This will be a quick post, (apparently I don’t know how to do a quick post) because there is Deadline Knitting to be done and with the last couple of months of chaos finally over (knock on wood), I have ten whole days to focus on that and that alone. Ahhhhhh.
This past weekend we had an estate sale. In case you haven’t done this, it involves two to three weeks of a few total strangers running rampant through your home pricing everything that isn’t nailed down and throwing out everything that can’t be priced, followed by three days of a horde of total strangers tromping through, poking at everything, and trying to buy it all for even less than the sticker indicates (which is already less than you’d think, because it all has to go in a weekend).
You see, I had never heard of mawata until I stumbled upon Stephanie’s post proclaiming the glories of her hand-knit mawata mittens. Like eleventy billion knitters before me, I was intrigued by the idea that these stretched silk cocoons, stacked in layer upon gauzy layer, could be pulled apart and just…knit. And the fabric! So nubbly and colourful, humble yet elegant. I had to make such a fabric. It was an aesthetic imperative. Continue reading →
Oh, dear. It’s been a while again, hasn’t it? It has been an…interesting month over here at Casa de Cusser, and to be honest, I haven’t felt like I had much to say (or at least, not much that was suitable for this blog. Or children. Or those with sensitive ears. Despite the nickname, I try not to swear on this blog, and there was a lot of swearing going on.) However, it looks like the worst is over (touch every piece of wood in the house), and things don’t seem so bad, and I do have something to write about: the healing properties of stash-diving in times of trouble.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sock yarn. More precisely, I’ve been thinking about spinning sock yarn: how best to spin it, what fibres to use, how to put it all together into The Perfect Sock Yarn. Continue reading →
It’s December — well into December, as I realized with horror yesterday — and my idiotic resolution to knit ALL the presents has become a resigned determination to knit some of the presents and hope against hope that the mail moves at supersonic speed. In case I should get this idea again, I shall set a reminder for next October to look at this post, in which I now write the following message:
and I was thinking about how useful the embossed leaf motif is. It’s easy: a series of increases at the bottom, some straight rows if you wish, and a series of decreases at the top. It’s adaptable: you can change the appearance, shape, and size by changing the type and placement of your increases and decreases. It’s self-contained: an embossed leaf grows and shrinks independently of the rest of the piece, so that you can keep doing whatever you were doing for the rest of the stitches, and at the end of each leaf you’re back to the same stitch count you had at the beginning. If you prefer your leaf to be flat, rather than raised, you can use corresponding decreases and increases outside the edge of leaf, keeping the overall stitch count constant. Continue reading →
There’s this cardigan. Her name is Dahlia. I loved her as soon as I saw her, but I let practicality stand between us and I filed her away on a wish list entitled Things I Shall Make When I Have Time. My friend Susan and I joked about how, beautiful as she was, we would probably never get around to making her. Susan even started a Never Get It Done-Along for Dahlia, a sort of ongoing online party where we could talk about her loveliness, waffle about yarn choices, and dream of what our versions would look like, without any pressure to actually make her. In my stash was a yarn that I was sure would be perfect: some merino/bamboo/silk heavyish fingering weight by The Plucky Knitter in the delightfully-named colourway Mildred Pierce. I even made a gauge swatch. It was perfect the first time. The yarn was a dream to knit with. I was sunk.
Behold! The swatch of perfect gauge!
As of Saturday night, I could resist no longer. Whistling past the designs-in-progress pile, shielding my eyes from the spectre of a thousand unfinished objects, I cast on for Dahlia. I worked on her as we watched Last Life in the Universe, and well into the night. Sunday at around dawn, when Chicken-Leg Al, Prince Among Cats summoned me to door duty*, I brought Dahlia outside to knit while drinking my morning gallon of tea. As the chilly early morning gave way to a warm, sunny afternoon and then cooled into evening, the central lace motif expanded and unfolded in my hands until it became this:
Somewhere in here I wanted to wax poetic about how Last Life in the Universe was the perfect film to go with Dahlia; how the story reveals itself to you slowly, quietly, occurring mostly between the lines, as the petals of the lace pattern unfurl until much to your surprise, you have created a beautiful, delicate thing. Everything I came up with sounded much too purple, though — too clumsy and obvious and sledgehammery for such a subtle satisfaction — so I won’t. Except that I just did. Ah, well. But really, this is one of those patterns that you look at think, “Oh! How pretty!” Then you work on it and realize just how clever it is: how carefully all the increases and decreases — the type, the placement — were put together to make this intricate design. The way the rest of the garment grows out from the lace panel is equally interesting, and I look forward to that part almost as much. Dahlia is even more clever than she looks, and I’ll be watching for more designs from Heather Zoppetti.
Now it’s Monday, time to get back to more worklike knitting. Come evening, though, I may pull Dahlia out of the basket and work on her some more. Just a couple of rows. Just to finish the next piece.
*Chicken-Leg Al has a new trick to ensure that I do not neglect my duty as dawn doorperson. It’s called ‘Mum’s Lower Abdomen is My Parade Ground.’ It’s marginally less irritating than its predecessor, ‘Metal Blinds are Satan’s Xylophone’, and at least as effective.
I designed Gimble with longish, close-fitting cuffs and a Scandinavian thumb. The cuffs go a few inches up under your coat sleeves because oh, mama, do I hate cold wind and snow on my wrists. I went with a Scandinavian thumb because I find that the thumb gusset — that ‘V’ shape at the base of the thumb that comes out from the mitten — tends to fit better, providing extra room for the ball of your thumb. This shape can be a bit trickier to design for, but it’s worth it.
I'm pretty pleased with the cuff/thumb embellishment.
These mittens are designed to go with Gyre, though in fingering weight rather than DK. I used Quince & Co.’s Tern for this pattern, and wow, do I love this yarn. Definitely wooly, with a nice sproinginess to it, softened by the 25% silk. Plus, the colours have a quiet loveliness to them that really appeals to me. I’ve been doing some swatching, and the corresponding colours of Chickadee would work for Gyre, if you wanted to make a matching set. A thousand thank yous to my doughty testers, Heike and Jerrica.
Coming off the high of last week’s get-it-done-athon, I decided to treat myself. I mean, look how productive I’d been, right? Surely I could do something small. For variety. As a palate-cleanser, if you will, and a reward. “Oh, I know!” thought I, “There’s that 2 oz of delicious cria alpaca waiting to be spun! It’s tiny. It won’t take long. I’ve got two bobbins free…ish. A couple of evenings, tops, and then I’ll get back to finishing ALL the things.”
But surely this is more than 2 oz, you say? Um. I'll get to that.
Yeah.
I was right, up to a point: the alpaca — rose gray cria roving (the first real shearing from a baby alpaca) from North Star Alpacas — did spin up quickly. I’d never spun alpaca before (apart from a sample at spinning lessons) and was a bit nervous that I’d screw it up, but the carded prep was smooth like butter, and made for some of the most effortless spinning I’ve ever done. Even worsted spun, the singles were nicely fuzzy, and the softness…oh, the softness. Plus, Maple had put a lavender sachet in the bag, so I’d get these delightful wafts of lavender as I spun it up. Even Chicken-Leg Al the Wonder Cat was powerless against it: he took about 3 seconds to go from, “Hmmm, what’s this new fluffy thing?” to full-on drooling alpaca faceplant. About halfway into the first ounce, I went back to the site and bought another 4 oz. You can see where this is going.
This is what I love about the internet. The roving came from this adorable animal, who lives down the road from Maple, the woman from whom I bought it. Photo from North Star Alpacas, used with permission.
Around the same time, I realized that we had a 6 hour road trip coming up — 3 hours each way — and none of the projects on the needles would make for good car knitting. They all require charts and/or concentration, which is a recipe for nausea and much ripping out of mistakes. Why not cast on something with my newly made yarn? Something simple; something that didn’t require charts; something I could knit without looking at it too much; something to show off the handspun-ness of the yarn. So I did some swatching and came up with a stitch pattern I liked.
There were a couple of swatches before this, but I wasn't wasting handspun in failed stitch patterns. No, ma'am.
I got about 250 yds/229 m of 2-ply from a generous 2 oz/57g of roving, so I’d end up in the ballpark of 750 yds/687m, which might be enough for a shawl, if I made it narrower than my usual giant wrap. If not, I could always spin some more. Perhaps I should order another 2 oz to be safe. A shawl, yes. That will take rather more than 6 hours and require the spinning of another 4-6 oz of roving.
You know, a little car knitting.
It will take several more trips to Atlanta to finish this sucker.
E. Elliott Knits 