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 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
My annual January Swatchathon is as close as I get to making New Year’s resolutions, because it’s when I try out different techniques and combinations to see if the idea I’m playing with is something I want to turn into a finished object, and I set a goal for the coming year. This year’s goal … More Taking Liberties With Junko
Last year’s January Swatchathon, my annual month dedicated to making swatches and trying new techniques, was a particularly productive one for numbers of swatches and new techniques attempted. But in terms of completed garments based on the swatches, it was a bit of a bust. I was overly ambitious. When I first started dedicating my … More January 2024 Swatchathon
I started dedicating my Januarys to swatching in 2016. Every January Swatchathon has influenced my various fiber media for the rest of the year, although some years some of the swatching satisfies my curiosity about the technique without inspiring a project. Sometimes the swatching is just a small introduction into a method that needs to … More January 2023 Swatchathon
I suppose it’s not really a news flash that I finished a project intended to use up yarn in my stash, because I have a lot of yarn in my stash and I try to use it, and it’s not news that I finished the project, because I usually do. But I mentioned my in-progress … More Stashbuster Update
I have a big, huge, overwhelming yarn stash. It happens. I’m not the only one. That’s why so many people write “stashbuster” patterns, and I just made two of them that actually did make a tiny dent in my stash. Many months ago I was attracted to a pattern for a crocheted and felted rug … More Sisyphus Meets My Stash
My annual Swatchathon at the beginning of every new year is usually my test bed for most of the knitting I’m going to do in the course of the year. That mostly didn’t happen in 2021, not because my 2021 Swatchathon failed to provide interesting ideas– it did– but because 2021 came around and I … More January 2022 Swatchathon
Who is this alien that has occupied my brain and hands and is compelling me to make sicky-sweet cute stuff? Six months in Frog and Toad World and now pink hearts and gray kittens. Some kind of cuteness bug bit me last spring, after I started knitting Frog, when I ran across a free pattern … More Hearts and Kittens
I had aged out of Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad books by the time they were published in the 1970’s, so they were a delightful new discovery when my husband and I came across them during our daughters’ early childhood at the beginning of the 1990’s. I remember we even had a VHS tape of … More Down the Rabbit Hole with Frog and Toad
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 