Seaming Made Simple

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Apr 272013
 

On Saturday, May 25, I’ll be teaching a class at Penelope Craft in Amsterdam – Seaming Made Simple.  If you’d like to learn everything you need to know about successfully putting your sweaters together, beautifully, be sure to sign up!

It’s a 3 hour class which will be mostly hands on practice.  You’ll have to make some swatches ahead of time, so be sure to ask about homework!

You can sign up at Penelope Craft, Kerkstraat 117, Amsterdam or on their web site.

There are a lot of other great classes planned for this summer.  Here’s the first few months’ schedule.

I’m also teaching Sock Design Studio on June 8th.  In this class you’ll learn how to make socks fit YOU, how to design your own socks using your favorite stitch pattern, and how to design socks for others.  What things do you need to take into account when designing socks?  Do’s and don’ts.  Hints and tips.  It’s going to be amazing.  I’m VERY excited about it.

Hope to see you there!

More Mandy’s Heart Sweaters

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Feb 222013
 

This past Monday night at de Jaren, C. and C. brought/wore their Mandy’s Heart sweaters.  The red one was made for C.’s daughter.  Aren’t they lovely?

The light in de Jaren is just AWFUL for photos (and for knitting too).  I did my best with photoshop to improve the light and color.  They both seem very happy with their new sweaters, and you can’t ask for more than that!

I’m busy working on the next sweater design, which will be perfect for a beginning sweater knitter.  Andy is also knitting a sample sweater for me.  I’m about half finished with mine so I hope to get test knitters started in another month.  There’s also another new project that is 2/3 finished which I NEED to finish in the next 3 weeks.  That’s a lot of knitting to get done soon!

But at the same time I’m itching to start something small and new.  I really want to make another pair of Mandy’s Heart socks in a bright shocking pink and it’s taking all my willpower to hold back and finish these other 2 projects first.  I used to be such a monogamous knitter too!  Looks what’s happened to me!

Oh, one other bit of knitting news – I’ve started using my new HiyaHiya sharps, interchangeables, 5″, and I LOVE them!  I swear I’m knitting faster with them.  They feel great in my hands, nice and light and the finish on the metal has just the perfect amount of slip.  I think I’ll post a more extensive review of them in a few weeks when I’ve had a chance to work with them some more.

Happy Knitting everyone!

Perfect Seams

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Feb 092013
 

Yesterday I went to Carol’s house to help her with seaming her Mandy’s Heart sweater.  Carol had never sewn up knitted seams before! I showed her the first few stitches and the rest she did completely by herself.  After just 5 minutes she was sewing up her own perfect seams.

Look how happy she is!

And look at how perfect her seams are!

The above photo is Carol sewing in a sleeve, which is normally the part people are most afraid of.  Look how easy this is! Don’t be afraid of the seam.  It’s adds strength and almost no bulk at all if done right.  By the end of the afternoon Carol couldn’t keep her eyes or hands off her impeccable  seams and was just so pleased with herself.  Good for you!

By the way, only 5 more days until Mandy’s Heart sweater and sock patterns are released.  Stay tuned!

Sweater ONE

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Jan 312013
 

Today, the last day of January and the last day of this “blog post a day” schedule, I’m announcing a new sweater design – Sweater ONE.  Sweater ONE is a very easy, basic, perfect first sweater for a new knitter.  It is knit in worsted weight, in pieces and is sewn together.  There is almost no shaping which makes the knitting even easier.  There are ribbing patterns in strategic places to make the sweater less boxy and more modern.

The above is a part of the sleeve I’m knitting.  The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Worsted.  Andy is going to make a sample sweater in Cascade 220 Superwash in a size to fit himself.  The pattern is written for 8 sizes from blocked sweater size 35, 38, 41, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60 inches (89, 97, 104, 112, 122, 132, 142, 152 cm).

As soon as the 2 sample sweaters are finished I will be searching for test knitters.  I hope that I can find as many and as wonderful test knitters as I have for Mandy’s Heart.  They have been so helpful!  Since this sweater is designed for the first time sweater knitter, I’d love to find test knitters who have never knit a sweater before or only 1 sweater before.  It’s not so easy for me to judge the difficulty of patterns since I’ve been knitting so long and have managed to knit from any kind of pattern you want to throw at me.

So, stay tuned for more information about Sweater ONE.  I’m hoping to get test knitters working before April.

Seeing Red

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Jan 292013
 

I finished my red Mandy’s Heart Socks!  Yay! I will do my best to have a real photo shoot this coming weekend.  I’m really hoping to publish the pattern on 14 Feb just like the sweater.

I do LOVE this yarn, Tosh Sock, and the color, Tart.  I’ll have to get my hands on a sweater quantity at some point.

Almost Ready

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Jan 272013
 

This is the first page of my new sweater pattern, Mandy’s Heart.  Just a few final reviews and it will be ready to lease into the wild.  Pretty exciting!

Unfortunately, I had to be my own model.  I’m not happy about that.  It’s not ideal.  But I’m cheap and I was available.  For now I will have to do.

My test knitters are in the final push to finishing their sweaters.  I have 8 test knitters working diligently and I will be eternally grateful to them for their willingness to take on this task.

Launch date is set for 14 February.  The sweater is named Mandy’s Heart for my niece Mandy and Valentine’s Day seemed the perfect date to release a pattern with cabled hearts running down the front and sleeve.  The pattern will be available on Ravelry, and if I can get things set up in time, here on this blog.

Favorites

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Jan 262013
 

I’ve been reading forums on Ravelry and topics that come up very often are “what is your favorite yarn (for socks, for sweaters, for lace, for pooling, for kids, etc etc)?” and “what are your favorite needles (for knitting socks or lace or interchangeables, or general knitting)?”.

If someone asked me, what is your favorite yarn, you’d just have to look into my stash.  Madelinetosh and Wolmeise.  I have expensive tastes.  These two brands of yarns have in common their amazing colors, and also the fact that they are hand dyed.  The variation and beauty you can achieve with hand dyeing makes the yarns seem like works of art in themselves.  You can knit plain stockinette stitch garments with these yarns and they will look stunning.

Knitting with hand dyed yarns isn’t all fun though.  You have to be careful that the yarns don’t bleed dye when you wash them.  Be careful if you are combining colors in a garment that you wash the yarn first and make sure all the dye is out before you start knitting.  This is a serious pain in the neck, but I don’t do a lot of color work so I’m not fussed about that.  The other down side to an addiction to these yarns is that they are somewhat scarce.  You have to stalk them in shops or be lucky enough to catch a shop update to get what you want.  Or buy yarn off someone who is destashing.  And of course the cost.  It’s a costly addiction.  (Remember not so long ago I had an online yarn shop?  Talk about a costly addiction!)

These days I’m on the lookout for new needles.  I just ordered a set of HiyaHiya interchangeables – the steel, sharp, 4″ small set.  I can’t wait to try them out!  They get excellent reviews, from the sharp points to the very flexible cables.  I’ve been knitting the past several years with a set of KnitPro(KnitPicks) wood interchangeables, and while I love the feel of the wood, I have fallen out of love with them.  They break and fall apart easily.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve superglued tips back into the metal bases.  A few times the cables have come out of the metal connector and can’t be fixed.  Sure, the company replaces them no questions asked, but what a hassle!  I don’t like how stiff the cables are either and how they have too much memory in them (once kinked, always kinked).  I’ll certainly let you know when the Hiya Hiyas arrive and what I think of them.

I’m also on the lookout for new sock knitting needles.  I like knitting socks on 2 circular needles.  Here’s what I’m looking for:
3″ to 3.5″ needles
16″ cables
very pointy tips
very flexible cables
perfect joins
not costing a fortune (like Signature needles!)

What would you recommend?  I’ve put this question to the “Sock Knitter’s Anonymous” group on Ravelry and I’m now waiting for replies.  Surely there are needles out there that can meet these basic requirements!  If not, I should go into business…..

Proper FO Post

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Jan 252013
 

Now for a proper Finished Object blog post for my new hat.  I really love it!

DB took photos this morning, outside when we had a bit of sunshine.  The color is captured very well here.

The pattern is Rosebud by Jared Flood.  The yarn is Madelinetosh Chunky in color Midnight in Manhattan.  I only had one skein and wasn’t sure it would be enough to make a hat.  The skein weighed 114g to start with and I have 10g left.

I used the size needles required in the pattern (8US) but I only cast on 80 stitches instead of 84.  Everything else I made according to the pattern, for the small size with only 2 repeats of the cable pattern.

It fits a little bit loose on my peanut head, but I like that.  Hats that are too tight give me a headache.  This is a super quick knit and I highly recommend it for yourself or as a gift.  I made it as part of the Madelinetosh Lovers Group SAL (Stitch-a-Long) on Ravelry.  But I would have made it in any case.  And I’m going to wear it a lot in this cold winter weather!

Flight Delay Knitting

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Jan 232013
 

This is how much knitting I got done during the EasyJet flight delay Monday, flying from Berlin to Amsterdam.  Not bad, right!

This is the second sock of my Mandy’s Heart Sock design.  I’m almost finished!  Writing up the pattern is almost finished too.  The charts are done, the text directions are done.  I just have to lay in out in a nice format and do a photo shoot.  Taking photos of socks is so much easier than photographing sweaters.  I hope to have this pattern ready to launch into the world on the same day that I launch the sweater pattern – 14 February.

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