Why Not WEDNESDAY!

 Why not post ?Sharing this article from the Wonderful Machine blog

https://wonderfulmachine.com/article/close-knit-gale-zucker-for-berroco-inc/

Last spring I did this colorful crazy maximalist photo shoot as part of the lineup for Berroco, my dear client.   I won't go on and on about the backstory for it because I already did! It's linked in this spotlight.

Here's a photo from my Rhinebeck weekend- it says it all!Accidentally twinning with Beverly Army Williams  

A few more details about this

- I became friends with Beverly through blogging waaaaay back ! We both had very dark brown hair. Since then we've crafted, traveled, worked and taught together.and most years we meet up and do the sheep and wool festivals together. We live on opposite ends of our small state so I love that we have these...threads...to keep us connected.

-The twinning was 100% unintentional. We'd both acquired this gorgeous marled yarn from Starcroft Fiber when helping with a shearing years ago.  Beverly knit her sweater not long after. I knit a sweater that was too large . I frogged it and did nothing till this year, when I knit this Felix , shown here unblocked hot off the needles. I am nothing if not consistently 11th hour!

- NY Sheep and Wool remains the one place you feel thrilled to walk around in almost identical outfits with a friend as a grownup, not a tween!

--Hot tip! Do NOT go through all your stash/WIPs the night before attending a sheep and wool fest because your housemates are doing a "bring yarn to swap " table!  It totally killed my interest in getting the sweater quantity of yarn I thought I was going to shop for. OTOH here are just a few of the minis I brought home to make into stripey hats for my littles, from the swap table.

What are you up to? And what are you reading/ recommend to read?

18 and counting: Not Over Yet!

 

I am still alive and kicking and having fun and making things and traveling...and working A LOT!

 This was from a Berroco photo shoot on a farm. The horizon is never where I want it so I stand on my trusty step ladder.

 

Here's the Honeycomb Scarf I have been knitting off and on most of winter. It's a gem of a process knit. When I started, I figured I'd whip right through it.........I'm about 75% done now and a couple of weeks ago I took a good hard look and realized it doesn't look exactly like the samples in the pattern. Whatever I am doing wrong, I'm consistent so at this point, that's how it is!

 

I've been traveling a lot! Some  trips for fun and some for work. Above was all FUN: we went to the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver. This was at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, which is what it sounds like plus walkways in the tree canopy, just on the edge of the city in North Vancouver. 10/10 recommend.   I am normally not a fan of heights and walkways over sheer drops but it was so astoundingly beautiful I couldn't be bothered to freak out. 

Some of that trip became a Knitters Weekend: Olympic Peninsula on Modern Daily Knitting.

This was a photo shoot for Madeline Tosh yarn, I love the styling on this. If you wonder whether I am constantly ohhing and ahhhing and saying "oh oh I want to knit this" while I am working for this client , the answer is YES. 

I am glad to be back for this rare post, let me know if you saw this! This blog celebrated its 18th birthday in February, the least I can do is say hi.

This week: teaching Chicago in person!

As much as I enjoyed teaching virtually these past two years, I am thrilled I'll be in front of a room of living breathing people teaching iPhonography in just a few days  in Chicago!

 

If you'll be at H+H Americas, the trade show for handmade business  please join me !

THURSDAY JUNE 23,  9:45-11:15 am     Smartphone/IPhone Photo Confidence 

FRIDAY  JUNE 24,  9:45-11:15 am  10 +  Tips for Product Photography

These will be fun, helpful, talks filled with actionable tips and time for Q&A.  Not to mention so many images to look at!

And then if you're in the area, visiting or a local,  I am so excited to be teaching hands-on Fabulous Phone Photography for Knitters and Makers                                      SATURDAY JUNE 25, at STRING THEORY YARN COMPANY                            Chicago (Glen Ellyn)    9:30-Noon

If you're thinking about this one , don't wait too long, there were just a couple seats left when I checked in on Friday! I have wanted to visit this shop for ages, having met Janet Avila, the owner at past events and long admired her mission, attitude, events and style.  Oh, and yarn selections! Going to be some new projects cast on here, I can pretty much promise that.

 

3 things on thursday: good things

 with photos, of course!

1) It's lamb season ! and the sheep and wool festivals are getting underway!  I'm going to swing by the tiny  Connecticut Sheep Wool & Fiber Fest this Saturday. It's just a one day event, and  makes my She Shoots Sheep Shots soul so happy.

The photo is from a quick visit last month to my LSF (Local Sheep Farm), Olympia Farm . Love that the little trio posed for me like that!  If you have a local farm that welcomes visitors, I highly recommend making it a stop from time to time. I'm going to be popping in again soon cause cheesemaking season just started. As if I need a reason beyond lambs and local wool.....

2) A long overdue new website is underway.  I am my own worst editor.  It's a truth that's led to many months years delay on this project.  I have help. It is pretty amazing to have a completely different set of eyes culling my work . I am super proud of myself for letting go of attachments to  the images and let them just be seen.  The website is still in process. Reveal soon!  This image is Fine Lines by Lori Versaci , pattern includes longer version.

3) Work has been bustling, including a big corporate project. For every day out photographing there are at least two solid days of desk work at my computer....which means lots of book listening while I edit. A recent favorite : The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton.  Fun, great characters, includes serious issues from various points of view, from the 70's and in the present --the kind of book that you think about the characters a couple of weeks later and wonder how they are doing. And then remember....wait, they are fictional ...Does that happen to you, too? I always feel that's the sign of a good writer.  

Here are some other 3 on Thursday posts

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/f37e7d0bf6a9416aa2ea723a841733c4

show and tell -with cookies!

Show and tell! Click and order and treat yo'self:

My beloved cookie bakery client--the ONLY cookie bakery URL you need- AUNT COOKIE  is doing a fundraiser for feeding Ukrainian refugees. For every 1 pound order of her NYC Confetti Cookies (rainbow or special blue and yellow) she is donating $15. to World Central Kitchen.  Treat yo'self . And send some to a friend!

 As Aunt Cookie says: Taste the Love--and Share the Love".

Answers to questions you didn't ask:

 • the cookies are elevated sugar cookies with a sprinkly crust. You will not be disappointed.

 

• you can put them in the freezer to slow down eating the whole package in one day. Except they taste delicious frozen too. I mean it, these are really good cookies.

 

• there was some sprinkly exuberance at the photo shoot that could not be contained to the tabletop set up. A week later I am still finding the runaway sprinkles !

 

• in case you wondered about sprinkles and their place in history and global cuisine, I gotcha covered

 

• sunflowers are a symbol of Ukraine and pretty much SOLD OUT everywhere. It took an exhaustive search to get this lonely one in the photo, found in a bouquet.  I couldn't persuade the florist to switch out a few from the other small bouquets she had.  Every place I tried said they are selling out of sunflowers as fast as they get them in.  And it turns out there is already a sunflower seed shortage so....

• • • MORE SWEETNESS• • • • • • 

The finished Baby Fern Lake has the most important part: the baby! meet Raina Rose, born last Tuesday night. We are all in love. 

(more about this excellent blankie here)

 

 

three things: random

 1) Baby Fern Lake Blanket

Done! As far as blanket knitting goes, this is a good one.  The Remix yarn is all recycled, mostly cotton with a hand that even an animal-fiber-only type person like me can love. Even though knitting a small blanket is the same amount of stitches-or maybe even less stitches- than knitting a sweater, it has a bigger slog factor.  It's a good knit and blab project though!

2) A Place to Knit and Blab (and Swim Outside in Winter in New England)

 Heated pool in winter in the Berkshires.  Heaven! I spent two days at the Red Lion Inn with a dear old friend (my college room mate ) last week.  I feel like the luckiest person ever that after all these years, she and I are happy  to spend a couple  days hanging out together with this  schedule:  knitting in a suspended-in-time old inn sitting room followed by  swimming laps in wool hats under a bluest of blue skies in 20 degrees F with steam rising from the pool.  Followed by the hot tub.  Blabbing the whole time. I know it's not everyone's idea of good times but it works for both of us and we may have been grinning like fools. 

3) Patterns and Patterns 

In our room at the inn.

State of the Making Report

 

 

The Fern Lake Baby Blanket progress!  On the upside I am loving this Berroco Remix yarn. The colors together and nubbiness are just exactly what I hoped they'd be. 10/10 recommend as an alternative to a woolly blanket, if you have non-woolly blanket people to please. Also it is 100% recycled fibers,!

 

I'm sticking to this till it's done.  Might take a few days at my snail pace of an inch or two a night. If I had a good get together with friends I'd knit on this and blab and make all kinds of progress. True confession: I find blanket knitting a little on the boring. Even with a pattern that hits the right mark between engaging and simple. Thinking back, I can only recall two other blankets I've knit, ever! Maybe three if you count a collaborative mitered square blanket* tho making small squares is a different kind of thing.  

One was on gigantic needles when I was in college...and the other, this baby blanket for Zoe, ten years ago. (!) and I am dying looking at the linked photos now....

 I tell myself it's the same number of stitches as knitting a sweater and that item always engages me. It's the lack of shaping. With sweaters, you can tell yourself ooh I reached an armhole! I am almost to the hem, go go go.  Conclusion: I am all kinds of immature and like a reward ahead to keep me motivated.

So, since I wouldn't let myself even think of another knit while working on this, my mind fixated itself on sewing flannel receiving blankets. If you're thinking "wow , I usually don't see sewing projects from gale" you'd be correct. I have sewing skills. I don't trot them out too often.

 

It would have been a fleeting impulse. Except I looked at the Joann's website. Turns out I could sit by my fireplace sipping wine late Friday night, choose all the flannels, order them, and pick it up all cut and ready for me first thing Saturday morning.

So. I did. 

If I got nothing else out of these past two years of pandemic, I got fierce online shopping skills and no hesitancy to use'em.

This will be four double sided blankets--two will be backed in orange, two will be backed in the pink dots and one will be two shades of purple. I spent way way  too much time watching online tutorials of making mitered corner borders....and hopefully my plan will work.

Had to share a clearer view of this one. Have I gone full granny with this post? YES I HAVE.

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*looking back at that linked mitered square blanket..it's pretty cool. I may have to do one of those again!

3 Things about Knit for Food Knit-athon

 

1) It's soon!   Saturday  FEBRUARY 12 2022 , organized by designer Laura Nelkin who has tons of info if you click on that logo above or here

 Knit for Food Knit-a-thon is a 12 hour knitting marathon on February 12th, 2022 to raise funds and awareness for food insecurity. The money we raise will be equally divided between Feeding America, World Central Kitchen, No Kid Hungry, and Meals on Wheels.

 Last year, when Laura tried this for the first time, the Knit-a-thon raised more than a quarter million dollars. How amazing is that? 

Baby Fern Lake in Berroco Remix

2) It's virtual yet communal. You join other knitters (or makers, you're not boxed in) for a 12 hour 10am-10pm creative marathon  while zooming with all sorts of entertainments/blab/presentations going on .   I mean, you can do this by yourself without being online at all, or join with friends, or you can pop in for part of the time...last year I was a presenter and had a blast.  You can participate by forming a team to fundraise or join an existing team ....check out the fundraising link for details. 

Fern Lake Blanket in Berroco Lanas

3) This calls for just the right project, does it not? Yup, you get a bonus cast-on rationalization. Here's my main suggestion for Knit-athon-ing :  Baby Fern Lake,  top picture above, it is a free pattern from that link.  I am cranking mine in Berroco Remix because I really like this yarn, it's machine wash /dry and I love the colors and its tweedy rustic-y look.  There's a fourth color too,  not shown- it's a sweet light pink. New girl arriving in March :-)

This project is ideal for screen watching or sitting around yapping or zoom knitting--a slip stitch pattern, 4 row repeat and flies by in that satisfying way as the colors switch  without having to think too hard or get too sloggy with it.

If a baby blanket isn't your jam right now, there's the original grownup version, Fern Lake Blanket,. TBH I fell in love with it when I photographed it like this for the pattern a while ago, it's waffle-y in the soft wool yarn. Can't go wrong with this one.

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Don't forget the 1st Saturday in February is Ice Cream for Breakfast Day! Grab your pint and spoon.  I'd hoped to have a big open house for the occasion this week however still plenty of covid around so....next year!

Brite Stripes Scarf Kit= happy knitting

 

 I may have made my favorite scarf photo ever! This was the last frame shot from the photo shoot for The Yarnery,  Brite Stripes Kit, in October.   The scarf feels so exuberant  that I wanted to see if we could catch that vibe.

The kits released yesterday .  I am thrilled ot share these, shot on a handball court in Brooklyn. I kind of love the location as a street studio setting. And I lovvvvve these models, Martine McKinney and Ariana McLean.  

 

The yarn is pretty fabulous as well--it's knit in solid colors of Snefnug and a skein of self striping Lang Cloud yarn.  It's bulky gauge knitting  although very light and airy. I am crazy about the Snefnug because the colors, I mean take a look. And also that name, it sounds like a funny sneeze. It means snowflake in Danish.

 This is a candidate for another Treat Yo'self project--and I say that as someone who feels the urge to knit a long scarf pretty much NEVER.  It would fly.

3 Things About the Knits: past present future

 Not necessarily in that order

1) Pressed Flowers shawl by Savory Knitting Amy Christoffers. This mosaic design is so satisfying to knit.  I am loving it.  I'd heard that after the first repeat of the body chart I'd have it memorized and it'd just flow. As I cast on and messed up the first few repeats and then did that again and again, I highly doubted it.  Then, as my friend Linda, the yarn whisperer owner of Knit New Haven told me "something happens and you crack the genetic code ". She was right. (She almost  always is on many matters, not just knitting.)  No more chart peeks needed. Although I look forward to finishing this and wearing it...I'm going to be a little sad when it's done. One for the process knitter list.

I cast on for it during a family trip to Minnesota this summer.

Seeing prairie flowers in a naturalized section of bison range in  Minneopa State Park got me going on this colorway for the shawl. I am nothing if not concrete in my inspiration sources.

Then back home I got distracted by other projects and I went on (another) hat bender in the fall.  It's a seasonal addiction I guess. Keep your pumpkin spice lattes, I have hats.....

2)I had to try a couple of Striped Marl Hats from Modern  Daily Knitting Field Guide 19 .  My sister requested, specifically, a pink and brown hat. I figured, sure why not, if that's what she wants --even though I wasn't holding out much hope for that color combo when I started it.

Turns out she had a whole vision for it! Isn't this great styling? Success. 

Six or seven hats later, I impulse ordered a Plied Yarns kit to make a scrappy Trail Point Hat .

I ordered a few extra bobbins too, because a) I love that bobbins are an option and b) I love the colors and c) I love this yarn company and their dyed in Baltimore /spun in New Hampshire yarn.

 

It's a fingering weight knit,  also a super quick knit. The shape has a retro vibe.  It reminds me of ski hats that were de rigeur when I was in middle school. This one's getting a lot of 2022 head time !

 

 One of my pandemic-acquired habits is doing "treat yo'self" online shopping. And I'm not mad about it. Until 2020, I only made carefully considered  aka overthought purchases online. I can be annoyingly indecisive about retail. I mean, I draw out the decision a few beats too long, annoying others as well as myself. That indecisive! 

Not a problem any longer . This was a good one! Def more Plied Yarns projects ahead. I'm thinking a colorwork sweater like Roost or  a Shift Cowl. (am I the last to knit that one? or are you with me on the no-rush-I'll-get toit-somedaylist)

 

Bobbins. They're irresistible.
 

3 things since the last time I posted

Well, that gives me plenty of leeway, right?!*

1) Quality and Quantity Time at Home - Work returned to a pretty much full-time pace for most of 2021, although I'm traveling much less.  Which gives me plenty of time to hang around the beach and....well...hang around at the beach. Often with friends in the neighborhood. It's not a bad thing!  Among many unexpected habits I picked up in 2020 was making sunset photos at the end of my street and posting them on the neighborhood Facebook page. I started doing it out of boredom during quarantine in 2020, kind of a buswoman's holiday.  My neighbors were (and still are) so appreciative that I keep doing it. This was a couple of days ago. January sunsets are the best.

2) Possibly my fave project of 2021 was ...crocheted?! It's my Ziggy Interrupted Scarf .  I impulsively joined a CAL for it last spring.  I thought it might be fun to go through all my small amounts of fingering weight yarn left from other projects. Or given to me as samples or in goodie bags. I was right.  I had a blast putting the color combos together, using really small yardages that I inexplicably saved...I think I used 30 colors on it, and the only thing I bought was a Freia Minikin green/aqua. It was an epic and fun project. I worked  in sections so I could bring it wherever I went, attaching them all at the end before adding the all around edging. And now I can crochet fingering weight yarn, something I'd never done before.  Highly recommend!

                         

3) Spent lots of time with my all time favorite human, Zoe. She turns 10 in a couple of weeks. How crazy is that? Also shown here, changed our formerly dark and very multi-colored cluttered living room into a light filled, less cluttered space. Best of all,  the old dangerous fireplace/unlined chimney situation is now a gas remote control hearth that helps heat the house. So bougie and I love it!

 

We had a neighborhood plunge on January 2nd. It was fabulous! 

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*It's nice to be back. I don't know how that happened. The last couple of years have been...weird for us all!

3 things: Talking About Knitting

1) Martinique Shawl in Liana from Berroco Yarn.
This from a photo shoot last September, when we soldiered through dozens of spring yarn designs in autumn, and tried to give a summery feel. At the time, with fall winds whipping, I wasn't sure we hit the mark fully. 
Months later I go online and see the release, and I fool even myself!  Summmmerrrrrrr. I am so ready for summer beach life, even 6 feet away from my friends. We did a trial last weekend and it worked .
 This yarn is a water-color-y linen in  dk weight, this is exactly how I'd want to use it.
Also, I adore the model, Frances.

2) I've left this MDK Field Guide coin project as my Zoom knitting. That's a category I never thought I'd need!  I don't do a tremendous amount of Zooms, thankfully, maybe 1-4 a week.  And when I do, this is  my happy-inducing companion.  I look forward to the end of quarantine-based Zoom calls but I do not look forward to ending this addictive tubular scarf......it may be really really long by next winter. That's all I'm saying. 

 3) That ShannaJean Cowlette is fini!   In the home stretch I surprised myself with two realizations. First, I was not tired of making bobbles*. Not even in the very long bobbled bindoff.  Something about the stabbiness of creating them matches my mood during Covid stay-at-home in a lovely stitch-to-moment ratio. Enough said on that topic, eh? 

The second realization? It's so not my style! I don't know when/where/if  I'll wear this.**  Somewhere along the last third of it, still enjoying the process, I had the cold clear light of day realization that it isn't me, at all. I love the colors and the yarn.  I have no regrets about the making.  Maybe for teaching at a knitting event?  I'll let you know....

* bobbles: I knit backward to make them, if I had to turn the work around, that'd be the dealbreaker.
** Above, I tried styling it in the only way I can imagine wearing it, with  a denim or chambray top. I didn't notice that I flipped the edging in every shot. I am never too professional to make rookie mistakes!

3 things on My So-Called-Mind

The surreal beauty down the street this month  boggles my mind. How is nature drumming up crazy storms with brilliant light and rainbows at the same time as the misery of a pandemic deadly virus ?

Thing # 1 my so called mind itself:  I don't know about you but this whole quarantine situation has me so scattered, I can't get to everything I intend to in a given  day  hour  minute .... I’m halfway through one effort and COMPLETELY lose focus before I finish it. I was going to give you some examples but....can’t remember which I was thinking of....
 Let's talk knitting.

 Thing 2  After 6 weeks of weird comfort in bobbles and mohair, I'm ready to return to my true love, garment knitting.  First up will be Lavallette by Mary Lou Egan.

She's so friggin' clever, that Mary Lou. This looks like lace on top but it's that 80's throwback, condo knitting.  I'm going to make mine in a yarn  that's a Mary Lou fave, Holstgarn Coast. It's 50/50 wool cotton, very economical and  so many colors. 

I chose Fig, thinking I was stepping away from my usual palette. Then it arrived and I took a look at my sweatered arm, shown above, in Malabrigo Rios Pearl Ten-- and at the Fig right out of the envelope from The Yarnery. Ha! Not so different! Tomorrow I swatch it, my reward for making it till May.

Thing 3) Using a new app My lovely client Berroco asked me to do a guest blog of photo tips for shooting your knits on an Iphone/Smartphone. I am always seeking distractions from my distraction! It was a great chance to play with the Jumprope app, so I made this little piece.

It's  5 minutes long. I learned a lot making it. Let’s just say it took a lot of takes to come up with passable narration. I am a long way from comfortable in front of the camera. The sequencing and editing is fun. It may not be the last instructional I make this year. Let me know what you think of the paper cup trick!

* if that's hard to watch small, you can click on a little icon in it that looks like a window as it plays and it'll open larger in another window---or you can go see it on IGTV, linked from my instagram account*

4 on Friday: recent discoveries

1)  Right now, right here, bobbles are my jam. The twitchy maneuvers and focus are perfectly suiting these twitchy times. Everything about this project is Not My Usual Thing. I think a lot of us can say that describes our lives now. 

The yarns are a treat:  Fig Lace from Once Upon a Corgi , I don't know the colorway name. She's a local to me CT dyer and soooo talented- go look at that link. The deeper intense solid is from Neighborhood Fiber Co., another of my faves. I rarely knit with skinny singles or skinny mohair and silk  yarns so the whole thing is a break from reality.  Even the project bag I'm using is out of character- a cheerful  indulgence purchase from MinnieMoonSewing. --it's made from a feed sack with canvas apple green lining and is so well made... (and reminds me indulgence is not necessarily wrong). 

The pattern is the ShannaJean Cowlette. .  Here I am trying on the sample of it at  TNNA last June when visiting the delightful BFFs designer Shannon Squire and yarn dyer Knittted Wit (LoraJean) in their booth.  Not my usual style or colors but I loved it . The design totally captures their playful spirit. And easier to keep around your neck than a light and floaty shawl.

                         
My blues are a little subtler than the sample colorways. So, as much as wearing bobbles can be subtle, I'm good.

Maybe I should note I am only in my second section of bobbles. When I sent Shannon a message saying how much I was enjoying the bobbles she replied, not very cryptically, wait till you'get to the longer rounds and you're on your 10,000th bobble ....she didn't add BWA_HAH_HAH but I sorta felt it.



2) I can give some love and handwash one handknit a day since I'm not going anywhere. By the end of April my wardrobe will be so clean and fluffy! 

This is my Dangling Conversation, fresh and clean.   I mean, I have a home office. Normally  I'm not near it quite so 24/7 .  The whole secret to home offices is to work in them, not mess up your productivity trying to do personal chores at the same time as working. This is a hard learned truth here for decades.  Since I'm not running out for any other activities, nor doing any  new photo shoots, all work-at-home rules are out the window.  Also--I'm homeschooling now...so....plenty of interruptions and a lot less productivity.

3) The one thing we can't live without in our kitchen is a can opener! Guess whose broke? With a huge pot of chili on the stove, 30 minutes before dinner at our full house, the can opener flat out quit just before I got the Ro-Tel into the pot.  After A LOT of swearing and unsuccessful attempts with alt  tools, I called a neighbor and did a socially distanced borrow. We are super well stocked with food here but that broken can opener brought us to a grinding halt.

4) The Fitness Marshall. A great find if you like to dance and don't mind making a fool of yourself pretending to be a pop music video dancer.  He breaks down the moves (kind of like Zumba) . If you walk by at the right time each day (or...maybe it's the wrong time) you might glimpse me and an 8 year old dancing along,  with my phone propped on the kayak rack on the side of the house,  laughing  at ourselves. This week we nailed Poker Face by Lady Gaga.  I hope you're finding some fun way to move-- or to laugh at yourself--because it really helps.

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