The idea struck Thea when she was making a dish cloth. She loved the stitch so much, she wondered just how many ways she could use it.
Fall at Ann's By Design means new and exciting classes. Tonight is Survivor Shawls, soon we'll schedule 3 Things You Can Knit Before Christmas (EEEEKKKKS!), we have a new beginning knit and crochet teacher who everybody is excited about, we have a new sock teacher who is marvelous and Thea has designed a intriguing new class. Thea is one of the most creative people I know. It could be from being a first grade teacher or it might be that only-child thing working its magic. Whatever it is, Thea is the consummate knabbler. (Remember: dabbling and knitting.) At Knit Night last week, we decided it was time to take pictures of her latest creative endeavor and write about it on Knitting: A Love Story. See how my Kauni EQ scarf (at the front left of the table) is coming that I started at the Kerrytown Bookfest and worked on while we were in Traverse City? It is beautiful as all Kauni EQ projects are. I just found a new pattern that is screaming, "KNIT ME IN EQ, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! The idea struck Thea when she was making a dish cloth. She loved the stitch so much, she wondered just how many ways she could use it. It is a simple, lace stitch which looks complex. It is very beautiful and Thea proved it can make any accessory more appealing. First she made a cowl knit in the round making a lovely vertical pattern. The additional learning for this iteration would be knitting in the round. Then she made a cowl with the pattern horizontal. The additional learning for this iteration would be making button holes. Then she made a scarf with the pattern vertical. Additional learning would be the garter stitch along the edge to keep it from rolling. Then to push the envelope she added it to a baby hat. ADORABLE! Who would have thought: 1 stitch pattern equaling five totally different and totally yummy treasures! If you are interested, visit Ann's By Design website and sign up for Thea's new class. Not only will you learn something new and come away with a great dish cloth, you will also get to spend the evening with one of the neatest people I know. If you sign up, tell Thea that Jan sent you.
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I usually write on Sunday or Monday but here it is Wednesday. What happened!?!?! We went to Traverse City for a long weekend and Red Wings Training Camp. Hi, Lori on LTB! Some time when we come to TC, I'm going to get my act together and we can meet for coffee and knitting. It was a fabulous weekend except for the fact I couldn't visit Yarn Quest one of my all time favorite LYS. Last July, a car drove through the shop and they were unable to reopen. This will the first time Dick and I visited Traverse City without me going to a yarn shop and buying yarn. Sad! We got home Monday but I brought the crud home with me so I've been drooping around until now. Enough excuses! Let's get down to business. How is a Dovetail the same as the Bible? Well, when it is the shawl pattern Dovetail and the book Poisonwood Bible, the answer it simple. They are two of my favorites and I couldn't put either of them down. This is the Dovetail pattern. I fell in love with it as soon as I put it on my needles. Just like I fell in love with The Poisonwood Bible on the first page. I couldn't put it down. I read it, reread it and listened to it audiobook. As soon as Dovetail was on my needles, I couldn't knit anything else. Dovetail is a slip stitch pattern. You only use one color on a row slipping stitches to get 2 colors on each row. Magic! It is one of my favorite techniques. The pattern looks so complicated but it really a 6 stitch repeat. I tried but I just didn't want to knit anything else. I think part of my infatuation was using my favorite yarn of all time, Kauni EQ. I have 7 balls of EQ in my yarn stash just in case I feel the need. I have knit with Kauni EQ more than any other single color of yarn. I may have knit with Twisted Fiber Art more than Kauni but not with one color. I made a wall hanging when I was in my 20's using the slipped stitch technique and my Gram put net on the back so it wouldn't stretch. It hung on my wall for many years. I was so proud of it. It seemed to me after finishing that I got this knitting thing. It never occurred to me that this was a complex technique. I just rolled up my sleeves and jumped in. I even taught myself to read a chart since this pattern was in chart form. Now let's take a look at my Dovetail. Isn't it beautiful! I love the pattern but don't get the Dovetail name. There's nothing that looks like a Dovetail to me. Ahhhhhh! Yummy! Everything always looks better on Lydia. Remember when I told you I read, reread and listened to Poisonwood Bible on audiobook? I really did much the same with Dovetail Shawl. I decided to knit Dovetail again using 2 balls of Kauni EQ starting at different color points. This is going to be amazing. I can't wait to show it to you.
I just realized my last two posts support each other. They are both about my love of reading and knitting. I didn't realize how aligned knitting and reading are in my brain. I've really talked about 3 loves; Dovetail Shawl pattern, Poisonwood Bible and Kauni EQ. Give me these three any day and I'm a happy girl. I went to the Kerrytown Bookfest today with Cheryl. I think this is our third or fourth year. I get almost as hyped about this as I do about the Ann Arbor Spring and Fall Fiber Expos. Two of my great loves are reading and knitting. If I could figure out a way to do both at the same time, I would be a happy girl. When Dick and I were on a train trip a few years ago, I thought I could do both. I got a knockout pattern and a great audiobook and thought I EUREKA, I can do it. I thought this would be even easier than knitting and watching TV because you never have to look up from your knitting to see what's happening in those times of all action/no talking on TV. And subtitles are the worst for a knitter! I got out my needles, turned on my audiobook to where I left off and about 30 minutes later woke up. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the motion of the train or maybe it was the relaxing sound of being read to but I was out like a light. I didn't have a clue how to get back to where I started my audiobook AND I had dropped many, many stitches in a double knitting project. I decided if I can't read and knit at the same time, at least I could knit while listening to my favorite authors talk about their books. I don't know which I enjoy most, listening to authors or going to a knitting class where a new technique to taught by a renowned designer, like Maggie Jackson. Suffice it to say, I love them both. I was excited to learn that one of my favorite authors, Deanna Raybourn, who writes about one of my favorite characters, Victoria Speedwell, was going to be there. She was on a panel with James Bend and Amy Lee Huber. All three write historical fiction so they talked about how you drop a fictionalized story into an event that really happened. How you keep the historical accuracy while embedding a story that never happened. It was great. I loved it. I was amazed at the parallels between knitting and writing. James Bend talked about writing with only the knowledge a person would have had during that time in history rather than infusing what we know today about what happened. Interesting!!!! He said, "Like us after 9/11, they don't know what happens next." OMG! That's just like starting a knitting project. Until you are into it, you really don't get what happens next no matter how well you've read the pattern. Deanna Raybourn said, "What we think we know about history is really, really wrong!" Often what I think I know about knitting is really, really wrong. This is the knitting I chose to work on as I listened. It is a 4 row pattern for a scarf with a short row ruffle on the edge. Once you get started, you never need to refer to a pattern. It will also be my car knitting for our short trip to Traverse City this weekend. It is knit with Kauni EQ, of course. I am working on a tribute to Kauni for a later post. Getting back to the writers. Deanna talked about as a writer, "the moment you know you're doing what you were born to do." "Things click into place and you feel peace." Isn't that beautiful?!?!?!?! If you've read Knitting: A Love Story for very long, you know that perfectly describes my relationship with knitting. I feel Deanna and I are kindred spirits. When she said that, I did a little intake of breathe and said, "Oh, my!" Each author was asked about their gateway book which led me to wonder about my gateway pattern. Was there a pattern which said, "This is it. I want to do this for the rest of my life"? I went through pictures of things I've knit and there it was. My gateway project. I knit this when I came back to knitting in the 1980's. I saw the pattern in Knitters magazine and got the yarn at a wonderful LYS at Kerrytown. The rest, as they say, is history. I realized yarn and patterns had changed since I learned to knit from Mary Helen. I thought this was the most beautiful sweater I'd ever seen. I was hooked. So this was my gateway knitting. James Bend talked about the great difference between the first draft of a novel and the last draft. Which led me to think about "knitting drafts." I have made a couple things which had more than one draft, i.e., I finished it in draft one and it was different in the last draft. I don't think this means knitting a project and correcting mistakes as you go. I think it means knitting a project, studying the results, knitting it over, studying the results until you think it is perfect. This is my final draft of one of my best projects. My first draft was too small and fit like a sweater. My last draft fit perfect like a jacket. I knit this amazingly beautiful treasure twice and loved every minute of it.
Like the Spring and Fall Fiber Expos, Kerrytown Bookfest is full of vendors and treasures. I can never leave the Bookfest without buying a book just like I can never leave a Fiber Expo without buying yarn. I successfully infused knitting in the Kerrytown Bookfest but I am a little stuck on how to infuse reading into the Fall Fiber Expo. It really doesn't matter. Separately or together, knitting and reading are palpable passions. Friday was September 1. That means a lot of things to me. September 1 is always New Years Day to me. January 1 just doesn't have the same meaning. September 1 was the start of a new school year for 50 some years; first elementary school then middle school then high school then college then working in an educational environment. I get excited just thinking about it! . New classes, new friends, new clothes, new beginning. Once you live by the school calendar, you'll always live by the school calendar. It's like a racehorse hearing My Old Kentucky Home or a boxer hearing the bell or a Dalmatian hearing the fire-siren. Dick and I celebrated my New Year in a very special way. Ok, just change drinking coffee to drinking wine and that's me! I remember when I first read Stephanie Pearl McFee. I thought she was writing about me. When I saw this on Pinterest I thought, "OMG! That's me!" I sent this to Thea, Linda and Kathy Friday night and they all said that was exactly what they were doing but without the coffee. Maybe you would like to see what I was knitting. I love this but I'm not going to say much about it because I'm planning on devoting a whole post to this magnificent piece of knitting. I can think of no better way to spend a Friday evening than partying with a glass of wine and knitting on this treasure. September 1 means something else to me. It is the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast Cancer Awareness Month means Survivor Shawls. Last year I donated pink yarn to Ann's By Design for a Survivor Shawl class. This year I'm not only going to donate the yarn, I'm going to make 25 magic balls so participants can dive right in and knit. That is about 25 magic balls. What I've started doing is cutting yarn into 10, 12, 15, 18 and 20 yard piece and dropping them into bags marked with the yardage. Then I will randomly pull out yarn until it measures 450ish yard. Doesn't that sound fun? I'm not kidding. I really mean it. I love to make magic balls, I love to knit Survivor Shawls and I love honoring Breast Cancer Survivors. Making balls of yarn to create shawls to be given to Breast Cancer Survivors. Is that wonderful or what?!?!?! It's Monday (Labor Day evening) and guess what I'm going to do? Change Friday to Monday and coffee to wine and you know what ai'm doing. Cheer!
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jan parsonThis blog is dedicated to Mary Helen Growt my first knitting teacher and the woman who changed my life. The mission of Knitting: A Love Story is to preserve, share and promote the love of knitting. Archives
April 2021
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