May 9
It feels like ages since I wrote Knitting Nature, but the process of writing it left an indelible influence on my work. Spirals, fractals and other shapes in nature provided great fodder for designs in my book and still rattle around in my head, but it’s polygons, especially hexagons, that have become a permanent part of my design vocabulary. Read more
When it comes to wearing stripes, people often have strong opinions. I’ve ventured into this territory before and been met with mixed results. Still, I believe in Rayures, the horizontal striped piece I designed in Ultra Alpaca a few years back. Perhaps it was a bold move to photograph it on a bust size 14 model, but that was the point. I wanted to design a striped sweater that I could wear too. Read more
I love the simple, modern, almost stark lace I have been seeing in fashion lately. Simple and bold openwork patterns not only suit my sensibilities, they are much easier to knit than more ornate lace knitting stitches. Read more
Perusing the Berroco pattern library, I see that we tend to favor 5 different ways of knitting a sleeve. Here is an illustrated guide with a few thoughts on each: Read more
Wheew…the five grueling days of photo shoot are finally over. The shoots can be fun. It’s so great to see our designs styled and photographed, but that all takes a lot of work and many decisions made on the fly. It always feels like performance art. Read more
I’m writing today from the beautiful village of Wickford, located on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. Photo shoots are so much fun!
Our five days of photography starts today! Last week I steamed a lot of garments and I’ve gotten to know all 90 something of them inside and out. Of course, I was already pretty familiar with the ones I designed, after making up new cable patterns writing instructions for my knitters. Still, there were a few surprises.
I spent most of last weekend knitting, knitting and knitting until I couldn’t knit any more. I was compelled to knit just one more piece for my next volume (that’s Norah Gaughan vol 13). Next week is the big photo shoot, and all of my knitters were busy with other items for our Fall/Winter booklets. Besides, I really wanted to knit this one. Read more
Eileen Vito’s first knitting project went to the dogs. I mean that literally, of course. She knit sweaters for her two dogs. Unfortunately, both dogs gained weight and the sweaters got too tight. Eileen says she’s pretty sure this is just a coincidence and not a reflection of their feelings about her knitting! Either way, she was hooked on her new hobby. As she puts it, “Once I started, there was no looking back.” Read more
I love designing with cables and designing new stitches. Sometimes the “invention” of a new knit cable is little more than a simple recombination of long loved stitches. Read more
