Tag: events

edinburgh

DiannaLeave a comment

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Edinburgh Yarn Festival is always such a whirlwind. This time last week, I was sitting in the marquee at the big knit night, seaming a sleeve onto my Lapwing sweater. Now, I’m home, slowly working on the comedown + re-entry to real life. I wish I’d booked myself more time in Scotland, to be honest, but there is work to be done, and I know I will be back for a proper visit again sometime too (Edinburgh itself is always so lovely to visit).

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Many, many knitters are familiar with Edinburgh Yarn Festival by now, even if only by reputation. It’s a massive event, one organized by just two people, which always blows my mind (thank you Jo and Mica!), as there’s so much to coordinate and stay on top of while trying to make sure everything runs smoothly and everyone gets what they need to have a good festival. This was my second time going, and it has grown since I last went in 2016. The addition of the marquee is really excellent, as it does create vastly more space for folks to sit and knit and chat than there used to be. And while I think we come for the yarn and fiber, many of us stick around for the people.

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I took few photos and while I took some video, I took very little at the festival itself. Lucky for me, many other people were much better than I am at taking photos together. From left to right starting with the top row, I borrowed these photos from Mina, Mina, Mina, then Espace Tricot, Calon Yarns, and Cross and Woods. It turns out Mina (of the Knitting Expat podcast) is especially excellent at getting group photos, as you can see. (Links go to the original posts on Instagram.)

I met so many new people this trip. Some were people I’d interacted with online, some were brand new, and I feel like everyone was so lovely. Thank you, if you’re someone I got a chance to say hello to, especially to those of you who came up to say that you enjoyed my patterns or that you’ve found my YouTube videos interesting or useful – that means so very much. I took note that there was a lot more of that this year than the first time I visited three years ago.

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I bought more than I was planning to, which I should’ve been able to predict. There is the frenzy of the festival which is easy to get swept up in, yes, but more than that, the EYF marketplace is undeniably one of the most interesting festival marketplaces out there, in my book. There’s so much interesting and unique wool to be found: single breed, single origin, rare breed, and so on, whether undyed, acid-dyed, or naturally dyed. One particular highlight this year was getting to spend a bit of time at The Woolist‘s stand, and getting to chat with Zoe, who’s behind the project. I think I’d like to plan a full blog post about that project at some point in the future, because it deserves to be highlighted.

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I came home with a mix of yarns: vivid pink lac-dyed Finnish wool from Aurinkokehrä (purchased from Midwinter Yarns); sock minis from Phileas Yarns for a very silly project I’ll show you at some point in the future; two charcoal skeins of Amirisu Parade*, a summery blend of wool, cotton, linen, and silk (!); a skein of Falkland aran weight, naturally dyed by Ocean by the Sea, a teal skein of high-twist Corriedale from Ovis et cetera, and two skeins of Hillesvåg Sølje (because of course I came home with some Hillesvåg). I also bought a hand-woven wrap from Ardalanish, woven on the Isle of Mull, and a few books from Ysolda‘s booth/shop, which is as excellent a space as everyone says it is. The good news is, I managed to fit all of this into my hand luggage, since I was traveling without checked bags. Just barely, but I made it work.

*These two skeins were a gift from the lovely ladies of Amirisu – thank you, Meri and Tokuko!

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For now I’m left sorting through memories of the past week, thinking about everything I’m grateful for and the people I’m going to miss the most. It’s so wonderful that the festival brings so many people together, but it’s a bit like going to a wedding in that it’s not for very long and you don’t get as much time as you’d like to catch up with anyone. But we had fine weather, fun times, and overall an amazing weekend, so I can’t really complain. So once again, until next time, Edinburgh…

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looking back at 2018

DiannaLeave a comment

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I’ve been taking some time to look back, as one is wont to do at this time of year. Yesterday was the winter solstice, which means this year has almost drawn to a close. 2018 has been quite a year. I released a lot of patterns this year. I knew I had done more work than usual, and kicking it up a notch in the first full calendar year after finishing my master’s degree was the plan, but still, when I sat down to count out how many new designs I actually released, I was stunned to realize there were twenty-four of them. 24 new patterns in 2018! Fifteen of those came in the form of three collections. I am absolutely astonished at my own productivity. Of course, there are some things that helped make this achievable – working with third parties always makes the work less for me, and tied to that is the fact that the work for some of this year’s releases was actually done in 2017 (or in the case of Fog & Frost, even earlier). Sample knitters also knit a few of these samples. These are all things I’m grateful for as someone designing and writing knitting patterns. But here’s a look at my 24 patterns of 2018 (a list with links will follow in case something piques your interest):

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From left to right –
Row 1: Frost Flowers, Lyngen, Alice Mittens
Row 2: Mountain Hum, Polar Night, North Wind
Row 3: West Wind, Cloud Pine, Adrian
Row 4: Opal, Dorthea, Turlough
Row 5: Drumlin, Weekend Walking Mitts, Caithness
Row 6: Tremblant Toque, Le Massif Scarf, Sutton Slippers
Row 7: Stoneham Poncho, Bromont Mitts, Brave at Heart
Row 8: Just and Loyal, Wit Beyond Measure, Great Ambition

The collections are definitely all highlights – Fog & Frost, the Chalet Collection for Espace Tricot, and Lion, Badger, Eagle, Snake. The reception for the latter two in particular has been incredible, and I don’t know how to say thank you in a way that actually conveys my gratitude. But thank you.

A few of these patterns were published in books, and it is always exciting to see my name and my work in print. Opal and Dorthea were published in the Norwegian book Ruter og Lus: Retrostrikk fra Salhus Trikotagefabrikk (which I wrote about here) and I still can’t quite believe the museum wanted me of all people to be involved with that project. And then Caithness was published in Kate Davies’s new compilation of hat patterns, Milarrochy Heids, and it means a great deal to me to be included in those pages and to call Kate a colleague and a friend.

I also returned to teaching this year, giving a few classes at Espace Tricot and teaching a full weekend of workshops at Twist Festival in Saint-André-Avellin, Québec. I spent eight months of this year working at Espace Tricot as well, getting to know local knitters and making friends and generally becoming a part of the wonderful fiber community in and around Montréal and Québec, so being invited to teach at Twist was a highlight. All the classes I gave were colorwork related, and it brings me so much joy to share my love and knowledge of colorwork with other knitters.

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From top to bottom: teaching my Traditional Mittens workshop, being interviewed by Transistor Media (you can listen here), and hanging out with buds in the Knitting It Up Yarns booth (first two photos by Sébastien Lavallée for Twist Festival, third photo courtesy of Annie of Knitting It Up)

While I’ve been invited to teach at a few retreats and events in 2019, I’m not anticipating very much teaching in the coming year, I’m sorry to say. The reason for that is that I’m likely looking at another big move next summer (which can make event planning difficult-to-impossible), but more on that at a later date.

Plenty of other things have happened this year – I read 30 books, I learned a new craft, I traveled to some new and exciting places as well as some old and familiar ones. I feel I have so much to be grateful for right now. Given the year I’ve had, I’m taking it easy for the last few weeks of the year, and I’m looking forward to spending the Christmas holiday with family and friends. I am especially grateful to you, my readers, followers, customers. You all are a massive part of the wonderful year 2018 has been on a professional level, and I can’t say thank you enough. My birthday falls on the first of the new year, and some of you may remember I held a birthday sale on patterns last year – keep an eye out, because I plan to do the same this coming year. It’s such a nice way to say thank you for the year just gone by.

Whatever the end of 2018 holds for you – travel, festive celebrations, time for quiet reflection – I hope you enjoy it. And I’ll see you in the new year.

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a rhinebeck weekend

DiannaLeave a comment

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This time a week ago I was at my very first Rhinebeck. I took the train back to Montreal last Monday, a journey which is much longer than it seems like it should be (nine hours!), but I’m glad I had a little bit of time to myself to decompress after a whirlwind weekend before diving back into real life. What a wonderful weekend it was.

I’ve wanted to write about it, but how is it possible to say everything I want to say about the weekend? While I enjoyed the festival itself, it was truly the magical combination of the festival, the fall colors and atmosphere, and especially the presence of a huge number of friends I don’t get to see very often that made the weekend what it was.

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It’s admittedly a little strange to finally attend an event you’ve known about and watched others go to for years and years. There can be a lot of expectation tied up in the experience – is it is good as everyone says it is? Will I see everything I want to see? Do the apple cider donuts live up to the hype? (For the record, they do.) I think that for me, this trip came at exactly the right moment. I have been treading water a little bit since I left Norway and came to Montreal, trying to work out exactly who I am in this new city. Perhaps that sounds silly – I’m still me, after all – but I had become so accustomed to how I defined myself and presented myself to the world with Norway as a backdrop, that removing that backdrop and replacing it with something else left me feeling a little uncertain. Big moves and transitional periods don’t always allow for a lot of self reflection in the moment, it turns out. It’s after the fact that you realize there’s something different about the person looking back at you in the mirror and you haven’t figured out exactly what it is yet.

So it was wonderful to have a new experience that made me feel very much like me, getting to spend time with friends I haven’t seen since last year’s Oslo Strikkefestival, or Edinburgh Yarn Fest 2016, or friends I’d never met in person but I’ve known a long time. This wooly knitting industry is overall a very warm and supportive place to be, and I am so glad for all of the people I get to call friends within it.

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I saw a lot of wonderful stuff last weekend. I fell in love with a number of yarns, but mostly stuck to my plan to buy one sweater’s quantity as a souvenir (a few extra skeins came home with me, since Harrisville did a beautiful limited edition run of an irresistible blue). I was taking mental notes, though, checking out yarns I might want to try out in the future. I fell pretty hard for the naturally-dyed hues of Tidal Yarns‘s Romney wool, pictured below, and her booth was a reminder of why shows like this are so special – she doesn’t sell her yarns online at all, but she does do around 15 shows a year.

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In the end, I didn’t end up with a Rhinebeck sweater. I had been knitting away on my Circlet Shrug for a month and I got very close to finishing it – I was two cable repeats away from finishing the back. But with the weather in the 70s (fahrenheit), it worked out okay in the end. I finished knitting it on Wednesday, and will block it and seam the sides soon.. I did enjoy checking out the sweaters of those dedicated knitters (and crocheters) who wore their completed garments even in the heat. I also enjoyed checking out the animals.

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How could you not?

I came home feeling refreshed, motivated, and creatively inspired. Thank you, New York Sheep & Wool, and thank you to everyone who made this weekend so special.

oslo strikkefestival: yarn

DiannaLeave a comment

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I have a few posts-in-progress lined up for the blog once I have a chance to finish them, but as school has intensified this term, and the US election season approached its climax in the past weeks, it’s been a bit of a struggle to get anything finished. And today, after having woken up to the results at six in the morning yesterday, I’ll admit I’m feeling at a bit of a loss. This week is tough for many of us, American or otherwise.

But in an attempt to turn toward the positive: I spent this past weekend at the Oslo Strikkefestival (for whom I designed my Rosenhoff Votter), in the company of a collection of absolutely incredible people. I’d love to share more about the experience soon – the fantastic organizers Katie and Tone, the workshops and the marketplace and the general atmosphere, meeting so many people in person who I’ve interacted with online. It was truly wonderful. But right now what I really need is a couple of mental health days before I dive headfirst back into my thesis work. So I thought for now I’d just share what I picked up from the marketplace – which, after reading the vendor list in advance, I was greatly anticipating.

You all know I’m working to buy less yarn and knit from my existing stash whenever possible, but I’ve known for months that I was going to make a big exception for Oslo Strikkefestival. Having started the Norwegian wool series on this blog (which I hope to get back to soon!), I’m super interested in exploring new-to-me yarns that are domestically sourced and produced in Norway. I’ve also lately become interested in the world of Norwegian hand-dyed yarns, as many of those businesses are only just getting started. The marketplace at this past weekend’s festival was an absolutely fantastic place to check out a large sample of Norwegian-made and/or Norwegian-dyed yarns in person all at once. And so I came home with a few things… and you can see from the photo at the top of this post that I didn’t stray from my typical color palette too far. There are worse things than being predictable, though, I suppose.

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I’ve written about how much I love Hillesvåg and their pelsull yarn on this blog before, so I was very happy to pick up a skein of a new weight of pelsull. Sølje is a lovely fingering-weight version and it’s surprisingly soft. Hillesvåg has kept with their tradition of naming their yarns after things related to Norwegian tradition and folklore, as sølje is also the name for the brooches typically worn with the bunad, the national folk costume. The Hillesvåg booth didn’t have a lot of this yarn left by the time I made my way over to pick some up, but I snagged this skein in the color lys rødlig beige, or “light reddish beige.” I’m not sure yet what it will be but I’m very curious to see how this weight knits up compared with the sport weight Pelsull and the bulky Blåne.

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Next up is something different, although still in my typical grey: this is the Kid Silk base from Norne Yarns in the Fenrir colorway. Tuva of Norne Yarns was a vendor at last year’s festival as well, and her specialty is luxury bases (I didn’t asked her specifically about the sources of the bases but I assume they’re sourced abroad). The diversity of yarns in the marketplace was one of the most exciting things to me – although I am a huge advocate for Norwegian wools, I think a Norwegian dyer working with luxury bases is an excellent niche to fill and I’m quite looking forward to trying this yarn out. This grey color is called Fenrir after Fenrir the grey, the great wolf from Norse mythology (also the inspiration for the werewolf Fenrir Greyback in the Harry Potter universe). One of my favorite things about Tuva’s yarns is the Norse mythology woven through all the names, right down to the brand name itself – Norne – as the Norns are the Norse version of the female Fates who rule the destinies of men (artwork of the Norns spinning the threads of fate at the bottom of Yggdrasil is easy to find). Fans of Norse mythology will recognize many names in Norne’s colorways: Yggdrasil, Valkyrie, Freyr, the Mistress of Seidr (which refers to Freyja), Skadi, Ratatosk, and many more.

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Nina Petrina is probably my most local indie dyer, as Nina is from Troms (my county), just a short drive away from Tromsø over in Storfjord. I recently knit her Nordlyslue (northern lights hat), and I was looking forward to checking out more of her yarns in the marketplace. I was also really happy to meet Nina in person, as she is lovely! Not all of her yarns are domestic Norwegian wool – in fact, she carries some Quince & Co. yarns – but her focus is on organic and fair trade wool and she’s very environmentally conscious. I picked up some of her Tynn Bluefaced Leicester (hooray for breed-specific wools!) in this beautiful teal shade that almost perfectly matched one of the stripe colors of my Fringe & Friends KAL sweater, which I was wearing at the time. I’m not sure what I’ll use this for yet, but it’s going to be beautiful.

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This yarn is one of the ones I’m the most excited about but at this point I can give you the least specifics. It’s from the indie dyer I was perhaps the most eager to see: Værbitt. The name literally means “weather-bitten,” and it’s a word that I as a foreigner associate most strongly with the Norwegian national anthem, as it appears in the third line of the first verse (the only verse I know by heart). I had a lovely chat with Laila, the owner (and I probably gushed a bit), because Laila uses mainly Norwegian-sourced wools and Nordic breeds for her bases. The yarn above is spun from spælsau wool, both the sturdy guard hair layer as well as the softer inner layer of wool, so it’s very sturdy even as a single-ply, and absolutely beautiful. I’m very excited to follow Værbitt’s work in the future.

All four of the above yarns were ones I planned to check out and I was expecting to come home with – but of course, there were a couple of curve balls, too. They came home with me because these are the yarns I actually have concrete plans for, unlike the ones above.

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Claire of We Love Knitting traveled all the way from Melbourne, Australia to be a vendor at the marketplace, and she is honestly and without exagerration probably the sweetest person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I came home with a skein of her Merino Fingering in the Icicle colorway (at bottom) and her Sock base in a beautiful grey (top). These will become a pair of Lumineux socks, from this year’s Knitworthy collection from Ysolda. Thankfully I can always use more handknit socks here.

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And last but definitely not least, I think I’m actually incapable of resisting a beautiful greyscale gradient. This one came from Squirrel’s Yarns, another one of the international vendors – Lisa is based in France and her gradients were one of the first things that caught my eye at the marketplace. This one is in her Pécan Fingering base, which has a bit of silver stellina in the yarn that gives it a lovely sparkle (which unfortunately doesn’t seem to photograph very well in my low winter light). I’m pretty sure this is going to become a Lupine shawl, a pattern by my friend Cory I’ve been wanting to knit for a long time. I actually had another stash yarn set aside for that, but this one feels like an even better fit.

Thanks again to Katie and Tone and everyone else who made Oslo Strikkefestival so fantastic this year. It was a bright spot in the midst of a dark time.

rosenhoff mittens

DiannaLeave a comment

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I decided to write about Telespinn last week because I used one of their yarns for a very special pattern: meet the Rosenhoff mittens (or Rosenhoff Votter), my contribution to the magazine for this year’s Oslo Strikkefestival. The festival is only in its second year this year, but it sounds like last year was a flying success and I can’t wait to head down to Oslo this November and check it out for myself (yes! I’m coming to the festival!). I had the chance back in February to meet Katie, who runs the festival (and also works at Grünerløkka yarn store Pickles) and I was thrilled when she asked if I’d be willing to contribute a pattern for the magazine. Two other patterns are included: the beautiful and intriguing Gokstad Hat by Julie Knits in Paris, and the Oslo Skirt by Maja Karlsson, which features a interesting construction details and lovely stranded colorwork at the waistline. All three patterns are available for free in the Oslo Strikkefestival magazine, found here on their website if you weren’t able to get one at the launch party. Currenly the written instructions are in Norwegian only, but the whole mitten is charted after the ribbing and I’m hoping to put together the English translation soon.

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I had a lot of fun working up the charts for these mittens and I’m very pleased with how they turned out. They’re knit up in fingering-weight Symre (for the sample the main color is Sjøgrønn and the contrast is Lysgrå). A primarily mohair yarn is not the most traditional choice for what are otherwise rather traditional Norwegian mittens, but I felt like the spirit of Telespinn as a company is very Norwegian and that it would be a good fit for both this design and the festival itself. The resulting fabric created when the mohair-wool blend is worked stranded is a bit airier than wool would be, but it’s also very warm. I took these mittens on a test run at an outdoor music festival in Tromsø this past weekend – the high temp the day I wore them was 8ºC / 46ºF and they kept my hands quite warm!

I decided to name the pattern after the area where I lived two summers ago while attending the International Summer School at the University of Oslo. Rosenhoff is on the east side of Oslo just north of Carl Berners plass, and aside from my personal connection to the area, the floral connotations of the name felt like a good fit for the two main flowery motifs on the back of the hand. It’s a really lovely part of town that I’ll probably always have a fondness for – that summer was like something out of a picture book.

I should also mention that if you’re planning to attend the festival and you knit one of the three official patterns from this year’s magazine (these mittens included), you can be entered to win a 500 NOK gift card to be used in the marketplace! And if you start a project but haven’t finished by the time of the festival, no biggie – just upload a photo of your WIP or FO to Instagram with the hashtag #oslostrikkefestival and you’ll be entered. More info about the competition can be found on the Oslo Strikkefestival website here. And the Rosenhoff Votter can be found on Ravelry here.

If you’re planning to attend the festival I look forward to seeing you there!

edinburgh yarn fest

DiannaLeave a comment

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I had an incredible weekend in Scotland for Edinburgh Yarn Festival, though I did an absolutely terrible job of taking photos at the festival itself (and in fact I took very few photos all weekend). There were so many highlights – too many to name them all! It was incredible to see so many friends meet so many others for the first time, many of whom are colleagues whose work I’ve followed and blogs I’ve read for years (among them Ysolda Teague, Kate Davies, Felicity Ford, Bristol Ivy, Anna Maltz, Rachel Atkinson, Susan Crawford, Karie Westermann, Thea Colman, Kirsten Kapur, Ella Gordon, and the list goes on as I’m sure I’m leaving some people out). There is something so incredible about connecting in person with the community we so often interact with via a screen – it’s a unique camaraderie. Now it’s back to work and I have an email inbox full of messages that need replies…

But first, I will share a few highlights! The marketplace was absolutely swamped on Friday morning when I arrived, and it was a treat to wander around and hear so many different accents (and languages!) around me and know that so many folks had traveled to the festival from afar like I did. I was able to attend Susan Crawford’s talk on Saturday about the Vintage Shetland Project and it was incredible to hear about this project several years in the making. Susan has worked together with the textile museum in Shetland to recreate 27 different pieces, and the patterns to knit those pieces have been compiled in a book along with the unique stories of each garment and accessory. The book is being printed next month and I absolutely can’t wait to see it (it’s currently available for preorder here). Friday night’s ceilidh was also a highlight, though I didn’t partake in any dancing myself due to a shoulder injury.

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I typically travel light and I didn’t go straight home after the festival (I’m in LA for the remainder of my Easter break) so I didn’t go nuts at the marketplace, but I did manage to squeeze in a few woolly souvenirs that I’m quite excited about. From left to right: the gorgeous Daughter of a Shepherd yarn launched by Rachel Atkinson at the festival, which is 100% Hebridean wool from her father’s flock (and it’s naturaly that gorgeous dark color); a skein of the recently-launched undyed Blend no. 1 from Ysolda, a blend of Merino, Polwarth, and Zwartbles wool that is the most gorgeous heathery light grey with a charcoal halo; and a small green skein of the same yarn, dyed by Triskelion Yarn.

For more on the festival, check out Kate’s recap and snapshots – the photo of Kate with Ella in her crofthoose yoke and Felix in her Missy Elliott masterpiece is a favorite.

The rest of the weekend, for me, was about spending time with wonderful people in a wonderful city. I love Edinburgh, and I got to have many great meals and the weather was gorgeous Saturday and Sunday. I took a walk up the Crags on Sunday afternoon with Thea, Kirsten, and Rebecca Redston that was just the cherry on top. A massive thank you to everyone who made this such an incredible weekend, and to Jo and Mica who organize the festival. If you ever find yourself with a chance to go to Edinburgh Yarn Fest, my advice is simple: go. You won’t regret it.

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quince & co.

DiannaLeave a comment

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A lot has happened in the month since I wrote last. The middle of the semester is busy as usual, so the weeks seem to be flying by. I was beginning to suffer from some cabin fever but I took a weekend trip to Oslo a few weeks ago that was incredibly refreshing – I celebrated a friend’s birthday, saw friends I haven’t seen in ages, visited favorite old haunts, and I also got the chance to meet up with Katie, the organizer of the Oslo Strikkefestival. It was quite a treat, and I came home to Tromsø feeling energized and happy to be back. I’ve planned some more travel since then: Edinburgh Yarn Festival coincides with the beginning of my Easter break (Norwegians take a whole week off) so I decided to book myself a trip! I’m quite looking forward to it (so many fantastic folks in one place!), and if you’re attending as well, keep an eye out and say hello if you spot me!

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My biggest piece of news today, however, is that I am absolutely thrilled (humbled, honored, overjoyed) to be a part of the inaugural design team for Quince & Co. My first piece as part of the team should be out sometime this week, but in the meantime you can read the announcement on the Quince blog over here. I’ve written about my love for Quince as a company and for their yarns on this blog before, so needless to say I’m truly so thrilled to be working with them on more patterns. The whole design team lineup is absolutely stellar and I count myself lucky to be listed among them: Bristol Ivy, Cecily Glowik MacDonald, and Isabell Kraemer have already been announced and Pam Allen is also contributing patterns to the collections (ETA: also Melissa LaBarre, who was announced today!). My first pattern as part of the team will be going live soon, so I’ll share more then!

mittens in may!

DiannaLeave a comment

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Hello everyone! Just a quick post today to let you all know there are still a few spots available in my upcoming workshop at Tolt Yarn and Wool, Mittens in May. This is the traditional mittens workshop I taught at the Nordic Knitting Conference last fall, and I’m so excited to be teaching it again. The workshop will be May 3rd (that’s a week from Sunday) from 11-4.

We’ll be talking about traditional mittens from the Nordic and Baltic countries, and you’ll get to choose a mini-mitten to start working up in class to try out some of the techniques we’ll be discussing. I’ve been working up new samples of the mini mittens in Rauma Finullgarn, a wonderful woolen-spun fingering weight yarn from Norwegian company Rauma:

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From left to right, the mittens are: Latvian (focusing on a seamless lined cuff), Estonian (with a vikkel braid), Norwegian (with a Norwegian thumb gusset), and Bohus (in the style of Bohus Stickning, from Bohuslän in Sweden, focusing on combining knits and purls in colorwork with more than two colors per round).

As you can see, all of the mini mittens involve stranded colorwork, so you should have some familiarity with colorwork and knitting small circumferences in the round to take the workshop. Other than that, there’s a wide range of skill levels represented – the Norwegian and Estonian mittens each only use two colors, and you can elect to skip the braid on the Estonian mitten to keep things super simple if you wish. The Latvian mitten brings in a third color, but there’s still never more than two colors per round which keeps the colorwork simple and manageable. It’d be a great stepping stone if you’ve never worked a third color into your colorwork. The six-color Bohus mitten is a beast, I’ll admit, and routinely uses three colors per round in addition to switching between mitts and purls, but there’s also a two-color chart included to keep things simple if you just want to give the knit/purl combo in colorwork a try.

All students will leave the workshop with a booklet containing information about these different traditions, and the mini mitten patterns are included, so you can work up the others later! You’ll be able to apply the techniques for the mini mittens to full-sized ones down the line.

You can stop by the store or give them a call at 425.333.4066 to reserve your spot! Check out the page about the class on the Tolt website for info about materials, etc. here. Tolt carries Rauma Finullgarn so it’ll be easy to pick up supplies for the class there as well. This is a fun, choose-your-own-adventure kind of class I hope to see some of you there!

knit fit!

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The second weekend in November was this year’s Knit Fit! While I didn’t have a market booth this year, I did end up attending both Friday (opening night) and Saturday. It was quite a lot of fun to simply go as a student and not be working for the weekend!

For those who don’t know, Knit Fit is a local knit & crochet event here in Seattle, held in November. I think this was the third year, so it’s still a new-ish event, but it gets better every year and I’m so proud of the organizers for the weekend they put together. The weekend is made up of an opening night talk on Friday evening followed by two days of wonderful classes on Saturday and Sunday. There’s also a marketplace full of fantastic independent vendors that runs both Saturday and Sunday, and this year’s was bigger and better than ever.

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I specifically wanted to mention the opening night talk this year – given by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, linguist, anthropologist, and textile expert (I swooned a little bit the first time I read that). You may have heard of some of her works, such as Prehistoric Textiles, THE book on prehistoric textiles, or Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years. I had heard of these works, but never read them, and I’m currently about two thirds of the way through Women’s Work (which is fantastic, for the record). I was very excited to hear her speak and despite a few technical hiccups, I still really enjoyed her wonderful talk. If you ever get a chance to go see her speak, you should do it! Barber is one of the people credited with bringing this type of textile-related anthropological work to the forefront, and focusing on women’s roles in ancient societies (due to the nature of textiles, they tend to decompose, so the physical remnants of that section of society is harder to trace and was thus largely ignored by early archeology).

1ccab32311330c46-knitfithaulcroppedFrom left to right: YOTH Big Sister in Blueberry and Olive, Farm Girl Products BFL/alpaca, Three Fates Yarns Superwash Worsted in Commuter

On Saturday I took a crochet class with Shibaguyz, which was a lot of fun and I learned quite a bit. A visit to the market took me to the booths of many of my favorite yarnies, including Spincycle and Jorstad Creek, and I picked up some new-to-me yarns as well from both YOTH and Farm Girl Products. The YOTH booth was incredible! But the beautiful grey BFL/alpaca blend I picked up from Farm Girl might be what I’m most excited about.

I also did Game Knitting for the first time. Game Knitting is the brainchild of Lee Meredith and the easiest way to explain it is to say that it’s kind of like a drinking game, but with knitting, not drinking. You queue up a film or TV show with a list of suitable cues on hand, as if you were going to play a drinking game. You pick an item to knit during the game (something simple, like a hat, a cowl, a scarf, etc) and you pick a variation – that is, a characteristic that you change whenever you reach a cue in the film/show. In the simplest version, you switch from knit stitch to purl stitch or from purl to knit whenever you reach a cue, so your knitted item would be made up of a random pattern of knit lines and purl lines. It’s a really fantastic concept, and the sky’s truly the limit. For Game Fitting at Knit Fit, they like to show a Seattle-related movie, and this year’s was Ten Things I Hate About You, which I hadn’t seen in ages, so it was a lot of fun.

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Because I am a crazy person, I decided I would work all knit stitches, but I would change colors every time we hit a cue. Many of the stretches of knitting between cues were really too long for stranding (and I knew going in that they would be), so that basically meant that rather than stranding, I just had a literal rat’s nest of ends to weave in after the fact. Fortunately, I like weaving in ends, so it worked out. I used Heirloom Romney and managed to get most of the hat knit during the movie, and then finished it off later on with a big stretch of red followed by a stretch of the undyed off-white (which isn’t really visible in this photo). In the spirit of Game Knitting, there’s no shaping on the hat; instead, I did a 3-needle bind off and stitched the two corners together, topping it all off with a jaunty pom pom. I’m excited that Game Knitting yielded a hat that is super wearable and absolutely unique!

On top of all of that, one of the most fun things about events like this is getting to hang out with so many fiber industry folks all at once – since for so many of us, especially designers, so much of our work is very solitary. Aside from the aforementioned yarnies, it was fun to see Kathy Cadigan, Andi Satterlund, Andrea Rangel (who was down from Canada to teach), Lee Meredith (up from Portland), and others.

If you’re interested in learning more about Knit Fit, you should head to the website and read up! And perhaps put it on the calendar for next year – it’s usually the first or second weekend in November, but keep an eye on the website for exact dates. And congrats to the Knit Fit crew on another wonderful year!

new classes and events page

DiannaLeave a comment

I’m busy with last minute Nordic Knitting Conference preparations this week, but I did want to pop in and let you all know that I’ve added a page for upcoming classes & events to the website! The Nordic Knitting Conference is listed there (for the next week, anyway), and I’m also teaching a workshop at Knit Purl in Portland, Oregon on November 15th. It’ll be a stranded colorwork workshop and we’ll be working on a brand new pattern for fingerless mitts using Brooklyn Tweed Loft and Spincycle’s gorgeous Dyed in the Wool! The cost for the three-hour workshop will be $55 and you can find more information and register on the Knit Purl website here. I’ll be keeping the classes & events page up-to-date as new events are scheduled.