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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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Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use. 

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make. 

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!). 

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn. 

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart. 

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern. 

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.