Weaverknits Grellow

Helloooo from the Baltimore area! I've been teaching, working, and running around in a frenzy.

Something very special happened the other night, though. After I taught a color theory class at the Dragonfly Fibers studio on Saturday, Kate, her friend Elizabeth, and I started experimenting with dying different shades of yellow and grellow. The results were a LOT of different grellows, and a yarn color NAMED AFTER ME: Weaverknits Grellow.

Here's a teaser shot of some of our experiments.

You'll have to wait to see the final color until after MDSW, where it will make its debut. You can find it at the Cloverhill Farm booth and at the Llamajama booth (you can also find my books at both booths). I'll be working at the Llamajama booth all day on Saturday and on Sunday afternoon, and will be at the Cloverhill Farm booth on Sunday morning. Come say hi!

Pictures of Ann in Pajamas

Remember my hand pain? Well, it's continued and has gotten worse over the past few months. I've been afraid to talk about it much, because everything I do for work involves my wrists—all the typing, the formatting, the knitting—all of it. I finally went to a specialist, who determined that I have cubital tunnel syndrome.

Which is a RELIEF. It's treatable. More specifically, it's treatable with this:

A brace in two sections! I wear the wrist/hand section while I work AND while I sleep, and wear the entire contraption while I sleep. It's totally stiff. It's taking some getting used to.

It's not slowing down the knitting, however. Here's one of my recent square shawl examples, first spread out to show off:


Then as worn:

The orange yarn is Zauberwiese sock yarn in Fruchtcocktail and the Institutional Green is hand-dyed by ME in Karida's class. Spaced-out look and pajama outfits courtesy of a bad head cold. Want to learn to make this square shawl and others? Check out my classes in the previous post!

Spring Workshops (and shipbreaking)

Thanks to everyone for the responses to my last post. I'm pursuing my Container Ship inspiration and am well into the first of several designs I've planned. I'll make the patterns available and will also talk with some of the dyers whose yarn I'm using to see if they would be interested in creating kits, because the color, fiber, and weight of the yarn I've chosen is crucial to the pieces. I'll keep you updated.

To clarify: Shipbreaking is an industry in which large ships that are too old for further repairs are broken down for reuse. Shipbreaking takes place on the beaches of Bangladesh, India, and China—it's horrifying and beautiful at once (see Edward Burtynsky's work here).

Over the next few months I'm doing a LOT of teaching in a few different cities, both new classes and new twists on my favorite classes. Here's the rundown:

April 15 and 22: I'll be teaching a brand-new workshop on designing square and rectangular shawls from the center out at Black Sheep Knitting Co. in Needham. If you've taken one of my triangle shawl classes, this will be comparable: I'll provide a booklet with patterns for my example shawls and more general techniques and inspiration for designing your own shawl.

Here's the start of one of them:


April 28, 10 am to 1:30 pm: I'll be teaching Color Theory and the Albers Cowl at the Dragonfly Fibers studio just outside Washington, DC. You can take just Color Theory, or stick around and learn modular knitting by starting an Albers Cowl. What's extra fantastic about this class is that participants will get to choose SIX SMALL SKEINS of fingering-weight Dragonfly Fibers yarns as part of the class. It's the perfect chance to get some colors you wouldn't normally use (YELLOW, anyone?) as part of the cost of the class.

Just a few of the colors at Dragonfly:


April 29: I'll be teaching Square Shawls at Woolworks in Baltimore! And yeah, I'll have some of my initial Container Ship designs with me. Square shawls and Container Ships = serendipity. I'm so pleased that I'm obsessed with these two things at the same time.

May 26, 2 to 6 pm: Square Shawls at Fibre Space in Alexandria—one of my favorite knitting destinations. I'm working on a special square shawl design for Fibre Space as part of my visit (yellow, purple, modular, shipbreaking).

May 27, 1:30 to 3 pm: Color Theory and the Albers Cowl at Fibre Space.

Some color theory work in the studio (note crouching Chris in the background, plastering the wall):


It looks like I'll be a dervish this spring. There's so much to make and so much to share.