THE NORDLÁNDDA COLLECTION: Nøss and Heggelia

When I was brainstorming about the pieces to include in the Nordlándda collection, I wanted to include some projects that were suitable for new cable knitters. The first piece that fits this bill are the Nøss mitts.

*Copyright 2015 The Fibre Co. & Tommy Martin*

These super simple little mitts are worked in the round from the bottom up, and feature a very small, 2 stitch cable on either edge. Since the cables are only two stitches, this is a perfect pattern if you'd like to try cabling without a cable needles.

I've got some handspun London Fog Bluefaced Leicester spun up that I'm using to cast on my own pair of Noss mitts at Knit Night tonight - the pattern takes less then 120 yards for all sizes, but I've only got 85 yds of handspun. I'm still going to try to squeak out a medium pair for myself - stay tuned for future Yarn Chicken games!

The second pair of mitts in the collection are the super scrummy Heggelia gauntlets.

I just love these mitts - long and cosy to protect against any intrusive winter winds, worked in reverse stockinette for interest with a big bold cable running down the back of the hand and arm. This is also a good potential no-cable-needle project - the cable looks complicated, but all of the cable crosses are worked over four stitches, so its just a step up from the Nøss mitts in terms of cabling complexity.

The Heggelia mitts come in two sizes, and use up to 240 yards of bulky yarn. I want to do a handspun pair of these too, but I'm going to need to spin up some yarn for them specifically. I'm not such a pink person generally speaking, but it is a colour that works well with the design! Maybe I'll have to bite the bullet and stay in keeping with the original sample...

There's still plenty of time to join in the #AYSWinterCablesKAL on Instagram and over at the A Yarn Story group on Ravelry. We'd love to see your projects!

Note: If you are in Europe and would like to purchase one of the patterns from the collection without paying VAT, please go to the Nordlándda page and be sure to include your Ravelry ID (if you have one) when you check out. The pattern will be emailed to you and put into your Ravelry library. Thank you!

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Lab Goddess Fibre Club signups now open!

Happy 1st of December! I've opened signups for the first 2016 instalment of the Lab Goddess Fibre Club here, and I hope that lots of you join us! It's been an absolute thrill over the past few months to send off the fibre club, and then see what everyone does with it. I saw one October Fibre Club FO in person yesterday, and I'm still trying to find the perfect project for mine. There are hints of November spinning also popping up here and there.

October Fibre Club, "Alpha, Beta, Gamma" on Finnish, inspired by Dr. Marie Curie

For those of you who aren't familiar with a fibre club, it works like this: every month, I develop a new colourway inspired by a female scientist and her work. As a club member, you receive 4 oz/113 g of fibre each month dyed in this new colourway, along with a brief biography of the scientist and a bit of information about the colours and how I came up with the combinations. Any extras that are leftover after club ships will be available to club members only for six months; after that, they will be available to the general public, although more fibre will not be dyed.

*November Fibre Club "Mutable Loci" on Cheviot, inspired by Dr. Barbara McClintock*

It's also been lovely to meet some Fibre Club members in person, and get their feedback. So far, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, but please do let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the next round of club brings!

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Lab Goddess Fibre Club November 2015

This month's colourway comes from a suitably seasonal inspiration (at least it's seasonal this week if you celebrate American Thanksgiving). Behold, the lovely colours of maize:

What does this have to do with Lab Goddesses? Well, I'm glad you asked, because this month's highlighted scientist is modern, a woman who, even though she lived a century after Marie Curie, experienced many similar challenges in her scientific life. I remember when she won her Nobel Prize (I was 11), and the fact that my own scientific exploits have led me to use techniques that directly grew out her groundbreaking research makes this month's scientist even more special to me personally. I'm looking forward to spinning up my November fibre for some super sturdy, warm socks to brighten up cold winter days.

From the Fibre Club insert:

Barbara McClintock was the third of four children born to Thomas and Sara McClintock. She was a very independent and solitary child, but knew her own mind – her original first name was Eleanor, which she rejected at an early age as being too feminine and delicate. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY and had a love of science starting in high school.

In 1919, she went to Cornell University’s College of Agriculture over the objections of her mother, who feared that a college education would make her “unmarriageable”*. Her interest in genetics began in 1921, and a year later she was invited to participate in a graduate genetics course at Cornell by C. B. Hutchison, an early plant geneticist. She credits Hutchison as the reason she continued in genetics.

McClintock received an MA and PhD in botany, and her research focused on cytogenetics in maize, the structure and function of corn chromosomes, the coiled structures in the cell nucleus containing DNA. She developed a technique for staining chromosomes that enabled scientists to see chromosome shape for the first time. By studying chromosome shape, Dr. McClintock was able to link inherited traits to specific chromosomes. In 1930, McClintock was the first person to describe a specific chromosomal shape seen during meiosis, the process that generates reproductive cells like sperm and eggs. Together with Dr. Harriet Creighton, she found that recombination of chromosomes, the swapping of DNA between two chromosomes, was correlated with the appearance of new traits in the resultant offspring plant.

In 1941, after five years at the University of Missouri, Dr, McClintock went to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she remained for the rest of her career. There she began to analyse the mechanism of mosaic colour patterns of maize seed, and their unstable inheritance. This led to the discovery in 1948 of transposons, mobile genetic elements that are regulated by a mechanism that allows for cells with identical genomes to have different functions. This research was initially met with puzzlement and hostility, and unfortunately, she stopped publishing her research on transposons in 1953 due to fears of alienating the scientific mainstream.

Although she officially retired in 1967, Dr. McClintock continued to pursue research at Cold Spring Harbor. Although a French group discovered similar genetic controlling elements in the early 1960s, Dr. McClintock’s pioneering work was not acknowledged until the early 1970s, when she was widely credited with discovering transposition, and ultimately the discovery of genetic regulation.

Barbara McClintock was the third woman ever elected to the National Academy of Science, and was the first female president of the Genetics Society of America, both in 1944. In 1981, she was the first recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Grant, also known as the MacArthur Genius grant. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1983, and was the first woman to win the prize unshared. Her work on “jumping genes” and genetic regulation paved the way for the incredible explosion of molecular biology and genetics in the 80s and 90s. She continued to work at Cold Spring Harbor after winning the Nobel Prize, and died of natural causes in 1992 at the age of 90. True to her mother’s fear, she never married.

* I'm realising as I continue to research future women scientists for these colourways that I am running into a number of similar issues regarding how to convey their work and why I've chosen them without descending into strident feminist outrage, and telling the same story ad nauseum. I hope you'll find these overview interesting and not off putting. Please let me know your thoughts.

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The Nordlándda Collection: Moen Cowl

It is super cold in my kitchen today here in London, even though the sun is shining. And I'm wishing I had my Moen Cowl samples to keep me warm! Sadly, they are all enjoying themselves at A Yarn Story in Bath for the #AYSWinterCablesKAL, so I'm just going to have to find something else to wrap up in (sobs quietly).

Moen is a super snuggly cowl that uses some of my favourite things all in one project: tubular cast on and bind off for perfectly matching edges, loads of cables that add interest but aren't too difficult to work without a cable needle, and chunky yarn that means the project zips right along! The pattern includes two sizes: a cozy, close fitting version that is perfect for wearing with your winter coat, and a longer, infinity cowl size that can be doubled up for extra warmth, or worn across your shoulders like a shawl.

The cable pattern used in this cowl is a bit different: in addition to cable crosses, it also uses some wrapped stitches at the top and bottom of the main cable for extra interest.

In fact, I enjoy this cowl so much that I'm using if for a project class at A Yarn Story on Sunday, 29th November, from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. In the class, we'll cover the tubular cast on and bind off (if you are as OCD as I am about your edges matching), working cables from charts and cabling without a cable needle. If you'd like to join us, you can sign up here. The cost of the class includes materials for the small version of the cowl, and I'll have plenty of yarn for swatching and practicing the techniques. I hope to see you then, but I've got to dig out a sweater and make some tea!

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The Nordlándda Collection: Fauske and Rosta

Today I want to talk about two pieces from the Nordlándda Collection that share a common edging - the wonderful, occasionally fiddley, applied i-cord edge. Rosta is one of the simpler pieces in the collection, with a wide panel of stockinette bordered by two loose cables, while Fauske is one of the more complex, with an intricate cable border and an expanding and contracting panel of a smaller, very traditional cable motif, but both use an applied i-cord to generate a tidy edging that won't roll or curl when you're finished.

There are a couple of tricks for getting a nice i-cord edge that lies flat. First off, for both of these pieces, the i-cord is made by slipping the last three stitches of every row. On the right side rows, the last three stitches are slipped purlwise with the yarn in back, and on the wrong side rows, the stitches are slipped purlwise with the yarn in front. In both cases, you want the yarn to be on the right side of the fabric for working the start of the next row.

The other tip is to keep the i-cord stitches a little bit loose as you are knitting, Because the i-cord is only worked every other row on each edge, if you work those stitches tightly, the i-cord will be shorter then the rest of the piece, and your finished item won't lie flat when it's blocked. Be careful to leave a little extra slack in those three edge stitches, and you should end up with a beautiful finished edge.

Please come join us in the A Yarn Story #AYSWInterCablesKAL on Ravelry - Carmen has some gorgeous prizes lined up, and we'd love to see your take on the Nordlándda Collection!

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Porpoise Fur