Evening in Baltimore

A two-pattern day

106th, a cardigan in the Deep Fall issue of knitty, live today:

Happy tenth anniversary, knitty! Being in this issue was particularly special because my first published design appeared in knitty five years ago: Neiman. There have been many more since.

And Traffic Furniture, something a few of you might recognize from my square shawls class:

For the next month, Traffic Furniture is exclusive to Zauberwiese, where you can purchase the download (and the yarn to go with it!). The site is in German, but the pattern is in English. Promise! In October it will be part of a self-published accessories book, too.

Today was satisfying.

Two patterns.
Mulva the 98 Volvo passes inspection—roadworthy for another year!
Crossfit.
Reggae on the way home.
Bed.

I can't be everywhere all the time

But I can be many places much of the time. I can't be all things to all people, but I can be a lot of things to a lot of people. Behold, my fall schedule! I'm pretty psyched about it it now that I've had a day off from copyeditpocalypse to write it all down in one place! This is how psyched:

(Chittagong courtesy of my friend Elizabeth, knit in Dragonfly Fibers squishy lace. Photo taken at the Michigan Fiber Festival.)

 Saturday, September 15: Fibre Space in Alexandria, VA
I'll be teaching two new classes, Steeking and Set-in Sleeves. These topics are dear to me, because they're techniques that take your knitting to the next level, and they're also best learned and explained in person.

You can sign up here and here. In terms of homework, if you don't have time to complete the knitting listed as homework, the team at Fibre Space and I can tell you how to prepare in an evening and still get the most out of the classes. Just email me (weaverknits77@gmail.com) or call Fibre Space (703- 664-0344).

Saturday, September 22 and Sunday, September 23
It's back to the Baltimore, with the car this time, for the Neighborhood Fiber Co. studio GRAND OPENING! I'll be around Saturday from 1–5, hanging out and showing off projects I've made with NFC yarns (most of which will be available in a book Karida and I are putting out later this fall), and I'll be teaching a class on Intermediate Striping Techniques (YIPES STRIPES!) on Sunday from 2–4. You can sign up for the class here.

Saturday, September 29 and Sunday, September 30
Still in Baltimore—at the Verdant Gryphon open house! I'll be hanging out on Saturday and teaching a class on Color Theory and Modular Knitting from 3:30–5:30. You can sign up here.

Whew! Then I'll be here for a few weeks copyediting like a lunatic and writing patterns. Hey, remember my last blog post? This is where I've been since then, butt glued to chair.

Of course, both laptops travel with me wherever I go. What, you think I make a living designing knitwear?

October 20–21: Rhinebeck and unofficial White Whale Vol. 2 book launch! I'll be selling White Whale Vol. 2, Twentieth-Century Graphic (print version!) and my older books from my bag. Punk rock! It will be your first chance to get the new book!

October 26–28: Vogue Knitting Live, Chicago: Holy crap, I'll be a VENDOR for the first time, sharing a booth with Neighborhood Fiber Co. I'll have White Whale Vol. 2 AND a new collaborative book of accessory patterns that Karida and I have created. Karida's yarn + my design aesthetic = magic.

My friend Ruth from Michigan will be working in the booth with us. Here she is wearing a Silhouette that I think I prefer to the original:

November 3–4: Knit Fit! in Seattle: Color Theory and Square Shawls classes! The Knit Fit! blog just featured an interview with me. I'm psyched to fly out to the west coast and meet a lot of old friends and new—I'm talking about you, Spincycle Yarns.

And then there will be more things, and work, and I'll think about getting on this train when things calm down:

35

It's the 35th anniversary of me today. Let's all celebrate with the second pattern in the Container Ship Club, Ioanna:

Once I simplified my design idea to the point where it didn't interfere with the yarn, this cowl knit itself in only two evenings of Olympics-watching. I was initially inspired by this photo from Andrea Frank's collection of photographs, Ports and Ships:

It was serendipity that the ladies of Spincycle Yarns contacted me around the time I was thinking about this design and mentioned that they would be happy to work with me. Which is just crazy, because I've followed Spincycle Yarns since 2007, since before I had a blog or wrote down a pattern. I would never have had the courage to contact them and ask for yarn support. Working with Rachel and Kate has been an honor for me and an indication that my work and ideas are resonating with others whose work I admire.

You can purchase Ioanna for $5.



Or you can join the club and get Ioanna, Chittagong, and at least two more forthcoming patterns for $13 (price to increase with release of next pattern, which, by the way, will be a cardigan pattern. That's right, a cardigan pattern inspired by rusty tankers. Unless I decide to make a surprise design first. Which I might).



EVEN BETTER, you can purchase the very yarn I used for Ioanna from Spincycle here. Save 10% on this yarn and anything else in the shop by using the coupon code IOANNA when you check out.

I'm 35. Lately things seem to be coming together in a way they haven't before. I believe this year will be golden.

Twentieth Century Graphic

After months of hard work and anticipation, Twentieth Century Graphic, an ebook (which will also be available as a paper book soon) that I made in collaboration with KnitPicks, is published! The book is a collection of six patterns: two cardigans, one pullover, a shawl, a scarf, and a pair of mitts. Here are the photos from KnitPicks. KnitPicks did an excellent job with the photography—I requested no urban hipsters, no heavy makeup, no fields of flowers, no one wearing wellies or holding a coffee cup or looking wistfully into the distance. The models are beautiful, but they're the sort of beautiful people you see walking down the street. I'm so pleased.

Modular Mitts (based on color studies showing contrast of extension by Johannes Itten);

Saturated Shawl (based on my love of contrast of hue softened by a neutral color and my love of improvised top-down triangle shawls);

Form Follows Function (a pullover in which I challenged myself to create a silhouette and textures by using only knit and purl stitches and working modularly in different directions);

Partition (a cardigan inspired by a contrast in textures in the Bauhaus school building in Dessau);

Project Rothko (a long modular scarf based on the color scheme of one of Rothko's paintings);

And my favorite, Make It Red (the product of a discussion I had with my sister about the saying attributed to graphic designer and teacher Rob Roy Kelly: "If you can't make it good, make it big. If you can't make it big, make it red.").

Obviously, KnitPicks gave me full creative freedom in this project. When I got the opportunity, I dug through my sketches, lists (most of my ideas start as lists on scrap paper), and unpublished knit prototypes and created my six-piece submission in two days. The submission was accepted without changes, and I was allowed to choose all the yarns I wanted in the colors I wanted and produce the pieces exactly as I envisioned them. My only regret is that Gloss Fingering is not available in yellow. Ideally the Saturated Shawl would have included yellow.

Opportunities like this are rare, if nonexistent, with mainstream yarn companies and publications, which is why I'm so grateful to the staff at Knitpicks who believed in me, trusted me (!), and just let me do my thing. And I'm proud that I was able to produce a collection that's completely true to my vision that appears, so far, to be popular.  Right now I'm working on similar collections and project with some of my favorite indie dyer friends, and see this type of collaboration as the future of my work.

To wrap up this lengthy post, here are some photos of me wearing the samples:

Modular Mitts in my studio (with the Make It Red cardigan—awesome long sleeves);

Partition in my studio building;

Form Follows Function outside my apartment;

Make It Red in my studio;

And my sister in the Project Rothko prototype, which had been kicking around for about a year before I found a home for it in this collection.

What's next? CONTAINER SHIPS PATTERN 2! It's finished, and the pattern will be off to the tech editor tomorrow!

Also, since I mentioned my list-based process above, I've decided to share a recent list in each of my blog posts from now on.
8/10
The Dreadnoughts
Dutch women's field hockey uniforms
Adam PW Smith
Cephalopod Yarns—Horseshoe Crab (swatch)

In front of the camera

serving crazy realness in the new Cooperative Press book, Reversible Scarves.

Source: ravelry.com via Ann on Pinterest

(Which I highly recommend for anyone who is looking for some new designs that work on everybody and are clever without being tricky. I can see this book becoming a sort of gift knit bible.)

White Whale news: Only one design to finish, on time for a fall release! I finally finished the very large design in Squishy Lace (color: Weaverknits Grellow, of course) that I knit almost entirely during my European vacation, including while sitting on the street in Amsterdam (I don't remember this situation, but Chris captured it)

while watching the Eurocup in pubs

while waiting for the Tour de France riders to zip by

and in Schiphol airport after being awake for nearly 30 hours.

I like to think about all the places this design has been, and how, as a result, it embodies a little piece of each of them, like stamps in a passport. 2000 yards of laceweight yarn become 2000 yards of experience. Soon the sample will begin its travels with me. Look for it in person at Rhinebeck. Wait, wait, it will be the only grellow thing with a 65-inch diameter. You won't be able to miss it.

Inspiration from Germany

Top to bottom:
Containers outside Ulm, seen while traveling by train from Ulm to Stuttgart
Tiles in the Geislingen train station
A closer look at the tiles and layers of lettering
A stained-glass window designed by Georg Meistermann in the Saarlandsmuseum
A view in the Voelklinger Huette