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Back and Forth to Go Around

As I mentioned a little over a week ago, this past weekend saw a couple different virtual fiber festivals. I joined a couple of the Knit+Escape demos and sessions, and plan to watch some more of them this week while the recordings are available. One of the sessions I attended was one by Tammi of Yarn&Whiskey. The session title was “Clash of the Big Prints” and she spoke about the history of wax prints, aka African Prints, which was really interesting. Half an hour clearly wasn’t really enough time to do it justice, and you could see how much she loves the topic of textile history, and these prints in particular.

It was also a lot of fun to hear about them, because I recently purchased a couple of her bags. Choosing just a couple was hard because she has so many gorgeous designs. I narrowed it down to one pop-up pouch design, and one drawstring bag, and then tried not to over think things. Sometimes I try to figure out what I should get based on gaps in the sizes, colors, etc I have. I decided the “should” part would be the size and type, but then I’d select fabric patterns which just made me happiest to look at.

Even so, it was tough. I am totally one of those annoying customers who dumps loads of stuff into my cart to look at it all side by side before culling it down to just a few items. If their system will let me, I’ll let things sit for days sometimes, which is precisely what I did here while I waffled between one print and another.

Two bags from Yarn&Whiskey – the one in front is Pop-Up Pouch (similar construction to a microwave popcorn bag) in a bold yellow and bright pink Wedding Flower pattern. One behind is a drawstring bag in an orange, white, and black swirl and lined in an orange, green, yellow, and cream dashiki fabric.

Then of course, the bags sat in customs for weeks without movement. It was just getting to the point where I feared they were going to be sent back when I saw movement on the tracking. They finally arrived last week. The bags are fantastic. The orange drawstring is large enough to easily hold my 40cm/16in DPNs as I’d hoped, and it makes me happy to see it hanging on the door of my office with my next sweater project yarn inside. And the pink and orange zippered bag is holding all the yarn for TheEnabler’s next sweater. I could totally see myself getting more bags from her in the future, but I’m also still happy with the fabrics I picked out.

Ok, I am a little sad I didn’t get “Black Tie Affair” but it came out like two days after I placed my order. And I can’t really say I wish I had it instead of one of the two I have. Just that it is an amazingly elegant pattern and might be on my wish list for future purchases. After I’m back in the US and don’t have to worry about customs.

Intarsia Class

I signed up for an Intarsia-in-the-Round class at Knit+Escape for last Saturday. The class was taught by Sylvia Watts-Cherry. She’s an incredibly talented artist, responsible among other things for the Nubian Queen Pullover design.

So, it was pretty cool to be able to take a class with her. As she’s located in the UK, this is one of those times where the virtual workshop format really increases access to teachers who otherwise might be too far away. Last week was pretty busy though, so I will admit I procrastinated a bit on the homework for the class. I wasn’t the sort of kid to be doing homework the morning it was due* but on Saturday morning I found myself in just that situation. Happily, time zones worked in my favor for once, as the class didn’t start until 17:30. So after breakfast I pulled out my stash and started looking for some yarn scraps to use in the wrist warmer design we’d be making.

The design is a bold heart shape, and the samples in the PDF are in cheerful and vivid pink and white. Pink and white hearts are not my jam. Instead, I used the leftover Undercover Otter from the socks for my aunt along with an “Otter pup” in a sort of dirty multi-color to go for more a grunge look…

Wrist warmers being knit in the round on DPNs with an Intarsia heart pattern. Yarn is Undercover Otter Squirm in gray-purple “dark skies”, green/white/black “Soultaker” and a grayish multicolor “Nuclear Test Site”. All the long lengths of yarn for the intarsia are clearly visible.

The class was really amazing. Sylvia did a great job of teaching, and the two hours were gone before we knew it. The theory of Intarsia-in-the-round is simple – you don’t actually work in the round. Instead, you work back and forth, but as you reach each “edge” you join it to the other edge, so you’re basically closing up the tube as you go instead of trying to sew it up later. The “seam” is ideally placed up the middle of a block of color to better hide that you are switching directions at that point.

However, she did a great job of explaining the tricks to making it work well, from things specific to in-the-round Intarsia like putting a yarn over at the start of each round, to tips for generally for Intarsia like how she joins in new colors so that they don’t leave gaps and holes, or how she manages tension. I also really appreciated how she covered some options (such as how to get a good estimate of the length of yarn needed) as opposed to what she tends to do (cut a long strand and join more later if she needs to). It’s nice to know both. Sometimes instructors just go over the “proper” way and neglect to mention that that’s not what they do day to day. And then as somebody new to the skill, you can be left with a poor sense of what short cuts will or won’t get you into trouble.

While hearts might not be what I normally go for, her choice of design was actually quite clever. The V-shape of the bottom of the heart is nice and easy to predict, so I didn’t have to expend lots of thought on what the new row would look like. But because she filled the interior of the heart with a contrast color, we were in fact managing several strands of color and having to plan and think about adding in a variety of yarn strands for the different blocks of color. In short, this simple design isn’t that simple from an Intarsia standpoint. It’s a nice mix of easy (regular chances from row to row) and challenging with regards to the new skill. Basically, if I decide to tackle another Intarsia design (whether flat or in the round) I won’t find myself flummoxed because the classes design was so simple, the skills don’t transfer well. Instead, I feel like we were well set up to go off and tackle other patterns.

Sylvia also explained the advantages and disadvantages of Intarsia vs stranded color work and why one or the other might be used for different things. So, if you get a chance to take a class with her, I strongly recommend doing so.

Now I just need to finish my wrist warmers.

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*What sort of kid was I? One time in school I (along with the rest of the class) forgot to do a homework assignment and the other students tried to use this as proof for the teacher that they must have forgotten to assign it altogether. It almost worked, until the teacher found the assignment was written down in our agendas.