Kira K Designs

Such a lovely day at today! We fed treats and/or petted goats, alpaca, Corriedale and Shetland sheep, and an angora rabbit. Farmer Mimi told us all about wool including bringing out a lanolin rich raw fleece and answered all of our sheepy questions.

I also made friends with a pretty butterfly that kept landing on me, and spotted Peter the cat who hasn’t shown himself on any of my previous visits

Thank you to everyone who came - this was a very friendly group!

From June through October I’m teaching Visible Mending at six fiber festivals in five states!

I love showing how stains and tears can be opportunities for decorative patches, embroidery, or needle felting, keeping textiles in our closets and out of the landfill.

Are you heading to any of these events?

Wool Market in CO (Visible Mending sold out)
in WA (Visible Mending sold out)
Convergence in LA
in TX
in CA
in CA - special full day workshop

Two recently finished projects! The Tracery Cowl is heading into tech editing and I’ll offer kits with this lovely yarn soon.

The handspun Spoke Cardigan is ….. a long story, literally. Over a year passed between when I started this combo spun yarn and when I finished it. It only took two months to knit and I posted here saying I couldn’t wait to wear it, and then it sat around waiting for the hook and eye tape. Finally this May, over a year after the knitting was done, I spent a couple hours hand sewing to finally finish it! All together 2.5 years with not a few months of active work and a lot of languishing.

Have you ever let a project hibernate this long waiting for that final detail?

Kira Dulaney has been teaching fiber arts classes and hosting crafty events since 2002. Kira’s teaching focus is on providing valuable information in a stress-free environment and supporting students through the learning process. She is also the designer behind Kira K Designs, a line of original knitting and crochet patterns and kits featuring clean lines and intriguing details that are both interesting to make and easy to wear. Kira has taught at Estes Park Wool Market, Flock Fiber Festival, Lambtown Festival, Oregon Flock and Fiber, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and Stitches events, as well as guilds and yarn shops.

There’s just over a week to go with Stitch Every Day in May (amended by me to Craft Every Day in May) hosted by and here are my projects:

🚊 Cast on socks with riding BART train to San Francisco where a young child was fascinated to learn what I was doing and also why I would *make* socks

🐌 Needle felted an adorable snail while leading a kids class at with lots of creative kiddos

🌵Knit a second sample of a soon-to-be-released pattern with some mystery yarn

🌈 More progress on the sock with Always Be Kind Yarn in the Rainbows After Midnight colorway during evening couch cuddles with Friday

💚Swatching yarn for a article that I’m excited about - this is the most boring swatch of the lot

🧦 Sock is well past the place where I’ll add an afterthought heel, my favorite for avoiding interrupting self striping yarn but also accommodating a high arch

I have some pretty wonderful fiber friends! I reached out to Elissavet to get her opinion on which of her colorways most closely matched the mood board for the upcoming Blends issue of since it can be a bit hard to tell colors onscreen. Not only did she weigh in on color choices, she dyed up two matching braids on BFL/silk just for me.

Along the way Elissavet mentioned she had a new non-superwash organic wool yarn so we got to discussing colors for the upcoming Ribbing issue of that I’m also working on. She offered to try some new colorways and wasn’t sure which was the best so she sent them all to me to decide. This new yarn is amazing and likely to become one of my favorites!

Thanks Elissavet for the fiber and yarn, and thank you Jacey and Karen for hiring me to write for your magazines!

I love teaching Visible Mending as a full day workshop, and of course I love Lambtown Festival

Kira Dulaney has been teaching fiber arts classes and hosting crafty events since 2002. Kira’s teaching focus is on providing valuable information in a stress-free environment and supporting students through the learning process. She is also the designer behind Kira K Designs, a line of original knitting and crochet patterns and kits featuring clean lines and intriguing details that are both interesting to make and easy to wear. Kira has taught at Estes Park Wool Market, Flock Fiber Festival, Lambtown Festival, Oregon Flock and Fiber, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and Stitches events, as well as guilds and yarn shops.

Once a month I head out to Pacifica to a sweet yarn shop one block from the beach, to teach a couple classes.

This Saturday morning, I’m teaching Altering Knit and Crochet Patterns for Size, Gauge, and Style. It’s a rundown of how to adjust a pattern to fit you and your yarn, with handy formulas to keep the math simple. We’ll also talk about ways to find patterns that are closer to what you’re wanting. Whether you’ve made some garments or are planning to in the future, it’s very helpful to know how to adjust them. These skills are also useful for smaller accessories like hats and gloves, or using handspun yarn which can be hard to match gauge with.

In the afternoon I’m leading a wildly different class that feels like coloring with extra texture, Intro to Creative Tapestry Weaving. This is a nice way to start weaving, and also a fun decompression for those who weave complex patterns. All materials are included and I’ll bring a rainbow of yarn to play with as we explore plain weave, rya knots, soumak, clasped weft, and more while creating a unique wall hanging.

Here’s my past week, documented as part of Stitch Every Day in May hosted by plus some tips for strengthening your crafting habits.

I bent the rules a bit to Craft Every Day, after realizing last Sunday I hadn’t knit, crocheted, embroidered, or sewn, but had spun some yarn. I’m generally trying to find more pockets of time to spin, so it made sense to incorporate it, and I’m not planning to enter the giveaway in any case.

I worked a sewn bind off on a new lace cowl prototype, spun a sample using combo drafting as part of a color survey, finished a crocheted hat after playing yarn chicken with one of the strands, did some major cable surgery on a student’s project with feline quality control, tried out my new blending board with some Jacob wool then spun the rolags, re-knit the front bands on a handspun cardigan that’s been languishing nearly finished, started sewing hook and eye tape on that cardigan, and plied both the combo drafted and Jacob samples.

I’m enjoying this challenge to make sure I craft daily, and also documenting it. Of course, as a teacher I’ve had my hands on various other swatches and projects as demos or helping students, so this isn’t comprehensive but rather a daily snapshot.

Here are a few tips if you also want to craft daily:

👁️ Leave projects in sight or take them with you to encourage you to pick them up
🌈 Have at least one easy project with beautiful supplies to tempt you even on a rough day
📝 Take notes so it’s easier to pick something up for just a few minutes
👋🏼Keep ergonomics in mind so you can craft longer
🧩Take a workshop or join a guild for continual inspiration
🏆 Enter a competition or ask your teachers for feedback
🧣Use your finished items so you can learn how to improve, and get compliments on your beautiful handmade items

My favorite fiber experience of the year is and I’m lucky that the largest sheep and wool event in the west is held just an hour from my home.

In addition to teaching and vending, I’m the workshop chair of the Board of Directors and this year organized a record 79 workshops with 35 teachers! I have two awesome assistants helping out, but it’s still a lot of volunteer hours to pull it all together.

Workshop registration opens this Saturday at 10am Pacific so you have time to peruse the offerings and make your priority list. There are so many good choices you may want to sign up for a few.

I’ll be teaching a full-day Visible Mending workshop on Friday, October 2nd and I love having six hours to cover what I often teach in just two or three. We’ll start with needle felting as a fun and quick way to mend woolens, dive into embroidery to cover stains or beautifully attach patches to torn fabric, and work not only a plain weave patch on a Speedweve loom, but a fancy one of your choice. Students are welcome to bring torn or stained textiles to discuss and possibly start mending during class!