Knitting Innovations

Maybe having been involved in the on-line knitting community for about 10 years makes me think that "knitting innovations" is an oxymoron.

There Is a Season, Turn, Turn, Turn
It just seems that nothing new ever happens. Especially with on-line knitters (including me). We just continue to recycle the same stuff.

For those long-time KnitList folks, there was actually a calendar once that was a pretty accurate predicter of general topics that would occur on a cyclical basis. Knitting on airplanes, Christians vs. Non-Christians, Holiday vs. Christmas, acrylic vs. natural fibers, circular vs. non-circulars (I prefer not to use the standard term for non-circulars).

I guess it's no surprise that the knitting magazines provide little or no innovation in their bi-annual offerings. I guess the best we can hope for is a designer who uses existing concepts in knitting in a way that is either interesting, or inspires us to be interesting. Eunny Jang's article on entrelac in the latest IK is an example of that (I just read that she will be the new editor at IK...excellent choice in my opinion). It made me want to pick up the needles and try an entrelac design of my own and see if I could come up with something successful in that difficult medium.

I also take inspiration from folks like Kathy Merrick when she uses crochet to create beautiful garments. If she can use crochet with talent, I figure I could use entrelac to create something beautiful as well...no?

Current Knitting
I didn't even pick up the unfinished dark tweed pullover this past weekend. Instead, I worked on the colorblock cardigan.



I started work on the left-front of the garment, and it's moving along quite nicely.

I also finished (almost) my first pair of felted clogs.



I obviously haven't felted them yet...actually, I still have to knit the bottom of the second slipper. I plan on making a few pairs before I felt any of them.