Corinne at The Woolly Thistle has everyone TOTALLY obsessed with her 'Vanilla Sweater.' She knit two simple, seamless, top-down raglan sweaters in Rauma Finullgarn and showed them on her shop updates. EVERYONE wanted to make one. She says she got her recipe from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters. https://www.instagram.com/p/B-r6YVOJndi/ Check out her other…
Slow Knitting
I would assign many adjectives to myself as a knitter. Slow is not one of them. It has never been one of them. Even when I was nine years old, I wanted to whip through things. It was about productivity, never process. Me trying on a yoked sweater, clearly pleased. (Yes, the stuffed human to…
Festive Doodle
I have a new obsession. Her name is Festive Doodle. Festive Doodle is a new pattern from Boyland Knitworks. It’s made with four different colors of sock yarn and is an allover colorwork sweater. I feel like I could’ve made it from scraps, if I had my scraps with me in quarantine. But I got…
An Unexpected Love Letter
I hate knitting socks. People always ask me why I hate knitting socks. Mainly, I don't find them functional. They get walked on all day. I don't care how much nylon is in those socks, they will not hold up forever. I don't actually hate knitting them, I just don't trust them. I learned to…
Quarantine Knitting
We’re all isolating right now. This is a strange moment. But, for knitters, a little less terrible. We have our yarn, we have our needles, and we have a lot of free and discounted patterns! The knitting community is proving, if it hadn’t already, that we take care of each other. The Grocery Girls Knits,…
My Vanilla Sweater
As I wrote in my last post, I was inspired by Corinne over at The Woolly Thistle to knit what she calls a ‘vanilla sweater.’ She does regular shop updates and podcasts, all available on YouTube, and had been working on (and subsequently wearing) a lovely purple crew-neck raglan sweater that she knit out of…
Heaven is a Place on Earth: London Knitting Shops
I am a graduate student writing a thesis. And I’m one of the lucky ones – I get to travel because of it. My special field is English church music, and the thesis is focused on trying to figure out what forces bar girls and women from singing at an elite (paid) level in cathedrals…
FO: Magnolia Sweater!
Remember my Selfish Knitting post? I've finished the first of these sweaters! As promised, here are the photos and details of my Magnolia Sweater, from Laine 4. I. Love. This. Sweater. I used two yarns, held together: Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in "Love or Lust" and Valley Yarn Southampton in "Merlot." The knitting world seems…
Tools of the Trade
Knitters LOVE tools. We don’t really need them—all a knitter really needs is needles and yarn—but they make our work a lot easier and more enjoyable. I have a lot of tools, which are all a mix of style and substance. Here, then, is a jumble of knitting tools, some of which I could theoretically…
Selfish Knitting
I’ve spent a lot of time and energy on knitting since starting a PhD program (please don’t ask me to talk about why yet – I have spent enough time on that with both my advisor and my therapist, often with tears). Because I knit quickly, there is absolutely no way on earth I could…
Barnaby Knits 