As a yarn shop owner, I get lost in yarn almost every day.  But this project brings new meaning to the phrase.

A maze from thousands of strands

This amazing maze was made by Donna Wilson for the Coast Festival on Banff Castle.  Donna started with a bunch of stakes so to speak to create the framework and then laboriously wound yarn around them to create this amazing maze.

As Donna said "A long way to go"

I just love how she also thought out the colorways in addition to the ingenuity of the idea there was an artistic sensibility that is fabulous.  Check more from Donna on this project.

Beautiful!

Sarah Applebaum is a San Francisco based artist who I just had to share.  Her work is an amazing compilation of found crocheted and knitted objects to unique hand made fiber objects.

This is called the Phantasm

She creates interesting landscape like environments that draw you in. I feel like I might have stepped into some sort of dream.

Really neat huh?

Just a little inspiration for the day.  Bring some color into your next project and check out Sarah’s work here.

Note: All photos courtesy of Sarah Applebaum

We were so excited to host Stephen West at Seed Stitch.  What an inspiration he is to so many knitters and he was even more charming and inspiring in person!

As usual, we had a great group of students for Stephen’s workshop where he walked through some of the basics of shawl making as well as some of his best tips and tricks.  Everyone learned something whether they were relatively new knitters or long time experts and EVERYONE walked away inspired.

Look at all these amazing pieces from Stephen

Stephen started by giving us an overview of his approach to shawl making — one of his signature shapes. Hear what he had to say:

Stephen West at Seed Stitch from Seed Stitch Fine Yarn on Vimeo.

Stephen was so inspired by a Boneyard Shawl that Michele had knit in the shop using Rowan Denim that he was inspired to make his own! And started a Summer Boneyard KAL on Ravelry. Here’s Stephen’s finished Denim Summer Boneyard!

Seriously great huh?

Stephen used 6 skeins of colorway 225, Nashville

How about casting on one of these babies this summer!

Thanks so much for joining us Stephen. We all had a blast!

I wanted to share this great idea from one of our teachers at Seed Stitch, Margie.

Margie uses these little spiral bound notebooks to help make her pattern reading easier and more transportable and I thought you all might like to learn from her.  Such a great idea.

First she grabs one of these little spiral notebooks and then attaches a locking key ring.  A shower curtain ring or other ring that allows you to easily open and close it like a carabiner might also work.

Then she photocopies the pattern from her book (of course purchased so she’s not violating copywrite laws) and cuts it up into manageable steps or pieces, pasting each step on individual pages of the little notebook.

Here you can see one of the pattern rows easily accessible and in the bottom snip it of the photo (yes I know this is a kind of crappy photo) you can see that Margie ticks off the rows as she does them so you always know where you are in the pattern.

Margie has found this to be a great way to take a pattern on the road, especially on the plane. She can attach this little book to the seat in front of her and easily flip the pages as she goes, never having to worry that it will fall under the seat in front of you.

Thanks so much Margie for this great trick!

Thanks so much to the folks that joined us for Amy Singer’s, of Knitty.com fame,  Plug and Play shawl workshop.  We had to much fun.  Amy is loads of fun and of course an amazing wealth of knowledge.  She walked us through the basics of how to become the designer of a shawl that we each love!

What a group!

We had such a fun group of folks join us at the class.  As I watched the group I could really see the student’s creativity come loose and their brains working hard to think about the possibilities and which option they might choose for their project.  And Oh the yarns! It was so cool to see the different yarn choices by folks for these shawls.  I can’t wait to see some finished projects.

Amy talked about many great tips around lace knitting.  Below she talks about the virtues of a lifeline.  If you haven’t used a life line before you may just want to start.

Amy Singer Talks about a “Life Line” at Seed Stitch from Seed Stitch Fine Yarn on Vimeo.

Hard at work

If you haven’t visited the Knitty.com website you really must.  It’s an amazing online publication with loads of amazing patterns and information.

Thanks again Amy!

I’m so excited to tell you about one of our customers, Katie Long from the UK.  Katie came to us through the online shop to order some glow in the dark yarn - , one of our online favorites!  After processing the order, I emailed Katie to connect about her order and that’s when Katie told me her story and we embarked on a pen pal relationship as her projects evolved.

Katie was finishing her degree at University and was working on her final collection — a group of designs for children using fibers and dyes with low impact and a design sense to help combat a child’s fear of the dark.  Enter Seed Stitch and our glow in the dark yarn!

Here is a quick look at some of Katie's collection

Katie told us a bit about what inspired her collection.  Here’s what she had to say:

“I am fascinated by progressive and innovative textiles and design. In my opinion there is great potential for knitted textiles in interiors and they can equally rival the position of woven textiles. For me, knit should be visually exciting and tactile with a well considered colour palette. As opposed to buying pre-dyed yarns, I have created a soft and calming colour palette by hand dying all my yarn with homemade natural dyes. Because of my very keen interest in textiles, I like to embellish my work with hand and machine stitch, so creating very tactile surface qualities in my work. I have exploited these qualities of knitted objects to appeal to a wide range of markets. I have also found a way of providing a soft alternative to the traditional night light by using glow in the dark yarn to combat a child’s fear of the dark.”

These building blocks are stitched with glow in the dark yarn around the edges.

Another lovely design from Katie. Don’t you love the mix of traditional knit coupled with embellishments and sewing?

Glow in the dark yarn is also used throughout this blanket.

I think Katie has a very bright future and we were quite excited to have been part of it’s start, even if from afar.

Colors speak to us in so many different ways.  Certain blues might remind us of a perfect blue sky, or a vibrant yellow that hearkens back to a lone Spring daffodil, or soft pink that was your favorite flavor of salt water taffy as a child.

However, there are some colors that are  signals to different cultures about various symbols or have different meanings for different cultures. Fascinating.  For instance in the western world when we see the color red in certain situations, it can signal danger or a warning.

What a beautiful image to represent this concept

This lovely image is courtesy of Information is Beautiful.  Can you think of the ways this might inspire or influence your color work and fiber projects?

If there is one thing we love to do at Seed Stitch is inspire new folks to pick up needles or a hook and knit and crochet.  It’s so great to see students work through questions and technique and create a craft of their own.  We’ve had the privileged of teaching so many students at Seed Stitch and we thought that those you thinking about taking a class or pondering whether you can knit or crochet yourself might want to hear from some students just like you.

Nikki and Susan learn to knit at Seed Stitch from Seed Stitch Fine Yarn on Vimeo.

We have so many amazing teachers and Nikki and Susan learned to knit in Andrea’s beginning knit class.

We are so lucky to have so many amazing designers visit Seed Stitch and the fun’s not over.  Stephen West of WestKnits will be visiting us for a workshop and trunkshow on Saturday May 29th.

Stephen is one of today most promising young knitwear designers. He has a rapidly growing and loyal Ravelry following, with many of his designs having over 700 completed Ravelry projects. One hallmark of Stephen’s design is his ability to showcase the full potential of the yarn by combining simple stitch patterns with clever, functional, and versatile shaping.

Stephen will showcase his original designs to discuss construction, shape, increases, bind offs, and blocking. The skills discussed in this session will be highly transferable to other types of projects and designs and is a great workshop for knitters looking to learn shaping techniques and move past the basics. The class will highlight some knitting fundamental skills such as M1R/M1L (make 1 right, make 1 left) increases, yarn overs, Stephen’s favorite cast ons, bind offs, and blocking tips.

There is something so beautiful about the concept of combining the written word with the beautifully tactile art of knitting.  That’s just what a group of big thinking knitters did with a gigantic knitted poem to celebrate National Poetry Day at the British Library.

The group put out a virtual call to action for contributions and knitters responded, creating the first knitted poem.

The group pieced together squares contributed from far and wide.

The poem is Dylan Thomas’  ‘In my Craft or Sullen Art’ and a fitting tribute to Thomas’ words in this dramatic piece of art!

Note: All photos courtesy of the Poetry Society