Cozy Rosy

It’s been awhile since I wrote about Rosebud.  It’s taken that long for me to be in a location where I actually had a model to photograph wearing this Jared Flood design from the BrooklynTweed Fall 2011 book, probably the single best collection of knitting patterns I’ve seen in a decade.

A relaxed Rosebud

A good bath in warm water made all the difference in the world ~ and helped this hat relax significantly.  It also made the angora in the Blackstone Tweed bloom into a nice soft little halo.

I like to block three-dimensional objects in three dimensions, so rather than drying it flat and

Top of the Rosebud

rotating it periodically to try to avoid creases, I stuck a couple of crushed plastic grocery bags in the top and placed the hat over my favorite inverted blocking vase.  No creases to worry about, and the hat lengthened about three inches, too.   I made the larger “slouch”  version on purpose.  (My original, made for charity, was the one-skein non-slouch and would not stay on my head when tried on.)  The second photo is the more accurate color.

Yes, to those who have asked, this is garter stitch knitted in the round, so it’s not for you if you (for reasons I fail to understand) dislike purling.

I’ve road-tested Rosebud in windchills below 10 and out sledding.  It stays on my head, keeps my hair dry and my ears warm.

That’s a winner in every sense.

Timely

Just in time for a sudden drop in temperature to what winter is supposed to feel like in these parts, here’s some Friday eye candy.

My Targhee Groves

Pattern:  Grove by Jared Flood / BrooklynTweed

Yarn: Sweet Grass Wool 2-ply Targhee, colorway Brilliant Blue.  Or what’s left of it.  Which is still mighty blue.  Again, a heartfelt thank-you to the knitter who left this in the 2010 Stash Lounge at the Knitter’s Review Retreat!

I thoroughly enjoyed this pattern, other than needing to blow it up about 200% to make it readable.  The only reason these sat forlornly waiting for thumbs was my foreknowledge that I’d have to deal with massive color bleed in finishing.  It was reasoned procrastination.

Project marriage score:  10

Matching up pattern and yarn doesn’t get better than this.   Boy, are my hands glad today!

Ciao 2011!

Putting up a new calendar will be something I truly relish.  2011 brought one significant and wonderful change to my household, but also some major life difficulties.  We made it through.  I mostly made it because of the friends who held me up when I didn’t think I could tread water anymore.  I am endlessly grateful.

With all of that unwanted drama, my knitting output declined significantly.  (So did my yarn purchasing.  I know you don’ t believe that, but it’s true.)  Still, I’m really proud of some of the things I did this year.  A complex

There's my sweater! I knitted that!

sweater executed on tight deadline in 2010 is featured in Craft Activism.   I’ve never had my knitting published before.  Even better: Some very kind designers have seen my interpretations of their patterns online and took the time to say some terribly nice things.  That amazes me.  Good fodder for bad days.  Or for when I look at the numbers and feel like I may have underachieved compared to last year.  But each year is different from its predecessors.

Yarn used in 2011: 7619 yards = 1.4 miles

Finished objects:  17  ~ 2 hats, 2 sweaters, 2 cowls, 2 pair of mittens, 1 Christmas stocking and 8 shawls

One-skein projects: 10

Fibers first used this year: Romney and Finn   The former is pretty common in this neck of the woods, and I enjoyed getting to know it on the needles.  The Finn I used was actually a Finn/angora blend.  While I liked it, for purposes of the monthly Knitter’s Book of Wool wool-along, I learned that I prefer to use the straight stuff so as to have a real feel for the actual wool without the additional fiber that changes its characteristics.

WIPs /UFOs remaining: 14  shudder  Okay, to be fair: two of these are waiting to be blocked, a third needs some pictures taken, and a pair of mittens needs thumbs and a good simmer in vinegar to set the dye.   I have two (ancient) sweaters with identical yarn shortage issue that arose on the sleeves.  These need to have sleeves knitted in from the top down so they are of equal length.  I can do this – it will just take a little time.  And I will pick up another skill.  That will cut into the number.  I did frog a project, too.  That felt REALLY good.  I highly recommend it.

Designers I enjoyed:  Sivia Harding, SusannaIC, Gudrun Johnston, Ysolda Teague, Jared Flood

Favorite yarns I worked with this year:  Spirit Trail Fiberworks Nona, Sunna, Holda, Birte, Verdande.   Berocco Blackstone Tweed.  BrooklynTweed Loft ~ which I haven’t gotten on the needles yet, but know I will enjoy.  Interestingly, without a LYS to call my own, my yarn acquisition was almost exclusively a yarn club, travel/souvenir purchases and yarn/fiber festivals.

Priorities I had for the year:

• Geodesic Cardigan – stalled temporarily
• Grove mittens – check!
• Holland cowl – check!
• Woodruff mittens – More Jared Flood mittens coming soon in Shelter when I can decide on a colorway.  Yeah, I’m ummm, deciding on a colorway.  Because somehow there are more colorways at my house than there used to be.  (See favorite yarns above.)
• Bristol’s Cowl – I’ll get there.  Really.  If nothing else, because more people have read my posts about Quince & Co. Chickadee than anything I’ve ever written here.  I can only imagine what happens when I write about Puffin.

Priority from 2010, finally achieved: I knitted a sweater for myself.  And I love it.  Still need some pictures and I’ll show you here soon, but it is done.  All it took was a major power outage and hours of knitting by candlelight.

Other things I’d like to do in 2012:

• Play with beads:  I’ve started to mess with them in my lace.  They are fun.  Doubtless, they slow me down some, but a little can go a long way in making a piece into a show-stopper.
• To frog or to finish:  Attack some of those very old WIPs.  We’ll see how that goes.  I have turned from owl to magpie when it comes to shiny new objects (read patterns/yarns) and my attention span may be devastated.

If I seem uninterested in goal-setting, it’s because I sometimes have to remind myself this really is my Zen thing.  My knitting is my own journey and I find it far more interesting to let it lead me wherever it wants to go, than to stick to a prescribed path on the map.  Because at the end of the year, I think it’s kind of fun to look at what I wrote and where I went instead.  It’s all about the trip.

Salut 2012!

Remembrance

Grove mittens, gifted

Now that these Grove mittens in Sweet Grass Wool Targhee are completed, it’s time to give them away.  Lest you think I’m nicer than I am (to gift away something I adore), let me set the record straight:  I have another skein to make a pair for myself.  And the story behind them will help explain how I happily gift them to my office-mate, J.

Her mother died several years ago, long before I knew J. and came to share office space.  J’s mother was quite a knitter ~ the kind who always had something going. Nothing fancy, just functional things that said, “I love you.”  In fact, she was knitting the day she died.  Growing up in J’s house, there was a basket brimming with hand-knitted mittens for anyone to use anytime they headed out the door.  It’s something J has talked about among the ways she misses her mom still.

Plain vanilla mittens

A couple of years ago, I gifted J. with a “Will knit for you” coupon for Christmas.  She told me about her mom and the mittens.  So we headed to my (now so-sadly defunct) cozy LYS on a snowy day and chose the yarn to make her some mittens.  Just plain mittens with long cuffs was what she asked for; plain vanilla mittens were what I made in the alpaca sock yarn she chose.

Fresh snow to test-drive these!

Once I had my grubby little mitts on the Sweet Grass Targhee in the Stash Lounge at the KR Retreat, I knew it just had to be mittens – and exactly which pattern.   And exactly where these mittens  belong: in a basket at J’s house, where they will hopefully be joined by other mittens as time marches.  A remembrance for a knitter I never met, but whose daughter is a dear and important friend.

Note:  Update on blocking this yarn.  I experienced significant bleed while soaking these ~ the water was cobalt blue through several soaks and rinses.  I had noticed some slight transfer onto my fingers on my throwing hand while knitting them.  If you are planning to use this yarn, you might want to be aware of this factor.  It’s not a reason to deprive yourself of the nicest. mittens. ever.

Meant to be

Yarn destiny?

Perfect project marriage?

M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-ittens.

Grove mittens by Jared Flood

These are what mittens are supposed to be.  Cushy and warm and a hug for the hands.  It’s the  product of a perfect match of pattern and yarn.  Needles, too.  (More on that in a sec.)

Often over the past year, I have been a lurker during months of the Knitter’s Book of Wool wool-along.  Sometimes it’s been too complicated to source the breed-specific yarn, or things were just too nutso to add another project on anything like a deadline.  Kind of defeats the purpose of knitting for sanity.  So I skipped Targhee back in April.

2-ply mulespun Targhee

But lo and behold, the Stash Lounge at the Knitter’s Review Retreat held three skeins of Montana-grown mule-spun Sweet Grass Wool.  The two-ply is definitely what Clara Parkes describes as having “a dense, doughy quality.”  In a mitten, that’s exactly what you want, especially in New England.

Grove mittens by Jared Flood were originally written for a light-worsted yarn.  Some knitters complained that their results were

A fine fit on long fingers

too small for the average female hand.  I’ve been fascinated by the pattern since I first saw them, and decided that the heavy worsted/aran of the targhee on an appropriate needle might fit the bill.  I have long fingers, so I imagined I might have to adjust near the top.  What looks like a lot of cabling is actually twisted stitches, other than on the cuff, where you can easily learn how to make the traveling rib without a cable needle.

It’s been a long time since I have rated a pattern anything other than “easy.”  I would not call these easy, but they’re not difficult, either.  I think a Knitty classification between “tangy” and “piquant” works.  Not surprisingly, I worked these one at a time.

No pattern modifications whatsoever.  The first one fits perfectly, even without a soak.  I was too excited to wait to post the pair.  As in, giggling with exuberance.

Oh. my. goodness.

En route to a pair

I also worked them one one of the three new sets of Signature Needle Arts circular needles I received for Christmas – Size 6, stiletto tip, to be precise.  (And these needles are ALL about precision, let me tell you.)  They are slick; they are sharp; they are indeed the Porsche of needles for me.  (I can only hope that a birthday will result in the upcoming size 3 and 4 needles, sizes I use constantly.)

As soon as these gift mittens are done, I’ll be casting on another pair for me.

I would dearly love to know which kind knitter donated this yarn so I could send her/him a big soft squeeze.  Preferably while wearing these.

Bring on the blizzard!

SHELTERed

I have always had an instinctive dislike for the “acquirers” out there.  You know, the people who go to an event like Rhinebeck with a wheeled suitcase, sharp elbows flying, complete disregard for the people around them in their mad dash to get their hands on X.

That’s not to say that there aren’t yarns out there that I have, and continue to covet.  But the F5-F5-F5 insanity involved in obtaining a special yarn is just not for me, and I get claustrophobic and really, really nasty in a real-life crowd of that ilk.

SHELTER - Button Jar

Thus, my complete surprise and wonder to have ferreted out SHELTER, the new yarn from Jared Flood/Brooklyn Tweed on the day of its release.  It was pure accident.

Pure, wonderful, serendipitous accident.

If you’ve been reading along with me, you know I’m part of a posse who have spent the year exploring the wonders of wool described in the Knitter’s Book of Wool.  Not just “wool,” but breed-specific wool.  If you’re not playing along at home, compare it to chocolate.  All chocolate is not alike.  If you prefer Vosges Red Fire to a Hershey’s Kiss, you get my drift.  Sometimes a Kiss will do.  But once you’ve had Red Fire …

Whoops. Digression over.

SHELTER is a blend of Columbia and Targhee, grown in America and spun in America.  Clara’s piece in Knitter’s Review today gives you the 4-1-1.

SHELTER - Thistle

My SHELTER arrived yesterday.  It is both spongy and doughy in the nicest sort of way.  It has substance and loft.  Looking at it up close, the blend of colors is genius.  Even its name says something to me ~ not surprising in the BrooklynTweed ethic.

As an unabashed wool-sniffer, I am with my cult leader in finding the scent of it a little out-of-kilter.  It’s certainly pleasant, but not the whiff of sheep that I expect and enjoy from my wool.  But that nitpicking aside, SHELTER is something really special.

The Button Jar will become a pair of Woodruff Mittens and probably a cowl, too.  Thistle, which is deeper and richer IRL, is a merry color.  It will become the Terra shawl.  It’s going to be a few days before I can cake it and cast on.

But I’m sooooooooooooooo glad I got there in time to put some in my own hands.  Just this once.  And I neither threw an elbow nor hit that refresh key, either.