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
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
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
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
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 