Since I first started bundling together a few of my favorite colors into mini-skein sets, people have been asking me what they should do with them. Which is a fair question. To me they are prompts to creativity and an excuse to try to use more color in my knitting, but as someone who often has a hard time making decisions I can see how having more color options could also be overwhelming.
So, spurred on by the knowledge that people would again be asking, “what should I do with these?” at the recent Boston Farm and Fiber Festival, I put together a couple of pattern suggestions. (Disclaimer: these have not been test knit by anyone other than me).
A set of high or low boot toppers can be knit with one of my mini-skein sets, though you won’t have much yarn left over, so if you increase the number of pattern repeats you may want to shorten them by a row of each color to avoid yarn chicken.
I’ve included a chart in each color way (Land and Sea) for each boot topper. This may or may not make them easier to follow…
Toppers for Short Boots - Land colorway (these would also make good arm warmers).
But if you like, these patterns are just a starting point for your own creativity. I use Stitch Fiddle (available in a free version) to “sketch” patterns. With this fairly intuitive program you can easily make graphs, which, when combined with a book of pattern motifs (like Mary Jane Mucklestone’s 150 Scandinavian Motifs) makes for a fun afternoon of color exploration.
And for those of you intimidated by stranded color work, while writing this post it occurred to me that I really should have swatched boot toppers that used stripes rather than small repeated stranded color work motifs. Which I shall now do…
As of this writing I have three mini-skein sets in the Land color way available in the shop, but last week the yarn spun from the 2018 Straw’s Farm Island fleeces returned from the mill, and I can’t wait to start playing with it! (That said, it could be a little while before mini-skein sets are restocked, for which I apologize).
Early voting has already started in many states, and from now until November 12 as a small thank you to those who vote in the Midterms I’m offering a 5% discount on all orders (use the code IVOTED at checkout). Obviously I have no way of knowing if you actually voted, but knitters by and large are honest folks.
Like many people I have been fighting a grinding sense of doom when it comes to current events. Scrolling through my Instagram feed a few weeks ago I came across Thea Colman’s post about writing postcards for postcardstovoters.com . The traditional forms of political engagement are either ill-suited to my personality (like most people I hate getting political phone calls; phone banking is not for me) or just impractical given my current situation (door to door canvassing is a lot harder with an infant) so finding something that I could actually do in my spare moments made me really happy. I like having a way to quietly remind people to vote without interrupting their dinner. And who doesn’t like getting handwritten mail? So I signed up to volunteer and set to carving a simple block print for faster postcard production.
Via Instagram I’ve been offering to send postcard writers sets of my postcards, and the response has been heartening. Sending out my neat little packets of postcards feels like send out bundles of hope; a visible reminder that I a not alone in my fears, that other people care too.
And when I read something in the news that makes me think grim thoughts I can sit down and convert that feeling to ink. In my experience, the salve for anxiety is action, however small.
I am addicted to the simplicity of Instagram, while my blog has become the thing I hide from in shame for not writing all the things I should have written by now, so I’ve been remiss in not making the same offer of postcards to my blog readers. If you would like a batch of my postcards please send me an email. The “price” is that you will promise to use them to remind others to vote.
The weather outside is frightful, but I am warm inside playing with yarn. I hope you are all likewise somewhere warm and yarn filled.
Fresh from the drying rack: two lovely neutral grays, one light (Woodsmoke) and one dark (Slate). Both colors are actually based on logwood (purple) heavily "saddened" with a mix of tannin and iron which gives them a faint purple undertone in the right light - I can't help but think of the "violet" sheep of the Odyssey (the dyeing is admitedly a bit of a cheat).
Worsted-spun 3-Ply fingering weight from the island raised sheep of Straw's Farm in Newcastle, Maine. I love this yarn. Smooth, with just a little bit of bounce, it would be perfect for socks, or Sanquhar gloves, or a whole sweater (I may do all three). This yarn is pleasure to dye and a pleasure to knit with.
Worsted-spun 3-Ply fingering weight from the island raised sheep of Straw's Farm in Newcastle, Maine. I love this yarn. Smooth, with just a little bit of bounce, it would be perfect for socks, or Sanquhar gloves, or a whole sweater (I may do all three). This yarn is pleasure to dye and a pleasure to knit with.
Suggested Needle: US sizes 0-3
Length: approx 110 yards
Dye(s): Logwood, Tannin
I couldn't help but take photos of some of my favorite color combinations:
With Tiger Lily
With Lichen
With Cress
With Zucchini
The view from my desk. Reginald the kaffir lime tree was not meant to see such weather.
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.
Once again I have fallen in love with a pattern and put together a yarn kit. This time for Kristin Drysdale's wonderfully cute (and warm) Ingeborg Slippers. I fell in love with the pattern the first time they appeared on my Instagram feed, and it turns out they are a relatively quick but very engaging knit.
Kit features Upton Yarns DK weight Bluefaced Leicester from the happy sheep of Two Sisters Farm, Warren, Maine, in three colorways: 50 yards each of light blue Glacier Bay and dark blue Delft (both dyed with natural indigo) and 20 yards of contrasting Tiger Lily (dyed with madder, lac, and weld) for the crochet edge, and arrives packaged in one of my hand printed project bags.
If you are unfamiliar with the foibles of yarn dyed with natural indigo, please check out the About Indigo page here.
Happy knitting!
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!).
I still have a few more colors in the works, but I wanted to get these up when I had the time. Check out the new colors on the Fingering Weight page. (Still to come, a hunter green, dark gray, light gray, and maybe a few more blues?).
Thank you creative Instagramers for the naming help!
Worsted-spun 3-Ply fingering weight from the island raised sheep of Straw's Farm in Newcastle, Maine. I love this yarn. Smooth, with just a little bit of bounce, it would be perfect for socks, or Sanquhar gloves, or a whole sweater (I may do all three). This yarn is pleasure to dye and a pleasure to knit with.
Worsted-spun 3-Ply fingering weight from the island raised sheep of Straw's Farm in Newcastle, Maine. I love this yarn. Smooth, with just a little bit of bounce, it would be perfect for socks, or Sanquhar gloves, or a whole sweater (I may do all three). This yarn is pleasure to dye and a pleasure to knit with.
Worsted-spun 3-Ply fingering weight from the island raised sheep of Straw's Farm in Newcastle, Maine. I love this yarn. Smooth, with just a little bit of bounce, it would be perfect for socks, or Sanquhar gloves, or a whole sweater (I may do all three). This yarn is pleasure to dye and a pleasure to knit with.
Suggested Needle: US sizes 0-3
Length: approx 110 yards
Dye(s): Weld, Indigo
For example - check out the Fingering Weight page to see more.
In other news, we bought a house yesterday. A whole house. With a very cool barn. And a work space for Upton Yarns. It doesn't quite feel real yet.
I have been dyeing away, mainly working with the Straw’s Farm Island Sheep fingering weight (with an eye towards Kanoko socks and more importantly, Kanoko yarn kits, see below for one idea) but a few dye lots of DK weight BFL have snuck through, including one of my favorites, Coe’s Naptime. I think it would make a great Arboreal sweater. (Now listed for sale over at the DK weight BFL page).
DK Weight BFL spun from fleece from Two Sisters Farm, Warren, Maine
With a skein of Silver Birch. Because reasons.
Stay tuned for Kanoko kits, and a whole lot of Straw’s Farm Island Sheep fingering weight in an array of colors.
Potential Kanoko Kit #1 - Zounds those colors are bright!
