tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86241772024-03-13T06:23:46.248-05:00FiberLifeFor all things to do with fiber! Spinning, weaving, knitting, tatting, crochet, quilting - any or all - although you'll find most of the current focus on spinning and knitting. Browse and comment and ask questions; everyone is welcome!PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-52780566523322137102011-03-30T06:01:00.000-05:002011-03-30T06:01:25.537-05:00Technology and FiberGenerally speaking, folks don’t associate spinners, weavers and knitters with any technology more sophisticated than a small calculator – and indeed, you can easily practice these crafts with merely a piece of paper and a pencil as long as you possess arithmetic proficiency on a par with that of a third-grader. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division will get you through.
But the PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-44169703306912635102011-02-22T07:23:00.000-05:002011-02-22T07:23:26.821-05:00Modifying Our Tools As We AgeRather depressing title, this one – although modifying the way we do things does indeed come at some point in our lives. My modification stage has hit a bit early, based on a combination of heredity and environmental factors, and I’ve been receiving quite a few questions lately about how I’m managing to continue doing the things I do. So I’ve decided to document it here, in hopes my experiencesPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-80454782793646283252010-12-03T06:35:00.000-05:002010-12-03T06:35:22.919-05:00Why Do You Do That?Does anyone else have a set of stock answers to the perennial questions asked of a knitter and spinner working in public? I was sitting in a waiting room yesterday for several hours while my husband was having some minor surgery. As usual, I passed the hours working on a couple of projects, trading out as the whim struck or as my hands began to ache a bit.
I was working on the second foot ofPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-45896657085873507372010-11-30T09:51:00.000-05:002010-11-30T09:51:03.026-05:00Question for the Yarn IndustryRant warning
I’m officially fed up. Fed up enough to swear off any yarn that’s dyed by anyone else! Which is bad news for my LYS and several on-line vendors. But (did I mention?) I’ve had it!!!
What has aroused my ire to such an extent? Yarns that bleed, and bleed, and bleed, and bleed – until the lovely colors for which you purchased them are pale. You buy a skein (or 10) of a beautiful, PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-16865865210682899052010-11-18T12:27:00.000-05:002010-11-18T12:27:00.441-05:00The Second Shetland Shawl for 2010! - MichaelMost of you are aware that 2010’s knitting plans were hijacked when first my daughter-in-law and then my daughter announced their pregnancies. Suddenly my self-appointed task of designing, spinning for and knitting a Shetland-type shawl for each grandchild became the total focus for ALL of my fiber time. However, I am happy to announce that both shawls are now finished!
Michael’s shawl was PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-39849962495597110282010-08-25T06:24:00.003-05:002010-08-25T06:32:49.168-05:00Shetland Shawl Update – One Complete, One More to Go!I have completed one of the grandchild shawls – one photo is above, others are at my Flickr account. You may recall that I blogged about this earlier this year on Shetland Shawls and Me. As you can see, I changed the edging from the original plan – I simply decided that Feather and Fan would suit the design better. Completed on August 22; blocked August 23 with the help of my local yarn shop’s PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-54901887339069086762010-07-23T05:38:00.001-05:002010-07-23T05:40:06.730-05:00Knitting Bookshelf Must-HavesI’m teaching another sweater design course – a summer version of the same Knitting to Fit course that I taught in the winter. It’s so much fun to see intermediate knitters ‘get it’ and take off into designing their own sweaters that incorporate exactly the details they want and fit them exactly!One of the comments I make in the class materials is what I’d like to talk about. I take an entire PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-42404981881563991762010-06-25T13:37:00.002-05:002010-06-25T13:41:59.949-05:00Our Fiber ToolboxesWe have many tools in our boxes as knitters and spinners – some even duplicate each other! Let’s take a look at some of those tools, and talk about the possibilities of adding to our toolboxes.As spinners, we have many tools. Fiber itself is our weightiest (pun intended) tool, of course. Most spinners collect fibers like any other collector – gleefully and with some measure of abandon – PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-66598068725758096152010-05-24T13:26:00.000-05:002010-05-24T13:28:27.666-05:00Gauge SwatchGauge, with or without the word swatch attached, is one of ‘those’ terms. I’ve heard knitters say the words as though they were spelled with four letters, and seen them written as ‘g*&#e’ or ‘s@#$%h’ more times than one. Every single knitter has an opinion about swatching, and they’ll defend those opinions with the same fervor they bring to the questions of needle material or continental vs. PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-55387083647476981982010-05-13T05:21:00.010-05:002010-11-19T14:20:44.611-05:00Shetland Shawls and MeMy knitting plans for this year were fairly simple. Make a summer sweater or two, socks for the winter, a sweater vest for my DH, and spin for a shawl for myself. Life, as it so frequently does, had other ideas.
Occasionally, like most knitters, I get ambitious. Six years ago when we were expecting our first grandchild, I wanted something quite special to welcome that new life into the familyPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-85894893565273442462010-04-20T10:19:00.000-05:002010-04-20T10:21:11.918-05:00And The Wheel Spins ‘RoundIt’s funny how our fiber journeys wind around and around. I started, 40-plus years ago, as a seamstress, quilter and crocheter. Give or take a couple of years, I added other types of sewing and pattern-making in my 20’s; tatting and four-harness weaving and needle lace in my 30’s; spinning, knitting, and multiple-harness weaving in my 40’s. Now I’m in my 50’s and teaching almost all of these PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-56702859613699610212010-02-23T09:48:00.003-05:002010-02-23T10:50:33.670-05:00Musings on My Current Class…I’m finishing a sweater class right now at my LYS. I sweated over the class instructions for literally months, re-writing, editing, changing and re-writing yet again. Mostly because this class isn’t supposed to teach students how to make a single sweater pattern. No, this one is titled “Knitting to Fit” and is designed to show knitters how to modify a design or design a well-fitting sweater PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-72401124067407069712010-01-20T10:00:00.001-05:002010-01-20T10:04:24.766-05:00Why Do We Make It So Hard?I’d like to start by saying that I know I’m not any smarter than my grandmother. Or you. My skill set is different from hers due to the time and place I live; I have no need to kill, pluck and cut apart a chicken to fix for dinner, for example, just as my grandmother had no need to learn to operate a computer. Nonetheless, Grandma and I have some things in common. She was a gutsy lady who PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-71810136622063824572009-11-23T10:48:00.001-05:002009-11-23T10:49:40.170-05:00New Spinners...are wonderful!The spindling class ended Saturday at lunchtime. I'm quite pleased - out of six students, I had three total fiberholic spinners! The remaining three students learned what they wanted from the class - a lot more about how yarns are formed and how to choose them for their projects. So I can call this one a success, I think.New spinners are full of enthusiasm! They find everything about spinningPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-90666225130435730262009-11-13T11:19:00.002-05:002009-11-13T11:31:14.692-05:00Rant Warning! In Defense of Designers!All of you are well aware that I'm a total fiber junkie who explores odd nooks and crannies that might hold yarn and fiber wherever I happen to be. Most of you know that I teach various fiber-related classes. Some of you also know that I design knitting, weaving, tatting and crochet patterns, although I keep that fairly quiet. I prefer to help others design rather than have people making my PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-78708224034506993532009-11-10T09:50:00.001-05:002009-11-10T09:51:58.072-05:00I'm So Proud...My spinning class on Saturday got off to a great start! Of course there were the usual beginning bobbles and fluffs, but by the end of the class everyone was making yarn! I'm so proud of these ladies - they're truly wonderful and such good sports!My ramblings last week appear to have borne something or other. I did indeed break down the spindling process to minimal bits, starting with fondlingPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-67065393002259391422009-11-05T09:26:00.002-05:002009-11-05T09:46:47.114-05:00Spindling Class Begins Saturday!A note to any of my students who read this prior to the class: you WILL succeed in learning to spindle - as long as you're willing to give yourself time to learn. Muscle memory isn't built in a single two-hour class, or even in three. It's built with patient practice, a little bit every day. It's akin to learning to play a musical instrument; in order to become proficient you must not only study PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-46321170879606147042009-08-19T05:38:00.003-05:002009-08-19T05:47:24.955-05:00Those Fingerless Mitts I Mentioned...Those were truly a fun project - and one from which I learned a lot (again) about spinning for a specific purpose! But let's start at the beginning of the story. Picture me climbing into the passenger seat of a very high full-size van en route to do something undefined at that strange place where I earn the money I put into necessities like fiber and yarn. My partner in staving off tedium PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-23243627580396852562009-08-10T09:25:00.001-05:002009-08-10T09:27:30.251-05:00Teaching thinking knitters...I'm having such fun right now! A new LYS has opened up right down the road from my home, and I'm happily teaching my first knitting class in almost a year. Socks are fun to teach, fun to learn, and such a wonderful summer project! I have five wonderful students, all at different stages of their knitting life, and they're providing both a challenge and a camaraderie that I've been missing PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-51945062524816308852009-07-01T11:09:00.003-05:002009-07-01T11:13:59.204-05:00Learning... Many thanks to everyone who has continued to visit this blog, and leave me lovely comments about what they've learned or enjoyed. What have I been up to, and why has it been so long since my last post? Well, things change during our lives, and sometimes they change in most unexpected ways. As you can see from the photo above, I've done a little travelling this last year. Italy was PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-66589716286170865852008-03-03T14:14:00.003-05:002008-03-03T14:16:17.008-05:00Baby Sweaters and EZ and Me…About three years ago we went through one of those periods at work where it seemed that everyone was having a baby. You know what that’s like – you get one person making an announcement and next thing you know there are five, and you’re seriously debating the merits of bottled water as an alternative work-time liquid!Since three of the people bursting at the seams were friends of mine, I startedPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-61426566372700230762008-01-14T12:13:00.000-05:002008-01-14T12:29:57.091-05:00Post-Holiday knitting and notes on my own design processI’ve been busily knitting since the holidays – mostly several versions of Knitty’s Ice Queen in Kid Silk haze of blue and bright pink, followed by the wimple below in a pattern of my own devising. “How can you possibly make up your own patterns?” is something I hear all the time from both knitters and non-knitters. So I thought I’d detail the process that led to this leaf-lace wimple, and sharePJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-69399377547512825882007-11-02T10:08:00.000-05:002007-11-02T10:12:57.265-05:00Dribs and DrabsDribs and DrabsWork is interfering with my fiber life to an incredible degree right now, and I don’t like it! However, work is necessary to pay the everyday bills as well as underwrite the fiber things, so I can’t complain too much.I have made two interesting fiber-related trips in recent months. First, there was The Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-Silverdale Washington area over Memorial Day week. The PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-79292280048490511442007-04-25T14:29:00.000-05:002007-04-25T14:32:41.625-05:00Fiber for KnittersI received an email the other day from a local knitting group asking me to talk to a group of knitters about spinning. They didn't really want a spinning demonstration (it couldn't be that easy!), but rather a discussion of what knitters need to know about fibers to help them make more successful projects. So I started looking at what I call “Fibers 101,” a course that I’ve added to this blog inPJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8624177.post-62071487778365504802007-04-18T11:58:00.000-05:002007-04-18T11:59:10.619-05:00Playing Catch-Up!“Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you…” is one of my husband’s favorite remarks. Lately it’s been apt for me, particularly since I feel that the bear has been winning most of the time!I’m oh-so-slowly spinning up 5 ounces of merino-clun forest rainbow space-dyed roving from a dye-in last fall. Progress is being measured in yards, rather than my usual multiple ounces. I’m PJ Kitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02835001952770913494noreply@blogger.com1