It's a big week for patterns: Denbigh Cowl in Knit Now Issue 23!

This week, the latest issue of Knit Now hit the stands, containing my Denbigh Cowl pattern.

Photo credit: Dan Walmsley

This pattern grew out of a designer challenge, where the editor of the magazine sends around a call for patterns that utilize a specific yarn (usually with only enough yardage for an accessory). I came up with the idea for this cowl after seeing Kate's Pinterest board for the challenge, which featured lots and lots of graphic designs with strong contrasting lines.

The yarn is from Blacker Yarns - their Swan DK and Pure Teeswater DK. This was my first time working with yarns from this company, and they were absolutely gorgeous.

Something I didn't realize beforehand, but that ended up working out perfectly for the design: the Swan DK is on the heavier end of the DK range, while the Teeswater DK is practically a sport/fingering weight! This meant that the yarns fit perfectly into my plan to use the Swan DK (made from Falkland merino) as the background color, thereby putting the softer yarn against the skin, and put the more drapey Teeswater yarn into play as the accent color.

There's my swatch, edged with i-cord that's worked as the cast on and cast off for the cowl. It's a bit easier to see the stitch pattern here - it's a very easy pattern to work, with only two rows where anything happens that you need to pay attention to. And it is totally addictive!

While the pattern is currently only available through the magazine, I will be releasing it in the fall with an additional, larger infinity cowl size. And once I decide which colors I'm going to use, I'll be getting some more of that gorgeous yarn!

It's that time of year again...

There seem to be two major events during the year when I go into absolute crafting panic. Event #1: Halloween, which usually sees me creating homemade costumes at three in the morning on October 31th.

Event #2 is now upon us: the end of the school year, and the need for teacher gifts. A few years ago I got all fired up and knit six of the same shawl for all the teachers and babysitters in just under four weeks. This time around, I've left myself (ehem) less time. In the interests of sanity, I've also decided to only do two gifts this year - one for each of the girl' form teachers. And since there is now only two weeks until the end of school, that means it's time to bust out the neglected loom and the pile of packages from Spunky Eclectic to whip up some scarves for teacher.

For Dev's lovely, young, hip Year 3 teacher:

And for Boo's also lovely, less young, Year 1 teacher.

Both of these projects have the advantage of being plain weave (uncomplicated!) and woven using an 8 dent heddle (big yarn!). I spent the afternoon warping for project 1, and have started on the weaving.

If the universe smiles on me, I might actually get this whole thing woven up tonight (Himself is away on business and gets back late tonight, so once the girls are in bed I don't have to talk to anyone). And get the second one warped over the weekend. Which leaves me a week and a half of Tour de Fleece craziness in which to weave another scarf.

Fingers crossed that I can actually tear myself away from the wheels long enough to get it done!

PS - Don't forget, you have until 15th July to enter my contest to win a copy of American Sock Knitting. Just go comment on this post and you'll be entered!

PPS - 15th July is also the deadline to buy one of my Travelling Hat patterns (or the full ebook) and have all the proceeds go to One Fund Boston. So far your generous purchases have raised $165 for the fund - let's see if we can get it over $250!

It's not brain surgery

In the past few weeks, I've had to come to terms with the fact that a couple of the sweaters I've finished recently have been unsatisfactory. Most of the time, I'm able to get past any perceived errors and be happy with the finished product, but this time it just wasn't going to happen.

First up: the sweater I made for a friend's Dad:

While this sweater was a perfect fit around the chest, it was also sadly a bit short in the body. Since I didn't want to start over from the beginning (it was knit in the round from the bottom up), I decided a bit of cut and paste was the most efficient solution.

Step 1: gather the materials.

I took the remaining yarn, cast on a new sweater body, and knit the ribbing and approximately 3 extra inches of sweater body before moving on to Step 2.

Step 2: prep the patient

I took a small needle (something like a US 3 I think) and picked up all the stitches in one row.


Step 3: the incision/excision

I then cut the yarn a few rows below the row where I'd picked up all the stitches on one needle, and picked out everything, leaving a body with live stitches and a cast-off, abandoned ribbing.

Step 4: suturing

I then lined up the new ribbing section and the old sweater body, took a needle, collected several adult beverages and gathered my courage before grafting the 200 stitches together. This took approximately four days (many adult beverages!), and Kate Atherley's excellent post about grafting stockinette, reverse stockinette and cables.




Step 5: off to recovery

Sweater was reblocked and is now back with its owner, several inches longer then the original.

The only real scarring is in the cables - I didn't manage to line up the stitches perfectly, so there is a half-stitch disjointedness on each side. However...I'm pretty sure he will never notice, and it's not such a big deal that I'm willing to go back and redo the whole thing.

With that under my belt, I gaily sallied forth to treat Patient #2: my Whisper cardigan

The construction of the Whisper cardigan is pretty interesting. You first knit a shrug, then pick up stitches to knit a wide band of ribbing. A bunch of the ribbing stitches are cast off for the neckline, and the rest of the stitches become the back and sides of the finished sweater.

Sadly, somehow in my zealous fervor to get to the body, I managed to end up with a cast off neckline that was waaaay too tight. In steps my handy internal surgeon, yet again. This time, since there was no adding of length to be done, we started straight off with Step 2: prepping the patient:

Tiny needle, picking up all the ribbing stitches along the neckline.

Step 3: Incision, or in this case, the ripping/picking out of the cast off stitches.



Step 4: Suturing, aka binding off again, this time with Jeny's SSBO.

Step 5: all better!

Collar lays flat, no riding up or binding, looks much better.


And I desperately need a haircut. Better get that done before Saturday!

New pattern: Snowy Pines

I am very excited to announce that I have a sock pattern coming out in the new book American Sock Knitting.

Photo (c) American Gift Knitting

This book is a collection of 13 sock patterns inspired by different states, including socks from Ohio, Oregon, Kentucky, Arizona, North Carolina, New Jersey and Massachusetts. There is so much variety in the collection - cables, lace, colorwork - so there's something to appeal to everyone.  The book also includes some travelogues from Beth's favorite places and five recipes reflecting different regions of the United States.

My contribution, Snowy Pines, was inspired by the woods near my grandparent's house in Maine. It is a great project for a new sock knitter - it's worked in worsted weight yarn (so nice and fast to knit!) from the top down, and includes a stranded colorwork pine tree and snowflake design.

The book is now in preorders until July 15th with a reduced price and free US shipping, and copies will be shipping out soon after that. And since I'm going to have an extra copy, why don't we have a little contest?

Post in the comments about your favorite place, and what sort of sock would be inspired by that place - for example, would it have a lacy motif? Maybe something more rugged, like cables? Or would you need a particular yarn color to capture that place in a sock? I leave the entries open until the end of preorders, July 15th, and then draw a winner. Please note that I won't be getting my hands on the book until mid-August, so there will be a bit of delay in getting it out to you.

And now? Back to carding...

How to prove to the world that you are an idiot who can't read a calendar

So, apparently I'm a bit over excited about this whole Tour de Fleece thing. Because not only is tomorrow NOT the 21st of June (which is the date I had stuck in my head for the start of the race), it is also NOT the start of the race. This was very gently pointed out to me by a dear friend and I am now totally humiliated at my complete lack of functioning brain cells. And my ability to double check my drivel before I exposed myself to public ridicule. Oh well...the up side of this is that I now can stop carding myself into carpel tunnel syndrome, and I can do a bit more organizing of my plan of attack.

There has been a bit of training going on (but only a very little bit): some Oregon Green Wensleydale on the Turkish spindle.



This was my maiden voyage with the Turkish, and it's absolutely lovely to spin with. IST has some with weights added to the cross bars to increase the spinning time - this one doesn't have them, but it spins beautifully anyway.

Then I dove into the Hello Yarn stash for a bit of squish factor:

Hello Yarn Polworth in Troll, the December 2012 club offering
Spun/plied: singles spun at 15:1 on the Lendrum, backwards point-of-contact drafting, plied on the miniSpinner
Stats: 271 yds/~4 oz, 10-18 wpi, 1084 ypp, true 3-ply
Comments: Like all of Adrian's fibers, this was an absolute pleasure to spin. I did this as a real 3-ply instead of chain plying. I split the 4 oz bundle into 3 pieces of equal length, then split those lengths for fractal spinning. The first piece I split into 3 (mostly) equal sections lengthwise, the second into 4 pieces, and the third into 6 pieces. I spun them end to end, but for the first and third plies I reversed every second piece to maintain the color progression. So if the first piece started with yellow and ended with purple, I spun the second piece from the purple to yellow.

I tried to spin the singles very finely  with a backward draw, letting twist into the drafting triangle. I wanted a lofty and fluffy final yarn, and I knew from previous Tour de Fleece experience that Polworth has a tendency to fluff up a fair bit during finishing. Before a soak in warm water, the skein from my niddy noddy was 90 inches around, and the wpi ranged from 13-23. Post-soak, I lost 8 (!) inches in length from the skein, and the yarn plumped up into the worsted/DK range.

I can't stop petting this skein - it's soft and drapey and a lovely blend of colors. The yellow/oranges ended up dominating the final yarn, which I'm not such a fan of, but I'll wait to see how it comes out in the knitting (there are some lovely blue/purple/grey sections too!). I'm thinking Multnomah maybe? Not quite enough yardage...Or Traveling Woman? Hmmm...have to think about that while I'm spinning every single day for three weeks. Starting a week from tomorrow...