Prime Time Knitter

WEBS Surfing

I managed to knit out of my stash for most of 2012, but when the fall fiber fairs were held and when my inbox was stuffed with emails announcing incredible end-of-the-year sales, I found myself doing what any serious knitter would do.  In sum, I’m welcoming a lot of new yarns to my stash. 

The most recent foray into the world of yarn vendors was a trip to WEBS on the day after Christmas.  The main reason I wanted to visit the store in person was to see the tweed yarns.  I have been slowly acquiring a lot of tweedy yarns for some future burst of solid-color cabled sweater knitting, and there were some intriguing options that don’t show up well on my computer monitor when I surf online retailers.  When I entered WEBS, I had decided to limit myself to one batch of sweater yarn after I carefully and meticulously compared all the different kinds of tweed.  I really had no intention of buying any sale yarn…that is, until Deborah, expert driver and enabler, showed me WEBS’ sale rooms.

We arrived at WEBS about a half-hour before it was open, and only a few cars were parked waiting for the start of the sale—but we were the first ones in.

 

When you walk into WEBS, there is a huge selling floor with rows and rows of yarn bins and sample garments.  

I was happily wandering in the maze of yarn until Deborah encouraged me to look at the $2 and $5 baskets. 

I could not resist this 100% merino superwash from Pagewood Farms, which was $5.

And I had a similar weakness for the Italian wool-cashmere mix at $2 per ball.  I have enough here (around 650 yards) for a very nice shawlette.

And if you visit WEBS and can’t find what you want in the main part of the store (something I cannot imagine ever happening), the warehouse in the back is also available for browsing.

The yarn I came for, Debbie Bliss Luxury Aran Tweed, was a special order, and there was an email message yesterday saying it is now on its way—and I sure hope my mail carrier takes the “Priority” part of the package label to heart.  So for now, I’m looking forward to a weekend or two or three of swatching cables, as I try to focus on gaining control of the WIPs I’ve vowed to finish.

 

Summer Wrap Up: Part 1

I somehow imagined that on the first day of fall it would be cool enough for me to immerse myself once again in knitting with heavy wool and resume my stranded knitting—specifically, Sirdal’s second sleeve.  But my summer knits were far from done, and aside from one wonderful fall-like week in September, the temperatures have been so warm that I was glad that I still had lightweight projects to work on.

And, in fact, Rhinebeck came and went this year without a Rhinebeck sweater.  The forecast was for rain, and I wore a light jacket that would repel any raindrops.  It did not rain.

But this week promises to cool down (and be rain-free!) and I can resurrect Sirdal and the other projects abandoned last June.  In the mean time I’ve converted two WIPs to FOs.  Fiori di Sole is finished:

Here are some details of the motifs:

I’m not a gifted crocheter, and the edging pushed the limits of my ability (and vocabulary).

The pattern is by Rosemary Hill (Romi), and it was a pleasure to work with.  The charts are error-free, and the instructions are clear.  I also loved the Exquisite merino-silk yarn, available from Fiddlesticks Yarn.  I have enough left for a small scarf, and I will take advantage of that once I’m done browsing the shawlettes on Ravelry.  Now that it is stash yarn, I won’t feel so guilty about knitting with it.

Shawl #2, Wing of the Moth, is off the needles and ready for blocking, and modeling shots will be forthcoming. 

And I’ve already planned ahead for next summer.  I have some true laceweight in my stash (Baruffa cashwool will probably be my yarn of choice for a shawl from Victorian Lace Today).  But the silk content of Fiddlestick’s Exquisite yarn really captured my heart because it makes the shawl glow.  One Rhinebeck purchase was this hand-dyed, all-silk cobweb yarn from Long Ridge Farm:

 

Thinking Outside the Box

One, but certainly not the only, reason I’ve been on a bit of a blog hiatus is that I’ve been organizing my spare bedroom as a knitting/sewing room. The room contained a miscellaneous jumble of stuff before and during our siding and window replacements, and I want it to be cleaned up and usable.  The first thing I’ve done is to place my fabric and fabric that I inherited from my mother into Rubbermaid tubs.  Much of it was stored that way—but much wasn’t. And when I collected everything in one place, I had more tubs than the nine I thought.  There’s actually a 12^th in the attic, with fabric that I thought I’d give away, but may now use for some practice pieces.

In going through the fabric, I came across some surprises, and fabric that I had forgotten about. 

The first surprise was this bit of Disney-branded cotton with the treasure map from Peter Pan, because I don’t remember it at all.  I date it circa 1953, when the movie hit theaters and I was about 6 years old.  I was totally captivated by that movie, and I guess my mother intended to make me something from this piece (which I expect to put up for sale on eBay quite shortly).  This attempt at Disney marketing seems so quaint compared to the blitz of branded items that accompany today’s movie releases.

 

Among the forgotten fabrics were Moygashiel Irish linens, like the blue on the right, Viyella, like the flowered fabric in the middle, and the pink crepe de chine.  I googled Moygashiel and found that it is no longer in business and these linens are prized.  I have many pieces in solids (and one in a print that will probably find its way onto eBay before long because the print is too big for me), and I’ll happily sew up the solids into dresses or skirts.  Viyella, which is a remarkable fabric, is a mix of cotton and wool, and also seems less available than in the past, when you could buy it in fabric departments of department stores like B. Altman in New York.  I have solids and some prints, and I’ve always wanted a Viyella bathrobe, in addition to dresses and skirts.  The fabric sews up like challis, but I have more challis than I’ll ever use.  So eventually I’ll cull through the light wools and keep some and try to sell others.  I don’t have much silk, and I do like that pink print, so it is a keeper.  It came from a store in New York, located south of Houston Street, a short distance from my Greenwich Village apartment.  It existed for just a short time in the mid- to late-70s and had deals on designer bolt ends.  I have some cotton jacquard blouse fabric from that time too.

A gap in my sewing skills is working on knit fabric.  The main reason is that my machine really couldn’t handle knits.  But my new machine can, and I discovered some not-so-great pieces that I can use as “muslins” to try out the stitching for knits and to test patterns that I’ll make by tracing T-shirts that fit well.  I was delighted to discover these wool knits among my mother’s fabrics:

 

The pieces are all interchangeable, with the stripes matching both the blue and the rust solids.  Unfortunately, the yardage is skimpy, so the solids might have to end up as gathered skirts, but the stripes can be Ts. 

I had to curb my urge to play with the fabric because I also wanted to consolidate my yarn stash.  And this is embarrassing:

Once I collected it in one place, I realized that buying more yarn was just silly.  I’ll be stash busting for years to come (although I do have some strategic acquisitions in mind for this year’s Rhinebeck trek).  I had thought that sock yarn was under-represented, but in addition to this box, there are two more of equal size:

I’ll be adding stash pictures to Ravelry once I’ve done a little more decluttering, and some will be posted for sale.

I’m working now on creating a database listing of the fabric and organizing the sewing notions and supplies, after which time I’ll see where bookshelves can fit so I can get my knitting and sewing books and magazines into the room.  Then it will be on to better lighting, a dress form, and mirrors.  And, of course, the best way to get some of those stash boxes out of the room is to actually make something. 

I discovered that I already have yarn for the monthly colors in the Ravelry Solid Socks group KALs for 2011 and 2012 (how surprising is that?), and I may cast on for the September red challenge using this:

Sunday Best

Because I have type-A tendencies, I always try to head out to Rhinebeck on the first day so that I’m there around a half-hour before the gates open.  Like any aficionado of yarn festivals, I have a sneaking suspicion that all the yarn will be gone if I delay my visit.  But this year, I was a bit calmer than I have been in the past.  I had a bad cold—my first in a few years—in mid-October, and the days before Rhinebeck were damp and unpleasant.  (All that rain I needed so badly in the summer has fallen now, after I decided that planting fall vegetables would be an exercise in frustration.) Saturday was cold and windy, but the forecast for Sunday was warm and sunny.  So it seemed like a no-brainer to make my annual trek on Sunday.  And Sunday was beautiful. 

The drive north is always a treat because the leaves are turning, and even if the summer drought made them a little less beautiful than past autumns, it was still a great day out.  And, in fact, I wasn’t disappointed when I reached the Dutchess County Fairgrounds.  The crowd seemed less frenetic, and there still was a lot of yarn left (lest you had any concerns about this). 

And it is always nice to see where all that luscious yarn comes from.

I had to show some restraint this year in my yarn purchases, partly because I bought the sewing machine, but mostly because we’re about to embark on major home repairs, beginning with new siding and windows.  I expect to be very cash-poor in 2011 (and possibly beyond) as I start renovations on my house.  So I studied the vendor list before I headed for Rhinebeck and focused only on some “must-have” items that I wanted to buy.

For some time I’ve wanted a nice cozy shawl to curl up in while watching TV, and I had my eye on Cheryl Oberle’s Wool Peddler's Shawl from Folk Shawls.  Although many Ravellers have knitted this shawl in heavenly colors and in a range of yarn weights, the pattern always struck me as needing some thick, somewhat unprocessed yarn.  I guess if I were a spinner, I’d attempt to create a yarn of just the perfect texture for my mental image of the shawl—but that’s not likely to happen in my lifetime.  So I headed first to the booth for Foxhill Farm and bought four skeins of this 88% wool-12% alpaca yarn. (Alas, Foxhill Farm has no website.)

And, in fact, I was not disappointed.  I couldn’t keep my hands off it, and I swatched immediately upon arriving home.  I just wish I could waft its tactile qualities through cyberspace so that you can feel how squishy, soft, and warm it is.  The swatch alone did not make me happy—it just whetted my appetite for the real thing.  So here I am, about two-thirds of the way finished with the shawl.

I have a serious Socks That Rock habit, and I justified the purchase of yet more by deciding to knit fingerless gloves for DH, for DS, and for me.  The medium weight is perfect for what I have in mind, but the colors have to be subdued for the guys in my life.  I had gotten a skein of the Raven Clan color groups (the balled up skein in Corvid), and I wanted two more like it.  Here I was disappointed because the Saturday Rhinebeckians left only one skein in a black colorway (middle skein, Pallas Athena).  I had to get another at Stitches (top skein, Strange Brew), and it might just be too colorful for those lacking a second X chromosome.  I will use that one for me.

Another website-less vendor with beautiful yarn is Snow Star Farm.  I had gotten some natural and green in a past visit, and I thought that if I had a few more colors, I could do something interesting.  And so I bought some unprocessed gray and navy to mix with those yarns and whatever yarn is left over from a cherry-red sweater I have planned for next year (the red is much richer than the photo).  These are now the colors in my Snow Star Farm stash:

The yarn is a perfect weight for stranded mittens or hats, which is what I have in mind for it.

I also visited a vendor new for me: Long Ridge Farm. Although there were knitted samples at the booth, the self-striping yarns were sold out.  Nancy Zeller asked me what colors I’d like and promised to dye up something special.  I was totally at a loss to pick colors, and I told her that I liked reds and autumn tones.  And so she sent this photo in a follow-up email, and the yarn, with the enchanting name "Autumn Mystery" is on its way.  At last I may have something perfect for difficult-to-match mustard-brown slacks that are in the back of my closet.

I also had a chance to meet WheatFran, a fellow member of the Philosopher’s Wool group on Ravelry.(look at her beautiful hats).

Now that I’ve caught up on Rhinebeck, it’s time to photograph the yarns from Stitches.

 

 

 

Life's a Stitch

I’m just back from Stitches East, and my mind is racing with mental knitting.  I should be exhausted because the ice machine, adjacent to my room started to rev up at about 5:30 AM, and I could not get back to sleep.  But I’ve spent the last few hours fondling my purchases, looking at some knitting books for project ideas, and sorting through the class notes.

My classes in Japanese knitting were wonderful.  I took two with Gayle Roehm, who is an excellent teacher.  She spent Thursday afternoon working us through the intricacies of some unusual stitch maneuvers and revealing some of the not-so-obvious nuances of Japanese charts.  On Friday (all day), there was a second class in interpreting the truly amazing patterns that are in Japanese pattern magazines and books, and on line (even for free).   Here is an example of the free patterns.  Click on any picture and the links that follow and you can see the charts like those we analyzed in class.  My hope, however, is to work with the sweaters in this book, especially #5 (the stranded sweater).  If you scroll down the page to #11, you’ll see some of the kinds of stitches we worked on in the class—one student wore her completed FO of the sweater, which was sensational.

Despite being totally engrossed in the classes, I did manage to fit in some visits to the Market on the Thursday Preview and on Friday, when I almost (but not quite) forgot to eat lunch since I spent the break shopping.   Here are my stash enhancements. 

I fell in love with the yarn in the String Theory booth.  My photographic skills are not up to the task of capturing the glowing color of their DK in black tulip.  The color really is like a black tulip, much blacker than it shows up here, with more vibrant and subtle shades of purple.  Even though this is superwash, the yarn is as soft as butter and I intend to wear it next to my skin. 

I succumbed to the lure of the Green Mountain Spinnery booth, and got enough of the Maine Organic yarn for a traditional sweater, either Aran or Gansey.  This is Aran weight, and it is organic Maine wool that is processed in Vermont. 

I am hoping to go beyond my top-down, flap heel socks, which is why I’ve been adding sock yarn to my stash.   When I spotted some Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock as a show special, I could not pass it by.

And finally, to get my fix of Blue Faced Leicester, is Luster Sox from Dye Dreams.  This is superwash BFL.  You can see their other colors here.

And I can’t resist knitting notions.  After Thora, I’m planning to tackle the several stranded knitting projects, and I will definitely need highlighter tape for them.  But I also discovered something called “highlighter guides” that stick to a page by static electricity.  Both of these were from The Mannings.  The highlighter guide is great for less complicated charts than those for Fair Isle, such as the chart I needed for Thora’s big cable.

 

I restrained myself a bit in the Market because I’m looking for some interesting tweed yarn.  The yarn I’m favoring is from Beaverslide Drygoods, but I may also consider some from Harrisville.  And there are sock yarn vendors that I’ve seen on Ravelry that have some intriguing options.  But for now, I’m pleased with these purchases and eager to finish Thora so I can move on to other things.

Afflicted and Conflicted

I’m recovering from second-mitten syndrome and I feel a serious bout of startitis coming on. For the past week, I’ve procrastinated about finishing Norah Gaughan’s Target mittens while I worked on a hat for Ed.

I bit the bullet last night and got the second thumb done, and if I can muster the enthusiasm to sew the seams, I’ll have the mittens ready to send off to the mitten drive run by the Knitting Guild of Rochester.

Ed’s hat is not complicated. It is a pattern from Charlene Schurch’s Hats On! book, and I already knit this hat in the past for my son.

His hat has lasted for at least six years, and it looks brand new. If you could see the condition of his other clothing, you would realize just what a miracle this is. But my knitted garments for DH and DS come with “lifetime maintenance”—my lifetime. That means that I remove the garments from their possession in early spring, or as soon as they’re willing to part with hats, scarves, and sweaters, and I wash them and store them. Then they get the garments back in September.

Although simple, the hat is wonderfully elegant and it fulfills my need to create perfect garments. The tough part for me is the tubular cast-on in the round.

The instructions in the book are excellent, but it does take an entire evening to get the first 6 rows started. Both hats are knit from Heilo—on very tiny needles. My son’s hat was done on size 1 US, and Ed’s hat is being knit on size 1.5 US. It makes for a very dense and warm hat, with a lot of shape. The yarn for Ed’s had has been in my stash since about 1998—and I got it at Patternworks’ after-Christmas sale when they were in Poughkeepsie. Oh, how I miss that.

But ribbing holds only so much interest, and so my mind wanders to other projects. I need to knit at least one washcloth to give as a gift this Christmas, and I remembered those in Knitter’s Stash.

These call for Louet linen, and I don’t want to buy new yarn until I know I am “into” washcloths. Heretofore, I’ve knit only clothing. The cotton yarn I thought about is not as thin as the Louet…but (what a surprise) I do have other stash yarn that would be suitable.

I have no idea how old this yarn is, but I put it at circa 1975. It was intended for a sleeveless top. And even when I was thinner than I am now (and sagged less), the 7 skeins of cream and 1 skein of brown weren’t going to cover my chest. I figured this out after the yarn was discontinued, and so it has languished all these years. So will it make good washcloths? I guess it is worth a try.

While I was browsing Knitter’s Stash, I flipped to a sweater I always liked:

This is knit from cashmere, and I probably never could and never will be able to afford that much cashmere. But the sweater called to me for my Tess Silk and Wool stash yarn:

In my mind’s eye, I can see changing the shape of the sweater a little so it is fitted around the waist. The cables at the shoulders will give the very drapy Tess yarn some shape—but swatching that cable is the only way to tell. Some of the past week was spent washing the Tess yarn (the sales woman claimed it might bleed—but it doesn’t bleed enough to warrant doing this). It takes forever to dry. This project will take a bit of thinking, and if I have thinking time, I should spend it on my UFOs. So to avoid the guilt, my mind flitted to socks.

Should I use the medium STR in the rose color or blue-green in a design from Sensational Knitted socks? That would take no time, since I’ve knitted two pairs from that book already in the same weight yarn. Or should I work on an original design from the Fearless Fibers yarn (more brown than it looks here) that I already started to swatch.

Or, should I start the cabled sweater for the Fall Cable KAL and use up my blue stash yarn?

I suspect the answer is going to be “all of the above”.

Falling in Love

As Bee Fields is winding down and fall, with its crisp beautiful days, seems on the threshold, my thoughts have turned to Rhinebeck. As I drive along the stretch of the Hudson River that flows through my part of New York and see bits of yellow and orange among the green trees, I can’t think of anything but the splendid drive north to Rhinebeck. In less than a month, I’ll be taking that drive just at the time when all the trees are at the peak of glorious color.

It isn’t easy to decide what kinds of yarn to buy, but if I don't set some guidelines now my purchases will be haphazard. I definitely don’t need more shawl yarn, although it is always tempting. I think this year it will be sweaters and some modest additions to my sock yarn stash. There are some yarns I’ve bought in past years to try out, and after Bee Fields, I think I could use a simple project for a week or so. Last night, I foraged in my stash for the yarns I thought I’d use for scarves as a way to decide whether to get a sweater’s worth of yarn. The most likely candidate is this hand-dyed Cormo-silk mix from Fox Fire Fibers.

From the website it seems that this exact yarn isn’t offered, but an intriguing alternative (Cormo-silk-alpaca) is listed. Fox Fiber also has the most beautiful sock yarn, and so I won’t come home empty handed.

Several years ago, I purchased this llama yarn from Rhodie Hill Farms. It has a beautiful hand-spun texture, and it positively glows. I wish you could feel how soft it is.

I was going to try it out using one of Myrna Stahman’s seaman’s scarves, but I never got to it. I had hoped to knit DS a sweater using several of the natural shades, and he decided that he had enough sweaters (yes, there are times when I wonder if he is really my son). But I would like to knit a bit of it to see what it is like. If I’m not quite up to a sweater from it, it would make a great choice for some special gift scarves.

Another vendor that has always intrigued me is Shelridge Farm, and I’m considering one (or more) of their beautiful DK yarns for a pullover sweater. I want to do more self-designed sweaters, and these yarns seem perfect.

I’ve been blogging now for just over a year and a half, and it has been a wonderful experience. I’ve enjoyed writing about my projects and progress (or lack thereof) and “meeting” other knitters. Helena made my day by giving me an “I Love Your Blog” award, and part of the requirements is to pass this on to four other blogs. It is hard to decide which of the blogs I visit regularly to choose, but some do stand out for particular reasons.

I’d like to pass it on to Dorothy, whose blog I started reading shortly after I discovered (quite inadvertently) that there were knitting blogs. I’ve enjoyed reading Dorothy’s posts on all sorts of topics beyond knitting, particularly her success in gaining a college degree.

Robin really counts as my first blog friend. She hosted the Manly Gift Along KAL, which was my first KAL, and has graciously shared her thoughts and opinions with me from virtually day one of my blog launch. She is my window on younger knitters (and often my enabler), and I think my project choices have been shaped by her selection—even though I’m not always ready to give up “boxy”.

I came upon Susan’s blog not long ago (in blog years), but watching her progress and reading about the changes she makes to every project has often given me new insight for doing the same on mine. I enjoy her nonknitting pictures of mountains and Western landscapes almost as much as the FO pictures.

Finally, I’d like to mention a blog that is a relatively new stop in blogland—another Marjorie. (That alone is almost a reason to pass the award on—“Marjories” are a dying breed. What young girl is given that name nowadays?) Marji sent me an email not long ago complimenting my blog, and when I checked hers I was astounded by her sewing and tailoring skills—skill that I’ve let go dormant. Her posts have inspired me to dust off my machine and think about woven fabric. She knits beautifully too.

So ladies, you now have to pass the award on to four others.

And to end summer in style, I picked my first of what seems to be a dozen, red tomatoes:

Chillin' Out

For someone who hates the heat and humidity of summer, I have to concede that this year’s August has been a dream month. There have been only a couple of days where the AC was needed, and most of the time I didn’t even turn on an ordinary fan. Yesterday was so unseasonably cool that our heat came on in the morning (and I rushed over to the thermostat to turn it off!). And the prospect for the rest of this week looks fantastic. So combined with this taste of fall and my less hectic work schedule, my mind has wandered to heavier wool projects. Yes, I could take out the Devonshire jacket and finish the sleeves, but what fun is that? Daydreaming about projects as yet unknit is much more suited to my mood.

Also contributing to my gut feeling that I need a simpler project are the silly little errors I’m making on Bee Fields. I do very well at the start of my evening knitting, but after 9:30 my confidence exceeds my abilities. Here is another error:

I probably knitted on the private side instead of purling. This is my third error of this sort, and I’m losing patience with myself. I know that someone would have to stand next to me with a magnifying glass to see this, but this lack of perfection is becoming bothersome. Unlike other projects, I’m not ripping this back to fix it. Actually, I did drop down on the stitch immediately to the right to correct it, but I know I can’t do that on this stitch column, with all the decreases. Well, I could do it, but the mess it would create would require ripping everything to the row below.

So what to do? Without the precision that Susan (just look at her 8/14 post!) brings to the mathematical analysis of her projects, I did a quick-and-dirty calculation to estimate how long it will take to finish Bee Fields. If I do the larger size, and I’m thinking of that so the shawl is large and flowing, I have 78 rows left. At 2 rows a night, that will take me about 40 days to finish, and I’ll miss the KAL completion date. At 4 rows a night, I can finish in around 20 days, and have the satisfaction of a FO. My Type A genes tell me to “go for it”. My sensible genes (completely overwhelmed by the Type A genes for most decisions), remind me that I am only averaging about 3 rows a night and the rows are getting longer. In addition, those knit later in the evening aren’t terribly accurate and the next evening is spent fixing the errors. So a compromise seems to be in order. I should probably knit Bee Fields only until about 9 PM and then move on to something else.

In addition to a plain ribbed watch cap in brown Heilo for Ed, that I’ve promised but never delivered, here are the candidates.

When I finished the feather-and-fan scarves from Scarf Style, I had one ball left of each color. This is Debbie Bliss’ Alpaca Silk DK. I bought another ball of black with the intention of knitting a horizontal scarf only in garter stitch:

Pros: Easy Scarf
Cons: (1) I really don’t need another scarf like this right away. (2) I haven’t decided if I want fringes. Regular fringes will probably fray, and I want to try looped fringes that twine around each other. This will require swatching.

Several Rhinebecks ago, I got this beautiful handspun yarn from Buckwheat Bridge Angoras (goats not rabbits). It is mohair, wool, and llama. I’ve already swatched for it, trying a basket-weave pattern, but plain garter stitch would be better.

Pros: Easy Scarf
Cons: (1) The fringe issue again. If Ed ends up with this, he doesn’t want fringes. I suppose I could add them once the scarf is done, if I want to. (2) If it gets warm in September, I don’t want to knit with this yarn.

It occurred to me that an uncomplicated sweater would be as good as a scarf for a simple project, and I’d use up stash yarn and have something useful to wear when I work. I had bought yarn from Snow Star Farm and buttons from Tender Buttons to make this sweater from an old Jo Sharp book.

Pros: I’d like to use up the yarn before Rhinebeck so I can buy another color and design my own gansey pullover with it.
Cons: (1) I’m not sure I like this sweater well enough, and I don’t need a pattern to make a sweater like this. (2) The sweater looks a bit shapeless, and even if all I do to improve it is add fitted sleeves, it will still require modification that I don’t want to spend time doing now.

I’ve always liked this sweater from Jamieson’s Knitting Book 2, and despite the cables, it isn’t really hard. I have Bluefaced Leicester yarn from a small farm, purchased at Maryland that would be heavenly to knit with.

Pros: I can use a pullover. It would give me a chance to do a gusset
Cons: (1) I’m not sure this is the best yarn choice for this sweater. (2) It is only “borderline” easy, and might require some occasional thought when I get to the gusset.

Although I have described ad nauseam about the dearth of good yarns in the 1970s, it was possible to find occasional pearls among the swine. This yarn was a French import, and I have a lot of it. I had bought it to make a three-piece outfit that consisted of a coat, a skirt, and a sweater. Half the sweater is knit (and should be frogged). But I would like to use this blue yarn, and this sweater from Knitter’s Fall 1999 (also in Arans and Celtics) would be fine. I’ve swatched for it and bought buttons.

Pros: I can use up stash yarn and have a nice work sweater.
Cons: I may want to change the sleeves so they’re set in, so the pattern would require modification.

And so now it is decision time.

Standards of Perfection

In addition to being fussy about patterns and fit, I’m also fussy about yarn choices. I enjoy being fussy about yarn choices because I endured so many years as a knitter in which the options ranged from ordinary, often scratchy wool to Day-Glo acrylic. Also, since the introduction of Rowan yarns in the U.S. and my annual pilgrimages to Rhinebeck, I’ve accumulated a large stash. I think twice about any new yarn purchase.

I rarely buy yarn at a LYS. First, I have to drive a fair distance to get to one, and on the occasions when I do, I don’t often find what I have in mind (too few colors, not enough yarn in a dyelot). At this stage of my knitting life, I don’t need the help or advice that I could have used when I was starting to knit—so that benefit of a LYS is lost on me. Second, I was spoiled by Patternworks. It used to be in Poughkeepsie, in a big warehouse-style store, about an hour’s drive away. The metal racks in the back, where patrons could browse, had a huge selection of yarns of every color. I was weak-kneed when I first visited the store. (Only WEBS has anything close, to my knowledge, and WEBS is a very, very long drive from my home.) I’d make about two visits a year to Patternworks and stock up, especially at the after-Christmas sale. But Patternworks moved, and so my yarn-buying habits changed. With the Internet at my fingertips, I can browse and shop from home. For yarns I know I’ll use, I’ll buy color cards, making such purchases easier. And so now my purchases are either done online or at fiber fairs.

I usually don’t buy on impulse, but last week was different. I love browsing the Soho Purl site because they have such a beautiful selection, and in some cases, I just don’t see the yarns elsewhere. I’ve been on the lookout for something special for Anne Hanson’s Wing of the Moth shawl, and I had pinks on my mind—preferably light, dusty pinks. I also wanted to take Anne’s advice that I could use a fingering weight yarn because I wanted a shawl that was heavier than laceweight. Displayed among the fingering weights was intriguing yarn by The Fibre Company (a manufacturer new to me) called Canopy Sport. It is 50% alpaca, 30% merino, and 20% bamboo. Well, who can resist that? The color, rosehip, on the screen looked like a dusty pink, and the yardage was perfect for that called for (200 yards for 50 grams). So out came my credit card.

When the yarn arrived, the color was not what I imagined, although the texture and feel were perfect. It is more mauve/lilac than pink. At first I was disappointed, but I thought about fabric languishing in my stash for decades—and when I pulled it out, I realized how perfect this yarn would look with it. It is Liberty of London wool challis—very thin and drapy—and it makes beautiful, flowing skirts.

(Robin, this is the fabric that I think looks like yours, and I also have it in another colorway with dominant blues.) I probably have enough for a pleated skirt or a circular skirt, and I have a nice black top with a ballet neck. And so the imaginary outfit formed in my mind. There are projects on my list before this one, but I’ve earmarked this summer for shawls and socks (until it gets cold enough to knit another heavy sweater), and I would like to have this shawl and skirt for next spring.

Everything Old Is New Again

One of the things you learn from getting older, especially with regard to fashion, is that if you wait long enough, the style you loved but has fallen out of favor will return. 

I flipped through the Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2008 issue that arrived yesterday thinking that I wouldn’t find much to interest me.  I don’t like knitting with “summer yarns”, and for knitting purposes I imagine that summer doesn’t exist and I’m living in a world that has perpetual fall and winter.  I almost always knit with wool or wool blends.  And in general, there are at most only one or two designs in a VK that I deem worthy of knitting.  I enjoy the articles and often will consider something—a stitch pattern, a sweater shape, a featured yarn—to use for a sweater of my own.  I find the schematics for sweater shapes very useful in planning original sweaters.  So I’ve collected all the VKs since they began to republish in the 1980s.  (I first started buying VK in the 1960s, and I was disappointed that they suspended publication in the 1970s, in reaction to what I assume was a lack of readership.)

In the new edition, there is a Kaffe Fassett jacket.  This immediately caught my eye because it was so beautiful. 

But then I took a double-take.  This is the exact design in the first Rowan kit I bought years ago—Moghul Gardens.

This kit is so old (circa 1985) that it doesn’t use Rowan DK.  The background yarn is Chunky Tweed, which I’m sure has been discontinued for ages.  The color yarns are the kind of Persian yarns I’ve generally seen for needlepoint.  I had no idea what I was getting into when I even considered Moghul Gardens.  The original pattern has you knit the back and front in one piece (no shoulder seam).  You start at the bottom of the back and when you reach the shoulders, you reverse the design!  There is no chart, and each row reads something like:

2J, 1A, 1D, (3A, 1D, 1A, 3J, 1A, 3J, 1A, 1D) to last 7 sts, 3A, 1D, 1A, 2J

This version has 16 colors plus the Chunky Tweed background.  Here are 13 plus the Chunky Tweed:

The new version has only 8 colors.  It has a chart.  And it is fitted, with the fronts and back knitted bottom up. 

I had put this kit on the back burner because of its difficulty, thinking I’d get to one of my easier seven Rowan kits, the Susan Duckworth Deco sweater, first—and it will probably be the first I attempt.  I had planned to become more skillful in intarsia before tackling Moghul Gardens.  But I think I’ll use some of the modifications in the new version, such as the fitted look and knitting the pieces bottom up, when I do get around to this kit.

On the actual knitting front, Liv’s sleeves are finally the right length.  I basted in one of them, and it is exactly where I want it to be.  The second sleeve is knit, but not blocked.  In a few more days, there should be a modeling shot.