Accessorize, Accessorize, Accessorize

Blogging is tough with the really BIG projects- the progress, slow and steady, is not just underwhleming to write about but also underwhelming to photograph. Luckily, I've worked on some smaller, accessories during socktober and woolvember. 

The Cursed Cable Socks have certainly lived up to their name:

This is the 2015 attempt at these socks, all in Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock Autumn Flame and each with its own problem: pair #1 the stripes on the foot were spaced differently from the stripes on the calf, pair #2 needed a gusset to go around the ankle but I didn't know about gussets yet, pair #3 (the 2015 pair) got its gusset but after one wearing the cuff lost its elasticity. While I'm not giving up on wearing them or the possibility of making another pair of socks, I am giving up on this pattern. I am also reading up on the perfect sock fit. To the last point, Kate Atherly's Custom Socks book has a prominent place on my nightstand. 

Here in Pennsylvania, old man winter is trying to decide what kind of house guest he will be for the next 4 months. So far, I've found him to be incredibly indecisive; we've had a slew of warm days this November. I am, however, anticipating a biting chill in December, and it is in that spirit that I finished another accessory for my feet: Kate Davies Buachaille Baffies. 

Everything about these house slippers is wonderful! They were a super quick and fun knit; I was able to knit one complete baffie during an Eagles football game! As an extra bonus, there is a clean, earthy smell to the buachaille wool…lovely! I think buachaille is now for sale on Kate Davies website. 

To round out my month of accessories, I worked on the baa-ble hat sans pompom (thank you, Pat for passing alone this Shetland Wool Week project) While it's done and already worn, I am considering adding a fleece lining. I really prefer a snug fit, and, after wearing it twice, I've decided I was a bit over-aggressive with the blocking. Stay tuned for an update...

So what's next? As usual, my December knitting consists of finishing up Bill's Christmas sweater. I'm still slogging away on last year's sweater (St. Olav and his men), but I am determined to get the 2015 sweater finished before our surgeries, December 16th, so that Bill will have it for Christmas and his 8 week recovery. Without revealing too much, because Bill occasionally reads the blog, I will say that the 2015 Christmas sweater is light weight enough to wear while we recover at our friends' house (his wife lets him set the thermostat higher than 60), has a splash of color, and is made from woolen spun yarn with a social conscious. 

I have lined up my R&R projects while I recover from the transplant surgery. Although my incisions, as the kidney donor, will be smaller and should heal in time for me to return to work after the Winter Break, I've been told working on a large knitting project will be uncomfortable... 'Tis the Season of the Shawl! Here are a few of the yarns waiting to be turned into squishy, warm, neck goodness: 

Starting clockwise at 11 o'clock: Prado de Lana's Lincoln Longwool (white ball), Ginger's Handdyed Wensleydale (two greens), Baa Ram Ewe's Dovestone (slate blue), Tosh Merino Light (daffadil), Queensland Llama Lace (two browns), and Green Mountain Spinnery Mewesic (brick red)

Stopover

My enthusiasm for Mary Jane Mucklestone's new pattern, Stopover, is fanatical! MJ wore this sweater during our 2014 Shetland trip and teased us with the promise of writing it up. Fast forward a year...to our mini-Shetland reunion and another promise that the pattern's release was in fact forthcoming. And then, it happened...Stopover showed up in my pattern highlights, and I was off to by yarn!

Why so much elation and, quite frankly, twitchy voraciousness about this pattern?

1. Color...the possibilities are endless. Here's just a few of the dozen swatches I knit up...

    

So many different looks can be achieved with a small number of colors. I knew right away that I wanted to use Rust Heather, and I played around with five or six other colors in various combinations before deciding on my palette: 

black sheep (52), rust heather (9427), stone blue (9418), and light beige heather (86). 

2. Versatility...on our Shetland trip, MJ wore this sweater everywhere, even sheep shearing! 

I've made some beautiful handknit sweaters but none that can go with me from teaching in the classroom to coaching on the field hockey field to paddling around the lake. 

3. MaryJane...I've taken quite a few technique classes with a variety of designers; MJ is the best! Passionate, knowledgable, nurturing, MJ works the classroom with humor and fluidity! 

Who wouldn't want to wrap themselves up in an MJ Mucklestone original! 

4. Quick and easy... "A modern Icelandic style lopapeysa worked at loose gauge for a deliciously lightweight garment. Stopover is knit entirely in the round with subtle waist shaping." Once I stopped swatching and started knitting, Stopover was finished in a week. The pattern is easy to follow and the Lopi Lite is much softer than I imagined, with the most amazing bloom. I wore it to my field hockey game the morning I finished. It was a cold and rainy fall day; I was definitely the only one warm, dry, and stylish on the sidelines! 

I'm so happy with my Stopover that I told Clarie, from NH Knits, I'd like to offer a pattern giveaway! I think she'll be putting out details in her next podcast, so stop over and have a listen! 

Inspiration is All Around!

I often look toward nature and the man-made environment around me for inspiriation with my knitting and journey through life. Knitting and nature have become key to slowing down, looking more closely at the landscape that envelops me, and sitting in silence while my mind and body sink beneath the surface of things. Knitting with nature is how I take control over the nasty emotional stuff that can bogg me down and stifles my free spirit.

I just finished Gudrun Johnston's Hansel Hap as part of the Knit British Hap-a-long. I experienced some pretty major struggles, all entirely my own making, while knitting this hap, but they're all part of the story I'm trying to tell in today's blog post.

My first struggle was the very nature of a KAL (knit along). I do not do well with schedules or deadlines. They seem too artifical to me, and it's that artificallness that takes away from the purity of purpose and absolute joy of the project. I want to work at my own pace, picking up and putting down projects when my inner voice speaks to me. So of cource, once started all I wanted to do was break free from the opressiveness of the deadline. The irony, of course, is that I would never have made a hap if it was not for the KAL. Traditionally, the hap was an everyday shawl worn by Shetland women, often as they performed a task essential to their survivial such as gathering dried peat blocks for fuel. Today, the hap is frequently gifted to an expectant mother to bundle her newborn.

My second struggle was my color choices. For inspiration, I looked to one of my favorite old Bucks County buildings: Stover-Myers Mill.

One might say this building is brown, red, and white. When you sit in still silence, however, one's eyes start to pick up on the oxford and heron greys. When the sun, whether rising or setting, is just the right height, the hints of brown in the red become more pronounced and one starts to see madder. All the while the flukkra white around each window stands broad like a sentinel. While I was absolutely sure of the colors I wanted to use, the order in which to arrange them was a quagmire.

Oxford (the darker grey) was always going to be my main color. At first, however, I choose color sequence B. There were two effects under this arrangement that I tried but simply could not live with, no matter how still and silent in nature I sat.

Although the greys (oxford and heron) appeared to be suffienciently different on my color card, they blended into a single color when knit sequent. I tried sitting with it outside in the garden so that hap was bathed in natural light. I tried sitting with it in our great room at various hours of the day to see how the value changed with the sun's natural rhythm. I tried sitting with it in purely artifical light. No matter where or how long I sat, I could not make peace with the relationship between the greys. My immediate solution, purchase another grey, was both short sighted and violated my personal creed of conscious consumerism: "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without". Faced with a moral crisis, I balled the hap up and threw it in a chair...its future unclear. Adding fuel to the fire, was the flukkra in the position of CC2 and sunrise as CC4. Four rows of snow white was overpowering and only two rows of the chesnuty red was not enough to turn down the brightness of the madder. So the hap sat abandoned while I went off to Maine.

Time, space, and a good friend got me moving forward again! Talking my hapliemma through over a gin and tonic one evening with the loons on Lake Androscoggin in the background, Alice made the simple suggestion of switching color sequenece. With color sequence A and an inversion of my arrangement, I found hap(piness) again!

Following the old shale pattern was another tricky spot. Although a simple combination of stitch repeats, the stitch sequence requires one to be fully present in the moment and in the task. Being present, clearing my mental mechanism of the clutter that stifles my sparkle is what I love about and sometimes need in a pattern. While I always have a mindless project on my needles, one that requires nothing more from me than switching on to autopilot, there are moments when I need a task that is so absorbing I can let go of the impuslive and hurtful email a parent sent criticizing a decsion I made in class, the helplessness of just waiting for a call from the transplant center with news of a kidney for my husband, the sadness and lonlieness I still feel more than a year after loosing my grandmother, or the crushing physcial pain of wanting children and the heartbreak of having to accept that we'll live a life without their laughter. When I could let go of the feeings of failure and loss unfairly dealt by nature, I made my way through the shell lace section of the border with the ease one always experiences when living in the moment. When I couldn't let go, when I played the story over and over again in my head...when I sat, quitely sobbing with my knitting on my lap...disaster with every YO, K2tog, or SSK. All told, I probably knit the hap shell lace border two, maybe three complete times before finishing and moving on to edging.

Yes, inspiration is all around, and knitting, nature, and now my finished hap are an important part of my meaning quest through life.

UFOs

The beginning and the end are the best parts of knitting. Looking through the pattern libraries on knitting sites, imagining my next project, is my favorite way to placidly unwind after a mentally exhausting day. Three fabulous and semi-local yarn stores breathe life into my daydreams as I see and touch all of the beautiful colours. There is no such thing as yellow yarn to a knitter; instead, there is candlewick, daffodil, hayloft, gold, gilded, autumn gold, cornfield, wild mustard, birch heather, shades 28, 91, and 121.

I also love the end, especially the joy that comes with making a poorly written pattern work, successfully using a new technique, or just finishing a project which required a monstrous amount of time and energy. There is very little as satisfying as throwing a finished piece in the tub for a good soak, blocking it on my wooly board or dressform, and tromping through the fields on the farm to get the perfect snap!

In the middle, however, the plain, old work of knitting round after round of stockinette stitch can stop me dead in my tracks. Even worse, I get unintentionally derailed by the delight of a new yarn or a new pattern. My lack of self-discipline often means that my plan to just purchase and stash a new yarn gives way to winding. If only I stopped there, but usually winding means swatching, followed by casting on. By then, I've found the progress that is so easy to spot in a new project far more tantalizing than the progress I can no longer see round after round. So I keep going, and BOOM! my WIP has morphed into a UFO. 

This weekend, the November weather turned, and it feels like snow is on its way. Mother Nature's stark reminder that 2014 is winding down has me also thinking about my personal goals for this year: 12 completed sweaters and no UFOs in my project library. I currently have three unfinished objects...

 Kate Davies's Stevenson Sweater

Merecedes Tarasovich-Clarks's Driftwood Tee and Cecilia Fiore's a_simmetrie  

With 45 days to go, I think I'll be a wee bit short of my sweater goal for the year, but I'm not giving up on my UFOs! 

Christmas (Sweater) Time is Here!

This week we turned the clocks back, plugged in the electric blanket, sipped egg nog laced with rum, and I finally started Bill's 2014 Christmas sweater! This will be his 7th Christmas sweater, and my most ambitious project yet.

I can't remember why I thought knitting my exceptionally tall boyfriend, whom I only met a month earlier, seemed like a good idea in 2007. In hindsight, it was a brazen act which sent a counter-challenge to the infamous boyfriend sweater curse and misleading vibes of commitment and domesticity to my future husband given that I moved every couple of years and survived on take away.

That sweater was my first, big knitting break-through! I remember feeling a tremendous sense of accomplishment finishing it at two o'clock Christmas morning while Bill was in the kitchen finishing the Christmas pies. It was the first time that I successfully substituted yarn, knit in the round, and tried raglan shaping. It is plain, warm (knit with two strands of sport weight), and comfy; perfect for the very cold barn in which we live. I never loved the colour but Bill does; of his sweaters, this is, by far, the one he wears the most!

The opportunity to consciously try a new technique is the thing I love most about "the Christmas Sweater": new finishing technique (Berkshire Pullover), v-neck and cables (Delius), hand-dyed yarns (Clark), and short rows (Shawl Collar Sweater).

My second big-knitting breakthrough occurred when I read an article which claimed most knitters underestimate their skill-set. I tested that theory last Christmas with Marie Wallin's Cartmeal Mens. Turns out that my totally unscientific study corroborated the theory. On paper, this sweater was absolutely intimidating. I purchased the yarn and the pattern at least two years before finally casting on because the cables are so beautifully intricate and scary. On needles, however, it was fabulously fun, quick, and easy to follow. Truly, the most beautiful sweater I've knit (to date)!

So here I am on the fifth of November...five days, 12 cm, two border patterns, and one complete skien of the main colour into this year's sweater! It is a stranded knitting pattern, technically more nordic than fair isle, but absolutely inspired by my trip to Shetland.

I'm using jumper weight yarn from two of my favorite Shetland producers: Uradale Farms and Jamieson & Smith. As for the colours, I followed the ridiculously talented Mary Jane Mucklestone's sagacious advice when choosing my palette: look to the land.

Do you see the influence? Clearly, I'm still dreaming of and longing for Shetland!

Dreaming of Shetland

Hiya! With the start up of the new school year, September was a busy month and my knitting was woefully neglected. I'm optimistic that I'll do better in October, because I need to start those Christmas projects!

My Shetland experience heavily influenced the few projects I managed to complete in September. It was such an amazing and transformative trip for me,  and it's evident in my knitting because I'm more confident with lace and colour work. 

Quite a few of my new friends wore their Aestlight Shawls on our trip, and I immediately fell in love with drape as well as the way the birds eye lace showed off the colour of variegated yarn such as the MadeleineTosh I used on my first Aestlight! I tried to follow expert lace knitter and Shetlander Elizabeth Johnston's advice about really opening up the lace during the blocking process. Elizabeth was one of my favorite people on the trip, and her class definitely made lace less intimidating, especially her encouragement to stick with techniques I know instead of deferring to the fancy techniques knitwear designers sometimes suggest. 

I am most excited about my finished Bressay Dress. Originally, my friend Nicole suggested a Bressay knit-a-long in anticipation of our Shetland adventure. Although I missed the pre-trip KAL, casting-on just four days before leaving, it was nice working on the fair isle dress while motoring by Bressay! I actually finished this in August but then accidentally, and tragically, cut a hole in it. In my delirium from the miserable Pennsylvania heat, I mistook a pulled stitch for the pocket being sewn to the back, taking the snips to it without careful investigation. It was an easy repair once I stopped crying. Snaps were also held up as I waited for the colours of fall! I love this picture, not just because it shows off one of my favorite FOs of all time but also because the sun is hitting the midges, making them visible! I wore the dress to work on the first crisp, fall morning we had; unfortunately, the weather warmed by 10am, and I spent the rest of the day a tad too warm. It will be fabulous in the middle of winter when the heat at school doesn't work! 

All three of my September projects are from knitwear designer and trip leader extraordinaire, Gudrun Johnston! I had started a summer tee but tossed it aside when Gudrun did an early release for this hat pattern from her new book, Shetland Trader- Book 2. Gudrun gave us a preview of her new designs on our trip, and the Hermaness Hat was one of the patterns I was especially taken with. The book has since been fully released, and I've already ordered the yarn for my next project, the Belmont (a cropped cardi). 

I have tried a number of times to blog about my Shetland Adventure but it's hard. For now, I'll just reveal that the trip was an impulse purchase that I hoped would help me feel closer to my grandmother, who passed away in January, by exploring the craft for which she nurtured my passion. We enjoyed knitting together right up through our final visit, less than a week before she died. 

Although her Alzheimer's and arthritis prevented her from knitting herself, we still talked about my projects, she complimented or corrected my stitches, and we tried to figure out troublesome patterns together. There was a cardi I always hoped to make her but never did; the yarn is impossible to purchase in the U.S. and I doubted my ability to complete a fair isle project. On my last day in Shetland, my companion Alice and I popped into the Jamieson's store to purchase the yarn. It will be the first project I cast on once I'm finished my Christmas knitting and am able to fully focus! 



Right now, I'm working another project I brought home from Shetland: the Stevenson Sweater. This project is particularly exciting because the main colour is yarn I purchased from Ronnie and Sue at Uradale Farm . They opened their house to our "smallish" group to talk Shetland sheep and crofting. For this project, I'm using their organic, natural jumper yarn mixed with two contrasting colours from Jamieson and Smiths. 

I'm marking time with this sweater while I wait for more of Uradale's yarn to arrive so that I can begin Bill's Christmas sweater. He picked a project that is certainly going to put my new fair isle knitting skills to the test so stay tuned for updates on this year's Christmas sweater and that blog devoted entirely to my Shetland adventure! 

Summer Vacation? I think not.

For many, Memorial Day weekend is the high water mark of the knitting calendar; only the most dedicated, or as my husband says obsessive, knitters religiously work on projects over the summer. For most, the bag with the half finished, 100% wool sweater disappears until the cooler temperatures of the fall descend. I usually take a break until Labor Day Weekend, when I know that I absolutely must start my husband's Christmas sweater if I have any hope of finishing it on time.

But does our favorite pastime have to go on hiatus, bookended by holidays which mark the unofficial start and end of summer? This year, I think not. I've queued some fabulous projects, light enough to keep my fingers nimble through the summer despite Pennsylvania's oppressive weather. I'm already well into Kayleen Pullover, featured in the summer issue of Interweave Knits. Worked in Juniper Moon Farm's Sabine, a blend of wool, llama, and cotton, this is a lightweight project with fun details such as a reverse stockinette front and cable motif around the neck.

Now, I confess momentum was lost in the middle of June, but I can't blame the heat alone. My trip to Austin for a conference, the looming deadline for a cowl swap, and my fear of seaming contributed to my brief lull, but a week on Chebeague with the refreshing breeze of Casco Bay gave me the jumpstart I needed to pick it up again!

So as we celebrate the 4th of July, the cowl is making its way to Wisconsin, Kayleen has one sleeve sewn on, Boxy and Buttony has been frogged, the first set of short rows for a_simmetrie are almost complete, and I just purchased Shinui Heichi in Brick to knit up another pattern from the summer issue of Interweave Knits, Go to Market Cardigan, that will look fabulous in the fall!

My needles are clicking away: k to M, SM, RLI, k to M, LLI, SM, k to previously wrapped st and process it, k2, w&t