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Yarn Tasting: Kroy

Published on April 13, 2018August 20, 2019 by Jen17 Comments

jenjoycedesign© Kroy St Andrews Socks 5

I have knit up a pair of St Andrews Harbour socks

in a new yarn I’ve never tried,

and I’m smitten!

jenjoycedesign© Kroy St Andrews Socks 1

This yarn was found quite unexpectedly in a maze of aisles , with shelves of acrylic yarns reaching nearly to the ceiling,

and I was so surprised to have to tame my yarn snobbery, for this yarn was found at our local Michael’s Craft Store!

Modest little balls of Kroy …
jenjoycedesign© Kroy Sock yarn

Yes folks, the secret is out, the yarn is Patons Kroy Sock; a washable wool & nylon 4ply sock yarn, and a surprisingly rustic feeling yarn, in a surprisingly rustic solid shade of “flax” … (see my post A Rustic Yarn to get the meaning ). The confusing thing is that on the label it says “super fine fingering” , don’t let that fool you, fine fingering weight is not at all what it is, this yarn is 166 yards per 50 gram ball, which equals 332 yards per 100g, definitely in the category of sport-weight. Other yarns with this same yardage are super popular Malabrigo “Arroyo” — which I believe would make the perfect soft sock for this design, and Cascade 220 sport (not the superwash one) which was the yarn I knit the cover prototype of the pattern, and one of my all-time favorite yarns. Kroy is sport-weight yarn, ignore the label.

jenjoycedesign© Kroy St Andrews Socks 4.JPG

This pair of fishermens socks were knit with option to switch to stockinette after gusset decreases are finished, which makes a little less bulky in the shoe ( see Ravelry project details here) Anyway, I think I have found a really affordable “vintage” feeling yarn for these fishermen socks; the yarn is a bit rough at first, but as I knit it it feels better and more compliant, and I just know its going to soften a lot in the wash. Crazy, as I’m such a connoisseur of yarn, but it behaves very well, knits up very stretchy & brings out wool’s best elastic properties, and with great stitch definition.

Oh and the color ” Flax ” is ideal for a rustic old-fashioned look, and I bet the Fishermen of olden days would have loved a pair of socks made from this yarn. Will try the “Gentry Grey” soon, thinking these two colors are the only heathered solids in this yarn. Afterthought: Um… well, folks, I figure now that I can over-dye the Flax color, and have just bought 4 more balls and ideas rushing to the fore!

Un Chullo

Published on April 3, 2018March 12, 2019 by Jen5 Comments

jenjoycedesign© D's chullo 1

Another birthday chullo for my brother. He just loves them so much, he wears them like hair. For this birthday I chose to make an anniversary of last April’s Camino Inca Chullo pattern release, knitting from the pattern. This one samples the Incan wave motif, and I knit it up in some lovely soft Juniper Moon “Herriot” yarn, which is 100% undyed baby alpaca, and this baby is soft! My brother likes the folk look of the ‘gnome’ crown, so I worked the option for slower decrease and it is just a bit gnome like…
jenjoycedesign© D's chullo 2

Its the tassels that my brother really loves, and with a brow/mustache comb that has needle-sharp brass teeth, I am able to comb through the pompom fringe and fluff up the fine hairs to a really fine furry puff …

jenjoycedesign© eyebrow comb

Voila! I even tied on an extra bit of yarn to comb into a tassle at the tip of the earflap.

jenjoycedesign© D's chullo 3

This being the last of the deadline knitting, I am now able to spend some time experimenting with the traditional “mens” chullo ~~ the varied regional methods of picot edges, and knit with needles traditionally made from bicycle wheel spokes! When time, opportunity & energy come together in the near future, I will continue where I left off, and embark on a new chullo knitting adventure ! But for now I will leave you with an artful & inspiring short travel ad film which gives glimpses of the wild landscape and colorful textiles of Peruvian Highlands that I have been so very drawn to …

From within a garden gate…

Published on March 31, 2018November 9, 2022 by Jen17 Comments

I am hopeful and ready to cultivate something verdant and lush, a wonderful secret garden, a tonic for a feeling of well-being and happiness wherein the garden fence I can be a caretaker of living things and feel at home, a place out under the sky where the nameless meadowy wild flowers and grasses thrive along side vines of berries, succulent sedums, herbs, foxglove, sturdy fruit trees. All together keeping time of the seasons together under the showers, and the comforting shade skips around in a merry frolic with the suns rays. In wet months miners lettuce explodes in edible clusters, and somewhere near, maybe a lucky mushroom pops up…

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” A. A. Milne

Foraging about in a garden, a secret garden, the kind only a few people visit (namely myself) … with a lovely and nice gate to keep the world out and the magic in. Garden gates utterly fascinate me right now. Here is our garden gate from five years ago . . .

The garden is like a favorite room in a house. In mornings of April through October there’s me holding a watering hose in one hand and cup of coffee in the other, with knitting bag slung across my shoulders. I am dreaming a thriving green oasis from within my Charcoal Forest, and garden with walls of pink jasmine (just planted, six plants!) to vine and cover the lower fence, and shield from vision the blackest of burn, and the apple trees trying to shake off the scorched leaves of last Autumn’s wildfire as their new leaves are determined to emerge soon, very soon, they must, because I just see them in my mind!

“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” Sigmund Freud

A place to go, to work hard and get dirt beneath my nails, a place where the soul meets life, and the worries of the world are forgotten. My thoughts these days are of knitting, and of a garden with knitting trail made new.

Petra’s Tam

Published on March 27, 2018March 12, 2019 by Jen16 Comments

jenjoycedesign© StAndrews-Harbour-tam1

Pattern: St Andrews Harbour (Petra’s Tam)

Yarn: Alice Starmore’s Hebridean 3ply, in Golden Plover

Details on Ravelry: here

It was a lovely knit! I do recommend the tam in this pattern “set”, for it is so fetching, sporty, awesomely sea-worthy, and a totally essential accessory of one’s outdoor wardrobe. This one is made from worsted weight yarn, and it is a bit fashionably floppy, however, knit with finer yarn such as sport weight, it would be just right. If done in Starmore yarn, I would do better to suggest Starmore’s Hebridean 2ply. I want to knit another one or two from my handspun yarn, talked about in Tweed Chronicles which has so much meaning through a time of upheaval as was my obsession in the months right after the wildfire. So on to the next!

♣ ♣ ♣

Meanwhile, I’ve composed a little letter to all of you who follow Yarnings, a new category on Yarnings, entitled “Letter from the editor” , to let you know what is going on with us during this time of epic change.

Dear Everybody ~

On to new adventures, and news on every page! First, our stay at our first holding place did not last long, the landlords want to move back in, and that’s fine, because I’ve longed with a great ache in my heart to live back up on the mountain in my charcoal forest. Second, the county administration and engineers are making our getting a permit to (re)build hugely difficult and drawn out, adding insult to injury. I don’t really want to talk about details, but we have no real timeline as to when we will be rebuilding, or what we will be rebuilding, or when we will be living up there in our rebuilt house. So the original post I made right after the wildfire in October entitled “Ten Acres ….” written two days after evacuating our house, flames still smoldering, is now ringing in the rafters as we are in process of getting a Tiny House to park a few hundred yards away from the building site, nestled right near the trail head to my knitting track in fact. If I can try to be optimistic, I will tell you that this pleases me a lot, if choices are dreary and few right now, shifting around from city rentals, and not being able to walk in the woods properly has been detrimental to my attitude, and mental as well as physical health. Also Emma has been to the vet and back many times in the last months, her wound from her surgery last summer (posted here) never healed properly, and she is cheerily going day to day from stitches to staples, from cone to inflatable collar, but aside from all of that seems to be in good health. Meanwhile Jeff has suddenly been laid low from the stress of the whole ordeal of the county, the moving out (again) that he’s caught a bad bug and its developed into pneumonia, but worry not, he is of heroic constitution and never sick, and now on antibiotics will get well soon. As for me, I’ve thrown my back out and hobbling around, on pain killers, feeling taped together at best. Oh, but finally I managed to get a hold of some 90tpi carding cloth, and finally made another jumbo carding & blending board to replace the original , left behind in the wildfire, (colossal thanks to Adele for lending me your Ashford Blending board these past months! xoxo) … and so I am ready to get back into tweed-making, visualizing a tiny space in the Tiny House to be my new creative “loft” space. In fact, I plan on moving into the Tiny House with a good and positive attitude and stop feeling sorry for myself so much. Years ago we stayed in a treehouse, (posted here), and I enjoyed myself immensely tucked away up in a nest in the trees, knitting the hours away, a knitting retreat of retreats! I want to make this new Tiny House feel like that retreat did, and I am visualizing constant knitting & walking, as well as constant gardening. The garden was the one thing that (mostly) did not burn in the wildfire, so I want to be near it to nurture it and water, and make it an oasis where I can go be with living growing things, and to realize how great it is just to wake to another day. Wish us luck, and I’ll keep you posted

~~ xxJen ( aka ‘ the editor ‘ )

Washed ashore…

Published on March 18, 2018September 6, 2025 by Jen4 Comments

Washed ashore.

A poignant pause in a short series of sea fishing posts, reeling in sentiment for those fishermen who fight the sea, in love with the sea,

yet inevitably helpless in the incidences where the water, weather, and sea creatures dominate with harsh indifference.

sea-monster-edinburgh-1600's — Sea monster ready to swallow up ship and crew — drawing 1600’s.

” Humanity is always fallible, through every man individually or a crew collectively, (there is) a break in the chain of watch-keeping or good navigation, and there comes tragedy. Going to sea against those elements to take home that resource can never remain safe ” — as heard in previous post from Unknown Fisherman.

Fishermen Fact: In the face of tragedy, the fishermen gansey (guernsey) or sweater, its varied patterns on brave & broad shouldered men such as these, is a marker of identity…

“Each gansey has a unique pattern which varied from village to village and from family to family. If there was a shipwreck or accident the bodies washed up on the shore could be identified by their gansey as being from a particular village and family. In this way the fisherman could be returned to their family for burial”… read more

The sea is a dangerous place, and fishermen have had to work within its raw and elemental nature for as long as they’ve taken harvest from it, from centuries past to present. The sporting Fishermens Gansey as we know today, has survived its original purpose of rugged & essential gear, knit by mothers, wives, and sweethearts, to keep their fishermen warm and safe against the elements as well as they could…

SFM_144 — “fisher lassies” knitting for their fishermen

But even so, the fishermens gansey has come into the spotlight of fashion as a genuinely attractive style of knitwear, and knitters have appreciated the cables, moss stitch and purl textures for generations already. As I have also been smitten by those timeless textures, at last I am bringing the spirit of the sea into a small collection of rugged and sea worthy accessories that I’ve been working on this winter like a team of fisher lassies …

Alive O’ !

A fresh catch ready to be sorted & groomed for photos (and with pattern forthcoming), saluting the iconic woollen fishermen gansey, in an assortment of knitteds that every fisherman or fisherwoman, should never be without !