More Bullseye BE Con Stories…

Bullseye’s conference BE Con’s theme was Crossover. A material exchange. There were glass blowers, painters, architects, a photographer, a wood sculptor, among other arts enthusiasts. I want to profile each of the speakers in the next few weeks so you can get a taste of what I experienced there. It was truly reewarding and highly educational as well as incredibly inspiring. Some of the artists I have mentioned in previous postings while they were doing work at Bullseye and I have already mentioned Silvia Levenson, who is awesome. Today I want to talk about Mindy Weisel. She was on a panel with Kari Minnick and Tom Jacobs and was discussing the collaboration between the three f them on a large courtyard installation project.

Mindy is an abstract painter that fell into glass as she put it. She started working in glass in 2005 with Kari. By 2008 she had a major commission for a large-scale outdoor kiln glass work in Maryland. She went to Bullseye for fabrication assistance and was helped by Tom Jacobs, the third person on this most interesting panel discussion. During the discussion we learned about the process from Mindy’s introduction to glass through creating a moquette and having it scaled up, and all of the challenges that accompanied that amazing endeavor. So very inspiring!! Read about all of the presenters here…

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?