knitting – Beverly Army Williams

Craft Friday: Prepping and Provisioning

pie Oops! I was so fixed on prepping and provisioning yesterday that I forgot to post! Well, here’s a double dose of Craft Friday tips, then.

Prepping

Get that yarn wound. Wash and prep the fabric. Trace and cut patterns. Dig out the needles, the glue gun, the bag of embroidery thread. In other words, don’t spend precious crafting time on Friday getting your supplies ready. In between zesting oranges for cranberry sauce and rolling out pie dough, take a little moment here and there to do what you must to hit the crafting ground running!

Provisioning

The last thing I want to do on Craft Friday = food prep. I’ve done enough all week, thankyouverymuch! But I also want to have something to serve Craft Friday peeps who swing by to stitch with me…something that is not left overs. Sure, leftovers are terrific, but a little change is, too. Thursday night, after the dishes are dried and the food’s tucked away in the fridge, I’ll toss together a slow cooker lentil stew for Friday’s lunch.

And I have no doubt that the pie leftovers won’t be entirely unwelcome!

Read about Craft Friday’s start here, and check out Craft Friday posts from the last three years!

Want to join? Here are some ways:

Pinterest Craft Friday Board feel free to follow it, or follow me and ask to join the board if you want to pin on it.
Twitter
Post your plotting, gathering, listing, making on Instagram.

Be sure to tag your social media posts #CraftFriday. Are you in? Let me know in the comments!

Drop-Dead Easy Knits Giveaway: We have a Winner!

wiinner Thanks to all who entered my giveaway contest. It was fun to see what favorites rose to the top. I think there are going to be a lot of Drop-Dead Easy Knits projects being cast on soon! And the winner is…

Kitty! Check your email for my request to get your address!

A Book Review and Giveaway: Drop-Dead Easy Knits

drop-dead-easy In less than five words, my review goes something like this:

You need this book.

Ok, so you probably know that Gale and I teach together regularly, and I’m pals with the book’s two other co-authors Kirsten and MaryLou, too (I like to surround myself with smart, talented people!), so you might think there is no way I can give an unbiased review of Drop-Dead Easy Knits. I’m going to be honest with you, people.

The patterns are insta-classics!

The quality and timelessness of the patterns reminds me of some of my favorite knitting books: Weekend Knitting and Last Minute Knitted Gifts come to mind. Books I turn to again and again, not only for the great patterns, but because the books themselves are beautiful.

That’s the deal with Drop-Dead Easy Knits: wearable patterns you can knit while slightly distracted by photo by Gale Zucker friends or food or wine or movies…what the Mason-Dixon duo have dubbed #knittingbelowonesSkillLevel, with brilliant warnings when you have to pay attention. Gale shot the gorgeous images, and the writing is funny, smart, and just plain companionable. Which makes sense. The book idea grew out of conversation when the authors were hanging out together, well, knitting!

I’m lucky enough to have two copies in my possession, and I want to share. If you’d like to win a copy, here’s what you do:

Hop over to the Ravelry book page and add it to your favorites.
Peruse the patterns and “favorite” your top three.
Come back here (I’ll be waiting) and tell me in the comments what you can’t wait to knit from the book.

The contest will close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, September 26. One lucky winner will get their own copy!

I’ve got a Camurac Cardigan in progress (just finishing work left to do…hoping to wear it at Rhinebeck), and tomorrow I’m picking up yarn to make the Keynote Pullover and Glama Wrap. What’s on your list?

Ten on Tuesday: 5 + 5 Edition

Carole asked to hear about five things we enjoyed this summer and five things we’re looking forward to this summer. The pickle will be limiting each part of the list to only five, but here goes:

summer-collage

I enjoyed my family reunion road trip in May. I had the pleasure of visiting with cousins I hadn’t seen in around 20 years, and the road trip included a stop in Cleveland (and lunch with the ever-inspiring Shannon), and a sojourn in PA to see Kentuck Knob and Falling Water. Wow. Wow. What amazing homes!
I enjoyed a day at the beach. Alas, only one, but a good long dip in the ocean melts away my worries and anxieties. Maybe next summer I’ll get there more often!
I enjoyed developing my sewing skills. I sewed a LOT this summer, and I learned from every single project. Details on those garments soon.
I enjoyed the beautiful foods of summer, like strawberries, tomatoes warm from the sun, blueberries, and more tomatoes.
I enjoyed long, lovely days and evenings on the porch, especially when it was filled with good conversation, stitching, and music.
I’m looking forward to soups: tomato, butternut squash, potato leek, all made with bounty from the summer that’s waiting in my freezer to warm the cooler evenings of autumn.
I’m looking forward to brisk air and colorful leaves while I hike the dogs in our woods.
I’m looking forward to wearing cozy new sweaters I’ve been stitching.
I’m looking forward to making so many projects from the newly-released Drop Dead Easy Knits–I swear, every project is calling my name (Keynote Pullover is up next for me!)
I’m looking forward to Rhinebeck. I can’t wait to see all my favorite peeps in October!

How about you? What did you enjoy this summer? What are you looking forward to this fall?

Ethical Elegance: Summer Stitch Fest 2016

Ever since Sonya announced it, I’ve been looking forward to Summer Stitch Fest! All summer long I’ve been working on my sewing skills, and now I have an entire (mostly) weekend booked just for stitching. Here are my (ambitious) plans, in a few different categories:

Sewing

Sew Dress No. 1. I’m making a double-layered version, which I have cut and ready to sew.
Cut and sew a Myrtle dress.
Cut and sew a pair of Pants No. 1. I’m not sure the fabric I have picked is what I want to use, but I want to at least get a muslin made.

Finishing

Finish sewing my blue Beverly dress. See how I’ve named the self-drafted dress I made with Cal earlier this year? This will be my third one in a blue seersucker-ish fabric. I’m adding red details–red bias binding, red C pockets, a little red embroidery.
Sew the bias binding on a blue Sorbetto. Yup, it’s been waiting to be finished since June. Ahem.
Finish the waistband on my Alabama Chanin swing skirt. It’s basted on and I need to stop being chicken about the stretch stitching!
Finish my Alabama Chanin wrap skirt. I am so close to being done with this single-layer skirt. I think I’ll be wearing the heck out of it year round.

Knitting

Knit my Joan Fuller sleeve No. 2. It is actually sleeve No. 3, but I messed up sleeve No. 1 by forgetting to switch to larger needles. #rookiemistake
Rip back the yoke on my Stopover and re-knit it. I stitched merrily along before realizing it was all sorts of not right. May as well get it right, right?

I’ll report back next week and let you know how I make out. How about you? Do you have Summer Stitch Fest plans? Tell me about them!

Friday Faves

I’m spending the weekend visiting my niece at UNC Wilmington. I’d like to think I’ll need sunscreen, but weather predictions (rain!) tell me otherwise.

While I’m away, how about some link love, or list love, or, in other words, stuff I’m into right now?

Sara launched her new website, Et Voila! recently. Be sure to sign up for her newsletter–trust me, her recipes and pictures of her European adventures are worth it!
Kirsten’s new book is out! Knitters, you know she writes elegant, fun-to-stitch patterns, and the book includes exquisite new photographs from our fave photographer, Gale Zucker.
Speaking of Gale, if you want to learn from her, and if you’re like me and only carry your phone camera most of the time, be sure to check out her Making iPhone Magic classes in NJ May 2 & 3.
Can’t make Gale’s classes? Love her work like I do? Grab a set of limited edition Nash Island postcards. I didn’t grab enough at the January pop up shop, so I ordered a full set. Those lambs!
Tress by Larissa Brown. I’ll post a review for you soon. In the meantime, if you love fairy tales, magical realism, and vivid writing, put this on your must-read list.
Handmade watercolors from Greenleaf and Blueberry. Jess helped me select a basic palette of her handmade paints, and I love using them as I paint birds and interesting things I find on my daily hikes.
International Fake Journal Month. I’m participating this year. You can see some of my character’s pages here.
Uniball vision fine pen. Humble? I suppose. Here’s why I love this pen. Sometimes I lay paint down first and then sketch over it. Sometimes I sketch (and I prefer sketching in pen to pencil) and then want to put down paint. This pen gives me just the right line, and the ink is waterproof. And it is inexpensive enough that I don’t feel precious about using it in my bullet journal or to grade.

Your turn. What are your Friday Faves?

Ethical Elegance: Knit Good Stuff

I don’t know how many years I’ve been eyeing Nanne Kennedy’s toothy, honest, gorgeously dyed yarn at fiber festivals. Last fall, with my best enabler at my side, I stopped petting the yarn and purchased. I have no regrets. Not one.

My original intention was to use this femme pink yarn for a certain sweater I’ve been lusting after (I’m looking at you, Lorna Suzanne). I decided to be as prissy as I want the sweater to be and swatched, swatched, swatched, only to find I couldn’t get a fabric I liked at a gauge I wanted. I think I’m going to need a bit of Starcroft Light to find the just-right match of honest yarn and pattern for my dreamy, prissy sweater.

So what’s a knitter to do when she’s got a bag full of pink wool this good and a hankering for one of Ellen’s sweaters? She copies her pal Kirsten, and uses the Seacolors yarn for a newish arrival at Chez Odacier: Joan Fuller.

Ellen’s pattern writing is terrific. It’s as though she’s sitting next to me on the porch (in my mind, it is summer, always, and on a porch of one sort or another, always), leaning over to remind me what I should do next.

Still, we all know what a pokey knitter I am. Every day, I stitch another few rows before I go to bed, and I confess: it’s hard to sleep when I’ve just had those plump cables in my hand. Even if I don’t finish the sweater to wear this long, long winter, I’ll be ready for a Maine evening in September!

Gale taught me something: match a good, honest yarn by someone you really like with a terrific pattern from a friend you admire, and you’re bound to be happy. And happiness of this sort is exactly what ethical elegance means to me!

How about you? What’s your favorite yarn-pattern match up?

VK Live Recap

Just after the Fiber College high started to wear off, Kirsten had a good idea: who wants to come to NYC for Vogue Knitting Live? I did, of course!

I took two classes: Scandinavian Colorwork with Mary Jane Mucklestone and Designing Knitted Tessellations with Franklin Habit.

The colorwork class was fun. I learned a new-to-me way of knitting garter stitch in the round, and Mary Jane is a dynamo, full of knowledge and humor. The tessellations class? Well, let’s just say that a number of postcards reflect my recently acquired interest in tessellations. Franklin made math fun. I took a class with him in 2012, and my feelings about his teaching remain the same.

The classes weren’t the only terrific parts of the weekend. There was glorious food, terrific company, and the pop-up shop of the year: I could practically smell the ocean with every skein of Starcroft yarn I held. The yarn is special in so many ways, not the least of which is that Jani’s smart, practical, funny spirit saturates it like the gorgeous colors she dyes.

When my Saturday class ended, Beverly and I hopped down to le pop-up, and what a treat to hang out, get advice on color from Mary Jane and Kirsten, and crochet surrounded by Gale’s photos which are, as always, amazing.

Want to see what I crocheted? I’ll post a new FO later this week!

Welcome, Autumn, You Bringer of Squash and Yarn!

Keats had it right. I’m like the bees, “…think[ing] warm days shall never cease…” and listening for Autumn’s music, though the music of summer and spring is so much more inspiring. Still. Let’s take a look at some of the loveliness as summer slips away.

My CSA share comes to an end in a few weeks. Saturday the old tobacco barn, now used as a farm stand, was filled with bunches of garlic drying. The tomatoes may lack the sweetness that burst out of them in late July, but Autumn’s bounty brings warmth and depth of flavor. I’m especially excited to cook squash again–here is my favorite butternut squash galette recipe, and my go-to butternut squash soup.

I did no canning this summer, but I’ve been freezing leeks, fresh sauce, and garlic scapes, which means there will be a little taste of sun and earth and rain in this winter’s meals. In another week or two, I’ll buy up all the butternut squash I can handle and spend an afternoon peeling and chopping and freezing it. I want late Autumn and Winter me to think fondly of Summer and early Autumn me!

Even better than the terrific foods that Autumn brings is the return of my knitting fun! I spent most of the summer crocheting motifs for a linen shawl. With Rhinebeck around the corner, it was time to pull out a languishing WIP and get the wool turned into sleeves! The first arm of the sweater is about elbow length as of this morning. I don’t like pushing sleeves up to keep them from getting in the way, so I will only knit to just above wrist length.

I started this in 2012. I know. I told you it was languishing. But this is the year I wear it to Rhinebeck. I just know it is.

What has Autumn got you excited about? Are you trying any new recipes? Starting any new projects?

Tag: knitting