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December 2014

Making Clara Yarn Cormo 2.0

To evolve from handspinner to yarn manufacturer is like switching from an upright piano to a pipe organ. Everything is bigger, more powerful and exhilarating. The potential for mistakes is huge, but so is the depth of satisfaction when you get it right. After two years

December 4, 2014

Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook by Felicity Ford

The gap between what we see and what we knit can be vast. To capture the essence of tree bark or a cobblestoned street in a knitted colorwork motif takes skill. I've read the books about colorwork and color theory and color design, but somehow

November 16, 2014

Stashbot Yardage-Estimating App

"How many skeins do I need for a sweater?" The project may vary, but the question doesn't. When faced with a new yarn and a vague idea of what it wants to become, we need a ballpark estimate of how much yarn we should buy. Would that

October 23, 2014

Potpourri, Tools

Woolfolk Får

When your grandmother's maiden name is Woolfolk, it's almost guaranteed that you'll go into the textiles business. Kristin Ford took the hint and has just launched Woolfolk, a yarn company she fittingly named after her grandmother. The initial line-up consists of just two yarns, both unique

October 9, 2014

Can Felting Be Reversed? Testing Unshrinkit

The washing machine has long represented the point of no return for woolens. Drop something in there by mistake, and, unless the yarn has been specially treated to be machine-washable, you'll likely end up with a fuzzy, shrunken piece of heartbreak. Felting is irreversible. Limited success

September 25, 2014

Quince & Co. Piper

For generations, farmers in Texas have raised some extraordinary wool and mohair. We don't hear much about it because the fibers tend to be sold en masse to the textiles industry. In recent years, however, the ending of government subsidies, severe drought conditions, and low-cost international

September 11, 2014

Erika Knight British Blue Wool

Erika Knight is the consummate knitwear designer. Teacher, lecturer, and author of countless books, she's been a fixture in the much-vaunted Rowan designer line-up for years. Not only does she know her technique, but she knows her yarn too. After years of paying her dues,

August 28, 2014

The Yarn Woman by Brooks Mencher

A while ago I received an envelope in the mail. The return address was someplace in California, a name I didn't recognize. The contents weren't wrapped, and there was no note attached. Inside was a book, clearly self-published, titled The Yarn Woman. I flipped over to the

August 14, 2014

The Fisherman’s Knot

Most knitters have been taught from day one not to tie knots in their yarn—or, at a minimum, not to do so mid-row. We've learned to time our yarn changes to take place at the end of a row. Even if we tie a wee knot, we

Toft Ulysses DK

At the 2010 Knit Nation market in London, the British yarn scene was just beginning to expand from big brands to smaller, more local producers. John Arbon Textiles had skeins of British wool spun at their own mill, and Renaissance Dyeing had French wool they'd sourced and naturally dyed by

Stories in Stitches by Donna Druchunas and Ava Coleman (vols 1-3)

My summer reading list is sadly devoid of much knitting content. We have very few good reads that tell a story or convey knitting-related narrative beyond "Cast on X stitches, work stockinette until piece measures Y." Those that do exist I've either read them or

Meet Mrs. Crosby

Earlier this year, I started receiving mysterious postcards from someone named Mrs. Crosby. The first was sent from Buenos Aires, then Paris, and finally Lake Como. Truth be told, I already knew who Mrs. Crosby was before the postcards started arriving, but that didn't lessen

Black Water Abbey Yarns

It's time to create a "heritage yarn" classification. The notion of "heritage" anything, whether animal breed or seed variety, is best appreciated through a different, sometimes more forgiving lens. More forgiving in that these items haven't been pureed and homogenized and airbrushed and focus-group-tested into

A Knitter’s Gallery of Mitered Squares: 45 Unique Designs in Color, Texture and Lace by Jill Bigelow-Suttell and Jane Bigelow

In the late '90s, mitered squares and their entrelac cousins were synonymous with brightly colored, variegated novelty yarns. The mitered square was a useful way to break up the flatness of horizontal color stripes, pitching the rows diagonally in a pointed V. These furry, sparkly,

Berroco Cirrus

The skein lies furry and limp, a bit like you'd shaved a cat and forgotten to clean it up. Like Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, there's no there there. Cirrus is soft all right, with a wonderful wooly fuzz to it. But when I squeeze the skein, squeeze

The Knitted Slipper Book: Slippers and House Shoes for the Entire Family, by Katie Startzman

What could be more charming than a family of smiling people, all of whose feet are cozy and warm inside colorful handknit slippers? From the very first moment, I was charmed by Katie Startzman's book. At a time when there seems to be less and less

January 16, 2014

Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Magna

Maybe it's just January talking, but as soon as I spotted this yarn I thought "cowl." In fact, I could almost imagine a line of women at the Portland International Jetport greeting new arrivals and ceremoniously placing a skein of Baby Alpaca Magna around their

January 14, 2014

The Knitting Boutique: Boutique Yarn Overview

With online shopping more prevalent than ever, yarn stores are in a bit of a pickle. They need inventory that covers all the bases—yarns for sweaters, baby garb, socks, lace, etc. But they also need to be able to offer something totally unique, something a

January 2, 2014