Tackling The Fringe KAL - Part 1

Karen is running the Fringe and Friends KAL again this year and for the first time it is something I can jump in on. I love her Knit Alongs - we as a community of knitters all learn so much from watching one another's process, don't we. And who doesn't love learning new things?!?

For me, I'm using a bit of a different process for this one, as it is all about experimentation. I'm trying not to plan too much and really just trust that the sweater will reveal itself to me as we go.

This could be a to-tal-ly nuts idea. We will see, however as we know from my past posts about Ripping with Joy then part of the reason we knit is that we love knitting. So if it doesn't work I'm just going to rip that sucker. And then I will knit some more.

What I'm loving is that Karen's KAL has created a space that encourages me to experiment. And sometimes in this busy busy world full of chores, we need spaces that encourage us to play. So fun.

I've made many a top-down improvised yoke using raglan shaping in my time, so I wanted to up the ante a little.

Inspired by patterns like Cline and this little beauty here on Pinterest I thought I would try something that had a more pointed sleeve, that was maybe drop shouldered and also included maybe a bit more of a boat neck or a funnel neck AND had visible lines along the shoulder shaping.

Or there was this and this and this and this.

I also have this idea - based on a sweater I improvised for my middle kid years ago - that used this funny shoulder shaping that meant there wasn't enough sweater fabric at the shoulder point. This happened because I only increased on the body and not on the shoulder. I like the effect it creates as it slightly stretches the fabric at the shoulder point. I'm gunna try to do that again. I want to distort the fabric.

You can vaguely see the slight distortion as it heads towards the shoulder. As she got older and the sweater got smaller this effect increased.

I started by knitting this swatch in some yarn I had purchased originally to knit Cline. I thought I would try a bit of the rib and then also try different types of increases to see which one was cleanest in this particular yarn.

I tried
1.  a m1 ala Elizabeth Zimmerman
2.  a kfb
3.  a m1L and m1R
4.  a invisible increase that involves knitting into the stitch on the row below from a Jared Flood pattern.

....and really I wasn't that fond of any of them.

As I was knitting my yarn at a different gauge than it was intended for - it's recommended gauge was 22/4" on a 4mm and I was knitting it at 19s/4" on a 4.5mm - then nearly every increase distorted the line of the rib shoulder I was planning by pulling a stitch tight on every increase row. This makes sense as methods 2-4 above all involve taking a stitch that already exists, and using the yarn in that stitch to make the new stitch. Therefore you are making two stitches from one which pulls the yarn tight and distorts the nice neat line of stitches I had in my rib shoulder.

The only option for something clean that worked was the first one - the M1. The way I was doing Jared's increase didn't distort the actual line of stitching but did distort the stitch next to it....which still mucked up my nice clean line.

Why did I care so much? What's a little distortion here and there. Well I wanted the lines to be super clean. And as I didn't plan on increasing on every single RS row then the irregular nature of the increases would make it look wacky. So M1 it is.

To avoid the small holes I was getting from my M1 I might try to twist them even further by knitting through the back of the stitch. Time will tell.

OK. So the swatch is done, increases picked, gauge measured.

And I've cast on.

Next up.... some more about my pattern shape and my measurements.

Yay Karen!

Are you joining in? There is still time!!

Felicia x

Old school community.

A family bout of hideous gastro luckily ended just in time for me to head to the Bendigo Sheep Show a few weeks ago. I dutifully waited my 48 hours - ending Saturday night - which meant that I got to head up to Benders on the Sunday with two of my smalls on the quietest day of the show. We were chuffed to get to go this year, as we have missed the last few years, and it is a total treat.  Making that drive up the Calder is like stepping back into my childhood. All ironbarks and rocky ground.

I spent my formative years in a variety of towns in country Victoria. A few of those years were spent in a little town called Numurkah. My dad* was the local ambulance officer, and part of his ambulance job was to attend the local agricultural show. We kids got to go with him. Now, he is a friendly guy who loves a chat, which meant much chatting and hand shaking. It was a day that I looked forward to. Full of people and conversation. I remember the joy of being there and feeling like we were a part of something. Part of a group of people that had come together to share their year. It was community grounded in place.

As an aside I also remember that the best part of that special day was that one year we all got to ride home in the back of the ambulance totally freestyle. Ahhh the 80s. So unsafe but totally thrilling for a small kid.

Being at the Bendigo Sheep Show a few weeks ago reminded me of the feeling of being part of a country community. I felt the contrast between the life of my childhood and my life in the city. In a way there is less diversity in my city community in terms of age group, personality, values and type of people. Now don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly grateful for my community. They are generous, present and supportive, but these days my community has been created through friendships that have occurred by choice around shared values. We aren't thrust together in the same way that you are when you live in a small country town.

But being at the Sheep Show reminded me that there is something glorious to be said for a broader community. One that is more diverse and includes greater difference maybe? I can't put my finger on exactly what the difference is but I felt the richness in it. It was nice to be reminded of it and feel a part of it.

Now all that said, at the Sheep Show there were two distinct groups of people; the fibre lovers and the farmers. The outfits were totally different. Farmers wore polar fleece and the fibre lovers wore wool. It was like a uniform for both teams.

I took the kids in to watch the shearing for a bit, and the kind of community I was part of on that day long ago in Numurkah was clearly visible, farming families of multiple generations. Then we headed into the sheds selling the yarn and could clearly see the broader crafting community feeling the joy of being surrounded by likeminded souls.

Half Baked Hand Dyed - I was totally in love with their shell/cream/pink colour which is not even in this photo but trust me - so gorgeous.

Pirate Purls beautiful colours.

Beautiful yarn and knits from Great Ocean Road Mills.

More Great Ocean Road Woollen Mills goodness. I fell totally in love with their yarns. Didn't purchase obviously, but the love was there.

My kid purchased this with her pocket money from Great Ocean Road Mills. Her plan is to dye it with avocado and then knitting herself a scarf. Her process is one that takes time ....

My kid trotted around in her handknit cape that we found in an op shop, her cowl and playtime dress..... looking very much the child of a maker. She did photobomb many of my photos making them unusable. I'm sitting here trying to be forgiving. ;)

Beautiful Wild Nature Yarn - I can't find their webpage but look them up.

The biggest treat of the day was that Kylie from The Purl Box showed me a yarn colourway she had named for me after the first retreat. It was truly gorgeous Kylie x

Our only purchases were socks from the guild. There was a third kid/pair but there was too much wrestling to have all three in the one frame. #twoouttathreeaintbad#notasockknitter

I wore my Riddari so a couple of kind people recognised the sweater, and came up and said hi which I totally loved. I don't get to meet you lot very often, and so really I have no idea who it is that reads my rambles. It was a total treat for me, so thanks to you brave souls who introduced yourselves. x

Being at the sheep show on the weekend reminded me of how grateful I am to be part of this crafting community because in a way it is similar to the country community I grew up in. It's diversity is part of the joy; all ages and all types. There is space for our quirks and our crazy. Having a passion around craft means being able to strike up a conversation with women I don't know, who are decades older than me, in the queue and know that we share a connection.

This is something I love about the retreat as well. I never know who will be there and I can't wait to meet them. It's a group of women coming together around a simple shared understanding of the meaning, and the joy, of using our hands to create.

Felicia x

* not the photographer dad but my other dad - I'm lucky enough to have two.

Some one day workshops!

Exciting day! We are announcing our first ever one day workshops. We are very excited about them and thrilled to be able to offer them to you in September of this year.

The lovely and sensationally talented Anna Maltz is coming out to teach at The Craft Sessions retreat this year, and so we thought it would be a waste of her talents and her kindness if we didn't share her with you in a few other ways. So some one day workshops it is!!

For those of you who don't know much about Anna, you can check out her bio on our Teachers page. But to sum what you need to know, she is a good woman. She is a clever, courageous, inspirational knitwear designer who makes up her own techniques - like Marlisle which is so clever and the answer to many a knitting dilema. She also happens to kind, generous, funny and the sort of person anyone would be lucky to have a vino with. Which is why I asked her to come!

Anna Maltz will be teaching Advanced Colourwork and Marlisle!

We here at The Craft Sessions, want any workshops we hold, including our one-day-ers to have the "feel" of the The Craft Sessions' retreat, so they will include all the good stuff - great company, great food in a beautiful space with inspiring, encouraging and generous teaching. These one-day-ers won't just be a workshop where you come to learn some skills. They will be all about the community and the joy. Just how we like it.

I will be hosting the day and Anna will be running the workshop. Feel free to bring along any problem knitting you have as we will be having an informal knit clinic at lunch and lots of time to chat.

So far we have dates confirmed in Lauriston (Country Victoria) on September 10th and Melbourne on September 11th with dates coming for NSW and hopefully Tassie.

They will go on sale in a couple of weeks and if you are interested in hearing more details then please join our mailing list. I'll also give you a bit more info on this here blog.

So so excited to be doing this!

Felicia x

It's all about Community and Connection!

My two favourite words! And so today I bring you a favourite "local" project that is all about community and connection.... and craft.

Every October time we attend a local school fair. My kids love it and harass me about it for many months. Their questions are always the same. Can we go? And how much spending money do we get?

The answers are yes! and $20. More than we would normally give them for such an event, but in this case we know that about half that money will be ethically spent....

Now why they love this particular fair is multi-faceted. They love that we get to meet up with so many family friends and probably that they get to hoon around all day with very little in the way of parental supervision. They love the activities, the singing, the pop-up op-shop, the food, the craft ..... but the thing that they do every year without fail is they buy monkeys. One monkey per child per year.

Happily Made Monkeys are now a tradition of the fair for us, and over the years, they have become part of our family. They are ethically made and super sweet, with magnets in their hands which make them unlike any other soft toy they own. Magnets mean they are a versatile pet.

I often find one of them attached to a potplant or curled up in a kid's bed. They get stuck to pin boards and attached to the fridge. They are always cuddling and are by far my kid's all time favourite soft toys. These monkeys have been part of our family for many years now and you will find them being flung at our old-school metal screen door in a game of "who can stick the highest monkey". They are often seen having a whale of a time roaming around our house.

And the great thing about them is that they are all about the love.

I mean how cute they are.

The lovely, clever and indomitable Veronica who runs Happily Made Monkeys is a friend of a friend. When I ran into her the other day, she shared that the organisation who makes the monkeys for her in Cambodia, have finally grown to the stage that they can start paying for their worker's kids to go to school. I love the project so much that I thought I would share it here.

Cambodia Knits are a social enterprise who employ home based knitters in Cambodia to make soft toys and finger puppets. Their crowdfunding campaign - selling Sleepy Snoogus' - pays for education for the knitters children. One Snoogus = 1 month of schooling.

For me this project is connection, community and craft rolled into one. So go check them out. They make great gifts - we always keep a few in our present box as they are the perfect unisex multi-age present - and your purchase of them helps make the world a better place.

And the best place to contact Veronica direct about monkeys is via the Happily Made Monkey facebook page.

Felicia x

Me Made May 2016

Most of you I'm sure know of Me Made May. If you don't then head over here and take a look.

My take on it is that this little handmade community of ours comes together to elevate and celebrate our handmade wardrobes, whether we are just at the start of making our #handmadewardrobe or like me we have been at it for a few years.

I took part last year - but I didn't plan to this year as I'm a little dis-trac-ted! But as I wear handmade nearly every day then I just started taking snaps. Last year I was religious about my photo taking but this year well life isn't working quite like that. And I don't think it matters.

The point is to celebrate what it is that we do. We make stuff! With our hands and our hearts! As a community! It's super.

This last year I have only made a few extra bits and pieces to fill some gaps - like a few Lou Box Tops and my Annie Dress but the consciousness raising that is the month of Me Made May has made realise that there are a few handmade pieces that I do not wear. Like ever. They don't feel like me, even though I love them.

Normally I give those kinds of garments away to my girlfriends, but as this one won't fit any of them due to boob/shoulder size, then if you pop back tomorrow I'll take a photo and give it away to one of you lot. It's pretty special - Nani Iro! :) I just thought it might be a nice way to celebrate Me Made May.

And as an aside if you aren't yet sewing your own clothes but think you might like to then head on over and have a look at our Simple Sewing 101 series. Many a newbie sewer has got started using Simple Sewing and I love watching your tops pop up on Instagram.

Join in over on instagram. I find it truly inspiring every year and often find people and patterns I had never heard of.

Felicia x

PS. If you are interested in popping back in for the top then I have a bust size of about 35/36". You would need to be similar to make use of it.