Barnaby Knits

I’m about two-thirds of the way through my Lapwing sweater, which is a nontraditional fair isle sweater by Marie Wallin, and I thought I’d share some things I’ve learned from it. If you want to see my Ravelry project page, it's linked here. 1. Once you get going, it’s hard to stop and work on…

Remember back in the early summer when I said I was going to start writing exclusively about fair-isle work? Me neither. I was ALL IN. I read SO many books on colorwork: The Vintage Shetland Project, Alice Starmore's book, Ann Feitelson's book, Sheila MacGregor's book, Marie Wallin pattern books, books on Norwegian knitting, since it's…

I feel like I should start off with an apology because, wow, it’s been a minute. This whole summer has been lazy. I did post once last month, but otherwise I just haven’t been really inspired to write since I got the rest of my yarn back. Like I said last time, it’s a little…

I have always been a mix of process and product knitter. Part of me enjoys knitting because it's something to do with my hands, which I find hard to keep still. It's something that makes watching Netflix feel more productive. I can listen to audiobooks and read while also getting something done. If you're this…

I recently became absolutely obsessed with Caitlin Hunter's Festive Doodle sweater. I dyed my own palette to knit it and I'm here to tell you about my experience...and the super cute FO! Here's my version! This pattern fits well within my fair-isle obsession because it uses the fair-isle technique of stranded colorwork, although this garment…

As I have said MORE THAN ONCE on this blog, I've never been much of a sock knitter. But, if you've been following my posts, you'll know that COVID turned me into one, in a manner of speaking (and by that I mean I knit one pair because I didn't know what to do with…

Although I learned to knit as a young kid, I never learned very many exciting knitting skills until I finished college. I made hats, scarves, and blanket squares, and I could cable. I distinctly remember sitting on the futon in my Toronto apartment knitting with my roommate in our third year of university. We’d woken…

I'm a fast knitter. I've always been a fast knitter. I sometimes like to compete with myself to see if I can break my speed records for things. 3 mittens in 24 hours, for instance, is my best small-item speed. I can often do a sock in the span of a day, if I don't…

I love to watch Grocery Girls Knit on YouTube. They do weekly updates now, usually live, because everyone can use more time to relax and knit during this isolation period. They're hilarious and talented. As part of their weekly catch-ups, they show lots of things: yarn they've ordered and want to show, things they'll give…

According to Ravelry, there are at least 4,653 Soldotna Crops in the world. Or, at least, some variation of the Soldotna. It's barely a year old. This is one of those patterns that took the knitting world by STORM. Soldotna is a super cute DK-weight cropped t-shirt by Boyland Knitworks.. You can make a smaller…