Gardenview

The knitting continues behind the scenes while ~ ahem ~ too many long-completed shawls sit waiting patiently to be blocked.  And prizes yet to be awarded … they’re coming, I promise!

Outside, Mother Nature continues to show she is in charge and nothing is quite as it should be in the garden.  How could it be, when the October snowpocalypse is followed by 80-degree temps in March?  To say the bloom cycles are out of kilter isn’t the half of it.

The President peony in vintage McCoy vase

This double peony has been blooming great guns for two weeks ~ a full month ahead of its schedule ~ while the peony next to it in the bed isn’t near bloom yet.  (Look at last week’s tag sale find with KnittingKittens: a real McCoy!  Literally.  A vintage Floraline pottery vase.   Owl loves it with its geometric “angel fish” pattern.)  I wish you could smell them.  Positively heavenly.

Some of my roses are flush with blooms, too, seemingly a month ahead of where they would normally be.

Sadly, the meteorological mix-up robbed us of my favorite flowers of all ~ lilacs.  There was not one single bloom on the reliable mature shrubs I have, nor anywhere in my neighborhood, nor the big hardy antique natives on my urban office block.  Some combination of the too-early hot temps followed by a few freezes conspired to prevent buds from even forming.   No pretty backdrop for my annual Mother’s Day pictures with Darling Bebe.  This season, Yankee Candles will have to suffice.  At least their “Lilac Blooms” is a pretty good facsimile, if ersatz.

In a cautionary way, it brings to mind a television commercial from childhood.  I can’t remember the product, only a hazy jumble of images:  a woman in a flowing dress with a crown of flowers, the rumble of thunder and the tagline ~ “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”

Indeed.

Brigantia

I felt it coming on.

A full-blown case of yarntoxication, brought about by Brigantia.  Brigantia is the newest Spirit Trail Fiberworks yarn, a blend of 85% Polwarth and 15% silk.  Polwarth is a breed of sheep, but there’s not much of it that gets spun up for knitters.  Those spinners tend to hoard it all for themselves.  Now I know why.

Mountain Ash – almost as big as the bed

My test project was Kate Gagnon Osborn’s Mountain Ash shawl.  It starts with hundreds of yards of garter stitch, which allowed me to really get a feel for Brigantia.  This DK blend does not split and you can knit for hours without looking at your hands.  For its apparent lightness, the silk also gives it warmth ~ something to keep in mind if your personal thermostat runs hot.  (Mine does not.)  I appreciated the lap blanket it became during the damp wet weeks before MDSW.  The hefty 600-yard put-up seemed like the skein-that-would-not-end.  But it did, about six rows before the knitted-on lace border for the large shawl.

I assure you, this lace border eats yardage and you won’t have as much left as you think you will.  I used Addi Turbo US 6 needles for the entire project to see how Brigantia would perform lace tricks without extra-sharp tips.  Beautifully.  Nary a split anywhere.

Brigantia likes lace lots

The Persian Nights colorway, a ringer for Crayola blue-violet, did not bleed at all in a nice sudsy bath.  For blocking, I wanted to maintain the squishy integrity of the garter stitch and still be able to open up the lace edge, so I ran a lifeline through the stitches where the border joined the shawl and pinned that in place before pinning out the lace points.

Colorway: Persian Nights

Brigantia was happy to oblige: it took the blocking wonderfully and held it well, likely because of its silk content.  Unfortunately, my overtaxed brain failed to remind me to photograph the full shawl on display in the STF booth or anywhere else off the pins.  Sigh.  I hate it when that happens.  Suffice it to say that the finished piece has wonderful drape and leaves me thinking that a whole shawl in Brigantia ~ like Juneberry Triangle or Terra or any one of about a zillion others ~ would be just ducky.

The official 411:

Pattern:  Mountain Ash

Yarn:  1.75 skeins Spirit Trail Fiberworks Brigantia

Needle: Addi Turbo US 6

Pattern mods:  None

Project marriage score:  9

It’s a good thing Brigantia is the STF Knitting Club selection this month.  That means there’s more en route to my house.  Because

Stowaways in Spice

there’s already a skein chez Owl earmarked for an Isla Wrap I know will chase off the fall chill nicely.  And there are these other skeins that vaulted into my carry-on before I left for the airport.

Keep an eye out for Brigantia on this page, where it should appear in late May/early June.  You won’t be disappointed.

Booth’s-eye view

Suffice it to say that an unanticipated (but unavoidable) work all-nighter is not the best preparation for an early flight or a weekend stint as Booth Babe at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  I don’t recommend it to anyone.   But getting out of Dodge on an early-morning flight before your employer can request demand that you change your plans is highly recommended, no matter the toll on shut-eye.  So it was that I landed at BWI Friday, a bit bleary-eyed, but delighted to be reunited with some of my favorite  fiber friends far away from my real-life responsibilities.

This time, I had an entirely different view of a mega-festival.  The

Our domain for 2 days

work days begin early.  There is only so much set-up you can do ahead of time owing to the unfortunate reality of security and theft.  Which means that each day you must hang samples and displays all over again.  They matter tremendously in selling yarn and as one who knits them, I can attest that they cost more to replace than stolen skeins.  (See that red cardigan in the middle?  That’s the new Skipperdee Cardi designed for STF Verdande.  The pattern was released Friday and sold out fast.)  The show opens, and the traffic does not stop for nine

See the 3rd shopper being devoured by yarn?

hours in a building where temperatures reach well over 80 degrees and shoppers are crammed inside your tiny booth like so many anchovies in a can.

The upside of all this was the opportunity to meet many members of the Spirit Trail Fiberworks group on ravelry in person, as well as some of you.  I so enjoy talking about how each of the yarns performs and answering questions for other knitters.  Plus we had a brand-new yarn to debut: Brigantia, made of 85% Polwarth and 15% silk.  And I was able to visit, however

Daniella of Signature Needle Arts

briefly, with some fabulous folks, like Daniella from Signature Needle Arts, whose company provides some of the most responsive customer service on the planet.  (Not to mention the Lamborghini of needles that help me do what I do at the speed I like to do it!)

It IS all about the sheep

The downside: having to do it all two days in a row.  Even with rubber padding on the floor, feet and back were not especially amused.  And unlike my pleasure-only forays to Rhinebeck, I never really got a sense of the

WHAT do you make with these and how do you hold ‘em?

whole festival.  A break here and a break there allowed me to see some usual suspects and other unusual sights.  But I lacked perspective as to the size and scope of MDSW.

Yes, there were giggles galore and belly-laughs, too – that’s to be expected when you put seven or eight unique women who all genuinely like each other into a group with a mission to accomplish.  That’s what made it all worthwhile: the chance to spend time together in May ~ the halfway point before the next Knitter’s Review Retreat.

And did I mention that I brought home some yarn?

* Prize winners coming soon.  Stay tuned.

Charmed: Year 3!

How about that?  Three years online and growing.

Most days, I feel like I’m writing for myself, a couple of out-of-state friends, and some former students who don’t have a LYS to take classes with me anymore.  Then I’ll get some revelation that knocks me smack onto my tailfeathers.  Like the new WordPress stat maps that show me readers in Japan and Russia and any number of other places it never occurred to me to think might be swooping by.  (I get really tickled to see Internet searches in Greek.)  I mean, it’s not like there are boundaries on the Internets.  Or the random days where for no particular reason, several hundred people will drop by.  I didn’t put a pie on the windowsill to cool or anything.  But you come anyhow.

It’s all pretty nifty.

Especially the part where I tell you that I’m pretty sure that my family still doesn’t know I’m doing this.  Or if they do, they’re not telling.  And that’s okay, too.

I get the biggest kick out of seeing what you come here to find.  Most often it’s the reviews of how different new yarns perform.  If my experiences can help you decide whether one is right for you, so much the better.

Sadly, I won’t have spent the almost-blogiversary Saturday at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival ~ celebrating its year 103 in 2012.  My evil employers captors have seen fit to incarcerate me at a mega-management program for the weekend.  So have a slice of cake and some ice cream for me, won’t you?

My revenge reward ~ will be to run away next week to an event I’ve never attended:  the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, MDSW for short.  Bless Mr. Owl for telling me to buy the ticket and go.  Bless Jen and Co. for welcoming me to the Booth Babes sisterhood.  I promise to tell you all about it. You never know what will make it home in the suitcase that Southwest lets me check for free.  (Kiss kiss to Southwest.)

Of course, it wouldn’t be a blogiversary if I didn’t celebrate with a contest and prizes.  Put on your imaginary party hat and think back to what first brought you here.  Tell me about it in the comments below.  Or hold up your glass of bubbly and tell me something else.  Lurkers: This is your cue to come on out!  Contest closes Sunday, May 6 at 11:59 p.m.  Winners to be drawn the old-fashioned way.  Cheers!

Revelation

It must be the yarn.

Because if you’ve been here for any length of time you know that I would pretty much rather drive pins into my eyes than knit colorwork.

So I’m kind of at a loss to explain this:

Could it be: colorwork?

Not that it happened, mind you.

It’s just that ~ well ~ I’m getting all shaky just thinking about committing this to text ~ I think I actually kind of

 

enjoyed

this.

(Giving credit where it is due, I did require a save from Yorkiegirl along the way.)

Toadstool + Seagrass

Maybe it was the much finer gauge of Spirit Trail Fiberworks Birte.  Maybe it was the small nature of the accessories.

Would you believe I am actually considering making these?

Incessant

There has to be a word for it.  The phenomenon of having a song stuck in your head that replays incessantly and won’t be chased away.

… For purple mountains’ majesty / Above the fruited plain …

As I knit football field after football field of garter stitch of this

Brigantia in Persian Nights

brand-spankin’-new Spirit Trail Fiberworks yarn, Brigantia, in the colorway Persian Nights, I can’t get this line sung by elementary-school voices out of my addled head.

It is the perfect recreation of Crayola blue-violet of my childhood.  I always loved that color.  There’s a lot of it in my garden.

23 (growing) rows of garter to go before applying the lace border.

Maybe then the song will stop.

Please, let the song stop.

I don’t want the knitting to stop, mind you.  In fact, I feel a love affair coming on.  A rather torrid affair with this Polwarth-silk blend, truth be told.   It’s so new you can’t buy it on the website yet, but if you’re coming to Maryland Sheep and Wool, you can find Brigantia ~ even this particular piece in Brigantia ~ there.

Maybe I just need more of it in a different colorway to get the damn song out of my head!

Yeah, that’s the ticket.  Stashing for sanity.

Geada

As I took my skeins of the new Spirit Trail Fiberworks Verdande out to wind, I could hear Carly Simon warbling in my head, “Anticipation … anticipa-a-ation, it’s makin’ me wait.”  I had waited a good long while to put this new yarn through its paces.

 

Spirit Trail Fiberworks Verdande

Verdande did not disappoint.  The worsted-weight big sister of Birte, Sunna and Nona, Verdande is pleasantly plump.  The twist makes the yarn well-rounded and Verdande doesn’t think about splitting ~ not even for a nanosecond.  For my test, I used plain old slick-finish original Addi Turbo needles.   The pattern is Susanna IC’s Geada from Twist Collective.  I liked it for a test knit because it

Colorway - Tuareg Blue

incorporated cables into the lace, allowing me to do different things within the same project.  As is my habit, I do not use a cable needle, increasing the occasion for splits in the yarn, if a yarn is so inclined.

Verdande knitted up like the wind,

Geada blocked

wicked fast.  The entire project used two skeins plus 40 grams of a third skein, leaving plenty of yarn for a set of mitts or a hat or whatever other accessory you might like.  Like all of Susanna’s patterns, it was written without so much as a comma out of place.  The I-cord bind-off will prevent any rolling of the neckline in the finished piece, and it provides a tidy edge that makes my obsessive heart go pitty-pat.

Even in harsh noontime sun, it's BLUE

I confess that I do have a tendency to block lace a little ~ ahem ~ aggressively.  This is why I appreciated Susanna’s schematic of the finished dimensions, which allowed me to block this shawl to the precise desired measurements without over-blocking it into some enormous flapping pterodactyl thing.

Yarn:  520 yards Spirit Trail Fiberworks Verdande, colorway Tuareg Blue

Pattern:  Geada

Modifications:  Zilch

Blocked measurements:  11 in at side edges, 17 in at center point

Project marriage score:  9.5

Utterly gratuitous backlit shot

I loved knitting with Verdande.  I would next want to use it in a less lacy shawl – something like Terra, Ashby or Barbara W, perhaps, to take advantage of its lovely drape and warmth that come from its cashmere and silk.  On the other hands – plural – some nice mitts would be cozy, too.  Or a cowl.  Or … you get the idea.  Good thing I have my own skeins in the stash to play with soon.

Gauge play

One of the things I enjoy about sample knitting is the opportunity to get to know new yarns and how they like to be treated without a personal investment in the yarn or in the project.  I don’t have to love it when I’m done, or feel at all guilty about not loving it.  What makes knitting for Spirit Trail Fiberworks unique is that Jennifer rarely uses the same bases as other independent dyers.  She has her own yarns spun ~ and that means F-U-N.

Spirit Trail Fiberworks Holda, Fortune's Red

Holda is unique.  It pairs lambswool with cashmere and dehaired angora.  You wouldn’t really know that on the skein ~ it’s somewhat limp and there’s little to indicate the presence of bunny.

“Project marriage” matters tremendously

Dripstones Cowl

when you’re producing finished samples to show knitters how a new yarn performs.  I enjoy working with Jen to pick out the right patterns to show off a yarn’s qualities.

That’s what attracted me to Dripstones Cowl.  I’ve previously written about my preference for cowls to have some shape ~ to be wider at the bottom and narrower at the top ~ and how I achieve this using different needles sizes.  Here is a designer who produced a pattern incorporating this concept.  But Justyna Lorkowska took it one

Each section knitted with a smaller needle

step farther for my sample purposes: this project is knitted on four progressively smaller needle sizes, so it allows a knitter to see a yarn at four distinct densities.  It also allowed me to see how Holda liked cable gymnastics and whether it would split.

But first, there was some math involved.

Holda is labeled worsted, but my swatching tells me it is lighter ~ I would definitely call it DK.

The pattern is written for a stockinette gauge of 3.75 st/inch with an aran or worsted yarn. For the Small cowl, the cast-on is 108 stitches.  Divide 108 by 3.75 and you get a bottom cowl circumference of 28.8 inches.

Holda had a nice density at 5 st/inch.  Divide the same 108 stitch cast-on by 5 and the bottom circumference would be 21.6 inches.  Each pattern repeat at this gauge is 3.6 inches wide.  So in order to have a finished cowl at the same size as the Small, I used the Medium cast-on ~ 144 stitches.

Needle sizes:  With lighter yarn, I adjusted the needle size accordingly and used US 8, 7, 6 and 5.  I used a mix of Signature stiletto tips and Addi Lace.

Stalactites and stalagmites

Yarn performance:  Judging Holda on the skein, I was afraid it was going to split a lot, especially doing a lot of cable work without a cable needle.  I was delighted to find that it did not.  Instances of a ply not joining with its mates were few and far between, making this a most pleasant knitting experience.   Holda did soften somewhat while knitting, but not tremendously.  The more significant transformation came after its bath.

Unblocked dimensions (flat):  top – 7.75 inches; bottom – 10″; height – 11 inches

Blocking:  A soak in Eucalan relaxed the fibers slightly but really turned the plies into a cohesive fabric with a slight halo from the angora.  Even with color saturation this deep (Colorway: Fortune’s Red, a very orange-red), the water was the color of weak tea after soaking.

As is my habit, I blocked this around an inverted vase to avoid creasing.

Blocked dimensions (flat):  top – 9 inches; bottom – 12.5 inches; height – 11 inches (unchanged)

Size Small using Medium instructions

Modifications:  I knitted the entire cowl as written for the Medium instructions.  If I were making this for myself, I would have followed the directions for the Small and omitted eight rows at the bottom and top of the chart to achieve a shorter cowl for my (and my model’s) less-than-swanlike neck.

Project marriage score:  9   Even with the extra math, this pattern worked nicely for this yarn.  I will make one for myself, or something like it.

Holda’s been a bit tricky to get aHolda’ since Anne Hanson of Knitspot featured it in two recent patterns, Tabata and Fartlek.  It has generous 295-yard hanks, allowing for a full one-skein project from a single skein.  For those who appreciate angora but find fluff up the nose and in the eyes too much to bear, this yarn’s for you.

If anything, Holda looks deceptively ordinary on the skein.  If you have been able to obtain one, do yourself a favor and put it on the needles.  Once you see what Holda can do, you will likely be charmed.  A Holda cowl is a lightweight portable hug.   A pair of fingerless mitts would be a toasty treat.   Maybe that’s what’s next for me ~ after all the sample knitting’s done, of course.

Goldilocks

The Morton Salt girl and I have a lot in common of late.  To wit, it pours.  I speak not of the weather.

But maybe ~ just maybe ~ the owl-hours spent typing, night after night, may be over for a bit.

And maybe the Yarn Goddess will stop laughing at my occasional attempts to knit for respite.

Too small for any but a 'tween

Case in point: This pretty little mitt. Little being the operative word.  See the needle shaft next to it?  That’s 5 inches long.   This mitt would fit a ten-year-old beautifully.  An adult, not so much.

How did this happen?  It went this way:  “The original pattern was knitted on a Size 9; the mitts call for a Size 8.  I knitted the lace of the original on a US 7, ergo my mitts should be on a Size 6.”  Right.  I might have spotted the fatal reality of this logic if these mitts were knitted from the cuff up.

But, noooooooooo.

Knitting Time Lost.  Dammit.

Okay – I cranked this out in about a day and half.  So let’s try it again on a US 8.

Nutmeg Owl knits about 7 rows.

It’s TOO LOOSE.

Shades of Goldilocks already…

The mitt has now been cast on using a US 7.  This will be just right – or else.

The only saving grace:  at least this once I didn’t decide to knit the pair 2-at-a-time.

Trailblazing

Yes, yes, mes copains, it has been far too long.  Life and work get in the way.

There has been plenty of knitting though, in odd moments, many of them during the owl-hours I’ve been seeing far too oft of late.

None of it is quite ready for prime time yet.  Which is to say, it ain’t blocked.  Quelle surprise!?

NOT!

So today, you get a little tease with some of the newest Spirit Trail Fiberworks yarns.  Those in the 2012 Knitting Club will this month

Holda in Fortune's Red

receive a skein of Holda.  I agree with Jennifer – in the skein, it’s not much to write home about.  It has about as much life as wet tissue.  That’s the really fun part of sample knitting: getting to put a new yarn through its paces to see what it can do.  I’m happy to report that while my knitters’ antennae were twitching, “Splitty!” a pair of stiletto-tipped Signature circs allowed me to cable and cable and cable some more ~ all without a cable needle ~ and without losing strands.  Holda performed beautifully.  And it has bunny in it.  I am a sucker for lambswool ~ let alone the bunny.  I’ll tell you all about the pattern when we have some real FO photos.

Lyra in colorway Bacchus

Then there is a dear friend, Lyra.  My smooshy pal, in colorway Bacchus.  This sweet little hat knitted up in a matter of a few days, limited only by my available time.  Flawless pattern that should look a little familiar to Lyra devotees.  It will be blocked for a bit of le slouch.  And an accompanying accessory to follow.

Verdande in Tuareg Blue

But the piece-de-resistance is Verdande.  V. is the plump and well-rounded big sister to Birte, Sunna and Nona.  And is she ever a joy to knit with!  This incredibly deep colorway is one of Jennifer’s new ones: Tuareg Blue.  This Susanna IC shawl, with all of its cables and

Scrumptious - and worsted weight

lace, was knitted on dull-tipped original Addi Turbos.  (The color is more accurate in the upper photo.) Verdande never split – or even thought about splitting.  I can tell, even unblocked, this is going to have fabulous drape.  It flew off the needles with little interference from me.  There will have to be more ~ miles more ~ of Verdande in my future.

That’s your sneak peek for now.  More coming soon as the blocking is done.