Winter-warming color

When I first came to the United States, I hated the cold. I lived for the 3-4 weeks in the summer when it was hot and humid. I loved the crispness of the fall but it presaged the cold, dark winter so I didn't welcome it. Over the decades, my body has changed 180 degrees. I like the cold and dislike the heat. Spring and fall are my favorite seasons but given the choice between summer and winter, I prefer winter. Very strange, I know, but that is the way it is.

The only problem with the winter is the lack of color. I love crisp white snow but most of the time, it doesn't last. The trees are bare and brown, the grass is brown, the only color comes from the sky, the houses and the evergreen trees. All in all, it is rather dull and not very inspiring. At such times, I love color in my clothes, in my knitting and even in my food. A salad with carrots, tomatoes, multi-colored peppers and celery is like sunshine on a grey day.

Unfortunately, I am currently knitting a white garment so my color needs are being met by books and by yarn in my stash right now. I am sharing some recent acquisitions with you to bring that color to you to warm your heart and your eyes.

I missed Magnificent Mittens when it was first published because I wasn't into mittens then. Therefore, I was very thrilled to see it republished with some new patterns. It has gorgeous designs in it. Anna Zilboorg is a wonderful knitter and designer. I had the privilege of sitting next to her at a Stitches East many moons ago and was impressed by her, even though I didn't know who she was at the time. She is a lovely, warm and articulate person. I jumped at the chance to aquire the new paperback version.
Keeping with the theme of this post, here are some of the colorful designs in it. The designs can be adapted for socks and hats as well as mittens but the stranded work makes warm and windproof mittens.Another book that I ignored when it was first published is Handknit Holidays. In general, I don't buy pattern books unless they have some significant technique sections in them. Handknit Holidays has a wide variety of unusual patterns but nothing that attracted me at the time. However, times change...

A friend of mine made the Swedish Heartwarmer Shawl from Handknit Holidays and I fell in love. It is colorful and has incredible depth of color due to the handpainted yarns used in it.

It starts off plain and then switches to a stranded set of borders. Again, the stranded colorwork adds warmth and heft to the shawl. The images are also inspiring in the winter - suns, roses, wavy vines and stars.

Once I got the book, I started looking around for sales on the yarn. I was fortunate in finding a couple that had the colors used in the shawl. For a change, I am going to make this exactly as written so I am kitting it up!

The yarn is sock weight yarn from Mountain Colors. It is called Bearfoot and is a combination of superwash wool and mohair. For a shawl, this is durable and warm. I am starting to become a fan of sock yarn for shawls because of the nylon content. I am a klutz and I have holes in two lace shawls already. So durability and strength in the yarn is a good thing.I end this with a close-up of the colors to warm you up. If you are in a warm place and don't need any warming-up, use it to warm your heart and mind, if not your body!

The frog is done!

I didn't post last week as I had no news to report. But today is different! I finished the froggy scarf and it is lovely. It has l-o-n-g tails which I tried to show you by this 'artistic' layout. The pattern is 22.5 degrees which makes a short shawl with long tails. I like this because it can be worn as a scarf under a jacket as well as a shoulder shawl.I ran out of the main color because I wasn't paying attention to the number of repeats. I did one more than I should have, and with that width, it used up a lot of yarn. I didn't want to undo it - again due to the number of sts in each row - so I found another yarn in a similar color and weight and did the edging with that. I was hoping for more of a contrast but all the contrast colors I had didn't make the main color 'pop'. So I stuck to matching rather than contrasting. There are a few extra colors in the edging - a blue and a brighter yellow. I like the effect. This is what it looks like, if I'm wearing it.
Here is a close-up showing the difference in the texture and colors. Just a hint of color and texture, right? The main yarn is Kashmir by the Woolen Rabbit. The edging is Koigu KPPPM.This is the back. I love the scalloped edge and it is so easy to do. The designer has a Youtube video demonstrating the technique. Easy-peasy!
I am working on another secret project right now so I won't be beginning a new project or finishing up Stor Rund Dug right away. But my next project after that will be born of necessity.
I have carpal tunnel syndrome and wear wrist braces at night. They get disgusting and aren't easy to wash. When I complained about this early on, my doctor suggested I cut holes in tube socks and wear them under the liners. They can be washed more easily and absorb the sweat and skin oils that make the braces smell.

Being a knitter, I immediately thought of finger-less gloves. I had to make them longer to fit the liners completely. Here is my current collection. I can wash a pair every few days and always have another pair ready to go. They work really well.
Unfortunately, because they take a lot of washing and wearing, they eventually end up looking like this...and this...Which means I have to knit new pairs to replace them. I use Elann Esprit which is a cotton/elastic sock yarn. The cotton is very absorbent and cool and the elastic keeps the liners in shape after washing. As you can see, despite all the wear, they still look shapely. One ball makes a pair so I have 3 more balls left for the new batch. I had originally bought 2 balls of each color as I wasn't sure how much I would need.

It is boring knitting - imagine making 6 mittens all the same! But it goes quickly and I love the result. I also only have to do it every 3 or 4 years.

As Elizabeth Zimmermann said, Knit On!

A correction, and only a little progress

Apparently the shawl I'm knitting looks grey rather than green. I tried to fix the photo a bit to make it more representative of the true color. It is a greyish green with a lot of yellow in it also. I like the color a lot. It is very soft and I think it will go with a lot of outfits.I have been knitting a bit on it but from a photographic perspective, there is not much to add. It still looks exactly like this photograph, excep tthat there are some more rows. I think that till I get to the scallops, it is going to be very un-photogenic. Oh well.

Mindless simple knit

I started a simple scarf while I was traveling. The key criterion was that I needed to be able to memorize the pattern as I didn't want to pay to print it in the hotel. 22.5 degrees by Martina Behm fit the bill perfectly. The most important thing about this particular scarf is the yarn. It is a cashmere blend from the Woolen Rabbit and it is yummy to knit with and will be yummy to wear.

It is slow going now as there are a lot of stitches on the needles. The scarf is knit from the center back down and finished with a very lovely row of scallops. But I'm not there yet.

Here is a close-up of the fabric. The garter st blends the colors and it is soft and cuddly.

I am enjoying knitting this but I have to admit that I'm bored so I only knit it when I need something mindless e.g. at a New Year's Eve party.

My silence explained

I'm sorry for the silence over the past couple of weeks. I was traveling - visiting my daughter in South America. I had a wonderful time. Not much fiber related news though. I picked up this book which is fascinating. It includes the history of weaving, techniques and designs - including the meaning of some of the traditional ones.
Here are some photos of traditional designs.Lovely photos of the people weaving and preparing the fiber. I did see women spinning on a drop spindle, dyeing, weaving and preparing fiber in traditional ways.I also got a lot of knitting done. I finished the Faroese shawl from the Faroese shawl book. I blocked it yesterday and am wearing it right now. It is made from sock yarns so it is machine washable.
Here is a closeup of the fabric. The two Mini Mochi yarns are soft and fuzzy and the Socks that Rock on the top and the border is more textured and tightly spun. Overall it is nice and wearable. I can tie it behind my back in the traditional Faroese style if I wish.
This is an overview of the entire shawl as it was drying. It is very bright and colorful for these gray winter days. I call it Land and Sea as it reminds me of the ocean, the undergrowth and then mountains and trees in the background.
I started knitting another small shawl out of sock yarn on my trip but it is only about 2/3 done. I'll post pics of it next time.

The straight-away

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the shawl. Your support and admiration have kept me going. The chocolate espresso bread is straight out of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. You can get some recipes from an article published in Mother Earth News and from the authors' blog posts. It is a tad too long in the instructions for me to repeat it here.

Here is a view of what the shawl will look like when it is done. Of course it isn't blocked yet so you can see puckers on one side and it is stretched out on the other side. The edging is not grafted yet and the neck edging needs to be done but these are tiny efforts compared to what has been completed.

To celebrate, and because I needed a break with easy knitting, I decided to start a new shawl. This is loosely based on Ingili from Føroysk Bindingarmynstur / Faroese Knitting Patterns aka Bundanaurriklaedid. I am not doing a lace pattern, unlike the original, and my gauge is not as fine as the one pictured in Judy Gibson's site (at the link). I am just doing a simple st pattern of 3 rows knit and 1 row purl. A closeup shows the ridges.

The sts are all crowded on the needle so it is not easy to see in the bigger picture. But each 2 rows are smaller than the previous 2 so it will get easier as I go on. I started with a provisional CO as I'll come back and figure out how to finish the bottom edge after I complete the shawl.

Endless Edging

I am trying to see how best to photograph bread. This is in natural light by the window. Still not great. A chocolate espresso bread that is perfect for breakfast: chocolate and caffeine and not sweet at all. I made part of it into cupcakes to take to work. It will be a perfect morsel when I need a pick-me-up.

The 48 repeats of edging are coming along. I took it to a dinner last Sat and no one could figure out what I was knitting! I had to promise to come back and show it to them after it was finished. Now, if the dinner had been last night they would have understood. Here's a photo of the current state of the shawl. The neck is a bit small due to the length of the cable but otherwise it is pretty accurate as to what it is going to look like. I am pleased with it but the edging is endless. sigh

I have two tips for knitting on edging today:

1. If you find you are off by a shawl st or so in attaching the edging and you haven't accidentally forgotten to knit a st onto the edging, you can skip attaching on one row or attach two sts at once to make it come out even. It won't be noticeable.
2. Count, count, count: if you find you are a st short, you can make a st in the appropriate spot as long as you do it quickly. Either pick up a running thread to make a yarnover after the fact if you are missing one or just make a st, if you decreased one too many. The trick is to do it in the correct spot in the repeat. The sooner you do it after the mistake, the less likely it is to be noticeable and you could escape having to rip even a row or two.

Fudging is your friend.

I got a surprise in the mail the other day! My exercise buddy sent me a gift. 2 skeins of pretty sock yarn, some h ighlighter tape in my favorite purple and a sachet of Eucalan. lsn't the sock yarn lovely?

I met a German 20-something yesterday and learned that her grandmother sends her hand-knit socks. I showed off my Regia socks and she said she had the same yarn made into socks. How neat is that? One can never have too much sock yarn or too many hand-knit socks.

I also swatched for the Faroese shawl that I'll be working on soon. This is the pattern I am going to do - not garter st but just a purl row thrown in every 3 knit rows. The Mini Mochi is soft but splitty. I think it is going to be a cuddly shawl.

Back to edging...