Felt Angel Ornaments
I just love sparkly Christmas ornaments, and it’s so much fun to make them from kits. Yes, I love having all the supplies already gathered in one place, and to let someone else do all the designing and decision-making, for a change. I get my kits from Herrschners.
These are parts of angel ornaments from a Bucilla kit I started several years ago. It had a dozen angels, all blond and brown-eyed. Surely not all angels are blond, so I gathered wool for some different hair colors, including gray. And I varied the eye color, too. The designs on the dresses were too repetitive, so I decided to use different beads and stuff to decorate them. So much for letting someone else make all the design decisions.
Five angels have been done for several years. The last seven have been in pieces ever since. Now that my big, secret project is done, I’m going to finish these little gals. If I finish one angel a week, and they should all be done before Christmas.
Secret Project Revealed, At Last
A few times over the last year, I mentioned a big, secret project I was working on. I couldn’t say what it was at the time. However, since you can already order it from amazon.com, I can now reveal the details.
Yep, I wrote a book! It is called Crochet Bouquet. Lark Books will release it in May 2008. The book has lots of crocheted flower and leaf designs with step-by-step instructions for making them. You’ll see how to use the flowers to decorate clothing and accessories. I give practical tips for choosing yarns, and several finishing techniques that you can apply to all your crochet projects.
A little over a year ago, I started designing and crocheting the flowers, leaves, and projects for the book. I badly wanted to post about it, but as the folks at Lark told me, it’s better not to show too much of a new book before it comes out. So I restrained myself, and worked on flower designs instead. Oh, there are a few glimpses of the flower designs, here and there, but not enough to spoil the surprise, I hope.
After I turned in all the samples and instructions in May, the editorial and art teams at Lark Books got to work. Lark takes care of all the photography, illustrations, and layout, in addition to the editing. They produced a very happy and pretty book. I love how it looks.
We all sighed with relief, when Crochet Bouquet went to the printer on October 16. Now all we have to do is wait—and start on another big, secret project!
Gail’s Buttons
Walking the Stitches East market last week was like being in a beautiful dream of yarns and books and tools. Several farms and cottage industries had booths, with yarn spun from their flocks, and often hand-dyed. I saw loopy bouclé mohair galore, which can only mean that it is on its way back into fashion.
Then I rounded a corner, and one booth shone like a beacon. I went toward the light. I found heavenly buttons–colorful, sparkly, shiny, crazy buttons. They were all hand-made by Gail Hughes, at her studio in Kentucky.
Gail saw the black and pink poncho draped over my arm. We agreed that we are on the same bold color wavelength. “I can’t seem to get these buttons loud enough,” she said, pointing to a rack of wild polka-dotted buttons.
I bought two Crazy Cards (right and left in the photo), which feature more than one kind of button on a card. Four-year-old Ella already claimed the pink buttons from the card on the right. “I’m going to string them, Mama,” she said. Eva loved the green one, as I knew she would.
The black and glittery buttons (middle) to put on a brown sweater I hope to knit this fall.
All of Gail’s buttons are made of epoxy resin. Many of them are joyfully colorful. Others have scraps of iridescent paper, sparkly material, beads, and glitter embedded in them. I loved this one with its shreds of copper and green sparkly swirls. It measures about 1½ x 1¾ inches.
Gail normally sells to shop owners at wholesale shows. She’ll be back at Stitches East next year (November 6-9, 2008). If you can’t wait until then to buy some of Gail’s buttons, talk to your local yarn shop about ordering a line of buttons from Gail.
Good Morning Taos, Good Night Baltimore
What a great way to start the morning! I was on the way to breakfast in Taos last week, when I saw this gorgeous sight. I think a lot of Taos mornings are like this. My workshops, Beginning Crochet and Two-Handed Stranded Knitting went well, and the Wool Festival was good as usual.
Friday night we ate supper with Donna Druchunas http://www.sheeptoshawl.com and her husband. Donna wrote Knitted Rugs, which was published by Lark Books a few years ago. She says in her book (and in person) that a rug I made was her inspiration to write the book. She saw it in “Knitting Underfoot,” an article I wrote for INKnitters magazine a number of years ago. Hurray! It’s very satisfying to be an inspiration.
We also met Joanne Seiff and her husband, Jeff. Joanne is writing a book about wool festivals. She and Jeff have been traveling all over the country to photograph and write about them. Watch for her book in the next year or so. Jeff is an entomologist, and he gave Eva some good moth-collecting tips.
Saturday was sunny and warm—perfect for a Wool Festival. The dyed mohair locks are among our favorites. They’re so pretty and full of potential. Eva visited with this angora bunny. He had several bunny buddies with him. “Mom, all those rabbits are named ‘Buck,'” Eva said. Hmmm, I wonder if all the girl bunnies were named ‘Doe’? 🙂
Cadillac Ranch was a good stopping place on our long drive home. It’s right outside Amarillo. I loved the colors in this graffiti. Graffiti can be beautiful. Charles read somewhere that the spray paint may be keeping those old cars from falling apart.
And then we. . .hey, wait a minute. This doesn’t look like Taos or Texas! Nope, it’s downtown Baltimore, where I am now. Stitches East started today, and soon it will be time for the teacher and vendor banquet. Then we get a preview of the market. Oh boy!
Great Knitters at Stitches East ’07
Look at these great seamless argyle socks! They are the work of the diligent, intrepid advanced knitters in my Seamless Argyle Socks workshop at Stitches East. The class takes a lot of concentration. They stuck with it and made progress. I’m proud of them!
It was fun to hear them say things like “Wow, you wonder how it’s going to work and then it does and it’s really cool!” I knew just what they meant.
I don’t know about them, but I needed a hot bath and a whole evening of reading a detective mystery with my legs propped up on a pillow, in order to recover. The book was a Nero Wolfe mystery, by Rex Stout.
Here are some of the workshop samples from Dotty Knits, which is my version of mosaic knitting. See how the hearts are dotty? This was another group of good knitters and nice people! I even gained a new insight on charting mosaic designs, thanks to Robin. Teaching is a great way to learn.
Seamless Argyle Socks and Dotty Knits are both offered at Stitches West, February 21-24, 2008, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, California. More details at http://www.knittinguniverse.com/events.
Taos Workshops Are Underway
We arrived in Taos, New Mexico, Tuesday evening, after three days of leisurely driving through Texas and Northern New Mexico. We crossed plains, grasslands with lonely mountains, and finally mountains. It is a beautiful drive.
I taught Slip Stitch Color Knitting Wednesday, and the ladies in my class were relaxed and willing to try something new. We had a good time together.
At lunch, some of us slipped off to the legendary LaLana Wools. La Lana specializes in dyeing custom mill-spun yarns. There are a few handspuns there, too. Here’s a tree of Phat Silk, a merino and silk blend. Look at the gorgeous colors! And here’s a table covered with skeins of Bombyx Silk.
The shop has lots of patterns designed for use with their yarns. You should go, if you can.
Here are Crazy Polymer Patchwork Buttons that we made in class today.
Craft: Magazine is Good
My first subscription issue of Craft: arrived, and I was impressed! Its subtitle is “transforming traditional crafts,” which it does right there on the cover, with the completely silly and fun knitted Crime Scene Scarf.
Wide-ranging projects include woodworking, metal-working (making a copper button), knitting a rug with hay-baling twine, sewing car seat covers, and recycling sweaters. A long article on natural dyeing fit right in with a lady who makes costumes for hula-hoop performances, including her own. A doggie pirate costume (how-to included) followed a piece about people who dress in their favorite anime characters.
It’s a good-looking, hefty (176 pages), small format (6-5/8″ by 9-3/8″) magazine with an eclectic mix of articles and projects. I’m glad to report that men are well-represented as subjects of articles as well as authors.
The whole magazine has what I would call an urban craft sensibility: the fearless do-it-yourself ethic (which means you do it yourself, even if it’s something difficult and you need special tools and you have to learn new skills); AND a strong emphasis on recycling.
That do-it-yourself/recycling philosophy has been around a long time, in people of many ages and lifestyles. Craft: celebrates those people and their work.
Crocheted Pansies to Edge a Cape
I’ve been crocheting pansies with hand-dyed ‘Single Sport’ from Plain & Fancy Sheep & Wool Co. It is from the company’s booth at last year’s Wool Festival at Taos, which was, well, about a year ago. I’m crocheting a capelet from the solid lilac color, that is also at the center of the pansies. The pansies will be around the bottom edge of the capelet.
I hope to finish the project before the next Taos Wool Festival, so I can show it to Ken and Grayce Aggen, the owners of the Plain & Fancy Sheep & Wool Co.
In case you’re in the area, the Taos Wool Festival is two weeks from this weekend, at Kit Carson Park in Taos, New Mexico. I’ll be there, teaching workshops, from Wednesday, October 3, through Saturday, October 6. I’m doing Slip Stitch Color Knitting (a long version that includes mosaic or ‘dotty’ knitting), Polymer Clay Button Boutique: Part 2, Beginning Crochet, and Two-Handed Stranded Knitting.
And after that, it’s off to Stitches East in Baltimore! This is the first time since we moved back to the US, and since Ella was born (both happened the same year), that I’ve had such a busy teaching schedule. Woo hoo!
Eva’s Crocheted Scarf
Hip to Crochet, a book by Judith L. Swartz, has a zig-zag scarf in it, very similar to this one. Eva was greatly inspired by the book and the scarf, but unfortunately, the copy we saw at Twisted Yarns (Spring, TX) was the store copy.
We worked out our own version of the zig-zag scarf. Eva went to work, using Brown Sheep Company’s Lambs Pride Bulky, and regular Lambs Pride, held double. It used a surprising amount of yarn, and she ran out of the turquoise before she finished.
Several months later, when we went to the Yarn Barn of San Antonio, we bought enough yarn to finish the scarf. Bobbie had the book in stock, so we got that, too. (See post of August 13 2007.)
Eva finished the scarf and learned how to block it. I’m so proud of my crocheting daughter!
Knitting without a Pattern
On August 7th, I talked about the first craft book I ever knew, which belongs to my mother. I posted a picture of a striped sweater from the book. The author wrote that the sweater could be knitted without a pattern (ohne Schnitt), but then gave detailed instructions for making it. My mom explained:
This sweater is made “ohne Schnitt.” This means that instructions are given for every step of the way, such as how many stiches to increase, how many to decrease and how to do the slit in the front and the collar. This is different from the way knitted garments used to be presented in craft magazines. You found a design you liked, looked for the pattern in the pattern page, copied it on butcher paper, checked your measurements against it, made corrections (enlarging or reducing) before cutting out the pattern. Then you cast on and started knitting. If your stitches didn’t fit the “Schnitt”, you started over again. I don’t ever remember a gauge, etc. When you had to enlarge or reduce, you wrote this one the pattern, so that you remembered what to do on the other side. I remember knitting at least eight sweaters in my teenage years. They fit well and I loved them. When I learned to sew, we had to make our patterns from our own measurements.
So those teenage girls learned to make slopers!
The shawl is another project from the book, which my mom made as a girl.