Contest Winner

The two winners of our giveaway for tickets to see YARN THE MOVIE when it screens in Toronto are Marina and Claudia! We hope you enjoy it! And I’m posting one article here this week because of how important I think it is. This week, instead of reading me, you should go read this blog post: Kelbourne Woolens is running The Great Swatch Experiment, and they’ve posted the data from the first swatch. If you’ve never really understood (or believed) that different knitters can get different results with the same yarn and the same needles – well, prepare to be blown away. This post provides ...

We have the two winners of copies of my Pattern Writing book – Mary Kay Smith, and Sarah of Safdar. Congrats! Thanks for entering! Featuring Amy’s LYS, The Purple Purl, watch the pilot episode of knitting comedy ‘The Knitterati’. “Hipster darlings of the knitting community, Mary Crochet & Gerry DiLana struggle to keep their store afloat amidst a string of bad luck. It’s the least they can do to keep themselves and their loyal customers happy. But their lives are unraveling too quickly to keep it all together.” Pun-tastic and pretty silly, it’s a fun couple of minutes. Reader discount ...

The winners of the free passes to the Vogue Knitting Live NYC marketplace are Delia Lamb and Amanda Underwood. We’ll see you there! A warm Canadian welcome: Residents of Quebec are gathering together to make tuques (warm woolly hats) to give to refugees arriving this month in Canada, from Syria. 10,000 refugees are expected in Canada before the end of the month, and winter gear has been one of the key items to be donated. Although eastern Canada is having a mild winter so far, we know that’s not going to last. And in Whitehorse, where winter has already arrived, another group of knitters is hard at work ...

Two contest winners to announce: Jess from Ottawa won the copy of Kate’s Custom Socks book and Carol from Ontario won the FiberWild Shaded Love shawl kit. Thanks to Interweave for the book, and FiberWild for the shawl kit. Enjoy! A fantastic profile of designer and entrepreneur Amy Herzog, and her Custom Fit software and business. A piece about the increasing attention being paid in the UK towards local wool, featuring interviews with UK knitters, designers and yarn suppliers. Important. A New York Times travel writer attends a knitting retreat. She seems a hair befuddled by it, but in the end has a good time. ...

The lucky winner of the Laura Nelkin book giveaway is Meg from East Lansing, Michigan. Congrats Meg, we know you’ll love the book! “Knitting needn’t be expensive” – a nice piece on the Guardian Fashion blog highlighting British wools. This is a follow-up to a piece on the same blog last week that discussed the Fashion and Textile Museum’s vintage knitwear exhibition. The article made an important point: “knitting wool is no longer the cheaper option”. It is entirely true that at one time, handmade garments were associated with saving money. And it’s also true that ...

Marisa from Minneapolis is our winner of the Mrs Crosby/Grantangle giveaway. Congrats to Marisa! UK Magazine is sponsoring the 2014 British Knitting Awards: a nice opportunity to promote the craft of knitting, and some of the key players in the industry, small and large. Categories include yarns brands, shops, blogs, and books. A Walk on the Wool Side. A farm in Wales has announced a new option for those who like a nice walk: sheep trekking. Visitors roam a nearby national park with “specially trained” Jacob sheep. They’ve thought of everything: the sheep guides will be fitted with a “harness ...

It’s Jillian filling in for Kate while she teaches at the Interweave Knitting Lab. Our winner of all three volumes of Donna Druchunas’ Stories in Stitches is Kristen from Elkins Arkansas. Congratulations!   Will you be in Dallas in May or Edinburgh in August? Grab your knitting and go see The Sweater Curse: A Play by Elaine Liner. The one-hour monologue explains the old wives’ tale about “the sweater curse,” which says never to knit for lovers, as he or she will leave before the project is finished. Elaine weaves in tales of her own unraveled romances and unfinished sweaters, with ...

The very lucky winner of the Offhand bag giveway is Irene M of Staten Island, NY. Enjoy the bag! On designer/historian Kate Davies’ lovely blog, “A Brief History of British Socks“. If you knit – or heck, wear! – socks, this is a fascinating read. Speaking of history, love this: Artlab Australia, the South Australian Museum and the Adelaide City Council have just launched the ‘Sir Douglas Mawson Balaclava Knitting Pattern‘. Scientist and adventurer Douglas Mawson’s is well-known in Australia for this epic adventures in the Antarctic in the early 20th Century. His ongoing ...

The winner of our Lace Contest is Karen from Bangor, Pennsylvania. Thanks to Brooke Niko and Lark Crafts, Hiya Hiya, and Black Bunny Fibers for the generous prize. Last week I mentioned the campaign in Cambridge to collect knitting to decorate the town for the UK stages of the Tour De France this summer. The Guardian has a lovely piece about the enormously successful campaign in Harrogate, Yorkshire, that kicked off the entire thing. Last summer, the Harrogate town council invited members of the public to send in hand-knitted mini replicas of cycling jerseys. The mini jerseys will be strung up as bunting around the ...

The winner of our Wraptor yarn pack giveaway is Chelsea, from St. Paul, MN. Thanks to Twisted Fiber Arts for the prize. More knitting in home decor: a knitted fabric is used as the basis for a lamp construction… Did anyone catch the QI Christmas episode last week? Kingston University student Imogen Hedges made an appearance with her bicycle-powered ‘unknitting machine‘. Stephen Fry clearly doesn’t knit, or know any knitters, as he seemed more amazed by the unravelling than we might expect… An excellent question posed on the Fringe Association blog: what’s your peak knitting ...