Coffee Shop Knitting Pioneer
Another fifth grade mom and I were doing some PTO work together a couple of weeks ago. She told me about being in a coffee shop in Fort Worth or some other city. “There were college-age girls there, knitting!” she told me. “A lot of them!”
No surprise there for us, hmmm? I told her she ought to have a look on the web, and marvel at how many knitting blogs and web sites there are. Then I said, “I’m a coffee shop knitting pioneer, you know.”
She didn’t know, so I told her about how in the late 1980s, Austin had a place on Guadalupe Street, called Captain Quackenbush’s Intergalactic Café and Coffee Bar, or something very similar. It was an espresso bar, long before Starbucks’ global dominance. Half a dozen or so of us met, every Tuesday evening at Quackenbush’s for coffee and knitting: Carol Wyche, Suzanne Correira, Jane L., Jane E., Nancy M., Gay Fay K., and others from time to time. Those were good days. We didn’t know we were pioneers. We just loved to get together and knit.
When Quackenbush’s changed for the worse, we moved to the brand new Schlotzsky’s flagship store on South Lamar. You can still get delicious sandwiches, fabulous desserts, and yummy coffee there.
At different times, Carol and I hosted stitching sessions that predated Stitch ‘n’ Bitch by a couple of decades. We dreamed of a time like the present, where so many people would catch knitting fever and understand our obsession. Besides, more people knitting means a lot more variety of yarn to buy!
Some of us have been here for a long, long, LONG time, waiting for you guys to show up.
While I’m on the topic of coffee shops, let me tell you how civilization as encroached upon our rural idyll. Until just a couple of weeks ago, the last frontier outpost of Starbuck’s was in Granbury, Texas. As I write, the finishing touches are being put upon a new Starbuck’s in Stephenville, Texas, a giant step of 22 miles into the wilderness.
I like Starbucks, but I’ll be sticking with the locally-owned coffee shop in Stephenville, The Coffee Studio. I will bring Ella and my knitting, and knit alone while she plays with the toys, until someone else in Stephenville cares to join us.
Good News, Old News, and More Buttons
Back in July, I sadly reported that my lamb tail jacket had been lost in the mail. Three or four months later, INKnitters sent me the proofing copy of the pattern. Was that the theme music to The Twilight Zone I heard? During the months I thought the sweater was missing, the magazine moved buildings and got new editors. The new staff didn’t know it was lost, so they didn’t have any reason to let me know they had it.
The pattern appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of INKnitters. Here is my daughter, modeling the jacket. Her little sister couldn’t stand being left out. They’re sitting on our propane tank, with an old dairy barn and some pecan trees in the background.
I showed some of my handmade polymer clay buttons in my last post. Here’s a link to instructions for buttons [the link no longer takes you to the buttons, unfortunately] I designed for Crafts Beautiful magazine. It’s truly a beautiful magazine, published in England. Now, if you go to the site, take note of the design in the masthead. I publish it here, in case you miss it. It’s a clock I designed and made from polymer clay. It’s a fairly easy mosaic technique. [This is so old, they’ve changed the masthead—thank goodness we have it here!
DFW Fiber Fest, April 2006
You can learn to make these polymer clay buttons in my workshop at the first-time-ever DFW Fiber Fest in Addison, Texas, April 28-30, 2006. Three days of classes and a market will make this an event you won’t want to miss. Classes will appeal to crocheters, knitters, spinners, and others with an interest in fibery, yarny, sweatery things. You can sign up for up to six classes.
I’ll be teaching three workshops: Crochet Flowers and Leaves (Friday morning), Polymer Clay Button Boutique (Saturday afternoon), and Intarsia from Beginning to End (Sunday morning). Read about current button workshops here.
There are lots of other good workshops and teachers, including Beth Brown-Reinsel and Darla Fanton. Click here for the class schedule. I’m looking forward to it!
Updated in 2016 to remove links that don’t work, and in 2022 to add button workshop link.
Back to Workshop Samples
It’s time again to make workshop samples. I enjoy working on samples and swatches to illustrate the concepts I introduce in my workshops. They’re mostly small and quicker to finish than most other projects.
Some readers may remember the underwater scene I made for a design class at Camp Iwannaknit 2005. It was knitted on my Bond knitting frame. Someday I hope to show you the underwater scenes that the workshop participants made. They were all different, because each person used a different photo for inspiration.
Anyway, I’m developing a new underwater scene class for hand knitters and crocheters, which uses freeform techniques. For homework, I’m asking participants to choose a photo of a reef or other marine scene for inspiration.
The next step is to raid the yarn collection for colors and textures to match the background of the photograph. Here’s my photo, with the matching yarn.
Did you notice that I said ‘yarn collection’ rather than ‘yarn stash?’ Imagine my nose very high in the air, as I explain that I prefer to think of myself as a proud collector of yarn. Forget stashes. Think collections, instead. The word ‘collection’ appropriately invokes the care, thought, and money invested by a yarn collector in her hoard.
Next time, a finished freeform background.
The Case of the Traveling Chenille
Look what has happened to my KnitRedKAL cardigan from last year. The rows of chenille are developing these little wormy outgrowths (inside yellow circles). It’s only the chenille, and they are not snags. Even the darned-in ends are coming out.
It’s like any slack in the stitches is just working itself out. I have pushed the outgrowths through to the inside of the sweater, but they just squiggle back out again. I’ve knitted a lot of chenille, but never had this problem. Could this be a result of knitting it with other fibers nearby? Anyone else had this problem with chenille?
The only thing I can think of is to push them to the inside and tack them with sewing thread. There are at least two dozen of them. What a pain!
You can probably guess that I’m still reading Perry Mason novels.
2005 KAL-culations
Knit ALongs were my favorite internet discovery of 2005. I love how they motivate me to finish projects. And here is a true confession: I love the colorful buttons. There you have it.
Here are the KALs I did in 2005. They are gathered here, so my sidebar will be ready for the KALs of 2006. You’ll see I’ve already got a 2006 button for KnitRedKnitAlong. If you love to knit red or have an interest in women’s heart health, please join! The people in the group are just great.
Meanwhile, a yellow vest update: it’s almost up to the armhole shaping.
Knitting in the Wind
The last two afternoons, I’ve been outside with three-year-old Ella. She plays in the tree or with the cats, and talks and talks to herself. I love to hear that sweet talk. I worked on the yellow vest. It is about six inches long. That doesn’t sound like much, except that it includes the back and the fronts, worked back and forth on a circular needle.
In one of my December posts, I wrote about three young raccoons, who were trying to eat the frozen broth in the cats’ bowls, in the middle of the night. They were making such a racket. I caught one on film. Here he is.
Christmas Yarn Indulgence
My daughters and I visited the fabulous Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe (Cedar Park, Texas) before Christmas, and I gave in to temptation. “Silk Garden” by Noro caught my eye, in shades of purple, silvery gray, olive, and touches of ochre here and there. To enhance and stretch it, I got Cascade 220 in a heathery eggplant shade. Reynolds “Odyssey” had a colorway amazingly like the Noro, so I added it to the mix. There’s enough for a big shawl or a cardigan.
I’ve been considering wavy lace patterns, Fair Isle possibilities, intarsia, and color stitch patterns. Can’t decide!
Ever eager to encourage knitting and crochet for my girls, I got Eva some eyelash yarn for a scarf. Ella, newly turned three, couldn’t bear to be left out. We bought some yarn for her frequent companion and fashion advisor, the Pinky Bug.
Naturally, the Pinky Bug loves pink. She talks in a high voice, and lavishly compliments Ella on her pink clothes, pink cheeks, pink fingernails, or pink shoes. The Pinky Bug can convince Ella to do whatever needs to be done, much better than I can. She is a great conversationalist, and, almost instantly can stop Ella from crying.
Other friends of Ella and the Pinky Bug are the Ring Bug (loves sparkle and shine), the Tall Bug (loves spots and dots), the Index Bug (loves red), and the Shy Thumb Bug (loves yellow).
The Case of the Yellow Yarn
The posts about the knitted Advent calendar, originally published in December 2005, will be featured in December 2021.
Thank you all for the comments on my Advent calendar. It was fun to make, and I feel happy about it every year. I have done a number of felt ornament kits, a felt snowman wall hanging, and of course my snowman rug. It’s great to have and make Christmas ornaments, but can a family have too many? My excuse is that I will off-load some of them to my daughters when they grow up.
After a holiday marathon of reading Perry Mason novels (I bought some and my daughter gave me more), I was ready to knit again. The yellow vest is started. It’s an abridged version of the Seveness technique, using only five different yarns instead of fifteen or more. Here’s the progress so far. The yarns are from Lion Brand.
I have several projects that need immediate attention, including administrative work. Even Perry Mason reluctantly dealt with his correspondence from time to time, though he had Della Street to help him. My personal goal is to send off my tax return by the first of April. Better get going.
Pretty Pictures of Stone and Scarf
Now that we have Ian Boyle’s stone pillar in our front yard, my mission is to take photos of the pillar in all kinds of light, at different times of day and different times of year. Here is the pillar on one evening earlier this month.
Ian was particularly interested in photographing through the pipe that is embedded in the pillar. The summer solstice sunset shines right through the pipe, as you can see in my original post about Ian’s stonework in Comanche County. The sun has moved to the south since then. I still take pictures through the pipe, but I also like to photograph the ruggedly constant pillar against the sky’s changing colors, clouds, and light.
Moving to a softer subject, my 10-year-old daughter has always loved bees of all kinds, so I wasn’t surprised when she laid claim to this little scarf. It is stripes of Lion Brand Fun Fetti alternating with Wool Ease. “It reminds me of a buff-tail bumblebee,” she said.
I started the scarf last night, while listening to the last tape of The Fugitive Pigeon, by Donald E. Westlake. The reader was Nick Sullivan. It was a comic murder mystery, with a little romance thrown in. It was good.