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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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Learn a Flower Bobble Technique to Knit a Fun Shawl

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier. 

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project. 

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible. 

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge. 

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects. 

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy. 

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project. 

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Xandy Peters]