Knitting News

Knitting Rules | Lexington Herald-Leader

Knitting Rules
Lexington Herald-Leader - April 23 2006

America is the land of obsessions: gas prices, American Idol, the Cats.
Author Stephanie Pearl-McPhee readily admits her obsession: knitting. Pearl-McPhee has poured her knitting successes and failures into her newest book, Knitting Rules.
Pearl-McPhee, author of At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much and Yarn Harlot, has a different goal in mind for this book. Her intention is to help knitters really understand how to knit. "If I can save one knitter from the mistakes I made," it will be a success, according to Pearl-McPhee.
She intends to provide a how-to book that is "not excruciating," but she also has filled the book with humor and patterns.
Want to know exactly how obsessive a knitter is? She provides a handy quiz and 10 tips for "Identifying your own kind."
Pearl-McPhee describes the obsessive knitter as "wanting to knit to the exclusion of everything else." She is able to knit while traveling, while reading her e-mail ("you hit the space bar with your toe,") and while exercising. Said Pearl-McPhee, "I am all about innovation in knitting. If you want to knit bad enough, you'll find a way." [more]

Happy Hooker | Expanded Books

Happy Hooker [video - via]
Expanded Books

You, Too, Can Be a Happy Hooker!
Author Debbie Stoller talks about Happy Hooker, the latest addition to the wildly popular STITCH 'N BITCH book series. Learn how to crochet everything from scarves to mini skirts to cowgirl hats! [more]

Life’s a stitch: Crochet makes comeback in style and hobby | Lincoln Journal Star

Life’s a stitch: Crochet makes comeback in style and hobby
Lincoln Journal Star - April 19 2006

Back in 1999, Debbie Stoller slipped a pattern into Bust magazine, a feminist mag she had started six years before. It was a simple pattern for a crocheted headscarf, the first do-it-yourself project that Stoller and her co-founder, Marcelle Karp, included in the magazine. The project, which Stoller had crocheted herself, was met with mixed reviews.
Some readers, Stoller said, wondered what a craft project was doing in a magazine that tackled subjects such as politics and women’s history.
Seven years later, the monthly do-it-yourself project is among the magazine’s most popular features, Stoller said.
And for a variety of reasons.
Some readers like making things themselves instead of supporting huge corporate megastores, she said.
Some like attempting to knock-off runway looks.
And some, like Stoller, appreciate the connection to women’s history.
That’s part of why she put the pattern in the magazine in the first place.
“I want to make sure our grandmas get their props,” she said.
For Stoller, crocheting that scarf served another purpose, too. It got her to pick up her crochet hook again — she had learned to crochet from her Dutch relatives as a child.
It felt familiar and comfortable, she said, and it was nice to actually make something.
“It was like a gateway craft for me,” she said. [more]

Pens and Needles | Nashville Scene

Pens and Needles
Nashville Scene - April 13 2006

At press time, Nashvillian Ann Shayne and her New York-based co-author, Kay Gardiner, were traveling through the Northeast promoting Mason-Dixon Knitting, their recently released book based on their blog of the same name. Ann and Kay (the nature of their blog makes surnames seem overly formal) are trendsetters at least three times over: they were on the forefront of the knitting craze, they embraced blog culture early on and their blog has now successfully transitioned to a conventional medium—Mason-Dixon Knitting is the lead title of Clarkson Potter’s new craft imprint.
Readers of Mason-DixonKnitting.com, a hilarious commentary on knitting and the life surrounding it, are being kept abreast of the pair’s ongoing “Any Excuse for a Party” book tour. There are pictures of Kay riding the subway, overflowing basket of knitting on her lap; Kay and Ann lugging said basket through the streets of Manhattan; the CD a fan made for them to listen to en route to appearances; and the husband sent to collect autographs for his absent wife.
As entertaining as the blog is, craft books don’t necessarily make for the best reads, especially for non-practitioners, so Mason-Dixon Knitting is a rare find indeed. Ann and Kay’s infectious camaraderie, joie de vivre and irreverent humor translate well to the printed page, where they encourage readers to connect life and knitting, which might mean finding creative inspiration in sources as varied as the Gee’s Bend quilts and a glass of champagne. [more]

Story of how a knitter became an author is quite a yarn | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Story of how a knitter became an author is quite a yarn
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - April 5 2006

You, too, can be a "Happy Hooker" or a "Yarn Harlot," and your mom won't even be upset.
That's because these "ladies" are extolling the virtues of knitting and crochet. Both have recently published books on the subject.
"Hooker" Debbie Stoller, who holds a doctorate from Yale University in women's psychology, is having great success with her third book, "Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker." And Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, a writer and self-proclaimed yarn harlot, is on tour with her third offering, "Knitting Rules!" She will be stopping in Pittsburgh Friday for a lecture/book signing at Knit One yarn shop in Squirrel Hill.
However diverse these women are in real life, both are comrades at arms in the war to win women back to the pleasures of yarn.
While knitting has been trendy for a while now and yarn shops are popping up all over, crochet -- always the neglected stepsister -- also is enjoying a resurgence of popularity.
So popular in fact, that Ms. Stoller's latest book, "Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet" is currently No. 6 on Entertainment Weekly's The Must List!
Ms. Stoller, 43, of Brooklyn, N.Y., is a feminist with a hook to grind. She's also the editor of Bust magazine, a glossy product that is marketed to women "who have something to get off their chest."
Although she learned to crochet when she was quite young, she only recently came back to the pursuit.

...Conversely, Ms. Pearl-McPhee, 37, aka The Yarn Harlot, has seldom been without needles in her hands since she began knitting at age 4. That's when she was taught by her grandmother, a professional knitter. Her first project was an acrylic yellow yarn potholder, because, she says, granny didn't think she had what it took to go long and make a scarf.
These days, Ms. Pearl-McPhee is the stand-up comedy queen of knitters. Her popular books are funny essays and musings on why we knit and what we get out of it. Don't look for any feminist diatribes here.
Interestingly, she credits the 2003 outbreak of SARS in her hometown of Toronto as the reason she started writing about knitting in a serious way.
[more]

Knitting: Think color, texture, fun | The Pueblo Chieftan

Knitting: Think color, texture, fun
The Pueblo Chieftan - March 12 2006

I'm here in defense of knitting.
I know. You think only little old ladies knit. You think it's the ultimate in stodginess; boring with a capital B. You can't imagine anything you'd rather do less than sit around, clacking two needles together and fighting with an obstinate, ever-tangling ball of yarn.
I won't try to change your mind. But I'd like to tell you about the revolution in my knitting world. His name is Kaffe Fassett and he's an American-born painter now living in London whose designs can be found in expensive knitted garments, high-end dinnerware and bed linens, tapestries and needlepoint pieces, ballet and theater costumes. His designs - inspired by flowers, Oriental carpets, tile mosaics, African glass trade beads, ancient textiles, Victorian teapots - are employed in a line of quilt fabrics that were featured in a catalog I get.
...Then I discovered a book of Fassett's knitting patterns and learned that the expensive dinnerware and bed linens and quilts and quilt fabrics bearing his unusual name and characteristic stamp all are offshoots of designs he created as a beginning knitter. He wanted to translate the colors he used in his folk art-style paintings into the craft of knitting; he wanted to bring color into a world dominated by the gray, brown, cream and black of natural, undyed wool.
Best of all, Fassett, the teacher, assured me that technicolored knitting is easy and not only for the highly skilled. I believed him. What did I have to lose but my boredom? [more]

Confessions of a knit-wit | Vail Daily

Confessions of a knit-wit
Vail Daily - March 2 2006

Some people spend their whole lives in search of their calling, something that will satisfy the soul and lead them to a fuller existence. Sally Melville says look no further than what made you happy when you were 7.
"They say whatever a child becomes taken with at the age of 7, whatever absolutely obsessed you, is what a person's meant to do in life," Melville said. "It's been true for me."
At age 7, knitting obsessed Melville. Today, the stay-at-home mom turned knitting guru and internationally known author has a booming career, with five published books and an extensive teaching schedule that takes her around the world. [more]

Stitchcraft airs this Sunday, March 5 at 3 PM EST/2 PM CST

Stitchcraft
A new television show for knitters airs its first episode this Sunday, March 5, at 3 PM EST/2 CST

Stitchcraft follows Adina Klein, Fashion Director for Vogue Knitting and Editor in Chief of Vogue's knit.1 magazine, and host Lily Chin, the world's fastest crocheter and renowned knitting author, as they go "behind the stitch" to explore and connect to a world of high-fashion knitwear designers.

On set at Vogue Knitting and knit.1 photo shoots, Klein features the designs of Anna Sui, Michael Kors, Adrienne Vittadini, Cynthia Rowley, and James Coviello and shows how to keep one step ahead of the trends by employing knitwear design elements incorporated in these designers' current collections. Host Lily Chin imparts plenty of knit wit throughout the show in the form of "Lily Tips" -- time-savers and advice for all knitting skill levels culled from her years of experience."

[more]

Knitter found herself a pattern of success | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Knitter found herself a pattern of success
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - February 21 2006

Lily Chin is the closest thing to needle-arts superstar that you're likely to find, and it's not because she once crocheted a gold and silver bikini for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.
A writer for magazines and an author of several books, she helps designers Isaac Mizrahi, Vera Wang and Ralph Lauren develop knitwear lines. She designs her own patterns and is marketing a new line of yarn with her name on it.
...Ms. Chin has been a well-known and sometimes controversial figure in yarn circles, but it wasn't until she successfully defended her title as the World's Fastest Crocheter in 2004 that she landed squarely in the mainstream. She appeared on "Late Show With David Letterman," where she crocheted him a whole sweater by the time the show was over.
She's been capitalizing on that publicity ever since. On March 5, she'll be hosting a television special called "Stitchcraft" on Oxygen at 3 p.m., which may be expanded into a series. [more]

Knitting and blogging | Baltimore Sun

Knitting and blogging
Baltimore Sun - February 2 2006

Like a virtual knitting bee for sharp women, Yarn Harlot (www.yarnharlot.ca) is one of the best of an ever-expanding bunch of Knit Lit blogs. With hipster chicks routinely packing needles and skeins in their messenger bags, ready to whip up scarves and hats at the first dull moment, cyberspace is greedy for a quick-witted dame who knows her Back Lifted Increase from her Front Purl Cross. And the Yarn Harlot delivers.
The blog offers practical tips and clever patterns from a lifelong knitter, but more beguilingly, it captures the highs and lows that can accompany pursuit of almost any passion, not just those of the wooly persuasion.
Enhancing the general-interest element are slice-of-life yarns, often involving the Harlot's three kids and good-sport husband, that routinely leave the reader in stitches. We talked with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, creator of Yarn Harlot.
A Canadian mother and author of three books on knitting, Pearl-McPhee, 37, claims writing and knitting are her only talents. Her blog nickname reveals her difficulty being monogamous to just one project, she says.
[more]