Creative Confluence

I am in the midst of a creative knitting storm. The January workshop for which I swatched so compulsively is spilling over into my preparations for a workshop I’m teaching in March.

The Michigan Fiber Arts Symposium  is a new event, sponsored by Michigan Fiber Festival, Inc. It will be held March 22-24, 2013 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I am scheduled to teach three days of workshops. On Friday, I’m teaching “Spinning & Knitting Energized Singles”; on Saturday, “Creating the Yarn You Want”; and on Sunday, “Blending Colors at the Wheel”. The latter two workshops I’ve taught numerous times. The first workshop on energized singles I haven’t taught for a number of years.

So, to get into the mood for that workshop, I thought I’d prepare some new knitted samples. As I knitted a few swatches, I got an idea for a vest. In my fiber stash I found just the right fiber: some lovely Wensleydale rovings dyed by Chris Roosien of Briar Rose Fibers. I gathered together colors in the blue, green, purple direction and started spinning. Then I started knitting.  Here’s a picture of the knitting in progress. What lovely colors! What intriguing texture!

As I’ve prepared other swatches for this workshop, I’ve played with a number of the stitch patterns that I’d explored in January. I’ve found that many knit-purl stitch patterns will do interesting things when worked with an “unbalanced” or energized singles yarn. Not all knit-purl patterns yield cool results, but some are really surprising.

Look at this swatch, for example:

Can you tell what the stitch pattern is? It’s “Pennant Pleating”! Such an interesting result is compelling me to knit more swatches with energized singles and to re-organize my workshop. I’m falling in love again with energized singles. I can hardly wait to share some of my new explorations in the March workshop!