Moth Heaven

In the Name of Mittens

I am delighted to know so many people liked the twined roots mittens.  One friend of mine thinks they look like naked aliens, but that might be a compliment.

So here's the thing.  I'd love to share the pattern with you, but it's difficult for me, knitter of little computer skills.  The chart is a more involved than I can manage on Excel, which is my usual modus operandi for such things.  And since the mitten isn't much more than the chart, I'm struggling with a new software I downloaded for the occasion, Knit Visualizer. I actually hate the symbols they offer because they don't look like any of the symbols I've ever read off a chart before.  Does anyone have any suggestions? If not, bear with me, and I'll do what I can. 

And in this week's installment of short attention span theatre: I felted the stained glass bag, in spite of everyone's (including mine) trepidation.  It turned out perfectly, softened up the surface and blurred the stitches ever so slightly.  I have the lining sewn up, and all that remains is to lash the two together forevermore.  After that, it's merely a matter of a week or two of procrastination before I dig out the handles, and maybe, just maybe, we'll have a bag before the end of the year.

In Local News This Coming Weekend

My spinning buddy, Meredith, graced the front page of our local paper this morning.

The text under the picture reads:

Meredith T--- of Byfield sits with one of her sheep at her home on Forest Street. She uses their wool to make yarn, which she spins into hats and mittens. She will sell her homemade accessories at the Governor’s Fair on Saturday

Never mind that the reporter doesn't know spinning from knitting.  Hopefully she'll never be naked in a sheep field. 

More information about The Governor's Academy Fine Crafts Faire is here. If you live north of Boston, come check it out, and stop down the road (about 1/2 a mile) by the Parker River and Wildest Dreams Alpaca Farm to say hi to Alpaca Kathy during their open house while you're there. 

Once you've passed the turkey croquettes mark, you know that

Thanksgiving is officially over.  Soup is tonight's final installment in the turkey marathon, and the dishes are all washed, finally.  It takes me a few days to face down my great-grandmother's china and the crystal, so it's not until they are polished and zippered up in their storage bags that order is restored and the kitchen counters are mine again. Note to self: next year, we're eating off stuff that goes in the dishwasher.

All the knitting gets swept into drawers and bags for the duration, so only now am I getting back to the wool.  I finished the twining roots mittens.

I really like how the cables hug my fingers.  They are a cozy pair.
Now I'm onto Kate's revised floral mittens, (the plum colour is Cascade 220 #8885):

And I threw some wool on the wheel for mittens.  Just a chubby two-ply out of some Lincoln Romney Columbian X I got from Linda Whiting. I'm going for rustic with this.  It's a long wool with a lot of character, and the colour saturation is fantastic.  I'm hoping the mittens I get out of it scream homespun.   I am going for the scream factor, you will recall.

Mitten Activity

I finally swatched the twining roots cable (that I told you about last month) on Saturday, for my next sweater, thinking about how I will place the cable across the yoke, how much of it can I work into the sleeve, and all the scribbly thoughts I could think about this cable that has me so besotted.

The Mister looked at it for a second and said, "That would make a nice mitten," and then walked away. I think he's a genius.

This weekend, I also worked on one of Kate's new mitten patterns, which I am test knitting for her.

It's times like these that a knitter really appreciates having a good stash of Cascade 220, or Ella Rae (which is exactly the same yarn, fyi). 

The Politics of Mittens

I think I'm about to go on a mitten jag.

You can have your socks.  And I do love the socks.  But the thing is, if you are part of the group of knitters who feel that knitting is undervalued, misunderstood, and consigned in the main-stream imagination to grannies and the date-deprived, then you should also face the fact that socks, as wildly popular as they are among us knit-bloggers, are invisible to the muggles.

As a knitter, as a knitter perhaps who wishes to heed Stephanie's call to represent, I appeal to importance of the visibility of your knitting.  You say, "I wear my knitting.  I have hand knit socks on right now."  But my darling fellow, I say to you that the only person likely to notice your hand knit socks with the clever Cat Bordhi construction (and damn freaking clever they are.  Have you seen her new book?) is. another. sock. knitter.

Not exactly furthering the cause there, are we?

But mittens.  Even a muggle can appreciate the mittens.  And in this season of chill, not only are the mittens a sartorial imperative, but they are right there, front and center, vivid and undeniably hand made.  The non knitters are certain to see them and know you are a knitter.  And that, my fellow, is what I call visibility.  A badge of honour, a political step forward in letting the world know that knitters may be grannies and the date-deprived (because some of my best friends are either or both and nothing is wrong with that) but knitters are also moms and grad students and hipsters of both genders and of all ages with boyfriends. 

So go knit some mittens. Fancy ones, pirate ones*, straight ahead one afternoon and you're done ones.  Just knit some, wear them, represent, and be proud.

*Better yet, check out both of Adrian's mitten patterns in Clara's new book, The Knitter's Book of Yarn. BrainyAlison has already a pair of the double thicks under way.  I seriously want to make the snails.

In Which My Husband Has More Success with the Wool Thing Than I.

I finished the first sleeve on Arwen, and started the right side.  I plan to knit the hood in one piece, so all three pieces have to meet at the shoulder before I can proceed there.  My first wrist graft didn't go so well, even though I thought I was following the directions, but given the results, I must have gotten off track somewhere.  I am happy that I have another wrist to practice that graft on before I have the final reckoning at the top of the hood.  That's where it really counts.  But I may end up ripping the sleeve as it is because I think it may be a little wide.

In spinning news, The Mister brought home an $85 wheel from the flea market Sunday. He thought that is would be something we could just pass on to a new spinner, since I am always telling him about new spinners looking for wheels.  Isn't that sweet?  He ended up spending most of the day with wood files and paddle bits trying to make the tensioning system work better, since he thinks the table is a amateurish "fix" that doesn't let the tensioning screw work properly.  I think I may have myself a wheelwright in training here.  As if the guy wasn't perfect enough.

Picture Perfect

Remember this post about the fashion shoot on my staircase?

The ad came out in the Interweave Knits Gift Issue.  Page 59, top right hand corner.

My pal Leslie made such a pretty thing for Tilli Tomas.  The photo makes the yarn look a little like it pools, which I don't remember in real life.  I think it must be the sheen of the silk.

But my wallpaper looks so nice.  Everyone likes the wallpaper. And no, it's not William Morris. It's John Burrows.

Knitting, Anyone?

I thought that I'd try to document how far along I am with Arwen, especially since it has been awhile since there has been any evidence of knitting on this here ol' knitting blog.

I've been working away, skeining yarn,
washing yarn,
drying yarn,
ball-winding yarn . . .
(just like someone else I know, also working on, as fate would have it, one of Kate's designs) It all seems like a lot of work just for the minor gratification of enjoying knitting with said yarn, rather than putting up with the machine oil smell and the cord-like texture of the yarn un-washed.  But Cheryl vindicated my labours by admiring the fabric last knit-night compared to hers, knit (you might recall) in the same yarn (K1C2 Angora Soft), but not washed.  She didn't find the yarn objectionable in the raw as I did, until that is, she saw how nice it is knit up.  But Cheryl knows from looking at the washed fabric how nice they both will be when they are finished.

As a piece of knitting, Arwen is difficult to photograph.  The pieces are oddly shaped, and only knitters familiar with the construction of this particular sweater will recognize this as the left front and half a sleeve completed.   I have also finished this much of the back.  It goes quickly when you don't do the laundry or clean up the kitchen.

There's this much of the back done too, straight stockinette for when I have "things" to pay attention to, other than reversible cables.  The kids have been fed pretty much at regular intervals, but that's what Cheerios and  microwave ovens are for.  Am I right?

 

Many Enthusiastic Contrafibularities!

Hallowe'en has bespet, and the frasmotic season is upon us.  Lo, let the wencing begin!

Spotted yesterday (with the phone camera) during a regular hunting and gathering session, one crochet-ed Festivus Tree-Thingie in the window of Free People boutique, Prudential Centre, Boston.

Bearing seasonal fruits:

Doesn't that just warm the snackles of your heart?

Obligatory Hallowe'en Post

Given The Boy's interest in all creatures  prehistoric, it came as little surprise that when I asked what Hallowe'en had in store for my sewing machine this year, he decided upon a Woolly Mammoth.  I had talk him out of several . more . ambitious . choices, including a diplotocus and an opthalmosaurus. Compared to those behemoths and the challenges of their engineering, a mammoth was a walk in the park.  Once I conquered the conceptual hurdle of the tusks (thanks to Kelly, Our Lady of the sock machine), it was a simple thing.

Recipe for a Wooly Mammoth:

2 yards Fun Fur
odd bits of felt
1 Viking Helmet, cut to fit against chest
1 old vinyl window shade
3 whiffle balls
duct tape
1 Bike helmet
1 yogurt cup
1 pair panty hose
2 yards elastic
4 buttons
foam window insulation tape

He was pleased, and the result was pronounced during trick or treat as the best costume ever by a group of passing 9 year old girls.  They also gave him a pet, because he was so, in their words. woolly.