Complements Collection

Kristin Omdahl's latest booklet, Complements Collection, does a few nifty things.

First, so many of us knit AND crochet, why don't more books include both crafts? She combines the two here beautifully.

She also showcases a the yarns of a really great company, Bijou Basin Ranch. Their claim to fame is amazing yak yarn. I know what I'm talking about here. I've had the privilege of dyeing some of it myself and I can say it's remarkable. 

The last thing that really intrigued me was that she kept all the projects in the 1-3 skein range. Perfect for those of us on a budget. Plus it means portable projects. Summer is all about being on the go so portable the timing is perfect.

I had a chance to ask Kristin a few questions about herself and the book. I'll let her take it from here. 

Tell me a little about yourself, what's your background? 
I am a very curious person and love to dive in and learn new things all the time - and I've always been that way. I don't take classes, but rather enjoy jumping right in and figuring things out myself. I've taught myself piano, guitar, 2 of the 4 languages I've learned have been self-taught, and on and on. I'm not big on taking classes, because I like to learn at light-speed when I'm passionate about a new subject. I've been sketching wedding gowns and formal evening wear since I was a little girl. Studied architecture and CAD in high school, and taught myself to sew in my late teens. I think this is how I was able to grasp pattern writing. Not to mention I love spatial math - that helped, too. When I learned to sew, I was working as a waitress at the time. The other waitresses were older than me, and liked to go dancing at clubs. So as a side business I custom made cocktail dresses for them and sold them for $100. I eventually made a couple full-length evening gowns. It was a lot of fun. I originally went to college for pre-med but backed out towards the end of my BS because I was afraid I'd finish school and be too old to have babies. So I changed my major in the last year for business. I learned to knit and crochet while pregnant, married and living overseas with virtually no access to yarn hooks needles or patterns. My mom sent me a couple of baby layette booklets and I figured it out! When my baby boy was born, I no longer needed stuff for him, so I began making shawls and manipulating the shapes with geometry and other mathematical skills. It was such an exciting moment for me to combine math and stitching! My passion for knit and crochet design was born :)


This book has both knit and crochet...do you have a favorite? 
Not at all! I've been knitting and crocheting for about the same amount of time (learned both within a month) and have been designing in both ever since. Almost every day I pick up both my needles and my hooks. There are things I like better about one craft over the other, but I would never want to have to choose one over the other!


What was your first crochet  project? What was your first knit project?
My first projects were baby items. The first crochet project was a baby bootie with a complicated stitch pattern. It took me HOURS to make it and it was HUGE when it was done. But I realized it was the proper shape and that it was a gauge problem so I took it as a victory!! So hard for a first project! LOL The first knit project was a baby sailor sweater. It was adorable but also a complicated first project. 


What project have you learned the most from? 
I learned the most from writing "Seamless Crochet" because I had to explore and experiment so many times to make the seamless technique work with shaping within a project for either increasing or decreasing for the shawls or 3-dimensional shaping for the hats. It took months but it was so worth it to me in the end! 

What is your "go to" project. Is there anything you've stitched over and over? 
 Actually, NO! I don't think I've EVER made the same thing twice. I've made the same kind of project for various gifts, like booties & a hat & blanket for a baby, numerous blankets for my son, hats for friends/family, but never the same, identical design twice. Funny that my son requests GIGANTIC blankets for presents, though. Could he choose a larger, more time consuming project???


Can you tell me a little about the genesis of this book? How did you come up with the concept? 
The concept for the book was an introduction to these beautiful, luxury yarns by developing a collection of patterns that use 1-3 skeins of yarn. But I also wanted to see how far I could actually  go with that amount of yarn, so I stretched the yardage as best as I could to make bigger, or more voluminous, projects with the 1-3 skein limitation. And then I wanted to cross over between both knitting and crochet with the same challenge. 


Tell me about your design process. Does the yarn inform the design or the other way around?
It is different every time! I wish I could just sit down and write the patterns for an entire collection first, but my design aesthetic is often to come up with a texture or construction pattern I haven't seen before so there is a trial and error period when I'm exploring an idea to see if it will actually work. Sometimes, I will be inspired by the color of a yarn, or the loft, halo or even the yardage. I get excited about skeins of yarn in high yardage because I like to challenge myself to come up with things that only have 2 ends to weave in! Sometimes I'm inspired by a texture in my front yard or at the beach and I will grab a sketchpad or yarn as soon as I return to my workspace.


Do you have a favorite design in the book? Or is that a question you don't want to answer? ;-)
Ha! That is always a hard one, because as a designer you pour your blood sweat & tears into the collection. I love the inspiration behind the Gladiolus Hat (being the solution to the Boyfriend Curse Sweater). I 'tattooed' X's and O's into the crown of the hat as a symbol of hugs and kisses, but they would probably go unnoticed by the recipient thus making it a romantic gift while only looking like a regular, ribbed hat. 

The Aster Cowl is knit in separate strips of edging that are joined into tubes, then picked up and knit simultaneously with a simple, circular cowl for a no-sew project. The tiers of petals are so pretty and in the vibrant pink color, it looks like a cheerful, happy framing to your face. I can't wait to wear this one :)

The crochet cowl Tulip Cowl is similar in the respect that it has tiers, but that is where the similarity ends. The construction is completely reversed. The ancient, Turkish inspired lace tiers are picked up and knit onto the existing cowl that is worked in the ultra simple "granny stitch" style crochet. This project could be easily modified for increased width to create a caplet or even a skirt! 

I love the Apple Blossom Shawl (the cover design pictured at the top of this post) because I think the pop of bright teal against the natural yak colors is so bold and beautiful. This shawl is inspired by a scallop sea shell at the beach, but utilizes the ultra simple feather & fan stitch pattern and simply increases within the pattern for perfectly growing scallops throughout the shawl. 

Thanks Kristin! 


So, are you wondering how to get your hands on a copy of this beauty? You can get it directly from Ruby at Bijou Basin Ranch. Or if you're feeling lucky, you can win a copy from us. Just tell us which design you want to make first and you'll be entered into a drawing. Comments will close at midnight on May 31st. I'll announce the winner on June 1. (Don't forget to tell me how to reach you.) 

Warning

It's my wedding anniversary. This poem was read sixteen years ago:

WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

by Jenny Joseph

Twiggy Dress

Did it take your breath away? I literally said "Oh, my" out loud when I opened this picture last week.

This lovely is Kathy Merrick's design and will be on the COVER of Interweave Crochet's Summer 2012 issue. It went live today. You'll be able to buy a paper copy on June 12. Did I mention it's on the COVER?!

I decided to ask Kathy about her thoughts on this design. Here's what she came back with:

There are so many intriguing colors--I especially love the Ysolda Red and Growth (green). I love anything to do with stripes and splitting them up the middle gave me a chance to include even more combinations. I also wanted the top to fit well in the neck and arms so it would be worn alone without having to buy strange underwear. Last thing...I really enjoyed working with Solemate. It has a smooth, dry hand and the perfect amount of twist. 

Before I'd talked with her, I made a list of why I thought I liked the dress so well. We were both all about color and stripes but I had a few more ideas:

   1) The colors! Kathy has a great eye, doesn't she?
   2) The stripes! I love stripes. If you walk into the studio on any given day, the odds of me being in a striped shirt is about 75-25. I probably wear them too much... but I'm not going to change my ways.
   3) The broken stripes! Because the stripes are broken, it tricks the eye and you don't have to worry about the old conventional wisdom of stripes making you look wide. These are slimming!
   4) The 60's vibe! 'Nuff said.
   5) Crochet! It's so hot right now. Have you been hooked yet?

Interweave's Knit Scene Accessories Issue

Knit Scene's Accessories Issue went live today. The hard copy issue will hit news stands on June 5th. 

Reservoir Mitts shown here are by Allyson Dykhuizen. They use our Shepherd Sock in 70 Vera and 23ns Berry. Cute don't you think?

I knit all year 'round. I've never quite understood the idea of putting it down for the summer. That said, I do like small, portable project for the months when I spend more time outdoors. You could toss mitts like these in your  bag and work on them during a ballgame or at the park. 

Something about the entrelac seems to make sense for summer too. Nice small chunks of work that you can easily start and finish. 

Science!

It's kind of funny. When I started dyeing yarn, I didn't really know all that much about chemistry. The last time I'd had any real interaction with it was Mr. Horner's class in high school. Then Lorna's Laces came into my life and terms like pH and acidity became all the rage in my vocabulary. I'm still no whiz and the folks at Pfizer don't need to worry about their job security, but I have a little better handle on things these days.

I chugged along for quite some time thinking that I was doing pretty well with my little corner of the science world and out of the blue came Outlast. A space age fiber that we've incorporated into two yarns, Solemate and Sportmate. I understand how they work but I've found it hard to articulate.

To my delight, the fiber world has its own textile engineer/rock star, Maura Kirk.She blogs about things here and you can find some of her designs here.

Maura understands Outlast on a level I don't and offered to write a guest post about it for us. I think she did a great job of explaining how it works. I may just turn into a science geek after all.



















The National Needle Arts trade shows are an amazing sensory overload for any fiber enthusiast. However, I have never been more excited than the first time I saw Lorna’s Laces Solemate exhibited last June. I regaled anyone that would listen about phase change material! And the microencapsulation! As a textile engineer, I spent my days researching groundbreaking and innovative fibers, and as a knitter, I’d come home to entangle my fingers in unparalleled wool. All of a sudden, here was everything I loved converged in one gorgeous, hand-dyed skein.

Now Lorna’s Laces is expanding their line with Sportmate, a sport weight version of this incredible yarn. If you have warm hands like mine, the first thing you’ll notice is that it feels slightly chilled to the touch when you hold it. That’s the magic of this fiber blend. Outlast is a passive thermal regulator, meaning it’ll cool you when you’re warm and warm you when you’re cool. It is a viscose fiber, like rayon and bamboo. Spun into the fiber itself are microencapsulated beads of phase change material (PCM). A PCM is something that changes states from solid to liquid and back again. Ice is a really common example. Outlast’s PCM is proprietary, but it might be something like paraffin, a wax with a narrow temperature range.

















All this talk of melting and solidifying sounds like it might get messy, but that’s where the microencapsulation comes in. Think of them like teeny teeny tiny Advil gel caps. They’re so small, you can’t feel them and you’d need a microscope just to see them, but they’re holding the PCM that’s going to draw the warm energy away from your skin to cool you and release it back when you’re a bit chilled. It’s not a coating or a finish, so it’s not going to change the way the yarn feels or wear away over time.

And wool! I think we can agree that wool itself is amazing, but do you know why? On a microscopic level, the fiber resembles a spring. The coils of the spring are linked by molecular bonds, so they’ll stretch, but bounce right back to their spring-like shape. This provides a lot of natural resiliency, keeping your handknit garments in the shape you knit them in to. Science and engineering can replicate a lot of wool’s characteristics, but fall short in some crucial ways. You can make a synthetic spring-like fiber, but those bonds holding the coils in place? It’s almost impossible! If you’ve ever knit a sock or a sweater in a manmade fiber and had it stretch out beyond recognition, you’ve experienced this first hand.

So you take the best of what nature has to offer and this amazing bit of new fiber technology, and you’ve got a perfect match. Wool itself is a great thermal insulator and fantastic at wicking, and with some cooling properties, all of the sudden, you can wear your handknit socks year round. You can make a hat for your hot-blooded Uncle Bob who wears tee shirts in an arctic chill. And, if you’re like me, you can geek out about this technological upgrade to wool’s natural near-perfection.

Knitting with Beads

Have you taken the leap and added beads to your knitting? I've always been a little intimidated by the whole idea. But over the past few months, the siren's call has been getting stronger and stronger.

Think about it...You get the trifecta of texture, color and bling just by adding a tiny piece of glass or plastic or whatever to your work. It doesn't really get much better than that.

So, when Laura Nelkin told me about her new Craftsy class, I decided to give it a whirl. The preview she sent makes it look easy. Even better, it makes it look fun!

One of the projects in the class, Accola, uses Shepherd Sock. It's shown here in 809 Midway.




















Laura told me that she really likes the yarn for beading projects "as it is super tough and didn't mind the beads sliding down it at all. Some yarns really fuzz up!"























I'm trying to decide if I like the idea of having the bead be a very similar color like you see here or if I'd like to have more contrast. I think I'm leaning towards a little more bling...what do you think?

Have I sold you on trying beads? What if I told you I have a coupon for you? Yep! The nice folks at Craftsy are offering the class for half price. Join me!

Traveling Companions

I'm in the midst of the week before vacation. The one where you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat panicking that you can't get everything done before you leave. And then go into work and dither and dawdle and do virtually nothing. Sound familiar?

So, let's focus on what's really important: Reading and knitting for the trip.

One day last week I posted on Facebook asking for book suggestions. I got lots of great ideas but nothing quite hit the mark. Then the mail came yesterday.

















Inside was a note from the talented and delightful designer, Sandi Rosner, that read:

I bought this book with dreams of visiting Italy that, sadly, have yet to be fulfilled. I hope you can put it to more immediate use. Have a magical journey.

After the tears dried, I looked a bit more closely at the book. It's a collection of short stories about Italy written by Italians. They are arranged geographically so you can get a little more insight into your trip as you go along.

I can't think of a nicer surprise to find in the mailbox. I am so lucky to work in yarn.

The next task is to decide on knitting. We're packing lightly for the trip so I wanted to bring something that gave me a lot of bang for the buck, so to speak.

I decided on a Susan Pierce Lawrence's Fountain Pen Shawl.
















I'm using Helen's Lace in one of our new colors, Kedzie. I just finished winding it into a ball, so I'm all set.















Under most circumstances I would never dream of only bringing one project on a trip this long, but since we're spending part of the trip here, I figure if I need to, I can always pick up a little something to tide me over.


So, the important things are all decided. I guess I need to get back to work.....