Knitting News

Yarn thief gets year in jail | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Yarn thief gets year in jail
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - September 25 2006

A woman prosecutors called a serial yarn thief will spend a year in jail after pleading guilty to shoplifting Monday in DeKalb County.

Audrey Yandel, a 70-year-old Atlanta grandmother and a retired nurse, has been convicted 12 times in the past two decades, mostly for stealing yarn, according to DeKalb Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney John Melvin. [more]

Take a stab at Alaska's own yarn, luxurious qiviut | Anchorage Daily News

Take a stab at Alaska's own yarn, luxurious qiviut
Anchorage Daily News - September 26 2006

Cool fall weather is the perfect time to think about knitting a beautiful, warm scarf. Maybe you can knit two, one for yourself and one for that special someone in your life.

How about knitting with qiviut? Have you tried knitting lace? This is the right time to purchase qiviut yarn, learn all about knitted lace and knit your own version of the qiviut scarves made famous by Anchorage's Oomingmak Musk Ox Producer's Co-operative.

[...]Donna Druchunas, author of "Arctic Lace: Knitting Projects and Stories Inspired by Alaska's Native Knitters" (Nomad Press $26.95), will be teaching a six-hour class in knitted lace inspired by her book. Donna's expertise in design and knitting can help you to master lace as you knit swatches in worsted-weight and sport-weight yarns. You'll be ready to knit lace weight with confidence after you learn her many secrets. [more]

In High Tech Era Old Fashioned Hospitality Knits A Community Together | Yahoo! Finance

In High Tech Era Old Fashioned Hospitality Knits A Community Together [press release]
Yahoo! Finance - September 25 2006

Plugging into our hi-tech gadgetry can make it hard to form personal connections; but Nine Rubies Knitting in San Mateo, CA, bucks that hi-tech trend. Knitters of all ages and backgrounds come together at the store where owners Saloni Howard-Sarin and her mother Sudha Sarin provide a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and professional women and men gather at the shop several times a week to take classes, swap stories, share techniques and enjoy the support and generosity of this remarkable mother-daughter duo and their staff.

"I love to drop in at Nine Rubies after work to sit and knit and relax before heading home," says Steva Haye, a mortgage banker who can often be found at the shop knitting and laughing with others who come in to unwind at the end of the day. "It is a new sort of 'happy hour'!" [more]

City of culture worth €90m to economy | Irish Examiner

City of culture worth €90m to economy
Irish Examiner - September 26 2006

Cork 2005 generated €90 million for the economy but one of its single most expensive projects is believed to be in storage, it emerged last night.

The Knitting Map cost €258,200 to produce but mystery surrounds its current location.

The project was widely criticised during the year as a waste of public money. [more]

One-needle knitting brings forth intricacies | Bangor Daily News

One-needle knitting brings forth intricacies
Bangor Daily News - September 26 2006

I never know what’s going to come in off the street and grab my needleworking attention. Earlier this summer it was a friend from Orono bearing a scrap of intricately worked off-white yarn she said was an example of nalbinding - this is the English spelling, there are other variations, such as naalbinding and nalbindning - or one-needle knitting. She said Bill Coperthwaite of Machiasport had made that little scrap of nalbinding. Coperthwaite, a builder, designer and writer, is known for living in a yurt, seeking a simpler way of life and fashioning things by hand from wood and other materials.

Well, nalbinding was news to me, so I did what anyone would do when confronted with such an oddity - a Web search. This is what I learned: Apparently, before people learned to knit on two needles, they used one - and it had an eye - just like a sewing needle. Or at least that’s what textile historians have ascertained after examining and studying the few ancient pieces of nalbinding still in existence. [more]

Sweet Moon Boots | Flypaper

Do you think we'll see these knitted boots on the pages of knit.1 in an issue or two?

Sweet Moon Boots
Flypaper - September 25 2006

These insane knitted booties were created by German design team Bless, who will release a book, "BLESS: Celebrating 10 Years of Themelessness, No00 - No29" next month." [more]

SPIN TO KNIT Author Kicks Off Dueling Cross-Country Book Tours in October | Yahoo!

SPIN TO KNIT Author Kicks Off Dueling Cross-Country Book Tours in October [press release]
Yahoo! - September 24 2006

Expanding on the recent knitting and crochet comeback, spinning yarn has become the hot new trend in urban fiber circles. These new spinners are not Renaissance-faire types living on sheep farms. They are young, creative professionals who see spinning as a way to have more control over their design process, to meditate in what has become a busy world, and to create fun new yarns unique to their individual style.

There is only one hip, updated book on the subject: Spin to Knit (Interweave Press) by Shannon Okey, author of the bestselling Knitgrrl series. Spin to Knit takes knitters to the next level -- creating their own yarn -- with step-by-step photos and attractive patterns anyone can spin and knit. Okey spoke with spinners across the US and Canada to discover what inspires them about the craft: their inspiring in-depth profiles appear in Spin to Knit. [more]

The crochet lawn | Metro

The crochet lawn
Metro - September 21 2006

Friends thought Jane Bolsover was spinning them a yarn when she unveiled her plan – to knit a life-sized English garden.

But here it is, accurate right down to the flowers and insects, even the worms and carrots in the vegetable patch.

>> Click here for a gallery of pictures from the knitted garden!

The project has been painstakingly completed by more than 300 contributors, including a group of gay men knitting in Brighton, and a 12-year-old boy in Sussex, who spent six months making the pond and waterfall. [more]

Crochet Champ Wins Blue Ribbon At Maryland State Fair | Dundalk Eagle

Crochet Champ Wins Blue Ribbon At Maryland State Fair
Dundalk Eagle

It took Alberta Reinsfelder a year to crochet the queen-sized bedspread that won her a blue ribbon at the Maryland State Fair earlier this month. She spent eight or nine hours at it every day.

But that's nothing new for Reinsfelder, who's been crocheting since she was 10. “I love to crochet” is her refrain.

Reinsfelder - who has four daughters, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren - suffered four strokes back in 2002 when she was 62. Four years later, she uses a walker and is only starting to regain feeling on the right side of her face.

But her fingers are as nimble as ever now. [more]

Spinning images | Nashua Telegraph

Spinning images
Nashua Telegraph - September 23 2006

Fashion photography will come to Frye’s Measure Mill on Tuesday when the mill will serve as a backdrop for pictures for JCA Inc., a hand-knitting yarn company based in Townsend, Mass.

JCA produces and distributes fine knitting yarns under the Reynolds, Artful Yarns and Adrienne Vittadinni brands. The mill will provide the background for the spring 2007 Reynolds knitting pattern collection.

Mill owner Harley Savage said this isn’t the first time the mill was pressed into textile use – “It housed a fulling and carding operation in the late 18th century.”

Frye’s is one of the few remaining water-powered mills in New England, dating to 1858. The mill produces and sells high-quality handmade colonial and Shaker-style wooden boxes.

“The fine handwork traditions represented by both companies, one millwrighting and the other hand knitting, makes this a natural fit,” Savage said. [more]