Fiber Friday: Is This My Favorite Knitting Technique Of All?
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Fiber Friday: Is This My Favorite Knitting Technique Of All?
This Friday, I'm reflecting on the delights (and challenges) of lace knitting + recs for reading, watching, listening & learning.
Hi there, I’m Jodie Morgan, and welcome!
Fiber Friday is a weekly letter from me to you, with life lessons, crafting adventures, inspiration, and links from the world of making.
I hope you enjoy. If there’s someone else who might enjoy it, please share it with them on your favorite platform: social media, emails, chat groups… Thank you!
🎙️For the audio version, read by me, click here!
After knitting a simple but rewarding project, (my Tara Top,) I wanted something more challenging. So I settled on a beautiful summer top with lace elements, the True Nature Tee by Stephanie Lotven of Tellybean Knits.
With my swatching out of the way, I'm practicing the lace pattern before I dive into the main project. How I love knitting lace designs.
Seeing how the pattern turns out is so rewarding! It uses a flower petal design on the yoke before transitioning to simple stockinette.
The swatch of the stockinette is lovely and light after washing and drying it. I'm glad I chose the yarn I did.
Have you ever tried lace knitting? If not, I encourage you to try.
While it's challenging, learning the different increases and decreases has so many benefits. A whole new world of patterns to try will open up and you'll gain more confidence in your skills.
Just be patient with yourself when learning! It's a little fiddly, but I promise it's worth it.
A little trip down memory lane…
In late 2019, while in Europe, we spent some time with family who were there for a holiday. We went to the Netherlands for a few days, and it was delightful!
I so enjoyed riding through the heather fields and forest in Ermelo. It was so lush and green with bike paths everywhere! A nature lover’s dream.
On one bike ride, I met a Shepherdess with her flock of sheep. She told me about how the sheep loved eating the heather and having free roam of the commons.
In the town, meanwhile, I found a lovely yarn shop tucked away off the main street. For a small space, they had such variety!
While there, I bought some self-striping yarn and made a colorful pair of socks.
What I’ve loved this week: recommended reads, listens, visuals and things to be grateful for…
I learned from my son about how to recommend newsletters on Substack and add a little blurb about why I love their work.
What a fantastic feature! Why didn’t I know about this earlier? With his help, I set that up. So if you’d like more fiber arts goodness in your inbox, see my picks!
Do you subscribe to a fiber arts maker whose posts you enjoy? Please tell me by replying to this email. I’d love to hear your suggestions!
Something I’ve also been looking into is the “Notes” section of Substack. If you’re not familiar, it’s a place for short form content as a supplement to your newsletter if you write on Substack, or to share your thoughts if you’re a reader.
If you’d like to join me on notes, please do! It’d be a pleasure to get to know you and see what you’re working on. Creative inspiration is a wonderful thing.
I'm still listening to Phosphorescence by Julia Baird. Highly recommend listening to it, she has a beautiful, heartfelt way of writing.
I've also just started an audiobook called Wifedom by Anna Funder.
What are you reading or listening to? Any recommendations for me?
I love cable designs and Celtic patterns, and combining them is a lovely idea!
For a recent project, I just had to try the Fancy Celtic Cable scarf by Kristen McDonnell of Studio Knit. A chance to practice cable knits with no cable needle.
Her pattern includes written instructions and a chart. It’s a 32-row repeat, and the beauty of it is you can knit the scarf to be as long as you like!
In my case, I just hoped I had enough leftover yarn to make it.
The reason I had to be mindful of the length was I made it to use up all the yarn I had left in that blue color (from the textured stitch blanket I made.)
I gave it to the lovely baker (who taught me to make cinnamon buns) as a gift.
When we were talking about it we had a little giggle because there are few opportunities to wear a warm scarf in Chiang Mai’s hot climate!
The good news is she sometimes visits family in the mountains and with the cooler weather up there, this’ll be perfect for those times.
For about five minutes in the morning, that is, though she’s probably more sensitive to the cold than I am! I appreciate during November to January the air is colder in the mornings but calling it winter is a bit of a stretch. 😊
Now I know how to knit the cables without a cable needle, they’ll be easier in the future. If you’re interested in learning how to knit cables with no cable needle, I’ve created a video tutorial which you can watch below.
This week, I'm grateful for the wonderful part of life that is food. While living here in Chiang Mai I've had the opportunity to try many wonderful places, and cook with local organic vegetables, and try different tropical fruits.
And of course, there's nothing more wonderful than sitting down to knit with a decadent cake to eat! The trick is to avoid spilling any crumbs. 😉
My Thai baker friend made the delicious chocolate cake pictured above. I so admire bakers who can create soft and fine crumb cakes!
Do you like cake too? What’s your favorite?
A thought for you to ponder this coming week…
I'll leave you with this beautiful quote from
.“Creative work can spring forth in so many different ways. It might look like classic ‘creativity’—drawing or painting—but, actually, I think creativity is anything and everything that engages our hearts and our eyes and our hands and our hopes. It’s visual art, but it’s also growing things. It’s all the things that make us feel more alive.”
So, may you give yourself the grace of patience, and the courage to try new things. When you slow down, you can relish the stillness.
I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below, reply to this email, or share your thoughts in Substack Notes and tag me:
.
Fiber Friday: Is This My Favorite Knitting Technique Of All?
Awwww, thank you for the shout-out!
I'm pretty new here and will be checking your lovely recommendations. And Thank you so much for including me in your list.