What I did this summer

Today marks the first day of school in many places across the country, including for my niece and also for Michigan where I grew up.  Schools in our area have been in session for a month. Amazing!

But, since Labor Day marks the end of summer, I'm planning on posting a few things here that I did this summer. Here's the first:

I've had my eye on this pattern for a long time, but no real reason to knit it. Now that I know some one in the Slytherin house of Harry Potter, though, I let my knitting needles fly. Meet House of Slytherin.

The first three pictures above are taken directly above the scarf. You can clearly see that the scarf is just black and green stripes, but that the stripes vary in terms of knit and purl stitches. 

The fourth picture is taken from an angle. Now, you can see that the patterning of purls and knits combines to create an raised image, most visible when seen at an angle. This image is the Sign of the Dark Mark.

One more pic. Here it is with the fringe.

What did YOU do this summer?

Another magazine in the mail

The recent PieceWork came in the mail. It, too, has one of my projects as well as a companion article in it. (If you click the link above, it will take you to a digital version of the magazine.)

The current July/August PieceWork magazine. My article is inside.

Inside is an article I wrote about the Australian crocheter and designer, Mary Card. I really appreciate her artistry in the many designs she made, and her incredible courage when she moved to new continents, first to the US and then to England during WWII. She was a single woman and moved seeking career advances in the designs and crochet business.

Poppies breakfast curtains

The curtains I designed and crocheted for the project were an amalgamation of two of her designs -- a poppies crochet piece for a hand towel, and the background for another piece.

My thoughts were also with the various centennial anniversaries of WWI -- or the war to end all wars. This is especially poignant since my family visited Flanders Fields just two weeks ago.

In Belgium

I have made two of these curtains, now, and they brighten my breakfast area at home.

Love of Knitting

Look what landed in my mailbox!

The King's Road Cowl by me

This is my first pattern in the Love of Knitting magazine, and I'm so glad to be in it. Love of Knitting is the first knitting magazine I have published in that is carried locally.

The yarn is a beautiful, soft Malabrigo. It's a wonderful, easy pattern to knit for the fall or for a cold office.

Yarnover

I had a most excellent time teaching at Yarnover in Minneapolis last weekend. Yarnover is the once-a-year conference for the Minnesota Knitting Guild. June Hemmons Hiatt was the keynote speaker Friday night. She wrote the amazing The Principles of Knitting tome. Everything you would ever want to know about knitting is inside it.

Her website is PrinciplesofKnitting.com. Her latest passion has been belt knitting, the very efficient knitting method made famous on the Shetland Islands. June and her son Jesse have created a new fangled version of the knitting belt -- beautiful and in multiple colors.

I taught a class on methods of color knitting based on a beautiful flower motif in Jokkmokk Flowers pattern. This gorgeous pattern is based on a mitten in Erika Nordvall Falck's wonderful mitten collection from Norrbotten, Sweden. The flowers are a regional pattern, and widely used in Sami mittens. Her former mother-in-law used the motif often in family mittens knitted in many colors.

When a knitter works a larger color work motif, like the the flower in the Jokkmokk Flowers mitten, he or she must know what to do with longer stranded floats. In the class we sampled methods of stranding, variations on what to do with long floats, and experimented with two alternative ways of doing color work. 

I had great fun, and the students were the best! Seriously! Gold stars, guys.

I also had a chance to meet up with River City Yarn store owners, Barb and Cynthia. River City Yarns is a great store in Edmonton, Alberta. Being dyed-in-the-wool Canadians, Barb and Cynthia have named their store brand yarn "Hat Trick," dyed in the National Hockey League team colors. They interviewed me along with Lars Rains. Here is a part of that fun...