Category: A drawer full of Winter

Two Shawls

Published on by Jen8 Comments

Hi, its me Abelene,

There is a story behind these two modest shawls. It began with Jen slipping in the gravel coming down the ridge road on a steep section right near home, sometime in the beginning of September. After tearing her knee up something awful and feeling very humbled by the situation, a strange determination overtook her. She decided that she didn’t want to walk up the ridge for a time—or forever (unrealistic in her injury)—and instead desperately wanted to fix up her old knitting trail down by the tiny house again, in the deeper, darker, more densely wooded haven, where the terrain is softer… not so rocky and steep.

However, as that would take a LOT of work and energy that she doesn’t really have these days, instead she decided to design some shawls. A perfect resolution in my opinion! Just some simple knits that could be knitted while walking the old trail she once had (and will have again one day, after the dead trees are finished falling) … before the indifferent wild took over with loggers, fallen trees, brambles, and all manner of unkindness to the soul of a trail.

So these are the two shawls. Instead of coming up with a new design, she decided to quietly slip them in under the radar, without fanfare, into her pattern collection A Drawer Full of Winter. (( Jen left some notes below on the details))

That is the update here in the perpetual wild beneath the tall trees, humbled by the months and years, the roaring quietude, and still making appearances, in spite of ourselves!

Ta ta,
Abelene

♣ Jen’s Techy Pattern info ♣

This classic shawl shape in stockinette stitch can be knit with solid increases for a staid & sturdy layer the wind won’t blow through or with light and airy classic eyelet increases appropriate all year round. Three sizes; shown in size 1, a shawlette, and size 2, a medium. Written in a modern “knit-to-exit” framework, it is beautifully customizable. You can easily test the shape by working the body increases with a mini swatch before working the finishing border. From fingering yarn or handspun, from cobweb lace to worsted– the framework lets you begin the finishing rows at any time and bind off with perfectly balanced proportions. One shawl many ways — soon you’ll have a drawer full of them!

Brindle Beret & Gloves

Published on by Jen4 Comments

This rustic tweedy ensemble tells a story of morning walks in the country, just come in from the cold foggy damp, and flung on to the nearest post as one urgently makes their way to the kitchen to put the kettle on!

My latest glove and beret set, a satisfying contribution to my drawer full of wintery woolens I have been busy making.

Basic beret & gloves are rather easy to knit if I may say so myself.

Oh, and a nifty way to attach a felted toorie (pom pom)

. . . just tie it on!

Both gloves and beret are featured in my latest pattern collection of basic & essential wintery accessories:

A Drawer Full of Winter

Details of these projects; yarns, sizes, all of that, can be found on Ravelry here and here.

g(love)

Published on by Jen4 Comments

I have just finished another pair of gloves from my new pattern collection and let me tell you, these are completely addictive ( and I must cast on for another immediately! ) This pattern collection is great for using up stash of many weights (gauge substitution for gloves from light worsted to very fine fingering weight) , this short cuffed pair was knit from dk weight, and used less than 40g of yarn. It was once a sock that never had its sock-mate knit, what they call “second sock syndrome” . . . so I put the lonely sock out of its misery.

Pattern: Drawer Full of Winter.

Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed dk – color “Watery”

Ravelry details: HERE

All posts in this series

A drawer full of Winter.

Published on by Jen5 Comments

In recent months I decided to make myself a drawer spilling over, full of knitted winter woolens for the cold days ahead, mostly in Isager Tweed (of which I happen to have recently hoarded). I explain at length in the previous post about the meaning behind this particular collection and introduced a pattern overhaul as I designed a few cowls, a plain & simple sock to add to my existing pattern set of hats & mitts. In its most recent overhauled form it is a five pattern collection of essential items, and I’ve named A Drawer Full Of Winter . After the last post I was about to let it go for a while, but as January was just getting started, the coldest month of the year, I knew I wasn’t finished, especially as I still didn’t own a pair of gloves. As I promised to update the collection whenever I wrote a new design to add to it, I have just this very minute have done. A new essential wardrobe item ~~ full fingered gloves~~ now added, done & dusted!

I am fascinated by gloves recently. I am in fact, smitten by the concept of a well knitted glove, how a truly good fitting glove allows one’s hand to articulate as if it had no glove on at all. I labored over the New Year while designing such a glove, which reflects every difference of each finger, and let me tell you, by taking such close study of my own fingers I never realized how each one is quite unique. I have observed that not all fingers are alike, thus not all knitted fingers should be alike, nor placed alike on the hand. The little finger is in fact knitted first, independent of the other three, more of the ‘ upper hand ‘ knitted, then the other three. And that is not even to mention the thumb! Oh the thumb, and its relation to its four counterparts, and the very relationship which creates a right and left essential fit. Oh , but the ring finger , middle finger, and index finger, are equally as different. I am telling you now, no finger is identical to the other of the hand, nor is it of the glove, this glove, my labor of love. Perhaps the biggest labor of knitterly love I have designed to date, and for such a simple thing. I find that I am quite absorbed into the simple essential things lately.

I’m feeling the long shadows of January, and my cozy winter woolens packing into their drawer, is a sight of comfort. Actually today is feeling quite lovely, on inauguration day, sunny and quiet after a couple of days of very strong gusting wind, and now I am letting my sails down for a short while, to let creative ideas build again, and let myself be kissed by a hopeful future.