Posts filed under ‘Cool Things’
Souvenir Yarn: Schoppel Edition 3 Fingerless Gloves and Malabrigo Silky Merino Dress Beanie
Maine for Amy Herzog‘s Make. Wear. Love. retreat and special yarn to remember it by.
I am lucky and glad I got to attend both a West Coast and an East Coast MWL. Both were wonderful events in BEAUTIFUL settings, Monterey, CA and Phippsburg, ME, with many joyful memories.
View from our room at Sebasco Harbor Resort
The colors caught my eye.
Schoppel Edition 3 in color 2296 English Garden
from KnitWit Yarn Shop in Portland, Maine
NOTE: No color repeat in two balls of yarn.
Unusual colors for me, I kept coming back to it as I wandered around the shop, I was charmed. Easter eggs. I convinced myself they could be cheery mittens on a cold, gray day.
The color caught his eye.
Malabrigo Silky Merino in color 472 Nocturnal
from Halcyon Yarn in Bath, Maine
My husband said he saw a good purple yarn, you know, “if you want to buy some yarn”. 
Indeed, he had found this violet Malabrigo Silky Merino, silky intense color and luster. I pointed out the silk content, not the usual stuff I use to make his hats.
We decided it would make a fine Dress Beanie, after all one needs to keep one’s head warm even on special occasions.
Hands Up! & Feet On The Table Trois Kits from Black Water Abbey Yarns
Mitten and Stocking kits from Black Water Abbey Yarns, which I am very sad to see is closed.
Patterns are available on Ravelry (linked below) but the kits are history.
Hands Up! mittens (back)
Hands Up! mittens (palm)
Feet on the Table Trois stockings
I bought the kits in the Marketplace at Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. I was walking past Black Water Abbey Yarns eyeing the tiny stockings and mittens and stopped dead in my tracks when the idea hit me; she saw me suddenly stop and asked “What are you thinking?!”.
A GARLAND!
A garland of mittens and stockings, her eyes lit up, I picked two kits and she customized them by swapping yarn colors so the two kits would coordinate better.
There was plenty of yarn so…
POM POMS!
Everything is better with POM POMS!
Mountain Goat Wool Happiness
Goat Hat
Handspun Enchantment Lakes mountain goat wool
on Brooklyn Tweed Altair hat
The Enchantments are enchanting.
A beautiful place.
With mountain goats.
Lots of them.
They are kinda scary.
And their wool.
I started collecting bits I found on plants and rocks, my husband and brother, joined in. We had to keep moving or I would have spent all day gathering wool. I ended up with two handfuls of goat wool.
On the grueling hike out, I thought and thought about my little bit of goat wool…
not enough to knit a project…a bit of trim…
A MOUNTAIN GOAT EMBROIDERED ON A KNIT HAT!
and I knew just the hat:
Brooklyn Tweed Altair
Photo by Brooklyn Tweed
The arches remind me of mountains and Loft colors Sweatshirt, the color of the granite, and Button Jar, the foliage in The Enchantments.
The goat wool was pretty dirty (I worried abouts pests and poo, but kept stuffing it into a ziplock bag inside my pocket).
I went online and researched how to clean fleece…
and worried.
I resolved to wash it in hot water…
and hoped to avoid felting it…
…and resigned myself to a felt goat sewn onto a hat if it came to that.
Success! Clean goat. No felt.
Second finer cleaning, picking out the hairs, and stuff I call “goat funk” – vegetation, skin, poo, whatever; I washed my hands a lot.
In the end I had 2 grams of fluffy fluffy goat down. As soft as any fiber I’ve ever touched.
Sigh.
I don’t spin.
On to Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat 2017 with goat fluff in hand, to ask the experts for advice. At a demonstration booth, the spinning expert described my goat down as “finer than cashmere” and declared,
“Judith MacKenzie could spin this”.
…
…
Well, that was discouraging,
until I spoke to Judith.
I saw Judith at an evening event,and told her my goat wool story; she invited me to come by her classroom the next day with my goat fluff, she would show me how it is done.
After feeling so discouraged earlier, I was walking on air (Judith does that to people!).
Next day at noon, I showed up with goat fluff in hand.
I was mesmerized, Judith produced a strand a yarn out of the fluff, like water pouring out of a pitcher. Beautiful.
I wondered how long it would take me to learn to do that.
I must have looked like a lost puppy. Judith took my goat fluff home with her.
Three weeks later, this beauty arrived in the mail, along with photos Judith had taken during the spinning process.
Judith’s photos:
ready to begin, goat down, tea, and cookies
skill
mountain goat single
beautiful 2-ply mountain goat yarn
Also at Madrona, I took Franklin Habit’s “Embroider Your Knitting – Level One” class on Friday. He suggested couching as a method for my goat. Couching keeps the precious fiber on top of the fabric, it avoids using up a lot of yarn on the reverse side and avoids the wear and tear of pulling the yarn through the fabric.
Couched embroidery of handspun mountain goat on handknit hat
I started by drawing a goat on paper and tracing it onto some interfacing, then basted the outline onto the hat with orange sewing thread.
Next, embroidered the outline through the interfacing (and basting) with laceweight cashmere.
I verrrry carefully cut away the interfacing, then I just winged it on the couching, lots of trial and error. I did those horns at least five times each!
crochet dad
As far back as I can remember, my dad was crocheting with fine cotton.
A small sample of my dad’s crochet:
There was a doily on every table.
I remember my mom starching the flowers propped open with cotton balls.
My dad’s Boye crochet hook priced at 15¢
He learned from his mom.
My grandmother’s crochet and embroidery:
Back in the ’70s, he tried to get me hooked with this kit (puns happen):
but by the time I was 8 inches into it, it was 8 years out of style…
…
…
…I would totally wear that skirt now.
circular and double pointed knitting needle organizer
Circular and double pointed needles wrangled at last. 🙂
Convenient, practical, and presentable.
Starting with this Receipt File from The Container Store.
The whole thing expands accordion-style and the sections are separate all the way to the bottom so dpns won’t migrate between sections.
When full of needles, the file is too big to close.
I folded the cover back and slipped it into a train case (by World Traveler).
The large case fits perfectly with a little extra space for stitch holders and crochet hooks.
It has a perfect spot for my favorite needle gauge!
Since the train case comes in a set of two, I can use the smaller one for travel.
p.s. Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat 2016
June Hemmons Hiatt was there.
I’m a fan, loved her book since way back.
I got the knitting belt; I tried it out, it felt pretty good, seemed like a good idea to alleviate some knitting aches I get and avoid long term damage…
Who am I kidding? she probably could have sold me acrylic yarn and a gun if she wanted to.
Good times at Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat 2016
Excellent classes I took:
Cat Bordhi – Developing, Writing, and Publishing
Fantastic teacher, very experienced, knowledgeable, and generous. She understands what you need to know, what is important, and provides that information. Lot of information packed into a mini class.
Amy Herzog – Sweaters: Deconstructed
As good as I’d heard. She teaches how to get what you want when knitting a sweater:
A sweater that you want to wear and makes you happy
How to get the right fit and style.
And.
I guess I knew this would happen someday.
And of course it happened at Madrona.
I was only curious about spinning; someone said I should see Sarah Anderson demonstrating in the rotunda. *Sarah Anderson* said with meaning and nods of approval all around. So I went to see Sarah Anderson.
I was mesmerized.
She was knowledgeable and encouraging and clearly knew what she was doing.
Someone else showed up, sat down and started spinning angora on a drop spindle.
I said, “I don’t spin, yet”. “Yet”, they laughed. I don’t even know why that word came out of my mouth, but apparently they did.
Next, someone walked up to talk about an upcoming retreat in the woods with Sarah, very rustic and inspiring.
I wondered if this was a racket, with the spinning wheel, dropping words like angora, cashmere, spinning spindle, retreat in the woods…spinning, spinning…
Next thing I knew, I was standing at a booth in the Marketplace looking at spindles, confused. The person looking at spindles next to me, decided to teach me to spin right there and then.
At Madrona, these people just appear.
And now I own this.
Greensleeves Damsel Monique spindle
Around the corner, my new spinning teacher helped me pick out roving in beautiful natural colors.
Roving from Island Fibers
clockwise from top – Shetland, Targhee, and a Polwarth/Silk blend
(because she said I really should try some silk. Because. Silk.)
Typical Madrona, there’s always an expert, or twenty, around to show you how it’s done, and happy users ready to enable, with a Marketplace so you don’t have a chance to sleep it off.
So that happened.
ANEMOI Mittens To Match
UDATE on this hat:
Colinette JitterBug in Morello Mash
After five years of wear by a college student, getting stuffed into backpacks and pockets, this hat looks as good as the day it was knit.
I have knit socks that look worse by the time I’m finished knitting them.
Even the ties, which have been tied, knotted, tightened, and re-tied a few thousand times, do not have a single pill:
With yarn leftover from the hat, I knit these mittens to match:
ANEMOI Mittens by Eunny Jang in Colinette JitterBug color Morello Mash and Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in color Hoppy Blonde
Another Husky Hat
Apparently my DH cannot have too many Husky hats:
malabrigo SOCK in Violeta Africana and Ochre
Pattern?
cast on enough stitches
2×2 ribbing for a while
stockinette for a while
decrease down to nuthin
striping along the way.
Homemade Hat Block
I needed to block my Catherine Lowe beanie
folded kitchen towels into quarters lengthwise and rolled them together to get the right diameter:
wrapped a ribbon around it:
shaped the crown by pushing the center up:
covered it in plastic wrap:
put the washed wet hat on top, and pinned it:
final:
Sheilavig Vest in Shibui Sock Midnight
Finally.
I’ve had this pattern for…
…since before it went out of print a few years ago.
I’ve had the yarn for…a while.
As well as the buttons. sheesh.
and I love this color. So much. Too much for just socks.
Shibui Sock in Midnight
Yarn Conversion
Compare gauge and yardage:
Scottish Fleet_________Shibui Sock
100 g________________50 g
28-36 sts/ 4inches_____30 sts/4 inches
245 yds______________191 yds
Since the gauges were similar, I aimed for comparable yardage.
For the pattern requirement of 7 balls of Scottish Fleet I would need about 9 hanks of Shibui Sock:
7 skeins x 245 yds/skein (Fleet) = 1715 yds
1715 yds ÷ 191 yds/hank(Shibui) ~ 9 hanks
So, I bought 11 hanks of Shibui sock. Because that’s how I think.
I ended up using 8 hanks + 3.7g of Shibui Sock.
And now I have enough leftover yarn for socks and mittens
or mittens and a hat!
Pewter buttons from
Button Emporium & Ribbonry
in Portland.
Modifications:
Shortened overall about 1 inch.
For button band, pick-up 3 stitches every 4 rows, instead of pattern specific stitch number.
Dropped the front neckline about 1-1/2 inches; pattern is crewneck.
Added back neck shaping (white dashed curve) for a better fit; the pattern is straight across.
Skipped the picot cast on, too fiddly and frilly for me.
Fiddly cast on, I never could get the points to look consistent
Of course, I also omitted the additional picot trim around the front.
Knitting In Mind 