This project was born from three factors: First, our potholders were full of burn holes and should have been replaced years ago. Second, I found a free pattern on Ravelry for a pretty flower-shaped potholder made of two crocheted circles joined together by a contrast color that delineates the last four rows of the pattern … More Make It Work!
In the last month, I have dyed a wide range of yellows, oranges, and pinks, using plants that grow wild in the park at the end of my short little street. This summer I learned about using an afterbath of baking soda dissolved in tap water at a pH of 8 to 9, and it … More Pickled Pink, Pots of Gold
In my most recent post, I reported on the inspiration and thought process behind the construction of my Johanna’s Jacket: five knitters used a work by another knitter as a jumping-off point for their own very different jackets, and the others’ work informed the knitting each knitter did. Now I’m going to get very specific … More Johanna’s Jacket, The Inside Story
I have previously described my The Interior of My Brain Ravelry group as my brain trust. No matter what the question is, someone has an answer or a creative solution. We also inspire each other with projects that spark questions in other members’ minds that we want to work out in our own way while … More Johanna’s Jacket: The Knitalong
This month’s post is a show-and-tell minus the tell, because I’m up to my ears in not-ready-for-primetime projects. I try to manage my crafted production so that I have something finished and ready to blog about in detail every month, but this month threatens to go by without a post. Not because I have been … More Progress Report
I haven’t got statistics to back up my hunch, but I may be one of the very few people living north of the tropics in the Northern Hemisphere who avidly looks forward to January and is sorry when it ends. That’s because January is the month I dedicate to trying out methods I’m too busy, … More January 2019 Swatchathon
I’m just back from my annual long weekend at a holiday house in the UK with my friends from the Ravelry group The Sisters of the Glorious Wollmeise, and my jet-lagged synapses have recovered enough for me to start stringing words together to talk about what I did and learned there. These long weekends at holiday … More Knitting Tourism: Cotswolds 2018
The last time I machine-knitted a scarf, then dyed and felted it, what I learned from the experience was what I wanted to do differently the next time using different dyeing methods and better-honed techniques using the knitting machine and its tools. As a permanent beginner in my machine-knitting skills, that earlier scarf taught me … More I Love the Fiber Goddess and the Fiber Goddess Loves Me
When I retired on 1 January 2016, the first thing I started doing was daily walks that started as hour-long outings and grew into 3-hour explorations every morning of the streets and parks within a 2-mile radius of my house. I felt like a puppy let off the leash as I turned onto alleys I’d … More What I Dyed On My Summer Vacation
I had an idea for a dyed, machine-knit, and felted scarf with lots of lacy holes and ladders, but when I tried to make it real, the Fiber Goddess said no to every detail of my plan and instead gave me something entirely different and better. I might have taken that as a sign that … More Then the Fiber Goddess Said, OK, Whatever
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 