Say Hello to Spoleto

The Spring/Summer issue of Twist Collective is up, and I'm delighted to be included. In addition to my article about tips and tricks for knitting lace, the issue includes my new shawl design, Spoleto.

This piece was inspired by my love of outdoor theater in the summertime. I am fortunate to live in an area where summer Shakespeare festivals abound, and few things make me happier than taking a simple picnic and a good bottle of wine to a local park to spend the evening watching a play. The Spoleto Festival in Charleston is renowned for the quality of their music and theater productions. I've never been, but I'd love to go, and I just love the feel of the word Spoleto in my mouth.



I wanted this shawl to be a piece that you could drape artfully around your neck as a scarf while the day's warmth lingered in the air, then wrap around your shoulders as the evening cool settled in. Linear panels of moss stitch and simple lace make it easy to fold the shawl into accordion pleats. There is more solid moss stitch in the center of the shawl, where you want the warmth on your back and shoulders, and more lace toward the ends for a delicate finish. Seed beads are sprinkled throughout for just a touch of sparkle.





The yarn is Simply Fine from the wonderful people at Green Mountain Spinnery, in an absolutely juicy hand-dyed color called Melonball. This fingering weight blend of wool and mohair gives just the right balance of warmth and drape. I chose size 6 transparent gold seed beads with an iridescent finish. I prefer that beads provide a subtle accent, not be the focal point of a piece. They don't show up very well in photos, but are just glorious in person. No pre-stringing of beads is required - the beads are added to the appropriate stitches with a small crochet hook.

Thanks to Jane Heller for the wonderful photographs, and to Kate Gilbert for the beautiful styling. I love that the model looks so natural and happy - like she has just come in from the outdoors.

Re-entry

I'm suffering a bit from a Stitches West hangover.
First, let me tell you that this is not one of those blog posts that is rich in visuals. When I'm busy, I completely forget that I have multiple cameras tucked into my bag. Taking pictures simply doesn't occur to me. So instead of showing you photos of all the knitting superstars I met, or all the gorgeous booths, or the yarn out the wazoo, I'll just tell you this....

1. I love spending a weekend among my tribe. I got to talk with some of my favorite people in the world.

2. The knitting business is filled with the smartest, funniest, most creative and generous women I know.

3. I didn't teach this weekend. I spent the weekend working with my friends from Kollage Yarns in their booth in the market. As a result, I had the opportunity to talk about my designs with lots of knitters.

4. Things that make my heart go pitter-patter:

• Seeing someone wearing a piece that I designed. They saw a picture or sample, liked it, bought yarn, and spent their valuable time making something that started out as a idea in my head. Then they actually liked the finished product enough to wear it in public.  Amazing.
• Hearing that people look forward to reading the technical articles I write for Twist Collective. Perhaps that should be amended to be: Hearing that anyone other than my mother actually reads what I write.
• Having students tell me that they are using the information and skills learned in a class they took with me.
• Having a designer seek me out, introduce herself and tell me that she has learned a lot from my editing of her pattern.

5. Four days of standing on concrete makes me ache from the knees down.

6. Contrary to popular belief, the perfect booth snack is not Girl Scout cookies (not that there is anything wrong with Girl Scout cookies). The perfect booth snack is Cuties, a trade name for seedless Mandarin oranges. Easy to peel, not messy, smells wonderful, and a marvelous hit of sweet and juicy when your energy starts to fade in the afternoon. Want to make a friend? Hand them a Cutie. Next year I'm bringing 2 bags instead of 1.

7. I didn't shop. Really, I didn't. We were so busy in the booth that there were aisles of the market I never even saw. And seriously, did I need to buy anything? No.

8. Despite not shopping, I managed to come home with 2 braids of hand dyed BFL from Shady K Fibers which will make the acquaintance of my spinning wheel this week.

If you get the opportunity to attend Stitches, or a similar event, I hope you jump on it, and I hope you love it as much as I do.

Enough. Laundry awaits.

It's Stitches West Week!

Can you feel the excitement building for Stitches West? It begins on Thursday, February 21 and runs through Sunday the 24th.


I'll be working with my friends from Kollage Yarns in their booth, #513-515.  We'll be showing my new designs for Spring, some of which will also be in the Fashion Show on Friday night.

I'll also be representing Twist Collective at the show.  Come find me in the Kollage booth wearing something made from a Twist Collective pattern, and I'll give you a little present. I'll even tweet a photo of you. Keep your eye out for the ShowUsYourTwist hashtag!

Many new knitting shows have started up in the past several years, but Stitches West remains the biggest and the best. The most classes, the best line-up of teachers, and a market hall that will give you the vapors all await us in Santa Clara.

 Will I see you there?

PS - I'm still recovering from the finale of Season 3 of Downton Abbey. When Matthew was driving down that narrow road, I was hiding my eyes moaning "no, no, no". Ripped my heart out.

Dragging my feet into the 21st century

I've never been accused of being an early adopter. I don't own a food processor, since my knife works perfectly well. I drive a 20 year old Toyota with a manual transmission. When I had a shop, I had a cash register, not a point of sales system.

So it should come as no surprise that I am accustomed to using an overhead projector when I teach. I like the immediacy of being able to write on my transparencies to illustrate a point. Besides, I don't own a laptop.
I'm headed to Kansas City this weekend to teach at The Studio Knitting & Needlepoint Annual Retreat. When the retreat organizer asked the facility representative about an overhead projector, she was met with peals of laughter. It seems I'm being forced into an upgrade.

Fortunately, I was given an iPad for Christmas. (Thank you, Susie). And contrary to popular belief, it seems the iPad can actually be used for more than Twitter and Words With Friends. A Google search for "best presentation apps for iPad" pointed me at SlideShark.
I've spent the past two days re-creating my visuals in PowerPoint (who knew I had this already on my computer? not me) and uploading them to SlideShark, from which I've downloaded them to my iPad. It has been a steep learning curve, but I'm ridiculously proud of myself. I should be able to project from the iPad using the LCD projector which seems to have replaced the overhead projector while I wasn't paying attention. Wish me luck.

What have I been knitting?
Entrelac samples. I've been asked to teach Basic Entrelac Techniques at FashionKnit in Walnut Creek in March. I haven't taught entrelac since I had the shop, so I've been making samples and developing an outline. Call FashionKnit to sign up - I'd love to see you in class.


And I started a new pair of socks last night, since I'll need travel knitting this weekend. Sitting in my chair watching PBS, I realized I was looking at David Attenborough while knitting with yarn in a color called.....David Attenborough. I know. It's Skinny Bugga from the late lamented Sanguine Gryphon. Merino, cashmere and nylon.

If you want some Skinny Bugga of your own, you can get it from Cephalopod Yarns

Have a great weekend.

Go Niners!

I'll miss the game because I'll be in transit, but my thoughts will be with them.

A Lesson in Color

I have a skirt design in the latest issue of Knitter's Magazine called Trompe l'oeil.

Creating this piece was a bit of a journey. I began with a motif from Mary Jane Mucklestone's excellent book 200 Fair Isle Motifs. I drew the chart, then mirrored, flipped and edited it until I had a design that pleased me.
When I made the initial swatch, it occurred to me that the motif looked like a bit of stockinette stitch with the stitches expanded. Can you see it? Try squinting.
The original swatch was done with one self-striping yarn and one solid color.

Knitter's acceptance of the submission happened to coincide with the semi-annual gathering of the clan for the trade show known as TNNA. I met with Rick Mondragon and Elaine Rowley from the magazine in the booth of Universal Yarns to select the yarn to be used for the project.

We quickly decided against using a self-striping yarn. The initial swatch was worked at a 16" circumference. When that yarn was worked in the round at a size appropriate for adult hips, the stripes would become very narrow, losing the effect we liked in the swatch.

We chose 100% wool Deluxe Worsted because it has a wonderful range of colors and because we knew it would be a good choice for the steeked zipper opening I had in mind. Rick and Elaine wanted this piece to fit into a harvest-themed color story in the magazine, so we settled on Roasted Almond for the main color. A range of 6 or 7 blues and greens would be worked in stripes for the background. The result was this:

Awful, right? How in the world did the three of us think these colors would work? After all, it's not like we're new at this. Between the three of us, there are over 100 years of experience knitting and choosing yarn for a variety of projects. Yet it was not until I saw them together in the swatch that I knew there was not enough value contrast between the greens and the almond, and the almond was just too middling - neither dark enough nor light enough to carry the piece.

So I collected my wits and my yarn and worked up some alternatives. The first aimed at retaining the almond as the main color.













The second changed the main color to a deep purple that the good folks from Universal had tossed in my box "just in case you want some options".

As you now know, that "just in case" skein was the hero that saved the day.

The moral of this story: If you are going to make a multi-colored piece, don't commit to the colors until you've worked up a swatch. No matter how many times you go through the process of choosing colors, you never really know if they will play nicely together until the swatch is done.

In case you are wondering, all the ends hanging off the sides of the small swatches are a by-product of my swatching technique. I wanted to work the pattern in the the round on a circular needle for speed, but did not want to make a large swatch. So I cast on enough sts for 2 pattern repeats, and worked a RS row. Then I slid the stitches to the other end of the needle, pulled the yarn across the back, and knit another RS row. I continued this way, knitting only RS rows and carrying the yarn across the back. When I had two repeats complete, I bound off, then cut the long strands across the back so I could block the swatches flat.

I know lots of people are spending their holiday leisure time knitting. How can I tell? One of my duties at Twist Collective is to respond to questions that come to the errata mailbox. The past week has seen a flurry! Fortunately, there was only one actual error - the rest just needed clarification or advice.

A very Happy New Year to one and all! May the blessings you received in 2012 be multiplied, and may the trials be forgotten.

Sometimes Simple Isn't Easy

The new issue of Twist Collective was released yesterday, and I have a new design to share.

Meet Porto...

This pullover came about because I was curious about the possibility of shaping a sweater with cables. As you may know, the twisting action of cables draws the knitting in, making the fabric narrower.  Instead of the usual increases and decreases to shape the waist, could I achieve the same shaping with a cable motif? I charted and swatched to figure out just how much cable was needed to produce the shaping I wanted. Then I knit the sweater.

And it wasn't right.

The scale was off. The cable medallion produced the waist shaping I wanted, but it was too small to make the visual impact needed.

I had three choices:
1. Take a trip down the river Denial and leave it as it was.
2. Remove the sleeves, take out the shoulder seams, and unravel the body of the sweater to the beginning of the cable, then re-knit.
3. Cut off the sweater at the bustline, unravel and re-knit the lower body of the sweater with revised cables panels, then graft the sections back together.
Monty, I'll take door number 3, though number 1 is very tempting.

I don't have photos of the surgery in process (it's just too much like taking photos of a crash at the side of the road). As you can see, the operation was successful. The re-scaled cables are so much better than the original. After blocking, even I can't find the line where the pieces were grafted together.

The sweater has a deep V-neck with cabled decreases for just a touch of sexy detail.

For the yarn, I wanted to use something a bit luxurious. Something soft and warm, with good stitch definition to show off the cables, but without bulk. Lorna's Laces Honor was perfect. It is 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk. The yarn is drapey, but not droopy. It caresses your skin in the most wonderful way. And the nearly solid color adds depth and richness.

At some of the wineries in Napa Valley, tastings of port are offered with small squares of dark chocolate - truly a match made in heaven. In my fantasy life, I'd wear this casually elegant sweater in front of a crackling fire, bathed in candlelight, curled up on the couch with a charming man, sipping port and letting squares of chocolate melt on my tongue.

Click on over here to buy the pattern and begin making your own fantasy.

Also in this issue, I have an article on knitting myths and why you might choose to ignore them. I had a lovely e-mail in my box this morning from the one and only Cat Bordhi, thanking me for the article. Made my day.

Sources of Inspiration

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Fall 2012 issue of Twist Collective is online. I'm pleased to have been included with a design for a hat and mitten set called Sultana

I wanted to share a bit with you about the inspiration for this design.
Last December, my friend Carson and I saw an exhibition of Anatolian kelims at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco. These tribal weaving were amazing, packed with complex geometric and figurative motifs in a riot of colors.
The oldest example in the collection was just a fragment of a 15th century kelim in only two colors - natural and a faded tomato red (madder, maybe? Name That Dye is not a game at which I excel). I loved the interplay of positive and negative space, and the way the interlocking spear shapes were edged with little bubbles. The bold graphic seemed surprisingly modern for a textile more than 600 years old. Carson and I agreed that it begged to be reinterpreted in knitting. I pulled out my camera and sneaked a picture.

Even though the photo is of such poor quality, it was a fairly simple matter to import it into Illustrator and trace the motifs. Overlay a grid, and it starts to look suspiciously like a knitting chart.



Here is my original swatch, made with some Cascade 220 I had on hand. Yes, I do tend to make hats as swatches for color patterns. Such patterns are easiest for me when knit in the round, and hats make good class samples, or can be donated to organizations like Halos of Hope if not needed. I love the contrast in these Gryffindor colors.





For the magazine, we chose a thinner yarn, Romney Ridge Farms Sport Weight. This is a great yarn for colorwork. Grown in Maine, it is a nice "sticky" wool that knits easily and blocks into a beautifully cohesive fabric. The hand dyed colors have subtle variations that give the pattern extra depth and interest.

While you are looking at the magazine, don't miss my article about shaping in pattern. Many knitters struggle with maintaining lace and cable patterns while shaping armholes and necklines. The article takes you step by step through the process.

Old textiles are a great source of inspiration, particularly for colorwork. The landscape that surrounds us can also serve as the spark for great ideas.

These vines are full of grapes about 6 weeks from harvest. They've already shifted from green to purple, and are getting sweeter with every sunny day.

This is the view outside Roche Winery, where I spent the past 2 weekends pouring wine for their annual futures release BBQ event. My former husband works for Roche in sales. When they need an extra person for special events, they invite me to come play. Buying wine futures is like making an investment in the winery. You get a substantial discount by purchasing the wine before it's bottled, sometimes while it's still on the vine. Roche rewards these "investors" by throwing a great party when the wine is ready to be delivered. Leg of Lamb is cooked over a fire fueled by broken up old wine barrels. A great band plays classic rock and roll for dancing. And the full lineup of wine is available for tasting. I worked all 4 days in the tasting room, pouring and chatting.

I'm really grateful for the opportunity to do occasional work like this. Most of my weekends are indistinguishable from a weekday - I spend the day at my desk writing or editing patterns, and the evening knitting. It's a pretty sedentary, not to mention solitary, life. It's good for me to spend a couple of days on my feet interacting with people and working with a team.