After enjoying a few balmy days with temps in the 60s (teens in Celsius), we’re hunkering down for a storm that may drop 15″ (38 cm) of snow by tomorrow night.
Yesterday the clouds started rolling over the mountains in an ominous way. I think the geese are going to fly a bit further south…
Fortunately I had the foresight to stop at the grocery store and stock up on provisions in case my little car won’t be able to manage the roads for a few days. I’ve got chili simmering on the stove for a hearty dinner … and hopefully plenty of leftovers if we do get snowed in.
Best of all, I’ settling in to knitting in front of the fire. Today’s project is a cowl I’ve designed specifically for the Knit For Fun Retreat in Park City, Utah (April 28 to May 1). The gradient yarn is custom-dyed by Vice Yarns and will be available at the retreat.
Here’s wishing you are have the necessities to survive whatever the weather holds for you!
Way back in May (I think), I started working on a wrap that I’ve tentatively called the Rumpelstiltskin Wrap because the idea solidified while I was teaching at Rumpelstiltskin Yarns in New York and because I chose to knit it in a lovely golden color of laceweight yarn.
To begin, I knitted a swatch to make sure I liked the combination of stitch pattern, yarn (Scrumptious Lace by Fyberspates; 45% silk, 55% merino), and needles (size U.S. 4).
I liked what I saw, so I cast on 120 stitches and got started.
This became my travel project because it promised lots (and lots) of knitting from just one skein of yarn. Did I mention that the skein has 1093 yards (1000 meters)?
I knitted while waiting to board planes at airports.
And I knitted while cramped in narrow seats on planes taking me to far parts of the country and even farther parts of the world.
Months have passed, and I’m still knitting. Recently, though, the ball of yarn has started to show signs of shrinking.
The piece is so long that I tie it into a ball to prevent it from twisting on my lap as I knit.
My design calls for the piece to be 76″ (193 cm) long. I think I’m about three-quarters of the way now but it keeps being set aside for projects with more immediate deadlines.
Ever the optimist, I still have hopes of finishing it by New Year’s Eve! Want to place any bets?
In October, I’ll head north to Edmonton, Alberta, to teach at River City Yarns‘ 12th annual knitting retreat. The “official” retreat goes from Friday, October 23, to Sunday, October 25, but you can extend the fun and take additional classes Thursday, October 22, and Monday, October 26.
I’ll be teaching Reading Your Knitting, Fixing Mistakes, Intro to Sweater Design, Shadow Knitting, Sweaters From the Top Down: Set-In Sleeve Style, Mitten Basics, and Knitting Steeks and Inserting Zippers.
As a bonus for attendees (the pattern will be available through River City Yarns after the event), I’ve designed a project out of one of River City Yarns exclusive yarns–Adam & Eve.
Adam & Eve is the “offspring” of their original yarn, Eden, an exclusive line of yarn dyed by Handmaiden. Both Eden and Adam & Eve are luscious combinations of 81% superwash merino (for durability and convenience), 9% cashmere (for luxury), and 10% nylon (for strength). Eden is DK weight, while Adam & Eve is fingering weight.
I’m not allowed to disclose the details of my pattern, but I can tease you with a close-up photo. You have to hold it in your own hands to appreciate the softness and drape.
By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Sydney. One of the most important tasks I have before any plane trip is to decide on a knitting project. For most domestic flights, I usually settle on a pair of socks. I worked on skirts when on Craft Cruises to Alaska and again to Australia–large projects that took lots of time but only a few skeins of yarn.
For this trip I decided to limit myself to one skein of laceweight yarn and work on a shawl/wrap. I got it started last week so I’d be sure that I liked the yarn/needles/stitch pattern combination.
The yarn is Scrumptious Lace by Fiberspates: 1093 luxurious yards of 45% silk and 55% merino. I’m using U.S. size 3 needles. The glow-in-the-dark markers are from Hill Country Weavers. If I drop the knitting in the dark, I’ll be able to find it!
I’ll take photos of my progress during the travels and post them on Instagram. Follow me at annbuddknits.
Despite all odds, I managed to upload a new pattern to my website and Ravelry. It’s called Mitered Stash Afghan and is the combination of my own handspun alpaca, and handspun alpaca that I’ve collected from other handspinners.
I took a somewhat random approach to the blanket, using Vivian Hoxbro’s mitered garter-square technique and combined two sizes of squares for somewhat of a patchwork look. I think this would look great in any combination of yarns, so long as they are somewhat compatible in size. In fact, one of my hanspun yarns was fingering weight so I doubled it to better match the other worsted-weight yarns. The doubled strands make for slightly thicker squares, but you have to look (and feel) carefully to find them.
I encourage you to sort through your stash and make your own version. You could make it smaller by using sport or fingering weight yarn or larger by using bulky yarn. Or you can change the size by adding or subtracting squares. The pattern comes with a cartoon of the sequence of squares so you’ll be able to use it as a springboard for your own ideas.
To get you started, I’ll raffle off a free copy of the pattern. Just respond to this post and tell me what yarn you’d like to dig out of your stash. I’ll announce a winner Friday morning, June 5.
Hunter Hammersen began designing, almost by accident, in 2009, but it quickly became an obsession that turned into an enviable profession. Check out her delightful website is violentlydomestic.com.
Her first book Silk Roads debuted in 2011.Volumes I, II, and III of Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet followed in 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively. Along the way, she also published several individual patterns and smaller collections, including Rabble Rousers and Ne’er-Do-Well Knits.
Last fall her most recent book came out — Curls: Versatile, Wearable Wraps to Knit At Any Gauge.
Curls are marvelously flexible, wearable wraps that work with any yarn at any gauge and always turn out beautiful. You can choose to make them short for a cowl or keep going to make a scarf or shawl. The curved shape drapes beautifully around your neck and shoulders and can be worn in lots of different ways, as demonstrated by the 14 patterns included in the book.
Honestly, these images don’t do justice to Hunter’s ingenious designs (I blame my crummy scanner and lousy technical skills), but you can see them for yourself if you visit Pantsville Press, Hunter’s personal publishing company.
For undeserved reasons, Hunter credits me with helping to give her the courage to create an entire book out of these wonderfuly shaped neck pieces that are perfect stash-busters. She therefore sent me not one, but two (2) copies of the book so I could share one with my readers.
Respond to this post telling me what yarn you’d love to turn into a curl of your own. I’ll draw a name from the submissions on Saturday, March 7.
When my goat-herder son was home for the holidays, he announced that he wanted to learn to knit. I promptly took him to my stash to choose some worsted-weight yarn and gave him a size 8 (5 mm) circular needle. I taught him to cast-on and how to make a knit stitch (Continental, of course).
After a few rows of garter stitch, I taught him to purl and explained the difference between the two–what looks like a knit stitch on one side appears as a purl stitch on the other and vice versa. He caught on quickly and was eager to move onto a real project.
I didn’t want to discourage him by making him knit a proper gauge swatch so I made an educated guess on the number of stitches for him to cast on for a hat. Because I wanted him to fully understand the difference between knit and purl stitches, I had him use a k3, p1 pattern throughout (I thought it would also give him practice dropping down and picking up stitches when he made mistakes).
Then I broke my arm. But he kept knitting (blurriness courtesy of my drug-induced stupor).
After a few inches, he tried on the tube, which turned out to be a little too big for a snug-fitting hat so he decided to turn it into a simple cowl instead and I managed to teach him to bind off. It turned out to be a little too snug around his neck so he’s wearing it proudly as an open-ended hat.
He then decided that he liked the cowl idea so we headed back to my stash and found two skeins of worsted-weight alpaca tweed that he liked. This time, he cast on about 200 stitches to make sure it would be plenty long. But to shake things up a bit, I taught him moss stitch and he quickly grasped the idea of k2, p2 rib for two rounds followed by p2, k2 rib for two rounds. He only got a couple of rounds done before he had to return to Oregon, but he sent me a photo of his progress.
Although there are some areas where he forgot to offset the knits and purls in the beginning, he caught onto the pattern and filled the void caused by my inability to knit. Yesterday he sent me a photo of the finished cowl, which he says is “perfect.”
I say “huzzah!”, and am thoroughly convinced that despite some of my concerns during his teenage years, he really *is* my son!
Thank you for all of your kind words about my Gloria fingerless mitts pattern (and your encouragement as my arm heals).
The random-number generator chose #1 as the raffle winner — Jane George from Seekonk, MA. I understand that every number has the same chance of being selected, still, it surprised me that the very first number was chosen.
Long, long ago, before I broke my arm, I knitted a pair of luscious lofty fingerless mitts out of what was a new yarn from Quince and Company, called Piper. The fingering-weight yarn is 50% Texas merino and 50% Texas mohair and is completely manufactured right here in the good old U.S. of A.
It just so happens that the pattern is now available for purchase from Quince and Company (complete with a couple much more appealing photos). But it also just so happens that I have another skein of this lovely that I’ll happily raffle off with a copy of the pattern.
Just respond to this post telling me where you live (I’m interested in learning if people other than my family members read my blog), and I’ll draw a winner Monday, January 12. In the meantime, I hope you’re keeping warm!
