Knitting Kitsch: Tin Knitting Bank

Seen at Davis Squared:

This bank and others like it are made by Pittsfield, Mass.-based company Blue Q.

Purl for a Purpose Update

The Pine Street Inn's second annual Purl for a Purpose Knit-a-thon was on Sunday. I didn't quite reach my fundraising goal, and I'm embarrassed to say that I only managed to knit two squares before the event. (I ran into someone else who only knitted one, though, so that made me feel a bit better.) In hindsight, pledging 25 squares in the time I had (about six weeks) was probably unrealistic, even if I were a faster and more diligent knitter.

The good news is that the Knit-a-thon broke last year's 25 afghans made. Forty-six quilts were sewn together during the event, and about 15 more bags of squares were taken home by volunteers to be sewn into blankets. No word yet on how much money was raised, but I'll update this page with the info, and maybe pictures of some of the finished quilts, too. Update: $18,000 was raised this year. Photos from the Knit-a-thon are here and here.
The Pine Street Inn's residence program, which was the beneficiary of the Knit-a-thon, currently has 28 residences throughout the greater Boston area that give permanent housing to almost 500 formerly homeless tenants, both individuals and families. The program includes specialized housing for tenants with a history of mental illness or HIV/AIDS. Another 130 units are expected to open within the next two years.

Purl for a Purpose on Nov. 9 to raise money for Pine Street Inn

Boston's Pine Street Inn is having a Knit-a-thon Sunday, Nov. 9, from 11:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. to raise money for its housing program for formerly homeless people. It works like this: participants pledge to knit or crochet a certain number of 9"x9" squares and ask people to either make a flat donation or pledge on a per-square basis. The squares will be assembled into blankets that will be given to tenants of the Pine Street Inn residences.

Pine Street Inn makes it easy to create your own fundraising web page (through the site FirstGiving.com) so you can collect donations online. They ask that you start making squares before the event so that more blankets can be assembled during the Knit-a-thon. (Any kind of yarn is okay; just label each square to show its fiber content.)

Sign up for Purl for a Purpose, or learn more about it, here.

If you can't participate, please consider helping me raise money by clicking the Donate button and giving online.

Save your $300. New edition of Principles of Knitting due by fall 2009

I'm posting what I thought was going to be a scoop, then realized it's not — by about nine months.*

But I'll post about it anyway for those of you who may not have heard, or may not be familiar with this book: The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt, which is out of print and selling used for around $200-$300 a copy, is due to be reissued this fall by Simon and Schuster. The author is revising and updating it for the reissue. (Thanks to Jane J. at Porter Square Books for checking on this; if you live in the Cambridge, Mass., area, you might want to check out the store's monthly Knit One, Read Too knitting group or the Oct. 15 reading by Yarn Harlot Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.)

I first learned about The Principles of Knitting when it was recommended in another knitting book. (I think it was Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles -- which I gave away once I discovered the Magic Loop method of sock knitting.) The reviewers on Amazon all give it four and five stars and call it a knitting bible. I borrowed a copy from my local library and it does seem to live up to the praise. And last I heard, the planned retail price for the new edition was $45.

*It's already been written about here.

Update, 2/2/09: Someone emailed me that the publication date has been pushed back to November 2010. The information comes via this post on Amazon.

Update, 2/2/09, 3:00 p.m.: Jane at Porter Square Books (she runs the monthly knitting group there) called the publisher directly and was told the book is coming out October 2010. So, that's at least only a 12-month delay instead of 13 months -- if they stick to that date.

Porter Square Books Knitting Group and Book, Yarn Discounts

I said I was going to stop blogging, but just had to write an entry on two possible alternatives to this site:

First, a knitter named Paige has launched an interactive map of local knitting spots. It includes not only yarn stores but also knit-friendly cafes. If you click on the places listed, you can see reviews. If you register (free), you can add your own favorite yarn stores to the map or comment on the places already written about.

I also got an email from someone named Cindy who has created a nationwide map of yarn stores. This one only shows locations — there are no reviews.

Just looking at it quickly, it's pretty spotty: It lists a store in Boston that hasn't existed in years — and that I think was only a distributor or publishing company anyway (Yarnwinder); lists The Knitting Room but leaves out some stores that have been around longer (Woolcott & Co., Mind's Eye Yarns, and Windsor Button, to name a few). But if you email Cindy you can update her.

Updated ArtBeat Photos

Kathy posted some photos on the True Grounds knitting group web site of the goings-on at the booth we had at ArtBeat Saturday.

Teaching people to knit at ArtBeat was a lot of fun. I was surprised, because I thought for some reason it would be mostly kids coming to the booth, but actually there were more adults.

UPDATE, 9:49 P.M.: Kathy, who took the aforementioned photos, has posted about ArtBeat on her blog, too.

As mentioned in my previous post, one of the projects included making drop spindles out of dowels and old CDs. It worked out only so-so. We had to add paper shims to keep the CDs from being too wobbly, and it was hard to get both CDs into the little groove on the outside of the rubber grommet (look at the preceding link if you're interested in seeing what I'm talking about). I've seen a few variations of CD spindlemaking on the Internet. If anyone's made them and has advice to offer, please feel free to leave a comment.

UPDATE, JULY 26: In case anyone’s interested — here are some closeup photos of the wire bracelets we made.

In case anyone’s wondering, the “more ambitious things” I mentioned in my previous post included knitting with wire, ribbon, and beads. I say “ambitious” mostly because I had never knitted with wire until the night before and wasn't sure how it would turn out. I knitted a wire bracelet (click on the photo at right to see a closeup). It was my first attempt at knitting with wire, and I used three plies of a six-ply 18-gauge copper wire from Home Depot. It was hard to work with, and it also turned Ariel's wrist green. Sorta forgot about that little side effect of copper when I bought it. I was later told that could be avoided by painting the wire with clear nail polish or shellac.

Kristina ran over and got some 24- or 28-gauge (single-ply) craft wire and beads from Spark Craft Studios to make the bracelet at right, and that was much easier to work with. (Higher gauge = thinner wire.) And no green wrists, either.

3, 2, 1 ... Countdown to ArtBeat

Three days left — no, two — until the ArtBeat festival in Somerville. Members of my Sunday knitting group will be there, teaching people to knit, crochet, and spin on drop spindles provided by Lucy at Mind’s Eye Yarns. The theme of ArtBeat this year is “Mix & Mash,”� so we’re attempting to fit into that theme by mixing techniques and using nontraditional materials. For instance, Kathy came up with the idea of using ordinary twine from the hardware store to make coasters. Other projects we will be doing are listed in this previous post. We may try a few more ambitious things, but I won’t mention them here in case they don’t pan out.

Anyway, if you have some free time on Saturday and feel like hearing some bands, eating some good food, or shopping for crafts from pottery to jewelry to handbound books, come by Davis Square on Saturday between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. And if you do, stop by our table and say hi.

The adorable Mix & Mash graphic above was done by Somerville artist Yani Batteau. You can see more of her work here and here.