After months of languishing in my WIP pile, the newest sample for my Wedge Shawl Design class is finally done. Meet Faye:
From the front, Faye looks like a ruana. But from the back, you see why she qualifies as a wedge shawl:
Faye starts at the center back, with four wedges worked in the round to create a square. Then two of the wedges are bound off, and the other two extended to create the ruana “wings.” Overall, Faye is shaped like a deep “V” – a shape I find very easy to wear.
Want to meet Faye in person? She’ll be at Stitches United.
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Stitch-Maps.com now features symbols for 3/1/3 cable crosses, and for 2-to-5, 2-to-7, and 2-to-9 Estonian gathers. The latter make it possible to map beauties like this one from Pitsilised Koekirjad by Leili Reimann:
By my count, these new symbols bring the total at Stitch-Maps.com to a whopping 240 distinct symbols. Whoa! That’s more I would’ve guessed; how about you?
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Next up, I’d like to add brioche symbols to Stitch-Maps.com... but exactly what symbols would result in the clearest, most readable stitch maps? Not these!
On the other hand, I suspect these might work:
What do you think? I’m taking suggestions and requests on Ravelry!
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If you’ve ever taken a class from me, you probably remember my Jumbotron yarn and needles:
They’re my favorite way to demo knitting techniques. Even students in the back of the classroom can see what I’m doing!
The Jumbotron yarn is actually I-cord. I have a couple lengths that I typically keep knit as stockinette swatches. But for my Beginning Brioche class, I need swatches knit in brioche rib – and so I’m knitting more I-cord:
Yup, I knit it by hand. It doesn’t take as long as you might think, really – a few minutes here and a few minutes there really add up!
To make sure the I-cord is nice and round, I don’t take the usual I-cord approach of *k4, slide stitches back to right end of needle, repeat from *, which (for me) results in loose strands of yarn between the last stitch and the first stitch. Rather, I double-knit my I-cord: *slip 1 with yarn in front, k1, sl1 wyif, k1; turn; repeat from *.
How do you like working your I-cord?
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Do you remember how back in January I told you I was learning to quilt? Well, I finally finished my first project, a set of placemats and a table runner:
Really, all the quilting was done some time ago. And we’ve been using the placemats for weeks. All that remained was hand-sewing the back of the binding onto the table runner – a silly little task that I just couldn’t be bothered to complete until this past weekend. (I’m not the only crafter that gets practically done with a project, then neglects it when the end is in sight... am I??)
Taking a couple Craftsy quilting classes made all the difference in this project. And when I find the time, I’d love to add to my quilting skills, starting with Machine Quilting in Sections by Marti Michell:
I mean, really? What quilter wouldn’t want to know how to quilt in sections, on a standard home sewing machine?
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