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Interweave Library Up for Sale

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book sale interweaveIf you’re anywhere near Loveland, Colo., you’re going to want to consider attending the craft book sale and liquidation happening at Interweave’s old building. The founder of Interweave, Linda Ligon, is selling off the collection of books, notes and samples acquired over the course of more than 30 years.

Ligon tells the story of the collection on her blog, explaining that it started with a collection of books on weaving and textiles given to her 35 years ago by a woman who was moving into an Airstream. Over the years the collection grew into the Pourrey Cross Textile Library, complete with classification system and volunteer librarians.

When she sold the company in 2005 she left the collection (though she and colleagues still owned it), which by now included Interweave’s books as well as those of many other publishers, collections donated when their owners died, notebooks form workshops, swatches and more.

In time the company sold again and the building where it was headquartered is now being sold, so it’s time to do something with the books.

The most historically significant books have gone to the Avenir Museum at Colorado State University, where they will be well cared for and available for study. Many more books, and the archives of FiberArts magazine, have gone to the textile department at CSU. The Boulder Weavers Guild has taken collections of fabric swatches – boxes of them.

The rest are being sold by Cloth Roads on May 8 and 9, with the hope that they’ll all go to good homes. Proceeds from the sale will be donated to Cloth Roads, an organization that supports indigenous textile artists around the world.

This is such an amazing opportunity to get your hands on some really great books. If anyone goes I would love to hear about it!

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Patchwork Blanket Knitting Patterns

Any time of year is a good time for stash busting, but if you can combine it with knitting a blanket that will keep you warm when it (finally!) gets cooler that’s even better. Let’s take a look at some fun patchwork blanket knitting patterns. 

If you want to keep it super simple, you can just make blocks of garter stitch and sew them together, like the beginner’s patchwork baby blanket from Mini Baa Baa or the color block blanket from Make and Do Crew. Both projects are worked in strips and sew together, with the baby version calling for two strands of DK or light worsted weight yarn held together and the larger one using bulky yarn. 

Add a little more texture with the mixed blocks of the cottage quilt throw from Mama in a Stitch. This one combines garter stitch and seed stitch and uses worsted weight yarn. She used a crochet join to make the chains on top of the blocks, but you can join them however you like. It calls for eight colors but you can use what you have, and there are three size options. 

Get a real sampler style patchwork blanket with this design from Knit Sew Make. It calls for worsted weight yarn and has four size options. All of the patterns just use knit and purl stitches so this one is still pretty easy for beginners. 

If you want a more complex colorwork project that will keep you entertained all season, try the Peace by Piece blanket pattern from Needle and Feather. This one is made up of two color colorwork blocks and calls for worsted weight yarn. You can choose to use just a few of the blocks and repeat them more often, or make multiples of the whole set. 

The knitted patchwork recipe from Martine Ellis (free on Ravelry) uses mitered squares in fingering weight yarn, so it’s perfect for using up all your leftover sock yarn and mini skeins. This one is a tutorial more than a pattern so you can make your blanket as big as you like or keep going until you run out of yarn. 

Susan B. Anderson’s 100 Squares blanket (find it on Ravelry) has a lot of mitered squares, too, but they’re arranged in fun ways and includes some quilt inspired designs as well. This one also is a bit of method more than pattern but it sure looks like a lot of fun for using all the leftovers. 

Of course you can totally improvise a patchwork blanket using the yarn and stitches you like, but I hope these patterns inspire you to look at your leftover yarn in a new way.