Category Archives: Thoughts

Our Tools, Ourselves

by

knitting tools in box

From the moment I started knitting, what I’ve loved at least as much as the yarn is the tools — especially the beautiful wooden needles. I fuss over them and adore them maybe more than my stash. About the same time I was knitting my first stitches, I was reading (possibly re-reading) a YA fantasy novel called Among Others. I don’t read YA or fantasy, but my friend Jim Mustich told me to read it and I always do what Jim says. Apart from the ending, it’s a really great little book. Set in Wales, it’s about a teenage girl, Morwenna, whose twin has been killed by their evil witch of a mother. Mor finds herself at boarding school, cut off from her family and their homes and possessions. There’s a tiny but absolutely delightful thread running through the narration, which is Mor’s views on our objects as they relate to ourselves — the ways we get to know each other over time. I think this is the first time it comes up:

“Still on the subject of eating, we don’t have our own plates, or our own knives and forks or cups. Like most of what we use, they’re communal, they’re handed out at random. There’s no chance for anything to become imbued, to come alive through fondness. …

“At home, I walked through a haze of belongings that knew, at least vaguely, who they belonged to. Grampar’s chair resented anyone else sitting in it … . Gramma’s shirts and jumpers adjusted themselves to hide her missing breast. … Our toys looked out for us. …

“None of these things did anything. The coffee spoons didn’t stir the coffee without being held or anything. They didn’t have conversations with the sugar tongs about who was the most cherished. … I suppose what they really did was psychological. They confirmed the past, they connected everything, they were threads in a tapestry. Here there is no tapestry, we jangle about separately.”

Later, when she’s staying at her aunt’s house and trying to cook dinner, she says, “Auntie Teg’s dishes don’t like me any more than [the cat] does. The knives and peelers don’t cut me, but they turn awkward in my hands. They know I’m not the person supposed to be using them.”

Why am I going on about all of this? There’s a thing I’ve been wanting to do since the dawn of this blog. I’m something of a voyeur. I love looking at images of people’s homes and especially their studios. And I’m also fascinated by organizational systems (or the absence thereof). I think you can learn so much about people and about a given craft or subject area from listening to them talk about how they approach whatever it may be. And then there’s Morwenna’s view of our tools as partners in our making. I used to do a series at Readerville (actually in the print version, The Readerville Journal) called Ex Libris, wherein I asked a really broad range of people the same ten questions about how they shelve and use and share (or not) their books. And for more than a year, ever since reading those passages above, I’ve been thinking of starting a series here asking people a similar set of questions about their crafting tools.

I haven’t approached anyone about it yet, nor even written the questions. But I’m hoping that sharing this idea publicly will get me off my arse about it. I’m thinking of calling it “Our Tools, Ourselves” but I’d love your suggestions if you have any. And for you to bug me if you don’t see the first of these coming along soon.

.

Speaking of learning from people by listening to them talk about their craft, this week’s ICYMI is Blog Crush: vintage Jared Flood.

.

Stitches and swatches

by

stitches west heirloom romney and sincered sheep shepherdess worsted yarns

This may come as a surprise, but the photo above represents my entire haul from Stitches West this time around. I went in vowing to be good, and boy was I! There were two yarns I knew I wanted to see: the new Shepherdess Worsted from Sincere Sheep (whose yarns you know I love) and the Heirloom from Fancy Tiger Crafts. The Shepherdess was love at first sight but I had to pick just one. (For now, anyway; it may be coming soon to Fringe Supply.) The Heirloom was … hm, underwhelming. It was a little lost in the booth I found it in, and the colors didn’t wow me the way I’d expected. I walked away from it, bummed. But on my way out of the show, I decided to go ahead and buy one and see if it would grow on me. I picked a really great super-dark plum, which seems to be a thing with me lately, and found myself repeatedly touching and gazing at it on the long drive home. So on that front, I’m hopeful. And, shopping aside, it was great to see some of you and make some new acquaintances, too.

If you had a great and productive knitting weekend, will you please tell me about it so I can live vicariously? Mine was very frustrating! I was all excited to cast on for my Garance, and expected to have made great progress by now, but no siree, that did not happen.

If I knit this sweater with the prescribed — and purchased — yarn, it will be the most expensive sweater I’ve ever owned. And since, on top of that, I talked myself into this rather daring (for me) color combo, I’m taking the swatching very seriously. Will you laugh if I tell you it took me almost the entire length of Beasts of the Southern Wild just to wind a skein of the cobweb mohair? So all I managed to knit that night was one small swatch, and when I saw it in daylight on Saturday, well, I did not swoon. Reserving judgment and exploring options, I knit another swatch with just the silk Heichi, no mohair, to see if that felt more “me.” And then I soaked them both. The combo swatch is a beautiful piece of fabric, soft and fuzzy and freakishly like the impression I have of the sweater that inspired the purchase. But it’s just not me. The silk-only swatch is perfectly nice but I’m still not dying to wear it. So I either need to do the silk-mohair combo in a neutral, or send it all back and pick a different yarn for this sweater. Drat.

After that, I turned to my Guillemet hat but wound up figuratively throwing it across the room. The yarn I’ve been knitting it in is so painfully, horribly, depressingly boring that I just can’t bring myself to finish it, no matter how much I like the design.

Nothing makes me quite as itchy as three days with effectively no knitting. So someone, please, tell me an uplifting tale of projects gone right!

.

Happy Friday! So much to tell you …

by

follow Fringe Association on Pinterest

First, before I forget, I’m at Stitches West today! If you’re there too, send me an email (karen at karentempler) and maybe we can meet up. Or just look for me in the market hall — I’ll wear my purple State Street Cowl. I’ll probably be Instagramming a little bit, and may have a recap for you all next week.

Second, what’s that up top? Well, when I think about what I want to do with Fringe, the central goal is always to help people find the best patterns (and yarns and tools and information) out there. There’s so, so much and most people just don’t have the time (or the stomach) to comb through it all — or even know where to look. So if you’ve been around here for any length of time, you know that’s a key part of what goes on with the blog. But in the back of my mind is always this vision of literally a directory of only the best patterns (as opposed to every pattern in the universe), searchable and sortable by all kinds of criteria. It’s self-serving — I have things saved all over the place. Evernote notes, Ravelry favorites, Pinterest pins, PDFs, print-outs. It’s chaos. It would help me in figuring out what to knit next if I could see all my favorite things at a glance, by category. And I believe it would help others as well. But building that directory on my own site is not going to happen anytime soon. So rather than wait for the ideal implementation, I’ve decided to launch a version of it using Pinterest. That’s right, there’s now an official Fringe Association page at Pinterest, and I hope you’ll want to hit the big Follow button. Note that, to paraphrase somebody or other, I have only just begun to pin. But at the same time, this isn’t meant to be massive amounts of stuff. The whole idea of the pattern collections is that it’s tightly edited. And obviously “best” is subjective — I’ll only be pinning things I personally would want to make and wear, and that I think are worthy of our knitting or crochet time.

In addition to separate boards for different types of patterns (e.g. Best Sweaters, Best Blankets), you’ll find a board for what’s New on Fringe Association, offering you another way to keep up with posts here, along with some other fun and/or useful stuff.

fringe supply co is now open!

Which brings me to my third item, which is that you’ll also find a board called New at Fringe Supply Co. As of last night, now that I’ve got everything set up and ready to go in my new workspace, the webshop is open. I’m calling this a soft relaunch — it’s the same great stuff that was there before. There will be minor changes and new products coming soon, but as with the pinboards vs the pattern directory, I didn’t want big dreams holding up what’s already here and good and possible now. New merchandise will be pinned as it arrives, but there’s also the option to sign up for email alerts, which you’ll find at the top of the store pages. So please!, COME ON IN!

.

I’ve already followed a few known Fringe readers from the new Pinterest account, but I want to know who you all are and want your fellow readers to know as well. So please take this opportunity to do what might otherwise be considered spammy — post a comment with a link to your Pinterest profile so we can all find each other. And while you’re at it, why not also include a link to your blog and your Twitter? And if you’re inclined to help get the word out about all of this, please do pin the image(s) from this post. With my huge thanks to anyone who does that.

Forgive the likely delayed response to comments today since, like I said, I’ll be wandering the floor at Stitches West, trying my best to be good.

.

Sunday with sheep

by

petaluma sheep farm visit

We had a little Sunday adventure I thought I’d share the pics from — with apologies to those who already saw these on Instagram. We went up to Petaluma (in Sonoma County) to see our beloved friend Doug, who has spent the past few years in Uganda with the Peace Corps. He wanted to show us around the farm he’s now living on, which held two layers of extra appeal for me: sheep (including lambs!) and the house from the novel Divisadero, which, it turns out not only exists but is where Michael Ondaatje routinely comes to write. It was a slightly surreal experience hiking up to the house — in a very remote spot — and seeing the prayer flags and the deck (with tub!), which I’d seen so vividly in my mind. But obviously the lambs, Daphne, Dixie and Celeste, were the highlight of the tour. I don’t know whether that’s Daphne or Dixie in the portrait up top, but omigod I want her.

Want to see her again? Me too:

petaluma lamb portrait

One convert’s pullover

by

improvised top-down pullover knitting

I’ve taken to calling myself a top-down evangelist, so determined am I to teach people. It’s a wonder I don’t stand on the street corner with a big hand-lettered sign and a bullhorn, trying to lure aspiring knitters into my studio.

It’s not that I think top-down is the One True Way to make a sweater, and I certainly wouldn’t want to knit exclusively top-down forever either — there are too many fascinating and nuanced construction techniques to be explored. BUT, I do think it’s a wildly empowering and transformative thing to know how to do. And a real gateway drug for beginners. It’s one thing to be able to knit what you want to knit, without a pattern, and customize the fit as you go. But in addition to all of that, it teaches you the nuts and bolts of construction, the true value of a swatch, and the basics of knitting math (so simple!) and shaping, all of which can change how you relate to the patterns you knit — enabling you to make changes to suit your own taste and shape, and to understand how those changes will play out. Simply put: It makes you a much bolder knitter.

So you can bet that whenever a friend can’t find a pattern that’s close enough to the picture in her hand or her head, I say, “Why not let me show you how top-down works.” Since I mention my pal Leigh so often around here, I thought I would show you the sweater she recently finished. She’d ordered a kit from Wool and the Gang and loved the wool but not the pattern. What she really wanted, it turned out, was a very simple, wide-necked, raglan pullover — the easiest possible top-down project. So with a little guidance from me and Barbara Walker, she improvised it. We took these pictures a few days ago and Leigh was being goofy for the camera, but I think it’s not surprising that the poses she jokingly struck were of triumph and pride. That’s exactly how your first patternless sweater makes you feel.

I’m thinking of doing a couple of posts on top-down theory in the coming weeks — one a broad pictorial overview of how the process works, to help demystify it for anyone who thinks it might be daunting, and then perhaps a more detailed dissection of how to improvise a sweater of your own. I won’t rest until I’ve wiped out episodes like this one, where 80 people ask for a pattern they wouldn’t need if only they knew. I remember looking at that project page a year ago and being utterly awed and perplexed at the idea that a person could just make up a sweater out of thin air and string. Unimaginable! to a noob like me.

.

Name that stitch pattern

by

marion brenner's first knitted sweater

I mentioned my friend Marion Brenner the other day. You probably don’t know this about me, but I’ve edited and/or written a dozen books in recent years, mostly home and garden stuff. (And some massive Williams-Sonoma cookbooks.) Marion is a very highly regarded photographer in this realm, and I’ve known about her and admired her work for years, but had never crossed paths with her. We met last year through my friend Leigh and, inspired by all the knitting activity going on in our little artists’ enclave here, after not having done it for 20 years, Marion has taken up knitting again. With a vengeance! She’s on her third sweater in as many months. These days, she stops by my studio about once a week, and I coach her on her sweaters. At the moment, I’m teaching her top-down — we’re improvising a chunky, oversized, two-toned turtleneck using some confetti-tweed yarn she bought sometime in the ’80s. (She said to me, “I’m pretty sure it’s Perry Ellis yarn.” Perry Ellis!)

When she came by a few days ago, she brought a special treat — the sweater pictured here. It was the first sweater she ever made. It was 1961. She’d been knitting since she was 9; was at this point 16 years old and traveling in England; and she decided she needed to knit a sweater. It’s in amazingly good shape given its age — just a few spots that could use a little mending. I love the neck, in particular. But I am fascinated by the stitch pattern, and I can’t decipher it. It reminds me of all those wrapped stitch techniques I wrote about awhile back, but who knows. Do you know? I’m hoping someone can shed some light on this. And that you enjoy seeing it regardless.

marion brenner's first knitted sweater

(Submitted with apologies for my grainy iPhone snapshots. So far I’m not doing so good on my New Year’s resolution …)

1-Question Interview: Julie Hoover in defense of seams

by

julie hoover hayward sweater pattern

Once in awhile, I make a point of eating a food I think I don’t like, talking politics with a person whose views are the polar opposite of mine, letting someone point a camera at me. I try not to get locked into my opinions, habits or worldview, in other words. People are changeable creatures, and it turns out vegetables are delicious! Anyway, I was stopped short recently by something Julie Hoover (designer of these recent Favorites) said on her blog, and so I asked her about it.

Thanks so much, Julie, for the thoughtful response —

.

Q: You recently posted on your blog with regard to your Hayward pattern: “The seams up the sides and deep raglan shoulder shaping help the garment to hold together structurally (just in case you’re inclined to knit it in the round — think twice!) and give you the opportunity to expose the seams during finishing for a more urban look.” I’m a top-down devotee, definitely inclined to knit this one in the round, from the top, but am curious what finesse or detail I might be missing. Stabilizing side “seams” and deep raglans are possible with top-down, so I’m wondering whether you could elaborate on your parenthetical above. Do you just find sewn seams to be more stable (or attractive), or is there more to it than that?

Julie Hoover: It’s a personal preference, for sure.  It’s also the way I was trained to construct certain garments — in pieces. Deciding what technique to use is subjective from designer to designer and from knitter to knitter, and there’s always a case to be made for making an exception to the rule.

I like to knit garments from the bottom up because I prefer the look of a decrease stitch over an increase stitch, visually. You might find the opposite to be true for you. There are other reasons as well, but that’s the main one.

Generally, I don’t object to a garment knitted in the round if the entire garment is knitted that way. A knitter’s gauge can vary quite a bit when knitting back and forth vs. knitting circularly, so there’s always that to consider.

As for seamless vs. seams for Hayward … I’d have to hear exactly what “reinforcement” technique you would use to replace a seam and give it a try in order to know whether I would find it as suitable as the real thing. That might sound a bit inflexible, but particularly when working an oversized garment that has stress points at the shoulders and neckline seam areas (as Hayward does), you have to think of the seams as you would the load beams that support your home. Over time, you want them to be as strong as possible. I understand that many people hate seaming, and no matter what, they will avoid it. I certainly am not going to argue with them! But for me, I love the change in pace it offers at the end of a project, to slow down and see it all come together. Most importantly, I know that after all the time it took to knit, my garment is going to have the professional finishing touch it needs to last over time.

.

And just like that: worldview challenged. I’m still seriously pondering doing a top-down version of Hayward (I bought the pattern) — and may have daydreamed briefly about the specs and benchmarks for an A/B test of seamed and unseamed versions — but I often think I should at least consider knitting a seamed garment, and this exchange has given me new reasons to think so. I might even learn to love it.

How about you — thoughts on all this?