Crafting fashion

As I've mentioned previously in this blog, my favorite place online is Ravelry. There, I communicate with other knitters and designers and see how their projects are coming along. I browse through their stash and see what patterns they buy and sell. On Twitter, most of the people I follow happen to be crafters or designers, too. They inspire me. I'm interested in what they have to say, what they make, what they sell, and what they eat for breakfast.

Last Saturday, I opened my own online shop. As excited as I am to be able to offer my knitted items to clients all over the world wide web (as long as their shipping addresses are in the U.S. or Canada ;)) I'm even more excited about plans for 2012.

For the knitters, crocheters, and weavers, the makers who use yarn in their garments, accessories, toys, and home fashion, I am starting a Crafting Fashion section of O! Jolly! Shop beginning in 2012. I will be offering yarn on cones for sale: some of my favorites, including superfine merino, baby alpaca, perle cotton, bamboo in a variety of weights and from several producers. That's right, an online shop of coned yarn! Although anyone who browses the site will be able to purchase the yarns at the retail price, the very best part is that I will be offering these yarns at a discount to those who become Crafting Fashion group members! The yarns offered will be beautiful, medium grade to luxury yarns, "fashion yarns", from producers you may already know, all suitable for working into your gorgeous products. (There are no plans to offer mill ends at this point, unless I hear that there is interest.)

Why coned yarn?

• If you make anything larger than a sock or a hat, you are probably faced with having to join the end of a skein to the start of the next. Ok, not that big of a hassle, but who wants more ends to weave in? Pre-wound cones eliminate this (and no more winding your own cones, weavers and machine knitters.)
• Savings. Purchasing 16 ounces of yarn on a cone generally costs less than purchasing 16 ounces of yarn on several skeins.
• Easy to use. Place cone on floor next to you. Start knitting/crocheting with yarn end.  No more yarn vomit from "pull-skeins".

Very often crafters with small businesses are unable to purchase yarns at the wholesale price. The quantities they wish to order are simply too small. (Ask me how I know. LOL) While I obviously won't be able to offer these yarns at the wholesale price, I'll be able to offer them at a discount to the group of crafters who become Crafting Fashion members.  Minimum order will be just one cone. Depending on the yarn producer, the cone may weigh as little as one pound or as much as three pounds.

I hope that the machine knitters reading this post have gotten this far, because this paragraph is especially for you. Throughout the year, I'll also be introducing a line of downloadable machine knitting patterns and free online videos of various machine knitting techniques, particularly the techniques used in the patterns. I hope you will find these videos useful. Perhaps even the curious non-machine knitters will find the videos of interest!

Now this is where I ask for your help. I need to know what you think. You've just read the general plan. I'll be exploring more yarns and making decisions on the exact details over the next few weeks. Please tell me what your yarn interests are by filling out this short survey. Providing your email address means that you will be kept informed of Crafting Fashion updates. You can unsubscribe at any time. You will not receive any other email from me, and I will not distribute your email address, or any other info that you provide, to anyone.

Crafting Fashion will launch in 2012. Please help make it what you'd like it to be by following this link to complete the survey or by simply adding your email address below and clicking "Join the email list." Thank you. :)

Last edited 04 Dec 2011

Harder, faster - controlling gathers atop a hat

"Some part of me feels like machine knitting is cheating."

I'm sure every machine knitter has heard a version of that line from a dedicated hand knitter. I laughed when I read the tweet during Twitter #knitchat last Thursday, and in less than 140 characters I explained, "I've heard others say that. It's different from hand knitting. Depending on what you do, it sometimes takes longer!"

What I didn't explain was that I happened to be in the middle of one of those things that "takes longer".

I have challenged myself to eliminate the excess fabric that can appear at the top of a machine knitted hat, the excess that's removed from an inexpensive commercial hat with a bit of cut & sew. (See cut & sew vs. fully fashioned under Machine Knitting.)

Sometimes the excess fabric on a knitted hat is not a problem at all; gathers become a design element, as in a slouch.

Seen on this blog before, my first hat of Spring 2011

I've used slip stitches and ribs to reduce and hide excess. The judicious use of a knitted flower helps, too.

Also from this past spring

I did not want to knit a slouch this time. I know from experience that hand knitters simply and easily decrease evenly over multiple rows when knitting a toque or beanie. Problem solved. No excess fabric.

Reducing evenly over a row is not a satisfying task on a machine. I can do it, but it is a many step process involving multi-pronged tools and/or waste yarn. I find it alternately frustrating and mind-numbing. I know it takes longer than multiple hand knitted decreases.

I've found a solution that works for me, however. And its name is Short Rows. Messing around with Susanna Lewis's recipe for pentagons, I've knitted a circle in five parts for the crown of the hat. This circle gets attached on the machine to my rib and rippled jacquard sides. Knitting double bed and in pattern (a full needle rib/tubular combo) makes the short row decreases harder and more challenging than simple jersey short rows, but by my third time knitting the crown (yup, knitted 3 versions now), I think it's faster than the repeated use of a decker comb for decreases across the row.

This is Version1 knitted with baby alpaca and bamboo from Silk City Fibers.
Subsequent versions emphasize the five wedges more.

I will post my rippled top version in the future.

Parlez-vous knitting? (part 2)

This post is a continuation of Parlez-vous knitting? (part1).

As I stated in my previous post, loom knitting is not a foreign language to a machine knitter. So how and why did I start loom knitting?

A couple of months ago I received an email from Lion Brand Yarn. I was invited "to participate in a small group of crafters" to create an original item with their newly launched line of Martha Stewart Crafts products. The new line included luxury, craft, and novelty yarns, and a very interesting tool called the Martha Stewart Crafts / Lion Brand Yarn Knit & Weave Loom Kit.  There was going to be a chance for a participating crafter and/or completed craft project to be featured on the Martha Stewart Show. How fun! A possible tv appearance and I actually had an interesting idea that I was itching to try out on the loom! I promptly submitted my proposal, which included a sketch.

While I waited to learn if my proposal had been accepted, I browsed the web and found several sites devoted to loom knitting. Loom Knit had a wealth of information. A site called Loom Knitting Help was indeed helpful. I lurked with the Loom Knitters group on Ravelry. (I have since joined the group.) I learned that I wouldn't be the first machine knitter to note the ease of translating machine knitting into loom knitting. I also learned a bit of the history of loom knitting (centuries old), the various styles of knitting looms (round, rake, and double rake), and the various names of the craft (frame knitting, ring knitting, spool knitting, box knitting, bung knitting, French knitting).

A week after I submitted my proposal, I received an email stating that it had been accepted. I soon received my requested yarn and the loom kit.

The MSC/LBY Knit & Weave Loom Kit  has many pieces:  frame pieces, pegs, and various tools. (I will only discuss the loom knitting aspects of the kit.) The big advantage, when compared to other knitting looms, is that unlike fixed-size knitting looms, the MSC/LBY loom can easily be assembled and re-assembled into each of the three styles of looms mentioned above. The loom can be customized to the proper length or circumference to accommodate various sized projects. Knitting gauge can be adjusted by changing the peg configurations, a feat not possible with most knitting looms.

The kit includes an instruction book, but I found that assembling the loom for my project was rather intuitive. Besides info on how to configure the loom, the instruction book provides step-by-step instructions with photos on single knitting and double knitting, including casting on and binding off. Machine knitters, you know these basics already: e-wrap, double e-wrap, zigzag cast on, crochet bind off, threading off. Since the first knitting machines were based on a version of the knitting loom, this makes sense.

Here is my set up for a hat I'm about to knit.

Yes, this loom's got color coding too! I'll knit the grey pegs on the left. Aqua pegs on left are for assembly purposes only. All pegs on the right knit. Grey pegs on right not only knit but also serve as stitch markers.

Here is the detail of  my swatch for the hat.

Technical front of my tucked rib stitch pattern, unblocked

Technical back
I'm still not sure which will be the "right side" of the hat. 

You'll notice that I have both knits and purls on each side, in other words, a rib stitch. After I received the loom and had started knitting, I watched a few more videos. What I learned surprised me. Loom knitters, and not just MSC/LBY loom knitters, make purl stitches in what I consider a very odd method. It involves using one's fingers along with the regular knitting tool to form the stitch. I don't know why this is so, when there's a perfectly good row of needles, or rather pegs, available on the other side of the knitting frame just begging to be used as a "ribber". Apparently loom knitters use the two rows of pegs for double knitting and not ribbing. My knit and purl swatch uses both rows of pegs and no finger acrobatics. As you can see on the technical back, I did not knit the first column of knit stitches evenly. (The large knit stitches in the middle column are part of the design.) The unevenness of the first column is due to my "experiments" tensioning the yarn. I believe practice, and blocking, will remedy my uneven knitting. Since this loom can have many configurations, on my wishlist is a corner piece that is 3-pegs wide, instead of 5-pegs wide. This would bring the rows of pegs closer together to accommodate thinner yarns when knitting uncommon ribs.

As an advanced machine knitter, I find the MSC/LBY knitting loom very relaxing. This is my kind of slow knitting. I have absolutely no idea of what an advanced (needle) hand knitter would think of this craft. I believe a non-knitter or a beginning hand or machine knitter would find loom knitting easy to learn. It would be an excellent "bridge craft" for a hand knitter who wants to learn the principles of machine knitting.

My final project submission for the show? Well, it's not a hat. I'm actually thrilled with how my project turned out, but sorry, I can't reveal anything until the final selections for the show are made. I promise to post pictures once the decision is made, one way or the other.

Parlez-vous knitting? (part 1)

Many years ago when I was in junior high school and later senior high school, I studied French. In the fifth year the class was conducted completely in French. Some of us were very enthused that we had learned a second language. One of my good friends would call me on weekends so we could practice our French on the phone. (Really!) I didn't speak French for many years after high school. After college when I traveled and worked in French-speaking countries, I found that my ability to speak French had returned. I could speak the language, understand it, and be understood. My French, however, was never as fluent as my English.

It's been many years, since I've spoken French. When I try to speak it now, there is almost always an awkward hesitation while I actively do a translation before uttering a word. It's nearly impossible for me to understand the language when someone else speaks it. When I read, I can understand it... if I have all the time in the world....

My hand knitting is like part of my history of speaking French. There was never a time when I studied hand knitting 5 days a week with extra practice on weekends, but I have experienced several excellent hand knitting lessons. For awhile I was hand knitting regularly, several times a week. Now I am hand knitting only a few times a month. If I start knitting regularly again and more often, I may become better at it,  maybe even fluent eventually. Mostly I hand knit swatches to learn or practice a new technique. Here is one object I actually did complete.

The elf(?) hat I hand knitted, based on "Air Wolle Ridged Swirl Hat" from Gotta Knit,
DH calls it the "Reservoir Tip" hat. This may be the only time I've ever completed anything from a pattern!

Machine knitting is my native tongue. Whenever I learn something new in hand knitting, I immediately translate it into machknit language so I can really understand it. I do this even if it would be more difficult on the machine, just makes more sense to me.

And now recently, I've started loom knitting! As a machine knitter, learning loom knitting was kind of like an American English speaker learning to understand British English. Not that much of a stretch! I watched a couple of videos on YouTube and I felt ready to loom knit anything.

How and why did I happen to start loom knitting?

To be continued...


Last edited 18:04 ET 11/10/2011

Swatching Sami Queen

As I mentioned in a previous post, while at Rhinebeck I bought some Sami Queen yarn in a colorway called Royalty from Creatively Dyed Yarn. I knitted some swatches yesterday.

Tucks and industrial rib - very springy, hard to tell these are ribs from this scan

Cables and industrial rib - 4-row and 6-row cables

Next time I will add more purls around the tucks or cables when I knit, so that these features will stand out a bit more.

I only purchased enough yarn for either a hat, socks, or mittens, since I like to knit something small before committing fully to a yarn I've never used before. It knits up very smoothly. My Passap can easily handle four tucks on a needle. And I adore the color!

The only problem:  what shall I knit?