Abby Rammelkamp, Baltimore Maryland USA: explorer of color, form, and function through the medium of knitting and other fiber arts.
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
As I write this, it’s October. I have a number of family members who I consider knit-worthy, whose birthdays were back in June. Although time is real, it’s also a construct, so unless I personally gave birth to these knit-worthy people, if I don’t have a knitted item for them on the date that coincides … More June Birthdays
I spent most of the January 2025 Swatchathon experimenting with the capabilities of the LK150 knitting machine, now that I have one in both of the places where I knit with machines, at home and at my daughter’s house in Wisconsin. Unlike the machine I learned the basics on, the Brother KH965i electronic machine that … More Cats and Mice and a Red Beetle
I don’t like summer very much. I can’t wear my lovely wool sweaters, so I try to make wearable things out of plant fibers. It doesn’t always work out as I hope, but each summer I make something and hope that maybe this will be the year that I make a summer top that I … More Summertime, And The Living Is Sweaty
Part Two of my “soft protest” knitting took much longer to make than Part One, even though Part Two was a machine knitted garment, and isn’t machine knitting supposed to be quicker than hand knitting? My second garment protesting the new authoritarian takeover of American democracy is less explicit than decorating a sweater with words … More Soft Protest Part Two
The political fiber artist Lisa Anne Auerbach posted a work-in-progress on Ravelry a couple of months ago, with an invitation to other knitters to join her in their own interpretation of her idea. Her idea was based on a link to an article in the New York Times that listed words that the Trump regime … More Soft Protest Part One
My mission for the remainder of my life is to knit through as much of my stash as I can before I die, while also supporting my friend Melissa’s yarn shop with as many new purchases as I can actually knit up. When I finally succeed at knitting up these purchases (or to be honest, … More Grazie, Mariagioia!
I dedicated most of my annual January Swatchathon this year to exploring machine knitting techniques illustrated by the British textile designer Alison Dupernex, especially her use of color in circular tuck stitch shapes. I have owned her book Machine Knitting: Designing with Colour for some years, but it took some years for me to get … More Channeling Alison Dupernex
It was a beautiful sweater, knitted from an extraordinary chart made up of fairly simple components consisting of two different cable sequences, two different faggoting sequences, and two increase-decrease leaf shapes, reshuffling their order all over the length of the garment so that the lines of the designs went every which way. I showed the … More Flourish 1, Flourish 2, and Flourish 2 and a Half
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 