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!

Stewed

Given some uninterrupted knitting time, I do manage to whip WIPs into shape.  Often, they are allowed to sit because I know that when the knitting is finished, I’ll have to confront some other task that is going to hold up the works.  Like clearing off the guest bed to be able to block a shawl.  You get the idea.

Grove mittens

This pair of Grove mittens has been waiting ever so patiently for thumbs since … well, probably since last February.  That’s about the time I finished the first pair and experienced the extreme dye run-off from the otherwise utterly wonderful Sweet Grass 2-ply Targhee. The dye did crock on my fingers while I was knitting with it, so I expected the same thing, to happen when this pair got wet.  I consulted with Dye/Fiber Oracle Shelia January and textile maven Crazy Lanea in advance and thought I knew how to beat this batch.

Simmering, not felting

“Thought” being the operative term.  I started with a simmer.  A nice long simmer in vinegary water to try to set the dye.  There was no apparent loss of color in the just-short-of-boiling water.

Digression:  Yes, this is 100% wool, and yes, it can and will felt (beautifully).  But not if temperature remains constant and agitation is kept at a minimum.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can only wash wool in cold water.  It’s simply not true.

The run-off begins ...

I placed the mittens in same-temp water with Eucalan woolwash to rinse the vinegar – and saw instantaneous, massive color run-off.  Look at the color of the water.  Holy Synthrapol, Batman!  This time, I know what needs to come next.

As blue as the Aegean ...

It’s time for Synthrapol.  A nice still-pretty-darn-warm bubble bath.   If you work with yarns that are hand-dyed, or you like blue or red yarns that are hand-dyed, it’s a good thing to have on hand.  The water turned cobalt.

Let’s rinse them, and try it again.

How much dye ... ?

Somewhere the Yarn Goddess has her head thrown back and is having belly-laughs at my expense.   Come on, already!

This is insane!  How can there still be color left in the mittens???

I won’t torture you with more pictures of the same.  Suffice it to say that on the third wash, I left the mittens to sit a good while, removed them for a rinse, and then gave up.  I will not use 50 gallons of water to rinse a pair of mittens.  That’s just silly.

Look - it's only swimming-pool blue!

Time for one last dip in Eucalan to remove any remaining really-not-good-for-anyone chemicals.

Progress!  At last!

Suffice it to say that if my mittens should turn a snowman’s head blue, I shall live with it.  And if they turn my fingers blue, I’ll manage.  (The inside of my winter jacket is bright blue anyway.  I would even scoff at the Yarn Goddess if I did not know that retribution would be swift, painful and utterly out of proportion.)  The yarn, left by a generous knitter in the Stash Lounge at the KR Retreat in 2010 is wonderfully perfect for New England winter.

I do wonder what the green skein will do, though.

Soldiering on

I will not cast on a new project.

I will not cast on a new project.

I will not cast on a new project.

So goes the battle with start-itis.  The reason I’ve been quiet is that I have exerted extreme discipline.

Lingering WIPs

I will finish these two WIPs before starting something new.  In all fairness, re-knitting the whole Kilkenny Cowl was not in the plan.  But since that happened because of my own inattention idiocy, I have not allowed myself any wiggle room from my resolve.

How ready am I to move on?  Enough to start counting.  When I break out math just for fun, you know I’m getting bored.

Sweet Grass Targhee Grove mitten #2

It goes this way:  Grove mittens (This time for ME!) ~ two thumbs to go (I finished the second mitten body since snapping this the other night.)

Kilkenny Cowl – now shaping up deliciously, I must add, using the appropriate needles and

Quince & Co. Chickadee in Gingerbread

gauge – 18 rounds of pattern and six of ribbing.  It is, indeed, Gingerbread (IRL color is between the 2 photos – camera was not cooperating).  It is spongy and delightful and this time, not too dense.

But geez, am I ever ready to move on!

Geodesic Cardigan - at least the start of it

The miles of stockinette in the Geodesic Cardigan by Connie Chang Chinchio have provided a necessary break from time to time.  A lot more coming on that topic (I fear this could be an epic knit …), but the gist is that any time knitting with Spirit Trail Fiberworks Sunna is good knitting time.   This colorway is Acadia, if you’re wondering.

Of course yarn and pattern for the next project are already waiting on deck for me to finish the mittens and cowl, but I refuse to allow myself to wind the yarn until these WIPs are whipped.

Are we there, yet?

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.