Last year for the experimental 5th day of Blog Week, I created ‘The Lonely Knitter’s Companion‘, an MP3 you can loop forever to keep you company as you knit. Since animated gifs seem to be making a comeback, I thought they would be a good medium to watch me knit… forever. :)

The purl gif in particular should come in handy when I want to quickly show people my easy purling technique on forums, etc. Please feel free to make use of them anywhere you like.

How I Cast On (longtail)

How I Knit

How I Purl

How I Cast Off

Smaller Versions

Have you read?

1. Cast Off

I’ve talked about a few of my knitting heroes before: Mary Thomas, Mrs. Beeton, the Turkish lady whose name I can’t remember, and many of my favourite designers fall into this category as well. But Herbert Niebling is in a class of knitting brilliance all his own. He truly groks stitches; he can make a piece of string dance in achingly graceful floral patterns, seemingly effortlessly.

If you haven’t heard of him, I urge you to look through some of the projects for his patterns on Ravelry. There’s also a very active Group dedicated to him (and that’s not what it’s called, Dolores).

Despite his recent popularity and his evident knitting genius, there’s hardly any information on the internet about Herbert (Richard) Niebling, not even the stub of a Wikipedia article. The best source of information I’ve been able to find is a brilliant 2-page article in Piecework May/June 2010 by Mary Frances Wogec. She’s also the designer of the beautiful Niebling-inspired lace bag on the cover.
“As the composer writes down the notes that he hears, in the same way I write down the stitches that I see.” – Herbert Niebling
A brief overview, from the aforementioned article: Niebling was born in Averlak in 1903 and learnt to knit as a young boy. He began knitting lace patterns from leaflets that were in publication at the time, and went on to study at the Hamburg Kunstgewerbeschule. After the war he settled in Freiburg, (which happens to be the only German city I’ve visited) and began publishing lace patterns inspired by the flowers in his garden.

But how does a designer go from knitting doilies from a leaflet, to being “The Grand Master of Lace Knitting”? It seems we’ll never know, but I find it difficult not to romanticise the life of a man who could so perfectly command motif, shape and symmetry in such a difficult medium. Did he see patterns in his everyday life? What did he knit his wife as a wedding gift? Did he dip his toes in the bächle on warm summer days? Did he ever dare eat a Black Forest Gateau on one of his tablecloths? These are the questions I’d like to ask him.

While I’ve never knit a Niebling design, I often flip through the Lacis book for inspiration and examine and swatch elements of his designs. I particularly yearn to wrap myself in a wispy Lyra one day, as those who share my love of His Dark Materials (and by association Ancient Greek and astronomy) will understand. Most of all though, I yearn to one day understand lace half as well as he did.

Just a short note today to say, “Cast off your worries & cast on your knitting!”

Have you read?

1. Knitting, Animated (3KCBWDAY5)
2. Keep Calm and Cast On
3. Coming Soon to a Blog Reader Near You…

I’ve written before about my love of pink, especially paired with dark green. And while I magnanimously love all colours and can spend hours inventing new colour names, if I had to choose one, I’m sorry Lilac, but let there be Pink.

Last year during Blog Week, you may have seen this yarn on my shelf. Now it’s winding/winging its way to being a fully-fledged shawl. All grown up!

I’m using my own Fill-in-the-Blanks Shawl Design formula (currently in testing!) with the Wheatear Stitch. I’m so so so excited about this ebook, I just can’t wait to release it!

“Pink, it was love at first sight” – Aerosmith

And then there’s this bottom-up, leafy number which I’m knitting in Artist’s Palette Glisten; 100% silk, except for the 100% pleasure that I’m quite certain is plied with it. It’s also been in my stash for far too long! If you’ve never understood “process knitters” (i.e. knitters who enjoy the process of knitting as much as, if not more than, the finished project), then perhaps you’ve never knit with a yarn which makes you want to watch every stitch take form. Silk takes dye particularly well, and no photos can do these colours justice. The yellow isn’t yellow, it’s gold…

“Pink is the color of romance and a friend tells me that the girl with the pink dress at the party is the one who is selected for each dance” – Alfred Carl Hottes

Was Hottes talking about roses? I don’t know, but recently I’ve developed a penchant for polymer clay and I made this pink rosy posy heart pendant from white Cernit and coloured it with a blush…

And I think blushing must be what Emily Dickinson writes of as a “shawl of Pink”:

Shame is the shawl of Pink
In which we wrap the Soul
To keep it from infesting Eyes —
The elemental Veil
Which helpless Nature drops
When pushed upon a scene
Repugnant to her probity —
Shame is the tint divine.

One last heart/shawl in progress, which isn’t strictly pink unless I get vaguely scientific and point out that white light is a combination of all colours (think Pink Floyd prism).

C’est tout! Lick a pink confection, listen to Piaf, and pick a pink stitch (a pinch?) or two. Á demain…

Have you read?

1. Tickled Pink
2. Pink Haze
3. St. David’s Day

I’m absolutely in love with this simple technique for making dainty fabric roses, and as promised yesterday, I wanted to share links to my favourite tutorials, and a few tips along the way.

Firstly, I came across 3 different ways to form these roses.

1. One length of rick-rack rolled up.
This technique is especially good for making rosebuds (like the ones in the photo above) and using up shorter lengths of ric rac. Here’s another blog with beautiful necklaces made in this way.

2. Two lengths of rick-rack twisted around each other and then rolled up. (here’s another tutorial)
This is the technique I used for my roses. The only difficulty is unwinding the twined ric rac which has a tendency to twist around itself.

3. One length of rick-rack folded in half and then rolled up.
This technique produces roses that look just as nice, but I’m not sure I’m adept enough with an iron to be able to press ric rac in half. Perhaps there’s a trick?

I had never realised how much fun ric rac is! So many sweet colours to choose from…

Tips

- I used 5mm ric rac, which makes dainty, relatively shallow roses. When I tried with 1cm ric rac, I found the rose was too tall.
- You can sew your rose if you like, but I think a hot glue gun is probably faster.
- Pretty hardware will make these roses even nicer as gifts.
- However, you can easily slide one onto a bobby pin for a pretty hair accessory, or a paperclip to make a bookmark.
- If you have hot glue strands on your rose, just hold a blow dryer over it and they’ll melt away.
- I made the purple rose with two shades of ric rac twined together, which produces a really nice effect.
- With furled petals I think the roses look rather like ranunculus (see my orange flower above).

I hope you enjoy making these flowers as much as I have! And don’t forget to finish your gift off with a printable gift tag…

Have you read?

1. The rose was awake all night for your sake
2. Watercolour Gift Tags & Card