Tag Archives: yarn

Done and undone

Posted on July 1, 2022 | 8 comments

I finished my assigned pooling hat with the sunbursts/flowers. It’s cute! I tried it on, and it’s a little snug on me. It measures 17” around; those sunbursts do pull in the fabric a bit. The hat in the above picture isn’t blocked; blocking will make the sunbursts prettier.

Calvin’s already good-looking enough!

I haven’t blocked the hat yet because I also want to knit a hat using this criss cross stitch I used in my Criss Cross accessories and Tilt Shift Wrap. I needed to know if I have enough yarn to do that.

Now that I’ve started, I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough yarn to knit both, and I think I’m more likely to wear the criss cross stitch, so I’m frogging the sunburst hat while I knit the criss cross version.

I don’t mind re-knitting; the yarn is ridiculously entertaining. I’ll knit a sunburst headband with the yarn that’s left from the skein. It’s been fun figuring out how big (how many wraps, how many stitches) I need to make the sunbursts and criss crosses look their best. This will vary depending on your yarn! I’m teaching this very fun class at Knit Maine in September. We’ll be using this exact same yarn in class; it’s Wonderful Worsted from Yarn Snob yarns in Cabana Boy.

The winner of 3 months of Knit Camp from Olive Knits is…Quite a Yarn Blog! I’ll contact you for info to connect you with Knit Camp. Congratulations!

And finally…

Who ever thought we’d be set back by 50 years? Outrageous. Women’s rights are human rights. Dissent. Protest. Effect change. Let your voice be heard.

8 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged Cabana Boy colorway, Knit, yarn, Yarn Snob

Lobelia shawlette pattern and yarn giveaway

Posted on November 4, 2015 | 47 comments

Thanks for the warm welcome for Lobelia! I love this shawl and shawlette, and I’d like to share the love.

As you can see, Lobelia looks great in both gradients and semi-solids. I have these two lovely semi-solids from Knitted Wit from my stash. Both are 4 ounce skeins of fingering weight 100% superwash merino. I’m not sure of the yardage, but I’m guessing that there is at least 437 yards in each skein (label is for 100 yards, but these are heavier than that).

Sooooo, the giveaway. One skein of yarn in the color of your choice, plus a pdf download of either Lobelia, or one of my other single skein shawl/shawlette patterns. Which color speaks to you? Mint Mojito? Or the purple, whose name I’ve forgotten? Huckleberry, maybe? Which pattern? Leave a comment and let me know which color/pattern combo is calling your name!

To make this easier, here are links to my single skein shawls/shawlettes. You can also click their names on the sidebar.

Lobelia (bottom up crescent)
https://pdxknitterati.com/patterns/garland-shawl/ (sideways)
Webfoot (bottom up crescent)
Filigree (bottom up crescent)
Ooh La Lace (botom up crescent)
Fern Lace (sideways)
Zen Rain (top down, wide, shallow, fun!)
Pacific (top down extended wingspan triangle)

I’ll choose a winner at random for each color on Monday, November 9. Remember, you need to name both a color and a pattern for your entry to be valid. Have fun and good luck! And remember: The Lobelia pattern is still on sale for 20% off with coupon code GRADIENT through Sunday, Nov. 8.

ETA: Winners posted! Congrats to Noreen and Emme.

47 Comments

Posted in giveaways, yarn

Tagged community supported yarn, giveaway, knitted wit, Lobelia Shawl, yarn

Even more gradient yarn, and pretty food

Posted on September 6, 2015 | 5 comments

Knitcircus Greatest of Ease, Come What May

The pink is shading ever so gently, getting paler and paler. Heading into cream (why does this look like dessert?); the gray will come later. Pink and white roses, gray rain clouds? Whatever, it’s gorgeous.

This is waiting in the wings. Black Trillium Fibres Lilt, in Periwinkle.

In the meantime, there’s been a lot of pretty food! I hosted my annual Pinot & Piano fun-raiser a couple weeks ago. I provide piano and dessert. My co-hosts provide wine and music. It all comes together in a lovely evening for 16 guests. This year’s desserts:

Flourless Chocolate Torte

Puff Pastry Pear Tart, served with Bourbon Caramel Sauce

Pomegranate Panna Cotta

These aren’t as big as they look; they’re served in mini wine glasses.

Love these glasses for presentation!

Last week Sue (Tango Mango) taught us how to make bagels.

We had them for lunch!

And panna cotta with raspberry sauce for dessert.

What pretty things are you making? Knitting? Food? Other?

5 Comments

Posted in foodies!, Knit, yarn

Tagged bagels, dessert, food, panna cotta, yarn

Happy birthday, Knitted Wit!

Posted on December 7, 2014 | Comments Off

It’s Lorajean’s birthday, and she’s having an Open Studio day on Sunday, December 7, from 2 to 5 p.m. to celebrate. Here’s the scoop:

Join us to celebrate Lorajean’s birthday with a sale!!! We’ll have local designers with patterns to inspire, buttons from Buttonhole! Buttons to help you find the perfect button to tie it all together, and bags from A Needle Runs Through It! Birthday cake will be sliced and ready to greet you!

I’ll be there as one of the aforementioned designers, with samples in lovely Knitted Wit yarns, including two of my newest, the Big Leaf Scarf

and the Super Cabled Christmas Stocking

both in Knitted Wit Cotton Candy super bulky 100% merino wool.

Come by and say hi, and happy birthday!

Comments Off on Happy birthday, Knitted Wit!

Posted in events, Knit, yarn

Tagged birthday, knitted wit, sale, yarn

It’s a wrap! OFFF 2014

Posted on October 1, 2014 | 4 comments

What a glorious weekend: Slightly chilly mornings (sweater weather!) giving way to sunny afternoons and smiling crowds. Perfect. I taught Blocking on Friday, and Tink Drop Frog (how to fix mistakes) on Saturday. My students were charming and eager to become the bosses of their knitting! We blocked my Snowy Woods KAL cowl, among other things.

before blocking

after blocking

Sunday was my play day. I headed for the barns first, and I was not disappointed. This is Amy with one of the angora goats from The Pines Farm. Mohair on the hoof! Amy is wearing a sweater knit with mohair, and it is the most decadently soft fabric, with a luminous halo.

Can you even see where you’re going?

Haircut day!

The coat of an angora goat grows an inch per month. These goats are shorn every six months, now and in March, but they still won’t be cold this winter!

I was captivated by this display at Upstream Alpacas.

naturals?

or colors? I liked them both.

Natural colors are not boring.

For me this year, the fiber and spinning supplies were most enticing. Maybe because I already have more yarn than I can knit. No matter. Look at these spindles. The gateway drug to spinning.

Spindles at Carolina Homespun

I have several drop spindles, but haven’t yet heard the siren song of the wheel. Then I saw people trying the HansenCrafts miniSpinner. Look how portable this is. I had to try it, too. See my blue yarn?

There’s always a fleece sale on Sunday. The woman who lured us in here said that the first time she went, she bought two fleeces. And she didn’t have a spinning wheel, just a drop spindle. Uh-oh.

I bought a Kromski…

Kromski niddy-noddy, not a wheel! I wanted an upgrade from my one yard niddy-noddy; this one is a two yard model.

I did buy one skein of yarn, from Huckleberry Knits.

It’s Teri’s fault. I loved the glowing colors in her Glitz on the Ritz shawlette, so I had to check out this dyer, too. Oh, and see Sherece’s Hitofude? Teri knit that for her. What a great friend!

All in all, a perfect weekend. I spent some time with Lorajean and the divine Miss F in the Knitted Wit booth.

You have to start them young!

Did you go to OFFF? What tickled your fancy?

4 Comments

Posted in events, Knit, Portland area fun, spinning, yarn

Tagged fleece, OFFF, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, snowy woods cowl, spinning, yarn

Spinners, weigh in! #tourdefleece

Posted on July 16, 2014 | 8 comments

So, spinners, do you have a yarn goal in your head before you start spinning? The reason I ask:

This is my first real yarn. I’ve played with the spindle before, but this is 4 ounces of fiber, turned into about 75 yards of single ply. I spun this on my Jenkins Turkish spindle.

It appears that I have made two different yarns here. When I started, I was trying to make a heftier single than my default accidental laceweight. Some of this yarn does that; it’s kind of like Malabrigo Worsted in heft and twist.

The later yarn from this spinning is thinner and twistier, because I was afraid my fat singles were underspun. This thinner yarn would be great plied because some of that twist would reverse in the plying, right?

This was all a grand experiment. But it’s like I have two different yarns in the same skein. And the first fatter singles weren’t underspun after all. The twist is lovely after washing and drying.

I also played with the mystery fiber that was at my house (leftover from a kids’ felting experiment). I used my Kundert top whorl spindle because it can handle a much bigger cop. The single was twisty, and then I wound a two-strand plying ball with my ball winder so I could ply it on the spindle. It’s pretty, yes? It’s only about 16 yards, 2 ply worsted to Aran weight. But pretty consistent! I like the barberpole look in the skein, but I’m not sure I’d like it knit up.

I think all of this means that I need to decide what I want this BFL from Knitted Wit to be, before I start spinning it.

I think because it has so many colors and I don’t want barberpole, I should aim for either a fat single ply, or a skinny yarn I can chain ply to preserve the color runs. I’m not sure which one I’m more likely to be able to do successfully.

This is as much fun as planning a knitting project. Everything is possible, until you start and then doors start to close…

Spinners, help me out. Am I on the right track?

8 Comments

Posted in spinning, yarn

Tagged spinning, tour de fleece, yarn

Tour de Fleece?

Posted on July 7, 2014 | 2 comments

Lots of stuff in the works: Design project at test knitter and tech editor (mmmmm, Indochine), design project that’s in time out after two tries, design project that’s just fun fabric to knit, design idea that wants a drapey yarn that’s being dyed up (hello, Knitted Wit Shine!), design proposal that’s cooking in my head, and an upcoming pattern re-release that needs a sample and some math in an alternate yarn. So since I don’t have anything to show you from that list at this moment, what should I show you?

Spinning. Of course.

It’s Tour de France season, and that mean’s it’s also Tour de Fleece. I don’t really spin, but all the pretty pictures in my Facebook and Instagram feeds got me inspired. I have a couple spindles, but I was frustrated that my singles get skinnier and skinnier as I spin. My aim for TdF is just to play with techniques and try to get fatter yarn.

I’m working with my lovely Jenkins Turkish spindle; I can control the speed more easily than with my Kundert top whorl spindle, which is really fast. My yarn looks better so far, but far from perfect.

I chain plied the previous skinny single and a new fatter single. (I think it’s merino and silk. Label is long gone.) One feels like string, and the other feels like yarn. Happier with the new stuff! But a long way to go before I get any consistency.

I saw Lorajean (Knitted Wit) this morning and picked up yarn for the sample I need to knit up, and she sent me home with this:

Corriedale pencil roving. So far, it’s easier to spin with (longer staple? already uniform width?); I’m drafting it it just a little bit, and experimenting between park and draft and draft as I spin. It’s all research, right?

I like what I’m getting so far. I don’t know if I’ll keep it as a single or chain ply it. I’ll figure that out later.

If you’re wondering why I chain ply instead of two ply, it’s because I don’t have a lazy kate (although I could jerry-rig one; I have before), and also because chain plying keeps the space dyed colors intact instead of mixing them. My sense of order is pleased…

Are you doing Tour de Fleece? Any hints for me and my quest for fatter singles?

2 Comments

Posted in spinning, yarn

Tagged spinning, tour de fleece, yarn

Road trip with the Traveling Ewe

Posted on June 30, 2014 | 11 comments

It was a fiber-full weekend! On Saturday I went on The Traveling Ewe‘s inaugural road trip. JJ Foster is putting together fiber-related tours, and this one was grand.

How awesome that the license plate on our bus said “YARN”? Too funny. Our trip took us out of rainy Portland to the drier side of the Cascades. We shopped at Knot Another Hat in Hood River, a very lovely store with a view of the Columbia River.

We had lunch at Celilo. I’m thinking these hefty picks through my sandwich would make very cute little knitting needles.

From there we hopped back on the bus and visited Cascade Alpacas of Oregon, which has a cute little yarn shop and even cuter alpacas. Thomas demonstrated spinning and weaving for us.

And Connie told us about raising alpacas.

Can you get more bucolic than this?

Snack time!

This cria (baby alpaca) is 2 days old.

And this cria is 3 hours old. Check out the wobbly walk!

Our last stop was at Mt. Hood Winery. We sampled some wines, and had show and tell with the day’s purchases. (Angela wins. She did some major shopping!)

Melissa is going through a blue-green knitting phase. All her yarn seems to match.

Mt. Hood made a valiant effort to peek through the clouds. All in all, it was a fun day! JJ Foster has a knack for planning. We had just enough time at all the places we visited, and the bus was a great venue for chatting with other knitters. I’d do this again! You can, too. The next trip is August 16, and will visit Corvallis and Eugene. More details here. Bring knitting you can multi-task with, because you’ll be chatting and laughing the whole time.

Sunday’s fiber fun? Open studio at Knitted Wit; Lorajean is doing this on the second Saturday and fourth Sunday of each month. Stop by and craft, and shop, too. This weekend Lorajean was getting ready for Tour de Fleece. Me? I just knit. Oh, and we are coming up with a very cool color for a pattern I’m releasing soon. I edited and formatted two patterns this weekend. Lots of fun things in the works; I’m looking forward to showing them all to you. Soon!

Fiber appreciation starts early!

How was your weekend?

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged knitted wit, The Traveling Ewe, yarn

Sophie’s Rose shawl, as seen at Madrona

Posted on February 20, 2014 | 3 comments

Introducing Sophie’s Rose, an asymmetric triangle shawl with an extravagant ruffle.

I designed this for Anne Lindquist at For Yarn’s Sake, using two very special yarns. The main color is Sophie’s Rose, the semisolid brown with raspberry pink accents that MadelineTosh dyed as a custom color in honor of Anne’s new granddaughter, Sophie. The coordinating color is Knitted Wit‘s Madge, on her Merino Single Fingering base.

The theme is a garden trellis interspersed with rows of roses.

I wore this at Madrona last weekend, and the big ruffle makes it really fun to wear.

This pattern is available through Ravelry, link here. The MadelineTosh Tosh Merino Light is available at For Yarn’s Sake, and they also have a good supply of Knitted Wit‘s Single Fingering in Madge. You can see it during the Rose City Yarn Crawl, and after, too. I’ll be wearing mine at For Yarn’s Sake on Saturday, March 1; I have a trunk show there from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Come by and say hello while you’re on the Crawl!

3 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged Knit, knitted wit, MadelineTosh, sophie's rose, yarn

RCYC KAL begins in one week! Parties and more…

Posted on January 10, 2014 | 43 comments

Can you believe it? One week until the cast on for the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Shawlette KAL. The official cast on date is Friday January 17; the first clue will be released that day. If you’re local to Portland, I’d love to knit with you! I’m having a cast on party at Twisted from 5 to 8 p.m. We’ll have refreshments and prizes; drop by any time and knit a bit with us. I’m thrilled to be the designer of this mystery shawlette!

I’m also knitting with the KAL/CAL group at the Knitting Bee on Sunday January 26, from 1-3 p.m., and bringing a little trunk show there, too.

And Lorajean (Knitted Wit) and I are planning a trip to For Yarn’s Sake on Friday, January 31 during their KAL time, 4:30 to 6 p.m. I love having these opportunities to knit with you; knitters are the nicest people.

I’m ready to cast on! Well, I will be, once I get my yarn from Knitted Wit next week. This is what happens when you hang out with a dyer.

I changed my colors, because I finally realized that I’ll get the sample back next year. My new yarn colors: clematis and tugboat.

This is not the actual yarn, just the color. The yarn will be Knitted Wit Single Fingering, rather than this plied sample. Lorajean gave me yarn for the KAL, but now she’s talked me into the blues. I asked her if she wanted the silver lining and madge back, and she said that I should give it away on the blog! This is your chance to win these two skeins of gorgeous yarn. Leave a comment by midnight January 13 to enter to win. (Fine print: Winner must be a USA resident, so I can mail it out quickly in case s/he needs it for the KAL.) Thank you, LJ!

I hope you’ll be knitting along with me. And when we’re finished with the KAL, I hope to see you on the crawl with your beautiful shawlette! I’m also hoping that we can get a group picture at the Yarn Ball on February 26. That will be a rainbow of awesome! Rose City Yarn Crawl is also giving away prizes in conjunction with the KAL and CAL; more info on that later. The actual yarn crawl dates are February 27 through March 1, and includes 18 Portland-area yarn shops.

Here’s the scoop on the KAL: The pattern is available through Ravelry here for $6. You’ll receive a pre-MKAL information sheet telling you about yarn and dates. Every week beginning January 17 the pattern will be updated with the next clue so you can download it.

The RCYC group on Ravelry is here: Pop on over and see what colors people are choosing in the pre-MKAL thread!

Are you ready to cast on? Do you want to win yarn? Leave a comment, in either case!

43 Comments

Posted in events, giveaways, KAL, Knit, yarn

Tagged cast on party, giveaway, kal, knitted wit, prizes, rcycmkal, yarn