A Message in the Medium

Knitting letters is similar to stitching alphabets in traditional samplers and cross-stitch embroidery. The catch is that the "pixels" are rectangular, not square. Helvetica, a typographic classic, renders well in knits because it is bold and sans-serifs.

If, in the 70s, I could be a champion at rendering fonts in pencil, I figured i could transfer that skill to knitting.

Here's my latest creation, a warm solution for the hair-free, requested by my clever neighbor, Marc.

As Marc says, this cap stops people from wondering why he is wearing his
hat indoors. Plus, the fiber is super soft Berrocco Ultra Light Alpaca.

When I chart my pattern, my process is utterly low-tech, as shown below. Sometimes I have also been known to hold up graph paper and trace from my Mac or iPod computer screen after I have enlarged or reduced text.

The completed hat

Here's a hat for Marty, a Collegetown business owner., during
a time when he really needed it.

Oh, and Marc's wife, Christine, needed a new hat, too. I worked up the Norway hat for her from a free pattern on Ravelry and knit in one of Vermont's fine artisan wools.

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The Joys of Scrap-Yarn Knitting

Every knitter accumulates leftover yarn from projects. It would be a shame to waste beautiful, high-quality wool and other fibers. Over the years, these leftover balls and scraps grow into sizable stashes, especially when you inherit yarn from other knitters. So some knitters like me turn to scrap-yarn knitting. It's a fun, creative, and liberating process. You can let go of the rules and play, using only the most basic of patterns. Here's my first project, a scrap-yarn cardigan, circa 2009. Same sweater different scarf, as shown with my friend Becky. The 1985 book that riveted me. It was in the window of Homespun Boutique on the Ithaca Commons. From the richly textured stitches forming that sweater, I moved on to more color play after learning new techniques from Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably when they visited Cornell and led a weekend workshop. Kaffe's work caught my eye in the early 1980s, and the story of how this Big Sur, California...

Colorful Scrap Yarn Pillow

Knitting colorful throw pillows is another wonderful way to use leftover, stashed yarn. This pillow uses more than a dozen worsted-weight yarns saved from more than ten years of knitting. It has been in the works off and on since last winter, and I finished it last weekend. The design is my own. The neutral browns in the foreground help the bright palette of mostly autumn colors pop, with beige vertical lines to add geometric structure along with the diamond pattern. As a finishing touch: tassels! Just for fun, it's reversible. Sorting the stash into yarn weights and colors. Knitting gets underway. It gets messy before it gets beautiful. The finished pillow--except for the... Tassels!

My Affair with Martin Storey

First time experiences are so often memorable -- and not just the big moments, but small-scale triumphs as well, like roasting a turkey, fixing the sink, rolling out a a pie crust, or repairing a bicycle tire. Rowan Softknit Cotton As a child you leave these matters to the grown-ups and as a teen you start building some basic skills. But if you sew you still might leave those difficult buttonholes to your Mom. Or you might delegate the use of the power drill to your brother, defer to your Dad on the fallen bookshelf, or ask your sister to wire your sound system. "Killarney" by Martin Storey And that only covers the household. Let's take sports and recreation. Whether child or adult, you may learn to ride a bike, swim the backstroke, ace an overhead tennis serve, ski parallel, paddle a kayak or master a back walkover--all of which I've loved. Rowan Big Wool cowl But who can say what is the tipping point that leads you to step up to the ...

Knitting & Purling

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