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
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
There’s a sentence in the Duolingo German course that’s intended to be funny because it’s deprecating to grandmas and knitters: My grandma’s riskiest hobby is knitting. After absorbing the condescension, ageism, and sexism implied in the sentence, I concluded that it was actually true in my case, because some of my projects are wild and … More Zebra Kurt
Junko Okamoto is one of my favorite knitting designers, but I’m not usually an early adopter of her patterns based on the sample photos illustrating her patterns. Her sample sweaters are usually very minimalist, knitted in monochromatic neutrals, with understated, deemphasized details. When I saw her pictures for Hana, I didn’t have much reaction to … More A Season of Junko
As I keep saying, I find plain stockinette tedious to hand knit, which is why I have a knitting machine. All the while I was handknitting my Kurt, a pattern by Japanese designer Junko Okamoto for an oversized pullover of modular patchwork squares, I laboriously handknitted one stockinette square after an other and daydreamed about … More Machine Translation
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 