Thanks Julia for setting me up to blog. I'm the Linda that teaches spinning, dyeing, and knitting at Wild Purls. I told Julia I'd blog about the books in her store that I love, my August knitting cruise on the Black Sea with knitters extraordinaire Nancy Bush and Beth Brown-Reinsel and other topics of interest to WP devotees.
I LOVE fiber books. For years I bought many of the knitting magazines and books on the market as well as spinning and weaving. Those were the days when only a few knitting books were published each year and we couldn't wait for the books and magazines to come out as they were are only source of technique-heavy information. Things have changed and even I found a limit to how many knitting books I could buy.
But one I bought earlier this year at WP and can't wait to delve into thoroughly is knit one below by Elise Duvekot, published in 2008 by XRX books. I have had it for a couple of months now, after falling in love with as soon as I saw it at WP and walked out with it immediately.
Elise Duvekot, who divides her time between Canada and The Netherlands, explored k1b (knit one below) for 10 years for this book. This knitting method is ideal for space dyed and self-striping yarn--two of my favorite dyeing techniques. When you knit this stitch in a single yarn , it breaks up pooling and produces a subdued fabric. When used with two colors, you can create columns. The feel of the knitting has a distinct hand - not tight or stiff. It is also doesn't curl much. For a while Julia had a small sample there.
Like slip stitch, this pattern changes the ratio of the stitches to rows. Elise says that depending upon the yarn, the ratio is often close to 1 stitch per 3 rows which is quite different from to 2 to 3 or 5 to 7 ratio of stockinette stitch. Because the stitch creates a wider stitch gauge than stockinette, you need a very loose cast on and Elise has a special method for this. For example, instead of a 60 stitch sock, you would have a 40 stitch sock. If all goes well, I'll cast on the hat very soon. I'm very excited to try it.
Last Saturday's Spin In at Wild Purls was fun and relaxing, which I really needed. I was so happy, I spun a lot into the evening, playing with fiber and I've spun more this week because of it. Thanks for setting the Spin-in up.
Linda Shelhamer (not to be confused with comely Linda Heins--WP blogger, Ravelerizer, and knitting guru).
Posted on
Mon, June 29, 2009
by Julia Warmer