Vermeer Colorways, and let's go for a spin...

This week I found my inspiration in Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring painting.
The yellows and blues were a true inspiration as well as the rich browns.



I am also really excited because for the first time this week I am offering rovings in the Vermeer colorways. I cannot wait to see the beautiful yarns you will spin with them.



Enjoy the Vermeer Collection!

Fingerless Mitts

Here are two quick FOs for you.

I knit the Alamosa Mitts in Elann's Peruvian Highland Sport in Christmas colors.




Here are the Backyard Bamboo Mitts (without the bamboo!) knit in Knitpicks' Palette. I used white, a solid blue, and three heathers and size 0 (US) dpns.



I started another pair of Zilboorg mittens and am working on a plain (non-stranded) scarf. That along with the first Whistler sleeve and the stranded alpaca fingerless gloves make too many projects for my comfort. I better hurry up and finish some more projects!

Lately I've been thinking a lot about structuring my days so I can have more time to knit. So many other less-important things get in the way of doing what I really want to do. About a week ago I stopped helping people with knitting technique questions on Ravelry and I have easily an extra hour to knit each day, maybe more. Now I have to figure out a way to charm DH into doing more of the cooking.

I finally finished adding my old mitten projects to Ravelry.

These are thrummed mittens knit in Lamb's Pride - I made these for DH specifically for shoveling snow and they are at least 7 or 8 years old.




Strangely enough the exterior of the mittens have felted over the years but the interior thrums have not felted as much. I used some non-superwash merino roving for the thrums.



These fingerless mitts were knit from my very first handspun yarn. It was the same merino roving and I used my fimo clay drop spindle. They're pilling a lot but I still keep them in my knitting basket for cold nights.

A New SockPixie Group on Ravelry

There is a new SockPixie Group on Ravelry. It is called SockPixie Circle .

This will be a great place for us to meet and talk, see eachothers' projects, and discuss SockPixie patterns. Maybe we could add a little knit along too!

I hope you will join the group. See you in the circle!

Inspiration of the Week

It is time for my weekly update. The SockPixie colorways are ready and up on the site.

This week my inspiration came from one of my favorite paintings by Hopper. The colors are among my favorites: teals, greens, oranges, and ochres...



For this week, I decided to dye "almost" solids, using a salt resist to create subtle monochromatric shadings. The results are glorious, the colors seem to be illuminated from within.



This week is also special because I created special little project pouches that coordinate with the yarns. From now until Christmas, for every 3 skeins you order, your will receive a project pouch in a coordinating color!
These little pouches are lined with the softest satin fabrics and are just perfect for a center pull ball, and a sock or lace in progress. They are so cute... I will let the pictures speak for themselves...



When opened they are almost flower like!



Enjoy!

Durango, Colorado

Can you believe it is almost Thanksgiving? Today is the first day it has even been cold here and I just started a nice big fire in the wood stove.

Here are some photos of Durango, CO from our visit last month.

We arrived to a band and lots of festive folks for Oktoberfest.



There were the usual arts and crafts kind of booths.



The weather was gorgeous and the trees were turning.







Here's DH (left) and our friend Brad in front of Olde Tymers where we had lunch. Unfortunately they were out of their delicious raspberry beer.

I'm going through most of my really old knitting photos to make sure they've all been posted on Ravelry even though the photos are not so great. I started with my mittens and next it will be hats. I learned my lesson when my computer died last month and I'm trying to do a good job of saving my photos. A kind friend grabbed all my photos off my hard disk for me and he is now teasing me for having 20,000 photos of nothing but bunnies and gloves.

Here's the very beginning of the Whistler sweater. DH vetoed my idea of using a different pattern for the sleeve edgings. I can't remember the last time I knit a sweater (it has been around 10 years I think) so I'm not sure how long it will take me. The solid color stockinette stitch parts will definitely slow me down - I get bored when doing solid color knitting so it takes a lot longer. I predict I'll finish the sweater in January. I need to go order more yarn though.




One of our strategies for saving money on groceries is to shop more often at ethnic markets. Here's our latest haul from the wonderful Ta Lin international market. I was happy to find fresh pea shoots and fresh maitake mushrooms and they had great prices on white and green tea. We make massive quantities of won tons using a great tofu/spinach filling recipe from the Moosewood soup cookbook and freeze them for quick meals with vegetable broth and a bag of Trader Joe's stir-fry vegetables.

Field of Flowers Wristwarmers

I'm working on another box of knitted items for one of our city homeless shelters. The Albuquerque Rescue Mission gives out over 20,000 items of clothing each year to the homeless and poor. I already have about 10 handknitted items I can donate and I hope to double that before Christmas. I also thought this would be a good project to play around with the colors of Peruvian Highland Sport I bought that won't be used for the Whistler sweater.

Here is a new color combo for the Fields of Flowers Wristwarmers from the Wild About Color Knitting booklet. The Peruvian Highland Sport colors I used in order of appearance are: Black, Palm, Thyme, Plum Wine, Light Gray Heather, and Mesa Teal.




I also did some quickie kid's mittens in some mystery worsted weight wool.

Andy Warhol Colorways

The days have been grey and short out here. I needed color, so here we go. Andy Warhol's Marilyn Collection gave me plenty to play with for this week's SockPixie Colorways. Enjoy...

Dale of Norway Lake Louise Hat

I've finally come up with a color combo I like for the Dale of Norway Whistler sweater. Here are the colors shown on a practice hat. I used the directions for the Lake Louise hat in the new Dale Commemorative Collection booklet. Unfortunately they omitted the color chart for the hat in the booklet so I cobbled this one together using the charts for the Lake Louise headband and sweater.



I think I will get started on the sweater ASAP with the yarn I have left over while I'm waiting for the rest to arrive. I am grateful to finally get started on the darn thing because for some reason this time I really overthought the color combination.

Here's a free pattern you can knit up in a few hours.

ANKARA HEADBAND

This colorful single layer headband is a very quick knit and a terrific way to practice knitting with 2 colors without investing a lot of time and money. You only need small amounts of 3 colors of yarn for this project so it is a great stash buster.

MATERIALS: Less than one skein of 3 colors of worsted weight wool yarn

The purple and teal headband is knit in Cascade 220 yarn. (Color A is# 9420 a very dark teal, Color B is a medium reddish purple #8909, and Color C is a lighter teal #9421)

The red and blue headband is knit in Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes. (Color A is Blue Bonnet #23440, Color B is Mink Heather #24279, and Color C is Black Cherry Heather 23895) The Wool of the Andes Blue Bonnet color I used is unfortunately discontinued. Winter Night #23422 would be a good substitute.

NEEDLES: Size 8 (US)/5.0mm 16"/41 cm circular needle or size needed to get gauge.

GAUGE: To save time, take time to check gauge. Over Colorwork Chart, 16 sts to 4"/10cm.

FINISHED SIZE: Women's Large, width 20"/51 cm unstretched, length 4"/10cm Try changing the size of this headband to make it for a man or a child by going up or down a needle size.

NOTE: The purple and teal headband features a K1, P1 corrugated ribbing. I've included directions for that in parentheses. Two-color/corrugated ribbing has a tendency to curl so a twisted cast on is a good choice to alleviate that problem. I have photos and a video of how I do a twisted cast on - see the right hand sidebar of my blog for links.

With Color A, loosely cast on 90 stitches. Join, being careful not to twist. Work 2 rows of K1, P1 ribbing. (Corrugated Rib Version - Rows 1 and 2: *P1 with Color A, K1 with Color B; repeat from * across row. )

Work the 15 rows of the Colorwork Chart below. Stranded color knitting charts in the round are worked right to left, from bottom to top.

If you're new to stranded color knitting, remember that almost all colorwork needs blocking to look its best so don't worry if your tension isn't absolutely perfect. If you're unsure how to hold the yarns, check the right hand sidebar for photo tutorials of four different ways you can hold two yarns without tangling the yarns.

With Color A, K 1 row even. Work 2 rows of K1, P1 ribbing. Bind off loosely. (Corrugated Rib Version-Row 1: *K1 Color A, P1 Color B; repeat from * across row. Row 2: *P1 Color A, K1 Color B, repeat from * across row. Repeat Row 2. Bind off loosely with Color A.)

FINISHING: Weave in all ends. (See the links to the right for more information on using reverse duplicate stitch to weave in ends.) Block headband by immersing it in lukewarm water then laying it flat on a towel to dry.

Copyright 2008 by Nanette Blanchard. All rights reserved.

The Pdf Link for the Pixie Warmers is Fixed

Thank you to all of you who emailed me to let me know that the link was not working. It is working now. See last night I did what you should never do when you are tired. I tested the link, and everything worked, and then I saw a little thing I could change in the post, and instead of leaving this very minor thing till later, I "fixed"it. In the process... well you kow the rest!

Enjoy the gloves, and the pattern!

Pixie Warmers FREE Pattern

This is a perfect night. The new fingerless gloves, the Pixie Warmers, are finished and I love them! The pictures are done. The pattern is typed , the soundtrack from Vicky Cristina Barcelona is playing in the background...

I had intended the Pixie Warmers to be a Christmas present for Miss. A., but as always, I let them be claimed by the recipient ahead of schedule!
Her verdict: she loves them. Isn't that the best feeling on earth when the person you knit for loves what you made?


The gloves as I said in an earlier post were the result of an obsession with EZ and her work. They are loosely based on the February Baby Sweater, in that they combine
gull lace and garter stitch. I like the simplicity of the garter, and how it really sets off the lace. I inserted only one 7 stitch repeat of the lace, thus letting it make its full impact.

For this project, I picked one of my own SockPixie hand-dyeds,a sport weight merino in a solid colorway. I like that the coloway is a soft plum color, and does not overpower the stitches. The slight natural variation in the dyeing only adds dimension to the gloves.

I gave a lot of thought to the construction of the gloves. I wanted the garter and lace to appear understated. I did not want any heavy borders. This is why the gloves start and end with the actual gull lace and garter, and are only delicately finished by a discrete picot edging. The underside of the hands is all garter.


For the first time I created a pdf file for the pattern instead of posting the pattern directly into the body of my post. I think it really adds to the clarity of the pattern. As always, the pattern is free. Click on the thumbnail below to download the pdf file.

I hope you will enjoy the pattern. Feel free to send comments if you have questions or to give me your feedback. I will do my best to answer your questions. Enjoy your Pixie Warmers!

Norman Rockwell Colorways

This week I found my inspirations if the works of Norman Rockwell. The Christmas spirirt is already there. I was listening to the radio as I was dyeing the yarn, and they were playing Christmas songs!
I hope you enjoy this week's SockPixie Norman Rockwell Colorways. AS a little preview here is Christmas Rush!

Apparently inside out colorwork is becoming popular. I received the November
Free People catalog yesterday and I immediately had to get scans of the following designs.

This lovely hat uses inside out stripes along with a right side out Nordic inspired snowflake.




This sweater appears to include the same motif both right side out and inside out in different locations.



Another one of the cute hats along with a sweater that has inside out corrugated ribbing and inside out stranded colorwork at the sleeve cuffs.



This purse also includes inside out and right side out colorwork in multiple directions.

So far I've knit six Dale of Norway sweaters and my favorite, by far, is the SLC Olympic ski sweater knit in Heilo from a kit I bought at Allegro Yarns. In fact it was my favorite knitting project of all time. It only has four colors (navy, red, green, and natural) but it still manages to be very striking.

After looking at these photos again I may just reduce the number of colors I'm going to use for Whistler.

Here are the yarn colors of Elann's Peruvian Highland sport wool DH chose for Whistler. The bottom right is the main color, Tapestry Blue, and the yoke will be done in natural and navy blue shown on the bottom left. I used black instead of navy blue in the Whistler hat so this color combo will be a bit softer. The back four colors are the contrast colors which will only be on the cuffs, bottom hem, top of sleeves, shoulder, and collar. The butterscotch color is much nicer in person than it looks on my monitor screen at the Elann site. The other contrast colors are a light blue, a light brown heather, and a dark green but they'll be used minimally - the main colors for this sweater will be the three shades of blue.

I'm changing the cuff and hem patterns to the ones used for a different pattern in the booklet, Lake Louise. The Lake Louise cuff patterns are maple leaves so they'll work with the main maple leaf Whistler design.

I've started another hat, this time the Le Massif hat from the same Dale Commemorative Collection booklet, to test out these colors. So far the dark green is NOT contrasting enough with the main tapestry blue so I will probably have to switch it out with either a dark red or another one of the brown heathers.

I'm really happy with this yarn for lighter weight Dale of Norway sweaters. It has a nice sheen to it and I am not noticing any pilling problems yet. I just wish they had more colors!

DH recently asked me to knit him a neckwarmer to keep his neck from getting sunburnt on his hikes. He decided that Knitpicks' Gloss would be a good yarn to use for this purpose. The more I thought about it the more I realized I needed a neckwarmer out of Gloss not DH.

Sorry about the photo but my arms are just too short for great self-portraits. I used the free pattern HERE and modified it to just fit my neck (and huge head).



I used a size 4 US circ and did the 99 st cast on. I did only two rows of garter stitch edging and used about 2/3 of a skein of Gloss. I did 2 full repeats of the pattern and ended on row 5.



Tomorrow I'll show you the colors I'm going to use for the Dale Whistler sweater.

Not Quite Two Left Feet!

My last pattern was the February Beret, a beret inspired by EZ's February Baby Sweater. It seems that I am so in love with the look of the baby sweater that I have not been able to knit anything without some garter, and the lovely gull lace pattern.

I chose a skein of SockPixie Merino Sport, in a beautiful muted solid plum color. It is my first pattern using this yarn. It is very soft and lofty. I love the stitch definition.

Over the last few weeks, I have been getting emails from you asking for a fingerless glove pattern, so I decided to design a pair of fingerless gloves.




So there we are, a long circular needle, some soft yarn, a spoonful of garter stitch, a pinch of gull lace, a great Doris Day movie, a warm blanket, and what do you get? 2 right gloves!

The sad thing is that I was almot done with the second one when I finally realized my mistake.
The upside is that the pattern for the right glove is perfect! The other upside is that I can't seem to get tired of knitting the gloves as I love the pattern so much!

If all goes well, and I don't end up with a fingerless glove with two thumbs, the pattern should be ready this week!

On the Eve of a Presidential Election...

Voting has always been a special moment for me. In particular since I became an American citizen. Voting, as a woman is also very meaningful to me. I became familiar with the vibrant suffrage movement in the US while studying at Smith College. I became so engrossed in the history of this incredible grass root movement, that I made it the topic of my PhD dissertation. So today, as we approach the presidential election, it only seemed natural that I should remember the great women whose tireless work gave me, as a woman, the right to vote. Each SockPixie colorway this week commemorates the work of a woman reformer. There are so many great women that I could not create a colorway for each, but I am grateful to all of them. I created colorways that reflected their personalities. The colorways range from soft variegates, to monochromatic variegates, and all involve an overdye process over a natural base dyed with acorns. I really like the glow that the acorns give each color.
I hope that you will enjoy tonight's colorways, and I want to wish you a happy voting on Tuesday.