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by Stacey on July 22, 2010
I think I’ve made it pretty much known to everyone that I love cheezombie‘s patterns. When I first started as the IDP Coordinator, the program wasn’t open to submissions quite yet & an early part of my job was inviting interesting designers to submit patterns. cheezombie was one of the first designers I contacted – her designs are so much fun! So of course I had to interview her…and her answers cracked me so much I couldn’t wait to put it up How long have you been knitting? I taught myself to knit about 6 years ago from “Knitting for Dummies” (very apt title I might add, I knit through the back loops for 2 years before I figured out that was what I was doing). Who taught you to knit? Duh, should have read all the questions before I started typing! Being a self-taught knitter has been a trip ... |
Category Archives: Inspiration
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by Kelley on July 19, 2010
When we sent out last week's e-mail, I mentioned that summer is a great time to take advantage of all the canning supplies that are available everywhere from Safeway to Target. Here is a list of what I keep on my dyeing shelves. Hot Water Canner - This looks like a huge soup pot.Jar Rack - Designed to hold the jars while the water is boiling. I use it the traditional way if I am dyeing small amounts of fiber or yarn actually in jars of dye solution. If I am steaming, then I turn the rack upside down and place the plastic wrapped fiber or yarn on it above a couple of inches of simmering water. Wide Mouth Quart Sized Canning Jars - Wide mouth is really the only way to go. Easy to measure in dye stuff, easy to put in and take out the fiber or yarn and easy to stir around or poke as needed.Wide Mouth Rings and Caps - I store solution in wide mouth jars so I need the rings and caps to put on the top.Canning Jar Lifter - This is an item you might think you can ignore figuring you can use plain hot mitts. Don't! It is so much easier and safer to use this tool. |
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by Knit Picks Staff on July 7, 2010
Wow! A lot of you sent us pictures of your custom dyed sock blanks, and we were really impressed with the results! In case you're curious and want to see all of the stunning dye blanks, I've made a slide show so everyone can see the contest entries, and it is posted in the Dye-Along group here. |
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by Kelley on July 1, 2010
Here is the absolute beginning of my Gail Shawl! What an ugly tangled looking mess! I couldn't resist showing it to you, though because I wanted any potential lace knitters to see that everyone's lace looks bad when it is on the needles. Particularly the first few inches because the knit fabric is so light, it can't show its' own structure. |
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by Knit Picks Staff on June 16, 2010
I love non traditional holidays. Even if they are celebrating things that I do all of the time. But it's fun to make pie on Pi Day (3/14), watch the Star Wars movies on May the Fourth (be with you), and I definitely celebrate World Wide Knit in Public Day! Most of my friends are knitters (or become knitters after we become friends), so I'm always knitting on a project if I have a spare moment. But my friend Lee and I decided to go to a coffee shop and knit in public--on purpose! |
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by Kelley on June 10, 2010
June 12th through June 20th is World Wide Knitting in Public Week! Yippee! It’s like a huge knitting party! You can look up your town, or maybe one close by, to see where your local knitting friends will be gathering. Some knitters get started right at the beginning of the week or you may find a organized gathering on the second weekend. If you have never participated in KIP day, you are in for a real treat! First, you will probably meet several new knitting friends. Second, you get to share the joys of knitting with people you may be able to convert into fiber addicts. Third, the one I think is the most importantly, it may just be the first step in your becoming comfortable knitting-in-public regularly! Just think about it! You may just start whipping out a knitting project during dinner out with friends, symphony concerts, lectures - sound like someone you know? |
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by Knit Picks Staff on June 1, 2010
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I am one of the photographers here at KnitPicks and since I have started working here I have been verrrry slowly learning how to knit. When I heard about the dye along I thought great! an excuse to not only pick up my needles again but I can try out a new craft, dyeing. I have only tie-dyed so I really had no idea what I was doing. After a couple of talks with the girls around here and reading through the very helpful book Natural Dyeing I decided to try my hand at some plant dyeing. My goal was to use only plants/flowers that I gathered from around my house but the loooong rainy May we have been having nixed that idea. |
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by Alison on June 1, 2010
Thanks to everybody for following along with (and participating in) our sock blank dyealong! We'll be posting our finished projects over the next several weeks, and you'll be able to see how our sock blank dye jobs translate to actual stitches. Just a reminder, you can still enter to win a $50 gift card by emailing a photo of your own dyed sock blank - here are the details. I'm a big fan of the Jacquard acid dyes, and I use them all the time at home. Instead of dyeing sock blanks or Bare yarn, though, I usually tend to dye a lot of roving and loose fiber for spinning my own yarn. For one of my first attempts, I tried dyeing the roving by handpainting it with foam brushes, wrapping it in plastic wrap, then steaming on the stovetop. I chose a basic rainbow color palette (since I was just starting the whole dyeing thing) and this is what I got: (That's my cat Eddie, mashing up my nice fluffy roving.) I spun the roving in color order, and once I had two bobbins full I plyed them together in roughly the same order so that the colors would blend and kind of "smash" into each other. I knit the yarn up into a basic linen-stitch scarf, and this is what I got: |
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by Kelley on May 26, 2010
When we went to Mexico a few weeks ago, I wanted to have something simple to knit. It was a short trip and I just wanted to listen to audible books and quietly knit. I didn’t have time to order any yarn so I scrounged through the office stash. I found four balls of Felici Paradise. I cast on a pair of toe-up socks while waiting to board the plane. As I knit on the plane I realized that, purely by accident, I had chosen colors that perfectly matched the setting of my vacation. Beachy colors! I found myself more drawn to knitting those socks than any other vacation project I’ve every dragged along with me! What an interesting thought. What if I took the time to match my travel projects to the destination? When we were in Ireland last summer I took along my Aran ... |
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by Knit Picks Staff on May 26, 2010
Hi all, Thought you might like to know that we just put the 50 gram balls of Essential Kettle Dyed sock yarn on sale for $3.39 per ball. We are clearing out of our stock of 50 gram balls because the new 100 gram balls are here. Don’t worry – we will continue to carry Essential Kettle Dyed sock yarn, just in a larger put-up to help avoid potential differences within dye lots. The hand-made nature of kettle dyeing can result in differences in color intensity between balls from the same dye lot. Larger skeins will help reduce that. For the 50 gram balls, our warehouse staff are doing their best to choose skeins that look similar to each other (similar lightness or darkness) if you order two or more of the same color. ... |
