Sun has transitioned into Libra, on this day, my absolute favorite day of the year. The light & shadow look so dramatic and dreamy from this angle looking up into the rafters & roofbeam, and thus this place as become my signature Autumn Equinox photo for (almost) five years now, and it is remarkable how each year the photo is different for one reason or another. It is thoroughly healing to see it as at last become so similar to the first. Happy equinox everyone !
My beautiful younger niece met me at the castle today.
It was so spontaneous!
I am so lucky and grateful, because she is leaving back to university in a few days . . .
. . . but even more so because it was such a cool morning
after an impossible record heat wave we’ve had.
She is at home in the castle walls,
having been here so many times to model the endless sweaters . . .
so gracefully, and so genuinely.
And she gave this new design much needed relevance and proportion
because of the super voluminous shaping.
Both looked so lovely when she wore them, but I gave her the grey one, as it is casual and played down, and she loved it the most! I think its everybody’s favorite actually.
Redouté Roses pattern was posted earlier today over here And so now I can put all the yarn away, clean up the loft for a clean slate, and go for a nice walk in the woods, because with the help of my niece’s spontaneous rush to Calistoga for an impromptu photo shoot at the castle, I am now done & dusted with the project. I do think I want to make another one day, cropped dramatically, that would be so fun! (See all posts in the series)
“Redouté Roses” namesake is inspired from the botanical rose illustrations of Pierre-Joseph Redouté, about whom was posted previousy, it is a cardigan & pullover duo, colorwork seamless yokes. I was going for the opulent over-sized “screamin’ the Eighties” type sweater I was so impressed upon decades ago in my earliest knitting years, about which I posted in Wild Roses. In fact, one really must read the whole series of rose themed posts over again to understand the design process of my new Redouté Roses sweater.
I absolutely love the lavish acres of mohair & wool in this sweater design, but even though I designed and knit the prototypes with voluminous and long draping bodies, I’m thinking I’d like to make the next one cropped, to wear showing off more hip and waist, like for skirts, or just for the drama of it. It was definitely worth the work to hold 2 yarns together, and to make it in both a cardigan and pullover. The cardigan has a steek, in front of course, and the “after-thought” pullover has a colorwork insert in back of the yoke, which is in place of a steek, which is how I manage to write a single pattern for both, a completely arduous commitment, and as far as I know, is my own process and how I am designing sweaters now — a cardigan and pullover in one pattern. Because frankly, if you took two people who want to have a sweater, one would surely want a pullover, and the other prefer a buttoned cardigan. My nieces being the perfect example and why I developed this way of designing.
As for the colorwork chart, if you look closely at the motifs, there is my usual small border, merely suggestive of a garland of tiny new budding roses, bordering the bottom hem, the sleeves, and the yoke. Then there is what I see as a botanical “cut-view” illustration of the just-opening rose flower alternating with an about-to-burst fat rose bud, and perhaps this is my favorite part of the chart. Last, and least of all needing explanation is the center large border of sumptuous fully open rose blossoms, the kind that last only a day before the petals seem to all fall off at once.
Its the fuzzy mohair I can’t get over, but one can’t really absorb the scope of their opulence until modelled by a niece ! And I do hope that in the near future one or both of my nieces will model these sweaters, but as its been a solid wave of record heat most of September so far, and since this particular sweater duo is excessively hot and fuzzy, I can’t be sure of anything. Why not wait? Honestly, the rush to get this design finished inconveniently during a hellish California heat wave, with still-life photos having to suffice, is simply so that all of the rose loving knitters of the world will have something to cast on as soon as Autumn hits!
“Redouté Roses” is now live and available on Ravelry,
so you can check it out there for all the finer details!
(( See all posts in this rose themed series. ))
Sewing buttons and labels on finally . . . the cardigan is completely dry . . . oh joy of joys ! Do you think these are the right ones? I had to cut them off one of my shirts as I desperately needed 1″ shell buttons, they are lovely and seem just right. Also I went out to the garden devastated by last week’s 106F heat wave, but there were some roses, so I cut them and put them in jars and into the fridge. Frayed and dwarfed by our mountain climate, not sure if they will do, but I really don’t want to make a trip into town for a bouquet of roses to photograph. Shall I make do?
Pierre-Joseph Redouté (July 1759 – June 1840) was a Belgian botanist known for capturing the beauty of flowers, of roses in particular, with watercolor and engravings. Known as the “Raphael of flowers” he was perhaps the greatest botanical illustrator of all time.
I posted an illustration of the apricot back in June’s harvest , as a life science illustrator he did a variety of flowers and fruit. And do you recognize this particular Redouté Rose illustration which inspired the colorway of forthcoming latest design?
The latest sweater design in fact,
which has only to dry from blocking and buttons to be sewn on, then photographed.
In a blink I’ll be gleefully posting my finished long-awaited Redouté Roses sweaters!
(( See all posts in this series. ))
Hi humans, its me Abelene the dress form. I have been in the closet a lot these days but Jen promised to let me give a progress report on her latest design, and so here I am. Its just a glimpse but I think it is so pretty, all smelling like roses and with a soft halo of the mohair, and the finish is near.
Jen says she thought she’d never make it through two 50 inch body hoops with their big long double cuff sleeves, holding two yarns together, and yet there still are the neck bands on both, the steek and button band on the cardigan. But she still has a week or so before her deadline smacks her in the back of the head. Just look at the grey one, I think this is my favorite . . .
Jen was really leaning into the stockinette stitches this summer, head down, committing to a one-size-fits-all “Screamin’ the Eighties” (sans shoulder pads) sort of design, but at the same time suffered a bit of self-doubt as always, worried incessantly about it all being a big clumsy design fail. In any case, the only way forward is to keep going, take the risk, and don’t give up. She wants still one day to knit up a finer gauge-substitution sample of the design, like in a dk weight in a size 38-40 inch, because she’s going to include the gauge substitution chart with the pattern. Just for now Jen is feeling a lot of knitting fatigue from two of these swimming sweaters, and told me she’d like to go back in the closet with me to escape. Funny lady.
Ta ta,
Abelene
Juno and I are back from our morning walk and ready for the day. Earlier this morning I put away yarn messes, dusted and brought order to the room and covered the dog bed loft bed with freshly laundered bedspreads, then immediately on return from our somewhat dusty burry walk, Juno hops up and expresses a bit of jubilant gratitude for her clean napping place ( aww Juno, she’s so upbeat! ) And as the dog days of summer snail on by we are definitely feeling a reprieve from the usual heat these last couple of days, maxing out in the high 70’s to low 80’s, and no complaints. These last weeks of summer always seem to slow down to a crawl, at least with the knitting, although closing in on the end of the season at last, with only three more weeks left ! Scotty, beam us to Autumn!
♥ ♥ ♥
PS. Edited in later in the day : I was thinking about this Dog Days post and recalled there another similar that I posted many years ago. I searched in my archives and found it! It was the Lazy Hazy Dog Days of Summer from eight years ago, and oh what a journey down memory lane. Strongly familiar, but now so far out of my grasp or influence, a moment in the original house several years before the wildfire, hanging out with our dear dog Emma, and working on one of my earlier knitting designs I was making for younger niece when she was soon to turn twelve. A pause for a tear. Time truly just marches on doesn’t it?
Eighteenth century educational content here, sans actual text. Petals, seed pods, leaves, stalks and thorns . . . I so admire these old botanical illustrations, and you might ask “what is a botanical illustration?” It is the pre-photographic era of scientific documenting of flora, centuries ago taken very seriously in the life sciences, and the artists were scientists by trade. Can you imagine living in the Eighteenth Century and observing things in the world around you such as a rose, only by a tactile context, as from the actual wild, or in the garden? Maybe you might once in rare occasion see some illustrations in a book in a library, or if a person of privilege, you might actually own such a botanical book. But I find most curious and illuminating are the cut-views; just look at this illustration of the spiral fibrous cells of the stalks! Fiber made from the stalks of roses, by the way, happens to be readily available now as roving for spinning, but that is a subject for another day!
I’ve had my eye on a Turkish spindle lately. Once I discovered that you can create a center-pull ball around the spindle “arms” without having to wind it off, then merely match two ends and ply the ball back on to the spindle, I realized this was going to be a time saving change to spindling for me. The Turks are brilliant I tell you! I was frothing at the mouth to try one, so I got a hold of one, and these are my very first windings on my brand new spindle, and I have something very special in mind in my spinning future that involves an array of spindle spun little yarn dyed balls, which I won’t probably even attempt for a while, but this spindling is just the perfect thing needed for me to slow down process and get meditative.
Besides, I love the way you can just park them anywhere. When finished with a ball or two, I will post and show the process. This rather large spindle is made from maple, it is extremely beautiful in my opinion, as maple is my favorite hardwood. And then the focus shifts to the background; which appears like Juno is again, chewing on a stick! She is stick obsessed, and may the “stick’ never be my spindle. I don’t think she would though, she’s a very good girl.
I realize I haven’t posted Juno for a while. She’s almost a year and a half, and lately maturing just a little bit out of her puppy behaviors. She’s lingering at the porch waiting for me to finish this photo session so we can go for more spin walking. Its very hot out this morning, as well as a haze from distant fires is present, and so many little flies this time of year that are so annoying, but just going for a spin-stroll walking back and forth in the shaded part of the road next to the house so I can figure out how to use this thing. C’mon Juno, you’re a good girl!
What a coincidence, yesterday just after I posted about Virginia learning to spin on an old flax spinning wheel and the little flax knitted bag she made and sent to me, I found this little silent black & white film from Germany, which seems to be an excellent demonstration about the art of dressing the distaff and using an authentic flax spinning wheel and skein winder. Although claiming total ignorance here as I am not sure what’s going on in the very end where the lady puts something of seeming importance on her head covering the top knot in her hair, then marches on out through the village with the spun flax. Can anybody enlighten us in the comments? Anyway I hope you enjoy it . . .
Something arrived in the post today, from Pennsylvania, a dear little handspun & knit flax bag from my good friend Virginia!
Backstory: A couple of years ago after moving back into my loft studio, I was hoarding fiber to spin. Sometime in the last year Virginia announced that she was going to learn to spin and got a hold of an authentic antique flax spinning wheel she was renovating ((they have all the great antiques in Pennsylvania I tell you!)) So, in a gesture of congratulations and encouragement, I sent her the flax fiber I had bought, it was not enough to overwhelm a brand new spinner, just a taste of flax fibers. Besides, I still have not spun flax, wasn’t planning on it any time soon, and she had the flax wheel! Well, the dear woman does not dawdle, ever, and she spun that flax up as soon as she could get her wheel going, purring I might say, and look what she made for me out of the flax she spun! As a beginner she has already surpassed me, and I am speechless, utterly. The generosity of the knitters and spinners in my life astounds me.
Thank you Virginia, from the bottom of my heart, and I will cherish it !
Lady in Yellow: I’m serious. Do I look serious? I am, and it is because I am completely finished with these girdling knitteds buttoned to the point of strangulation, and cropped to my elbows and belly button. I tell you, I can not breath, nor eat even half a peanut butter sandwich and I’m starving! I am finished wearing things like this. Why is there nothing else available to knit that is comfortable and not ridiculously objectifying? Oh to be free, modern kind of free, free to move our arms, to bend over to pick up our own hand kerchiefs, and to feel confident to knit our own sweaters the way we want!
Lady in Green: Cheers Yellow, I can’t stand it anymore either. I am worried. Do I look worried? It is because year after year I can not find a single knitting pattern that is both beautiful as well as draping and oversized. I want to wear a big boxy sweater, and call it my boyfriend’s if anybody gives me hassle about it. Then I’ll eat three peanut butter sandwiches, because I am starving too! I tell you, I am completely fed up with one-skein pullovers, I want lavish knitting, acres of fluffy mohair & wool, with perhaps some botanical accent. Make it roses, I love roses. Where is the pattern I want? Is it in the pattern book you’re flipping through?
Lady in Yellow: None in this knitting pamphlet, and I’ve looked cover to cover. Well Green, we’re going to just have to protest I guess, go down to the Five And Dime and demand they carry knitting patterns we actually want to wear!
Lady in Green: I hear you Yellow! Lets go down to Woolworths this weekend and bring our knitting needles and threaten to poke the knitting department’s eyes out if they don’t get us some comfortable-to-wear knitting patterns with pretty colorwork, and that is big enough for our cousin Bertha to wear if she wants to.
Lady in Yellow: I’m in!
Lady in Green: Or we could join Ravelry then wait and see what’s coming around Autumn!
Lady in Yellow: Oh, that’s even a better idea, I’m in with that too!
Lady in Green: In fact, the new Fall Knitting Fashions are just now almost ready, so if we hold on another month, we might get lucky!
Lady in Yellow: And nobody gets their eyes poked with our knitting needles, better idea indeed, lets wait until September and see what Lady Luck brings!
(( See all posts in this series. ))
Brocade weaving that is white-as-snow and so very sheer, the Q’eqchi’-Maya weaving in this particular region of Alta Verapaz of Guatemala is distinctive and so artful. After having divided the plies of the already fine cotton yarn the single plies are fragile, so the Maya weavers starch their warp with tortillas and hot water made into a paste to coat the threads, then as it is often cold and rainy, the warp is dried over a small fire made in the middle of their living room floor. I am charmed. This style of weaving resonates with me perhaps more than any other weaving, so breathtakingly beautiful in the rural outback of mountains of Guatemala.
Also see accomplished weaver Liz Frey goes to the source, at a weaver’s home in a small mountain village, to learn Pikb’il weaving. If you give these two a watch, you’ll learn a lot, I promise. Researching indigenous types of weaving is just a thing I like to do, as I engage my mind and gain inspiration all the while knitting my latest sweater prototypes, and sheltered inside from the return of immanent scorching California heat. Every summer I drift and drift through months of heat and wildfire haze, but I keep my head down and stay industrious inside as much as possible, occasionally running out to walk Juno or help Jeff with some part of rebuilding his shop, and before I know it the first rain will come in early Autumn.
Knitting on the deep grey pullover of latest design, on a rare and beautiful grey cool July day, up until late afternoon when the clouds dispersed a bit. I’ve decided that regardless of the number of weeks it will take, this summer I want to knit a bunch of these sweaters, because I am really pleased with the design, so that will be me through to Septembe r, throwing stitches of mohair & wool, in a good mood. Other things going on this summer: Jeff has started rebuilding his shop, with Juno supervising . . .
The first wall up, I was at the come-along cranking the pull rope and taking photos at the same time . . .
I am definitely looking forward to the finish of Jeff’s rebuilt shop, but it is a weekend job for him on his spare time, it won’t be soon, hopefully by the end of the year. I have for many years wanted to make some knitting & spinning related items, but no rush on that, for now the knitting is all I can manage. Really.
Edit in: A lullaby sung at bedtime of the fog pouring over the ridge, from the Pacific ocean, thirty something miles from Bodega, and moving rather swiftly! I was in heaven as I watched a while, mesmerized about it as though it were an undulating living thing, before falling asleep. Cresting at 2600 feet, then sinking down the northeast face of Mt Veeder into the Napa Valley, drink it in poor fire ravaged Redwoods and Douglas firs! I may be playing optimistic, but I tend to think . . . to hope . . . that the weather is in our favor this summer, as we are all strung out to the max, over the mercury rising with extremely dry days, and when the wind kicks up, anxiety spirals into dread. Yes, let the wind instead, push us some wispy clouds of little drizzly drops as this. A lullaby indeed, and it was a good deep sleep.
There is a “wild” rose in my garden that I propagated from a cutting from an old rose bush that must have been wild planted a generation or more ago from a seed blown in the wind or dropped by bird, from what I imagine to be an old gardened estate on the mountain. Along side the road it grew very near where we live, and bloomed every spring. One day Jeff brought me a cut bloom from it, and after it was in a vase for a week or so, I planted it and I managed to eventually get it to propagate. The original bush along the roadside was burned in the wildfire and never came back, but I have its descendant, and here it is now, fifteen years or so later, in my garden, the wild rose . . .
Now for some backstory: The first knitting book I ever bought was in 1988, the time when I was just learning how to knit, and I use to stop in at our local Book Ends book shop down in the town center, and I can remember as if yesterday, the late afternoon in late Autumn that I found this just published book just on the shelf . . .
That first knitting book perished in the wildfire, but I had found a used one to replace it shortly after, for sentimental reasons, likely one of the the first knitting books I repurchased! Anyway, back then these were all patterns very exclusive and for experienced knitters only, yet I dreamed maybe I could learn to knit the complex intarsia roses, perhaps in tribute to my rose adoring mother I had just lost in early Autumn that year. Old-fashioned and wild roses are a bit of a theme in my life now looking back, and by suspicious coincidence, the first pattern in the book is named “Wild Roses” . . .
That is the backstory. Advance thirty something years and here I am, writing knitwear patterns, and yet still looking up to the big league knitwear designers as if I am still barely capable of knitting something from such glossy photo pages. Well actually, perhaps finally I am, although I had not even realized it until now this very moment, but here I am designing something in a similar vein. If it hasn’t made itself obvious in the last series of posts, I’ve been posting a lot about the world’s ever most floral wonder, the rose. I suppose that I have been dreaming about a rose themed knitting idea for about a year, and it was nearly a year ago that I made my first sketches of a fair isle chart of roses. Having picked it up again earlier this spring, I started to do the math, and make the chart fit a size run which is my usual style, too many sizes, and so I ended up making mistakes and changing my mind, and rewriting the pattern four times! FOUR! But just as I was bearing the weight of my creation , so many sizes, too many sizes ever to test knit and keep track of, and realizing that this indeed is a design for the person of romantic female persuasion, and shaved off the typical big sizes, and tiny sizes, for this is not a family sweater to be knit for everyone, but a sweater to be knit for a specific audience, women.
Narrowing down ever more now because I have made the decision over the weekend to make my own rose sweater also a one-size-fits-all, after having pulled out my First Knitting Book, it occurred to me that just like this big league designer of the Eighties, I can make my sweater also an opulent oversized garment. You see, decades ago, the norm for sweater design was so specific, to fit a very narrow range, and most patterns had one, if not two, maybe three sizes. They were mostly pieced garments, sewn together then finishes and flourishes added on after the sewing. This design is such the kind that any adult woman up to a 50 inch bust size can wear, the more it swims the better, and I am seeing that this is a very clever way of designing. This particular Wild Roses Sweater may loudly “scream the Eighties”, having a colossally boxy contour with big motifs knit intarsia (which I still have never tried) , drop sleeves, and maybe not representative or even a true template for my rose-themed sweater, but the luscious mohair and negative space which drapes around a person and makes her feel lovingly hugged by thousands of fuzzy warm stitches, is really beyond describing. And so I decided this weekend, that is what I am going to do, design “my” rose sweater for the opulent fit, using wool and mohair !
So now changing course completely and discarding six of the seven sizes and choosing the one size that fits all, I’m rolling along swatching anew, waiting for more skeins coming my way, of mohair-silk to hold along with the sport-weight wool I began the design knitting, and away I will go, meandering through a garden so meant to be, that I crave to be inside the gate. I’m very glad I pulled this book off my shelf on Friday, and very glad I’m writing all of this out, for sharing the design process is something I really am wanting to do. My latest swatch, with the mohair silk in the mix, a lovely ethereal halo . . .
In closing, I am interested now in learning the techniques influenced by my earliest memories of my mother knitting in the evenings of long ago, coffee table with strewn about magazines dated late 70’s and 80’s, all of the separate knitted pieces which at the time made no sense to me until my mother had sewn them all together. Although the sweater I’m designing coming up is seamless one-piece design, I feel compelled to design a few pieced things in the near future, and above all, narrow the field by writing fewer sizes in a pattern as the big league designers did back then. A simplistic low-stress approach that seriously appeals to my nature now after having satisfied the niche of knitting all-inclusive sizes and styles over the last decade, now it is time to revisit my roots, and now is the time to take that first step into the garden, down a path that is inevitably the way forward.
Its June and our young apricot tree is having its first plentiful harvest! Actually, the first apricot tree from which I made apricot jam posted summer solstice 2013 was sadly was killed off by a huge mountain gopher a couple of years after that post, so we then made a wire lining in the hole and planted a second tree a few months before the wildfire, spring of 2017. It was a miracle the fruit trees in our garden did not burn in the wildfire, probably because of the moisture from watering within the garden fence. Now five years later the miracle apricot tree finally gave a bumper crop of fruit, and I picked it all early before the birds got to them. As they all ripened deliciously on the kitchen counter I’ve eaten them one after another, so this morning I decided to make a big batch of jam with the last of them, so enticing! My favorite fruit really, the humble apricot preserved in a jar to last through a year of special occasions, hopefully until next year’s harvest. Somehow I doubt they’ll last half that long.
Just now I’m hearing the lids popping as the vacuum seals in the jam jars, making me happy anticipating buttered toast from my home-made bread slathered with my home-made apricot jam, and resolved to enjoying the remaining Spring days with the solstice a week away!
And everyone knows how I love the very old botanical illustrations, especially by my favorite botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté . . .
Gauge figured after cutting the steek of a two repeat colorwork & shaped test swatch, and I started on the body, with a little floral border, so sweet. Many days of knitting undyed natural main color body and sleeves, and then the colorwork yoke, which will be finished in a blink I’m confident. I’m way ahead of deadline here, not that there is really even a deadline, just that my youngest niece would love to model it before she goes back to university this late summer. Thinking it may be a cardigan and after-thought pullover in a style I have not to date managed to design, a thing which is very feminine. The cardigan will be slightly cropped for skirts, possibly contrast edging, possibly Dorset buttons, maybe, or maybe not, but I just feel like pulling out all the stops on this one. The pullover version I will create much more played down, and the whole affect will be kind of like two sisters who are very different from each other. But for now its just a glimpse of a floral idea as I swim in bodies of wool in the scorching California heat, as the mercury rises and the days near to the summer solstice!
( See all posts in this series.)
I had only a few stitches to knit to finish up these prototypes belonging to the latest sock pattern. They are the Cafe Latte’ variation of the Double Cappuccino Sock pattern (which is part of a larger collection in itself!) If you take a closer look at them (in the cuff area) you’ll notice my experimentation of two ways to work the ribbing, and I still can’t decide which I love best; 2″ of k3, p1 rib before the leg which is k7, p1 –or — the extra grip of 1″ of single rib, then working 1″ of k3, p1 rib, before the leg rib. So I decided to do one of each and give a visual sample so the knitter can better decide. The other option is to work the whole 2″ of cuff in single rib.
Berroco Ultra Wool Fine is to date my favorite commercial sock yarn, with a very rustic feel, not of merino, which is so beautiful of a wool, for socks can be rather too soft and not as durable.
Anyway, there is something so lovely about this classic country sock variation, with contrasting cuffs, heel, and toe, and I just never tire of making them.
Okay, sock intermission over, back to the big colorwork knitting project at hand. But first, the links . . .
♥ ♥ ♥
Pattern : Double Cappuccino
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Wool Fine
Knitting Details: on Ravelry here.
Over-dying finished, here is the palette I’m going to be working with, four shades of rose, and three shades of leaf. After my last over-dye, posted The color of old rose illustrations I was not happy with the over-dyed pink, as it was then too similar to the medium pink from the factory yarn, and so I dipped in tea for a bit last night, but rushed it because at the same time I was getting dinner ready. Having dried out on the line by morning, it was back to the kitchen, for it was still was not perfect. So, again early as I was making coffee I was brewing tea for another tea over-dye, to make it still duller & darker than the medium rose factory shade. Brewing another thirty minutes in a dye bath of tea, the end result is some rather beat up yarn, but I don’t mind, because now the shade is nearly perfect, and in this case more important than the yarns roughed up texture, for it is only a few rounds going to be used in a yoke colorwork. The main body will be natural white, um, “old paper white” I guess you could call it, as I am striving for a palette something like this late eighteenth century botanical illustration . . .
Now I’m casting on for my colorwork swatch,
and I’ll look forward to posting soon how that is going!
(( See all posts in this series. ))
I haven’t yet been able to start my colorwork swatch because I am not perfectly satisfied with the colors from the parcel that came yesterday. For one, I think I need a fourth rose shade, another medium rose shade, but duller than the medium shade in the stack. Also the two greens are much too alike, and I think I want the lighter one to be the main leaf green, with a light golden green accent (or I may just have three leaf tones). The colors from the factory are rarely just right, so again time for a quick over-dye. I happen to have some natural beige of this yarn, so I overdyed a skein of it with pink, and another skein of it with gold and a pinch of emerald, trying for the color of extra virgin olive oil. Lets see if this will work better, for the palette I’m wanting is rather particular, of the old botanical illustrations. The tarnished brass is the color I’m looking for the lighter leaf tone we’ll see. Right now the skeins are wet, will be much less vivid and a lot lighter when dry.
( See all posts in this series.)
Yarn has arrived, its official, and I’m excited to finally start.
I’ve been mired down in chart drawing and redrawing for a week,
and now it is time to knit a swatch,
Peruvian wool, in colors of leaves and petals!
(( See all posts in this series. ))
Having spent many months on the latest sock design overhaul, then sock yarn making & more sample sock knitting, I feel I have finally come to a place where I can just be done for a while, as I really do need to move on to some serious sweater knitting at this point, but we’ll see about that. After sending these two pairs of socks knit with the UnSpun Sock Yarn off to Vancouver this morning, I will stop next door at the Oakville Grocery and get a nice cup of coffee, and wrap my mind around going on sock sabbatical for however long it takes, and facing the new design in the territory ahead.
The grey pair is the pattern Double Cappuccino, and the pink/brown pair being one of the variations called Basic Brew. I’ve knit the Basic Brew with two yarns held together and ankle length for warmer weather boots walking, my sister-in-law wears wool socks year round, and walks a lot so she is my designated wool sock tester!
In closing, I’d like to say that I really have a hankering to resume some serious spinning on my vintage Ashford Traditional, and get to making more handspun, as it is my dream as well as my plan to make ongoing samples of all of my designs in handspun (and UnSpun). There’s nothing like the handspun, so crisp, and bursting with halo in the morning light.
Socks: Double Cappuccino Socks and Basic Brew Variation
Yarn: UnSpun Peruvian Superwash Fingering
and UnSpun Superwash Fingering held together with Stroll merino sock yarn.
One of my rose bushes has so many blossoms on it this Spring, it is an English climbing rose I planted in the garden for Emma’s fourteenth birthday, when we were in the last stretch living in the tiny house while our house was being rebuilt, and so it is at last established somewhat, with heavy cupped peach colored blossoms so fragrant. I am a real fan of highly fragrant roses, which I inherited from my mother, loving particularly the varietals with fruity scent, because when I pick a small jar of them and bring into the house, they just fill the room with a fragrant simplistic beauty. And this afternoon I made myself a rose “soda” and drank it while calculating notes for a sweater design. From organic rose blossoms, fresh-picked from my garden early this morning while out watering, when it occurred to me to try to steep the petals in sugar syrup, making a rose syrup. And it doesn’t take long at all, really just a few hours, for its now the late afternoon, and I’m enjoying the most unusual refreshing drink, with delicious rose floral notes. Here’s how I made rose syrup, I hope you try it too:
Pour a nice sparkling mineral water over ice, and splash a bit of the syrup to taste, and I think you’ll be impressed. I made an experiment with these two bottles of rose petal sugar syrup; one I used fresh petals and strained them out as they turn brown and mushy, but another I took dried petals I saved from a jar I keep in with my spices for cooking, the darker blossoms are a very strong old-fashioned rose scent, and they kept their color quite nicely, so I left them in the bottle, and there’s no question what the syrup is and it won’t be needing a label. You might be interested in checking out the post years ago when I made rose icecream . . . Sweet As A Rose from the archives.
(( See all posts in this series. ))
I’ve been making and knitting with my newest yarn experiments,
my own UnSpun Peruvian superwash sock yarn, both the fingering and dk weights,
and knit with my new Double Cappuccino Socks pattern as well.
As I have been doing all along (see all UnSpun posts), dividing plies, replying with a tighter final twist, scour washing to set the twist and felt up any possible slack .
This bunch of skeins was my learning curve . . .
Well, then I just have to knit some socks.
A sample of the same grey yarn over-dyed with some yellow onion skins I had saved up, and pressure cooked half hour in my mini instant pot. Then I strained out the skins, wet the skein and along with a glug of white vinegar I simmered for about half an hour in the onion skin “broth” on low pressure. It was very thirsty for dye, and the onion skin dye was pretty dark. Next time I won’t pressure cook the actual dying, but simmer and careful few stirs to even out the dying as well as giving the yarn a further scour to set the new twist. However, I actually am quite pleased with the slightly blotchy onion gold over the cool grey, for in my opinion the duo of grey and deep golden brown pair excellently together.
A few weeks ago I sent off these “boot” socks knit in UnSpun dk weight
to my sister-in-law to be test-worn . . .
and also sent skeins of fingering weight sock yarn to a dear knitting friend for sock test-knitting, and so now awaiting her critical feedback. So far my own feedback is that – yes, the yarn is beautifully rustic, has a little spring, but not as much elasticity, which was my expectation from a coarser longer wool fiber to achieve the rustic appeal. However, slightly problematic for these reasons; the yarn seems slick and strong, might do better to be knit with smaller needles “than usual”, to tighten up the fabric, it seems, and the dk may be too thick to wear comfortably for walking. So meanwhile I am trying out a pair of Basic Brew . . .
I know for certain these will be an improvement on socks for walking, with very dense tightly knit fabric to take a lot of punishment — holding 2 fingering weights with US1.5 [2.5mm] needles — one of the fingering sock yarns (the pink) together with a puffy downy 100% merino sock yarn (the brown) and together another match I am over the moon about. I am learning that better than a single strong rustic dk yarn knitting up speed boot socks as the blue Vancouver-bound ones were, is holding two of the fingering weights together, for the stitches are softer and the merino of course, adds super downy softness to the strong rustic UnSpun yarn. I have sock-knitting on the brain a lot these days, but things are naturally winding down with the sock yarn-making, and feel its time I bring it to a fruitful pause so that I can get on with the next knitting & yarn adventure. I mean I have been doing so much unplying and replying, having fun with my super fast plying machine I bought last summer (the Ashford e-spinner I mention in this post) I guess I wanted to try to find some kind of a niche with it, and I most certainly did, as I am not able to spin fine sock yarns to save my life. Also, I haven’t done any fiber blending for Tweed Chronicles in ages, and just plain spinning, so those things I hope to spend a little time with soon. Just been working a lot outside and what little left-over energy I have , sock-knitting just hits the spot and keeps me on the level.
Have been trying to perfect my rustic country bread loaves, inspired to study more the methods with a long-rise from what I’ve learned to call “biga”. Several times in my life I’ve tried getting a starter going, fed for a few days, even weeks, and always eventually a bitter displeasing off-smelling thing happens, and I don’t trust my expensive organic flour with, when what I only really want is a fresh, delicate and sweet aroma. Those loaves from my sour-starter were never good, and yet I wanted to persist. In all my years of baking I had never tried the biga — an old European name for what is more modernly called a pre-ferment — where one begins the starter the night before using a scant two pinches of yeast, letting slowly rise all during the night, and the next day early one begins to throw the flour (exciting, I love how I can sleep on the idea of the task coming the next day!) So last night right before cooking dinner, I quickly mixed the few small ingredients with the handle of a spoon, covered with a dish, tucked it away and this morning I did the rest; the stretching and proofing, and the baking.
A crackly crust that is not tough, but delicate, and a lovely fluffy and light interior texture that smells fresh and so sweet.
I’m one of those bread lovers who when presented with a lovely loaf of well-browned rustic loaf with crags and crevasses of crust, I like to just tear off a piece, and experience the texture from how the bread gives way. I based this loaf combining my own bread baking experience with a recipe from a used book I acquired post-wildfire era, called “The Italian Baker” 1985 (there is a revised edition 2011) which I obsessively started reading last weekend, but also I found an excellent no-knead dutch-oven you-tube tutorial about baking with biga from this baker which was colossally helpful and very easy to follow.
Baking yeast breads with a pre-ferment biga is going to change my way of baking forever, especially as in recent months I’ve been longing for ritual, and ritual in bread baking is something I feel I’ve been on the path towards for decades, but only now have arrived at my straight and narrow, and this will be hopefully only the first of many more bready posts I predict, for in this loaf I have found real success. And now about twenty hours after making the biga, I’m enjoying my absolute all-time favorite snack — toast with gobs of salted butter, and for a rare treat I just happened to have some strawberry jam I made the other day!
Sometime ago I posted this excellent Hands Series of a Dublin Wool Mill, but it seemed to have been taken off of youtube so couldn’t be viewed. Now almost three years later, I have found it again, a superbly artful wool spinning mill & weavers from the late 1970’s. Watch and find out what happens when colors layered in to wool sandwiches are fed to the “fear-not machine”, the “scribbler machine”, and old style mill spinning with a “mule”, then various weaving of the cloth and processing into the Irish Tweed that is world renowned. This episode is absolutely loaded with all sorts of tweedy goodness ~~~ enjoy!
April, and it is springtime on the mountain again . . . the flora & fauna waking up and everything in its place. In our garden are loads of apple blossoms this year, and the first buds of the old fashioned climbing roses, and fuzzy pink new leaves of black oaks, everywhere color and wonder.
Oh, and some finished socks I am sending off to Vancouver for a belated birthday gift.\
My Un-Spun sock yarn is fabulously rustic;
it feels like woolly wool, smells like wool, looks very much like wool,
it is soft and springy and completely machine washable.
♥ ♥ ♥
Pattern: is Double Cappuccino in the variation “Americano” , recently added to sock pattern.
Yarn: Un-Spun Peruvian Superwash DK sock yarn , which I made and posted here.
I’ve been knitting this first pair of socks from my latest Un-Spun sock yarn, while the Springtime landscape explodes out of dormancy, so intoxicating and beautiful. I guess already its good-bye March, and its going out like a lamb. I will close by saying how pleased I am with myself, that I actually have had follow-through as well as forethought in designing some seriously nice yarn for sock knitting (and you can see the finished socks in next post.)
I have been experimenting with creating a unique sock yarn which is swiftly and steadfastly becoming my new favorite. It is made from Peruvian Highland breed of sheep, and what I believe to be Corriedale-Merino cross wool, so the fiber has softness of Merino, but equally has crisp and sturdy properties of Corriedale fleece which was bred from a long-wool breed. Not that I have anything against Merino, it is absolutely fabulous, but it is just so delicate, and for socks I have become disenchanted by its downy structure. I want a sock yarn that is energized and holds shape with wear, sturdy with beautiful rustic appeal, and lastly that is machine washable so that I can make hiking socks for myself by the dozens and even give them as gifts and they will hold up being worn over hill & dale as well as the cycles of wash & dry. After years of sampling popular sock yarns, I am certain my Un-Spun superwash sock yarn is going to be my go-to yarn, and lately I have been practicing and streamlining my process.
Over much experimentation, I’ve pretty much got two weights; a fingering and dk weight. First, the dk weight, most rustic appeal of all I think, and knits up super fast and even fluffy. . .
As you can see, I’ve got a boot sock on the needles, knit with the dk and I believe it really is the best I could have hoped for. I seriously am enjoying the robust feel of this crispy, fluffy, soft, and complex yarn. Why do I go through all this effort? I suppose the answer is simply because I can make what I can not find. So presently I am making quite a lot of 100g skeins of the fingering weight, in many colors for when the gift giving comes around, I will have a good stash in my sock yarn drawer. Coming soon — piles of yarns and some finished socks.
The bullet points:
Shown is a skein of Un-Spun Peruvian Superwash DK, made from superwash bulky-weight Wool Of The Andes in the color “Fjord”. Now, if you are interested in trying this yourself, read further. . .
The Techy Part:
Like any handspun, this is going to take a little knowledge of spinning, just the basics, like how to recognize S-twist and Z-twist. The yarn had four plies of Z twist spun, and S twist plied. How I did it:
When dry it the yarn will be wrestled into a more relaxed and well-behaved yarn, and if it then gets re-skeined a last time, the twist will relax a little more yet, but after all of that, still there will be some energy left from the super twist is always going to be in the yarn, giving extra strength and spring in your step!
Just in from Juno’s favorite thing to do . . .
. . . and that is chasing sticks!
In the ten months we’ve had her, Juno has become a real super-charged herder, a manic tail-chaser, and just an all around positive loving goofy dog with a great attitude (yet very stubborn and misbehaving a lot of the time.)
A few months ago, when Juno was still quite juvenile, Jeff got her DNA tested, as we were sure she had some other breed mixed in, as she is significantly smaller than Emma was, and we were very curious. But when the results came in we were actually very surprised to read “100% German Shepherd, with medium wolfiness.” And since then she has really blossomed into quite a breed specimen! Seriously though, “medium wolfiness” just cracks me up.
Well, happy first birthday Juno!
You can see all Juno posts over the last ten months here.
In another life I am a weaver. Perhaps I’ll grow up as a child of the earth, tending the plants and bringing water, then later as a young woman I would bear the tension of the backstrap, squaring weft against warp, sweating through long tedious hours of work so honorable, and insulated from the worries and the wars of the world. Or really, just any kind of weaver, anywhere! (( You can see the very same mosi weaving master filmed a little earlier in her life back in this post which is quite a bit more extensive in the technique of making the warp)). But then, it really would take a lifetime to do this, why would I want to be a rank beginner now? Instead, from time to time I’ll just post great weaving films that I find.
See all weaving videos. . .
Lemon loaves, coffee, and longing for something new and exciting, but I stay in the tried and true. I sit and knit and ponder too much, however I do try to break with walks, genuine attempts to better myself. I’m moody a lot these days, but I suspect its the state of the world, not necessarily within myself. Not a drop of rain here since early January (maybe? I can’t remember) and for the whole month of February, its been mostly sunny clear skies, you could say even relatively warm, languishing as the winter days flirt with a sort of springtime mirage, new baby leaves about to burst out of the branches, and the fruit trees are all covered in blossoms, in spite of it being just a bit too early. Where did our winter go, it seemed to have gotten hidden away after the new year. Well, I’m still hopeful, today the temperature dropped considerably, and although the sky is clear blue, there is a chance of rain forecast. I am just bearing down and knitting my way through it all.
Last night just about when I was getting ready to cook dinner, I discovered Jeff nearly forty feet up a fir tree, in his climbing gear, a swashbuckling forest musketeer with a saw in his scabbard, cutting dead limbs away. He’s so hopeful for the trees that are still hanging on, wanting to groom them up and cut away the lifelessness left in the wake of the wildfire. But such a crazy dare-devil I live with, he gets me so freaked out!
But then just to remind me how everything really is quite okay, this afternoon I find Juno napping near a sun beam that was illuminating my spinning wheel . . .
Such a manic tail-chasing puppy, she is just a few weeks from her 1st birthday. I can’t believe it, the time just slips away as if I’ve been in a coma . . . Juno Pup is soon to be One!
♥ ♥ ♥
In closing, I want to share this totally inspiring musician who has a technique I’ve never seen nor heard, what the artist calls “bells harmonic”, isn’t it just enchanting?
A sort of coffee menu seems to be developing as I’m adding variations to the Double Cappuccino theme since my latest pattern overhaul. I’ve written three unique variations for the sock pattern; a handsome country sock, a basic plain & simple sock, and a pretty little ankle sock with just a kiss of lace rib on the cuff.
First, the country sock — Cafe Latte — a really wide rib, along with a contrasting cuff, heel & toe. On this particular sample of variation I was experimenting with a *k1, p1* rib for half the contrast cuff, then I switched to *k3, p1* for the other half, before settling into the *k7, p1* wide rib . . . but the footnote on this sample is that I think one or the other would look best. Soon I’ll have this first pair of country socks finished, and will no doubt refine the idea in a second pair, for it is my favorite of the three variations.
Next is the ankle sock– Single Shot — just one lace repeat, but then continuing in the wide ribbing, as a plain ribbed half leg or ankle sock. The thing is that the single ribbing behaves in a particular way with the decreases of the lace, that it creates those little cup-shapes in the ribbing, which I find so adorable and I really love this variation. Single Shot is for those modest lace lovers out there.
Last and not least is the sock I’ve wanted forever — Basic Brew — for mindless knitting and dependably uncomplicated. Again the cuff shown in two ribbings for the sake of example; *k1, p1* and *k7, p8* , just a little step start of interest and then just go ahead and stride out, working the whole sock in stockinette, through the heel and all. A plain sock method I’ve always wanted and I think this Basic Brew variation will be it. Can’t wait for this finish because the soft gradient Kroy yarn in copper colors is really spectacular. Well, there’s the three variations which have been now added to Double Cappucino Sock pattern, and I’m going to just settle in with knitting samples of these for a while.
As I sip an absolutely fantastic yummy afternoon cappuccino latte, I write out this little post, telling you all about how I have for a long time, several years perhaps, wanted to go back into my early pattern archives and overhaul them, one at a time. Well I have just brought up to date Double Cappuccino, a collection of four patterns . . .
So far the ensemble is socks with variations, thumbhole mitts, cowl, and the original legwarmers pattern from over eight years ago, one of my first patterns ever, which came to be when my oldest niece turned fourteen and wanted some legwarmers for her birthday, and so I decided to learn how to knit simple lace. Those original legwarmers were my first, and over the new year I have thought of the many ways I can incorporate this simple ribbed lace patterning, and write into an easy pattern collection. Abelene was hinting all about these “new parts to an old thing” just a few days ago, and although I may add some more parts later, I think for now I’ve finished! However, for me the knitting has only begun, for now I have a heap of samples I would love to make in the territory ahead, for its the variations that I’m wild about, so please come join me here for many more delicious afternoon double cappuccinos, accompanied by some knitting!
Hi, its me Abelene. Jen is making A Frothy Thing, the alpaca thing which I am wearing here (wait, um, but does it look like there’s an ice-cream cone on my head?) Jen says that she is happy to have me fill in for Day 1 of February, because she is ever so lost in a sea of frothy knitting, and needs to be continually throwing stitches instead of writing in her blog. What could ever be so important that she is not blogging? Oh, but she says what she is working on is not a new thing, but new parts to an old thing. Right, I know that makes perfect sense, and it will all come clear very soon, whenever Jen makes it back and I’m in the closet again, talking to the inanimate objects which long for a script to follow as I do. As for elsewhere and other things . . . it is already mid-winter . . . windy, sunny, and even I (a dress form) am longing for the pitter patter of rain on the roof (and maybe a new dress too).
Ta ta, Abelene
Jenjoyce Design 