Indie is the new black
Recently, when my almost-5-year-old nephew requested a black hat to go with his school uniform, I was at first a little disappointed. Like most knitters, I’m generally drawn towards vivid colors — black is for boots and store-bought cardigans, amiright? — and I figured I’d also have to go with a very plain pattern because any interesting detail would get lost in black yarn. Then I remembered that a bunch of dyers have black colorways,…
Untangling: Janina Kallio
I first learned of designer Janina Kallio when I spied one of her ads at the bottom of the French Market Fibers Ravelry group almost a year ago. I contacted her right away about posting to the Marketplace, and then I took advantage of her Buy Two, Get One Free New Year’s sale (it was actually hard to narrow it down to three patterns). I was thrilled when, a few months later,…
What to stash this week: Oh, the places you’ll knit
I’m thrilled to open sign-ups today for Where We Knit. This quarterly yarn club, which will begin shipping in February of next year, brings together four dyer/designer dream teams: Lakes Yarn and Fiber & Janina Kallio, French Market Fibers & Toby Roxane Barna, Skeinny Dipping & Stephannie Tallent and Magpie Fibers & Lara Smoot. Each pair will collaborate on an exclusive colorway and an accompanying accessory design inspired by their favorite spots to whip out their WIPs….
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IU book review: Mini Skein Knits
I have to say, I was pretty excited when Connie, the talented photographer of my Rhinebeck sweater and also an editor at Lark Crafts, emailed me about reviewing their latest book, Mini Skein Knits: 25 Knitting Patterns Using Small Skeins and Leftovers ($14.95 U.S./$16.95 Canada). When I blogged about knitting at the newspaper I used to work for, I was approached a few times about reviewing books, but they were usually for designs I wasn’t really interested in —…
A very indie, Instagrammy, Rhinebeck
There are a lot of words I could use to describe last week’s Rhinebeck Trunk Show. After catching up on what was probably a week’s worth of sleep, I can come up with only one word: epic. While I’d seen on Ravelry that people were excited, I knew I had planned a successful show when I got to the hotel around 1:30 to set up and there was a small group of people knitting in the corridor by the entrance to the ballroom (don’t worry,…
After the trunk show, visit these Indie Untangled vendors at Rhinebeck
The New York Sheep & Wool Festival is an amazing, if occasionally overwhelming, experience. Unless I get swept up in the frenzy of trying to snag a Jennie the Potter mug (which depends on who I end up traveling with to the fairgrounds), I enjoy taking in the beautiful foliage, eating cider doughnuts, admiring all the knitwear and spending time with my friends.
Of course, I also do some serious shopping….
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Pre-Rhinebeck Untangling: Susan Post of A Good Yarn Sarasota
This is the fourth in a series of interviews with the fabulous sponsors of the 2015 Rhinebeck Trunk Show.
While there’s no shortage of indie dyers you can buy from online, there’s really no replacement for a great local yarn shop — especially if they have a fantastic selection of hand-dyed yarn. Susan Post opened A Good Yarn Sarasota in Florida in 2009 and she’s done some unique collaborations….
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An indie yarny journey
One of my longtime dreams is to take a cross-country road trip. In my fantasy, I would knit while my husband drives (which, um, is probably one of the reasons we haven’t done it) and visit an indie dyer at every stop. I’d blog about it, of course, and then my blog posts would get turned into a book, and it would be the Great American Road Trip, with a yarny twist……
Untangling: Buttonalia
Just glancing at her beautifully glazed ceramic buttons, it’s not surprising to learn that Buttonalia’s Sharry Madden has a background as a sculptor. A New Zealand native now living in the U.K., Sharry starting off making large bowls used as washbasins, moving on to create hollow, coiled sculptures when throwing on a potter’s wheel became too painful because of tennis elbow. She ended up selling her work both at home and overseas,…
Starting off on the ‘Road to Rhinebeck’
Around this time last year, when I first started organizing the 2014 Rhinebeck Trunk Show, I got in touch with Maria of the Subway Knits podcast. I had just started getting into knitting podcasts, which I discovered were perfect to listen to when I wanted to work on projects away from the TV, and here was one that was produced just across the river from me in Astoria, Queens!
Maria and I first met for a delicious lunch at Taverna Kyklades,…
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