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
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
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
When my daughters’ birthdays came around at the end of November and December, it was an awkward time for me to embark on the elaborate, full-grown sweaters that I usually make them for their birthdays. My abstemious younger daughter said that she didn’t really need a sweater anyway, since I have already made her so … More Calculate, Knit, Recalculate, Frog, Repeat
Last summer I figured out the mechanics of machine-knit intarsia, and discovered that it was the perfect vehicle for some self-striping mercerized cotton DK yarn that I had had lying around for several years. My first intarsia summer top, made of Uneek Cotton yarn, was supposed to have been a stash-buster, but it came out … More The Heart in Summer
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
Not every successful machine knitter is a genius, but for me, machine knitting is a much more intellectual process than hand knitting is. It requires very careful calculations before starting a project because there’s no way to try on a work-in-progress while it’s hanging on the needles of the machine, and it isn’t possible to … More Trust the Numbers!
The Interior of My Brain: A Knitting and Fiber Arts Blog 