Amor Deliria Nervosa

Last year, I designed a hat pattern for Storied Yarn's A Yarn and A Tale yarn and book club. The book that inspired my hat was "Delirium" by Lauren Oliver, a dystopian young adult novel about a world in which love is a disease. The yarn that Jess sent me for the design was her fabulous bouncy, springy Bo Peep Worsted (100% merino, 250 yds/4 oz) in the colorway "Waiting for Something to Happen", a grey with pops of purple, red, yellow and blue.

When it came time to release the pattern to the world, I decided to knit up another hat in a more solid colorway, and I chose LOMOND Aran (183 yds/100 gr) from Kettle Yarn Co in the gloriously cheerful and bright "Ginger".

This yarn is an alpaca/merino/bamboo blend, and is crazy warm and cozy. Despite one version being knit in worsted and one in aran weight yarn, the gauge is the same - I think because the Bo Peep Worsted is so bouncy and full, it behaves like a slightly heavier weight yarn.

I was showing the Ginger hat to Alli last October, and she said "You know, you should really do some mittens too..." Since I always do what Alli tells me to, the next thing I knew, I'd gotten another skein of LOMOND Aran from Linda, and pulled out the leftovers from the grey hat. Then there were mittens,

and cuffs to go with the hats.

Both patterns are now available on Ravelry, and soon here on the Patterns page. If you buy one pattern, you can get 25% off the purchase of the accompanying pattern - purchase at any time, no coupon code needed.

Details and specs:

Amor Deliria (hat):
Sizes: adult small (medium, large), to fit head circumference of up to 18 (20, 22) in/46 (51, 56) cm.
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm and US 8/4.5mm, or size needed to get gauge.
Yarn: requires approximately 140 (160, 183) yds/128 (146, 165) m aran or worsted weight yarn.
Gauge: 17 sts/22 rows over 4 in/10 cm in lace pattern on larger needles. Note: these measurements are after blocking.
Price: $5.50

Deliria Nervosa (cuffs/mittens):
Sizes: S/M (M/L) for cuffs, for wrist circumference of approximately 6 (7.25) in/15.25 (18.5) cm, unstretched. Small (medium, large) for mittens, with final hand circumference of approximately 8 (8.75, 9.5) in/20.25 (22.25, 24.25) cm.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm and US 8/5.0 mm, or size needed to get gauge
Yarn: cuffs require approximately 60 (70) yds/55 (64) m; mittens require approximately 124 (160,1 80) yds/114 (146, 165) m aran or worsted weight yarn.
Gauge: cuffs: 19 sts/27 rows over 4 in/10 cm in lace pattern on larger needles; mittens: 21 sts/26 rows per 4 in/10 cm in lace pattern. Note: these measurements are after blocking.
Price: $6.50 (pattern includes both cuffs and mittens)

Both patterns include multiple charts.

And just FYI, there is an update schedule over at Kettle Yarn Co for Sunday evening at 5 pm London (UK) time, and it will include LOMOND Aran, so grab some! (She's got a glorious teal blue BANFF Aran available now if you can't wait...) Storied Yarns also has Bo Peep worsted available right now in a some gorgeous solidish colors and a variegated that would look fab in these patterns. Even better, you can get a hat and a pair of cuffs out of one skein!

Right, I think I've done my duty in keeping you all cozy for this month, time to get back to working on next month's pattern!

Gherkin Mittens

I'm very pleased to be able to say that the fourth (and final) pattern in my London-inspired collection is now available.

The Gherkin Mittens are inspired by the Gherkin, a rather phallic odd building in the Financial District. While it's not in the London Bridge area where I used to work, it is extremely visible from there (as well as many other parts of London). I've been enthralled by its lines since I first saw it, and I'm thrilled to bits with these mittens.

Worked in bulky weight wool, these are super quick to knit up, so if you need a last minute Christmas gift, these are for you! I knit the large size for the prototype, and used about 220 yds of bulky yarn over the course of a couple of evenings.

The pattern includes both charts and written stitch directions, plus a cute picture of the wee small dog serving as a prop. Something like this:

Gherkin Mittens, $5.00


God willing and the crick don't rise, I'm hoping to release all four patterns as a mini-e book before the end of the year. Stay tuned!

FO: Handspun Northman Mittens

I can't remember if I did this last year or not (I don't think I did), but this year I've decided that, in the face of just over three weeks to Christmas, and a lot of gift knitting that must be done, thereby obliterating any other potential blog fodder, I am going to do the FO posts as the Os are Fd (so to speak). Otherwise I'll be forced to post a picture of my narrow escape from Sleeve Island and that will stay at the top of the blog for the next few weeks. And that's not what any of you want to see - grey cables are not very interesting photo montage material. So without further ado...Present #1 (that I'm blogging about in December - some of the others have already been mentioned and won't be revisited).

Pattern: Northman Mittens by David Schulz of Southern Cross Fibre fame
Yarn: For the outer mitts - handspun pencil roving from Artisan Threads, in natural white and naturally dyed teal, approximately 135 yds teal and 80 yds white. Also some handspun brown BFL for the cuffs, left over from the Norwegian Snail Mitten extravaganza last year - no idea how many yards. For the lining - 120 yds of handspun BFL singles that were dyed by me with Burgundy Jacquard Acid dye.
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm for outer mitten, US 5/3.75 mm for lining.
Gauge: Outer mitten: 6 sts/inch, lining: 5 sts/inch.
Start/finish: 28 October - 29 November 2010. They would have been done faster, but I had a wait of about a week and a half while I tried to get some more teal pencil roving, and then I had to spin and dye the lining yarn.

Comments/mods: Let's start with modifications: besides using handspun instead of commercial yarn, absolutely none. This pattern was a joy from start to finish - well written, nicely laid out, with gorgeous pictures and fantastic charts.

I like the purled cuff quite a lot - using two strands of yarn for alternate purl stitches creates an interesting texture. The pencil roving had a bit of lanolin left in it, and the rustic yarn made for a slightly scratchy outer mitten, but the lining solved the itch factor. And Gill at Artisan Threads was very helpful in procuring me another ball of the teal roving when I ran out (I may have even gotten some more of the white roving too. Just to have on hand, you know).

I really like the lines and patterning on the thumb gusset.

I even managed to remember to switch charts for the left and right mitten, so the amount of swearing involved in the completion of this project was greatly reduced.

For the lining, I spun a singles yarn because I thought that some feltability might be a good thing for mitten lining. And the Spintelligence Fibre Club has me in a singles spinning mode these days. This yarn was spun at 6.25:1 and soaked in hot water until it cooled (overnight). It then went in the dye crockpot with a 2 DOS burgundy dye solution (volume dye/weight of fiber) for a couple of hours. I let that cool overnight, and the dye bath was largely exhausted the next morning.

The BFL made for a soft and squishy lining, and my inability to loosely tie my skeins led to a Malabrigo-esque kettle dye job. Result! So these are destined for some lucky someone somewhere with cold hands. Any one want to predict who? There might be a prize in it...

Southwark Collection, design #2

The Brits have a certain dry sense of humor when it comes to phallic symbols, which has resulted in the above building being nicknamed The Gherkin. It even has it's own Wikipedia entry. The Gherkin is visible from many parts of London, but when I walk up Borough High Street coming back from the coffee shop, I can see the tip peaking up into the sky. Pun intended.

I love the swirling lines going up around the building, and have been trying to wrap my head around how to recreate them in some mittens. First up was the yarn:

I bought this skein of StR lightweight waaaaay back in my first Blue Moon Fiber Arts experience (actually, my only BMFA purchase so far, since I ain't paying to ship to the UK, thankyouverymuch). It's been marinating in the stash, waiting for the perfect project to come along. And for whatever reason, my inner magpie decided that it needed to become some twisted stitch mittens.

I was having a bit of a brain cramp as to how to work the decreases so as to maintain the lines of the twisted stitches, but get a bit of the change in the diamond shape as it goes up. I think I came up with something as I was on the verge of going to sleep a few nights ago, but it remains to be seen whether or not my dreamy solution is a real life, practical solution. Stay tuned.

Going gray

Picasso had his Blue Period, and apparently I'm in a Gray Period. To whit: in the last week, I have purchased this,

and started this.

I finally started knitting Design #3 that's been percolating in this,

and started knitting a DK weight protoype of Design #2 in this.

Hmmm...one might be forgiven for thinking that the recent rash of Absolutely. Spectacularly. Sunny (but cold!). Weather. is inspiring me towards typical London autumnal shades in an attempt to fool the weather gods in to keeping the clouds away for a bit longer.