Dear Ann, I have not quite made it home from my travels in France, but today is the day. Laden with handmade textiles, I’m boarding one train and two planes, and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed at the end of a long day. Upon my return, I will have much to tell you. Meanwhile, here is a photo of a garden in Avignon: And here is a photo of woad-dyed items hanging on the line. Some of them –quite a few of them–are...

Read More

Dear Ann: Here’s a great new product I’m pleased to tell you about: the Insta-Knit Summer TopTM. You get an Insta-Knit SummerTopTM when you are going through your assorted bags and bundles of knitting-related items, and come across a top that you carried around with you last summer on vacation, and you finished the front and the back, and you sewed up one of the side seams, and then you stopped and forgot all about it because a...

Read More

Dear Ann, I miss being in your sunny backyard, making videos and dancing around with neck napkins and such. I’m so glad I finally had the opportunity to perform The Steeking. I believe this was the second time I’d shlepped this Hlekkur cardigan across state lines for purposes of steeking. I really wanted some company for my first official sweater steek. Thanks for being there for me, and documenting the moment. Credits Sweater...

Read More

Dear Ann, Snippets! I’ve got snippets! So much beautiful stuff out there on the internet. Winging It Department  As you know, many’s the time I’ve tried to interpret a fabric quilt by knitting it. So far, I’ve stuck to quilts involving (more or less) straight lines. A few weeks ago, Ravelry’s Eye Candy featured this stunning improvisation by Sharon O’Brien (SOB-rien on Ravelry), which stopped me in my...

Read More

Dear Kay, I can burn a morning daydreaming about workshops. It’s just not that hard to dive into a list of classes for some divine workshop and flat-out lose myself for a while. I have been known to cook up an entire curriculum for myself at some remote workshop an improbable distance away. In particular, I attend Shakerag Workshops all the time, despite the fact that it actually happens for only two weeks each June. Where does this...

Read More

Dear Ann, Everybody in the knitting world probably already knows about Eddie the Eagle (scroll down for the trailer), the upcoming movie about Britain’s first Olympic ski jumper, which hits U.S. theatres on February 26. The Knitting for E campaign has knitters and crocheters making E hats to promote the movie.  Knitting as PR campaign: this may be a first.  I don’t know about you, but I am all for anything that gets Hugh Jackman...

Read More