Knitters Review

In the 12+ years I've been writing Knitter's Review, many yarns, tools, and knitting accessories have come and gone. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by those products that remain. This week I pay tribute to one such surprise. First reviewed in 2006, the little-known StitchKeepers by Rollie were only available from just a few shops and a personal Road Runner homepage. Six years later, StitchKeepers are available almost everywhere. They've gone up in price by just fifty cents, and they're still one of my favorite accessories for DPN projects on the go.

The 39th annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival took place last weekend. It's sensory overload, with dozens of sheep breeds and thousands of yarns, fibers, tools, and toys as far as the eye can see. For those who couldn't make it, I've put together a seven-minute slide show for you. You'll find lots of sheep, pretty skeins of yarn, plates of fried food, and a special 'knitty pot.'

Step into a Briar Rose Fibers booth at a fiber festival and you'll likely encounter a crush of people with blissed-out expressions, all holding enormous hanks of yarn in their arms. Inevitably they start hugging the yarn and talking to it, which is not hard to do when each skein is the size of a baby. That's how I met this week's yarn, fittingly called Robusta.

Did you know that in the week of April 15th, half the books on the Wall Street Journal's best-selling fiction list were children's books? Also increasingly popular is yarnstorming, or yarn bombing, where knitting becomes a sort of public graffiti-albeit a soft and colorful kind. This week we celebrate the convergence of these two trends in a lovely children's book called Extra Yarn. You'll want to give a copy to everyone you know, knitters and non-knitters alike.

Been to Tajikistan lately? Neither have I. But thanks to the wonders of yarn, I've just spent the day with a group of angora goats raised in the Asht region of northern Tajikistan. The fibers are being harvested, cleaned, prepared, and handspun into yarn as part of an international development project. Its name, Mohair Magic. Shall we do some armchair swatching?

Yarn shops are on the front line of knitting. Work in one and you'll quickly get a good idea what people want, where they get stuck, and where they don't want to go. Former store owner Heather Walpole listened to her customers. They asked again and again for a great machine-washable worsted-weight wool, something soft enough for babies and the tender-skinned. She started a company to create that very yarn. Meet Wooly Worsted from Ewe Ewe Yarns.

No matter how much we love knitting, and we can all agree we love it a lot, sometimes our needles fall silent. Maybe a project has bogged us down, or maybe life got in the way. We miss our knitting mojo and wonder if we'll ever get it back. I say yes, absolutely. To help kick-start your creativity and keep it healthy, I've put together 10 tips for overcoming knitter's block and staying inspired.

The food world has its notion of 'terroir.' Close your eyes and you can pick up hints of a distinct geography, soil, water, air, you name it, in every sip of wine, every nibble of cheese. I like to think that yarn, too, has terroir. Tahki's Donegal Tweed is still spun in the county for which it was named in Ireland, and this week I show what you'll find when you cast on and start knitting with it.

Someone recently asked me if lace shawls ever needed to be re-blocked. The answer? A most emphatic yes. Re-blocking shawls is a pleasant spring-cleaning ritual right up there with vacuuming the blinds and airing your comforter. Some shawls keep their shape much better than others, but all deserve to have their fibers cleaned and tidied up at least once a year. This week I revisit blocking with a tutorial and a look at lace blocking wires, including some new, super-fine ultra-flexible ones. My only worry: Are they too flexible for the job?

If we are truly on the cusp of a colorwork renaissance, then it's time for a little primer. Some of the most beautiful, intricate designs are created by the artful placement of just two colors along each row. It's called 'stranded knitting,' and who better to teach us than Meg Swansen and Amy Detjen in their new book, Knitting With Two Colors.

With Alice Starmore's books back in print and Jared Flood's Brooklyn Tweed yarns providing a mouth-watering palette, everything's in place for a color renaissance. Some would argue colorwork never went away in the first place. When you use multiple colors within a project, you have two choices. Either you use the colors the designer chose for you, or you strike out on your own. We weren't all born with an equal gift for putting colors together. Books and wheels teach us color theory, but sometimes we just want a simple gadget to get us on the right path. I've found one. Gail Callahan's Color Grid is no bigger than a take-out menu and costs less than a sandwich.

In 2003 I fell in love with a plush, spongy wool yarn from Oregon. I didn't know anything about the farm or even the sheep breed, I simply ordered a yarn, sight unseen, and the package captivated me. Nine years, three books, and hundreds of yarns later, the stakes are certainly higher. Generations of sheep have come and gone, but the Oregon farm remains. I thought it fitting to return to this mythical yarn and see if it's still as good as I originally thought. Let's return to Imperial Stock Ranch for a re-swatch, shall we?

My favorite knitting tool sits in the kitchen right on top of my microwave. I use it when baking bread and making caramels, and I always pull it out when I'm working with leftover skeins of yarn. Can you guess what it is?

Washing your swatches is the knitter's equivalent of finishing a book to know how the story ends. Sure, you can guess, or a friend can spoil it for you. But with some yarns, you have to see it for yourself to believe it. While I was in Wisconsin last weekend I came across one such yarn. It's an interesting felted concoction from Germany that blends Merino, cashmere, and silk into something called Cashmere Queen. The difference from skein to washed fabric is striking and, for some people, unbelievable.

We have few landmarks in the knitting world. When one closes, we feel its loss. Earlier this week, La Lana Wools announced that February 29th would be its last day. Owner Luisa Gelenter said simply, "I'm ready for my next chapter." For nearly 40 years, Gelenter and her Taos, New Mexico, shop have been mainstays of the textiles world. Her naturally dyed handspun yarns have captivated countless knitters, inspiring the Maine Morning Mitts and prompting Julia Roberts to stalk her in a Taos grocery store. To pay tribute to Gelenter's work, and to help you understand what we're losing, I've been given special permission to share Melanie Falick's profile of Luisa Gelenter and La Lana Wools from America Knits (originally titled Knitting in America). When you're done reading, please join me in thanking the remarkable Luisa for adding so much color and texture to our textile world.

One-skein wonders make yarn companies cringe. They'd rather you stock up on a few dozen skeins for a sweater or a blanket. But some yarns are so decadent (and often so pricey) that they beg for smaller, special one- or two-skein projects. Artyarns falls into this category. As if reading our minds, owner Iris Schreier has just published a collection of patterns that take the one-skein notion literally one skein further.