I am so excited this year to be participating in and supporting the Salem Arts Festival this year. I’m doubly excited that we’ll be celebrating one of our very own, Michele Bonner. Michele has an amazing ability to manipulate fiber in ways you never dreamed possible but will be inspired to try.

Green Coral by Michele

The Salem Arts Festival is a super cool event celebrating all that is fantastically art-y in our city.  It’s held around town from June 3rd-5th and is a must see if you’re anywhere in our area.

An amazing representation of a child's growth so far.

Join us on Friday night June 3rd from 6-8 for a reception to celebrate her work. Her work will be on display in the shop throughout the weekend.

I fell in love with this amazing little mini-quilt made by June-at-Noon.

Photo and work courtesy of June-at-Noon

Don’t you want to wind yarn with a friend like this?  You can also buy a lovely little print of this work too.

Find it at June-at-Noon's Etsy shop

Trysh Lynch, one of our talented teachers, brought in some show and tell last night during our community knit night.

Look at this amazing cashmere twin set!

Trysh is what I call a no boundaries knitter/crocheter.  She often works without a pattern, is a fearless experimenter, and is always adorned in some really interesting and beautiful hand made garment.

She whipped up this AMAZING twin set out of our Jade Sapphire 2ply cashmere. It’s a stunning color, not well shown here because of the shop lights. The shell underneath is made with her leaning hearts crochet about which she was a featured lecturer at the Topsfield fair.

Here is a close up where you can see the detail

The leaning hearts crochet runs horizontally and is a beautiful compliment to the knit short sleeve cardi that is over top and has a vertical line to it.

I wish we could have “squoosh-a-vision” here because the hand on this garment is so scrumptious after it’s been worked and blocked.  Trysh is now working on a linen skirt to accompany this outfit.  Simply stunning!

Our very own Laurie Bellin!  So many state and county fairs have amazing hand craft exhibits.  Unfortunately, ours (Topsfield Fair) has in years past been a bit lack luster.  HOWEVER, last year the Fair decided to really step things up last year and the quality and interesting things submitted have been wonderful.

Some of the top talents from around our area have participated, including Laurie Bellin.  If you haven’t met Laurie yet, she’s a wonderful part of our team.  She is an amazing teacher and is also some of the stitchery behind our finishing and fixes services at Seed Stitch.

This year Laurie submitted a garment in the pattern design exhibit at the Fair and won a Blue Ribbon!

Isn't it wonderful!

If you’re in the shop and see Laurie, please make sure to congratulate her.  We may even be lucky enough to have it on display following the close of the Fair.

Continuing with our trend of interviewing designers that we love and inspire us, we set out to talk to Olga Buraya-Kefelian, the designer behind the fabulous book Ori Ami Knits. Check out our interview and a peak inside the book below!

Olga Buraya-Kefelian modeling the Japonica Cravat

Many of us in the shop have loved Habu Textile for so long, followed your designs on Ravelry, and are super excited about the publication of your new book Ori Ami Knits, which features some Habu yarns.  For those that are not familiar, can you give a little background on yourself?

Gladly, Courtney. My name is Olga Buraya-Kefelian and I am a knitwear designer born and raised in Belarus, who have been living, knitting, publishing and self-publishing my designs for almost 5 years now. As of this spring, I am also a co-author of a self-published title along with a talented photographer and graphic designer Vanessa Yap-Einbund and a contributor designer Kirsten Johnstone  - named Ori Ami Knits: Fiber geometry. A collection of innovative versatile designs of womens wear using alternative fibers of Habu Textiles.

What draws you to the Habu Textiles as a line to design with?

Habu textiles have been in American market for a decade now, in recent years with knitting making such huge comeback and many of us adopting it as a lifestyle. With a great  choice of conventional fibers at hand I became drawn to unconventional. For several years I have studied the fibers and their behavior and  it made me wonder how much more is out there available to a knitter and what amazing garments those fibers can produce. I got a feeling yarns from Habu Textiles gave me of wider range for creativity, one may feel that these fibers are expandable, array of exotic and unique in combination with natural gives you a choice for creating your own yarn that would suit the project perfectly. So depending on what you envision for the fabric in the final garment to do, can be easily achieved with Habu textiles yarns.

Can you tell readers a bit about the book and how it came to be? You also have a unique publishing model via digital subscriptions.  Can you talk a little about that?

For a while now, I have been approached by various publishing houses regarding working together. I have gave it a reasonable amount of thought and have had colleagues who shared their experience and feeling about it. Idea for self-publishing was lingering, but having noticed fellow knitwear designer friends taking a chance like Ysolda Teague, me and Vanessa have decided to do some extensive research. We chose things that were important for a customer and for production and at the same time satisfy our goals. I truly believe that publishing houses and editors are doing a lot of work trying to make your book the best, but we just went ahead ourselves and in the end I have gained even more respect for those in the trade.

What a great neckline!

I think sometimes knitters and crochets are intimidated about handling unusual fibers.  Can you talk about some ways in which to use or approach some of the more non-traditional knitting and crochet fibers?

Habu textiles provides you with a palette when you get their catalog of yarn snippets, you can imagine yourself an artist, you play with various pairing and swatch, there is a lot fiber exploration taking place, if you know what you want the knit fabric to do and it is achievable. And yet it is so accessible to anyone, yes it is a little more independence and work vs just buying yarn and pattern and making it up. But with Habu Textiles even though you maybe using same pattern, your yarn combination can be personalized and unique, that gives any knitter a designer feel to their finished garment.

Thinking outside the box is not always easy, I always suggest making a swatch, wash, pleat, play with possibilities. It is not necessarily that conventional garments would look great in experimental fibers, some work and some don’t. But please be more adventurous, in the end  you will be pleasantly surprised!

Where does your design inspiration come from?

I think this is always such a hard question to answer. To generalize it - life, things around me, architecture, natural setting. I am that person who is very observant and pays attention to details a great lot, I guess it comes from there. But also seeing people on the street, area your are in - other people’s creativity triggers your own, but the goal is to take it places further and create something that you love.

The perfect fun summery scarf

I LOVE Japanese craft books and design.  Can you recommend some of your favorite Japanese craft books or Japanese designers you admire?

I personally love Japanese stitch dictionaries that I collect, they refer to older forgotten resources and that is a great tool for a knitwear designer. I also admire Japanese sewing books, but I haven’t encountered that many I love. Pattern magic are my favorite series that provide me with a lot of inspiration. Designers who introduced world of Japanese fashion to the Westerners - Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto are still by far are my favorites. I had recently had a chance to visit their stores in Tokyo and they are utterly amazing, just breathtaking! Standing and staring just the way the dummies are dressed, the whole concept is different. And I like different. I am not brave enough to dress up entirely in avant garde attire, but I love to adapt the details of it into practical clothing. Balance is something that is very important.

What’s next?  Where do you see your designing going?

Being a designer is a non-stop creativity process, currently I am expanding my own line of patterns, so lots of knitting and writing, but I am also working on several designs with other yarn companies. Just several weeks ago I have released a design, which I am very excited about, it’s called Infinite loop and using Habu textiles yarn, it can be worn over 15 different ways and you can see it in a video that I made showing how to wear it.

Quick Facts:

On your iPod right now:

Florence and the machine - Dog days are over

If you were a yarn what yarn would you be?

I think I would be silk, smooth, drapey but sturdy.

Favorite place to knit:

My Ikea “Poang” chair with a lot of natural light.

Current project on the needles:

I have about 5, but on my lap right now I have a new design using pure linen.

Who taught you to knit?

My mother when I was 4.

I love this great two layered look.

You can purchase Ori Ami Knits here.

Please note: All photos copyright Ori Ami Knits and used with their permission.

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!

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.