Inspiring mods of the Steekalong

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Inspiring mods of the Steekalong

While there aren’t people taking really major liberties with the Sólbein Cardigan (which 99% of the #fringeandfriendssteekalong participants are knitting), there are numerous smaller modifications happening that illustrate all of the freedoms and flexibilities that excite me so much about knitting, so I wanted to point you to some of them. These are the sorts of design detail tweaks you can consider for just about any sweater you might knit:

BOTTOM: Pullover. @heyjoanne9999 left out the steek stitches in front to convert Sólbein to a pullover, but is planning to steek some side slits at the hips.

MIDDLE LEFT: Short rows. Several knitters have added short rows between the neckband and start of the colorwork, so the back neck will sit higher. @caitmariejohnson shared her notes on how she did it (swipe to the third image in the linked post) as did @knitterbree.

TOP: Vertical button band. For her second Sólbein already completed, @ivyknitsfast (no joke) knitted vertical 1×1 rib button bands and seamed them on. If you’ve ever wondered what a difference that makes, just look.

MIDDLE RIGHT: I-cord edging. @ceciliainstafford opted for I-cord edging all the way around, which has given it a vintage sweater-jacket look.

It’s hard to believe we’re only halfway through the official timeframe, given how many finished sweaters there are. But again, the fact that so many people have completed sweaters in under three weeks tells you there’s still plenty of time to join in! And remember, you don’t have to be finished to be eligible for prizes. The details on all that are in the kick-off post.

I’m casting on this weekend! Happy Friday, everyone—

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PREVIOUSLY in Fringe and Friends Steekalong: Hot tips and tricks

Making time for more

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Fringe Association: Frequency and focus

The number one thing you guys tell me, especially when I get to meet you in person, is that your favorite thing about this blog is that it’s daily. (Every weekday, anyway.) You tell me you look for the email first thing in the morning, or you just call up the ol’ URL, and you read the day’s post with your coffee. And it melts my heart every time. So this is a decision I’ve taken a really long time to make because you’ve told me it matters, but: I am slowing down the pace.

I’ve seen this happen to so many people who have blogs and start businesses, and the businesses get busy, and they stop blogging. I don’t want to do that. Blogging feeds me — it’s the part of the day where I feel most like myself, and most like I’m so lucky to get to do what I’m doing. But the reality remains that I am spread way too thin. I’ve been working 60-70 hour weeks for as long as I can remember, and being stretched so thin has affected my ability to feel good about what I’m doing with the blog. (Not to mention my time to knit and sew.)

I used to have a rule of thumb for how many posts were about what I’m doing versus how many about other people — whether a Maker Crush or an interview or who’s putting out great patterns or developing a new yarn or hosting an interesting event or whatever. And the more stretched I am, the less time I have to look up and look around and dig in, which has resulted in there being less content here about other people, and that’s my favorite kind. 

I’ve tried to decide and declare this before and then I slide back into my 5-day habit, because that’s how habits work. But I’m holding myself to it this time. And I’m also thinking a lot about ways to make all of the amazing people and information buried in the archives more accessible, starting with the people. Starting with literally putting the word People in the top menu up there. Populating that means going back through the entire history of the blog and retagging the posts that are about someone other than me, and so far I’ve only done 2018, but right now you can click that and scroll and find everyone from Teresa who handspins Brusca in her home in Portugal to Daniel Day Lewis and his gansey, and the interview with gansey expert Dib Gillanders that followed. And so much else! 

I’ve also included all the Elsewheres in the People scroll, because those are inherently lists I’ve made about other people doing and making interesting things. (Note that I’ve only included New Favorites in cases where they are hooked on a single designer’s work.) So I’ll keep adding to it, and I hope you’ll explore it. And then there will be more!

It means a lot to me that you take time out of your day to come read what I’ve written, and I want to do right by you. So I’m going to try a 3-days-a-week approach and see how that goes, and I hope you understand this decision! I’m so grateful to you for reading. 

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Pictured above are the most recent 12 people to have been individually highlighted on the blog in some way, so here are the shortcuts to those posts:

• New Favorites: Yuko Shimizu sweaters
• Meet Steekalong insta-panelist No. 1: Kristine Vejar
• New Favorites: Sari’s cable hats
• Steekalong q&a: Mary Jane on choosing yarn
• New Favorites: Wearable superbulky (Tara-Lynn Morrison)
• 1-Q interview: Megan Elizabeth of Making Things
• Slow Fashion October q&a: Gina Stovall
• Maker Crush: Llane Alexis
• New Favorites: Brandi’s neck sculptures
• Slow Fashion October q&a: Katrina Rodabaugh
• Slow Fashion October q&a: Martha McQuade
• Maker Crush: Natalie of The Tiny Closet

The day I almost steeked

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The day I almost steeked

I haven’t gotten to knit the past couple of weeks — was hoping to cast on my Sólbein for the Steekalong this weekend, but work intervened. But there was a brief and shining moment yesterday afternoon where the sun peeked through the clouds for the first time in about 10 days and it made me suddenly desperate to do something in that momentary spot of light. So I grabbed my purple lopi sweater, ripped out the neckband, and placed a couple of stitch markers to mark the center front stitch and where I want the tip of the V of the new cardigan front to sit. Then I threaded some hot pink waste yarn onto a tapestry needle, basted a line where the center front cut will go, and continued upwards each direction toward the raglan seams. I basically just eyeballed it, since I can’t think of a more accurate way to do it that isn’t more tedious than I could bear.

The plan is to run two rows of machine stitching alongside these basting stitches before cutting it open, but as soon as I slid the sweater under the foot of my machine, the sun disappeared for the evening and I went back to what I was supposed to be doing. Which means if anyone has any advice they want to give me before I do this, here’s your chance!

Speaking of Sólbein, Mary Jane put up an IG post showing button bands picked up before the steek is cut. She’ll have a longer blog post on that approach soon!

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Elsewhere

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Before I get to this round of Elsewhere links, I want to take a moment to reiterate something I said on Instagram last night regarding the Steekalong and indeed all of the make-alongs I host: Everyone is welcome. The kals and other events are designed to be safe, supportive groups where you can try new things and refine your skills and meet new people. Regardless of your skill level, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age or anything else, I would love for you to participate in any event I organize.

Lots of great links for you this round—

— Designer Jeanette Sloan has put together a massive list of POC Designers & Crafters, linked to their Instagram accounts (and you can find Jeanette @jeanettesloan)

— Marlee + Brandi is a must listen

— If you haven’t heard Caleisha read her beautifully written piece about her experience as a knitter of color, please make time to listen — it’s an outstanding summation of what so many are saying

— “Hand stitching had woken something up within me, which was perhaps dormant, waiting patiently and serenely all these years. I was meant to find it …“

— As a huge fan of Abolaji, I loved learning more about her and her sewing setup in this profile 

— and also loved learning more about the legendary Claire McCardell than I’d known before (via Jen)

— I’m looking forward to these stories

— How to lower the neck of a (vintage) sweater

— How to knit a custom dog sweater
(If you’re not already familiar with top-down methodology, reading through my Improv tutorial should help)

— This. Sweater.

— And I’m determined to practice until I can sketch like Ho-mei

Happy weekend, everyone — thank you for reading.

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PREVIOUSLY: Elsewhere

Photo by Dana, used with permission

New Favorites: Yuko Shimizu sweaters

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New Favorites: Yuko Shimizu

Yuko Shimizu is one of many great designers I’ve learned of this past week as a result of the powerful discussion going on about diversity and the knitting community. If you’ve missed it somehow, there’s a good synopsis-with-links on Ravelry. In addition to hopefully opening eyes and minds to ways we can all do better to make the knitting community (and the world) a more inclusive place, it’s bringing a lot of wonderful and talented people into broader view.

I’m super smitten with these sweaters:

TOP: Sunburst is a fantastic little cropped colorwork sweater with full sleeves and some mohair content giving it an unusual surface texture for such a sweater

BOTTOM: Anton Sweater is a sport-weight raglan sweater with allover cables and texture; a slouchy, cropped shape; and split neck — see also this ivory version on her IG feed

She also has a cute free cable hat pattern, Tonttu Beanie, among other beauties and this one on the way.

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PREVIOUSLY in New Favorites: Sari’s cable hats

Hot tips and tricks from the Steekalong (and beyond)

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Hot tips and tricks from the Steekalong (and beyond)

The speed at which Sólbein Cardigans are flying off the knitting needles in the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed is truly jaw-dropping. For those who are half done (or already on a second one!), these tips and tricks may come too late! But for anyone who (like me) has yet to cast on, I hope they’ll prove helpful. And they apply to more than just Sólbein:

1. Floats out. Marlene @mnberghout posted about her floats being too tight and how she intended to solve it on a second go, which is one of my favorite tricks I’ve never tried! Let’s see if I can describe this any better than I drew it: Hold your knitting exactly the opposite of how you usually hold in-the-round work. So with it wrong side (float side) out instead of right side out. And with the needle tips away from you instead of toward you, so you’re looking at the right side of the work but in the rear inside of the tube of knitting. Does that make sense? Held that way, your floats have to reach around the longer outer curve of the work, rather than across the shorter inside stretch. And if you still prefer to work with it held the regular way, right side out, try keeping your stitches spread to their natural width on the right needle, which makes it much harder to create a too-short float in the first place.

2. Block that yoke. Several people have expressed concern about their gauge while knitting their yoke, and/or opted not to do a gauge swatch and just cast on. In either case (or if you just want to make sure your colorwork tension is good before proceeding), why not stop and block your yoke? Just put the stitches on waste yarn and block the work like you would a finished object. Once it’s dry, you can measure your real-time stitch and row count and make sure you’re on track for your intended size.

3. Steek first, sleeve later. Every time I see a pic of a finished body, pre-sleeves, I have an overwhelming urge to cut that steek! If you feel the same way, there’s no reason not to go ahead and do that first. Although if you’re one who doesn’t love sleeves, the anticipation or prize of getting to cut the steek when you’ve done them might help?

I also have one gentle reminder or request to make, and this is truly universal. It’s natural to want to slide your pattern into your knitting photos, and a common practice. Please remember that publishing a photo with visible instructions or charts is the equivalent of giving away the designer’s work, and be cognizant of that when taking photos.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the feed and the incredible array of cardigans coming together on the #fringeandfriendssteekalong feed, you really should go look.

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PREVIOUSLY in Fringe and Friends Steekalong: Meet Steekalong insta-panelist No.1: Kristine Vejar

Words matter

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I have hurt, angered and disappointed a lot of people this week with my insensitive post about my upcoming trip to India and my handling of the response, and I am deeply sorry about it. I’ve spent the week listening hard, learning (in part about how much more I have to learn), and thinking about all of the things I can do — particularly here on the blog — to be more inclusive and supportive of people of color. I can’t take any of this week back, but I will work hard to do better going forward.

For those who didn’t see anything offensive in my post, I feel it’s important to spell it out for everyone to see and think about, and hopefully learn from:

First, it reads like I’m a tourist looking for an exotic location for my next selfie, which is inherently horrible — India is not a set or a backdrop for white people. It reads that way because I didn’t take the time to talk about why I’m going, which is to meet textile artisans and learn more about their craft. I’m coming to India from a place of respect for the relevance of textiles in the country’s liberation from British rule.

Second, and more egregiously, when I said that to my anxiety-ridden teenage self the offer of travel to India felt like an offer of travel to Mars, I gave the impression that I equate the people of India with aliens — literally alienizing people who aren’t like me. It doesn’t matter that that’s not how I intended it. By being careless with my words, I perpetuated the harmful notion that Indians (and POC in general) are “other,” or even to be feared. People who are the target of racism every day were rightly offended by it, as were others. And I am so sorry.

Third, I compounded the Mars problem by bringing it up again (to say that my grown-up self might even consider space travel if I got the chance) by referencing an interview I had heard about the impending “colonization” of Mars. I brought up colonization in a piece about a country marred by colonialism and didn’t see it. Everyone who was shocked at that was right to be, and I’m shocked at myself.

That’s not comprehensive, but it’s the main thrust of it. It took women of color pointing this out for me to see it — starting with the annotation that @thecolormustard posted in her Story — which is not their responsibility, and I am thankful to them for taking the time. If you’re struggling to understand the response, please just sit with it and give it some serious thought, from their point of view.

I apologize profusely to everyone I hurt, and to everyone who has taken any kind of heat for calling me out on it. I was wrong, and the women who took the risk to speak out were right. I’ll be doing the work, sharing the resources*, and doing my part to raise the visibility and celebrate the actual beautiful diversity of this community.

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*Currently reading: “The Origin of Others” by Toni Morrison (recommended by @nappyknitter). If you haven’t read Morrison’s novels, get on that too.

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