Ride a Painted Pony...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have an internal jukebox that calls up-- unbidden-- songs that suit whatever situation I'm in. Today, I have that old Blood, Sweat & Tears song, Spinning Wheel, spinning through my head. This doesn't surprise me at all. See, I have signed up for private spinning classes which start in a couple of days.

When I mentioned to some friends these "private spinning classes," I got a very surprised look. Then I realized that's because they thought that I-- Queen of Whoopie Pie Consumption and Chair Sitting-- had actually hired a jock to come to my house and get my behind on one of those stationary bikes on which you pedal until your legs fall of. HAHAHA! Can you imagine?

No? Me, either.

Once we cleared up the misunderstanding, I explained to my friends that in my latest move to get off the grid, I am hoping to learn how to spin roving into yarn. (Maybe one day I'll learn how to spin straw into gold.) I don't have huge expectations for this class. If my drop spindle class was any indication of whether or not I'll succeed, let's just say I'll likely be buying my yarn for a long time to come.

And yet... the more years I get into this knitting thing, and the more fiber artists I meet, and the animals that provide the fleece, well the more I want to take it back to the very start. I want to meet the animals, buy their fleece, figure out how to get from hoof to cardigan, you know? I figure that if the spinning lesson does "take," then I will now be forced to add another two years to each sweater project. Maybe four years. That's okay. Because one of my favorite parts of this whole fiber fanaticism is learning new stuff.

As so often is the case, my latest knit-related activities call Monhegan Island to mind. I love how the only vehicles on the island are the handful of trucks owned by lobster-folk and hotels. I love how quiet and barely lit things are at night. I love how you have to stand near the highest tombstone in the cemetery to try to get a single bar of cell phone signal. I'll never be accused of being a Luddite, but I truly enjoy opportunities to at least get a whiff of the way things were. And these whiffs (along with the salty sea breeze) always do my heart such good. Along these lines, I have an appreciation -- one I'm growing-- for ye olde knitting days, and how one couldn't just pop over to the knit shop, one had to raise the sheep and goats, and shear and all the rest of that stuff.

Okay, stay tuned. I might post again right after my lesson to proclaim the wonders of store-bought yarn.

Baby It's Hot Outside!

This past Monday marked the return of my summer camps for kids down here in Austin. I offer six sessions in all, including Writing Camp, Arts & Crafts Camp and-- I know it's hard to believe-- Fashion Camp (for which I get lots of help from my young fashionista seamstress assistants). Every year when I announce registration time, I get a flutter of feedback from adults who say, "I wish I could come to camp."

To which I am likely to reply, "I GET to go to camp!"

I try not to sound smug or sassy about it. But when I start thinking about what a tradition the Knitting and Yoga Adventures Monhegan Island retreat has become for me it's hard-- nay, impossible-- to contain my excitement. When I was a little kid, I got to go to a week or two of Arts & Crafts Camp one year. It wasn't a sleepover camp, just a daily operation. For a few hours each day I could transform old bottles into vases, make potholders with those stretchy loops and, yes, play with yarn. That was a super formative experience for me and the memory of it even four decades later probably helps explain why I host my own camps for kids.

So this week I've been thinking a LOT about Monhegan Island. And more so given that the temperature down here has hit and/or cleared 100 degrees several times already. I hear that over on the East coast there's some pretty warm weather happening, too. My recommendation for dealing with this too-early-too-much heat? Remember that soon enough, WE GET TO GO TO KNITTING CAMP! Visualize yourself sitting in one of those big white chairs on the porch of Monhegan House as a slightly chilly breeze gently encourages you to snuggle into your hand knit sweater. Imagine yourself by the toasty fire in the evenings as we come together for a group knit. Think of those early morning hikes through the forest, stopping to take in all the marvelous Fairy Houses before heading out to the cliffs to look across the water dappled with sunlight diamonds.

Can you feel the fresh cool air? Are you getting excited for sleepover camp yet? I certainly am.

Top Down? Bottom Up? Got a Preference?

Before I get to today's question, here's a pre-question: How do you interpret the above picture? To me, it looks like my son and I have just released our first CD together (maybe it's called Son of a Knitter) and this is the cover art. Actually -- total shocker (not)-- my son has not yet invited me to perform music with him. But this photo is not just randomly selected. I picked it because it clearly demonstrates the fashion versatility of the sweater I'm wearing.

For example, this picture was taken on my most recent birthday. So the sweater works for big celebrations. I also use it as my kick-around in sweater, my errand running sweater, my hiking sweater... the list goes on. Yes, I do sometimes wear other sweaters I've knitted, and I continue to work on knitting still more sweaters to be worn in the future. But this sweater-- (made from Grinch Green (I made that color up) Manos de Uruguay) is the one in which I spend, by far, the most time.

I've put the sweater away for the summer but was thinking about it the other day when I received a Rowan newsletter. Inside, an article was taking on the debate: Top Down vs. Bottom Up? I think it was supposed to be tongue in cheek but I'm not positive. Do people really feel so ferociously dedicated to one technique or the other that they're willing to spend time arguing the superiority of their choice?

Most of the sweaters I've made have been bottom up-- true of the sweater I'm currently working on (the one that I'm working on size 6 needles, and have been working on for 17,000 months now, and that has me swearing I'll never work on needles smaller than 24 ever again). But that green sweater in the picture? (Aside: did you notice I'm also wearing my headlamp-- the one Eva made fun of the first time she saw it, but then immediately borrowed it?) That is a top down and it's the first top down I ever made. The process amazed and delighted me. I learned it in a class where the instructor was so patient and kind with me, and stood behind me much of the time (reaching in to help when I needed it) putting me in mind of jump instructors who strap themselves to the back of first time plane jumper-outters.

I've made a couple of other top downs since that first one, and the process delights me anew every time-- oh to knit without having to do tricky finishing! That said, I'm also cool with making bottom up sweaters, even if the seaming takes forever once the pieces are done.

What about y'all? Do you have a strong preference? Got any good patterns to recommend for top-down? Ever read the Barbara G. Walker book? (I've got it but haven't read it yet, though I know at least one knitter who swears by it.)

To Swatch or Not to Swatch? That is the Question!

technically, this is not a swatch. it's a neck warmer we made on Monhegan Island last year. but it's smallish like a swatch and boy did i learn a LOT.

Hey Y'all,

Lisa recently took a little survey over at our FB page, asking: Who likes to learn new techniques by working on a project and who prefers swatches? This, in turn, leads me to ask you for your best swatch (or failure to swatch) stories. Back when I was strictly a garter-scarf knitter, swatching didn't matter. And even when I tentatively stepped into the world of patterns, there were definitely moments-- let's call them Lessons Learned the Hard Way Moments-- when I thought, "Swatch? Who needs to swatch?" So yeah, let's just say I wound up with some very interesting sizes in the end.

When I interviewed designer Deborah Newton for the Summer 2009 issue of Interweave KNITS, I remember her going on about how much she just loves swatching. At the time, her proclaimed love didn't really resonate for me-- I had learned to tolerate swatching, but love it? Really? Maybe something that factors into Deborah's love is that she does have a team of dedicated knitters who take her designs and swatches and crank out the prototypes. But I suspect that, more than this, she really just likes playing with little squares of textures and weights and colors and patterns. I try to bear her attitude in mind whenever it's time for me to make a swatch, to set aside whatever impatience I'm feeling to work on the actual project, and to just take my time and enjoy the preparation.

What about y'all-- did you ever ignore the advice to swatch and just dive into a sweater only to have it turn out eight sizes too big? Do you always swatch? Do you stick with projects that don't really require swatches? (I love making socks with yarn I know well, so I'm guaranteed that they will turn out the size I want w/o having to stop and swatch.)

Or maybe you just like swatching because.... well, because you've dedicated your life to only knitting swatches and nothing else. Can that be possible? I guess it could be-- you could eventually sew all the swatches together and make a sort of quilt. Hmm...

Please, your swatch tales-- share them!

Great Book: AlterKnits

When I'm not knitting, I like to read about knitting. Well, okay, I like to look at the pictures. I have amassed quite a library of knit books and magazines-- my coffee table is covered in them. Recently I came across AlterKNITS by Leigh Bradford and I am IN LOVE. Of course me being me-- those of you who know me know my tastes run toward the funky (to put it mildly)-- I think my favorite pattern is the one for knitted crowns (as in royalty, not teeth) made from paper-based fiber. But there are plenty of tamer, yet still very interesting, patterns in the book. And the layout and photos are divine.

Who knows if I'll ever get around to knitting anything in the book (I'm STILL working on that dang sweater I've been working on off-and-on for over a year now). But just looking through, I get ideas. And that, in turn, made me think about the Monhegan Retreat (not that I ever stop thinking about it-- FOUR MORE MONTHS AND COUNTING!). I love how, during the classes, I always wind up learning about-- and actually trying-- patterns and techniques I probably never would have encountered on my own. I still look at the amazing cabled neck warmer I made last fall on the island and it tickles me anew. And one of these days, I'm going to bust out that magic ball of yarn I wound from eighty billion different skeins (all sorts of colors and weights) and make a lace shawl. Me, in a funky lace shawl, wearing my knitted crown. I can't wait.

Knitting and Monogamy-- Do You Ever Cheat on Your Craft?

I also write about knitting for the Hill Country Weavers blog-- HCW is my local shop here in Austin. I spend a lot of time there since it's my happy place and I find that my blood pressure seems to simultaneously go both down and up when I walk in the door -- up because I get so excited being around all that yarn and down because being in the space calms me as much as it thrills me. I love taking classes at HCW when I can find the time. Mostly these are knitting classes but once I did take a basket weaving class. While I was quite pleased with the little basket I made, I remember feeling a little bit like I was cheating on my knitting as I worked on that project.

Well yesterday, I cheated again and took a fabric weaving class. I've been getting notices about these classes, which involve using a mini Cricket Loom, for a long time and finally could no longer resist. Suzanne, who owns HCW, bills the class as Weaving for Knitters and she's been telling all of us knit fiends that we will get totally sucked in by the Cricket. I think I had a fear of this-- just what I need another hobby when I already have a stash out the wazoo over here, a dozen or more items on my Must Knit in 2011 List.

I have to admit it, the Cricket is a whole lot of fun. It's a heckuva lot faster than knitting which means it can help you zip through your stash in no time. Excellent for those of us who need an excuse to build up the stash. (Wait, do any of us need an excuse beyond Wow, I love that yarn, give me 1500 yards of it now, please!) I'm actually impressed enough with the process and the results that I am considering getting a Flip Loom, which is as simple as the Cricket but are a little bigger so you can weave wider pieces of fabric to make shawls and blankets instead of just scarves. Don't worry, even if I do get a Flip, knitting will always be my first love. But if I do get my hands on one before the Monhegan trip, I'll bring it with me and lead all of you into temptation with it.

So, what about the rest of you? Are you polyamorous when it comes to your fiber arts? I do a bit of quilting, too-- though it takes me a year or more to finish even a really simple, sloppy quilt because I am always most wanting to work on my knitting. If you do engage in other crafts, I'd love to post some pictures of your work. For that matter, I'd love to post pictures of your latest knitting projects, too. You can email me at spikegillespie@gmail.com

A Survey That's (Sort of) About Continental Knitting (But Not Really. Really It's About Improved Eating Skills.)

So I'm not much of a continental style knitter. I took a mini-class in Fair Isle once and I did okay. The idea of continental makes sense to me and I vaguely vow one day to pick a project to work in continental, with the idea being I'll get faster. But to get faster, I would have to first go slower to learn to be comfortable with this style. And so every time I think, "Maybe this will be the project I do continental style," I almost immediately think, "Nah, I don't have time for this."

And yet... I still use both hands to knit. This makes me think that my left hand has become stronger over the years and more dextrous (<-- good word play, since dextrous is from the Latin root for right. Sinister, for those interested, comes from the Latin for left. Aren't you glad I studied Latin in high school so I can share these things?) Even if my stronger left hand isn't good for that many things-- as a rightie I still rely on my right hand for most stuff-- I did realize something. It seems to me that if I am, say, eating a basket of chips & salsa (which is like daily bread here in Texas) or perhaps stealing French fries from a friend's plate, not only am I able to do these things easily with my left hand, it's like I don't have to think about it at all. So I'm thinking, thanks to knitting, even if I can't knit fast I sure can eat a lot faster.

Anybody else out there notice you use your non-dominant hand more since you took up knitting? And, okay okay, I'll just go ahead and ask that age old series of questions:

Do you prefer continental knitting or not?

Do you think one way is faster?

Do you want to make fun of folks who don't knit the way you do?

Let us know!