Una Cosettina

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Jen

Una Cosettina, or ‘ A Little Something’ is the name of these half-mitts, designed especially for Oropa 1ply yarn, which is made with wool from sheep which have roamed the foothills of Alps of Northern Italy for perhaps a thousand years. Who knows for sure? But, there is an age-old mill in Biella which uses much the same processing methods as of long ago , and which make the wool from these Old-World sheep into yarn. Oropa 1ply is a rustic heritage yarn as rugged as the mountain terrain it comes from. Truly Oropa yarn is nothing less than a timeless treasure.

((Lots of information about The Wool Box at bottom of page))

I talk a lot about the yarn, and Biella’s place in Italy’s wool industry in Posted From Italy , Yarn Whisperer , and some about elements of design process in my previous post.

We have a pattern friends !!!

The design incorporates my own edging which I will simply call my ‘eyelet edging’, a cast-on and bind-off’ , having elements of i-cord, rib, and lace all in one.

Shown in Pearl Grey & Natural Oropa 1ply, sturdy & feminine, these half-mitts will keep your hands toasty warm, while letting the spring breezes through from it’s open lace-work. A feminine take on riding gloves of olden days perhaps, slightly bell-shaped , stylish, and ready to make a spectacular conversation piece when people ask about them.

jenjoycedesign©Lacey Little Somethings half-mitts

Modeling both sizes ~ smaller size to left, larger size at top.
((I wear a women’s small, by the way))

The photos show both sizes, and two slightly different cast-on eyelet edgings at the beginning of cuff, the end result in pattern, is slightly again different, combining both. (it was just a matter of changing one round of rib, into knit stitch).

In the weeks ahead this very same pattern is undergoing translation into Italian, and it will then become available to purchase in kit form with the very same Oropa 1ply yarn as you see in photo. As soon as I have any information to the kit being ready, I will post in celebration of a job well done collaboratively , having a sense of place from both Northern California, and Northern Italy.

In photo, larger with optional extra lacework repeat to left, smaller without extra repeat on right.

Meanwhile I will have this pattern for sale along with my other designs, which you will find on Yarnings over it’s pattern page HERE

and on Ravelry HERE

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Thank you Bonnie, for asking me if I would like to design una cosettina (a little something) for The Wool Box, because I most certainly and thoroughly enjoyed it ! May only ever the warm & soft breezes of spring blow through your lace ~~ Ciao.

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Now, for a little more information about The Wool Box !

You may read a little bit about Some info on The Wool Box and then check out the English translated websites that Volunteer English-speaking Ambassador to The Wool Box , Bonnie, as created on Ravelry HERE and on Facebook HERE.

You can read more about “The New History of Italian Wool” from Bonnie’s blog called “Wool In Italy” . . . on her post HERE .

If you would like to contact The Wool Box directly (in Italy), below are links Bonnie has provided me:

The Wool Box Shop: www.thewoolbox.it
Informazioni: info@thewoolbox.it
Customer Service: customer-service@thewoolbox.com

A Little Something of Lace

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Jen

I’ve been working steadily on a project , “A Little Something” , for The Wool Box. I talk in my previous posts Posted From Italy and Yarn Whisperer about Northern Italy’s “The Wool Box” , of Biella’s heritage wool mill and yarns, and of specifically Oropa 1-ply with which I am working in a design. I’ve changed course a couple of times, with piles of little half-lace mitts strewn about my loft room, I have worked and reworked, and now I’ve pretty much nailed it.

In the process of experimentation, I’ve come up with a lovely eyelet-icord-rib hybrid edging for the Little Something I’m designing. I pretty much thought it up for myself, and I don’t know what to call it (I’ll come up with something soon). Love how the single ply’s frisky & playful personality punctuates the edge ! This is after washing and blocking too. So crisp, Oropa 1-ply is anything but tame . . .

That said, I have discovered there is a ‘tender underbelly’ of Oropa 1-ply. Being a 1-ply, it does not have the support of another strand keeping it together as much, so when one picks up the end to knit, one must do so delicately, as the end does lose a bit of twist and becomes easily broken (but that’s a no-brainer with any single ply wool). I compensate by taking up a good 12 inches before knitting from an end. Did I mention that this sensitive side of Oropa is just really… well… ‘kitteny’. . . is that a word?

Better said I suppose, as noting it’s shyer downy quality.

Upon examining the fluff at one of the unraveled ends I noticed a small percentage of strong & slippery longer hairs and proportionally a lot more of shorter downy wool. Definitely Old World wool.

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On another note, I haven’t been able to knit much today (yet) as I was at a sort of Lady’s Social for the day, held over at my neighbor’s, here in the woods. I actually made a lovely creme brulee from a big fat perfect Meyer lemon growing from our tiny tree in a pot.

I packed the three brulees (there were three of us) into a little basket , covered them, threw my knitting bag over my shoulder, kissed Emma good-bye for a while and headed out into the woods (sadly) without her, for what was actually a short five-minute walk through back-country. I felt just like a fairytale character, like Red Ridinghood or Goldilocks.

Meyer Lemon creme brulee to-go, with carmelized sugar and all, delivered back-door style.

In my opinion, beauty is in the small things, novelties as this. Little pots of golden tastiness !

The recipe, for those interested, with just three ingredients, it’s incredibly easy and fast to make . . .

Meyer Lemon Creme Brulee:

1 very large and ripe Meyer lemon , 1 pint of heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup organic sugar

Finely zest lemon and squeeze juice from it.

In small saucepan slowly heat pint of cream, while stirring, until it begins to boil. Keep at ‘barely boiling’ for a couple of minutes, while stirring, then take off heat.

Add lemon zest , stir, and then slowly stir in the lemon juice.

Fill about 5 or 6 ramekin cups and let cool. Refrigerate for at keast 4 hours. Rest assured, it *does* set up !

About 20-30 minutes before serving, sprinkle a teaspoon or two of sugar on top of each brulee, and with a hand held torch ( or under broiler flame) carmelize sugar until bubbles and darkens to a deep gold ~~~ while creating a crisp layer on top.

Eat & Enjoy !

Yarn Whisperer

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Jen

jenjoycedesign©hanging-out-with-Emma-knitting

Hanging out with Emma on a Sunday , knitting A Little Something for Wool Box with Oropa 1ply yarn

“Oropa” wool is a very rare thing, a ‘heritage wool’ as it can not be found anywhere else because the breed of sheep is indigenous to a border region of Italy in the foothills of the alps, neighboring France. The wool is so special in fact , that it requires particular methods of processing which make Biella’s very old mills unique. “The Wool Box” is a collective effort to promote traditions of these local heritage wools and wool industry ~ from shepherding to processing ~ all back to Old World basics. Just in case you missed it, I mention The Wool Box, and my project designing with Oropa 1-ply wool in my previous post.

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The other evening I was winding off the new skeins into balls (with two chairs and hand-wound ball method) thinking it has very much a hand-spun feel, with a deal of twist in it, and so I wondered what it would say, but I wouldn’t find out it’s secrets until casting on. Casting on numerous times on as many different sized needles, I found myself unsure how to do justice for it. Honestly, I am worried that I have become far too use to docile modern yarns and very unsure of myself designing with yarn having any kind of personality.

At the start, I held a strand of Oropa 1-ply next to a strand of some of my Superwash Merino sock yarn, and gave it a glance , thinking that they were “close enough” , and so I cast on with the same needles I’ve been knitting oodles of socks and gloves for an eternity with ~~ all because it looks similar in ‘weight’ (we all know that really means thickness). Merrily swatching away, with US 2’s, then 3’s I found that the stitches ‘sproinged’ into loops with tremendous energy it was *almost* wrestling with and twisting the swatch fabric. It was obvious that Oropa 1-ply was not going to make the 8-stitches-to-the-inch design I’d had prepared ahead with … um… right, with that docile superwash sock yarn. In fact, the two colors, Pearl Grey & Natural, of the same Oropa 1-ply yield different gauges with the same needle. I basically have to take the approach one needs with hand-spun yarn, and factor in a bit of inconsistency.

Swatching, wet-blocking, ripping, and starting again, finally my thoughts shifted as my idea of what I wanted to make needed to be surrendered somewhat. I tell you, I was convinced that words like ‘coarse’ described Oropa, until I realized I was literally forcing it to being smothered in tiny stitches, unable to breath and bloom and and show off it’s real personality. Now having knit it on larger needles ( US 4 – 3.25mm) it is anything but coarse, in fact, it is wonderfully resilient and alive, sturdy and with superior definition. It has a lovely fuzziness and halo , yet a bit hair-like too, and no surprise, as it is furthest from modern milled yarns that you can get. Having been shorn from Old World sheep, and spun from an Old World mill, it has a whole different feel, just in case you can’t imagine. It is not well behaved like a lap dog, no, it is more like a mustang in the training corral … sassy, stubborn, and smart … with real sturdiness and it’s own ideas of what it wants to do. I just didn’t know, couldn’t know, until putting down the reins and letting it tell me how to work with it.

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This design process is a lesson for me about paying attention to the yarn, and also patience, as well as a little compromise, but I’m enjoying myself immensely, and suddenly I wish winter would last forever so I could knit a whole bunch of these Little Somethings with Oropa 1-ply !

Posted From Italy

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Jen

The Wool Box ~ 100% made in Biella, Italy ~ photo by Manuele Cessonello

There is a place in Northern Italy which is nestled in the beautiful foothills of the Alps, called Biella. High mountain pastures and bountiful springs and lakes has been intrinsic to Biella’s standing in the wool & textiles industry as far back as mid 13th century. However, since the turn of the modern 21st century, the wool industry has suffered from widespread global competition. Today, the “Wool Box” is there, still in the midst of it all, striving to keep heritage wools alive and well and most importantly ~~ available.

The Wool Box offers a carefully curated selection of rare Italian and European wool yarns in addition to a fine selection of wool roving for spinners and felters. The Wool Box focuses on short supply chain processing and full traceability of materials so that their 100% Italian wool means exactly that.

I am very excited to have the opportunity to design ‘a little something’ for the Wool Box, and folks, today I have just received yarn sent all the way from Northern Italy from the hands of Bonnie, volunteer English-speaking ambassador of the Wool Box. To me it resembles freshly pulled taffy from off of a candy pull machine, and swirls with such pleasurable tones of color & personality, that I can hardly wait to be flung into a spree of maniacal knitting.

I hope that this project will breed other designs for the Wool Box yarns, as Bonnie has of course, sent me an armful of samples, which could very possibly keep me busy for a good long while, and of which I will show off another time. (Thank you Bonnie!)

For now, I am watering at the mouth at this beautiful duo of Oropa 1 ply wool from an historic wool mill of Biella, with one wish on my mind . . .

. . . and that is to have this design finished and ready for knitters before the cool weather subsides in the Northern Hemisphere. I will keep you posted as I go along.

You can read all posts about this design for The Wool Box with Oropa 1ply HERE

In the meantime, if you would like to find out more about the Wool Box, Bonnie has created a place for it on Ravelry HERE and on Facebook HERE.

Lastly, You can read more about “The New History of Italian Wool” from Bonnie’s blog called “Wool In Italy” . . . on her post HERE .