March 2023

Erinn go Bragh!  (In case you didn’t know this actually means “Ireland Forever”).  Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone who is of Irish heritage (even if only for one day).

The Fiber House is open til 7pm on Wednesdays.   Come on it and hang out, get help, or schedule a one-on-one class. 

Event Round Up

Fair Isle KAL. Learn Fair Isle (stranded knitting) using two colors in a simple hat pattern.  Classes continue through March.  If you are adventurous, we will then continue with a top-down seamless yoke sweater with a fair isle design.  You can also choose to do a top-down sweater without doing the fair-isle design.  We’ll be using the CocoKnits Sweater Workshop for the sweater classes.

6^th Annual Cowboy Yarn Crawl – seven shops and a whole state to visit! Memorial Day to Labor Day.  Start planning your road trips now!

Mar – Apr Classes – 

Weekly Classes:

Wednesdays 1 to 4pm and Saturdays 10 to Noon – Learn to Knit/ Crochet.

Thursdays, 1-3pm - The Hub Group 

Saturdays, Mar 18, Friday, Mar 10, 1-4pm – Fair Isle Hat/ Sweater

Saturday Mar 4 and 25, Friday Mar 17, 1-4pm – Beginner Top-Down Socks

Friday, Mar 24, Saturday, Mar 11– Crocheted Baby Afghan

Fridays, Mar 3, 1-4pm – Mini How To: Making repairs and fixing mistakes

Coming in April: Thrummed mittens and skew socks.

March Special-

10% off All Cotton Yarns

IF you are thinking about knitting or crocheting a new summer top, now is the time to shop for the perfect yarn.  We have a lot of lovely cotton and cotton blend yarns.  Some of my favorites are Brown Sheep’s Cotton Fleecc or try any of Berroco’s new summer yarns: Spree, Splash and Lumi.   We also have a lot of great yarns for washcloths and placemats such as Plymouth’s Fantasy Naturale, Rico’s Dune, and Queensland ‘s Coastal Cotton.  The Coastal Cotton also has some new speckled color ways as well as the original solids.  We also have a lot of colors in Juniper Moon Farms’ Cumulus, Cumulus Rainbow, and Nimbus.  The Nimbus has been very popular for making some sweet little baby sweaters.  We also have a couple of wonderful cotton blends, such as Universal’s Bamboo Pop (a bamboo/cotton blend)and Jody Long’s Coastline (a cotton/linen/viscose blend) and the new Lino Moda (cotton/linen blend)

Just in time for summer knitting we have new speckled colors in Queensland ‘s Coastal Cotton.  And we also just got in the latest color pack of Opal 4-ply sock yarns: Wasserwelten.  

We also have Jody Long’s new Lino Moda, a lovely cotton/linen blend with some truly gorgeous patterns 

and Ciao Carnival, a superwash merino in fun variegated colors.

New books include cool how-to books. Plain Weave by Tina Ingnell, which explores a variety of ways to create stunning designs with the most basic of weaving techniques.  Fishermen’s Knits from the Coast of Norway by Line Iversen and Margareth Sandvik, has a history of fishermen sweaters as well as 20 gorgeous designs that make me want to start another project right now. The Knowledge Knitter by Margaret Radcliffe will help you modify and knit sweaters with more confidence.  Knitting Modular Shawls, Wraps, and Stoles by Melissa Leapman shows you how to create your own accessory with a over 185 stitch patterns.

Weaving and Spinning News

Reminder:  we will be moving our meeting to the 3^rd Sunday of the month to accommodate other scheduled events and we are also changing the meeting time to 1:00.  We will be meeting at the UU Fellowship building, Sunday Mar 19, 2023 from 1 to 4pm.  Bring a snack to share.  

In Consideration of . . . (also known as – Donna’s Soapbox):

Learn by Watching

Who would have thought that 40 years after MTV introduced us to the music video (August 1, 1981), there would be a video available for almost anything you want to watch.  Blogs, tutorials, old TV commercials, . . . you name it, you can probably find a video online for it.   Heck I even found an old movie from the 1940s on how they used to make tin cans.

I think the most popular videos are the tutorials.  Videos you can watch over and over to learn a new craft, or how to do almost anything  - really cool things, really weird things, and even really crazy, scary things.

There are so many videos available now, on YouTube or other on websites, sometimes you can get a little lost.  My biggest complaint about online videos, it how do you know which video is the right one to watch?  Just as an example, when I googled “how to knit the knit stitch” and clicked on just the videos, there were 5,510,000 results.  Yep, 5 MILLION results.  “How to knit for beginners” brought up over two million hits.  Even just “how to hold the yarn” brought up over two million hits. Worse yet, I can think of at least five different ways to knit  - English (or throwing), continental (picking), Portugese (tensioning the yarn around the neck or a knitting pin), Pit knitting (holding the needle in the armpit or between the knees), and on a knitters loom.  Even within those categories, there are a variety of ways people hold the yarn in their hands, wrap the yarn around the needle, etc. 

If you are a brand new knitter, how do you even know if the videos you select will show you the best way for you to knit?  If you select a tutorial on English knitting, you may get frustrated because it’s not comfortable for you.  So then do you give up? Or find another tutorial?  At that point do you even know that there might be a different way to knit that you like better?

My second critique of online videos is that you can’t ask them questions.  I know most of them allow you to post comments, but what if the video is 10 years old?  Is the video producer still answering questions?  How long would you have to wait to get a response?  Also, some people are much better at doing tutorial and some are just plain bad!  One other caveat – some YouTube videos you have to pay to view.

Obviously, since I teach classes, I’m going to advocate for you to find someone to teach you in person.  However, that being said, I do find myself looking at video tutorials occasionally.  Mostly if I come across a pattern that has a special technique that I haven’t encountered before.  But unless the designer has their own video, I will go look at several different videos, just to make sure I’m getting the best information and correct technique.

I’m sure if you’ve looked at videos, you have your favorites.  But here are a few the ones that I think are exceptional, with well-designed videos and clear explanations:

-               Michelle Hunter at www.knitpurlhunter.com for great individual videos on specific stitches or techniques

-               Studio Knit on YouTube, general knitting tutorials as well as stitch patterns.  Some you have to subscribe to see.

-               Stephen West for particular techniques specific to his patterns.

-               Jessie at Home, www.jessieathome.com, has videos for a lot of crafts including knitting and crochet.

Lastly, a shout out for our sister store in Gillette.  Sellenee at Swanky Mountain has several videos on YouTube for specific projects and techniques.

My best recommendation though, is to look at multiple videos on whatever you want to learn.  Everyone has a different way of teaching and learning and everyone also has different ideas and experiences to share.  One explanation may not work for you but someone else may have just the right thing that gives you that “aha” moment.