Last Minute Travel Slippers

| eelliottknits

It started in May. I had a week to go before my road trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool, and the itch set in. The itch to make something for this trip. I can make something in a week, surely. It’s not like I have anything else to do. (I had a lot else to do.) I know: I’ll make some slippers! My beloved old moccasins are looking pretty beat up, and they take up a fair bit of room in the suitcase, and I bet I can whip out a pair of ballet-ish slippers that look nice and pack small and will keep my bare feet off the hotel carpet.

Now, this is not my first last-minute-travel-project rodeo, and though I was tempted to also spin the yarn for these things, I knew that that way lay madness. Besides, that’s much of the point of a stash, surely: to have exactly the right yarn when inspiration strikes, just waiting for you to pull it out and get knitting. So I did. I found some worsted weight from Imperial Yarn in a heathery bottle green, and off I went.*

Last Minute Travel Slippers in progress Continue reading →

The little things

| eelliottknits

It’s Thanksgiving up in Canuckia today, and my far-flung siblings and their children gathered in Vancouver this weekend to celebrate. Thanksgiving isn’t quite the huge deal back home that it is in the US—I mean, it’s a fairly big deal, but in my experience, at least, December is when people really pull out the stops to get to where their family is—but this Thanksgiving’s a special one. This year, there’s a brand new Elliott to be thankful for. (And Werb. She is half Werb, and that’s a good thing to be, too.) My sadness at not being there is somewhat lessened by the knowledge that I’ve sent some thankfulness for this new tiny human in the form of baby knits, and these will be there, and that makes it a bit more okay. And hey, now that they’ve arrived, I can show them off to you! So here we go: tiny knits, round 1.

all the baby knits Continue reading →

On car horns and clouds and online spaces

selfish knitting on the dock
| eelliottknits

I ran away to the lake this week, and I did something I haven’t done in years: I went offline. I set up a vacation auto-reply on my business email and resisted the urge to say “I will check my email occasionally, so…” or “I’ll be responding more slowly than usual, but…” With surprising difficulty, I left it at “I will be away and offline until Thursday.” I did use a bird identification app* a few times, which seemed like an okay thing to do as there were so many birds and I wanted to know what they were.

Great Blue Heron flying over the lake Continue reading →

Tubular Cast On: my current favourite method

| eelliottknits

I do adore the tubular cast on. It’s tidy, and stretchy, and in fine gauge yarns before some ribbing it looks positively professional. It’s particularly helpful when you want to get a stretchy rib from a yarn without much memory of its own, which is why it’s the key to a good brim in Slouch 1, 2, and 3.

Slouch 1 three quarters web
Slouch 1: The first half of the brim is worked in Shibui Knits Pebble held double. Pebble is not a bouncy yarn at all, yet see how nicely the tubular cast on stretches?

I’ve tried several different tubular cast on methods; this is the one I currently prefer. I won’t say it’s the Best Method Ever—that’s subjective, and I’m fickle. It’s the one I used for these samples, and it worked well for me. Here’s how you do it: Continue reading →

The storm has passed; the recovery begins.

| eelliottknits

When I started my pattern sale fundraiser to help with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, it came from a feeling of helplessness and heartache and a desire to do something, anything, that was genuinely helpful, even if only in a small way.

Then you turned up. So many of you. You spread the word and you bought patterns and you took this little thing and made it a bigger thing and other generous fibre arts people put their backs into it* and instead of feeling helpless on my own, I feel like together we really did something.

Harvey relief final total

You all came to this barnraiser, and in increments–$5-$6 a pattern!–you built something real, and I couldn’t be more touched by your generosity. I know the United Way of Houston and the SPCA of Texas will put the funds to good use. I hope the projects you make from these patterns bring you joy, and that you’ll share your progress with me and wear your finished handknits with pride.

Thank you. We did it right.

*While the Mason Dixon fundraising event has ended, others on that page are still going on. You can also donate directly: Houston’s mayor has established a relief fund, and Charity Navigator has a list of organizations that are helping with the relief effort.

Update September 8: The donations are there! It took some time to get the funds to an acceptable payment method—neither charity accepts PayPal—but the money is now where it’s needed. Thank you again.

EEKnits fundraiser United Way donation

EEKnits fundraiser SPCA donation

Help with Harvey relief while making something beautiful

| eelliottknits

I’ve been watching and reading about the unimaginable devastation to Houston and coastal Texas, and wondering what I could do to help. I could make stuff, but the logistics of dealing with stuff in a disaster make that more of a curse than a blessing. What they really need is cash in the hands of people who know where the help is most needed, and are able to do the most good. So here’s what I’m doing:

From now until midnight on Saturday, CDT, 100% of my income from pattern sales on Ravelry will go to the United Way of Houston’s Relief Fund and to the SPCA of Texas, two local organizations who do good work and will make good use of the money. To be clear: that’s everything that hits my account from Ravelry for the next four days (and tonight). It’s a small thing in the face of such need, but it’s a thing I can do. Help me do it right.

EElliottKnits Pattern Collage 2

Photos by Gale Zucker.

Saltmeadow + Shibui Knits: a giveaway

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Yeah, I know, this is a promotional post, which I’ve said I’ll keep to a minimum here on the blog. BUT! This giveaway is pretty sweet, and I didn’t want you to miss out. So:

Last week, I released Saltmeadow, a new shawl pattern in Shibui Knits Reed and Lunar. I’m pretty pleased with how this one turned out: lovely, drapey, lineny goodness, perfect for summer knitting, with a shot of glowing merino/silk at the edges.

Saltmeadow back draped web

The people at Shibui liked Saltmeadow so much, they asked if I’d like to do a giveaway for the design on Instagram, and here we are: the #mySaltmeadow yarn + pattern giveaway. One lucky knitter will win the yarn to make their own Saltmeadow—that’s 7 skeins of Reed and 1 skein of Lunar, in your choice of colours—and a PDF copy of the pattern. Plus, Shibui Knits has kindly said they’ll ship the yarn to you even if you don’t live in the US, so international entries are welcome! Here’s how you enter: Continue reading →

Well, that was a long gap.

| eelliottknits

I think I’ve discovered the problem with keeping new release announcements and promotions to my newsletter, and only posting personal projects and the like here on the blog: 99.999% of my projects are work-related, I don’t often get time to spin, and so there’s not much to say a lot of the time. (Also, to be frank, the current political climate has knocked some of the stuffing out of me, and I don’t want to add to the noise, and it feels like there’s a lot of noise to go around right now.) And lo, seven months have gone by, tumbleweeds are blowing through here, and still loquacity eludes me. But!

I do have a new project I’m excited about, and it’s not a pattern sample (though it may evolve into a pattern eventually), and this right here is just the place to share it.

Remember this?


It’s some 60/40 Bond/Silk that I spun a while ago as part of the Discworld spinalong over on Ravelry. I’ve finally come up with an idea for it: Continue reading →