Thrummed Mittens

Check out Webs' sale on Cascade 220 - only $4.69 a skein compared to almost $7 elsewhere. I bought some purple to make Alice Starmore's Malin from In The Hebrides. I'm making a smaller size this time because the large size ends up about 51 inches wide. I did a web search to see if I could find any photos of a finished Malin and there is a pretty blue one by Veronique and nice red one on Victoria Palay's site . I think this sweater may be a faster knit than St. Enda because there are no stitches that need to be twisted on the reverse side and no honeycomb stitch fortunately. I plan to do the large roll collar version.

The Philosopher's Wool socks are history. I couldn't fit them over my heel even though I was getting gauge using the pattern from Foot Notes. Hmmm. One interesting thing I did discover about PW yarn is that it has a tendency to stick together. Wendy has talked previously about yarns that don't need to be stitched in any way before steeking and I suspect you could get away with it in PW.




Today's photo is a pair of thrummed mittens that I made for DH several years ago. Even though they've been worn a lot, the thrums never managed to felt so the mittens still have these stringy pieces of wool inside but they're still quite warm. The wool is some very old single ply Lamb's Pride and the pattern came from HERE.

I finally started the Spin-Off entrelac socks. I've never done entrelac before and I'm enjoying it. Here is the original colorway for the entrelac socks in some irregularly handspun Easter egg dyed Shetland - I've since added about 4 brighter colors to jazz them up. All the colors used in these socks give them a circus look.











I have also started the Stars Socks from Joseph Madl's Foot Notes: Socks to Make Your Feet Dance in the autumn colorway of Philosopher's Wool. The pattern reminds me enough of intarsia to possibly stave off the intarsia craving I've been having. (I'm trying to avoid forking over the money for a kit for the landscape socks from Borealis Sweaterscapes.)



The PW yarn is coarse. I'd compare it to Peace Fleece. I could never wear PW yarn as a sweater so I'm glad I found this out by trying out a smaller amount. The award for the coarsest, roughest, coarsest wool yarn goes to Briggs & Little Regal. I tried knitting a beaded cable mitten with Regal last year and couldn't go on to the second one. It was like knitting with thistles. Anyway, I bought the PW in a kit for socks and I have no clue if I'm going to have enough of each color for my design so I'm working both socks simultaneously.

Here's a felted bunny rabbit from an old Fiber Trends pattern. I can't remember the yarn I used but obviously I wasn't listening to the old adage about naturally-colored yarns not felting well.



Last week I was watching a quilt show on tv and this quilter had made this extraordinarily complex and beautiful quilt. She told the hostess of the show that she had not left her house for 9 weeks while adding hundreds of appliqued flowers to the quilt. The amazed hostess asked about food and the quilter stated her husband had brought home food and cooked that entire time. She said she was relieved when she finished the quilt because her husband wasn't a very good cook.



Ever since I saw that I was thinking about how much more I get done when I have uninterrupted time. Now that DH has returned from his business trip I am back to cooking and cleaning and less knitting gets done. I wonder what it would be like if I had 9 weeks of uninterrupted knitting time when I did not even have to grocery shop or cook or clean. I certainly think I could finish a couple of sweaters.



Stasia asked about the Taos Wool Festival. It takes place in Kit Carson park right in the center of town and you can walk right across the street to La Lana Wools or Weaving Southwest. Last year we took some extra time and also visited Tierra Wools in Los Ojos. The festival is preceded by a week of workshops. The vendors vary each year. The judged items on display in the center tent (handspun yarn, fleeces, garments) have to be from the region.



One year La Lana Wools had an indigo dye bath going and you could bring any yarn to be dyed. I also recall Valentina Devine's booth one year with some of her unique knitted items. One unique thing about the Taos Wool Festival is that there are tours of nearby Taos Valley Wool Mill in conjunction with the festival. I think they may even bus festival participants to the mill to see yarn being produced commercially. There are events for kids, demos, cowboy poetry, music, food, sheep to shawl, sheep shearing, animals, fashion show, etc. While it isn't huge it is a pretty mellow and friendly crowd. Dogs are allowed - word is that Goldie Hawn attended with her Jack Russell terrier 2 years ago. And because it is smaller you can really have great conversations with designers and wheel builders and shepherds, etc.

Handspun Mittens

Here's a wool/mohair mitten from my very first spindle spun yarn. I felted them slightly in the washing machine and they wear like iron.

Last week I checked out Zen and the Art of Knitting: Exploring the Links Between Knitting,
Spirituality, and Creativity by Bernadette Murphy from the library. I agree that knitting can be meditative and can be spiritual but so can brushing your teeth or changing a light bulb in the right context. But knitting is not always meditative or spiritual - sometimes it can be stressful or mindless as well, at least for me.

I did find this quote in the section about knitting and feminism. From page 151 and 152 of Zen and the Art of Knitting:

"I think it's of note that most of the younger women exploring knitting today are highly educated, many with graduate degrees and ambitious careers. Perhaps the women who fit the suburban stay-at-home wife/mother model were already active knitters before the craft became fashionable. Whatever the reason, the majority of new knitters I've encountered are coming from an urban sensibility that encompasses a breaking-the-mold approach to life. These urban knitters are welcoming the craft as more than a way of decorating their homes and making the man in their life feel special. They see their own knitting as an important unearthing of the creative and mystical side of themselves, as a journey in self-awareness."

Too bad this "breaking-the-mold" creative approach doesn't apply to the simplistic and uninspired designs in all the knitting magazines lately. But I have to go now. I'm way overdue in decorating my house and making the man in my life feel special.

I have a serious case of MD S$W Envy. I wish I could go to Maryland Sheep & Wool but instead have to amuse myself hearing about everyone else's experiences and purchases. Today I've been reading stories on blogs about the big event which just makes me more jealous. One of these years I hope to go; my best friend lives nearby so I even have a place to stay.



DH always says Maryland would be too big but he just hates crowds. At Taos Wool Festival I try to have a plan. I have a set budget then try to pre-determine what I'll buy. I also leave myself some leeway with the budget in case I find something I can't live without. That is how I ended up with my favorite Tracy Eicheim spindle one year. Last year I knew in advance I wanted a Bosworth spindle along with a copy of the Twisted Sisters Sock book. I always buy a t-shirt also. Two more weeks until the Fiber Arts Fiesta here. Robin & Russ from Oregon had a booth last time with hundreds of fiber books. I'm hoping to find some roving or top to buy. Here's some roving from my latest dye experiments.







I ordered another mitten kit from Nordic Fiber Arts today - this time I am going to do the Vinternatt. I chose blue and yellow Istra - I like Istra more than the Strikkegarn which lent an unusual puffiness to the finished mitten. NFA also has a mail-order catalog with kits for a lot more items like sweaters and hats and socks that aren't on their web site.

I have two finished items to report, both of which gave me problems with seaming. St. Enda is a finished item. Both DH and I plan to fight over who gets it. He didn't like the color but was surprised to see it looked good on him. I can wear it over regular clothes like a coat. I tried several seams when I sewed the saddle shoulders to the front and back pieces. Finally I decided on the slip stitch crochet seam (which saved my butt on the vest). I also wish I'd used this seam to sew the shoulders to the body of the sweater. I used the garter stitch seam for the sides of the sweater which looked fine. The more I know about all the different seams, the more picky I'm getting about them. I'll have pictures in a week or two.



My second FO is the Telemark headband from Bea Ellis Knitwear. I did it in Peer Gynt (which reminds me a lot of Dale Heilo - both are very nice yarns) with a cotton lining. I did the whole thing on size three needles rather than sizing up because my gauge was a bit looser than the pattern gauge. Plus I like a tighter headband. The pattern has you seaming the inner cotton lining right near the center. This means that any seam is going to be easily felt over your ears. I first tried the woven shoulder seam from Nancie Wiseman's finishing book which looks seamless (also called the Fake Kitchener stitch from Montse Stanley) but alas it did not feel seamless. Finally I ended up ripping out both cast off ends and just kitchenering the whole thing together. Kitchenering 120 stitches on slippery cotton yarn - Do I know how to have fun or what?







This is a stripe dyed yarn - it was originally some laceweight natural yarn from Blackberry Ridge Farm. I really like the way it turned out and may do a simple lace scarf.

St. Enda is almost done as I'm finishing up the collar. I am surprised that St. Enda is my first Alice Starmore sweater. It certainly will not be my last. In 1996 I took an Aran Knitting class with Alice through my former LYS in Durango, Colorado. I paid what I thought then was the princely sum of $100 and showed up at a local hotel bright and early. I was the youngest person in the class and the two women sitting at my left were discussing how you know when to admit your husband to a nursing home. The woman at my right didn't really know how to knit at all and I had to explain to her what reverse stockinette stitch was.



I wish I could remember what Alice was wearing - it was a creamy white Aran sweater but I couldn't figure out which one of her designs it was. A lot of the students in the class were wearing their own AS sweaters. In the Hebrides had just come out and there was a huge muscular bald guy in her entourage (he looked a lot like Mr. Clean) who was knitting Erisort in the purple Scottish Heather shown in the book. I went over and watched him and mumbled something to him about all the bobbles in the sweater/coat and he said he had actually counted them all. The number was in the hundreds.



Alice first talked about the history of Aran knitting and then focused on knitting using a chart. At that time I couldn't knit with a chart so it was very helpful. She had us all knit a cabled swatch using a chart. When she walked by me I expressed my embarassment at the way I hold my needles. (I knit holding the right hand needle like a pencil - I think this is sometimes called the French method of knitting) Alice replied that it didn't matter at all because I was a fast knitter with that particular method. How cool is that? To have Alice Starmore herself tell you your knitting style is okay. One of the students asked her if she knits the sweaters in her books and she stated that it was mainly done by test knitters. She knits up the swatches and does the design configurations but usually others knit the actual sweaters.



I still have the notes from the classs. She talked for quite a long time about washing and caring for Aran sweaters and even mentioned woolly boards. I know I asked her about cast-ons. I noticed that all the sweaters in the book used the long-tail cast on so the cast-on edge and the patterns always start on the right side row. The result is that the bottom hem of the sweaters and sleeves was the reverse side of the long-tail cast which didn't look that great to me. In St. Enda I changed the cast-on side (i.e., I started the pattern on the wrong side of the work instead of the right side as specified in the patterns) so the hem bottoms would look better.



There was an accompanying trunk show and I got to touch all the sweaters from In the Hebrides. Erisort and Malin most impressed me. Then Alice signed my copy of In the Hebrides (which probably makes it worth 10,000 dollars now) and I went off on my merry way wishing I too could live on an island and knit all day long. But Bosco the cat and Snickerdoodle the lop would miss me probably.