Biking and Zooming (new classes with For Yarn’s Sake)

Posted on October 12, 2020 | 5 comments

Fall is here, and last Monday was a perfect day for a bike ride in the Columbia River Gorge. I went with some friends to bike through the Mosier Twin Tunnels, out past Hood River. They’re just on the other side of the Cascade mountains, the dry side, but it was a glorious day all around.

Eighteen Mile Island

The ride isn’t terribly long, maybe 8.5 miles out and back, but it’s hilly! It’s on a dedicated bike/pedestrian path that follows the old Columbia River Highway. You can see the (not that new) Columbia River Highway, Interstate 84, down below.

Eighteen Mile Island from the other side
Breathtaking diagonal geology across the river on the Washington side

This section of the old highway was abandoned in the 1950s when the new highway was built closer to the river. It was restored for recreational use in 2000.

Standing between the tunnels, looking east through the east tunnel

It felt so good to get out for a while!

We stopped for refreshment at Thunder Island Brewing’s new digs in Cascade Locks. They used to be down on the water, now they’re up on the main drag. Great view from the deck!

Cascade Locks is on the wetter, greener side of the Cascade mountains

It’s windy and rainy today (Sunday), but the forecast is for cool, drier weather this coming week. I’m on Day 4 of work; I spoke about blocking for the Puddletown Knitters Guild on Thursday evening, and have been teaching for Vogue’s Virtual Knitting Live all weekend. Busy busy!

I have a couple new Zoom classes through For Yarn’s Sake. We’re doing Petite Brioche on Sunday October 25 (I love teaching new brioche knitters!) and Braided Wristlets on Sunday November 8.

pdxknitterati braided wristlets

Braided Wristlets is one of my favorite classes to teach. It dips into beginning colorwork knitting, tonal contrast, yarn color dominance, and of course, the very fun herringbone braids. Links to the For Yarn’s Sake classes are here. Are you ready to learn a new skill?

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RBG in the neighborhood

Posted on October 7, 2020 | 8 comments

Last week, this street mural of RGB popped up in the neighborhood. Pretty awesome! A group of neighbors painted it overnight.

She’s getting a lot of attention in the neighborhood and on social media. Cool!

Inspired by RBG, I decided I need to knit a Dissent Cowl (Ravelry link). Pattern is by Carissa Browning; she’s donating pattern sale proceeds to the American Civil Liberties Union. There’s a crochet version, too, in case you prefer that. I’m knitting mine with Hazel Knits Lively DK, in Jam Session and Nickel, both out of stash. (Stash means I bought yarn for something, but decided it wasn’t the best yarn or color choice for the project, so I set it aside. I don’t usually buy yarn without a specific intended purpose.) The red is even deeper and plummier than this picture.

This has been an interesting knitting year. I don’t usually have much time to knit other people’s designs, but pandemic stay-at-home and a little bit of designer’s block made me knit other things while awaiting inspiration. So far I’ve knit 3 Love Note sweaters (Tin Can Knits), I’m working on Cat Bordhi’s Rio Calina cowl, and now this Dissent Cowl. At least the Love Note sweaters weren’t instigated by grief and loss. Sigh.

Speaking of grief and loss, one of my knitting students passed away last week. Judy Clymer Welles was a founding member of my knitting guild. She was hoping to live long enough to vote in the November 3 election, but decided to make a difference by writing to voters in swing states before she passed. She’s in the NY Times today, story by my piano camp roomie Katie Hafner. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Onward. May RBG’s memory be a blessing, and Judy’s too.

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Deep End class and discount

Posted on October 7, 2020 | 8 comments
Deep End brioche hat

My Deep End brioche hat class has just been listed at Twisted. This class will teach you brioche increases and decreases in a jiffy! Most of the techniques are introduced in the first patterning round. The class is not a beginning brioche class; you should already know how to knit brioche rib. The Deep End pattern is included in the class fee. Registration link here. Class is on Saturday, October 24, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific time.

If you want to knit Deep End but don’t need a class, you can still purchase the pattern, and the introductory discounts are good through tomorrow, October 8. Purchase through Ravelry or Payhip.

WordPress has just chosen to force me into using their “new” block editor today. They’ve been trying to do this for a long time; I like the old editor just fine. Now I have to learn a new thing, and I’m not sure I have the mental bandwidth this week. Ugh! Aaaaand the preview tab doesn’t work. I hate change…grumble grumble grumble. Well, I’m going to go ahead and post; hope this looks okay!

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Introducing: Deep End

Posted on October 1, 2020 | 9 comments

Deep End is a 2 color brioche hat knit in the round from the bottom up. One side features a large staghorn motif, the other side uses a variation of the gull stitch. I like wearing the staghorn on the side, but you can style it any way you want.

I designed this hat as a teaching piece for my classes. You’ll learn both left and right leaning brioche double decreases on the first patterning round; it’s like jumping in the deep end of the pool! After that it’s oodles of brioche rib before the next increases and decreases.

Two crown options are included. Choose the quadruple decreases for a challenge, or go back to the shallow end of the pool with familiar double decreases.

This pattern is available through Ravelry. It’s on sale for 10% off through October 8, no coupon code needed.

This pattern is also available through Payhip, and it’s on sale there, too.

Thanks to tech editor Meaghan Schmaltz, and test knitter Ann Berg.

I’m teaching a Zoom class with this pattern through Twisted on Saturday October 24. If you’d like me to email you when registration goes live, leave me a comment. (Coordinating all aspects is like a dance, and the pattern has to go live before the class can go live. One step at a time!)

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Frogging brioche tutorial

Posted on September 25, 2020 | 1 comment

Is it possible? Can you frog brioche? Of course. It’s getting it back on the needle that’s tricky. I’m here to help! I’ve had a lot of experience frogging…(for newbies: frogging means rip-it, rip-it, rip-it).

You can rip one row/round at a time, alternating colors, but it’s just as easy to rip them simultaneously. The trick is to rip until you’re close to where you want to end up, and then tink (un-knit, knit spelled backwards) the last row or round, one stitch at a time, picking up each stitch as it’s freed from the yarn. This is also how I frog regular knitting.

After I made this video, I frogged this project completely, because it’s a little too big. But I wanted to show you how it worked, before completely undoing it. It turned out to be just a big swatch!

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Best laid plans

Posted on September 18, 2020 | 16 comments

Remember this? It was going swimmingly, until I got to the planned swirly decreases for the crown. It was a great plan, but in real life I didn’t like that the decreases didn’t hit the staghorn and gull motifs in a consistent way. I worked out another decrease for the top, but it’s based on 10 stitches instead of 6 or 12, which is the number of stitches I had. Blergh.

So I started over. But first, I checked to make sure I would like the new crown shaping. I decreased the extra stitches out, and then worked out the new planned crown. Just to make sure I wasn’t starting over for nothing.

It worked just fine, but it’s a much more rapid decrease than the swirly top, so the hat has to be knit taller before beginning the decreases. Ask me how I know. Call it a giant swatch. Yup.

I reknit the hat in 2 days. Partly because I can be a bit obsessive with my knitting. Also, I had a date with my tech editor for Monday, and it had to be ready because she’s booked for months.

I love it! The new decreases look just right with the gull stitch.

And the staghorn side is a thing of beauty at the top. Well, it is to me, at least.

The hat is being test knit now, and it will be published soon.

I frogged the first hat to reclaim the yarn, and am playing with mitts. Small circumference brioche is a bit fiddly with dpns or flexiflips or magic loop or 2 circulars! It’s so easy to gain or lose a YO by accident. But mitts could be very pretty. We’ll see how it works out.

In the meantime, I’m planning more classes. My classes with Twisted sold out immediately, so I added another Petite Brioche in October, and that sold out, too. We’re planning more. I’m thinking of Petite Brioche again on Sunday October 18. Message me if you want an email when registration goes live.

The new hat will be the project for a brioche increase/decrease class; I’m really looking forward to that. I’m planning that for Saturday, October 24, but I can’t list it until the pattern is ready. Soon! Again, message me if you want an email when registration goes live.

Smoke update: We had thunder/lightning/downpour at 4 a.m. The air is now merely Unhealthy, which is a vast improvement from Beyond Index, Hazardous, and Very Unhealthy! It will get better, bit by bit.

Onward!

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Introducing: Piano Christmas stocking!

Posted on September 17, 2020 | 8 comments

Busy busy over here! I guess being confined to quarters (wildfire smoke creating beyond hazardous air quality, plus pandemic) makes me pretty productive.

pdxknitterati piano christmas stocking

I‘ve had requests for a pattern for my piano Christmas stocking from knitters who have seen it on my blog and my project page on Ravelry. I’m finally getting to it! This is one I made for myself about 20 years ago, before I started designing.

I wrote a Snowflake Christmas Stocking pattern based on the other stockings I had knit for the family. I’ve updated it with additional cuff treatments over the years. It was pretty easy for me to look at my piano stocking and chart it. It did require a little adjustment to the stitch count, but that was easy to figure out, too. I’ve just added the new chart to the Snowflake Christmas Stocking pattern. These knit up quickly in heavy worsted/aran weight yarn. (I used Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted for mine.)

We have quite an assortment! These are the family stockings. All these designs, plus birds, are in the updated Snowflake Christmas Stocking pattern. (I made the new piano keys chart just a bit taller, to match the other stockings.) If you previously purchased this pattern, you will find this update in your Ravelry library.

If you’d like to purchase this pattern, it’s available on Ravelry and Payhip. Both are on sale for 15% off through September 23. Newsletter with subscriber discount coming soon, too. (I’m trying to consolidate some newsletter items so I don’t send a raft of newsletters this month. One more item tomorrow!)

pdxknitterati christmas

Here’s a classic assortment at our house. The Super Cabled Christmas Stockings are another pattern of mine, in super bulky yarn. The cat pawprint stocking is from a book, not mine, somewhere.

Between these stockings and the Tidal Wave Mitts and Hat, I think it might be time to start knitting for the holidays! Looking forward to having 2020 in the rearview mirror.

It’s still really smoky here, and the Air Quality Index is still listed as Hazardous. A sunbeam broke through the smoke yesterday to grace my sunroom floor. The air is supposed to improve this weekend. Hoping it does!

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Introducing: Tidal Wave Mitts and Hat

Posted on September 16, 2020 | 4 comments

They’ve been a long time coming, haven’t they? And they’ve had a name change, too! Their working name was Sneaker Wave, but there really wasn’t anything sneaky about them, and sneakers just remind me of Keds. Tidal waves are the rollers of the tide going in and out. Sounds soothing to me. (And thank goodness for “Find/Replace” in Microsoft Word!)

The Tidal Wave Mitts and Hat both begin with ribbing for a stretchy fit. Loose rolling cabled waves alternate to transform ribbing into WOW. The mitts feature mirrored cables, so each hand has a cable that twists toward the thumb.

The thumb gore is formed with centered double increases. Bulky yarn and big needles make this quick knit a breeze!

The hat’s cables terminate elegantly to close the top of the hat, in both a shorter version and a taller version for a perfect fit. This is a great introduction to knitting cables.

The mitts and hat each take about 100g/130 yards of bulky weight yarn. They’re designed here with Knit Picks Chroma Twist Bulky, shown in the Narwhal colorway.

Charts and line by line instructions are included.

The mitts and hat patterns are available individually or together as an ebook for a discounted price. The pdf downloads are available on Ravelry and on Payhip.

Bonus! These patterns are 15% off, no coupon code needed, through September 23, 2020. As always, newsletter subscribers get a bigger discount; newsletter will be out in the next day or so. Subscribe here if you want knitting news, tips, and special offers. I send a newsletter once or twice per month. No spam!

Click here for Ravelry and choose the ebook or individual pattern you’d like.

Click here for Tidal Wave Mitts on Payhip
Click here for Tidal Wave Hat on Payhip
Click here for Tidal Wave Accessories Collection ebook on Payhip

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Tinking Brioche Decreases tutorial

Posted on September 14, 2020 | 5 comments

A student asked me how to tink brioche decreases. I made a little video so I can share it with all of you, too.

Also, my Petite Brioche class through Twisted on September 26 is full!

So we added another class on October 17. Link to register is here.

There’s still room in my Syncopation class on October 3, link here.

Let’s knit!

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More brioche classes!

Posted on September 11, 2020 | 2 comments

You may remember that I started teaching knitting about a dozen years ago at Twisted, my neighborhood LYS. I was sad to see Twisted move to an online only model early this year. But given the way 2020 has gone, it seems to have been a very good idea.

So I got to thinking: Online shop, online classes. Why not? I’m happy to announce that I’m teaching a couple classes for Twisted via Zoom.

I’ll be teaching Petite Brioche on Saturday September 26, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm PDT. This is a gentle introduction to two color brioche in the round, which I think is the easiest way to learn brioche. Register here.

I’ll be teaching syncopated brioche using my Syncopation pattern on Saturday October 3, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm PDT. If you’re already comfortable with knitting brioche rib and want to get fancy, this class is for you. Register here.

Classes are via Zoom, and they’re limited to 12 students each. We’ll have a cozy knitting time together.

Come knit with me! I think we could all use a happy diversion right about now.

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