Inspira Cowl

My mom and I live in crafting symbiosis: she buys yarn, and I turn it into cozy things for her.* After their last trip to the Maritimes, she brought back a haul of treasures from The Mariner’s Daughter in Lunenburg, NS. Still working through the stash (it was, uh, formidable) until I can stow away on their next trip and visit in person...
*She's also well-versed in the care and keeping of handknits, so there's no anxiety about accidental tumble drying. (I feel like every knitter has a horror story about one of their FOs getting dryerized.)

Pattern: Inspira Cowl by Graphica; made in Noro Silk Garden

Lessons: My new fave, the sewn bind off, isn't well-suited to Noro yarn. I ended up with some splitting and had to spit graft the sewn end a couple times before I was done.

Instead of knitting 2-handed like I usually do for colorwork, on this project I knit full English and just swapped which color I was throwing. The finished fabric seemed to have more even tension between the 2 colors, and it (counter-intuitively) felt faster then 2-handed knitting. I still feel like I should just suck it up and learn to knit Continental for real.

What I'd do differently: Maybe plan my color transitions a little more? I feel like I got lucky this time.

Block Printed Napkin

Last Thursday I took @thecreativeimperative's awesome class at @needlesstudio and learned how to block print fabric! I spent weeks leading up to the class carefully pondering (read: overthinking) what motif to use for my pattern. Feeling uninspired with a half hour left before the class, I took a last-ditch glance around my apartment and snapped a picture of my heater grate. Bingo. With a couple modifications and a happy little accident (more on that below) I ended up with a pretty rad piece of fabric.

New skills: Cutting a lino block, ink preparation, printing on fabric

Lessons: Shot cotton is awesome!

Design doesn't need to be overly complex, the quotidian is ripe with inspiration.

You might notice the top drawing had long outlined rectangles; while carving my block my lines went squirrelly so one of them went byebye. Normally my MO would be to start over, but embracing the mistake led to a new and interesting outcome. In the words of Bob Ross, "There are no mistakes, only happy little accidents." On that same note, artifacts from ink getting on carved portions of the block can create compelling design elements.

Carving in long, sweeping strokes creates smoother lines. Cutting tool strokes start thin then get wider, so carve outward from sharp corners (using the smallest tool size).

This final lesson is cribbed from @thecreativeimperative but bears repeating: the execution of even a simple geometric design will change as you move from sketch --> transferring to the block --> carving; it's that evolution that makes block printing so compelling.

What I'd do differently: Be more planful about the initial placement of my block on the fabric so the print is symmetrical at the edges. I ended up printing over seams on two edges and being flush with the seam on the other edges.