Ask Jillian. This is my new obsession: Voxer.
 
It’s an app for iPhone and Android, and it allows you to have walkie-talkie-like conversations using your voice with your friends.
 
I boop Jillian to tell her something funny, or boop my sister to ask a question about our upcoming vacation. I’ve had the hub snoring next to me and had a conversation with the sister, whispering back and forth, after midnight. If you happen not to be near your phone when a message comes in, just tap it and it plays back.
 
It also does text messages and lets you send photos, but my favorite thing is the Walkie Talkie bit. LOVE IT.
 
It feels like a toy, but it’s damned handy. Free app, free to use. Do keep up on the updates — it’s already improved in stability considerably since I first found it about 3 weeks ago.

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Wonder who’s actually writing these posts? There are three of us: Kate, Jillian and Amy. You can tell who wrote any specific post by looking at the top of the post itself next to the date, on the right. And if you want to send the post author a Twitter comment, you’ll find our Twitter addresses over there <– on the left sidebar below the Facebook  panel.
 
We love hearing from you!
 

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Jimmy Beans Wool is leading an initiative, “Stitch Red“, to bring attention to heart disease, the #1 killer of women in the United States. The program is part of a broad campaign to help women understand risk factors and to encourage them to adopt healthier lifestyles for their long-term benefit.
 
Stitch Red is supported by a majority of manufacturers and vendors in the Needlearts industry who are creating unique “Stitch Red” products for which 5% of gross profits will benefit the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) in support of The Heart Truth®, a national awareness campaign for women about heart disease, sponsored by the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Additionally, Jimmy Beans Wool has written a book, Knit Red, which features 30 celebrity designers sharing patterns and personal stories and will be released in June of 2012.

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A heartwarming profile of a knitting group in Calgary that is making dolls for children in Malawi. Since 2005, they have made over 10,000 dolls. The initiative is part of the work being done by Lifeline Malawi, a medical charity started by a Calgary physician. The dolls fufill a dual purpose: they are used as packing materials to protect medical supplies in shipping, and they are given to the children attending the Lifeline-run clinics, to bring some joy and smiles.
 

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The New York Times reviews a number of children’s picture books, including the beautifully illustrated “Extra Yarn“, about a little girl living in a monochrome world who discovers a box of brightly colored yarn, and learns to knit.
 

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This truly amazing and highly amusing article from the archives of the Guardian in the UK is a must-read. The article, published in 1961, proudly touts the miracles of nylon yarns, reports that 2/3s of teenagers are knitters, but notes a disturbing trend of “problem grandmothers” who don’t knit.
 

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A friends brings our attention to the fab blog of French textile designer Camille Dupuis, who is doing amazing things with wool and knitting. I particularly like the lion, but all her stuff is wonderful. (The blog is in French, but there is much to look at.)
 

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And in other world news, Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister of Australia, is a knitter.

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Tomorrow I leave for Madrona, the high holy fiber arts retreat/playtime.

I’ve saved money for two years to be able to go and I am quite excited, like the days before your birthday when you are 6, excited.

I’ll be there late Wednesday and I leave mid-day Sunday. So far I have packed 5 knitting projects and 2 spinning projects. I thin I’m a little light.

 

Here are the classes I’m taking:

I have left Friday completely open, no classes – nothing, just playing/knitting/spinning time and shopping. Any tips on eating/playing/shopping in Tacoma are appreciated!

 

Did you notice I have a spinning class? That means I’ll have to take a wheel. So far, I’ve been a fan of the Schacht Sidekick as a travel wheel – it slides into tiny spaces when my car is packed.

But I really love this:

That’s a 27″ Samsonite wheelie suitcase – look at all of the room left over. I can even bring clothes.

I borrowed the suitcase from Beth – the Sidekick Suitcase Saga is here on her blog.

Tune in next week for the Madrona report.

 

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Kate’s qivuit socks:

They are finished! And not a moment too soon: we had a cold snap over the weekend. Don’t tell anyone, but I wore my Qiviut socks two days in a row…
It’s a plain and simple pair of top-down stocking stitch socks, 56 sts on 2.5mm needles. There are two advantages to having small feet: fewer sts means less knitting, and also more leftovers! I’ve got about 40gm of the skein left, which is enough to make the feet of two more socks. Since it’s my feet that get the coldest (rather than my ankles), I’m going to make a toe-up pair with Qiviut feet and something else for the leg. They’ll look sort of funny, but I will be so warm I won’t mind!

Jillian’s Escargot:

Project #2 from Knitty done for the year (my goal is 6).

Escargot from the current issue:

Escargot finished and stolen in the same day, that has to be some sort of record. Of course, the thief is my daughter.

The yarns are Dream in Color In Vino Veritas for the main color and Spring Tickle for the accent.

I purposely made the snail part of the hat larger to offset my huge hair. But now that the girl has it, I think I’ll restitch it to regular snail size.

Next up in Knitty knitting queue is Groove by Stephen West.

I’m going to knit it in Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Clematis, an indigo blue and one of her browns Bark or William Morris. Of course I may completely change my mind once I’m standing in front of the display at my LYS .

Amy’s Lanesplitter:

Lanesplitter in cotton tape is progressing well. Supposedly I have about 6″ of straight section to go and then the blissful decreasing.

The other secret project for Brenda Dayne’s “Welsh for Rainbow” is on the final segment. I took my own advice (instead of agonizing over a billion options) and chose a simple-but-perfect lace pattern to use for the last rows.

One repeat done, making decisions quickly and I’ll have it done in time to hand it to Brenda in person when she starts her North American tour in early May!

Cooperative Press Winner!

The winner of the spectacular Cooperative Press, explode your head with all of the creative ideas, book giveaway is:

Robin in Ohio. Happy Knitting!

A huge thanks to Shannon at Cooperative Press for the generous giveaway!

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The lovely and clever Escargot hat was published in our Winter issue, which went live in early December. And it seems to have caught on…  there are nearly 400 projects already, and more being added every day.  And many knitters are making more than one…

Everywhere we go we see this hat – at one of my LYS this past weekend I saw one finished hat and talked to two knitters who were working on their own.

There are so many fabulous versions – lots of color combos, and some great yarn choices.

Knitty Designer Laura Chau worked one in two great shades of blue

Summerlea worked an amazing version in textured yarns for a different but equally great look.  She sadly lost it, but reports that another is in the works… We can only hope that the original is being enjoyed by its finder.

NextThursday chose bright snail colours for her version…

GardenKnittr‘s is straight up elegant in grey and cream…

MamaNicoleG created a pair of fab fingerless mitts to match.

Kybosh chose great colors, and when it turned out a bit big, felted it to fit.

And the wonderful and generous Jami created a kids’ version, Escargot Jr.

Jillian has just finished hers – doesn’t it look great!

 

I think I might have to knit one now…

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To celebrate Sweater Day, Kate is wearing her Perfect Turtleneck, made out of Lopi.  (Yes, I know. I do wear a long-sleeve t-shirt underneath.)

What are you wearing? [Keep it clean, folks.]

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Tomorrow, Thursday, February 9th, is WWF Sweater Day in Canada. WWF asks us to turn the heat down and put your favourite sweater on – you don’t need to ask us twice!

The initiative is to help WWF take action against climate change, and work toward a sustainable future.

Sweater Day is a fun way to make Canadians rethink how we use energy and how much we use… WWF says that if every Canadian lowered the heat a few degrees this winter, it’d be like taking 300,000 vehicles off the road!

You can even book a reminder call from one of a group of grannies.

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The promotional posters for Sweater Day were created by a local Toronto team, aided by friends of Knitty Jasmine Cirjanic and the gang at The Purple Purl. The photographer provides a great behind-the-scenes view on his blog.

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Amazing resource alert: a hat sizing table. And not just head circumference, but also lengths – very important for figuring out how long hats & earflaps should be!

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A great Kickstarter project… Knitting the World together. Bonnie Kate Wolf, a knitter and art student in London is raising funds to help her knit a 7 foot wide map of the world. The map is her final project for her degree at the London College of Communication. She’s raising funds to help her buy the 6000 yds of yarn needed. Contributors will receive a high-resolution image of the final map.

The amazing thing is that the knitter only picked up needles for the first time a year ago!

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Planning ahead for the summer, Woolfest 2012 has been announced. Friday and Saturday June 22 & 23 in Cockermouth, Cumbria, the event promises lots of excellent fiber fun. From fleece animals and rare breeds, through fleece, tops, craft equipment and materials, to finished clothing, accessories and unique hand-crafted woollen goods, there is something for every fiber enthusiast.

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Wonderful story from Australia about the resurgence of wool as both a luxury and practical fiber in clothing... Over three quarters of Australia’s wool last year – over $2 billion’s worth – was sold to China for use in the clothing industry.

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Awesome video of an experiment conducted in space, using a static-charged knitting needle.  Although we do sort of resent the implication that knitting needles would be otherwise uninteresting in space.  I mean, honestly, I think knitting socks would be an ideal way to pass the hours on the journey…

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One of my spinning goals for this year is to make friends with worsted style spinning.

The only way for me to do that is to spin a lot of worsted yarn this year, to make myself spin that way, like waking up with an alarm.

 

I spun 4 ounces of Spunky Eclectic, South African Fine in the Peace on Earth colorway.

Both bobbins have 2 ounces of fiber on them. Why is one so much fuller? Did I cheat and spin the fluffy fiber woolen?

No, I did not cheat, really, I have the hand cramp to prove it. Both bobbins were spun worsted, no twist between my hands and smoothing, smoothing, smoothing. I do like the smoothing part of worsted. The bobbin in the front has more twist in it. I changed my ratio after the first bobbin to see what difference it would make.

I spun on my Lendrum DT, with the regular flyer. The first fluffier bobbin I spun on the biggest whorl/pulley/thingamabobber which has a ratio of 6:1. The second bobbin, I dropped down one groove to a ratio of 8:1.

 

Now I won’t say that having more twist made my worsted spinning effortless, but it sure helped. It was easier to draft and control using the worsted style. I got a more compact and finer yarn. I still said a lot of words not fit for a blog post.  I had my fiber in a death grip. My yarn was uneven, and uneven in a way that wouldn’t have bothered me if I was spinning woolen, but made me crazy in the worsted yarn. Learning something new is hard.

I did a simple two-ply:

I like the yarn. I can see the usefulness of worsted spinning. That’s as much love as I have today for the worsted. I still have a hand cramp. But I’m going to do it again, this time with a smoother less fluffy fiber, maybe something with shine.

 

When I first opened this club package I knew I wanted to make a shawl out of it. So I swatched with my new worsted yarn:

I really like the stitch pattern in this yarn, but I want to try going up a needle size, just to see. I’m thinking about a crescent style shawl. What do you think?

 

My first appearance as jabbering sidekick on the SpinDoctor podcast is available to download. If you think I get excited about spinning here, you should hear me talk about it. Downright giddy.

 

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It’s the middle of winter and I don’t know about you, but I need some knitting inspiration.

 

How about a package of 6 knitting books from some of the most creative knitting minds?

Any one of these books will make your fingers itch to knit.

The folks at Cooperative Press have donated 6 of their most recent knitting books that 1 lucky knitter will win.

 

The usual rules apply for our giveaway: Leave a comment on this post before midnight, eastern time, on Friday, February 10, 2012.

 

1 comment will be chosen at random to answer a skill testing question.

If he/she answers correctly, they will win our prize! Prizes valued at $153.75. Good luck, everyone!

 

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I want you to meet my new leeetle friends.

 

Backtrack. In my job as editor, I get to try a lot of needles to review them for our Cool Stuff pages. For just about ever, all metal needles have been sent away to get tested by someone other than me, since metal + my usual non-woolly yarns = heartbreak.

 

Except I’m now knitting with camel [and a few other animally but non-woolly fibers]. And camel is grabbier than anything else I’ve ever knit with, almost. Which is awesome, for things like stretch and bounce! But is not awesome when all your needles are bamboo and wood, which grab fibers that are already grabby.

 

My LYS — the fabulous Purple Purl — had these brand-new HiyaHiya SHARP interchangeables in stock, and after looking the set over and examining the details carefully, I decided they just might be my solution, so I treated myself. You’ll get to read a full review in our Spring+Summer issue, which comes out in March, but a little sneak peek: I love these needles. Slippery over the join, just like I needed them to be [and I'm knitting with two strands of camel/silk laceweight!] and the new SHARP point is perfectly pointy.

 

Very happy knitter, me.

 

 

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