I've been learning to use the lucet.  

It's a fiber arts tool from the Medieval / Viking era that makes different kinds of cording and it has just a tiny learning curve.  After making about two 6" cords, I felt like I'd reasonably mastered my tension: Just 2 evenings in front of the tv and I've added a new skill to my fiber arts repertoire.

If you've never used a lucet before, grab one of our gorgeous Wool Tree Lucets and follow along with the "How To" video below: 

There are a couple of things that I didn't touch on in the video that I think are worth mentioning:

Don't choose a nubby or novelty yarn for your first cords.  In the video, I do mention that it is easiest to stick with an elastic yarn when you start out on the lucet - also keep in mind you want a traditionally-plied fiber.  Any fancy nubbins in your yarn will make working with the lucet more difficult.

As you work, the cord will naturally wrap around the handle like in the photo at the start of this post.  I just think there is something simply beautiful about that and the simplicity of this tool.

This is only one of many ways to make lucet cord!  Although I did mention this in the video, it bears repeating. I'd love to hear in comments about alternate ways people have used the lucet to create cording.

I created a free crochet pattern that features lucet cording, but you can substitute lucet cording for any kind of cord called for in a pattern, including i-cord and my favorite twisted cord.

My newest knitted design: Turtlenect Batwing

My favorite place for inspiration is my own closet.  So I used my most beloved sweater as the model for my latest knitted sweater design.  I figure that if it's a style that has a proven success record in my own wardrobe, chances are that other women will like it too.  Here's the story of what inspired my latest knitting design and what I was doing while I designed it.

For years, my cheap-acrylic-yarn-Forever-21 sweater has been my absolute favorite. I actually bought it on a whim - I think it might have been on sale.  At the time I bought it, I hadn't yet tried one of the voluminous sweater fits, and thought it would be fun to experiment.

Hanging with family in my favorite sweater.

I found that the sweater was fun to wear with just about everything as a layering peice - especially with more fitted tights or a slim maxi-skirt.  There were only two things I really didn't like about it: 1) the gross yarn it was made of and 2) the cropped length.  The cropped length worked with some outfits I had, but a lot of time I wanted the warm layer and a little extra coverage down below.  I didn't feel like I always had a good first-layer garment to provide the length I wanted below so that I could wear the sweater with leggings or a pair of pants with a clashing waist line.

So when I designed the sweater for myself, I copied the shaping and the fit of the sweater, but I changed up a few things to address the short-comings of the original sweater I loved.  First, I used Pearl, a warm wool yarn with a little bit of bling that is bulky so it will work up a voluminous sweater quickly. Next, I decided the sweater had to be relatively hassle-free to work up, so I designed it as a 1-piece, top-down garment that you can try on as you go.  I added cabling details that I thought would make it an interesting hand-knit that was beautiful to wear, and I lengthened the body of the sweater so that it could be just a little more versatile than my already track-proven favorite.

I knit this whole sweater on my recent trip to India. I think that travel and knit/crochet are excellent companions once you learn a few travel tricks.  For example, getting a data sim card for an internet dongle is a lengthy bureaucratic process in India requiring all sorts of paperwork, passport photographs, and multiple trips to the wireless provider.  And you really do need a dongle if you are staying for any length of time and want reliable internet.  I was able to cheerfully cope with the red tape because I had my Batwing project.

We travelled by all means imaginable for a month through the states of Tami Nadu and Kerala.  When the scenery became monotonous AND there was enough room to move my needles on public transport, my trusty Batwing project made me feel that my time was not wasted, and I struck up countless conversations with locals who were curious about what I was doing.  Women and children came up to me and wanted to touch my project, and on many rides I had people who just wanted to sit near me and watch.  It is really remarkable how approachable you become by those of different cultures when you display a skill that they (or their mother or grandmother) may have, and how easy it is to forge bonds. We got "adopted" by many people along the way who shared their food with us and showed us the ropes, partly because they were drawn in by the curious sight of a foreign woman knitting on their bus or train.

A hat collection will be released in the near future with the Star Beanie that will look great with the Batwing.  Watch for it in the coming weeks.

I did a little research recently on working garter stitch in the round while I was considering the design of this super simple cowl.

I started to work my project in the traditional way, working alternating knit and purl rounds and ran into that annoying jog at the end/beginning of the round at the transition point between knit and purl.  This started me on my quest to see if there was a way to do garter in the round without the jog and in this post I'll share some of what I found.

First off, I was able to find three ways of working garter stitch in the round.  Here's the roundup: 

• The Traditional Approach: Working alternating knit/purl rounds. It's the way we all first learn to do it.

• No-Purl Method #1 - Wrap & Turn: In this method you wrap the first stitch of the next round, much like short-rowing and just flip your tube of knitting inside-out on the needles.  KnitFreedom has a great video tutorial on this technique that I've included above. Don't make the same mistake I did and feel you have to pick up your wrap like you would if you were short-rowing. It just doesn't look as good as leaving the wrap alone.

• No Purl Method #2 - Two Strand: This method requires two strands of yarn. Start your work by casting on, joining in the round and knitting the first round.  At the start of round 2, you will flip the work on your right hand needle so that the purl bumps of the round just completed are facing you. Then you will attach the second strand of yarn and start knitting, leaving the first strand of yarn to remain hanging on the side you left it.  Once you knit the second round, flip the work again so that the stitches on the right hand needle (round you just completed) are now facing you with the purl bumps showing, and use the first strand of yarn to knit the round.  In this way, you alternate, knitting each round with the strand of yarn that was unused the previous round, leaving the strands of yarn to hang on the sides you left them and making sure to pull snuggly when picking up each new strand when beginning the round.  Here is the best video I found that illustrates this technique.

One of the first things I discovered was that depending on your yarn-to-needle gauge ratio, your results with each technique will vary in providing the most seamless result.  Take a look at each of the techniques in the photo at the top of this post, and compare the results in a lacier garter vs. a chunkier, denser garter.  In the photo above, the seam is placed precisely in the middle of the image.  For a lacier garter, the traditional knit/purl route is actually the most seamless.  When the work gets chunkier, the two-strand approach yields the most seamless result.

But looks aren't the only consideration when choosing which technique you might want to follow.  Each technique presents pros, cons and varying degrees of fiddly.  Like anything else in this hobby, one of these garter stitch methods may be more fun for you, and another might be pure torture. Here's my thinking on the pros and cons of each technique:

Traditional Knit / Purl

Pros

-  Doesn't really show a jog with lacy stitches
-  Great if you like to purl

Cons

-  Shows a definite jog with chunky stitches
-  Not great if you don't like to purl.  Especially if you are considering a shawl with 1000s of stitches in a round.

No Purl #1 - Wrap & Turn

Pros

-  No purling required - just knit.
-  Only one strand of yarn required

Cons

-  Shows a jog with lacy and chunky stitches, at least in my experiments.  (Maybe I'm still not getting the subtleties of this technique?)
-  A bit fiddly, you need to really work on your tension at the wrap point and I was never able to really get results that pleased me.

No Purl #2 - Two Strand

Pros

-  No purling required - just knit.
-  Doesn't really show a jog with chunkier knitting projects

Cons

-  Shows a jog with lacy stitches
-  You need 2 strands of yarn.  This can get very fiddly, especially if you are working both strands from each end of a center pull ball.

The results above are for plain garter stitch:  A 4th way to eliminate the jog with garter stitch in the round is to deviate slightly from a plain garter stitch pattern. Had I had chosen my EOR stitch carefully and modified the plain garter stitch pattern slightly, I could eliminate the jogs entirely when working the traditional method and possibly the other 2 methods as well.   The free No-Stress Ripple Stitch Cowl pattern I designed has segments of garter-based ripple stitch and there is no jogging in those rounds.

The photo above shows the simple cowl pattern I designed that started this whole investigation in the first place. For the featured yarn, which is chunky, I suggest the Two Strand Approach because it does the best job at minimizing the jog.  And as an added bonus, you don't have to purl.

I'm really interested to hear from others on no-purl garter in the round. Do you have a technique you use to eliminate the jog that I didn't cover here? Let me know in comments - or please just share any other tip you've got for working garter in the round.

Shows are a ton of work when you are exhibiting, but I absolutely love them.  It is so cool to meet up with knitters and crocheters who have worked the patterns, talk with people who are excited about the tools they bought at a prior year show and to just talk with knitters in crocheters in real life to see what they are making, what they like and what kinds of things we are doing that is most inspiring to them.

I hate to play favorites, but this lady I am posing with in the photo above is one of my all-time favorite show customers.  Take a look at a video I made of her about 2 years ago and you will immediately understand why.  She visits every year, and this year my son was helping in the booth, so she invited our family to come see the horses on her ranch after the show.

She is talking about our best-selling Stashbuster Blanket pattern and our Extended Tunisian S Hook.  I have demonstrated the technique at the show for several years, and it is a customer favorite.

Another favorite this year was the Rebel Cardi that I teach students to make in my online Craftsy Class Beyond Basic Broomstick Lace.  Aida came by to show me the progress she'd made working the upper bodice of the class project - she's using the DK Cotton Tape that is featured in my class design.

Caren stopped by to show off the cardi she was able to finish in just 2 1/2 weeks using the stash yarns she already owned!  I caught her on video below - she took the class not even intending on working the class project - she just wanted to watch the video of all the techniques. 

As she says in the video, she became so enthralled that she couldn't resist whipping one up herself! We also had visits from all sorts of knitters and crocheters who were proudly wearing our designs and wanted to show them off:

		Modest Cloche sighting!
		Art Nouveau poncho looking good!  Who says ponchos aren't cool?   Send them to our booth and we'll change their minds!
		Excellent Tunisian crochet project for beginners: the Asymmetric Poncho!
		Jen looking ravishing in her Crystalline Snood.
	....	Jinx!  Both Lori and I are wearing our Asymmetric Ponchos worked in the same yarn!  Each of us wearing ours in a different way.

Take a look at all our photos from the show on Flickr.

If you visited us at the show, thanks for stopping by! If you missed it, please visit us at Stitches West 2014 - it will be in Santa Clara from February 20 - 23 in 2014.  You've got enough time to put it on your calendar and make plans!

Imagine an antiquated, intricately hand-carved hall that serves not as a museum, but as a living, breathing market. Instead of the sculptures and carvings being preserved behind glass, small birds roost in the crevices, and shopkeepers hang their wares in any opportune crack. Such a place exists just outside the ancient temple in the heart of Madurai, India, deep within the state of Tamil Nadu.

That's my husband and son with their backpacks on in the photo above, walking through a colonnade of 400 year old sculptures that now serve as a backdrop for rows of tailors and shops.  This place is called Pudhu Mandapam, and until about 200 years ago it was a place where parties and festivals were held. Little by little, shopkeepers began to sell their wares here, and today it is this amazing space where you can buy notions and fabrics and have a garment tailored for you while you wait.

We arrived in Madurai with only a few hours to explore the temple area before grabbing an overnight bus to Pondicherry. I wish I'd had more light for my camera to capture this place, but we were rushing through at night. I also wish I'd had more time to browse the ribbons, trims and other notions on display here. Imagine only having a few minutes to browse this market. And no space in your backpack or time to buy one of these tantalizing trims....  

In doing my research on this place after-the-fact, I discovered that many locals believe it is lucky to shop here. Some of these vendor stalls have been continuously operated by the same family for over 80 years!  The shopkeepers inherit their shops from grandparents, parents or close relatives, and each shop represents a family tradition that goes back generations.

I spent time watching different tailors work. None of them work with a paper pattern or a muslin or pin their pieces together. They just directly cut the fabric and hold it together, clearly working off of a very familiar pattern in their own heads.  A pattern probably steeped in as much tradition as this space in which they work.

We didn't read about this wondrous place in our guidebook, we just stumbled on it, took in as much as we could of it, and moved on to our next adventure.