WIP Wednesday: Ice Queen Warmers

It's Work-In-Progress Wednesday again! This is a legwarmer I'm making, which is a variation on the Witch Warmers pattern. These will be fairly ugly, if I don't get the after-knitting embroidery to work out right. The plan is to use duplicate-stitch to make a sort of drippy icicle-effect coming down off each stripe. Hooboy, I hope it works.

For more WIP Wednesday posts on other blogs, check here.

Designer of the Month: Erin Jepson

This month, we're having a change of pace--instead of a pattern designer, I wanted to feature a yarn designer. As lovers of yarn, I think knitters and crocheters owe a lot to those marvelous artists who design and create our medium.

Erin Jepson
First, let me say that the photos in this post don't do Erin's yarns justice. When you see them for real, you want to grab them all up and eat 'em... or maybe knit them... or crochet. Erin is a brilliant young woman who, in addition to having a degree in music performance, rubs elbows with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and Manheim Steamroller as a matter of, oh, just doing her job at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. That, coupled with living in one of the most beautiful spots in the country, she is a yarn-lover's dream come true. Her color and texture combinations go from darkly brooding to sweetness and light and back again in a matter of a few yards of plied, yummy yarn.

You can buy her yarn to have as your very own, from her Etsy store, Wooly Hands.

Here are some of my favorite yarns by Erin:

Rotten Fruits

Dark Crystal

Night Hike











Erin has kindly answered some interview questions for us, and she did such a great job of it, that I'm going to publish them in two parts. On the second Monday of this month, Part 2 will be posted. Here's the first:

How did you get started designing yarn?
In a nutshell, I basically fell into it. Although, you all are smart enough to know that isn’t entirely true. No one really falls into a hobby like this. It’s not like I was walking through the mall and said, “Oh look, a spinning wheel and sheep.” I’ll expand a bit… knitting with commercially spun yarns started to wear on me and I found myself scouring the Internet for gorgeous, handspun yarns. The LYS near me doesn’t carry a good selection of handspun yarns. What they do have is natural (brown… tan… more brown) or dyed after being spun and I prefer dyed before spinning and yarns with loads of color. Etsy.com provided me with a plethora of shops all dyeing and selling the most tempting and gorgeous yarns I have ever laid eyes on.

It didn’t take many months of buying yarn before the obvious next step presented itself. Why wasn’t I spinning my own yarns? Thankfully I surround myself with tons of supportive people and over the course of a Christmas, I found myself with a drop spindle and some wool. That led to my first spinning wheel 9 months later, then my 2nd and 3rd spinning wheels, a drum carder, boxes upon boxes of dyes. and fleeces upon fleeces of wool. Basically, I don’t do things small. I go all out. Spinning and designing yarns is just another example of that. Ask me about the time I was going to sell Mary Kay cosmetics and thought I would need $4,000 of product to get started. Yeah, I’m that person.

What is your yarn weight preference?
I prefer worsted weight yarns because most of my favorite handspun knitting projects are small, like mittens and hats. Worsted weight is perfect for things like that. However, those who own one of my scarves or neck warmers know I’m also a huge fan of bulky yarns. There is an element of surprise in a neck warmer knit from a super bulky, thread plied yarn. No two rows are the same. Now that I’ve said I prefer worsted and bulky, I’d like to add that I don’t necessarily like those better than the others--they are just what I enjoy spinning and using. If I were to knit up a lacy shawl, I’m sure I’d prefer some laceweight yarn. Ask me this question again in February and I’ll bet that my answer will be different.

What’s your favorite fiber to work with?
When it comes to wool, I adore BFL (Blue Faced Leicester), which will beat out any natural (I’m leaving out super wash wools for this answer) wool in my wool popularity contest. It’s sleek, easy to spin, and has a natural luster that the other wools don’t have. My favorite non-wool fiber is angelina. I have 2 drawers full of the sparkly stuff in plastic and metallic materials. I love the way the sparkle of the angelina plays against the matte finish of wool in a finished yarn.

What is your weapon of choice?
While I did start out with a drop spindle, I quickly moved to a wheel. I’m not an overly patient person, and if takes me more than one day to spin a yarn I’ll lose interest. Spinning wheels allow me the speed to finish a yarn in one sitting but also the flexibility to create some really amazing yarns. I currently use my Lendrum DT to spin most of the yarns I knit with and sell, but I also use a small, single treadle wheel from Heavenly Handspinning that is easy to carry from craft show to craft show.

You can find Part 2 of Erin's interview here.

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You can keep up with Erin by visiting her blog, http://knittinghands.blogspot.com.
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To participate in Designer of the Month on your blog, just fill in your info in the box below, and your link will be added. If you're a member of Ravelry, you can also post in The Blog Hub group's Designer of the Month thread so we can all read about your featured designer.

Peppermint Warmers

These Christmasy wristwarmers are the armwarmers-short version from the Witch Warmers in Crochet pattern. To look more like peppermint, it has been modified to have fat white stripes and skinny red stripes. Here are the modifications:

MC is red, CC is white.

Ruffle
Base chain & R1: use MC.
R2-R3: use CC, do not change color at end.
R4: skip.
R5: use CC, change color at end.
R6-R7: use MC, change color at end.

Arm
R8-R9: use CC, don't change color at end.
R10: skip.
R11: use CC, omit sl st, change color at end.
Inc R1-R2: use MC, change color at end.
Inc R3-R4: use CC, do not change color at end.
Repeat Inc R2: use CC, omit sl st, change color at end.
Repeat Inc R3-R4: use MC, change color at end.

Top
Repeat R10-R11: use CC, do not change color at end.
Repeat R11: use CC, sc-bl all, change color at end.
Repeat R10-R11: use MC, change color at end.
Repeat R10-R11: use CC, do not change color at end.
Repeat R11: use CC, omit sl st, change color at end.
Repeat R10-R11: use MC, do not change color at end.
End with sl st-bl in marker st, as written in pattern.

Happy Merrymas!

WIP Wednesday: Peppermint Warmers

It's Work-In-Progress Wednesday again! This is a wristwarmer I'm making, which is a variation on the Witch Warmers in Crochet pattern. The unusual thing about this variation is that the stripes are not the same width... fat white ones, thin red ones. It's been fun to try to get the striping right and still have the ruffle and increases work out.

For more WIP Wednesday posts on other blogs, check here.

Yuletide Blessings!

Designer of the Month: Anne Carroll Gilmour

Anne Carroll Gilmour
In addition to her famous witch hat, Anne's knit designs have a Celtic, mystical, starry-eyed feel. As a gifted and accomplished spinner and weaver, her understanding of fiber, color, and garment structure give her patterns the mark of quality that few knit designers can come close to. From Celtic knot cables to celestial motifs to lace, her work is always a joy to behold!

Here are some of my favorite patterns by Anne:

Enchanting and Magical Witch Hat

Entrelac Envelope Bag

Tempall Breachain Hat

Dancing Stars Hat











Here are Anne's answers to the Designer of the Month interview questions:

How did you get started designing patterns?
As soon as I learned to knit and crochet (I was 8) I started designing my own patterns--for me it was easier just to invent what I envisaged than to try to follow someone else’s path. The real trick for me was not learning to design, but learning to write directions for the things I designed that others could follow!

What is your design preference: knit or crochet?
I have to say knit--I learned to crochet first and I love both, but it was the more flexible nature of knit fabric for wear-ables that appealed to me and caused me to develop more in that direction. I also come from a folk knitting background, and classic textured fisherman-type knits and colourwork have always been a part of my mental and physical landscape from early on.

What is your weapon of choice?
I love wood and bamboo double-points (very traditional that way for tight circles), but I think other techniques like magic loop, et al. are great--anything that gets folks knitting! I use Addi turbo and lace circulars for everything else, whether I’m knitting flat or round, I love the tip shape of this particular brand and it’s easier on the wrists than having something hanging off the ends of straight needles (they also don’t bump your husband when he’s brave enough to sit next to you while you’re knitting!).

Are there types of stitches that you use a lot, and why?
Texture (cables, twisted sts, etc), classic colour stranding, and Entrelac are the three that jump to mind, but I love lace and other types of colourwork too--there are so many possibilities with these techniques that I seem to return to them again and again, they are old friends that always take me new places!

What is your favorite color / pattern combination?
It changes all the time. Right now I’m loving the combination of pumpkin-y goldish-orange next to beet red, but that’s probably because it’s Autumn--and spirals and knots of some form or another are always floating around in my head--I’d say it’s my Celtic background but I think it’s pretty universal... just look at prehistoric rock art and cave paintings.

What’s your favorite fiber to work with when designing?
WOOL--no surprise there, eh?

Do you have a type of project that you lean towards for pattern design, like socks, hats, sweaters, etc.?
Love ‘em all!

How do you conceptualize your designs?
They usually materialize whole-cloth in my mind as complete and detailed finished items--mostly triggered by something I see that inspires me. For instance, my ‘Fenceline’ series was born while I was gazing at a vintage barbed wire collection in a dusty little cowboy museum in Kemmerer, Wyoming--hey I bet you could make little ‘peerie’ type patterns like this, why not?-- everything I see is grist for my idea mill, it never sleeps!

Where do you do your best design work?
Wherever I am. Ideas come to me all the time. I take a little graph paper notebook with me everywhere I go.

Who or what was your earliest inspiration that started you on your way to being the designer you are today?
My Mother and my Aunt and the sweet little German lady (Nanna Tuerschen) who used to babysit all the kids in my neighbourhood, they were always making something (sewing, knitting, crocheting, etc.)--I wanted to be just like them!

Do you have any advice for knitters or crocheters who are new to designing patterns?
Do not dismiss any of your design ideas without at least giving them a shot, and build your technical skills. The best designers are always the ones who understand the techniques they are using and writing about inside and out. Believe in yourself!

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You can keep up with Anne by visiting her website, http://www.wildwestwoolies.com.
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