Tag: stitches west

Darn Good Yarn

At Stitches West this year, I ended up attending a Market Session with a fellow knitter. The two of us are familiar with knitting short rows, but wanted to learn a little more about Japanese short row shaping.  The session did answer our questions and we plan on getting together again to explore machine knitting.

Upon leaving the session, I accidentally discovered Darn Good Yarn http://www.DarnGoodYarn.com.  A situation separated by the present transported me to a world saturated with color, print and texture.  Darn Good Yarn is “made from reclaimed sari silk at a co-op in India that empowers women.” This endeavor supports 300 families, plus 25,000 lbs of waste is saved each year.

Darn Good Yarn Booth #3 Darn Good Yarn Booth #2_1Darn Good Yarn Booth

Nicole, Founder, Maggie, Vice-President and Jessica, Community Manager are helpful, willing to answer questions, knowledgeable about the product, free w/purchase  pattern support for the yarn, and are enthusiastic about their endeavor.

I’ve started knitting a shrug, and plan on knitting “Adventure Cardi” designed by Denae Merrill with reclaimed chiffon.

Darn Good Yarn #2

Darn Good Yarn

East Meets West

I recently discovered a free pattern offer by Noro called Reversible Scarf.  The pattern is also available in Noro’s Issue 4 Knitting Magazine.  The Reversible Scarf knit with two balls of Noro Obi on a US Size 10 circular needle in Garter Lace moves fast.  The Garter Lace pattern consists of a four round repeat.

Rnd 1 Knit

Rnd 2 Purl

Rnd 3 Knit

Rnd 4 *Yo, SKP, rep from* around

I decided to pair the Reversible Scarf with Stephen West’s Pogona from Book One.  Pogona is knit with Diakeito Dia Scene.  Diakeito is another yarn imported from Japan not easily found in Northern California.  I was first introduced to Diakeito at Stitches West by Andrea, the owner of Seaport Yarn  http://www.seaportyarn.com  located in New York’s financial district.

Much to my surprise on a recent visit to the East Bay (Berkeley, CA), I discovered a source for Diakeito.  The long color repeat of both yarns along with the textural qualities of Obi are visually interesting.

Diakeito Dia Scene CowlDiakeito and Noro Cowl

Stitches West 2012

This year at Stitches West, I enrolled in two classes taught by Wilhelmine Peers. The first class I attended was on Thursday, February 23.   Designing Using a Photographer’s Frame set my creative juices flowing.  Wilma instructed us to pull pages from a magazine that caught our attention without over-thinking the image.  The stack of magazine pages were then prioritized according to our favorites. Thus, began the building of a collage with color, patterns and shapes.  After the collage was finished, a photographer’s frame was moved across the page in order to detect possible design translations from our selected magazine images.  Below are pictures of various design possibilities from my collage.

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