Here’s information.   I have have been a reader since about 2006, and even corresponded with Kathreen.  The family was on a year-long adventure around Australia, the journey of their dreams.  To turn out this way is so very very sad.

Kay and Ann over at Mason Dixon Knitting had the brilliant idea of celebrating Kathreen’s life by posting a link to a favorite Whipup post.  I often used Whipup as a resource for all those Christmas presents I’d make with my godkids.  One of the best was quilted placemats made with leftover fabric from earlier years of giftmaking.  We had so much fun talking about the failed and successful gifts we’d done with the material.  (Oh, the stupid lunch bag!  Dad’s seat cushion for hockey games!) They still use the runner and placemats all the time.

Kathreen’s gift to all of us lives on.

There is a fund to help their children. Details are here.  I leave you with her manifesto:

WHIPUP MANIFESTO

Whip up is for experimentation, innovation, self expression and the sharing of information and ideas.

Whip up is against mass produced small plastic crappy stuff designed specifically to extract money from wallets, last less than 10 minutes and spend eternity in landfill.

Whipup is about taking time out of your hectic schedule to make. To make something by hand. And by making something by hand instead of buying it, you achieve personal satisfaction, then by teaching yourself and others new skills you will enjoy life more fully.

Whipup values time over money, values skills over things, and is for creating a space in a hectic life for making.

Whip up is all for the handcraft movement.

Some people say Whip up should be against frilled toilet roll holders, but I say if they are made with love then why the hell not eh!

Whip up is against such polarised views as for and against stuff.

Here’s the gorgeous setting:

a lovely bit from a walk I took on a chilly morning:

I taught a Short Rows Three Ways class to an highly entertaining group of fab knitters.  I also learned a thing or two from them, as happens in all good classes.

I’m going to teach an abbreviated version at the Yarnery on Saturday for one of their PopUp Classes.

“How do Pop Ups work? You show up at The Yarnery, Saturday, May 4, at 10:00am prompt (latecomers may not be seated depending on availability, and given the popularity of Pop Ups, it’s a distinct possibility). Bring some yarn and needles. No pre-registration, and all for only $5.00. As an added bonus, your purchases that morning are 10% off.”

If you are local, come on down!  Or if you are not local, come on down anyway!

Speaking of popping up, I came home from the North Shore to warmer weather, and a few goodies popping up in the garden:

Crown Imperial Fritallaria

Catkins on the Hazelnut Bush

and the first squill, which I loooove.  If it ever warms up again, maybe they will bloom.

There are lots of other videos about it, too.  I have a friend whose daughter is highly enamoured of finger knitting, but Mom is stumped on what to do with the miles of product.  (Can’t just throw them away when no one is looking, I guess.) Maybe use it for arm knitting?  I haven’t tried it myself, I’m more of a 2.75mm needle girl, I am.

Still, I’m pondering projects for kids —  a giant ball of t-shirt loops and make a rug?

Somehow my last post disappeared, leaving only the photo of my ipad doing the weather report, even after comments had been left.  Odd.  Bluestocking Knits pointed out that I could be grateful that I have more weather to wear hand-knits.  She is right, I suppose.   She lives in Southern California, where the season is short.  I have been wearing them.  My disappeared post showed the Cloche Hat.  I also finished Burr (Veronik Avery) at the end of February, and have worn it frequently.  I took it on a trip to DC about 3 weeks ago, thinking I might wear it outside as a light jacket. I wore it every day under my light jacket and still shivered.

I love the sweater. I decided this winter I would knit some sweaters from designers I admire, with yarn from stash.  The Thirteen Mile sport I used for Burr is wonderful yarn.  Soft, plant dyed and direct to you from Montana.  It is light but warm, a perfect weight to wear in place of jacket at the office.  I was introduced to this yarn when Gale Zucker asked me to design the Wolf Pack Hat in Shear Spirit.  I was also inspired to try and do Burr in the contiguous sleeve method that Susan Rainey used.  I have made several sweaters with the Barbara Walker method, and even taught a couple of classes on how to make your own.  Coincidentally, this one was on the dining room chair where I left it last night. Please don’t look at the rippled front band.  It is at least 12 years old, in Kureyon.

Not being the technical wiz and brainiac planner that Susan is, I got 3/4 of the way up the shoulders and realized that I had neglected to remove the seam stitches.  I had a four-stitch wide band up each armhole that looked ridiculous, even to me.

I ripped it out and did it the old fashioned way.  I don’t mind sewing set in sleeves.  I’ll have to do a post with my technique. It’s not elegant, but it works.

Any way, I love this sweater. There’s only a few mods I would make.  The shoulders are a bit big:

I made a combo of the large and medium, but added length to the body.  Details on Ravelry.

The book is supported by advertisements in the back.  Like this one:

Would you like to See Ireland First?  In October?  Then join me and Theresa Gaffey for a Knitting Tour of Ireland.  We have been asked to host this tour, organized by a local travel agent.  The pace will be relaxed, the company good, and the price reasonable.  Fly from anywhere and meet us in Ireland.  Remember,

To Fashion Art that still shall be Supreme, the Hand Retains the Key.

Now I’m off to bake some soda bread.  No caraway seeds, EVER.

You may think it an attempt to trick you, but really, it is so simple.  Two sets of sock needles, wind the yarn into two balls.  Work one cuff, then the other, one leg, then the other, etc. etc.

I have tried to do the two socks on one long circular.  This pair started out that way, to help  a knitting student who wanted to learn the technique.  Seriously, to me it is one big pain in the rear. Fussy, tangled, and more trouble than it is worth.  To me.  I have many friends who prefer that approach and I hope they continue to be happy with it.  When a student asks “Is it really better?” I tell them they’ll have to try it and see.  I prefer working socks on double pointed needles, and two sets helps me to avoid Second Sock Syndrome.

Another ‘time saver’ that I don’t find saves me any time is cabling without a cable needle.  Perhaps that conversation is better left for another day.

On the topic of Wise and Foolish Virgins, Stashdragon left me a link to an article on Norwegian Tapestries that includes a photo of the original. Don’t just look at the photos, though, it is really an interesting bit of writing, including the tale of a weaver who argued with the carpenter building her loom.  She ended up being burnt as a witch.

And the back view:

“Oh my!”  I gushed. “The Wise and Foolish Virgins!”  His companion leaned over to me and stage whispered, “I can assure you, he is neither.”

And even though I had the name wrong, it is The Foolish Virgins, he was kind enough to model while I whipped out my i-phone.  Now that is some knitting mojo.

The link to to news story, too.  Then I saw it on Jean’s Knitting, as well. And via that same blog, a link to the photoshoot! By now, it is probably all over the knitblog universe.  I may be a horse lover, but I don’t plan on making a horse covering of any sort.  (Since I am riding a Fjord horse, perhaps Dale of Norway?  Not.)

I also just finished reading Mrs. Miniver, and loved this part about her Scottish sister-in-law:

“She (Mrs. Miniver) brought her eyes back from the hazy middle distance to the near, clear presence of Clem’s sister, who had planted her back firmly against one of the rowans and begun to knit.

“…where did that knitting come from? I swear you didn’t have it on you a minute ago.  I believe you materialize bits of knitting out of thin air, the way conjurers do with lighted cigarettes.”    ”No…they grow out of my fingertips, like a thread out of a spider   As a matter of fact, my whole inside is made of wool.  One gets like that, you know, living in the Highlands all the year round.”

I enjoyed the book, althoug it really had little in common with the movie, which I  love.  I’m a real sucker for WWII propaganda films.  I followed up with The Real Mrs. Miniver, written about the author.  She was a much more interesting character than the fictional Mrs. M.

Do you mark passages in books about knitting? (or other areas of interest)  One  favorite that leaped out at me and made me laugh was in an “Golden Age” detective novel by Gladys Mitchell St. Peter’s Finger, written in 1938.

“Yes, yes,” replied Mrs. Bradley (The detective/psychologist), taking up her knitting again and doing some rapid decreasing which she felt she would regret later on.

I remember it from time to time when I do some rapid decreasing or increasing I know I will come to regret.

Holidays were a bit hectic.  My husband’s mother passed away after many years of dementia, so there was all of that to deal with.  It did not prevent us from making gifts, however.  This year’s effort was tiles with modpodged photos designed to look like Polaroids.  ”So vintage.”  The 12-year old asks “What’s a Polaroid?”

Or the annual parade of Handknits on Ice:

Best wishes to all for 2013, a bit late, but still heartfelt.