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November 23, 2016

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Earthbound Misfit

I love collaborating with other independent business people in this wonderful industry and I am always amazed how much more I can achieve when I work with other brilliant creatives. This new shawl is a prime example of my point. I decided to call it Earthbound Misfit (after my favorite Pink Floyd song Learning to Fly) and it features beautiful custom gradient sets from The Unique Sheep and perfectly matched beads from earthfaire.com.

The first step is that I drew up an idea I had and took my sketch to SAFF because I knew that Kelly (from The Unique Sheep) was going to be there. My drawing skills aren’t the greatest, but I thought y’all might like to see where things started:

beadedbandsketch

We start with images and art that have caught our eyes for their color combinations. Once we have narrowed down the candidates Kelly from The Unique Sheep works her magic developing custom colors. Occasionally the colors need to be tweaked until we are all happy – but they are always stunning from the get go. Then the yarn travels to Ellen at earthfaire to be matched up with the perfect beads.

For this shawl I asked her to put together a “bead soup” of multiple different colors that matched the colors that the yarn gradients pass through. By placing these colorful beads on the contrasting color stripe the beads have a big impact with a relatively small number of beads (compared to the size of the shawl). I also wanted to challenge myself to place the beads randomly. I’m not much of a “random” person – but sometimes you just need to loosen up!

Speaking of size, the pattern is designed to have some wiggle room in the amount of yardage you need. We worked with three different fingering weight bases and they each have slightly different yardage. I planned the color changes to occur in the large textured bands and you can fudge the transitions by a couple of rows here and there to match your yarn. The end result is a shawl that takes between 900 and 1000 yards. The resulting shawl measures 24″ X 55″ (61 X 140 cm) but due to the curving shape it wraps around as if it were much larger.

If you are in love with one of these specific color combinations you can get them in kits exclusively from earthfaire.com. You can also pick out your own gradient set from The Unique Sheep in their Luxe, Verve, and Tinsel Toes bases. Just let them know you are making an Earthbound Misfit and I am sure that they can make sure you have the right amount of yarn and a great contrast color. I cannot wait to see all of the different versions of this that might come about. Seeing the three that we created amazed me in how changed the pattern appeared in the different color combinations!

Come learn to fly.

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November 7, 2016

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Unwind Getaway April 2017

Every year a group of knitters get together in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina for a weekend of knitting, learning, and fun! This event is called the Unwind Getaway and I am beyond excited to be able to announce that I will be one of the instructors for 2017. The event will be from April 28 through May 1 and registration opens today.

I am one of four awesome instructors that will be teaching classes over the weekend, you can see all of our bios here. If you are interested in the full list of class options you can find them here. I will be teaching three classes over the weekend and the rest of the time will be for hanging out, knitting, and making friends. I cannot wait!

The classes I will be teaching are Elongated, Lifted, and Cinched, Mosaic & Lace, and Tips & Tricks for Knitting with Variegated Yarn. While the last one is pretty self explanatory the first two might require a little elaboration. Elongated, Lifted and Cinched will be a technique class where we will explore the world of weird stitches that are found in Japanese stitch dictionaries. There are a variety of unusual techniques that crop up that really have to be seen (and knitted) to be believed.

Golden Lion Throne

Mosiac & Lace will be focused on teaching the technique I have been developing combining mosaic style slipped-stitch color work with lace. More of a project based class, we will be learning all of the techniques you will need to successfully go home and cast on for Golden Lion Throne. Golden Lion Throne is the shawl that started me down the path that has lead to my book Mosaic and Lace, which will be coming out on March 1st, 2017.

Oh, have I not mentioned that? 😉 Yes indeed. Beginning in February of 2015 I have had a secret project that I have been working on, a book! It is now available for pre-order through Amazon and the official title is Mosaic and Lace Knits: 20 Innovative Patterns Combining Slip-Stitch Colorwork and Lace Techniques. As I said, the publication date is March 1st and if you would like your Local Yarn Store to carry it you should give them a heads up. My publisher is Stackpole Books and most distributors of knitting books should be carrying it! You know that there will be much, much more showing up on this here blog about this – you might even get sick of it. But for now I can share with you what the cover will look like!

I hope y’all are as excited about this as I am, but I’m not sure it’s possible. But, if you are the kind of person who learns better in person and you want to hone your skills to be able to take on all of the patterns in this book – well you can come join me in North Carolina at the Unwind Getaway.

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Posted on

September 16, 2016

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How To, Knitting, Video

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Blocking Yarn with Acrylic Content

Can it be done? My answer is yes. Should it be done? Also yes!

I teach a 3 hour blocking class and I am pretty evangelical about blocking. Blocking is the closest thing to magic I’ve found in the world of knitting (unless you count actual spinning – because fluff into yarn is pretty amazing). It is a very rare project that I would say “eh, you don’t need to block that”. I mean, it happens but not often.

Which brings us to acrylic content yarn. Acrylic is plastic. You can get it as wet as you want and there will be no penetration of the fibers. Wet blocking can clean acrylic projects but it doesn’t really do any actual blocking. And when you have blends with acrylic it really fights with you about the blocking. It inhibits the process. But I have read a bit about heat blocking acrylic and it fascinates me.

I received a fun blend of cotton and acrylic from Kraemer Yarns called Tatamy Tweed DK and I decided to go a wee bit mad scientist on it. It is 45% Cotton and 55% Acrylic, which makes it machine washable and that is a major plus for many projects. I knit four swatches and messed about with them a bit.

The first swatch is the “control” (proper sciencing here). I knit it and took it off the needles. Bing, bang, boom.

Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK Unblocked

The second swatch I blocked using a hot steam iron (no actual physical contact – that would be melty) to see if it would work and it did. But could I leave well enough alone? Nooooooo. I had my husband throw it in the washing machine and then into the dryer. I was not nice to this swatch. It received no special treatment. I think the dryer was on permanent press.

Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK, Heat/Steam blocked & Washed

It shrank a bit but overall it did hold out some of the lace and looks pretty good. As long as you take into account the shrinkage I think this is a viable care technique. You would probably get less shrinkage if you were more careful with the temp of the drying.

Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK, Wet Blocked

For the third swatch I used wet blocking. The yarn bloomed a good bit and drew back some after unpinning. I speculate that this is the acrylic content having a bit of an argument with the cotton about where it wants to be. But it looks nice. I am guessing it will have to be reblocked after each hand washing.

Kraemer Tatamy Tweed, Heat/Steam Blocked

And finally I steam blocked the fourth swatch on camera so that y’all could see how heat/steam blocking works! In short, you pin the knitting out to the final size you want and then use a steam iron to heat set the stitches. You hold the iron about a half of an inch above the surface of the yarn and allow the heat and steam to permeate the fibers. Move slowly and make sure the yarn heats up. When I unpinned it there was no movement and the lace stayed crisp and clear.

So there you have it. You can indeed block yarn with acrylic content. In fact there are several options. To see the heat/steam blocking in action and hear further analysis of my experiment check out the video on Watch Barbara Knit.

I called this Swatch Lab and hopefully it will be the first of many of this style of video. Please let me know in the comments if you like this idea and if you have any suggestions for future yarn experiments.

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Posted on

June 28, 2016

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Knitting, Pattern, Pattern Video Tour

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Scarab Shawl Revisited Again

It is an unfortunate fact of life that yarns get discontinued. I don’t blame the yarnies, they have to do what their customers want. But it can create some issues. When I re-knit the Scarab Shawl for independent publication (it was originally published in Knit Now) I was lucky enough to receive yarn from one of my favorite dyers Miss Babs. The alpaca/silk blend that we decided to pair with the pattern brought a whole new look to the shawl and I adore it. I sometimes take it out and pet it. But alas, all good things must pass

But let us not look upon it as a loss, but as an opportunity! An opportunity to see Scarab knit in an entirely different yarn! This time the crack team at Anzula just happened to be introducing a brand new Sport weight MCN called Ava. And you know, the difference between DK & Sport weight is in the “close enough” category considering the non-fitted nature of this shawl. It was a bit of a gamble, but one that paid off.

Scarab Shawl - a lace shawl by Barbara Benson in Anzula Ava

I still love this delicate lace.

Look how beautifully the yarn paired with the pattern. This color is called Misfit and I am totally in love with it. I kinda don’t want to mail the sample back to California but it needs to be reunited with its owner. It was such a pleasure to do a photo shoot with this shawl and my model Fatimah is just the picture of beauty isn’t she?

Scarab Shawl, a knitted shawl from Barbara Benson in Anzula Ava

We do have about as much fun as it looks.

Really, I don’t need to say much, the pictures speak for themselves.

But of course, before it departs on its journey I decided to make a pattern tour video.

In the video you will see the two shawls side by side. There are subtle differences in how the yarn behaved but both are beautiful. I think that you should knit two!

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Barbara

Posted on

May 27, 2016

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Conversations with yarn

My design process is slightly non-standard. I rarely start with a fully formed vision, sketch the design, and set about finding yarn that will work. I tend to start with the yarn. I have a conversation with the yarn. I try to find out what it likes and dislikes. Where its strengths lie and where it might prefer not to go.

Or.

I start with the stitches. My mind asks me “what if” I did something weird and then I swatch to see what will happen. Sometimes I begin with one stitch and end up swatching a length of fabric where subtle changes in the pattern evolves into something completely different (and coincidentally a gigantic swatch). Often this process begins with yarn that I have laying around. So then I have the fun of trying out the newly born stitch with other yarns to see what kind of yarn the stitch likes.

One commonality you might note in this is that the yarn and the stitches seem to be the boss of me. And they kinda are. Sometimes I manage to bully yarn into doing what *I* want, but most of the time it is me learning from them.

The Ross Farm wool

All of this is lead in to some beautiful yarn that I have been having an ongoing Serious Conversation with. It is a unique and amazing yarn that has been taking me to school. The Ross Farm raises rare heritage breed sheep with care and love and use their wool to create beautiful yarn. Leicester Longwool to be specific. It is such a different beast from the wools that I typically work with that it has been a very steep learning curve.

It is minimally processed, lightly spun, and undyed. Each label has a picture of the sheep from whence the wool came and the color of the yarn is the color of the sheep. And I wanted to do color-work. Yadda, yadda, yadda

A swatch is a Proto Pattern

I think I might have finally found a stitch for this yarn. This is a combination of my two design techniques. The above pattern was the result of an experimental stitch swatch combined with extensive swatching with the yarn to find what it loved. What do y’all think? Is this worth pursuing? If yes – what type of FO would you see for this? I have one skein each of the two colors with ~ 250 yards of Sport weight.

Maybe a small shawlish thing? Cowl? Scarf? If you can visualize this as something I would love to hear about it in the comments!

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Barbara

Posted on

March 31, 2016

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Book Look – Everyday Lace by Heather Zoppetti

I don’t know if you caught it, but a couple of weeks ago I posted a look at a book (Warm Days, Cool Knits) on my YouTube channel. I really enjoyed sharing a fun book with y’all and have decided I am going to make this a regular thing, as long as I can scare up enough books. As I mentioned in the original post, this is not really a review or a critique … this is a book that I have decided I like enough to share. I don’t feel much like tearing down anyone’s hard work, I’ll leave that to true critics. Think of me as an enthusiast!

And I am quite enthusiastic about this next book: Everyday Lace by Heather Zoppetti.

I pretty much said it all in the video, but if you are looking for a way to incorporate lace into your everyday wear then this is the book for you. And something really quite different about this? There aren’t any shawls in this book. Not a one.

Heather was kind enough to send me this book to look at, and when I got the package there were two copies! So I am going to use the extra copy (with permission) as a prize in the Knit-a-long for The Peephole Stole! If you would like a chance to win this book please come and join us in my Ravelry group where we will be -a longing until mid-June!

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September 17, 2015

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Ves, a shawl inspired

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most knitters (who would be reading this blog) are familiar with the concept of a “yarn club”. You know, when a great indie dyer gives knitters the opportunity to “subscribe” to a series of exclusive yarn colors that are delivered over the course of many months? That kind of club. Frequently the yarn arrives with a pattern designed specifically with & for that special yarn.

Going on the assumption that there is already some familiarity with this concept, I now ask you if you have ever heard of the Miss Babs Knitting Tour version of this concept? The lucky knitters that join this club are “armchair travelers” and they receive 4 shipments in the year. During the planning stage the wonderful people at Miss Babs (including the namesake) select four destinations and provide them to the featured designers so that they can draw from them for inspiration.

This time last year I was tickled beyond words to receive an invitation from Miss Babs to participate in the 2015 tour. My shipment ended up being the first (March). It took great restraint, but I didn’t blog about it because, along with the exclusivity of the yarn, the pattern was unavailable to the general public for 6 months after the “travelers” received their packages.

Guess what? Six months is up!

Ves, a two color Mosaic Lace Shawl by Barbara Benson Get your own copy of Ves!

The inspiration destination for my leg of the tour was Sri Lanka! Like any dedicated artist, once I learned that I immediately booked a flight to Sri Lanka to do research!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I wish. I totally Googled it.

And if you are looking to see piles and piles of beautiful art, landscape, and architecture I recommend you do the same. There were many things that caught my attention, but in the end I drew my ideas from traditional Sri Lankan dance. Specifically, the costumes of Kandyan dancers which are referred to as Ves. If you want to see some of the pictures that grabbed my attention here is a link to a Google image search. The intricately embossed metal pieces led me to creating an intricate and deeply textured lace pattern that evoked the shape of the points of the headdresses.

The technique used in this shawl is Mosaic Lace like Golden Lion Throne and Love Child, with a complexity falling somewhere between the two. Close to 50 Armchair Travelers finished the shawl within the allotted -a long period so if you want to see finished shawls you can check out the Ves project page. The two sets of colors that Miss Babs made for the shawl are gorgeous, but I cannot wait to see what colors other knitters match up!

So, if exotic travel isn’t in your budget … at least you can do some exotic knitting from the comfort of your own home. And you get a great souvenir! 😉

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Barbara

Posted on

November 17, 2014

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Indie Designer Gift-a-long 2014

Things have been crazy busy! I have been knitting up a storm on projects that had to be sent off to others and will be coming out on their own schedules (which I have no influence upon). Then, this past weekend, I attended the Wine & Wool knitting retreat and taught a couple of classes which I have been preparing. Finally I have been working on the behind the scenes planning for this year’s Gift-a-long which started up this past Thursday.

What is this Gift-a-long thing you may ask? Well, it is a group effort by a bunch (and by a bunch I mean almost 300) of independent knit and crochet designers to have a bit of fun with our fellow crafters. It is being run in a forum on Ravlery which you can find by clicking on this link. Each designer has selected a range of patterns from their catalog to offer for 25% off for the sale portion of the -a long. These patterns went on sale on Thursday the 13th and will be on sale until this Friday the 21st.

Knitting pattens from Barbara Benson designs.

These are the patterns I picked

But the -a long doesn’t stop with the sale. There are threads that are a hoppin’ with chat and inspiration. You check into the thread that reflects what you are knitting (or threads – you can knit all kinds of stuff) and let the mods know what you want to knit. When you finish it you post a picture in the FO thread and you are officially entered to win one of the dozens of physical prizes or thousands of digital pattern downloads.

Prizes are also being awarded randomly based on participation and in fun games. To recap, we have a sale on thousands of patterns, physical and electronic prizes and encouragement to get some of your holiday gift knitting done (for others or for yourself – we aren’t picky). It really is a win, win for everybody involved. Please come in and join us. I am part of the moderating team for the Scarves, Cowls and Neck Thingies thread – so if something like that is on your list then I would love to see you jump in. I spy in the other threads to cheer on anyone knitting my patterns – so make sure to magic link me if you post something.

Triangular silk lace shawl from Barbara Benson

There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean

A final note – you might have noticed that There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean is in my collage. A happy coincidence occurred that the pattern rights opened up at the same time as the exclusivity expired – so it is now available for purchase. I cannot wait to see people knitting it up! Expect to see another blog post on it soon because it has been almost impossible for me to keep mum about it!

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Posted on

October 7, 2014

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Love Child – a shawl

Here are words that I never thought would ever come out of my mouth: I love Yak!

Yak fiber that is.

Meeting a new fiber is always an exciting experience, but it doesn’t always end well. Luckily this is a love story. This yarn from Gale’s Art is a blend of Merino, Yak and Silk and it is a treat to knit. The name is more descriptive than fanciful, MYS622 – but it tells you what it is, a 60/20/20 blend of the aforementioned fibers. In a way it is similar to the cashmere blends with comparable blends, but the Yak is decidedly different than the cashmere. It is wonderfully soft, but it has a weight to it that cashmere lacks. The yarn also has a … coolness … to it, in the hand it feels almost like it is slightly damp – but it isn’t. Now that could be the high silk content? I am afraid I am not a fiber expert, but what I do know is that it knits wonderfully and has fantastic drape. The yarn itself feels heavy in the ball but the finished shawl is remarkably light weight (yet warm at the same time). Plus, it comes in absolutely glowing deep colors.

When we started talking about working on a piece together I absolutely knew I had to do color work. Gale was looking to put together a kit for the upcoming Fall fiber festival season – and I was pleased as punch to be a part of the project.

Love Child, a two color shawl with lace and slipped stitches by Barbara Benson

Hello lovely

Presenting Love Child. The name? Well it is a bit silly (but when am I not?) but it comes from my attempting to describe the idea over the phone. I believe what I said was “It is as if In Uffish Thought and Captive got together and had a two color Love Child.” A few hours later I received a text message ~~cursing~~ politely thanking me for getting the song stuck in her head. And the title stuck as well.

Love Child - a two color lace shawl with slipped stitches, by Barbara Benson

You know me and swoops.

If you have been playing along at home you probably recognize this shape. I have become enamored of it. The side to side construction makes me happy because it allows the knitter to adjust easily to their yardage and desired size of project. It retains the curved neckline of a crescent that allows it to hug the shoulders and wear comfortably, but its hybrid triangular shape makes it deeper down the back and provides more styling options. The slight asymmetry shifts the “point” to one side to eliminate the dreaded “arrow pointing at butt” effect that so many dislike about triangular shawls … all in all I think the shape has a great deal going for it.

Love Child, an asymmetrical shawl worked in two colors with slipped stitches and lace by Barbara Benson

This shape just wears in so many ways

For this version I have eliminated the lower edge “trim” that you find on In Uffish Thought and BitterBlue. It streamlines the shawl and takes it into a more casual and functional piece. It is also the result of a whole pile of math to create shaping that is of an every other row style as opposed to the binding off some stitches style. Both have merits and I thought I would play to see what I could come up with. I wonder what would happen if I did both …. hmmmmmmm?

Love Child, a tow color lace shawl with slipped stitches, by Barbara Benson

Are you ready for fall?

My end result was a shawl that is remarkably easy to knit. I memorized it without really trying and truly enjoyed the knitting process. It has some easy lace and a very repetitive rhythm, there is one fancy stitch for the leading edge increase – but you will soon get the hang of it. It is also easily adjustable (as I said, one of the pluses of this shape) both in size and the possibilities for customization. I chose to have the striping pattern produce regularly spaced bands of color – but one could also muck about with the color changes and create one’s own banding pattern that suits one’s fancy! As is typical, I thought about how I could change up the colors as I was knitting it – but relied on discipline to stay the course.

Love Child, lace combined with two colors and slipped stitches create this knitted shawl by Barbara Benson

Yet another way to wrap.

The photo shoot went beautifully and I had a very hard time narrowing down the shots. I also almost fell into a stream. Fatimah said “Fall with the camera in the air.”, because she totally knows what is important! The shawl itself will be traveling to New York Sheep and Wool (Rhinebeck) with Gale and she will be offering the pattern in a kit with her stunning yarn. If you are going please stop by and say hi! I also believe that she will have the kits at Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) – which I will be attending! If you are going give me a holler and maybe we could say hi!

I would love to hear your thoughts on shawl shapes in the comments. Likes, dislikes, suggestions? Please speak up!

Edited to answer request in the comments:

I know I say it, everyone blogger says it – but I love comments. Without comments it is kinda like throwing pennies into a wishing well and never finding out if your dream comes true. Unless I receive feedback I don’t know if I am giving y’all the information that you want/need/enjoy. So when I saw the specific request from shoelaceswitcher in the comments I was all like “A schematic?” it had never occurred to me to put that in a blog post. It took a little fiddling to convert the file I have from the pattern into a JPG that I can put on the web – but it wasn’t anything too exciting.

So, here it is! I hope it gives you the info you need.

Schematic of shawl

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Posted on

August 25, 2014

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BitterBlue – the reveal

It started innocently enough. One of my fabulous testers for In Uffish Thought sent me a note with her progress. She mentioned, off-hand, that she had to resist the urge to put a bead at the tip of each point.

I could have named this shawl Cascade Effect, I might keep that name for the future. But its name is BitterBlue.

Lace shawl worked in gradient yarn with gradient beads by Barbara Benson.

One last tease

The process of knitting my sample for Uffish was quite enjoyable, I really like the shape and the knit was pretty simple. In the past I have explored different designs with the same shaping – why not with this shape? Of course, Uffish features the teeniest of cables, so the logical next step was lace (for me at least).

Beads and lace play so nicely together.

BitterBlue - a lace shawl knit in gradient yarn with gradient beads, by Barbara Benson.

An alternate color scheme “Magic Carpet”

And if a few beads are good then more are better, right? Then the gradient yarn idea hit me and I thought to myself “Would it be possible to do a gradient in beads? What if the gradient in the beads went in opposition to the gradient in the yarn?” Yes, this is how my brain works.

BitterBlue - a lace shawl in gradient yarn with gradient beads, by Barbara Benson.

This is in the namesake color BitterBlue

There had to be enough beads to make the gradient visible as a “thing” but I didn’t want to overkill. The final product is the result of a delicate balance of my personal desire for the sparkle and my desire to not be beading anymore. Because beading is time consuming – but oh so worth it.

BitterBlue, a lace shawl worked in gradient yarn with gradient beads, by Barbara Benson.

This is the full size and shape

As I mentioned in my teaser post, this project represents the creative efforts of not just myself, but a couple of other very talented ladies. Kelly from The Unique Sheep and Ellen from Earthfaire contributed their amazing abilities in their respective fields to create this end result – which I think is the perfect meeting of yarn, beads & knitting. They have put together kits of these two color schemes and there are a few that will be available here if you missed out on the pre-order.

The pattern itself is fairly straightforward knitting. Knits, purls, yarn overs and basic decreases with some slipped stitches thrown in for good measure. I am not gonna lie, the beading slows you down – but it isn’t difficult. Just bust out your wee crochet hook and you are on your way. As with In Uffish Thought, the pattern is worked from one pointy end towards a long bind off (which naturally I beaded) and is therefore fairly flexible in sizing & yardage.

BitterBlue- a textured lace shawl knit in gradient yarn with gradient beads, by Barbara Benson.

So many ways to wear this shawl!

Earthfaire is hosting a KAL for the shawl in September in their Ravelry group and I will definitely be there to answer questions and provide cheer-leading. But mostly to ooh & ahhh at the pretties. 😉 I could post about a dozen more pictures, but I think it better to go ahead and release the post into the wild. Hope you love it!

To wrap things up I wanted to send out an enormous Thank You to Lois. Lois is the reason why there is a sample in both of the colors, while I knit the original in the BitterBlue, I did not have the time to do the Magic Carpet version. Lois applied her experience with both beading and The Unique Sheep gradiances and produced the beauty that you see up there!