Those of you who have been following my blog since at least four years ago do not need to be reminded about what the tiny house is.
But for those who don’t know; after the wildfire Jeff, me, and our dog Emma lived in it while our house was being rebuilt, then Jeff’s daughter stayed in it during the pandemic. It has been vacant now for a couple of years, spiders having it all to themselves, and having become weathered from the elements, I cleaned it up and decided to inhabit it for the purpose of wool processing! While fresh air blows through all the open windows through the entire summer, the place is feeling wonderfully clean, neutral, and cozy, and so I am making plans as I await the arrival of the Ashford drum carder, due in a few weeks from New Zealand. I have pulled out the box picker and decided to get a head start picking the fleece mentioned in last post.
I was rather surprised in myself to purchase the drum carder, as I really just didn’t think about how it would create dirt and dust in the house from carder fly-off, especially with home-grown wools, so it became evident a shed would be needed, then I remembered about the tiny house, it just called to me!
Such a sweet place to ponder in the afternoon, a short walk from the house, down in the charcoal forest, and having spent some hours in it today, mostly cleaning and then bringing down the wool picker … I made a cup of coffee, wrote down ideas, and picked wool. I very much enjoyed the warm and inviting personality of this space, remembering its womb-like feel. Anyway, I am hopeful that I can do something special with the tiny (wool) house, things happen for a reason, and well, here I am.
I bought an Ashford drum carder, because I really need one, and it should be here soon. After moving back home I began collecting fiber to spin; interesting roving by the mile, a palette of solid wool colors for blending, artful hand-dyed braids too, and novelty fibers to explore, as I was very anxious to get back into Tweed Chronicles, to blend and spin till the cows come home.
To add, earlier this year a friend gave me a raw fleece. I let it soak outside for the month of April, before rinsing it and letting it dry, not wanting to bring it into the house until it was completely clean and odorless, which it was not, it needs still further washing. Since May it has sat in that tub outside, a dry fluff of wool that the birds have enjoyed for nest lining. I realized that my work space and creative flow had become “fiber bottlenecked”, and can not allow it inside. I really hope this new addition to my loft studio will inspire me to get things flowing again with blending and spinning, and making.
Juno, who hangs out with me in the loft, agrees that it is about timeI joined in on the fur fun !
I am humbled all over again, after rants of frustration, breaking warp threads, redoing the string heddles a few times, inserting a new section of warp after I was fooled by the “false cross”, tired shoulders, and to add, a bit of defiant arrogance. I was all ready to give up, but then remembering Laverne’s words in her tutorial video about backstrap weaving being such a special thing (which it is!) and to get frustrated and give up would be a shame. Those words hovered in my brain and made me take another look at the situation and yesterday late afternoon I put it back on the lasso and gave it another try. Well, things started to miraculously come together, finally!
The small swatch is not that much to look at, the selvedges are poor, and I have had to weave in through the back a lot of broken warp threads, but here it is at last, just what it is, my very first weaving, and an excellent test sample from the yarn that I made myself (see this post). What is the best that came out of this is overcoming frustration, seeing the finished piece, and an eagerness to warp for another weaving project.
♣ Weaving Notes ♣
This piece was a very stressful, and I have a new deep reverence for backstrap weavers!
I wanted to try my best at the Peruvian style, I used my hand re-spun wool, and wove very tightly, but still am learning about how the two-color-warp and false cross works, and I did end up having to warp over and insert some warp threads after bad mistakes in set up.
Several times getting up and wriggling out of my backstrap, the whole weaving would flip sideways and I did not secure the shed rod or sword and so they fell out then I lost my shed, had to go back to the default cross and get it set up again. A lot of explanation for the ways I was clumsy need not be written, but I think I would like to take a break from warp-face weaving, as I really crave balanced plain weave, and not to mention, a loom that is secure in place as I like to get up and walk away for breaks a lot.
This 12″ backstrap loom is the smaller of two (the other is 20″) and was the loom I ended up sending to Ro in Mexico shortly after my rigid heddle loom arrived.
Never before have I used one, but I found a nice palette generator to help me begin my first weaving project, and I must say, these tools are awesome! I have needed to go to the source of my inspiration, which is the landscape around me, and to simply draw from the pool of photos in the archives in my blog will give me the colors I need, for knitting, weaving, anything. This photo Golden Fields which inspired a knitted lace design, again it will with weaving. For my first attempt with this palette, I am sampling the wool on the inkle loom . . .
The colors are all there, and what an interesting plain weave from the four colors in my yarn drawer, even though they may not be exactly as the color generator produced. It was just a matter of reconstructing the yarns from fluffy worsted knitting yarn into very tightly plied laceweight weaving yarn, like the Andean weavers do with wool, leave it to me to be a yarn nerd about it. My first try at making fine dense weaving wool (about 24 wpi) is nowhere near as fine as the authentic Peruvian pieces I have, but I think perhaps a very good starter weaving weight.
Okay spinners, here is how I do it . . .
In z twist direction, I wind worsted weight on to bobbin without giving much twist, just tighten the tension on the bobbin, and let the yarn fly on to the bobbin, and it will become unplied somewhat, needing touch-up in next step, but I do NOT want to over twist (unply) or I’ll be having to reverse direction in the next step at intervals.
Then with untwisted plied yarn on a bobbin, I loosen the bobbin tension so that I can pull the yarn back off, dividing the 4 plies and wind into two balls of 2ply, while at the same time spinning slowly as needed in z twist direction, when the twist builds up again.
Once two balls of 2ply yarn needing to be respun with s twist, I wet spin in s twist direction to ply, while keeping tension on the yarn winding on to the bobbin so it is tightly plied and firmly wound on to bobbin. I find that wetting my finger tips helps manage fluff and also more densely plies the yarn.
After finished, still damp, I wind finished plied yarn on to a felted wool ball somewhat firmly, as to keep a bit of tension on the yarn while drying. This is what the Peruvians do for their weaving handspun yarns, I learned from instructional video Andean Spinning by Nilda Callañaupa Álvarez, winding around often a little pebble to start their balls. I am using her technique as my guidance, and although I can’t imagine why they would want their yarn tightly wound, (so against the principles of knitting yarn) I am guessing it is so the wool’s elasticity on the warp is lessoned.
Band #2 , plain weave, and 100% cotton. I’m not sure I really love working with pure cotton. I think I would in pure linen, as it is crisp and alive, but cotton’s worst enemy it seems, if woven without a lot of muscle and confidence, appears slack and lacking resilience. Next project will be pure wool, which I have a lot of. Anyway, learning something new can be more fun when shared with someone else, and fortunately for me Jeff’s daughter Rosanna and I are learning to weave together ! We’re both absolute rank beginners, starting on our Ashford Inklette looms and graduating soon to backstrap looms made in Guatemala. I’ve had a head start by a couple of weeks, while she is waiting until she gets back to Mexico. I thought I might take notes as I weave and post here so she can benefit from my experiments, therefore I will be including Notes To Ro as footnotes at the bottom of my weaving experiments . . .
♣ Notes For Ro ♣
Ro, you’ll want to read the basic instructions that come with our Ashford Inklettes, about how to warp the loom, and to make the leashes (I’ve done these in the lichen green color, so you can see) and starting with the little pieces of cardboard, which I cut out of the box that our looms came in. From there I go to Laverne Waddington’s Backstrap Weaving Blog for instruction.
For this band I wove the same plain weave as my first band using color separation for upper & lower shed –held together, side by side without crossing — see Laverne’s video on warping this way, on a narrow warp, what she calls her Plain Weave 2nd Method, shown: Basic Warping for Backstrap Looms. Instead of using warping pegs to separate upper & lower sheds, your inkle loom IS the warping pegs, and you separate the upper/lower (dark/light) as shown on my last project ) On my second band here I am working a variation, what I’m doing different is this: 4 warp threads of dark (rust) on the upper shed/4 light (rose) on the lower, I turn my hand, twisting the threads at the starting peg, thereby switching the colors to be 4 light on the upper/4 dark on the lower, then twist back again for 4 more dark on upper/4 on lower — the edges are the same as the weft thread, 4 upper/4 lower of blue on each side.
The yarn I am using is Curio#3 (which I sent to you) is 100% cotton, sturdier than the Dishie and has a sheen, so every detail shows off my lackadaisical inconsistent warp & weft tension, beating, and especially my sloppy selvedges. Cotton behaves differently than on my last band which was woven with a wool/cotton blend. Cotton really takes muscle, I should have pulled the weft more, and beat with more force.
I have been getting in the habit of lifting and lowering the lower shed with my fingers of one hand, then slipping the shuttle in to secure the clear shed, then beat, it is terrific feel-good hand work with minimal fussy tools. I tried using too many tools on my first band, and confused myself !
It was inevitable, and I gave into it. For years I have longed to be weaving. I have visualized the varied movements, pondering the most ergonomic way my arms and body would move almost mechanically to work warp and weft, and I have craved to move to this rhythm of weaving. There was just no point in waiting, or putting it out of my mind any longer, but one thing was for sure, I needed to start small. So, these are my first weavings, on a tiny little little loom, the Ashford Inklette.
This thing is addictive, and I think this little loom is a good first step to take to understand how warp sheds work, how to manage tidiness in the selvedges, learn warp-faced weave — how to manipulate the threads and yarns, before I move on to the backstrap loom & beyond.
I’m all about the little baby steps now, I am taking one small step and getting a bang out of it! I managed to finish this in a few hours, and now enjoying a celebratory cup of kahve . . .
I had to seriously ask myself; do I want to just dream about one day weaving, or do I want to just weave? I suppose I was held back by fear of being a rank beginner, and for years now I have enviously read weaving blogs and watched weaving videos, and still I wasn’t ready to begin, to wheeze and strain against the learning curve, new frustrations and aches. So here is my hand-made backstrap loom, from Guatemala, one of two I bought from a charitable organization on Etsy, one for myself and one for Jeff’s daughter. I am going to sand it a little bit and condition the wood too, and then I’ll be ready to warp. I am eager to share my experience here as a rank beginner, un-confident, but like a wobbly kneed colt, I am putting one stride before me, my first step in what will hopefully become a journey.
The most recent addition to Patamanta, a pair of super soft thumbhole “sleeves”, knit in 100% superfine Simply Alpaca. As I had got quite a stash of it last Autumn I can explore my ideas unhindered with actual knitting, and I am enjoying it all, every minute. Particularly these, part of the eventual Patamanta pattern collection. The pattern will also include legwarmers, and shorter mitts, although as yet I haven’t knit up those, and being nearly the same idea as the sleeves, I may not need to. Leg warmers, sleeves, and mitts all have the same charts, just a matter of how many repeats in the round and in length. I still have a few more things to knit up from this small little collection, so I’m just enjoying the calm knitting pace, and letting inspiration come in little waves, and also staying very busy outside this Springtime.
A felted phone pouch I’ve just finished, made from the new augmented Patamanta charts, and in a cheerful bright Peruvian colorway. The new charts are not quite available yet, not until I finish the other things from the little collection I am putting together under the Patamanta name, then I’ll round it all up and update the pattern, I promise! But really, I’m just taking my time, enjoying the knitting, and in no rush. I took the opportunity to add this little pouch to the pattern because I badly need a phone pouch as I have a new phone that I need to start keeping with me when I go for hikes up here in the wild as I never know when I’m going to trip over another fallen tree and injure my foot again, or if I will need to scare away preying wildlife with the funky ringtones, or ? Now that I think about it, before I take it out on the trail, I am considering giving it a bath of onion skins or tea to tone it down a bit and make it more earthy!
I have taken a pause from new design project, to put together a gift for a friend’s grand-child who is turning three soon, and taking this opportunity to augment my recent Patamanta pattern into a small collection. Not sure, probably will just add some thumbhole “sleeves” or long fingerless mitts & legwarmers, as well as more variations of the original chullo, with augmented charts and sizes. I managed to sample these mini sizes just by using the smallest of the sizes and odd bits of sock-weight yarn. Thus far at least I have the present ready on time, but as yet I still must knit some adult sized samples in heavier weight un-dyed alpaca, before it is complete. Who knows what else I will knit from it, because I am unable to stop as these little colorwork pieces are so fun to knit, and completely addictive!
A winter wonderland like I’ve never seen up here, and we are officially snowbound. Even more snow than I remember seeing when we started building our original house in 2001, and I reckon possibly not as much snow since the 1990’s. Juno’s first real snowy landscape to play in, and she is off with Jeff clearing broken trees off of the road, and I am enjoying the warmth inside, looking out. Last week I nearly broke my foot, trailblazing through a tangle of big fallen trees, and although it is getting better, its still swollen and sore, so I can’t go out walking in it. But it is really nice, having to stay home because of the snow, not something we experience that often in our part of the world, but going to enjoy it, and for now being in this much snow is just magical!
Recently I’ve not had any deadline knitting to do, and I happen to have a lot of alpaca yarn stashed so I managed to write a pattern for this old chullo I posted about originally almost six years ago in “Old Beloved Brown Thing” …
Although I was taking my time, planning on making a collection from this chullo, today I realized it is an actual anniversary, a decade since I started designing, so I decided to pull this first one together and submit my modest work this late afternoon, to celebrate. Truly it is modest. It is a tribute work, not so much about my designing, merely my version of a vintage original, shown knit up in aran and dk weights. Later I will add to the pattern, but it is to be found on Ravelry over here — and it is only my interpretation of the original. I’m naming it “Patamanta” as it means ” from the top ” in Quechua, the native language where it was very likely made, perfectly named I think.
If you’ve been following this series, you’ll know that Adélaïde was the name of the historic botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté , and about whom I posted previously, and her story is that she grew up to be a painter in her own right, just as her father. When I finished the daughter variation of the pattern in the beginning of December, knowing I wanted my niece to model it, I put it in a drawer and it has been waiting to be properly photographed. Well amidst the Christmas flurry of plans, the moment arose with the timing of perfection; the moment when my niece was free, home on her winter break from university, and the moment where the steady forecast of rain cleared for the afternoon, so we got in our cars and shot from opposite ends of the Mayacamas range, toward the castle, the approximate halfway point between, and nailed a perfect photo shoot in a very short time. The sweater is quite small, knit and designed for a young girl of eleven, and barely able to be worn by my niece, who is now a seemingly tall woman of twenty . . . but as the art gods are always on our side it seems, with a little tugging adjustments on the sweater between shots, we managed to wonderfully stage Adélaïde, the Daughter ofRedouté Rosesfor its unveiling. Very pleased am I to see the lovely botanical motifs captured with the stone of the castle, the best place ever to show off the knitted things, and I’m so grateful for the beautiful spontaneous moments shared with my niece!
Celebrating my finish of Daughter of Redouté Roses, and having a Turkish coffee!
A “mini me” you could say, to the beautiful mother design Redouté Roses . . . or perhaps better described as “a daughter”. Born out of necessity, or, just because I wanted every mother and daughter duo to be able to wear one together, or, because I really do think the slim-fit version of this big oversized sweater would be amazing too. I think I shall hand this one over to Jeff’s grand-daughter who is eleven, but also, I could knit one in a thicker worsted-weight to fit me, and which I very much plan to do!
Technically speaking, the Daughter is a smaller variation of the original, having only 9 repeats of the rose chart in the yoke, instead of 12 like the original, and the colorwork motifs have been redrawn to make a shorter yoke also, as well as far fewer stitches in the body and sleeves. Also I drew a special rose border chart that is smaller, and rather darling too. Otherwise, the construction exactly as the original, and I’ve included my signature gauge substitution chart with the pattern, so that more sizes can be made from child to adult.
Now, brace yourself for a coincidence, but with a tiny bit of research since finishing the sweater yesterday, I have discovered that the namesake of the design — Pierre-Joseph Redouté — actually did have a daughter! Indeed, so this two-pattern download is a now a complete tribute to Pierre-Joseph Redouté . . . AND. . . his only child, a daughter, whom he very affectionately called Adélaïde.
Many weeks have passed since my last post on the equinox. I guess I just wanted to let October drift through the days without attention to anything in particular. Now comes November, and the most Autumnal month in the year it seems to me, and rain came yesterday, then this morning the chill was upon us. How could I resist going out with Juno and my camera to walk through the woods and say hello to our overgrown trail? Sniffing all the lovely smells, the spicy moist bay leaves and moldy musky smell of rained-on wild hay, crunching through fallen leaves and over thousands of acorns, kissing the awakened moss and climbing over yet more fallen trees, and admiring the grey clouds hanging by themselves in an otherwise blue sky. Its as though the landscape swells and sighs, as I do, into the moist cool healing after a difficult hot summer. Now home, the grey clouds are gathering, promising perhaps another shower, as a good mood, with cozy knitting with coffee inside . . .
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 has become my signature Autumn Equinox photo for five years (not including the two years we were living in the Tiny House) 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 that she could do it, 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!
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!
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?
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 — just pull the full ball of yarn with the arms up and off of the shaft, carefully slide the arms out, and you are left with a ball of yarn! All that needs to be done is to 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.
See how the yarn gets wound in a crossing fashion around the arms?
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!
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 . . .
botanical illustration of Abricot-Peche, P.J. Redouté , 1835
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!
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. 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.
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.
I haven’t yet been able to start my colorwork swatch because I haven’t yet been satisfied with the colors from the parcel that came yesterday. 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.
But, I wasn’t perfectly satisfied 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. Over-dying finished, here is the palette I’m going to be working with, four shades of rose, and three shades of leaf..
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!
One of my rose bushes has so many blossoms on it this Spring, heavy cupped peach colored blossoms so fragrant. It is an English climbing rose I planted in the garden for Emma’s fourteenth birthday, when we were living in the tiny house while our house was being rebuilt. I am a real fan of highly fragrant roses, 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 natural beauty. And this afternoon I made myself a rose “soda” and drank it while calculating notes for a future rose-themed sweater design. After picking a few blossoms 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, which you can just mix with sparkling water and have a winner drink:
Pluck petals off of a couple of roses, and place fresh petals in a pyrex liquid measure.
Boil up a small amount of simple syrup, equal parts water to sugar, enough to cover the petals.
Pour over petals and let steep for a couple of hours, after which you’ll really begin to taste the rose infusion, which always surprises me.
Pour through fine sieve into a jar or bottle, and store in the fridge (into one of the bottles I put some dried rose petals too)
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.
Double Cappuccino Socks, project details on Ravelry HERE.
As I have been doing all along, dividing the plies then replying with a tighter final twist, finally scour washing to set the twist and felt up any possible slack.
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.
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. 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. I guess I wanted to try to find some kind of a niche with my UnSpun Sock yarn, and I think I almost have, just for myself though, as I am not able to spin fine sock yarns to save my life, and always having a sock on the needles just hits the spot and keeps me on the level.
I have discovered a new way of baking rustic country loaves, and inspired to study more the method with a long-rise from what I’ve just learned to be called a “biga”. I don’t use starters anymore as 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, and never before recently tried the pre-ferment dough, 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 in earnest to make the dough, rise, shape and bake! 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 proofing and baking. Lacking experience and confidence that comes from baking this bread a hundred times, I can say that this loaf is too pale, definitely not baked dark enough, but next loaves will be!
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 which I obsessively started reading last weekend, but also I found an excellent no-knead dutch-oven method from youtube 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!
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 as she goes to the source; to 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.
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 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.
Read on for the technical information about UnSpun Sock yarn . . .
JjD 
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