Shop Update - New Kits!

Like many other knitters, I fell in love with Kristin Drysdale's Ingeborg Slippers the moment I first saw them on my Instagram feed.  It turns out they are as fun to knit as they are to pad about in.  So I put together kits. 

For my slippers I used Upton Yarns DK Weight Bluefaced Leicester spun from the wonderful fleece of the flock at Two Sisters Farm.  The pattern calls for size 3 needles, but I found that to get the correct gauge I had to go up to size 6s (I tend to be a tight knitter).  I used light blue Glacier Bay, dark blue Delft, and for a blaze of contrast, bright orange Tiger Lily to finish the edges. 

The kit includes those three colorways, and of course, one of my very happy hand printed project bags. 

Sold Out

Yarn Kits - Ingeborg Slippers

$37.00

Any orders placed between now and Friday will go in the mail the day they are ordered (as long as the order is placed before 3:00 - I still need time to pack them up and get to the Post Office - but I will do my best!). 

And don't forget the Moth Discouraging Sachets!

Happy knitting, and Happy Holidays!

Bousta Beanie Kit

I'm not really a hat knitter normally, but at the good natured prodding of my friend Sarah Hunt (@fibertrek) I finally caved and knit a Bousta Beanie. (For those who, like me, have been living under a rock all summer, Bousta Beanie is a free pattern designed by Gundrun Johnston to promote the 2017 Shetland Wool Week. Apparently everyone is knitting them, and I can see why). As she usually is when it comes to all matters knitting, Sarah is absolutely right and I loved knitting my Bousta Beanie so much that I further caved to Sarah's prodding and put together a kit.

I got so excited about making the kit that I haven't actually finished mine yet - appologies for the lack of blocking, end tucking, or pom pom) .

The kit contains two, 110 yard skeins of 3-Ply Romney fingering weight, and one, 110 skein each of 3-Ply Straw's Farm Island Sheep fingering weight dyed with natural indigo in a light blue gradient and a more solid dark indigo colorway.

There is, of course, a kit bag.

The product link will go live this evening (Wednesday, September 13) at 5:00 PM.  I'm stuck traveling for my "day job" again next week, though thankfully only for a few days this time.  All orders placed by noon on Friday, September 15 will go out that day.  All order placed after that will have to wait until Friday September 21.

Slater Mill Knitting Weekend (the yarn pile grows...)

Since returning home from the boat my life (and apartment) have been taken over by preparations for the Slater Mill Knitting Weekend in Pawtucket RI (and yes, I did get the vending dates wrong in that last post - vending is Jan 21 and Jan 22).  I feel a bit like I just accepted an invitation to a fancy dinner only to realize that I have nothing to wear....  Luckily the beautiful DK weight BFL spun from the 2016 Two Sisters Farm fleeces came back from the mill, and I have been (gleefully) hard at work.  So, if you are in the neighborhood next weekend, please stop by. 

This is just the neatest of the epic piles of newly dyed BFL that have taken over the apartment..

For people still on my coopworth gansey yarn wait list, fear not, I do still have 2016 yarn available and but for a small sample it will not be going to Slater Mill.  Efforts to fill orders for those on the wait list have been preempted by the mad work to have yarn to sell in person, by the following week will be back to normal.  I'll be sending emails to folks in the order they expressed interest.  And with time already running out on this rotation home (seriously, how does it go so fast when I'm home?) I will probably still be filling wait list orders when I get home again in March.  I thank you all for your patience and understanding of my (frankly ridiculous) day job. 

And in totally unrelated news, I have been hesitant to mix politics with business because to my New England raised sensibilities doing so is just impolite, but strange times and all are forcing a bit of a rethink on that one.   Today I worked up the courage and called the offices of a senator and a member of the House of Representatives.  It's baby steps in terms of political involvement, but it wasn't nearly as scary in reality as I had made it seem in my head.  I encourage everyone to give it a try.  It may be yelling into the wind, but maybe if enough of us yell.... 

What I Got Up To Whilst Home Part I

As usual, despite my firm resolve to do better this time, I failed to keep up with blogging while I was home, so here are a few catch up posts, and then (fingers crossed) I resolve to continue with my series about natural dyes and history (thank you for the encouragement on that front M.)

I spent my entire rotation home working with indigo to fill an order for the Netloft in Cordova, Alaska.  More on that next post, but for those wanting a preview, the yarn in question is in honor on the Netloft Fiber&Friends: Fisherfolk gathering this summer. 

On the personal knitting front, I was inspired by Kay Gardiner’s Instagram #bangoutasweater knit-along to knit another Icelandic sweater.  The knit-along focused on Mary Jane Mucklestone’s Stop Over, which I love (especially seeing so many of the completed sweaters in so many different color combinations) but I have long been looking for an excuse to knit Ysolda Teague’s Strokkur, so I seized this as my excuse and ran with it.  

In catching up with the Fridge Association blog during my last rotation on the boat I found myself agreeing with Karen’s love of dark icelandic sweaters with light yokes.    And then I took this photo of a sunset off the coast of the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica and thought about what a lovely dramatic sweater those colors would make. 

The yoke Ysolda devised for Strokkur already captured some of the feeling of light on the ocean, so all I needed to do was chose a darker yarn for the main color. 

I love everything about this sweater.  On the creative front I feel like it translated the color and texture of the sunset on water, and more importantly I love everything about how the sweater itself fits.  Ysolda is the queen of sneaky waist shaping and short rows to make finished garment fit the contours of the wearer in a way that is flattering but more importantly, more comfortable.   I could not be more pleased with the resulting sweater (though reading about everyone’s Stop Overs and the beauty that is Lettlopi yarn knit on size US 10s I may have to knit myself one next time I’m home).

The #bangoutasweater along was a wonderful and much needed pallet cleanser after the fine color work of Kate Davies Machrihanish, .  A ridiculously over the top Fair Isle vest has been on my dream to-knit list for years but for one reason or another I always found myself working on something else instead. But something about the Machrihanish pattern struck me and I felt the immediate “must knit” response drives us all to feats of knitterly exuberance. Luckily Sam and I share a similar taste, and he was equally struck by the need to wear such a gem.   I chose to knit the vest in exactly the same colors and yarn that Kate designed it with, because it was the colors and texture that drew me to the vest in the first place, and also because part of the beauty of Fair Isle vests (I have discovered) is the way the colors play against each other when the same motif is knit using different color combinations.   (There is a musical allusion to be made here, but the correct words are escaping me at the moment - please insert the obvious clever allusion here). 

When Sam was a sailor and sailmaker ganseys were obviously the necessary thing to keep him supplied with, but now that he is a grad student, a smart Fair Isle vest is clearly required.  We’re both quite pleased with the result.  And now having tackled one, I am very much itching to knit another for myself. 

While home I also managed to steek my Epistrophy, knit in my DK Weight Bluefaced Leicester, but I chose the wrong ribbon to sew over the steeked edges (not quite enough body) and ended up being too busy (and at one point too sick - wretched colds) to make the much discussed foray into Boston in search of good fabric (for different projects) and ribbon, and so the whole project has been sent to the time out corner until I get home.  Sigh.  I’m looking forward to picking it up again.