Leaf Peeper Cowl

Some of you may know this already (ha-bloody-ha!), but I really, really like knitting with handspun yarn. I mean really, really like it. If given my druthers, I'd probably never knit with commercial yarn again. So it seems only reasonable that I might start designing some patterns for handspun yarn, right?



Meet the Leaf Peeper Cowl (attractive posed amongst the dead ferns in Richmond Park). Knit from side to side out of just under 100 yds/92 m of bulky weight handspun yarn for a cowl that is about 18 inches in circumference unstretched. If you want a longer cowl, simply keep going until it's the desired size. When it's long enough, graft the ends together and voila! Instant neck cuddles.

The sample was knit out of 3-ply BFL from my shop, in the Leaf Peepers colorway. The fiber was split into three equal lengths before spinning, and then two of the pieces were split further lengthwise. Final yarn was 95 yds/3.5 oz, or approximately 450 ypp.

This is the perfect quick cowl for holiday presents - I think mine took me a couple of nights to whip up, and the stitch pattern, while it may look complicated, is pretty easy to follow once you get going.

Pattern can be found on Ravelry in my store, or you can get it here for $5.00.

Lemme explain...no, no, is too much, lemme sum up.

Well. When last we spoke, I had just taken delivery of a copious amount of fiber and was preparing to abandon ship for the wildness of Pembrokeshire for the weekend. Having now come out the other side, I have many things to say.

I started my day here, which seemed to be appropriate in the sense that I was embarking on an unknown voyage...sadly, I had no marmelade in my luggage for sustenance.


My train was filled with a disturbing number of men in kilts who were really interested in starting the day with a beer at 10:30 am.

I chose a capuccino...I think I missed a memo or something.

I started a hat, thinking that I would manage to finish it well before the end of the weekend.

I was wrong (although it did get finished in the end!). The kilts seemed to clear off at Cardiff Central, and I continued westward. Next stop Swansea,

and then Whitland, where mostly everyone else had stopped and gotten picked up for the hotel.

Sadly, the necessity of my getting kids to school meant that I arrived last, and had to continue onward on my own to the train station with a taxi rank.

(hello blurry cell phone photo out of the window of a moving car)

There seems to be a generalized assumption that knitters are really just very nice people. Sort of like Minnesotans or Canadians... Nothing I experienced this past weekend at Plug and Play Pembrokeshire (P3) 2012 would argue with that assumption. I have to admit to a bit of trepidation as my cab pulled up to the hotel on Friday afternoon*, particularly as I was about to meet two people who have (unbeknownst to them) played a large role in my knitting life/obsession over the past seven years. However, I walked in just as tea and biscuits were arriving, and was warmly welcomed into the fold. And once I got over the fact that I was listening to Brenda Dayne's voice come out of an actual person instead of from my iPod, the weekend swept me up and away for the next three days.

For the summing up: there was yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. Lots of gorgeous beyond belief yarn.



There was gorgeous, glorious scenery, which I completely failed to photograph because I'm an asshole. Then there were the classes. Classes on shawl design, on top-down raglans, on how to fit small blocks of stitch patterns onto variously shaped canveses. Classes on embracing randomness in your knitting**, classes on knitting with unspun roving pulled from silk hankies. Class after class after class...

There were overwhelming amounts of really good food. And beer. And cider. And (apparantly) Scotch. There were people from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canadia, the US, and from as far away as New Zealand (I think). There were 29 women and one very, very brave man ("There's always one man..."). There was a completely delicious three month old baby. There were Today's Sweater stories that made me laugh so hard I cried. There was a double barreled ukelele singalong before twenty five people in their PJs gathered around the telly in the hotel pub to knit while watching yelling at Downton Abbey***.

All in all, I'd have to say that the weekend was made of win in every possible way. I'm thrilled to have met so many truly wonderful people. It was amazing to have three days to myself to basically sit around and knit the entire time****. It's taken me a couple of days to come back from that mindset, and it's been rough: the ability to hang out with a group of people who are all interested in the thing that you are interested in and have really cool ideas and projects and plans and suchlike is intoxicating. Strangely enough, my family does not seem to be as enthralled by a debate on the proper kind of increase to use in a top-down triangular shawl or how to keep even tension while grafting. Wierdos...

If anyone reading this evey has a chance to go to West Wales to hang out with Amy and Brenda (and presumably a hotel-full of other amazing fibery people), you should absolutely positively go. It was absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to go back next year!

* Derek, my cab driver from the train station in Haverfordwest, was vehement in his belief that this whole "knitting retreat weekend" was a cover up for something much more diabolical. I told him we were actually planning on taking over the world. He thought I was kidding.

** My inner scientist is still curled up in a ball in the corner whimpering from that one...

*** The bartender was so far out of his element as to perhaps be the proverbial Anthropologist on Mars.

**** I may or may not have arrived home depleted of any urge to knit one more row.

Denial

What I should be doing: knitting the prototype for hat numero 5 for the ebook and blocking hat 4's prototype.

What I am doing instead: knitting 1x1 ribbing in the round, with laceweight, on 4.5 mm needles, wondering why the heck my kids aren't asleep yet.

Such a glamourous life I lead...

Soggy feet and disappointment

So I have two hat design prototypes left to knit for this hat ebook release due in November. And, despite the size of my stash, I don't have any suitable yarn for these (the mind boggles!). Actually, it's not that I don't have suitable yarn: it's more that I have specific yarns in mind for these two designs (Cascade 220 and Madtosh) that is not in my stash, so yesterday I took a trip up to the Yarn Store (Not Local Except That Technically It's In The Same City).

There I was, trooping through the rain that suddenly arrived on Sunday after a couple of weeks of glorious fall weather, with no umbrella, having dropped one child at the bus, and one child at school. I emerged from the Tube station to find that the rain was pissing down. Waded through the puddles to the door of the shop, my mind full of the rainbow of incredible colors that are Madtosh, wondering what color is going to work best, only to find that...

...they aren't open on Mondays. Talk about a buzzkill. Not only was it raining, it was cold. And truly London-in-Autumn, which is to say, icky. And I had no lovely yarn to lift my spirits!

I've come upon the only possible solution however: clearly I need two skeins of Madtosh, one for the new design, and one to reknit a previous design (originally done in angora-blend, waaaaay too halo-y). Makes good sense, right?

Syringa Tank

Today, Issue 10 of Knit Now hits the newstands, and I can share with you my excitement at having one of my patterns included in the magazine.

Photo credit: Tim Bradley for Practical Publishing

Syringa is a girl's A-line tank knit in Rowan Amy Butler Belle Organic DK, a cotton-wool blend yarn with great elasticity. The tank is sized from 2-8 years old, and is worked at a gauge of 21 stitches/36 rows per 4 inches/10 cm. Worked from the bottom up, the hem has a graduated lace pattern before working the body in stockinette (or stocking stitch, if you prefer).

That's a photo of my original swatch, worked in Rowan Calmer which has sadly been discontinued. I hope you enjoy the pattern, and anyone who has any questions should please contact me (email on About Me page).

I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with the staff of Knit Now - the process was smooth and stress-free from beginning to end. The whole issue is packed full of great patterns, so if you have the opportunity to grab a copy, I recommend it!