Some of you may know that when we lived in Montreal, I worked at Espace Tricot for a time. My colleagues and the community around the store became my knitting family there, and when Lisa and Melissa decided to move on, I was thrilled when my former store colleagues Steph and Naomi took over the helm. I was even more thrilled when they reached out at the beginning of this year to let me know they were working on a book, and would I like to be a part of it? (Would I?! Yes!!) Now we’re days away from the release of Knits from the LYS: a Collection by Espace Tricot on Friday December 15, and my c ..read more

The main pattern work I’ve done alongside working on my PhD has been a series of patterns for Amirisu, all but one of which I’ve shared on the blog already (see my previous posts on Bramble and Blomsterkrans, and Kitchen Stories). My fourth and final pattern for Amirisu was published in issue 24, the spring/summer 2022 issue. And it happened to be my very first shawl design. Scallops and Blooms is a basic triangular shawl, knit in garter stitch with a stockinette panel along the bottom to provide a smooth surface for embroidery. The embroidered motifs and the scalloped crochet edge stand out ..read more

Several years back I would occasionally post a “queue check,” an overview of active project WIPs and plans (fully based on the ones Karen Templer of Fringe Association used to post). Now that I’m carving out a little more time for crafting, I’ve started going back to projects that have been on hold for 2-3 years. So how about an old school queue check to share a few of them with you? First up is actually a finished object! A cowl, which I’ve called my Wandrian cowl, at least as a working title. The plan when I started this two years ago was to release it as a pattern, which I may still do. I ..read more

August. The fireweed (willowherb) is almost done, the thistle is going to seed, the students are arriving in town again…that back-to-school feeling is definitely creeping its way into Trondheim. Seems like an appropriate time to dust this thing off, yeah? I didn’t intend for the blog to go quiet, but between the pandemic, working on a PhD, and then having a baby (something I chose not to share online until after the fact), it simply became harder to make time for. That baby is now a toddler and I have less than three months remaining on my PhD contract, if I needed evidence of how much time h ..read more

I’ve been meaning to share a bit about this design since the autumn 2021 issue of Amirisu came out in November! The issue’s theme is knitwear inspired by films, and I found the process of coming up with a design for this one super interesting, so I thought I’d share both my new design today as well as a bit about the film that inspired it. (I did briefly share a few thoughts over on the Amirisu blog back in November, but I’ll go into a bit more depth here.) Kitchen Stories is a Norwegian/Swedish co-production directed by Bent Hamer (original title Salmer fra kjøkkenet, literally “psalms from ..read more

Happy new year to you all! It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? It seems I haven’t posted since August, and if I’m honest, 2021 feels like a year that just quietly slipped by. I can hardly believe Christmas and the new year have come and gone again already. Nonetheless, I wanted to pop by here to say hello, wish you all a happy new year, and share a few wintry snaps from my first long walk of the year. I spent an hour and a half on Trondheim’s Ladestien trail today, on what was an absolute stunner of a day. Ladestien follows the shoreline from the eastern edge of the city center well out to R ..read more

Last week I had the chance to do a bit of sewing, and made my very first collared shirt! It was a project I’ve been planning for a little while, chosen pretty deliberately as a skill-building project. The pattern is the Willis Shirt from Seamwork, and I chose it because aside from the collar, the other techniques (the button placket and bias facings) were ones I’ve successfully executed and feel relatively comfortable with. All in all, I’m really proud of how it came together, even if there are some things I would do differently next time, and I learned a lot making it. Firstly, if I make th ..read more

Since I’m still waiting on a Covid vaccine (at 33, I’m essentially at the very back of the queue in Trondheim), this year’s summer vacation has been another domestic holiday by necessity. We kept it relatively short – I’m saving more of my holiday time for December, when I should be fully vaccinated and we can hopefully plan an extended US trip to coincide with Christmas so I can see friends and family I haven’t seen since 2019. (I’ll also admit that after nearly a year and a half of travel restrictions, I’m not so used to being far from home for long!) Nonetheless, we recently went on a ..read more

The previews for issue 22 (spring/summer) of Amirisu magazine went live last week, and I actually have some new work to share! For those unfamiliar with the magazine, Amirisu originally started off as a digital-only knitting magazine, publishing bilingually in English and Japanese (they are a Japanese company). Nowadays they’re a print magazine, publishing each issue in an English/international version and a Japanese version. They also have a brick-and-mortar yarn store in Japan called WALNUT that I’d love to visit someday. I’ve been a fan for a long time so it’s been a real pleasure to get to ..read more

March and April have definitely brought signs of spring this year. I think this March was milder and less snowier than last year’s, something I’m feeling grateful for. We’re still in that in-between stage, where it sometimes snows, but it’s mild enough now that it never lasts for too long when it does. The daylight hours grow longer every day, and I find myself full of optimism when the sun comes out. While I love winter, the springtime thaw always brings a specific kind of joy. Lately, my walks have been getting longer. I’m determined to do some more hiking this summer than last, and to exp ..read more