3KCBWDAY1 - Colour Lovers

I just learned about Knitting & Crochet Blog Week earlier today & decided to throw my hat into this ring while I'm in a blogging mood.  I've got some work lined up for this week so I certainly can not guarantee that I'll be able to participate every day but I'm off to a strong start!

All participating bloggers receive a theme to write on each day & today's theme is Colour Lovers.  

From the KCBW website: Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects - do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.


Quite a big topic, right?  So to start with, I find myself drawn to different colors depending on the season, the weather, my location & what's trending in knitwear.  For example, over the winter I couldn't get enough of chunky grey knits.  I didn't actually knit anything like that because I already had a bunch of stuff on the needles but every time I saw a project that fit that description I wanted to cast on for it immediately. Never mind that I live in the world's greyest climate for most of the year so there's no good reason I should want more grey.  I just did.  In the fall, I find myself knitting with oranges & burgundies.  Now that's springtime, I've got something blue on the needles (more on that in a future post).  In fact, I think the only colors I avoid are black & white.  I've already got so much black in my wardrobe, it just does nothing for me on the needles.  

Photo from Knitty by Cookie A.

I love yarns with subtle color shifts, like semisolids & tonal yarns such as Knitpicks' Swish Tonal. I'm currently obsessed with the colorway that Cookie A. used to knit her Monkey socks from Knitty, Winter 2006. It's the perfect variegated yarn: it has great depth without being too busy & it doesn't conflict with the pattern.  This is one of the only patterns that I want to knit in the exact yarn the designer used.  Usually I like to pair a project with a yarn in my stash or I like a pattern but prefer a different colorway.  But for this project, I think Cookie chose the perfect combination of pattern & yarn.

Photo from Ravelry by Jacks1080.

Another project that has been on my mind for a few years is the Indigo Banded Cardigan by Cecily Glowik MacDonald from Knitscene, Fall 2009.  I was visiting my family in NY when this issue came out & I positively scoured the Hudson Valley looking for a copy of it.  This project immediately stood out as something I must knit but the colors just don't appeal to me.  So I filed it away in the back of my mind for a while until I'd finished my Highland Park Hoodie & realized that I wanted it to be my next sweater.  So I looked through all the projects on Ravelry & was amazed by how many people had knitted it in the original colors.  Jacks1018 however had knit it in a cozy combination of chocolate brown & pale blue, which created exactly the look I wanted for this sweater.  When I get around to finally casting on for this sweater, I'll either use these colors (I already have a great blue in my stash) or I'll change out the blue for a pale green, also in my stash.

Color by Number

A few weeks ago, my friend Lucretia & I took a 45-minute drive north of Seattle to the adorable town of Edmonds, WA.  One of our friends owns an awesome women's clothing store right on Main St & the town boasts such other great finds as Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door.  The last time I'd been in Edmonds was in 2007 while traversing the northern leg of the Local Yarn Shop Tour.  I visited Spin a Yarn on that trip & was excited to see the shop again.  Last time I was there, the shop was run by a delightfully eccentric old lady who walked me through every room of the shop (there are 3 rooms downstairs & 3-4 rooms upstairs) making sure I didn't miss a single item in her knitting, needlepoint or latchhook rug stock.  Far from being irritating, I found this absolutely endearing & I was actually looking forward to the updated tour.  However, in the intervening years it seems that the shop has been turned over to this woman's daughter, whose style of hospitality involved allowing us the luxury of the self-guided tour.    This was probably for the best as we were on a bit of a schedule. 

Unchanged since 2007 is the shop's decor, which resembles a country-style bed & breakfast, complete with antique furniture & life-size wooden sheep. 

 

The organizational structure is also the same as it was in 2007 giving this shop the distinction of being the only yarn shop I've been to whose stock is organized by color.  While this makes for a very visually pleasing display, I'm not sure how easy I'd find it to shop for something specific here.  

Spin a Yarn has a constant supply of sale & close-out yarn & this was my favorite section of the store.  I picked up a skein of NY Yarns Gypsy in a very springy colorway.  This looks to be a bulky weight medium-color-length variegated single whose colors run the gamut from pink to purple to blue to green. I have no idea what I'm going to make with it yet but I look forward to experimenting with plugging some of the stitch patterns I learned at the variegated yarn class I took at Madrona into a garment.  And lest you think I've forgotten about my swatch project, the results of which I promised to share oh so long ago, fear not!  The swatches are complete & ready for blocking & photographing, after which they'll be ready for blogging!  

Emergence

OK, I'll admit it, I knew I was going to have to disappear for a while there.  But I really didn't expect my absence to be this prolonged & for that I apologize.  But there's been a lot going on these past few weeks.  First was the epic battle to renew Washington State's Motion Picture Competitiveness Program (AKA the tax incentive that rewards movies, commercials & TV shows for shooting here, AKA a little thing that makes it possible for me to work & therefore afford to knit).  So it is with great joy & relief that I share the fact that weeks of anxious emails, letters & visits to legislators have finally resulted in a renewed incentive, despite the varied & treacherous obstacles that blocked our path.  It was truly a roller coaster every step of the way & since recounting it would make this a mighty long post, I will simply direct you, if interested, to the blog that kept us informed & motivated over the past few months.  


While all that was going on, I joined the production team of a web series called Journey Quest, which sucked my life up for 5 weeks & only recently spit it back out again, soaked in rain, covered in mud & battered by hail.  I truly look forward to seeing the final product.  


Once that was over, I ran headlong into promoting a writing workshop I'm organizing for Women in Film Seattle.


And now I'm working on a Microsoft job that's about to start shooting in London & NYC (no I don't get to go).  


So yeah, it's been busy.  But none of that means I haven't been knitting!  In fact, there's been lots of great stuff happening on the needles.  Like this for instance:

Yes, friends, the Highland Park Hoodie (renamed to give props to my 'hood) is finally complete!  And may I say, in no uncertain terms, that I love the shit out of it!  I love the colors, I love the way it fits, I love the buttons I found at Seattle Yarn & I love all the stuff I learned while making it.

The biggest thing I learned is that I had no idea how to sew seams before making this sweater.  In fact, even when I started the finishing for this sweater, I had no idea how.  And while I'd always known that I was kind of figuring it out for myself, I had no idea just how wrong I was getting it.  Luckily, my belated Xmas gift from Goldie (recipient of the Peekaboo Scarf) was the amazingly informative Finishing School: A Master Class for Knitters, which includes an entire, beautifully-illustrated chapter on seaming.  And wow, did it show me the light. 

             

                                Seams sewn before reading Finishing School.

Seam sewn after reading Finishing School.

I was also happy to see that the fix I came up with for my mistake of continuing the cable pattern up the hood worked.  The hood calls for a series of small decreases in the center but when I decided not to rip out the misplaced cables, I moved those decreases to either side of the cable & let the cable terminate where the two sides of the hood get sewn together.  And I'm really happy with how that came out.

Finally, there are some inconsistencies in drape between the different types of yarn I used (most noticeable when the sweater is closed) but I plan to take some advice from my friend Bea & block the sweater with some hair conditioner then pin it out to try to loosen up the contrasting color.  Despite that, I think this was a great success for my first sweater & I can't wait to cast on another one!  I've got some smaller stuff on the needles now (including the first baby item I've ever knit) but I'll talk about those next time.  It's good to be back!

Madrona Fiber Arts Festival Wrap-Up

Yep, that's me & Jared Flood at this weekend's Madrona Fiber Arts Festival in Tacoma, WA.  I got lucky enough to run into him at the Churchmouse Yarns & Teas booth & he was very gracious about letting me get a photo with him.  He takes the beautiful photographs that grace Churchmouse's in-house pattern collection & will be appearing at their shop on Bainbridge Island this coming Tuesday 2/21 from 5-7pm.  That will also be one of the last opportunities to see his Brooklyn Tweed trunk show before it gets shipped down to Portland.  Sadly I can't make it there but if anyone reading this can, I want all the details.


Madrona was full of awesome stuff this year.  Having been to Rhinebeck just a few months ago, it's hard not to compare, but I'm going to do my best.



I went down on Saturday with some friends & fellow knitters & almost immediately stumbled upon Sandra McIver & the Knit, Swirl trunk show!  She gave us a detailed description of the construction of each style of her beautiful knitted jackets then let us try them on!  I have to admit I was skeptical that there was such a thing as a pattern that would flatter every body type but after seeing the same jacket on a couple different women, I'm convinced.  Unfortunately I didn't manage to get photos of that comparison but I did get the three different jacket styles below on my friends Bea & Cass & each one looked terrific on them.


 

I also got to check out some examples of Jazzknitting, which I'd heard of but had absolutely no idea what it was.  For whatever reason I'd come to associate it with fun fur, but I am happy to report that the two have nothing to do with one another.  

This interview with Jazzknitting creator Ilisha Helfman explains the technique & shows some examples.  The video doesn't do justice to the knitted pieces but there are some nice photos on the website.  I saw the ginkgo leaves Ilisha is wearing in the video in person & they were really beautiful.


This morning I took a mini-class with Margaret Radcliffe called Get the Best from your Variegated Yarn: Patterns & "Un-Patterns".  I was excited about what I might learn in this class but when she started out by saying that she usually teaches this class in 3 hours rather than the 1.5 hours we had today, I had a feeling it would be more of an overview.  And indeed our hour & a half passed in a blur of knitting, listening, scribbling notes & trying to match the samples she passed around with the stitches she discussed until they all started to blur together.  I did learn one really cool technique called Knitting Into the Stitch Below or, as she called it, Rose Fabric.  This technique breaks up the typical patterning of a short-color-repeat variegated yarn & creates more of a blended look, while giving the fabric some texture.  The process of knitting into the stitch below the next stitch on your needle creates an inverted V-shapes when the next stitch drops off the needle, unravels & hangs from the stitch below it.  With such a whirlwind class, I didn't get much time to practice but she left us with handouts describing this technique & others so I'll post a photo of my swatch once I've had a chance to experiment some more.






  

A Formula for Joy

It is a sad fact that as the amount of work I have increases, the amount of time I have for knitting, & the blogging that documents it, decreases proportionally.  In fact, I'm writing this while waiting for my computer to export the latest changes to the video I'm currently editing.  


I have however, managed to sneak a little knitting in here & there.  I've finished the hood on my Central Park Hoodie & am now knitting the first button band.  I'm really looking forward to choosing some buttons for this sweater!  In fact, I should add them to my list of things to look for at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival next weekend!


I hope to spend both Saturday & Sunday at the festival.  On Saturday, I'm going to check out the marketplace with some friends & members of my knitting group.  And on Sunday, I've signed up for a class entitled Get the Best From Your Variegated Yarn: Patterns & "Un-Patterns".  Everyone in the class is required to bring one skein of worsted or bulky weight yarn where the color sections are between 1" & 6" long.  So after realizing I didn't have anything quite like that in my stash, I went to Weaving Works & picked up a skein of Crystal Palace Cotton Twirl in Berry Compote. It was unseasonably warm in Seattle that day & I think I was inspired by the bright floral colors.  I can't wait to see what it becomes! 

For now though, it's back to work.  Because you know what they say.  All play & no work makes V! a broke girl!

Mysteries Revealed

This photo was taken with an iPhone.  Seriously.

At this point, we might as well call this a Valentine's Day present.  This is the Peekaboo scarf by Kim Hamlin & I had all intentions of giving it to my friend Goldie for Xmas.  It's got a knitted framework with ribbon yarn woven through the ladders in the pattern.  It was a very fast & simple knit, so simple in fact that it was a little mind-numbing at times.  I brought it with me on my annual holiday trip to NY & it made great plane knitting, even if it is rather long (around 100"-120").  I actually flew through the knitting portion then, for reasons unbeknownst to me, got extremely lazy about blocking it.  So it languished in my knitting bag for weeks, until Goldie gave me my Xmas present & I started feeling guilty about not finishing hers.  So into the sink it went, after which it proceeded to take up every single one of my blocking mats for 2 days.


I knitted it in Manos del Uruguay Clasica, in no small part because the artisan who spun it is named Vanesa.  Her name is spelled differently than mine (Vanessa) but it still felt meant to be when I opened the ball band.  In reality, I was already leaning towards this yarn over a different yarn & colorway so seeing that just sealed the deal.  I have a soft spot for single-ply thick-&-thin yarns, to me they look the way I think yarn should look.  Not overly processed or perfectly even or made up of a million teeny threads, just spun, soaked & twisted into a skein, still full of its original wooly glory. 

Also taken with an iPhone.

The Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon yarn complements the Manos beautifully.  The purple in the Sari yarn is a perfect match for the Manos purple & the blue & gold accents really pop.  Plus the colors look awesome on Goldie.


This is the third pattern I've knitted from the Fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits Knitscene, making it the most useful pattern collection in my library.  For whatever reason, I'm terrible at knitting the patterns I have.  Instead, I keep seeking out a pattern for a specific type of project I want to make or a pattern to match a yarn in my stash.  A few years ago I subscribed to Interweave Knits but finally ended my subscription under the premise that I was not allowed to re-subscribe to any knitting magazine until I'd knitted one project from my year's worth of issues.  Last year, I finally knit my first project from Interweave Knits (the Ogee Lace Skirt) & promptly asked for a subscription to a knitting magazine this past Xmas!  I subscribe to the Knitting Daily newslettter from Interweave & have been doing my best to avoid any mention of the just-released Spring 2012 Knitscene (the first issue in my subscription) as I'm anxiously awaiting for it to arrive in my mailbox! 

Comin' Correct

It recently came to my attention that I've been using the term "Western knitting" all wrong.  In Experimentally Speaking, I talked about learning to switch between Western & Continental knitting, when what I should have said is that I am learning to switch between English & Continental knitting.  Apparently English knitting is the correct term to describe a knitter who holds her yarn in her right hand & throws it over her needle.  The term Western knitting refers to which part of the stitch you knit into.  Confused?  Well, according to Samurai Knitter,

WESTERN is how the majority of us knit in Western European-founded cultures. That includes (other than W Europe, obviously), most of N America, Australia, and parts of Africa (the sub-saharan parts). The knit stitch sits on the needle so that the front of the stitch faces left. When knitting, the yarn is brought under the needle and up, wrapping around the right hand needle in a counter-clockwise direction.EASTERN is how Eastern Europe, Arab and Arab-settled countries (Spain, and by extension, much of S America) knit. The knit stitch sits on the needle with the front facing right. When knitting, the yarn is brought over the right needle from the back, wrapping around in a clockwise direction. This is considered the oldest method of knitting, and purling with this method is very efficient.

And Grumperina describes Continental vs. English knitting this way:

"Continental" and "English" knitting refers to the way a knitter holds yarn and uses it to make stitches.  If a knitter throws the yarn over the needle and then pulls it through to make a stitch, that is called English knitting.  If a knitter uses the needle to scoop yarn through stitches to make new ones, that is called Continental knitting.  More often than not, Continental knitters carry the yarn in their left hand, and English knitters carry yarn in their right.  However, there are exceptions, especially among lefties.

So I stand corrected!

Now I don't know if anyone else does this, but I keep a small box of extra knitted items around, in case the need for a last-minute gift pops up or I need to donate an item to a raffle, auction, etc.  (This also gives me an excuse to knit all the awesome hats/gloves/scarves that I just don't need myself!)  As a board member of Women in Film Seattle, I actually find myself donating to events fairly often.  The event I recently sent a piece off to is the upcoming Post Alley Film Festival.  It's a short film festival happening on Sat. Feb. 25th made up of "female-centric & eccentric" films from around the corner & around the world.  There will also be a raffle & a silent auction & one of the items up for grabs will be my Wildflower Mitts.

The pattern is quite basic but for me these gloves are all about the yarn.  This is Crystal Palace Fjord Print in the Violets colorway.  It's a single-ply 100% wool yarn that was unfortunately discontinued last year.  It was a joy to knit with as it was incredibly soft & squishy.  The gloves came out super-cozy, though they are tighter than I usually knit my gloves so someone would need thin, small hands to wear them. 

The raffle & auction also contain some pretty sweet items from local restaurants, yoga studios, music venues, stores, etc so if you're a Seattlite who likes off-kilter short films, I hope to see you there!