A couple of great teachers are offering up their expertise over at Vitrum Studio. Catharine Newell and Richard Parrish each have very interesting classes scheduled. This was mentioned over at Bullseye’s forum, which is a great place for good general glass information. Catharine will be teaching a class in March called “Drawing from Experience” which is a four day class that explores the various ways to draw on glass. Sounds so cool. I’d love to take that or even have her teach it at my studio. Richard will teach two workshops, “Color Theory in Glass: Fear No Color” and his new advanced color workshop, “Color in Kiln-glass: Further Explorations & Applications,” in April. That too sounds awesome. Richard just got done teaching the color classes in Alaska at Half Moon Creek Gallery. Check out all of the links I’ve listed to get all the information you need regarding these classes and the other classes at Vitrum, Bullseye and even Half Moon if you find yourself in Alaska…
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Gather Your Scraps for a Fun Wrap
Are you all tired of scrap knitting projects yet? I hope not, because I probably never will be.
This is one of those that was actually designed to be worked with scraps, though I’m sure you could use whole or partial skeins of a few different colors if you want a less scrappy look.
The Rock Salt Wrap by Nick Davis is mostly made with mitered squares (which is a fun technique to learn if you don’t already know how to do it). Make each square a different color, or alternate colors, if you don’t want to make it fully scrappy. The pattern actually suggests places where it would make sense to change colors and includes line drawing you could color in if you want to plan it out more carefully.
Because it’s mostly made out of squares you can easily alter the size by working more or fewer squares, or making them smaller or larger. The borders are worked in garter stitch and you could also make those wider, narrower or add more of them depending on the size of shawl you want and how much yarn you have to use.
Nick says their version took about 520 yards/475 meters of worsted weight yarn to make a shawl that measures 58 inches or almost 1.5 meters long and 14 inches/36 cm wide. This same technique would be fun for a scarf if you made it a bit narrower, or you could make a bunch of strips of squares and make a blanket.
Another thing I love about this pattern is that it calls for worsted weight yarn. So many scrap projects are made for lighter weight yarn, which is fine, but the vast majority of the knitting I do is with worsted weight so I always love seeing options that are made for using those leftovers. Of course you can also use lighter weight yarn if that’s what you have on hand.
You can get this pattern from Ravelry.
[Photo: Nick Davis]
Take Your Scrap Yarn on a Voyage
Use All Your Yarn Scraps on This Great Cardigan Knitting Pattern