Sherman County Historical Museum

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August, 2018 - Abbey Phelps, Kitting & Fiber Arts

Abbey Phelps has always felt a need to create art. Though she has worked in many mediums, when she found knitting and fiber arts she was “hooked”. Beginning knitting in 2010, she quickly found that she enjoyed the challenge of creating complicated knit lace. She released her first pattern in 2011. Each of these pieces was designed and knit by Abbey, the patterns for each are published independently on Ravelry.com. Her patterns have also been featured in Vogue Knitting and published by Imperial Stock Ranch.

Her favorite medium is silk and merino wool yarn. The merino wool adds softness and memory to the yarn which allows the yarn to remember its open shape and shows the lace pattern to its fullest. The silk adds shine and strength to the yarn and helping to keep each shawl looking its best for as long as possible.

Each item displayed takes between 10 hours and 80 hours to complete. Many of the pieces are beaded with small glass beads. The pieces that change color are created using 4 to 6 skeins of yarn, each dyed a different combination of colors.

The triangular shawls are knit from a single stitch in the center top, increasing in size on subsequent rows. The rounds shawls are knit from the center stitch and knit in circular rounds rather than rows. The green shawl displayed on the mannequin has over 1,000 stitches on each of the final few rounds and uses over 2,000 beads. You can view more of her work at ravelry.com/designers/abigailphelps.