Elliot Lake's Knitting Lady

On June 23, 2012, the Algo Centre Mall in Elliott Lake Ontario, which had been plagued by structural problems throughout its history, suffered a partial structural failure on June 23, 2012. A 12m x 24m rooftop parking lot collapsed into the mall, crashing through an upper level lottery kiosk and the mall's escalators. More than 20 people were injured and two people were killed. The mall, which employed more than 250 local residents and represented 10% of Elliot Lake's retail space and 6% of its total area wages, had to be demolished.

The investigation of the mall collapse and class action lawsuits are ongoing, and the hearings have all been faithfully attended by one particular spectator, Heather Moyer, whom everyone involved with or following the case has come to know as the Knitting Lady. But as Global News learned when they interviewed her, Heather Moyer's not just in the courtroom to knit.

The Knitted Jewelry of Niiro

As some of you might have gathered from my knitting magazine reviews, I'm not often kind to designs involving knitted jewelry made out of yarn. It tends to look like something made during arts and crafts hour at summer camp, which is to say it's cute on children but is generally too naive a look for adults. However, knitted jewelry made from metal wire can be a brave new world for a knitter, and one designer who has tapped into knitted wire's potential is Rosanna Raljević Ceglar, also known as Niiro.

Niiro is a jewelry designer located in Slovenia. A graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, she finds inspiration in the forms and textures found in nature, and her work does have an organic quality to it, as though the pieces were rare species of sea creatures cast in metal.

To view more of Niiro's work, you can visit her website or check out her Facebook page.

A Socking Knitting Machine

To non-knitters, knitters may look like a monolithic group, but there are actually factions and camps within knitting because there are so many different types of knitting. One small but avid subset you'll find among knitters is antique sock machine enthusiasts. It's still possible (if challenging) to find, buy, and operate an antique sock knitting machine. In the video above, Shelly Hatton demonstrates how she uses her antique circular sock knitting machines at Maker Faire in Austin, Texas.

In a second video, Kenya Habegger, a sock machine enthusiast from Berne, Indiana shows us how her sock knitting machine works and also tells us something of the history of sock machines. During World War I, sock knitting machines were sold for about $11 and their operators were paid $0.05 for a pair. Habegger can make a pair of socks in 45 minutes. You can work out for yourself how much a machine operator would be likely to make in a day and how long it would take that machine to pay for itself.

For more information about sock knitting machine, check out this online sock knitting machine museum, or visit Angora Valley. And if you're very interested in sock machine knitting and would like to connect with other like-minded knitters, check out the New Sock Machine Society of America (which is an international organization despite its name), which has its own website and a Ravelry group.

Knitting Something Nice for You

Here's a song called "Knitting Something Nice for You", from the 2010 album Versicolour by British Columbia experimental folk singer Aidan Knight.

How to Speed Knit

Here's a Knit Picks-created video that explains how you can increase your knitting speed by learning from the example of Miriam Tegels, the Guinness World Record holder for the most stitches accomplished in a minute (118, if you're interested in knowing).

Bergère de France Magazine #168: A Review

Bergère de France has published Magazine 168. Let's have a look at it, shall we?

Patterns #01, Crew-Neck Sweater, and #02, Hat. (I do wish Bergère de France would come up with proper names for their designs.) They're not bad — I can see a grade school-aged boy being quite willing to wear them, at any rate. And I am beyond impressed that the stylist managed to find socks that matched the hat.

Pattern #03, Coat with Zip. I like this one too. Simple, sporty sweaters like this are perfect for young boys.

Patterns #04, Tunic Dress; #05, Scarf; and #06, Long Mitts. I quite like the simple but sharp tunic, but don't know about the scarf and mitts. The scarf just looks too undesigned, though I must admit it looks good with the sweater. The mitts are too bulky and impractical for a child — it's not going to be easy for a little girl to handle anything with them on. I think they'd be fine with a more fitted hand.

Pattern #07, Cuddly Toy, is really cute, though I did spend five minutes staring at it wondering what animal it's supposed to represent.

Pattern #08, Over Sized Sweater. If this were a woman's sweater, I'd be criticizing it for being baggy and unflattering, but I think it works for a child. It'll be easy and comfortable to move in and yet, thanks to the ribbed sleeves and waistband, shouldn't be catching on anything or winding up in the kid's lunch, and the stripes make it fun.

Patterns #09, Coat, and #10, Aviator Hat. This jacket and cap are good conceptually (the cap especially made me smile), but I'm not thrilled with the execution. That jacket is not going to look good worn open and I wish the aviator cap looked less rough and a little more realistically like a real aviator cap.

Patterns #11, Hat; and #12, Snood. (In Bergère de France, a cowl = a snood.) This hat and cowl are kind of cute and definitely suited to a childlike sense of humour.

Pattern #14, Jacket. I'm not crazy about this one. The exposed seams just make the pattern look rough and the wide sleeves aren't practical for a child — they will get absolutely filthy. This design would work if it were neatened up a little.

Pattern #15, Sleeveless Waistcoat. I think I would like this better if it were in a smarter colourway.

Pattern #16, Hat and Mittens. This is a nice hat and mittens set, but the colours chosen for the braided trim so do not work with the colour of the items. I'd be sure to pick out complementary colours for the trim, or just leave it off altogether. It's an interesting enough set without it.

The designer of pattern #17, Jacket seems to have been aiming for a sheepskin jacket look. It's a good concept and it's not badly done, but I think there's room for improvement. I'd add some detail to the front, such as some more seams and pockets.

Pattern #18, Jacket with Buckles. Here we have another sheepskin jacket look. I like this one though I think the buckles on the front could have been better chosen.





Patterns #19, Fur Hat and #20, Fur Front Coat. Again, I like the concept of this one but not the execution. A Russian-style fur hat could be a totally cute look on a little girl — and this one's not bad — but I'm really not crazy about the coat. Just making a bodice in the faux fur looks kind of random and pointless. I'd trim the coat in the fur (collar, cuffs and hem), add some cables or other interesting detail to the body of the coat, and use a higher contrast, more attractive colour yarn for the main body of the coat. Cream, scarlet or lilac would look sharp.

Pattern #21, Tunic. Man, is this lace overdress ever depressing. I think I might like it much better if it were in a pretty yarn instead of Burlap Sack Brown. The last time I did a Bergere de France review and complained about the prevalence of dreary oatmeal and gray colourways, a reader helpfully explained in a comment that the French see these dreary, understated tones as chic for children. So I think the intended effect of this look is getting lost in translation.

Pattern #22, Crew Neck Sweater. I like the general lines and stitchwork of this sweater, but sewing just nine sequins to the front a plain and sensible sweater looks kind of pointless and absurd.

I very much like pattern #23, Long Jacket. The one quibble I have is the way the front gapes between buttons. I know a lot of designers go with this type of fastening, but I don't think it ever works. I'd move the buttons over or create a welt to hide the gaps.

Pattern #24, Hooded Cape. Not all that impressed with this one. I think I might like a child's cape if it were done well (and I very much like the idea of the stars), but this one's just too rough and ready looking. The cape's already going to be somewhat shapeless because, well, capes are, and to add such a heavy textured yarn to shapelessness is too much.

Pattern #25, Crew Neck Sweater. This one really isn't working. Those two yarns don't go together and whole sweater look randomly thrown together. And the stars? Are not helping.

Pattern #26, Star Cardigan. This one's very cute and quite smart.

Pattern #27, Dress. The concept of a sky picture knit deserved a better rendering. For one thing clouds and stars don't generally appear in the sky at the same time. Either go with an evening sky of moon and stars or a daytime sky of clouds with a sun peeping out from behind one.

Pattern #28, Sleeveless Dress. This dress needed a little of just the right garnishing to finish it off, but those pom poms are not it. I'd have chosen to do some duplicate stitch embroidery with the black, such as working some little motifs in some of those diamonds.

Pattern #29, Zipped Hooded Jacket. Quite like this one. Though if I were knitting for a young boy, I'd let him pick the colours. And I bet they wouldn't be the ones used here.

Pattern #30, Hat. I... don't even know what's going on here. What, did the designer run out of yarn to finish the brim off properly and sew on some random buttons and hope people would think it was a design feature?

Pattern #31, Long-Sleeved Dress. I like this understated dress. It has some texture and good lines to keep it from being boring. And of course it doesn't hurt to accessorize it with a fascinator. Fascinators on little girls could be the next new wave of cuteness.

Pattern #32, Cap. Very cute little cap.

Pattern #33, Turtleneck Cape. I like this one. The roses are pretty, and the style is one that an adult woman might not be able to carry off but that almost any little girl could carry off with panache.

Pattern #34, Openwork Snood. Not crazy about this cowl. It looks too much like a random swath of knitting that's been sewn around this little girl's neck. Even the child model is all, "Really?"

Pattern #35, Short-Sleeved Dress. I'm not impressed with this, but I think it's the colours that are putting me off. In prettier or bolder colours it could look quite smart and cute.

Pattern #36, Crew-Neck Jumper. Very much like this one. It's a perfect young boy's sweater because it reinterprets classic menswear in an age-appropriate way.

This cardigan should be pattern #37, but the Bergère de France site is claiming that it is ^No. 13. Ooookay. At any rate, I love the idea of a child's drill major sweater, but this one does need some tweaking. I don't like the collar, and the double-breasted panels are pulling apart even when buttoned. I'd figure out a way to neaten up the front. I do very much like the colours used here and the epaulettes are really cute.

Brutal Knitting

If you like knitted art with more than a touch of the horrific and surreal, you might like to check out Brutal Knitting, the work of British Columbia artist Tracy Widdess. Widdess uses obscure sci-fi and horror movies as a source of inspiration, and her specialty is masks that make you wonder a little nervously what the rest of the creature looks like, and where it might be.





Widdess also does some graphic work.

To see more of Tracy Widdess's work, you can check out the Pinterest page and Tumblr of her work, or visit her Brutal Knitting page on Facebook. Widdess's work is available on commission and for exhibition.