Zealand Sock Knitting Machine Museum, in Hokitika, New Zealand. Love it!

A needlework chatelaine. Image courtesy The Collectors Weekly

Fascinating: an article about the Chatelaine, the Victorian woman’s toolkit. In the days before giant bags, women would carry key tools with them in this jewellery-like case. Chatelaines were specific to situation and activity – a needlework chatelaine was designed to hold needles, scissors, thimbles and the like. Others would hold notebooks, perfume bottles, handkerchiefs.

These were both practical but also fashion accessories, and like purses, sometimes style trumped practicality… does it matter if it’s too small to hold everything you need if it’s really really cute?

Being, ultimately, practical and domestic items, they aren’t well known, and good examples are hard to find. This Collectors Weekly article gives you amazing insight into the item and the women who wore them, along with some tremendous photographs.

How fab is this?

Another fantastic yarnbomb at the seaside, in Saltburn, UK. This is clearly the work of the team that created an epic Olympic-themed yarnbomb last year. Click through to see all the photos!

A knitting city councillor causes a fuss at a meeting of the Liskeard Town Council, in Cornwall. Some of us wish that the disputes on our own city councils were so pleasant…

WWKIP Days!

Kate — Mon, 27 May 2013 14:53:51 +0000

World Wide Knit in Public Day has become a phenomenon since it was launched in 2005, by Danielle Landes. So much so, in fact, that the event now runs over a full week!

WWKIP began as a way to bring knitters together, out of the closet and into fresh air. Although knitters have been gathering together for many years – in each other’s homes and in stores, on “stitch nights”, and at events and retreats – but it’s usually knitters among knitters. The purpose of the day is to bring knitters out into public, amongst the “muggles”. WWKIP events often include knit-ins at parks and sporting events and shopping malls.

Although there are many of us who are quite used to knitting in public – those of use who ride public transport, those of us who enjoy the relaxation of a few minutes knitting over our lunch breaks at work, those of us who like to keep our hands occupied while attending the kids’ sporting events, dance practices, playtime at the park – there are many knitters who tend to indulge only at home. We’d like to encourage those knitters to show off their knitterly pride to the world. Don’t be shy about taking your work out with you. After all, knitting is a more social activity than reading, as you can take in the world around you and engage in conversation while at the needles. (Well, unless you’re working on a particularly engaging or challenging project, of course.)

For a list of events, consult the Ravelry forum, and check with stores and guilds in your area.

A few ideas:

Sunday June 9th, there will be an event in High Park in Toronto.
The Purple Purl in Toronto will be taking over a local park, Saturday June 8th.
Shall We Knit in Waterloo is running a wedding shower for friend of Knitty, Kim of indigodragonfly yarns, Saturday June 15th.
The Prescott, Arizona Knitters will be at the Farmer’s market on Saturday the 8th.
Sunday June 9th, knitters in Taunton, Somerset, will gather at IMAGINE, DESIGN, CREATE.
Knitters in Chicago will be gathering Saturday the 8th in Millennium Park, in the Boeing North Gallery.
The Flowertown Knitting Guild in Summerville, SC is hosting two events, one on the 8th, one on the 9th.
Black Hills Fiber Arts Guild will be hosting a WWNIP event on June 11, 2013, from 4-7 pm at the Main Street Square in Rapid City, South Dakota.
The Northern Lights Valley Knitters guild will be knitting in public at Newcomb Park in Wasilla, Alaska Saturday, June 15 from 1 to 3 pm.
Knitters in Washington state are invited to gather June 8th at Bookend Coffee Company inside the Everett Public Library. 2702 Hoyt Ave Everett Wa from 10am to 5pm.
Other Toronto events info can be found here.

Put info about your events in the comments below!

Knitty 10th Anniversary Giveaway: Jennie the Potter

Jillian — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:42:39 +0000

Who remembers when Jennie the Potter made beautiful mugs and yarn bowls to celebrate our 10th anniversary?

We secretly asked her to stash one of each so we could have them as giveaways. Guess what today is? Jennie the Potter giveaway day!

Knitty 10th Anniversary mug:

Eat cake with the bunny!

Knitty 10th Anniversary yarn bowl

Knit with the bunny!

If you’d like to win one of these beautiful pieces you know what to do!

Leave a comment on this post between now and midnight eastern time, Monday, May 27, 2013. Two comments will be chosen at random to answer a skill testing question. If the commenter answers correctly they will win one of the prizes. If you have already won a prize from us in the past year, please do give other knitters a chance.