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Sock Yarn Shawls II Review & Contest

picture of a POC wearing a lace shawl on cover of book by Jen LucasJen Lucas is a designer I’ve been aware of for a while.  How could I not know about her stunning shawl patterns?  We also, if you haven’t noticed, had the same name, and I generally keep an eye on the other designer’s with the name of Jennifer – call it a sense of kindred names.

Recently I got my hands on Jen Lucas’ newest book: Sock-Yarn Shawls II: 16 Patterns for Lace Knitting.  I’ve spent the last two weeks with the book, reviewing patterns and sinking my teeth into the book, and I wanted to share my thoughts here.

First off, the book is gorgeous.  The clean and simple lines mean the focus is really on the patterns.  The book’s model is also a POC, which is wonderful: all too often in the knitting world the models are of western descent.

The book is divided into three sections: Small Shawls (featuring 6 designs), Midsize Shawls (featuring 7 designs), and Large Shawls (featuring 3 designs).  While I would have liked one more larger shawl, I also have to admit that the larger shawls feature a LOT of knitting.  And several of the Midsize Shawls could have extra repeats to make them bigger.  Overall, I think the spread and sample size is fairly balanced.

Sunburst

It is now time to declare my bias: I tend to prefer shawls that are solid most of the way through, with a lace edging.  Allover lace patterns, while lovely, aren’t generally my cup ‘o tea, but I understand some people love them.  My favorite patterns ended up being Sunburst, Earth and Sky, and Floe.  Still, the Lycopod, which is the pattern on the cover, is also gorgeous, and I’d think about modifying the shawl to suit my tastes.

I love the amount of variability in shape and construction the shawls have.  I also love how closely Jen’s color taste aligns with my own.  I also love how each pattern has some good close-up shots of the lace, to give you a really good sense of how the lace flows and looks.

On a last note, how approachable is this book to someone who has never done a lace shawl before?

The book has a lovely introduction on managing stitch markers (a must for lace knitting!).  I do wish there’d been a mention of lifelines, considering there’s a few different shawls I’d be tempted to use them on.  However, lifelines are sometimes hard to explain concisely in pictures, so I could see how there might have been a page limit.  There’s also an excellent pictorial reference section, with good pictures on knitting a garter lace tab, and a few other helpful tutorials when working with lace.  Some of the smaller shawls would definitely be approachable to beginners, and you could build on that success.

Sock Yarn Shawls II is available for sale on Amazon as both a physical book and an e-book.  It is also available as a Ravelry Download.  If you love lace, you should pick it up!

And as an extra-special reward, I’m running a contest where one of you will receive a free copy of Jen’s book!  Just enter the Rafflecopter widget below!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Introducing: Ravelry 101

One of the most frequent questions I get from former students is, “When are you going to be teaching nearby again?”  It’s an understandable question, considering that I’m often teaching at wildly different venues along the East Coast.

woman's hands typing at computer screen looking at the Ravelry website sign-in pageWhich is why I’m pleased to announce a new venue for teaching today!  I’ve partnered with Interweave’s Online Learning Department to bring you two classes on using Ravelry.  Ravelry 101, will run live on February 18th, 2015, and Ravelry 201 will run 2 weeks later, on March 4th.  Both classes run for an hour, starting at 1pm EST.  The best part about the class?  You don’t have to be there live to take the workshop!  After the class is recorded, you can access the video whenever you want to watch it.

I’d like to take some time to highlight Ravelry 101 today, and explain why you’d find the class valuable.

First, what is Ravelry?
Ravelry is a website that is both a database of patterns and a social place to interact with other knitters, crocheters, and yarn enthusiasts.  Just this month they tipped over into 5 million users! It’s an incredibly powerful tool for knitters and crocheters.  When I worked in my LYS, I consulted it often to help customers find patterns, learn more about a yarn used in a pattern to make knowledgeable yarn substitutions, and to discover if a pattern had mistakes or errata.

Why would I find Ravelry 101 helpful?
As I mentioned, I often use Ravelry for a variety of purposes.  Ravelry 101 focuses on the database side of Ravelry, and how it can be used to make your life easier.  During Ravelry 101 I’ll show you how you can easily search your paper library, to find that “one pattern” that you saw in a magazine 3 years ago.  I’ll show you one of my favorite tricks to picking out a pattern using Ravelry’s advanced search functions.  I’ll also break down how Ravelry is organized, making sure you can always find your way to what you need and want!

Where can I buy Ravelry 101?
Ravelry 101 is being run by Interweave’s Online Learning Platform.  This means that you can take the class live, at 1 pm EST on February 18th, or at any time after that!  Signup is easy, just go to http://www.interweavestore.com/ravelry-101 to signup and add the class to your basket.  The best part?  It’s only $19.99 – an incredible deal for one of my classes!

I look forward to joining ya’ll on February 18th – I’m really looking forward to showing you what I love about this website!

Breaking it Down: Russian Join

The Russian Join is one of the tricks I love to teach in my class.  It’s a great way to join two yarns, and I love how strong the join is!  While sorting through some photos on Friday, I realized I’d taken all the photos to do a tutorial on the Russian Join… and simply had forgotten to post them.

So here you go: my tutorial on the Russian Join!

If you enjoyed this, share it with others!  Pin, tweet, or post this to facebook!

Additive and Subtractive

I’ve been working on a skirt this week using some lovely wool fabric my mother and great-aunts had, and it’s been going very well.  This morning I set in my invisible zipper (my first zipper set into woven fabric – gasp!), and I’m pleased at the results.  I guess reading sewing blogs for 3 years means you pick up something!

But it’s got me thinking about the differences between sewing and knit/crochet – and this morning I finally hit on why I’ve not quite ever taken to sewing the same way that I do knitting.

It’s all about the addition and subtraction.

You see, when I took my two sculpture classes my senior year of college, I generally liked the types of sculpture that were additive; that is, I liked things that started from nothing and I added material, shaping it along the way.  I liked things like clay, wax-work, and plaster.

Plaster sculpting was perhaps my very favorite medium, because it was additive as well as subtractive.  Plaster bonds to itself very well, and after you add plaster to already existing plaster, and it sets – it’s like one whole piece of plaster.  You can then chip away at the material you added, for further shaping purposes.

Activities like woodwork were harder, because you had to plan things out ahead of time.  With the exception of wood glue, the place where you fasten wood together will always be weaker than the rest of the wood.  Places where you use things like nails, joints, or staples will always be weaker than the original whole thing.

Sewing is like wood: the seam is nearly always the place where a garment wears out.  It’s also a subtractive craft, to me.  Each time you shape a piece of cloth, you start by a large piece and you gradually cut stuff away to shape it (using darts, for example).  You might add more fabric, but there will always be a join.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that when I started doing sewing crafts, I started with quilting, which is much more of an additive activity.

Crochet and knitting, on the other hand, both start with nothing, and you add more and more stitches to make the thing.  If you mess up with crochet or knitting, you can pull your work out and start again (it’s a pain, but you can do it).

Whereas sewing, if you make a mistake with your cutting… well, you’ve just ruined that piece of fabric.

Do you do any other crafts other than knit or crochet?  Do you think of them as additive or subtractive?

Pictures from Atlantic Beach

As promised, some of the shots from Atlantic Beach.  The light the one evening was stunning!

In other news, I’ve been doing a little bit of sewing… one of my goals this year was to try and learn how to sew some basic skirts – both because I figure they’re pretty forgiving, and because I know I’m not so very good about reading directions – and I figure I can’t fall too far astray with some circle skirts or other items.  We’ll see how it goes!

Do you have any sewing experience?  What do you like sewing?

Crocheting and Atlantic Beach, repeat

Cameraphone Pic

Mr. Turtle’s parents have a tradition of going to Atlantic Beach in the off season.  This weekend we’re with them again, and I keep having moments of déjà vu.  Not quite a year ago, I was at Atlantic Beach with Michael’s family.  And again, I’m working on a crochet project for Annie’s, though their quite different.

I finished the main part of the crochet project about an hour ago, and while I still have to weave in the ends, the beach is calling to me.  This morning we woke to have the sky looking dark and ominous, but the rain cleared by lunchtime and I’m ready for a walk.

I promise, some better photos when I return home and have the powerful computer so I can download the pictures.

Papa Turtle and the hunt for “Flawless Knit Repair”

This is a little bit of a story about my parents… specifically, my father.  I’ve talked before about how supportive my parents have been of my choice of career, housing me when I went to Rhinebeck, and in the case of my mother, attending the event.

My mother, having needlework as a common language (her sewing, and me… well, everything), sometimes understands what I do in practical terms a little more.  My father on the other hand, understands the business side of being self employed a little more, being a numbers man.  He’s the guy who first taught me how to use an Excel worksheet, and taught me how to setup my Outlook when I got to college.

You should also know, before I proceed anymore, that my father loves the hunt of a good bargain.  He collects Matchbox and Hotwheels cars, and every antique store, Toys ‘R Us, and flea market is an opportunity to find something interesting.

So about six months back, I mention that I wish I had something to display my knits on that was a little more… professional than my Duct Tape Dress Form.  Sometime like some feet forms, a head, and perhaps another mannequin (because 2 just isn’t enough).  Rather quickly, my father finds the perfect torso mannequin, from a woman who had just reduced the price.

The next month and a half Dad starts emailing me mannequin heads.  We cannot find a good one.  Some are too realistic, and look creepy.  Some of them are simply too beat up.  Then, one weekend, I get a call from my parents.  They are on a hunt for a copy of Piecework Magazine, the one where my design is on the cover.  They’re at a local yarn store, and the woman has beautiful glass heads on display.  Do I like them?

I look at the picture.  Yes, I tell my parents.  They’re beautiful!  Are they for sale?

No, but my father is on the hunt.  He’s seen what I mean, and those are perfect.

Need I tell you what I got for Christmas?

TWO!

Well, all this time I’ve also been searching for a book, called Flawless Knit Repair by a woman named Rena Crockett.  (I know how to do knit repair.  I wanted to see how this woman did it, and if we did anything different… but that’s another story.)  This book is like Sasquatch.  Published in 1998, there’s a review in a back copy of Piecework, mentioning that you can write to her and send a check plus shipping, and she’ll send you a copy.  Someone says they once saw a copy. Kate Atherly references the book in a Knitty Article.  It’s cited in The Principles of Knitting.  But nobody, nobody carries it.  It went out of print a few years later, and it has been a small, self-published print run, in the era of   Then, I find one copy – on Amazon for nearly $100.  It’s by all reports a 20 page book – I’m not paying that much for it.

So I go online, finding old listings for the book on outdated websites for stores and call them up – by any chance do they still have the book in stock?

Not a chance.

I’ve started calling up libraries in the area of the place where you could write to the Author to request a copy, hoping that someone might be willing to even copy the pages of this out of print book – no luck.  I’m getting to the point where I’m going to start creepily messaging people on Ravelry who have mentioned the book, asking if they have a copy.

And then, it occurs to mention to my father that I’m looking for the book.

“Rena Crockett,” I tell him, “Flawless Knit Repair.”  “Just in case you happen to see it at a flea market or something.”

Well, I’ll tell you what my father found.  Last week, an Ebay listing came up, from a woman somewhere in Maine.

And you know what I have in my hot, precious hands right now?

Thanks, dad.

First Snowfall!

Snow!

This morning I awoke to a familiar hue of light – grey and still.  There’s a nearly indescribable quality on mornings after a snowfall, as the bluish/whitish light from the clouds is reflected off of the snow, sneaking through blinds and curtains.  When I lived in New York and Massachusetts, it was fairly common (as every week brings multiple snowfalls, some big some small), but now that we live outside of Richmond, any snowfall is a much rarer event.

And this snowfall was made more special because it’s the very first snowfall of the year – seemingly apropo of my blog post two days ago.

All I can say about the Annie’s Project is it involves this really big ball of
rags. Peake keeps trying to figure out how to steal it.

Earlier this week I bought myself some maple syrup (overpriced and… I’ll be a little snobby – not as good of quality as the stuff I’m used to), as I was feeling a hankering.  Sugaring season is at least a month away, but I was feeling the need.  There’s nothing like the taste of sweetening your tea with maple syrup, or putting it in yogurt, or drizzling it over oatmeal like I did this morning.

Today is a day for tucking in and getting crafting done.  Unlike many around me, I don’t have a snow day today, but I can at least allow myself to do the fun parts of my job: like plugging away on the project I’m doing for Annie’s Crochet!, or working on the sample for the class I’m teaching at Fibre Space in two weekends.  It’s a day for a big pot of tea, and soup at lunchtime.

I’ve also been working on a bunch of repair work lately, which has been satisfying.  I really love doing repair work, and I’m working this year on documenting my process a little bit more.  Part of that is taking pictures, like this one:

Repair work on a cardigan in lace weight single-ply yarn.  I can’t even imagine knitting it.

Last two tidbits: I sent out my last newsletter last Friday, talking about teaching dates.  If you don’t subscribe, you can do it on the website with the little tab to the left.  It’s a good way to keep track of what’s going on.

I’ve also been a lot more active on Twitter lately.  If you’re interested in seeing a bit more of my behind-the-scenes process, you should follow me on twitter.

The Very Last First Time

Somehow it’s become the middle of January, and I’m not quite sure how that happened!  It’s cold and rainy out today (as it seems to the the majority of the winter in the South), and it’s got me thinking
about a winter-themed book I loved as a child.

The book is not my own; I perhaps only read it a handful of times, as my first grade teacher had the book in her library.  But the concept and drawings stamped themselves on my memory.  The book is called Very Last First Time and is the story about a young Inuit girl named Eva.  Eva and her mother are going to the ocean.  They live in an area where the top of the ocean freezes during the winter, and at low tide a person can go under the ice and collect muscles and other seafood for eating.  This is her first time going under the ice alone.

Very Last First Time is a story full of wonder as Eva and the reader see wondrous and strange sights below the ice become something happens, and Eva must problem solve to get safely to her mother.

I love this story for so many reasons: it’s the story of an adult allowing a child independence so they can explore and problem solve themselves.  It’s a story of a very different way of life, and of things many people might not get to experience.  And it’s a story of first times and last times – and how things will never quite be like the very first time you do something, when it is all wondrous and new.

That tension between first and last times is why the story has stuck in my mind all these years (that, and the idea of being able to go beneath the surface of the ocean), and why I still think about it today.

So much of my work is helping people with their first times: their first time knitting, or crocheting, or learning a new skill.  I get to watch people’s faces light up with wonder as they master their first time, and as their first time transforms into their seventh and twelfth and twentieth, and the things which once were new become familiar.

This year is looking to be the year of many firsts – some I’ll be able to talk about soon, and some which will have to stay in my back pocket for a few more months.

Do you have a favorite book from childhood?

4 Ways to Warm Up Your Socks

Like many people in the US today, I’m huddled indoors trying to stay away from the oppressive cold.  Now, living in VA, I know I don’t have it nearly as bad as my family that live up north.  Still, generally houses up north are better insulated than the lovely old home Mr. Turtle and I rent.  This morning, despite the heater’s efforts, I couldn’t get the upstairs above 62 degrees.  Now, with the space heater running and the sun finally shining in the front windows, I’ve gotten the upstairs to a balmy 68 degrees.  I’m still wearing a hat and long underwear today, though.  And my warmest pair of handknit socks.

Which brings me to a question an old friend and student, Holly, wrote to me just yesterday.  She asked,

I’ve knitted a few pairs of socks and really enjoy the technique. When I’ve worn them, they don’t keep my feet warm. My feet are cold all the time. I’ve spoken to other sock knitters and no one seems to have an answer or solution for me. In order for me to wear my lovely hand knitted socks, I have to still wear a “commercial cotton” sock under them and I think that defeats the purpose of making and wearing the hand knitted socks.

I thought this was an interesting question, because I have a mild form of Raynaud’s, which means I have to be diligent about keeping my hands and feet warm.  I know exactly what Holly means when only one pair of socks is not enough!

(As a side note, I’m not up to addressing issues of hand/feet being cold for reasons other than the socks not being up to the job.  If you have circulation issues, or simply have sweaty feet [damp=cold], I can’t help you.  When I went winter camping, we had a good rule: if you’re cold when you go into your sleeping bag, all you’re going to do is be cold in your sleeping bag.  The bag insulates you, which means any cold that’s in the bag with you?  Will stay there.  Same things with hands/feet.  If you put cold feet into a pair of socks, they’re still going to be cold.)

I thought it would be helpful to outline and expand my reply to Holly.

When it comes to hand-knit socks being warm enough, there’s a few different strategies and things I would look at to determine the cause of the socks being too cold.

1. First, I would check the gauge of the sock.  A lot of patterns are written for a sock to be made in sock weight yarn at 8-8.5 sts per inch (sts/in).  For me, that is much too loose of gauge with a sock weight yarn.  Normally, with sock weight yarn, I’m working my socks at 9.25-10 sts/in, depending on how lofty the yarn is.  Socks that are knit at a tighter gauge hold of to wear and tear longer.  More importantly, they close the “holes” between the stitches, keeping the cold on the outside and the warm on the inside.  If you somehow can’t reach a dense gauge in sock weight yarn (which for some people can be hard), think about sizing up the yarn you’re using.  Which brings me to my next point….


2. Look at using a denser gauge yarn – that is, a heavier weight.  Sometimes sock weight yarn isn’t thick enough to insulate your feet.  When it’s wintertime, many people wear thicker socks – so it doesn’t hurt to have some thicker handknit socks too.  Mr. Turtle’s two favorite pairs of handknit socks are made in a superwash wool and nylon blend.  One of them is made with a DK weight yarn, the other is made with a light worsted yarn.  Both of them are closer to hiking socks than anything else.  Thicker yarn means the fabric will be thicker, which means there’s a larger layer between you and the world.  It insulates you more.

3. Speaking of insulation, take a look at what the yarns the socks you are making are made of.  I’ve talked before about how important fiber content in yarn is to the finished project, and this is especially true when you need something warm. You may want to look at yarns that have some cashmere, mohair, angora or mohair blended with them.  The 5-15% of a warmer fiber can make a big difference.  I love Mountain Color’s Bearfoot, which has 60 % Wash wool, 25% Mohair, 15% Nylon.  I think it’s the perfect blend of warm and durable – the nylon and the mohair make a big difference.  My mother, when I made a pair, put them on and went “Oh, they’re warm.”  She kept those, I made another pair for myself.  Often, warmer fibers like those stated above can be a bit more delicate (with the exception of some mohairs), so make sure there’s some nylon blended in, both for durability and to prevent felting.

4. My final solution would be to look at the type of patterns you work on your socks.  Lacework, obviously, is going to be less warm.  You’re adding holes to the work!  Stranded colorwork (or some slip stitch patterns), are your best bet for a warmer fabric.  Stranded colorwork makes two layers of fabric: the stockinette layer, and the layer that’s in the back, where the yarns are floating.  If you keep the floats short (under ½”), you can get a very dense fabric.  You sacrifice some flexibility, but the socks end up being quite a bit warmer.

Love socks? Check out my sock patterns on Ravelry!