Knitting Short Rows

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Yarn Joins

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The Yarn Sub website offers ten methods of joining yarn.

Why know try all of the methods and find one you like best.

Woolen Mill Award

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With their determination to give Wyoming wool a name of its own, Buffalo’s Mountain Meadow Wool Mill earned awards from the U.S. Small Business Administration earlier this month for its work in turning locally raised wool into yarn and selling it across the globe.

The full article can be found here.

Don't miss the opportunity to tour the mill with the Guild on September 16, 2017. 

Email for more information - address in the righthand column.

Colorful Nests

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If you have some odd bits of yarn or fluffs of wool, why not help the birds by providing nesting material.

Please make sure the pieces aren't too long - baby bird feet can easily get tangled in long strands.

Show and Tell - April

Briana F. has been busy experimenting with with multiple fibers. She and
Sandy W. have made rolags for spinning combo skeins. Briana has also dyed
some silk "hankies" for spinning. Currently, Briana is knitting a shawl with
her handspun and dyed yarn. 

Cinde P. brought two knit scarves to show the guild: both included cables.
Cinde also brought a Lone Star Quilt with a flange binding to show the
members. Sali A. displayed a summer tunic she crocheted and a circular
crocheted vest from multiple fibers. 

Jeni V. received a "knit" mug from an old friend. Sue O. crocheted over 64
hats while in Denver with her hospitalized husband. Rachel B. knit a sweater
for her new beagle puppy and knit a sheep with a Susan Anderson pattern.

Sandy W. is a spinning fanatic. She has created numerous "combo yarn" skeins
from numerous fibers and colors. Sandy is also spinning both Eri and Muga silk
as well as creating wool rolags to match a photo that she loved. Sandy will
spin the rolags into yarn.

Colleen J. finished the socks she showed at the March meeting. She has started
a shawl from one of the two books she brought to the meeting 

Weird Presser Feet Guide

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If you are like the authors of Right Sides Together, a good percentage of the presser feet that came with your machine have lingered, lonely and unused, in a storage compartment. The presser feet may look like weird torture devices or appear like they’d be terribly difficult to use; however, presser feet are designed to make sewists' lives easier. If you venture out of your comfort zone and experiment with the various presser feet, you'll see how to use your machine to its full potential.

Curious about how to use your weird presser feet? Right Sides Together shares a quick guide 

to the ones you’re likely to encounter or need the most.

Creating Art Yarn

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Whether your taste is more traditional or you’re interested in creating innovative, eye-catching yarn styles, you’ll love the techniques and tips to inspire all spinning enthusiasts to unleash their creative spirit. 

In Interweave's free ebook, Spinning Novelty Yarn: Tips and Techniques for Creating Art Yarn, you’ll find a number of techniques to add to your repertoire for spinning designer yarns—or any yarns.

No-Tears Repair Heddle

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So you’ve warped the loom and you’ve started to weave. Uh-oh, something is not right. You check, and sure enough, one thread is on the wrong shaft.

The only solution (other than rethreading every warp thread between the selvedge and the error) is to create a new heddle for the correct shaft and rethread the errant warp end. Some manufacturers offer steel “repair” heddles that can be clipped to shaft bars, but it’s easy to make your own by following Interweave's tips.

Using Leftover Triangles

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If you have some half-square triangles (HST) left from an old project and need some ideas on how to use them, Sharon Holland Designs can help. The post presents nearly 20 ideas on how to put your HSTs to use.

Grafting Lace

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Joni Coniglio explains the difference between One-Sided and Two-Sided lace on an Interweave post.

In addition, over the next couple of months, she will show how to graft five two-sided lace patterns top-to-bottom (grafting live stitches to a provisional cast-on row) so that the join is completely invisible.

She will start by taking a close look at the stitches that will be used to graft all five lace patterns and will practice creating them on two stockinette stitch swatches (so the focus is on the stitches themselves and not on the lace pattern). Once you are comfortable creating stitches on stockinette stitch using a tapestry needle and a strand of yarn, you can apply what you’ve learned to grafting the lace patterns. Along the way, Joni will show you how each stitch that is created with a tapestry needle fits into the chart for each lace pattern. Before you know it, you’ll be grafting patterns that you once thought were well beyond the scope of your experience. 

Check out her post, An Education in Lace Grafting: Grafting Two-Sided Lace on Interweave. You might want to subscribe to Interweave's newsletter to receive notification of the updates.

Finding Your Place in Crochet

More information can be found here

Guild Meeting Reminder

Saturday April 15th Fiber Guild Meeting at the REACH clubhouse (address given above) in Riverton, beginning at 10 AM – bring $1 for the use of the building

• April 15, 2017 is the deadline to sign up for one of the Spring Retreat classes on Saturday, May 6th – if you won’t be at the meeting and want to attend one or both of the classes (dyeing wool with Kool-Aid and a wool roving chair pad) please send an email - address given in righthand column

•  Come to the meeting and bring a friend

• Don’t forget to bring something for show and tell

No program this month, but Colleen Jennings’ yarn shop may be open in the afternoon

Selecting Colors

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One of the most challenging aspects of a project is selecting the colors. It can be difficult to tell which colors “go” well together. 

Interweave's Tuesday Tip post,  explains how to select colors easily by using black and white photographs. 

The techniques explained in the post can be used for all crafts: sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting, spinning, and weaving. 

Important Things to Know. . .

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While the article, Fifteen Things You Should Really Know about Yarn, was written mainly for spinners, it contains information that knitters and crocheters can also find useful.

Crochet Seaming

An alternative to mattress stitch for finishing seams.

Avoid Knitting w/Yarn Tail

Have you ever accidentally knit with your yarn tail instead of the working yarn you’re supposed to knit? It happens more often than we’d like to admit! This feels even worse when it happens on the second or third row. 

Interweave presents two solutions to this all too common problem. 

Hand-combed Qiviut

musk ox
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Interweave's article on qiviut fiber is intriguing. As one of the most luxurious and expensive fibers in the world, qiviut has sometimes been called the “golden fleece of the arctic.” It is eight times warmer than sheep’s wool and softer than almost any other fiber.

Unlike sheep, musk oxen are not sheared to harvest their fleece - experienced handlers comb the animals every spring when they’re shedding down naturally.

Read more about qiviut here. 

Create a Neater Crochet Edge

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Starting your crochet project is probably almost everyone’s least favorite part. Chaining all those stitches, then fiddling your hook into that starting chain can be tedious and time consuming. For me, it never ends up looking quite right either.

Most of us were taught to start your first row by crocheting into the front of your starting chain.Instead, try inserting your hook into the bump on the back of your chain. Surprisingly, this actually creates a much neater and smoother edge.

This technique also creates a much more elastic edge and will even mirror your final row perfectly. Since crocheting into that back bump creates a mirror stitch to your last row, it makes seaming and adding a crocheting edging much easier!

from WEBS - Tuesday's Crochet Tip

Choosing the Right Button(s)

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Fiber Flux's post, How to Choose Buttons, gives six guidelines on choosing the right button(s) for your project.

History Podcasts

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If you like listening to podcasts while crafting, the links provided by Interweave may be of interest.  

Sarah Rothberg complied a list of five podcasts that may appeal to those who have a passion for history. The topics range from Spies to Pirates.