Friday, October 11, 2002

Fiber Facts

The regular blog column "Fiber Facts" presents the scientific side of fiber. Most of these are written by our science specialist, Jordynn. If you have a topic you would like her to research and write about, send us an email.

Here's a list of previous columns, arranged in alphabetical order by topic.

Thursday, October 10, 2002

Knitting Travels

Knitting Travels is a regular column on the blog. Click a link to read about our travels and experiences with knitting in this far-off lands. We also review local yarn shops, if we can find them.

Cities are listed in alphabetical order.

Jordynn's Patterns

 

Plath
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Tenley
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Lillooet
Alwyn Front
Alwyn
vera
Vera Rubin


Xylem

wu5
Madame Wu
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Jane Goodall










Celia Cruz

Euclid

Tiny Tim

Miss La Creevy


Nickleby

Fezziwig

Chrysomallos

cratchet Cratchett rollneck
Teddy Bear Sweater
sugarcubes
Sugar Cube Washcloth

Download – free! Download –Free!
chevron
Chevron Washcloth
eyelet ridgeEyelet Twist Washcloth pisces
Pisces Washcloth
Download – free! Download – Free! Download – Free!
 

PryalSpun Handspun Fiber Store

Greetings--my name is Katie Rose Pryal and I produce fibers, yarns, and handmade accessories for sale.

The ethos that drives this store is one of eco-friendliness and low-industrialization.

For this reason, I specialize in eco-friendly and recycled materials. All "new" fibers are purchased from small farms in the raw. I wash the raw fibers by hand and dye them in my kitchen. I spin using a wheel and hand spindles.

Check out the small gallery of fibers and accessories here, and visit my Etsy page if you would like to purchase. For more information, and custom or special orders, contact me. I'm krgp on Ravelry, and I love having new friends.

Handspun Yarns

I have a few different lines of yarns, depending on their content and the techniques used to spin them. Here's the (ever-growing) list, with some photo examples.

  • Felted Heaven: The yarns are made of approx. 70% recycled fiber and 30% new fiber. The base of every one of these yarns is a sweater from the thrift store that was either already felted by its previous owner, or damaged/stained and then felted by me. I rarely by a thrift store sweater for spinning that doesn't have a good life left as a sweater--destroying a perfectly good sweater is not "recycling." Most of the Felted Heaven yarns are spun once with thread to give them strength and shape, and then spun again with a new fiber or plied with a single I spun out of new fiber. These yarns are mostly super-bulky, and make great scarves.


  • 2-Ply, 2-Ply Sport, and 2-Ply Bulky: These yarns can either be made of all new fiber, or of one strand recycled yarn from an unraveled thrift store sweater and one strand that is a single spun from new wool.

2-Ply Sport Weight [All new yarn]


2-Ply in Icelandic Wool [all new fiber]



2-Ply [all new fiber]


  • Recycled CoreSpun: These yarns are produced of approx. 50% recycled fiber and 50% "new" fiber. The recycled fiber is from thrift store reject sweaters unwound into yarn. I use the recycled fiber as a core, and spun hand-carded roving around it, creating a lofty yarn with a srong middle.



Recycled CoreSpun, Color: Colorado



Recycled CoreSpun, Color: Rubicon
Not Available for Purchase




About Us

We Are

The Knitty Profesors


Jordynn Jack

Katie Rose Pryal


We are professors at a large university in the south. We spend much of our free time knitting and spinning and designing. Our designs are inspired by all things nerdy--you'll notice on our patterns page how varied our inspirations can be. The blog post for each pattern tells the story behind the pattern. Some of our patterns have appeared in knitting magazines, such as Knotions, Popknits, and The Anticraft (coming in 2010).

We both came into knitting after the knit-blog revolution had begun, and we're grateful for the community of fiber artists that the internet provides. This blog is for sharing yarnish thrills and knowledge, including our original knitting and crochet patterns, encouraging eco-friendly fiber arts, through yarn recycling and rehabilitating knitted items, saving our souls from the alienation of postindustrialization.

We have two regular columns--find them in the list of tags, below--"Knitting Travels," which includes reviews of LYSs all over the world, and "Fiber Facts," about the scientific side of fiber. We also write tutorials.

Katie spins with raw and recycled fibers. She produces fiber, yarn, and accessories for sale. Visit her Etsy page. Read more about her yarns on this blog here.

Jordynn is canadianbacon on Ravelry. Katie is krgp. Let's be friends!

A Note about our Patterns:
All of our patterns, including the ones offered for free, are protected by copyright. Here's what this means:
  1. If you would like to teach a course with a free pattern, that's fine with us. Please be sure that each person downloads their own version from our web site. 
  2. If you would like to teach a course with a pattern that we sell, please (and this seems obvious) have each person purchase their own copy from our web site.
  3. Please do not knit our designs to sell for profit. You may, however, knit our designs to sell for a charity event. We ask that you please indicate (on the tag, etc.) that the design is ours. 
  4. You may link to our blog and even republish our photos from our blog. Actually, we think that sort of sharing is a wonderful aspect of the internet. Please provide a link back to us, though, if you do republish photos.
(Did we mention that Katie teaches law? Whew!)