I have an entire wardrobe of neglected summer tops that I made in summers past. Every summer I knit them with hopes that I can face a Baltimore summer in something cuter than a holey, stretched out t-shirt. And every year I wear the holey, stretched-out t-shirt as a simple matter of survival. My cute … More What Do You Wear When It’s Too Hot To Wear Anything?
My nephew married a Peruvian woman in Philadelphia five years ago. They had been together for some years before, but the decision to marry at that time was logistical so that he could get onto her health insurance when she started a job in the UK. My sister Sanna threw together an impromptu wedding in … More Lower Andean Geology
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance now regrets famously sneering at “childless cat ladies.” Too late. Besides making an ass of himself, he also made himself the face of an authoritarian hierarchy that fears cats because cats don’t respect authority, and he feminizes a fondness for cats because patriarchal authoritarians fear women. There’s plenty to say … More No Kings Yes Cats: Soft Protest #3
In my last post, Next-Level Needle Beetling, I closed with a sweater that still needed sleeves, and I promised a follow-up after completion. I also have not talked about my most satisfying-to-wear sweater since it was a swatch in the 2026 Swatchathon. There really isn’t enough to say about either FO (finished object, knitting jargon) … More I Get Stuff Done
My husband shamed me. Not intentionally, he never would do that, he just needed an extra layer to keep warm in our unusually cold January, and he put his hands on a moth-eaten vest I had knitted him 35 or so years ago and wore it nonstop for a month. I felt deeply ashamed that … More Next-Level Needle Beetling
I love garments that have long stretches of plain stockinette, but I hate knitting long stretches of plain stockinette. I hate it so much that I got into machine knitting to spare myself the tedium of knitting plain stockinette. Since then, I’ve been looking at hand knitting patterns from a machine knitting perspective, and if … More Peacock Robinia in Machine Translation
This is my 10th annual January Swatchathon, which is an occasion for me to reflect briefly about how my knitting has changed over the years. At first I spent a lot Swatchathon time checking out the range of techniques that were currently trendy, some of which found their way into completed projects, usually garments. Many … More January 2026 Swatchathon
Every year. late October and all of November is a hectic time for me. My daughters’ birthdays are three weeks apart in late November and December, and I always knit them something that I hope they’ll like after I put time and thought into it. This year I was especially pressed for time, because I … More Birthday Cats and Yarn Chicken
When I finished my first version of Junko Okamoto’s Ogawa pattern, a crocheted pullover worked side-to-side in a stitch that looked like knitted brioche rib, I was exhausted, my hands hurt, and the resulting garment was so wide that the sleeves were little more than cuffs. It’s a beautiful sweater, but I felt that I … More Crochet, We’re on a Break. See Other People
I have finally delivered on my promise to my husband to make him a sweater during sweater weather for his birthday in June. I knitted it on my KH965i, a standard gauge Brother electronic machine using preprogrammed patterns originally intended as knit-purl garter carriage patterns, but I set them up for fairisle knitting. The yarn … More June in November
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 