definitely something for us to work on - the craft of elegantly creating handknits. if you're looking to finesse your knitting/finishing skills, check out the blog where "25 years of knitting tricks want out of my mind, and into yours" at techknitting while nonaknits gives the lowdown on her experiences with catherine "couture knitting" lowe.
ok, do lock away the credit cards before going any further. there's a few of oz places that you might like to check out - natty yarns, which while the site leaves a little to be desired, do stock sugar'n'cream cotton (handy for homesick yanks?) & hand dyed merino. interesting fibres, along with bamboo, and soy sock yarn are at ecoyarns, and we've been well and truly lusting after the yarn porn that is the knittery.
there's a very lovely store that we had the chance to peruse, who also helped us out tons in creating a necklace out of chandelier crystals:
boutique beads, 179 st georges road, fitzroy north victoria, 3068. ph: 9482 4021
if you're in the area, worth a visit.
Genius post from and knitting on how to find what you need in knitting blogs.
we're still in the ice ages here (read a very old laptop...), but we can wish for the day that we have a shiny new(er) computer and an ipod so we can listen it to knitting podcasts from knitcast. or even think about our own lil' podcast...whee! back to the fun days of community radio...
c/o bust, microrevolt offers an awesome free program knitpro which translates any high res image into a graph which you can go craftin' crazy with. eerily genius.
the reason why the program is available is to encourage a little political naughtiness - it's very easy to throw a nice big companies logo into the program (hello gap, nike, and others busted in sweatshoparoonie) and knit a small act of resistance. however it's the thought of whacking in vintage fabric patterns or somesuch which has us all thrilled about it.
we've had a lovely email to let us know that a previous find a store near you search that we had no longer works. so here's a next best thing - thanks to yellow pages, a listing of retail knitting stores in victoria. in oz, out of vic? clicking on the link also gives you the option of whacking in a postcode, where the nearest stores shall spew forth, giving you yet more options to exercise the credit card, check out the yarn porn, and find other souls just as twisted as you.
one of yarn lovin' melbinites favourite stores is marta's for her coloured yarn. don't believe us? see (and buy!) for yourself - our pick is the slubby multicoloured yarn.
just a little heads up as to what's new knitting at craft wise at the yarra melbourne regional libraries (also covers the swish city library of melbs too). damn. time out with the library website, so more at a later date, but from memory:
joelle hoverson's last minute knitted gifts
interweave knits editor pam allen's scarf style - not yr everyday book - check out comments and examples from typepad knit bloggers.
erika knight's baby bloom (different name, same book and we're a total sucker for the jacket on the bottom lh corner...even if it is for a pregnant woman - given the state of our stomach, don't reckon we'll have any problems fitting the thing...)
bead crochet we're considering purchasing, because the techniques and ideas we haven't seen elsewhere, and it's a very thorough book on the subject, which covers the more unusual side of crochet - making jewellery.
got a handheld a wondering how it can help you with yr knitting? enter palm knitting.
yup, we're just gearing up for a week at the geelong fibre forum, and we'd like to issue a special invitation to attend saturday 2nd october from 9.30am. there's a heathen bazaar - sale of items from participants of the forum, plus the traders - colinette from sarah durrant, Debbie I'Anson from Bernina, hawthorne cottage yarns, beautiful silks, gill venn hand dyed fibreworks yarns, threads and more, yarn barn, artisan books, littlewood yarns, the bead and opal wool queen (!) and three (yeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss) providers of japanese kimonos, textiles, and other goodness (including ziguzagu who are currently having a 40% off sale until friday).
lunch is available for $10, and there's talks in the afternoon from makiko tada and karen searle entitled "a magnificent obsession with braid, knit and crochet".
phew.
wow. very beautiful yarns in amazing colourways from a company with a conscience - alchemy yarns. we're particularly fond of their fire range, along with the punky saturation. mmmm.
looking forward to checking it out soon in melbs - coloured jules, home of ruvly hand dyed mohair and wool. there's a great listing of online yarn stores on the web watch blog, (see may 26 entry) however, there's no bookmarking or archives (as yet) so we'll reprise the links here in good time.
with info on their membership and classes, a good value trip to bendigo for the upcoming sheep and wool show and other assorted local guff, it's new beginnings for the melbourne handknitter's guild site.
if, like kelis you want to learn to knit with personal help, there's a large range of options available. here's our lot to get you started, with an idea of pricing:
there's going to be a big bead get together in melbourne over the queen victoria weekend, including the previously mentioned anlaby designs - info for the bead symposium.
another chunk of beaded goodness - the japanese beads knitting book.
a non knitting moment - we love the french wirework on silver and hall who is turn put us onto anlady, who has patterns for knitted beaded bags, (we love elizabeth...pink cardie with gold bead trim, gold bead bag...we'll keep dreaming...).
a great little tutorial - how to unravel a sweater. a very neat idea when you're short on cash, big on ideas, or just want to try something out on cheap wool - it doesn't come much better than thrifting. some beautiful recycled yarns on ebay. both these resources found on yarn tomato.
amazon. what a boon (or bank account bust, depending on which way you look at it) for crafty types. a few things one might just find helpful - amazon's new search engine. featuring google results for websites, amazon results for books and other amazonly features - a9 is particularly handy when searching for info about types of knitting eg modular knitting.
other handy chunks of amazon for knitters - new releases and top sellers.
one of the women from school saw us knitting and wanted to know where to find more fashionable patterns. we suggested interweave knits and rowan magazine, which hopefully should do the trick - the audrey pattern would definitely suit her (thanks to judy for the link).
one can never have too many woollen mills offering great yarns at awesome prices. offering 8ply dk wool (which looks like it'll be just dandy for felting projects) in 32 shades - waverley woollen mills.
update on below - we have checked it out, and it's an amazing place for fiber fiends. a fine example:
800 grams of pure wool - still greasy (we weren't too sure about the fibre content, but one whiff of eau de shearing shed put us straight) in skeins for $12. we found it in garbage bags at the front of the warehouse - it had just come in, and adam hadn't had the time to price and cone it - needless to say, there's a lot of it. still, after a little washing, dyeing and tlc, that's the cheapest garment we've ever made.
::: ::: :::
we haven't had the chance to check it out yet, but reports have been good - adam at DEA yarns usually wholesales, but has also opened to the public.
he stocks a wide variety of yarns (wool, mohair, slubby linen/rayon, and other wierd, wild, and wonderful things...), and sells by the cone - so it's one of those places where it's great if you have a knowledge about what you want and what you're prepared to pay.
details:
DEA YARNS 10 Dawson St Coburg Victoria Ph/fax 03 9350 3343 (Adam)
OPEN THURSDAY & FRIDAY 9AM -3PM
SATURDAY 9.30AM - 1PM
a few people from swings and slides were curious as to where to get their info, so nundle woollen mills offers yarn (wool, mohair, linen/wool blends amongst other things...), patterns, needles and more at their site (feel free to contact them for a free shadecard.
we've been quiet about the stitches and craft show, because we're a wee bit suss about these kind of operations - you're charged entry for the opportunity to spend more money at stalls who have paid a fortune to be there, and the bulk of knitting places should show elsewhere, or you can simply mailorder. that said, if you haven't been to one before, apparently the march show caters better for knitters than one later in the year. otherwise, simply save your pennies for sheepshow.
due to being a cae student, we got a little preview of the new city library - it rocks. think of a borders you can loan from, and you're not far off the mark. here's the catalog to give you an idea. to get the latest release knitting books, do a subject search for "knitting patterns" then sort by publishing date.
saw our first ever batch of uber high end yarn from colinette. incredibly beautiful with sophisticated colour - comparing colinette to the usual commercial yarn is not unlike a evening out at a 5 star restaurant to fixing yourself baked beans on toast. the distributor of colinette, works by mailorder and showing at crafty get togethers (next big one being bendigo's sheep and wool show).
she has catalogues featuring samples of all the yarns she has available for $10.00 (before you keel over, the samples need to be about a metre long to give you a decent idea of the colour - while the website is good, even then, the colours do have some differences). contact details - check out the new site at sarah durrant.
doing the rounds of recommendation with good reason at the moment...know what rowan yarn you want, and want it cheap? colourway.co.uk is a pretty impressive online mailorder company.
wool baa - which has books, yarn, equipment and classes for knitters.
details:
Wool Baa,
124 Bridport St
Albert Park 3206
ph: (03) 9690 6633
they're open 7 days:
sat - wed 10-6, thurs, fri 10- 9pm.
woolbaa.com.au
sheesh. we can't believe that early friday morning, we were fretting about whether we were doing the right thing by taking off a day of sculpture and art history to go to the sheepshow was worth it. sheepshow was awesome. highlights included the train trip down with the ladies including their president valerie along with dolores who has a little handknitting get together from the handspinners and weavers guild.
the bus trip (free, thanks sheepshow!) was kinda neat too, because you got to find out about your fellow fibre fiends. so much for us being nuts travelling from melbs to bendy. methinks the winner was the woman from tokyo(!!!) who came over just for the event, and from what we gathered, was simply staying for the whole 3 days, and buying up as much as she could. there were also quite a few people from nz who came over (including exhibitors such as the luscious touch yarns. what was kinda interesting was finding all the stuff from melbourne that we didn't know about. sure, marta's yarns did well...dyed wool yarn (Marta's Yarns, 33 Waverley Rd Malvern East 3145, ph:(03) 9572 0319) -marta's yarns. however, one of her staff was there with her own amazing stall of stuff she'd handknitted herself, and she also had a few of marta's more unusual things like a beautiful ribbon that we've been trying to track down in order to knit a dress from the urban knitter. the stallholder was wearing one of her own creations - a dress with a little shawl over the top, and it was so inspiring - a really beautiful start to our day. she also showed us a neat little technique - handknitting, literally by hand, without using needles - quite useful for thick yarn and smaller projects like scarves.
'cause it's a sheepshow, they also handle the farming/animal side of things. there were the usual suspects of guys running around in their moleskins, rm williams boots and merino jumpers splitting the wool on the backside of sheep to check out the quality of it, but what really got us were the alpacas. we hadn't seen 'em before, and the humming sound they make, paired with them big brown eyes and huge eyelashes...we just wanted to take 'em home.
the cashmere goats were kinda sweet too - at least, the ones which were being taken care of by schools, and used to a lot of human contact were ruvly, except for their mischievious habit of wanting to eat everything - the little rotter we petted was having a go at the coat, cashmere scarf (the rels perhaps?) and jeans we were wearing - it'd try anything once.
after exhibiting huge restraint by just buying a little chunk of dyed mohair to play with, then it was time for the woollen mills. all day, we'd loved the look of rovings and sliver - it's the in between product of a fleece and yarn, and it's thick, soft, lovely stuff which takes dye extremely well - the colours that we'd seen during the day were dreamy - we really loved the subtle as a sledgehammer versions of bright reds, purples, pinks etc. bendigo sells a wool/alpaca mix of sliver for around $30.00 a kilo. sold, to the lady in pink. methinks one of the ladies from nz summed it up best - donkeys travel better loaded. on the way home, every one of us had a little donkey magic.
by popular demand - here's the details for one of melb's best kept secrets:
Yarn Barn
200 Reynard St Coburg 3058
map.
ph: (03) 9386 0361
yarn barn is awesome if you know what you're doing. if you're new to knitting, please, go to a lovely store with friendly knowledgeable staff who are happy to help you out - what you may pay extra for in money, you save in time and frustration.
we love what yarn barn has - heaps of fine wool (it's for machine knitters) which they're happy to ply up to the thickness of your choice, imports such as chenille and italian rayon, rovings in really great colours and all sorts of ruvly stuff (mohair and fancies too!). we just had a really bad run in with the customer service - needless to say, it was probably a bad day, we were being overly critical etc, but we've had similar reports from other visitors.
wow. thanks to everyone who turned up to s.e.x in brunswick. had a ruvly time going through the yarn, and scored the world's most subtle as a sledgehammer pink mohair...mmm. just in case you've scored or you have a stash, and you're wondering...what the hell do i do with all this stuff? here's some hints and suggestions:
dyeing: - if you'd like to dye the yarn that you have, or dye something to go with it, lucky melbinites have a whole store dedicated to dyeing - kraftkolour in northcote. kraftkolour create their own range of dyes, and also have the goods to assist you in creating your own (eg fixatives if you'd like to make a dye from plants etc). we found 'em to be really knowledgeable and helpful. kk are open 9.30 to 5pm monday to friday. another option is the handspinners and weavers guild - they have kraftkolour's landscape dyes for wool - around $10 for 100 grams dye, which will dye approx 1kg of wool. for the full skinny on wool dyeing, there's a great article on knitty about acid dyes.
beautiful, and definitely not your bog standard design:
there's the pdf download of a wedding dress on interweave knits.
princess leia's head doughnuts are now a source of inspiration. dig the crocheted borg at ana's hats.
other movies as inspiration - sussdesigns made some simple cotton tops for the matrix guys to wear - the pattern is in
hollywood knits: 30 original suss designs.
we haven't seen the history of nyc epic gangs of new york, but after reading an article about the costume designer sandy powell, we're keen. from the article - "powell also kept in mind that people would have dressed to suit their lifestyles, and costumed them accordingly. "The women of the time would have been in corsets and full-length skirts, but in this particular world the women were as tough as the men, so it wouldn't seem right having them run around in crinolines. I needed to make them more mobile. So we chopped off the lengths of the skirts and gave them trousers to wear underneath. The idea is that they got whatever they could lay their hands on. People customized clothes to create a look." ".
in the article there's a photo of cameron diaz wearing a satin corset embroidered with flowers, with a kimono style top underneath. pictorial example coming soon of what powell is talking about, and the thought of converting it to knitting...whoa. it'd be full on, but gorgeous. scan coming...
the corset/top combo is a brilliant example of divide and conquer, a term picked up from "what not to wear" - book, bbc show w/ examples. a very fast tutorial for those considering knitting clothes - take it with a grain of salt - if it works for you, ace. if it doesn't, well, sally forth and enjoy yourself, you rebellious rulebreaker you.
do you have a decent sized chest? in order to look a little more in proportion and other good things, it helps heaps to wear things that are lower cut. we're talking vnecks, scoop necks, anything that will give you a decent expanse of chest without fabric. if you do have a top that doesn't divide and conquer, if you make it pale and whack a divide and conquer jacket over the top, you're set.
no boobs/wanting to look a little chunkier? you're lucky in that you can wear all the skimpy things in the world that don't require support (hello new summer (summer our butt, considering we're writing this cuddled into blanket, heater full bore) edition of knitty with tiny tops). there are whole books with knitting patterns for you - vintage knits (delicately made tops, and vintage pattern/petite women thing going on), and vogue knitting: quick knits (you want bulk? you got it!) are both fab.
a list on amazon close to our heart, because it encourages the knitter to educate themselves - do your own thing!.
there's a brand spankin' new woolstore in melbourne - "knitters workshop" which is at 506 lygon street, brunswick (a 01 or 22 tram to coburg/east moreland, get off at the stop before mcdonalds and the huge curve in the road). open mon, tues, wed 10 till 3pm, thurs, fri, sat 10.30 am till 5pm, and sunday (call to check - usually closed during summer) - 11 till 3pm, phone (03) 93837933.
the store has only been open a couple of weeks, and is currently heavy on the oz yarns - jo sharppatons, heirloom. etc. they also have a small range of books and magazines and are planning on introducing knitting workshops. for a new knitter, knitters workshop is a great place to go to get your first project sorted - they have a nice relaxed feel, complete with chairs and magazines, plus accessories - knitting needles, stitch markers etc. while we're getting more rounded resources information online, if you'd like to find stores in another area, woolworks.org has a great listing. (edit - terribly sorry, but woolworks has a cruddy directory, which hasn't been updated properly for a good 3 years or so...if you know of a good online directory, do get in touch).
a little lowdown in regards to what's available through the public library system (in this example, http://ymrl.org.au) who have a decent collect of recent knitting books - 2000 to present:
