FO Friday: Siobhan Part One - Yarn Travels and Love at First Sight

Every now and then, a project just jumps out at me. I see it and I know immediately that I need to make it. That was how the Siobhan shawl came about.

Last October, my mom and I took a trip to San Antonio, Texas. We did all the normal tourist things, saw the Alamo, visited the Spanish missions, went up the Tower of the Americas, ate barbeque and Tex-Mex, drove up to Stonewall, Texas to visit the LBJ Ranch and Texas Whitehouse, and took a ghost tour.* In addition to those things, we also shopped for yarn. I like to try to find a local yarn store whenever I travel; yarn makes a great souvenir. My mom is also a knitter, so she was up for doing some yarn shopping. We happened to be visiting during the 2016 Hill Country Yarn Crawl and made it to 5 of the shops on the crawl.

One of those shops was a place called Inskein Yarns, a cute little shop in Northwest San Antonio. If you are a fiber artist and in the area, stop by. The staff is amazingly friendly and helpful and they have a great selection of yarns.

While browsing, I came across a shawl up by the check out. Something about the shawl caught my eye, the colors, the texture, the design; I’m not sure what it was, but I knew I had to make that shawl in that yarn. I asked about it, the design was created by the shop owner and the yarn was from a local indie dyer. That was all I needed to know, I bought the yarn and the pattern on the spot.

Design wise, Siobhan is a simple shawl, with a couple of interested elements. The body of the shawl has a stitch pattern that creates a great texture that works well for hand-dyed yarns. The bottom of the shawl has these great little loops, which add so much to the overall look. Overall, the knitting wasn’t difficult and it was fun to knit.

Detail of the loops on the bottom of the shawl and the texture of the shawl body.

The yarn, as I mentioned before, is from an indie dyer in San Antonio, Irish Girl Crafts. The yarn base is called Tullamore and is a blend of superwash corriedale wool (75%) and nylon (25%). The color way, Amber’s Fire in the Sky, is a combination of white, purple, yellow, and orange (there may be another color or two in there) and is gorgeous! The colorway makes me think of Disney villains. It is possibly the combination of purples and blacks, or maybe the fact that I started knitting this project on my way to Disney World. Either way, it is a great color combination, I may have to watch the dyer’s Etsy store to see if she ever lists more for sale.

 

*On a completely unrelated note, I have participated in three ghost tours now, Key West, New Orleans, and San Antonio. I highly recommend checking one out if you are visiting a city that has one (there are lots). Even if you aren’t big on the whole looking for ghosts thing, it is a great way to see some forgotten corners of your destination and hear some local legends. I don’t know that my mom is big into hunting ghosts, and she still seemed to have a great time on the San Antonio one.  

WIP Wednesday: Clearview Cowl

Progress has been very slow and very uneventful on the Hyperion Pullover. The yolk is a honeycomb lace pattern, which looks very nice and will be delightful for a summer sweater, but is also rather time consuming to knit. It is also one of those stitch patterns where I actually have to pay attention when I'm knitting. That works great when Kiddo is sleeping and Husband lays claim to the remote, but on nights I'm watching something I want to watch, or when I'm taking my knitting somewhere, or for the hundreds of other times when I'm knitting while doing something, I need an easier project.


So I decided to cast on for the Clearview Cowl. It came in a kit that I picked up on a girls' weekend in Stillwater, Minnesota a couple of years back. I didn't really have immediate plans to knit it, the colors were wrong to go with my winter coat, so it sat in the closet for a couple of years.


However, this year, I got a new winter coat. It is a lovely shade of gunmetal grey, which is lovely and doesn't show stains, but is rather drab. However, handknit accessories are a lovely way to perk up anything.


I am only a couple rows into this project, but I'm all ready a big fan. It is a rather mindless knit, a row of knits, a row of purls, with a color change at the start of each row.

All 250 stitches are scrunched on the needle, it will be much bigger when it is finished.

The yarn, though, THE YARN is what makes this project. I'm knitting it in the recommended Road to China Lace by the Fibre Co. It is an exquisite blend of alpaca (65%), silk (15%), cashmere (10%), and camel (10%). I really cannot overstate how delightfully soft this yarn is. The colors are gorgeous, too. I'm using rhodolite, a beautiful pinky-purple color, and grey pearl, a lovely soft grey.

The camera did a terrible job capturing the colors of this yarn.

I seriously love this yarn. It is super light (partially because it is a lace weight yarn), but I have no doubt that it will be super warm. I was so excited about this yarn that I went out and bought the sport weight version, Road to China Light, in the same colors to make some matching mittens.

Progress is going slow on this, mainly because it is lace weight yarn on tiny needles, but I am loving every single minute of it.

This shot captures the colors a little bit better.

FO Friday: Tauremorna Mitts

When I first started knitting, I thought fingerless gloves were one of the dumbest things ever.


I didn't understand why anyone would want a pair of gloves that doesn't cover their fingers. I live in Wisconsin, I understand cold temperatures and dressing for the weather, fingers are the part of the hand that get cold first. It didn't make sense to me.






Then I gave in and made a pair, just to see what the fuss was all about.







And I got it.




First, fingerless gloves are warmer than I thought. Not Wisconsin winter warm, warmer than I would have guessed. My understanding is that it has something to do with keeping your pulse points warm, but I'm not expert on that. They are perfect for the spring and fall months when it isn't warm enough for gloves or mittens, but still chilly on your bare hands.




The utility of having your fingers free should not be underestimated. Among other things, it is virtually impossible to securely fasten a carseat while wearing mittens.  For the super cold winter weather, I also have a pair of flippy top mittens for the same purpose.


I discovered another great use for fingerless gloves at work. They are fantastic to have for when the office is chilly. They keep your fingers warm while still allowing you to do everything you need to do to get work done. I keep my Zombie Doomsday mitts at my desk for that exact reason. They work so fantastically well, that my friend decided that she needed a pair, too.


If you know me at all, you know that I only knit for a select group of people. As one of my friends, and fellow knitters, likes to say


"Knitting for others is like sex, if I like you enough, it will be free. If I don't, you can't pay me enough to do it."


While the list of people isn't the same, I think that sums up the sentiment quite well.


Anyways, the friend that requested the mitts passed my requirements, and I agreed to make her a pair of fingerless gloves. The end result being these:

The pattern is called Tauremorna Mitts and they are knit in Malabrigo Yarn Mechita. Mechita is a Merino wool, so it is soft and squishy, and this color, English Rose, is tonal shades of pink. The design itself has a cable design on the top. All the cables are just a single stitch wide and done without a needle. They were an enjoyable knit, didn't take too long to complete, and probably only used about 1/2 of the 420 yard skein.

They were received with the proper accolades and a couple of days later, my friend sent me this:

So at least I know they are being used and appreciated.

WIP Wednesday: Hyperion Pullover

At this moment, I don't have much on the needles for Work In Progress (WIP) Wednesday. I have several projects in the hopper that I'm getting ready to cast on, but the only active project is the Hyperion Pullover. However, I haven't progressed beyond the first sleeve. As of last night, I had about 3 inches done, but then decided that it looked too big and ripped it out to start over.

I am excited to make this sweater, I haven't made one in a long time. The construction is different from a lot of knitted sweater, you cast on for the cuff of one sleeve and work the yolk across to the other sleeve. After that is done, you pick up stitches around the bottom to finish the body of the sweater. As much as I hate picking up stitches, it will be an interesting challenge.

I'm knitting it in Comfy Fingering weight yarn from Knit Picks. It is a Pima cotton and acrylic blend, perfect for warm weather. The color is blackberry, a lovely dark purple.

Because this project is barely started, I only have pictures of cast on stitches and some yarn.

The mess of yarn is from frogging the last attempt at this sweater.

Hopefully, my lack of other projects will allow me to focus my energy on this project to get it completed fairly quickly.

My Return to Blogging

After a four and a half year hiatus, I have decided to start blogging again.

What brought about this change?

To put it simply, I miss it. I enjoy writing, I like the power of words, and a blog gives me an outlet to write. As I'm not sure that anyone actually will ever read this, it is mainly for me.

Also, I got a new laptop. I've been using my iPad and my smart phone for years now as my primary access point to the internet. I'm on a computer all day at work, so I didn't really feel much of a need to have a computer at home; however, there are some things that a tablet just doesn't do well. And anything that involves large amounts of typing is one of those. Husband and I decided that it was time to take the plunge and purchase a family laptop. And by "family laptop," I mean a laptop for me, since Husband has his work laptop that travels back and forth to work every day.

I haven't fully thought out my plans for my reentry to the blogging world. I know I want to continue to write about my knitting, with such fun days as "WIP Wednesday" and "FO Friday," and I'm certain that I'll review books I've read, and my other current plan is to start to chronical my journey towards my AAP Certification (more on that in a later post), mainly hoping that it will help hold me accountable to a study schedule as I prepare for the test in October. I'm sure there will be a story or two about my toddler (recently turned three) and my life in small town Wisconsin. I'm sure there will be more as I go along.