Month: July 2014

All the News That’s Fit to Stitch: Part the Ninth

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From far and wide, from across the Interwebs (a.k.a. the Electronic Cat Database) and beyond, I bring you all the news from the worlds of knitting and stitching that I could gather this week:

  • Professor Fonz has done it again! You may remember her designs, like the “Deduction Game Chullo,” from my obsessive posts on the knits featured in BBC Sherlock series (the first one in the series is here). To go with her cardigan based on the popular “The Wallpaper Had it Coming Again” fair isle pattern, the “#SherlockLives Cardi,” she has added a boatneck-style sweater entitled, “Let’s Play Murder.” According to the Ravelry pattern site, it’s “crime-solving at its most luxurious.” I’ve been working on ampersand design’s “The Wallpaper Had it Coming (Again)” mittens which, although based on the same fair isle pattern, is obviously a much smaller design, and I have to agree with Professor Fonz’s assessment that this fair isle patterned sweater is probably not a project to be entered into lightly by someone who is just beginning to work with the fair isle technique. The results speak for themselves, of course:
Let's Play Murder by Professor Fonz
“Let’s Play Murder” by Professor Fonz

Smalls SAL June 2014 (Better Late than Never?)

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Pardon the wrinkles please! I’m on a deadline.

Continuing in my fine tradition of sneaking in just under the deadline of the grace period (or at least what I think is the grace period), I bring you this month’s (by which I mean June’s) entry for the Smalls Stitchalong (SAL) challenge. This is my version of Bent Creek’s “EduCATed,” a sweet little chart I bought eons ago and have been meaning to do ever since. It combines two of my all-time favorite things: cats and books. Together at last. And a punny title! Who could ask for anything else?

This pattern has two personal connections for me as well. First, the cat in the pattern reminds me a lot of my adorable, big beastie of a boy cat, Barnaby. Here he is in all his glory:

The Amazing Barnaby
Could I be more handsome?

I took it as a sign from the cross stitch gods that the name of the floss for the cat’s body was Gentle Arts Sampler Threads “Barn Grey.” “Barn Grey” for my grey Barnaby. Serendipity.

Sadly, lately, I spend more time watching that television in the background than I do reading. But I do enjoy old-fashioned hardcover books like the ones in “EduCATed.” My current obsession is collecting all of the Coralie Bickford-Smith Penguin editions. They’re repros, not vintage (obviously), but she uses contemporary colors and styles to capture that nineteenth-century Art Nouveau look beautifully. Here’s a pic of her first series, some of which you can also see in the background from one of my previous blog entries:

Coralie Bickford-Smith books, first set
So beautiful… and they will all be mine one day…

So that’s it for today — short and sweet, with some beautiful hardcover books at the end. Seriously, check out the whole collection — it’s amazing.

Update July 27, 2014: In case anyone’s interested (and, I suppose, in case anyone’s not, too), I made some floss substitutions for “EduCATed.” The green book (second from the bottom) and the green in the green-and-gold book (third from the bottom) are two different (very different) dye lots of Gentle Arts Sampler Threads “Dried Thyme.” It’s hard to believe they’ve been sold under the same color name. For the collar and the lines on the book second from the bottom, I substituted “Chesapeake” and for the cat’s eyes I substituted “Olive,” both by Weeks Dye Works. I chose “Olive” because it was a better match for Barnaby’s eyes. For the pages in the books, I substituted color #120 overdyed floss by Needles Necessities.

GIVEAWAY: If you would like my gently used chart for “EduCATed,” post a message below or send me an email and I will send it to you. Thank you for checking out my blog!

All the News that’s Fit to Stitch: Special Fourth of July edition!

Kate2 Comments

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans! And happy “War of American Colonial Aggression” to my British readers! And happy “just plain July 4, 2014” to everyone else! Regardless of where you may be or whether or not you’re celebrating, I bring you the latest from the world of knitting…

  • Two days ago, it was “all knitting, all the time” on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered news program. First, they gave us this little gem, the story of how the tradition of knitting continues to flourish in the Shetland Isles, in spite of its recent unexpected oil boom. In light of this juxtaposition of the old, low-tech ways and the new, high-tech economy, this story also balances out its obligatory “granny” reference: “Here in Shetland, knitting is not a hobby reserved for grannies or for hipsters. It’s something people do because they’ve always done it. It’s one illustration of how this island cluster in the North Sea mixes old and new.” A special shout-out to my friend, Stitch Bitch, for drawing my attention to the “granny count.”
  • And as if that story weren’t enough, All Things Considered followed it up with a story on the specialized lingo of knitting, specifically “frogging” and the “boyfriend sweater curse,” featuring Los Angeles’s (and USC’s) own Laura Birek of Picture Perfect Knits fame.
  • And, because protest is — or at least, it should be — at the heart of what it means to be an American, let’s celebrate the “knit-in.”  My favorite part:

“Palmer was knitting what appeared to be a turquoise scarf, and had knitted about 8 inches of it before Vermont Gas closed at 5 p.m.,” VPR’s reports.

“It is unclear if she was allowed to continue her knitting at the police station,” he adds.