Category Archives: Shop

Say hello to the Sheepmoji tote!

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Say hello to the Sheepmoji tote from Fringe Supply Co!

This has been the hardest thing to keep under my hat because I love this tote — it just makes me laugh. For this year’s Fringe Supply Co. tote bag design, I enlisted one of my dearest friends and favorite illustrators, Mignon Khargie, to make me a “sheepmoji” heart-eyed sheep and she hit it out of the park. The Sheepmoji tote is making its live appearance at Stitches South in booth 325/327 — where DG and I will be today through Sunday — but you can also order it right now at Fringe Supply Co. to be shipped on Monday (lots of restocks this week, so look around!) or pick one up today at any of these fine stores—

CALIFORNIA
Unwind, in Burbank; Yarns on First in Napa; Abuelita’s in Pasadena; Knitterly in Petaluma

COLORADO
Fancy Tiger Crafts in Denver

CONNECTICUT
Knit New Haven in New Haven

GEORGIA
Fuzzy Goat Yarns in Thomasville

MINNESOTA
The Yarnery in St. Paul

MISSOURI
A Grand Yarn in Arrow Rock (as of May 1)

OREGON
Knitting Bee in Beaverton; Stash Local in Corvallis; Happy Knits in Portland

PENNYSYLVANIA
Hidden River Yarns in Philadelphia

TENNESSEE
Haus of Yarn in Nashville; Nutmeg in East Nashville

WASHINGTON
Apple Yarns in Bellingham; Tolt Yarn and Wool in Carnation

NEW JERSEY
Home Made in Swainton; Do Ewe Knit in Westfield

TEXAS
Me and Ewe in Austin (congrats on your grand opening!); Madtosh Crafts in Benbrook

VIRGINIA
Fibre Space in Alexandria

WISCONSIN
Firefly Fibers in Beaver Dam; Make.Do @ KC&T in Kaukauna

CANADA
88 Stitches in Langley, British Columbia; Knit Stitch in London, Ontario

FRANCE
L’Oisive Thé in Paris

And en route to Purl Soho, so check with them in a few days!

I’m especially jealous of anyone who gets to buy it in Paris. But wherever you are, run don’t walk! And I hope you have a magnificent weekend—

Re-introducing Amirisu

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Re-introducing Amirisu

A little over a year ago, I was raving about the Japanese digital magazine Amirisu and today I’m happy to say it’s now not only a print mag, but it’s available at Fringe Supply Co. I had the pleasure of meeting the editor, Meri, at last spring’s trade show and again at Squam, and have been watching as it evolved into a print mag (and a yarn shop in Japan, which also stocks Fringe goods). Over the winter, Meri asked if I would be interested in writing for Amirisu, starting with a short essay about moving to Nashville. And since that essay appears in the new issue, volume 7, it seemed like a good time to add it to our magazine collection. Among the other content (everything is in both Japanese and English, don’t worry!), you’ll find five knitting patterns in this issue, my favorite of which obviously is the summer version of a cable sweater pictured above. And like Pom Pom, each copy of Amirisu comes with a unique code for the digital version, so you can have your cake and download it too!

Hot Tip: Off-center your buttons

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Hot Tip: Off-center your buttons

Once you’ve worked out the specifics of where and by which method to knit the holes into a buttonhole band, it seems like an easy enough proposition to sew the buttons onto the button band in corresponding positions. And that’s not hard: Most people will line up the two bands, put a pin (or removable stitch marker) in each spot where a button should be sewn, and then commence sewing. But how often have you seen (or experienced) a case where, once the buttons are buttoned, the two bands no longer overlap correctly? You wind up seeing the buttonhole band plus 1/4 or 1/3 of the button band peeking out alongside it. It’s a common mistake: centering the buttons horizontally on the band.

What? How can centering the buttons be wrong? When a garment is on you (this applies to sewn garments and their plackets as well as sweaters and their bands), the two bands will naturally attempt to pull apart. The button doesn’t magically float in the center of the hole. Gravity and body mass cause the edge of the buttonhole to rest against the stitching of the button. So if it’s to anchor the buttonhole band directly over the button band, the stitching of the button needs to line up with the edge of the buttonhole. I used to have to stop and think about this every time, which direction to shift the button, but then I heard Pam Allen say it so plainly on a knit.fm podcast: You need to sew the buttons slightly closer to the body side of the band. That’s all there is to remember. Sew the buttons slightly closer to the body side of the band.

ON A RELATED SHOP NOTE: These stunning blackened brass buttons I used for my vintage waistcoat are now available at Fringe Supply Co. I ordered a small batch of them awhile back to have a look at, and forgot all about them until I was digging around for the perfect buttons for this vest. I’ll be ordering more, but what I have on hand are now up for grabs! ALSO: the coolest little scissors you ever did see. Available in black, silver and gold.

Happy weekend!

NEW! Scissors and buttons at Fringe Supply Co.

PREVIOUSLY in Hot Tip: Mark your armhole depth

What’s new (and new again)

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What's new (and new again)

It’s been quite the dry spell in the receiving department at Fringe HQ lately — thanks to winter storms and dock worker strikes and other pesky delays — but thankfully our beloved delivery drivers have returned this week, bearing boxes full of goodies too numerous to detail. Suffice to say there are books and tools and Bentos and, best of all, the Bucket Tote now comes in the black-and-white rain print. Huzzah! So hop on over to Fringe Supply Co. and see if whatever you’ve been waiting for is back on the virtual shelves.

Thank you for all of your responses to yesterday’s Q for You as well as your generous advice about my grandmother’s shawl. It’s been an insanely busy week for me (lots of exciting things happening behind the scenes right now) and I haven’t been able to respond to everything, but I’ve read every word and appreciate you all so much!

Have a wonderful weekend—

Pom Pom, tea towels and so much more

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Pom Pom, tea towels and more!

I’ve written, edited and published more words this week than I can even think about, so I’m keeping it brief today — just a few tidbits of exciting shop news—

• The new Pom Pom has arrived
• The flour sack towels are back, at long last!
• New snips
• Shorter bone DPNs
• UPDATE: FASHIONARY is now back in stock!
• and lots more

I’ll be keeping an eye on the Audrey knitalong all weekend, including any comments/questions posted to the pattern page. It’s lovely to see the #fringehatalong tag already springing to life, and I can’t wait to see everyone’s hats!

Have a happy Valentine’s Day (if you’re into it) and happy knitting! Thanks so much for reading this week (and always).

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Planning a wardrobe: Or, My new favorite notebook

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How to plan a wardrobe: Or, my new favorite notebook

When I was younger — well, up until a few years ago, really — I used to sit around drawing outfits. It was the best way for me organize my thoughts and remind myself of ideas when thinking about how the garments in my closet went together. Or what I needed to shop for. They were super crude — I was never the best at drawing, and didn’t get a lot of practice. But I’m a lifelong admirer of fashion illustration and always dreamed of being good at it.

I’m pretty sure the first I ever heard of Fashionary was a photo last year on @lladybird’s feed. (aka Lauren Taylor of the Lladybird blog — hi, Lauren!)  I was stunned at her confident drawings, bemused by her stylish way of staggering the figures on the pages, in awe of how uniformly … sized … they were … hey, wait a minute, what is this? And then I read the caption and learned it’s a sketchbook called Fashionary, which has the faintest of figures outlined on the page for you to draw over. Not to discount Lauren’s illustration skills at all (the girl can draw), but it’s basically cheating! It’s BRILLIANT.

It turned up again a month ago on Grainline Studio, and I broke down and ordered one. The day it came, I started sketching the tops I want to make to go under all my cardigans. Then I sketched my sweater queue. And within a few minutes of receiving it, it ranked among my favorite possessions in the world. So naturally I ordered a big box of them for Fringe Supply Co!

I’m not nearly as talented as Lauren or Jen, but by drawing my same plain line drawings over these figures, and thereby getting the relative proportions right (!) I sorta-kinda look like I know what I’m doing, right? I have never been more excited about my sweater queue.

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p.s. I’ve had a request or two for a post about good tops for wearing with cardigans, and that’s something I’ve actually been working on, so consider that upper image a preview of the post to come!

Study: the Wool Issue

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Study: the Wool Issue

Every once in awhile I get wind of something that feels genuinely special — in a quiet, small-scale, uncommon way — and it gives me pleasure to be able to lay it in front of you all. Today that something special is the Wool Issue of a tiny little journal called Study, published by a pair of talented friends who are divided between Ohio and California. Study is a “single-subject nature journal,” a labor of love, and when I heard they were working on an issue devoted to the subject of wool, I jumped all over it. The way that I heard about it is that three of the people featured in the issue do their work within a few steps of Fringe HQ: my sweet friends Rebekka Seale of Camellia Fiber Company and Lisa Garcia of Soñadora Handmade, as well as Han Starnes of Josi Faye, who I’ve blogged about, long ago, but have never met. (I only recently discovered we’re neighbors and have been too shy to go knock on the door, but one of these days …) So I met Lily one day while she was here shooting photos for the issue, and she’s completely charming and the past issues are lovely and so I loaded up on the Wool Issue, and the good news is, it’s as good as I had hoped! And not something that will be repeated. You can read more about what’s inside over at Fringe Supply Co.

And if you haven’t picked up issue two of TAC yet, I’d suggest grabbing that while you’re there. The cover is nobody’s favorite color, I realize, but it really is a magnificent issue.

Here in Middle Tennessee, we’re promised a glimpse of the sun this weekend, along with temperatures that start with a 5 instead of a minus sign, so I’m hoping to get photos of a certain cardigan taken. What will you be up to?

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