Wires and glass.

Over the past 10 days, we've had the pleasure of being visited by Catherine Lowe. Aside entertaining us with several days of fantastic Couture Knitting workshops and a wicked sense of humor, Catherine also taught a mini-workshop on blocking garments with blocking wires:

It was a bit of a shame that so few people could make it, but I know everyone on staff learned a lot of new tips a tricks. I certainly did, anyway. Catherine's suggestion for using foam board from an art store is going to be a space saver on so many levels.

Above is Catherine's sleeve slowly being blocked into shape. And below is a closeup of the edge of the sleeve, once it was pinned in place:

The graph paper beneath the sleeve was used to sketch out a template of the finished dimensions, so it wouldn't end up too large or small. Neat trick, right?

Now, because I know this'll come up, the sleeve is part of a design for Catherine's next Simple Couture collection of patterns. Just like Simple Couture 4.01, it will be exclusive to Knit Purl. It should be available by the end of winter, I believe. But we will announce it in our Newsletter when it's available, for those of you who are enjoying 4.01.

That covers the "wires" portion of our post today, onto the glass...

We're a very Portland-centric store (hence the Sock Club's focus), which gives me the excuse to show you this:

A fully-functional glass spinning wheel, made by Portland native Andy Paiko. I saw it on display at the Museum of Contemporary Craft recently and just had to blog about it. It even has handspun wool yarn on the bobbin! And here's a video of it being used.

Only in Portland.

I'm afraid that's everything, for now. We've got another Newsletter coming out this Friday, so 3M and I are rather narrowly focused at the moment. Look for it in your inbox at the end of the week!