All posts by Jackie E-S

Jackie E-S is the owner of HeartStrings FiberArts, a showcase for her growing roster of original pattern designs. As a certified master knitter and teacher, Jackie continues to share her love of knitting and knowledge through design and publication of skill-building pattern instructions, and conducting workshops, programs and demonstrations. Her interest in the fiber arts extends beyond knitting and spinning to include weaving, dyeing and all needle arts. She also enjoys contract bridge and music.
The Designing Day

“No Sew” method of attaching buttons

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Buttons attached to button band without sewing
Buttons attached to button band without sewing

Have you ever thought about attaching your buttons directly onto a sweater button band as you knit/crochet, rather than sewing them on afterwards? I did that a number of years ago when making Medrith Glover’s Circumnavigated Cardigan. The unique construction of this sweater produces a totally seamless garment. Yay! no seams to sew. (Which I usually do try to avoid anyway unless there is a trade-off that warrants sewing as the lesser of two evils — also see To Seam or Not to Seam).

Pulling a loop of yarn through the button shank
Pulling a loop of yarn through the button shank

As I neared the final steps of the sweater though, I realized that there would still be buttons to sew on. That got me thinking about making this project into a totally “new sew” one. My approach was to actually knit the buttons into the band. While knitting the band, when I reached a place where a button was to be attached, I just

  1. pulled up a loop of yarn through the button shank,
  2. placed that loop on the working needle, then
  3. knitted the extra loop and next stitch together. Voila — button attached and no sewing to be done later.

    Detail of button knitted directly into the button band
    Detail of button knitted directly into the button band

Some points —

  • This method is appropriate only for buttons with shanks.
  • To pull up the loop of yarn through the button shank, I used a small crochet hook (or you could use a small piece of bent wire).
  • I would only recommend this technique be used with a sturdy yarn and a relatively firmly knitted button band.
  • A similar approach could be used with a crocheted button band.

So that’s a little about attaching buttons to a sweater band while knitting or crocheting. Tuck it metaphorically into your knitting bag of tricks and it just might come in handy some day for a “when you’re done, you’re done” project.

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Winner of the Sock Therapy Kit

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Congratulations to Donna Wells, the winner of the random drawing for the Sock Therapy Kit. Donna’s name was chosen from all entries made at the HeartStrings FiberArts Facebook page. The winner receives yarn and “chocolate”-colored ribbon to make the socks along with a full-color printed pattern. Just for fun and added therapy, I am throwing in some chocolate mint swizzle sticks. These go well with hot coffee or tea. Yumm.

Sock Therapy Kit
Sock Therapy Kit


Sock Therapy Pattern (cover page)
Sock Therapy Pattern (cover page)

Although this was the last Sock Therapy Kit I had, you can still get the pattern to make the socks in your own choice of yarn and ribbon. Sock Therapy pattern is available for purchase as either an individual pattern, or as part of The Sock Calendar eBook (includes Sock Therapy and 12 other sock patterns).

Thank you to everyone who has posted and shared. It is heart-warming to have such a nice welcome from my friends/fans on Facebook. I am enjoying reading it all even though I may not be able to respond to everything. Watch for more contests and drawings to be announced in the future. Even if you think you never win anything, I want to give you more chances!

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Musings

Battery Organizer and Built-in Tester

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Here’s one of those household things I didn’t even realize I needed until I stumbled across it while searching for something else on Amazon last fall. This was when I was on my declutter-and-get-organized kick, and thus why this product appeared on my radar screen. It is the Range Kleen WKT4162 66-Battery Organizer with Removable Tester. Even though less than $15, I still was reluctant to put out the money if this ended up just adding to my clutter rather than really being helpful. What sold me was the built-in tester. And true to predictions, this thing has more than paid for itself many times over.

I have the battery storage compartment in the same drawer I had previously used to store extra batteries. The difference is this little storage gizmo keeps things organized, whereas my other method of trying to arrange the batteries in the drawer invariably got messed up over time. So this saves me time in re-organizing that drawer every month or so. The other big thing is $ savings, because before this, I could never efficiently keep up with which batteries were new or used but still good. I expect that I was disposing of batteries unnecessarily before this, because I have encountered many times when I tested a battery that I would have previously gotten rid of.

Battery organizer
Battery organizer with removable tester

I like that the tester instructions are right on the organizer for easy reference — no scrambling to find a user manual if I forgot how to test a particular-sized battery.

Battery tester
Battery tester

The little tester piece of this organizer is also removable, which I thought might come in handy. But so far, I have been satisfied to just use the tester as is.

I bought mine on Amazon, but I am sure there are other places you could find/search for this product or a similar one.

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Spinning

Spinning a 2-ply laceweight yarn for a scarf

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Reversible Lace Cables Scarf
Scarf in handspun yarn from hand-painted silk roving

Sometimes I am asked about the laceweight yarns I have handspun and used to knit scarves or shawls. At the top of my list of favorites, I like to spin a laceweight 2-ply yarn from hand-painted silk, cotton or fine wool blend. Here’s how I approached spinning the yarn used in the above scarf (which was knitted using the Reversible Lace Cables Scarf pattern).

I particularly like the hand-dyed silk rovings by Nancy Finn of Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks, and that of Nancy Ballusteros of Treetop Harmonies. For the scarf shown above, I unfortunately do not have a picture of the Treetop Harmonies roving before it was spun into yarn. But here is a photo of a similar colorway from Chasing Rainbows.

Hand-painted silk roving
Hand-painted silk roving

Notice how the roving is dyed in sections of colors. What I find particularly appealing for lace knitting in the Treetop and Chasing Rainbows color pallets are their close tonalities.

For a scarf like that shown above, you’ll need only 2 ounces of fine top or roving to make a finished size of about 10″ by 72″. Choose a subtly varicolored or multi-toned fiber for added interest in the spinning as well as the knitting.

Divide fiber lengths into strips narrow enough for spinning a very fine thread — about 50 to 60 wraps per inch (wpi), and so that color changes in the spun thread will be in random lengths of every few yards or so. Spin worsted-style to produce a smooth, strong thread. My plied yarn is in the 30 wpi range at about 200 to 250 yards per ounce, depending on the type of fiber.

The 2-ply laceweight yarn
The 2-ply laceweight yarn compared to the size of a US quarter

When plying, I don’t try to keep the colors together in any particular order. The fineness of the threads and the subtle tonal variations produce gradual color changes that are further enhanced by the texture and movement in the knitted pattern stitches of this scarf design.

I hope you are inspired and motivated. Don’t hesitate to share what you’ve created with your handspun yarns as well. I invite your comments here on this blog or contacting me directly through my heartstringsfiberarts.com website.

Scarf in handspun yarn from hand-painted silk roving
Reversible Lace Cables Scarf

p.s. To see and read about another favorite method I like to use for spinning laceweight yarn, see Moody Blues, hand-spun pima cotton plied with silk.


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Meet Joe Shopatron and the new Facebook Shop

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HSFA Facebook Shop Tab
HSFA Facebook Shop Tab

I’ve been scrambling the last couple of weeks to learn more about Facebook and finally get my HeartStrings FiberArts business page launched. It’s been an exhilarating experience to see it come together, but also a lot of work and learning time to customize.

The latest addition is the Shop page. Fortunately, I had help in getting that page up and running. I was able to contract with Shopatron to initialize the page with a feed from my manufacturer’s catalog on Shopatron. Thanks to Joe Mlnarik (otherwise known as Joe Shopatron on my FB admin page) for going the extra mile in getting the data feed tailored to meet the unique needs displaying HeartStrings patterns in their proper categories. When reporting in to me yesterday, he jested, “The good news is your Facebook Shop is now live, and I am now very familiar with your product line :)”.

New Facebook Shop Tab

What this means to HeartStrings fans on Facebook is that links to HSFA patterns are just a tab away. Whether just to tell your friends about a favorite pattern you saw, or to buy, I hope this makes it easy and fun for you.

For retailers in my Shopatron network, this means greater potential for more sales coming your way as the word continues to spread about HeartStrings knitting patterns.

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