3 things: about brioche

1)  Two color brioche in the round is now my my mindless knitting. Whaaaaat?  I'm not sure when it happened-- I cast on a wide tube of a cowl in early summer. I left it next to my desk.   I began picking it up during  delays while uploading files or on hold on the phone. 

 I'll be the first to admit my relationship with brioche was fraught.  I wasn't the, um, swiftest to get it, as I explained just a few months ago. Now, it's relaxing and I am addicted. Old dog, new tricks ftw.

2) Brioche is a stitch that really lets you play with  colors, which I'm guessing accounts for the popularity-- the sides reverse, you can switch color prominence.  And, it goes fast, a nice chunky instant gratification. Also?  It eats up yarn at an alarming rate. So when I ran out of the Rose and , um lets call it Dirty Ballerina colored Windham,  leftovers from my last brioche cowl in April,  I put out the bat signal. I (hahahaha) thought I just needed a teeny bit. My dear client and friend, the  crack designer Elizabeth Elliott sent me lime green and a little dark blue left over from designing her Dionisio Cowl,  I like the acid-y lime kick, though its outside my usual palette.  When that wasn't enough,  a kind and well-stashed knitter sent me her leftovers after I sought to buy  partial skeins from a Ravelry forum. Her colors are everything you see from where the marigold starts. I'm loving all these hues together  because I'm a Jill Draper Makes Stuff* fan, and this is like a visit to her studio. Possibly,  Zoe's Rainbow Sweater has affected me on a cellular level. Zoe gives this project both thumbs up. 

3) Did you know there's an other way to knit brioche stitch, if you don't find favor with all the yarnover wrapping, BRK and BRP? It involves knitting or purling into the row below. 

What I find truly amusing about this : Five years ago, I actually designed and still sell a pattern, Decibella, in brioche stitch**, knit in that manner! WHO KNEW? Not me! At the time I thought I'd stumbled upon some sort of faux brioche/fishermans stitch. I even blabbed about it online that way.  I crack myself up!  Just recently I saw a class listing for the "Knit or purl into row under" brioche technique.
Ain't knitting grand?

 I'm going to have leftovers!

* welp, it looks like Jill has just added a whole bunch of really great Windham mini sets to her etsy site, including Dionisio Cowl sets! They weren't there just a couple of weeks ago when I was scouring the internets for just such a thing!  I encourage you to  treat yo'self.  

**I'm thinking I might revisit this pattern and come up with something less super bulky. Maybe with pompoms? Or tassels? I am feeling flamboyant this season!

long drive project options

Tomorrow morning we are hopping in the car and pointing it at Illinois, a lonnnng drive, to witness our younger son graduate from Navy boot camp.*  

But that's not what I'm here to blab about,(mostly). I'm here to consider my options. As we all know, the great joy of a 900 mile drive each way is car knitting time.

Do I take all of these? Some? One? And...what podcasts would you be listening to?**

option a) The granny squares!  Seen above, I have 37 of 42 done in a kaleidoscope of  Noro Silk Garden scrap and leftover mixed colors. Five more won't take long to complete.

 I decided on the wonderful farm-y natural Doc Mason's yarn to edge them all, and bring them  back to earth. Above, two test squares-. I tried iton squares with especially bright rounds,  to see if I like the punch + earthy combo. I do! I can edge and weave in ends for miles and miles....

option b) that 2nd brioche cowl. It's hypnotic and rewarding (fast growth and cool looking stitch) ..but if I fuff it up by distraction, could be trouble.

option c) Dave's Zacapa. I love this knit. Pro: I've got most of one sleeve and half the body done. Con:  He will not wear it till next October at best.... Unless my fantasy trip to  Norway happens this summer...which would be...make-believe amazing .

option d) My Half-Hansel just needs to have the edging knit on. Such a dreamy knit. It's a series of triangles with simple lace that repeat, attached to the body of the shawl as they are added. I put it aside when things got chaotic and busy last Fall-- this might be a good stretch of uninterrupted time to get the repetition going.

option e) wait, did I mention my beautiful big bump of  Jill Draper Makes Stuff Empire?  It's for a Farmhouse Cardigan by Amy Christoffers.  Pro:  It would be a perfect long trip knit.  Con:  I  feel guilty jumping into a new knit with these  others unfinished plus.. I haven't wound off any of the yarn yet!!

So what would you bring?

*That's right. These hippy vegetarians have two sons. One a butcher. The other in the military, a new sailor planning to become a Navy medic. I am totally proud of them both and love them to pieces. They are good people.
That's parenthood for ya!

 ** We've got S Town queued up so that's a good chunk of time. I already listend to Missing Richard Simmons (loved it), and I have lots of Fresh Air, WTF and The Moth on tap but I'd love another long form podcast if you know of any great ones.

sidekick hat + drop dead easy knits at vklive nyc

Join me and Kirsten Kapur with Drop Dead Easy Knits at Vogue Knitting Live  NYC this Sunday January 15, 2017 at the Dragonfly Fibers booth, NOON-3 PM  

If you already have our book,  come say hi and show us what you've been knitting from it.

 We will squeal with delight. I promise. 

I should be showing off my Sidekick Hat that I'm so so so close to finishing, knit in two colors of Dragonfly Fibers Djinni Sock . This design by Mary Lou Egan might be the most addictive colorwork pattern ever. It just flies. There's something very gratifying about seeing the squares build up, I keep wanting to knit just another couple of rounds.....
This all over pattern makes it look harder than it is, or you could say, makes me look more skilled than I am!  I (understatement alert) do not have the best memory. Yet, I haven't had to look at the chart since the eighth row. That means truly it is simple-- something you can knit while chatting, or watching, say, multiple episodes of Lilyhammer late at night.
 It is easy to track as you go, two colors, no float longer than four stitches(meaning the color not being used that is carried along the back), so you don't get all twisted up in catching long strands.  It's a good beginner colorwork project.  BTW? Colorwork with big graphics seems like it should be easy, but often isn't. Reference my stalled Passerine, to be continued at a calmer time when I can concentrate on the chart and long floats.

As far as choosing the yarn ....tough decisions!  Looking over the colors had me spinning. Kate's dyeing and colors are varied and beautiful. Contrast between the two yarns is important, and I worried about the variegated yarn detracting from the graphics. 
I settled on one almost solid neutral (Silver Fox, top), and a super bright (Oriental Poppy, bottom).  Although the pattern is written for sport weight, this fingering weight yarn works perfectly.  The range of contrast and color withing the Oriental Poppy is no  problem.  I absolutely LOVE how it looks knit in the repeats.

Lastly:
How thrilling is it to see PussyHats taking off? How're yours coming along? I've scavenged up the last couple of pink skeins here and am awaiting acquisition to knit more bulky last minute hats. Hot tip: Dragonfly Fiber  is offering their pinks at 15% off. through Sunday 1/15. I think I know what I may bring home from the weekend.

into the blue knitting

If you read my last five posts, especially this one, you're not at all surprised that I want to only knit blue yarn.  With impeccable timing, I was gifted  two skeins of beautiful DK alpaca from Barcelona, last week. In shades of blue. I have two long car rides this weekend,  and a long day of sitting as a polling registrar for the primary election on Tuesday.  This is a big delicious serving of knitting time, for me. The universe is obviously sending me a message: new project.

From front to back: 2 skeins of All You Knit is Love Knitwise yarn from Barcelona.  Center top is what's left from skein of Shibui Alpaca, so happy my LYS had this so I could dive in.  Left rear, a Anzula laceweight,  not alpaca and also not blue, but it's playing along well. 
This is going to be my noncho  (a secured wrap...not a poncho).

felt balls and then i'm on my way

So I'm getting ready for a trip--for fun- not for work. Overseas! On Thursday.

Sunset colorway.

I love planning trip knitting, I was going to post all about projects  I'm considering taking, the pros and cons,  what yarn la-la-la-la-laaa. but guess what? No time to put it all together visually.  So. You get balls. Felt balls! Aren't they wonderful? My beloved neighborhood friends asked me to teach them how to make felt balls. We're like that. We've done all kinds of things to entertain ourselves over the years.  We've already invested in some felting needles to poke dots and stripes in, the next time we get together.

Trying to force myself to make less organic compositions. Not my jam!

The luscious felting wool is Nash Island Starcroft from Maine. Aren't the colors beautiful? Everyone ordered different sets and they are all to die for.

Next time you hear from me  I'll be somewhere else, and I suspect I'll have plenty to show and tell and maybe even some time to do so.

postcards from maine: fiber college class

Fiber College of Maine leaves an afterglow: inspiration,  energy,  feeling the kind of happy you get from being in great company, laughing, talking, experimenting with new materials, coming up with wild schemes.....

Here're some postcards from my classes. If you think it looks like fun,  join me sometime soon:   like at Interweave Knitting Lab later this week, Oct 4th in Manchester New Hampshire. There are still 2-3  seats in my classes. And--we could use a volunteer model for the afternoon, if you happen to be around and want to join in the photo experience.*
 
These set ups are  the by students, to photograph their pieces, as I led them through the workshop. You can see our FABULOUS volunteer model, Lisa, in action--and also a great hat design from Lee, who I hope will link to it in the comments.
edited to add: Lee said the hat is Walk the Dog and the pattern will be on her website, Harper and Figg  soon.  Using color theory to pop the scarf...V1
  
and v2
sock knitting v1v2--can you tell I have this thing about alternative takes? ...and v3 
Here's V4 in action-maybe someone from class will link to what that photo looked like. Which do you like best ?
 
Making the most of local nature. 
My seriously wonderful partners in crime ......also making the most of local nature. Kirsten (Through the Loops) Kapur and Mary Lou (Wear With All) Egan, you surely know their designs if you don't recognize the faces. I'll trade any fine dining indoors for sitting outside Kirsten's cabin with our nightly wine, bread, corn, lobsters & blueberry pie. sigh.
  
The view from my cabin--not too shabby! Kirsten's was just around the bend.  More postcards coming soon. It was just a few days on Penobscot Bay in Maine but enough to fill several  blogposts. 

* If you want to volunteer model for my afternoon class this Thursday in Manchester NH at Interweave Knitting Labs, I would be delighted to have you! Ideally you'd be interested in photography, comfortable with cameras aimed your way, and fit somewhere in the S-M-L size spectrum. You'll definitely pick up some photo knowledge, too. Email me if you're willing !

the zoe blanket

*Fiber College, later this week. Still time to join in. Here's why*

Can I have a youGogirl or a yeeHA or something? I have knits to show.  First up: the Zoe blanket.
Good old straight ahead stockinette knitting, after spending much of the summer getting all snagged in the loopy extra fine mohair of this shawl .
It was a pleasure to fly through these stitches.  I practiced different ways of holding the needles to go fastest with the least amount of movement. (can you say knitting nerd?) BTW? The day after I completed it, I found the phonecam photo of the color progression I had in mind when I bought the yarn last year. I'd laid the skeins out and snapped it, so I'd have it for reference. Joke on me! It wasn't this order at all.

 
But it seems to work just fine, anyway.  
My inspiration was this blanket on Pinterest. I assumed it was narrow stripes without any repeating colors. In the interest of economy,  I just chose eight skeins and went with wide stripes, and imitated the color change textures with 2 rows of K1P1 at each change. 

Not long ago I realized the blanket I admired is also on Ravelry--and I learned the narrow stripes repeated, so it wasn't like I'd have had to purchase 25 different colored skeins after all. Even so, I have enough left over to make Zoe a sweater in the same color stripes. 

 

She seems pleased with it, too.

a knit with no subtitles

* Fiber College in Maine is soon: Sept 6-9! Go sign up before it's too late.  I'm teaching.  So is Kirsten Kapur, Mary Lou Egan, Alice Seeger, MaryJane Mucklestone....and a slew of people you've been wanting to meet . More in my next post .*   

It's an odd summer, and I'm not just referencing the weather. I've been working & traveling a lot, on brain challenging photo shoots. When I get a chance to knit , it's on older languishing projects. I somehow slipped down the slope into being an unfinished-projects-in-every-nook-and-cranny type. Moi? Love the process but revel in the gratification of finishing a piece.

whoa. I am on an old laptop and can't get the colors right. yikes.
 I'd kind of forgotten this. About a year ago, I learned a baby would be joining the family,so I cast on for a blanket, inspired by this one. I decided on eight skeins of colors, and wider stripes, to be economical.

Here's a  join, with 2 rows of K1P1 ribbing in the new color. A little texture pop. The yarn is Cleckheaton Country.  Soft, wooly, super easy to work with and superwash DK . . and seems to be discontinued.  (sorry).  You know what'd work well in its place? Kristin Nicholas' Julia yarn  if you don't mind handwashing it, or for superwash,  the slightly thicker MinnowMerino would be great.

I cast on, fighting my superstition against knitting for a not-yet-here babe. The supersititon won.  And to be honest, it is kind of a boring knit.  I put it aside in the second color. And forgot about it totally till last month.

I also forgot what order I intended for the colors. I think this is it, above. Can I just say, I am loving this project now? Perfect for the baby, now that she's here and has a personality.

. 

Option 2 for color order. Any opinions? And don't say lose the yellow. I love the yellow in there. I think it's rather Noro-esque of me.

 It is just what I want in knitting now: relaxing on the brain, rewarding to see it grow quickly. Good old stockinette! Part of the reason my brain's getting such a workout is a big project I'm on in Vermont, at  a language institute.
I've been shooting here off & on all summer.

Speaking English is forbidden, including for me. It is harder than you'd think to interact with several hundred people in 8 different languages, most of which I don't speak at all, and none of which I speak well. . Chinese, Russian, Italian German & Portugese? Fuhgeddabout it.  My  Hebrew is rusty but sort of functional, Spanish --ugh , how humbling to realize  my Spanish is really SPANGLISH. And French? My leftover high school vocab centers around excuses for not having homework done (my head hurts my stomach hurts, I forgot my notebook, I am tired, I am hungry. Pitiful, non?)

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FYI: The Thimble Islands knitting cruise leaves the dock at Stony Creek promptly on Tuesday evening at 7:15, if you've paid for a ticket, be there at 7. If you don't have a ticket, there are only 2 left. So email me, or you're staying ashore. Matey.

driving miss brenda

If you're reading this then you probably don't think it's entirely wacky to fetch a woman I’ve never met, visiting from Wales, and drive her 2 hours north to a farm in the rural Berkshires of Massachusetts. Just so I could, you know, hang out with the sheep peeps for tea.

But if I told you the sheep farm is Kristin Nicholas' home and studio, and the passenger was Brenda Dayne of the podcast Cast On , it’d seal the deal, right?

I've become friends with Kristin, loved her work forever, but  this was my first visit to their farm. We'd joked about people wanting to live her life and thinking her house was just perfect and the sheep were all fluffy and cute, and she plays with yarn all day but in reality.....

well....OMG... it is true.  No! just kidding! She and her husband The Farmer work hard, and farm life (as well as working for yourself) is at times difficult, gritty, messy and frustrating.  But, on a spectacular spring day, it looks idyllic. You should sign up for Kristin's  classes at the farm and see what I mean.

 Anyway back to Brenda. Our original plan: I was going to coach her on photography and she was going to interview me about shooting knitting and handcraft books.

 

 But we had way too much fun blabbing, just blabbing, on the way up. And then relaxing with a pot of proper UK tea and then walking the fields with the sheep while she recorded ambient sounds and interviewed The Farmer. We decided we just have to hang out again sometime.  (fyi, she sounds just the same, in person, as on her podcast. Mind blowing, it is).

It was a wonderful day. You really really need to try to see Brenda when she passes through your area on her US tour this month. Her classes are sure to be wonderful,  but definitely attend her performance piece,  A Memorable Yarn. (read about it on Kristin's blog, here ).

 

True confession: I got that line from Sweet Baby James*  , " the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on accounta' that frosting...."  as an earworm on the way home. And then  discovered,  I can remember all the words. No wonder there's no room for important facts in my brain.

 I

Had to end with the kitten. 

* go listen & look at that video from 1970 . So long ago!

taking it to the street

Still seats left in  Photo for Knitters  THIS WEEK at Hank of Yarn in Southaven MS - home turf of The Knit Girllls , doncha know- on Thursday eve April 12, and at YarnMart in Little Rock AR on Sunday April 15. Tempted? Or make it a weekend because...On a Craft Activism note, I'll be speaking and  helping  lead a yarnbombing at the Central Arkansas Library as part of the Arkansas Literary Festival on Saturday April 14th, at 11 (slideshow talk) and noon (hands on crafting). I am honored and quite amazed to be part of this. I can't wait to share what my book is about with the other truly literary authors on Friday at the cocktail reception and watch them struggle for composure. Ian Frazier, a writer I admire to bits, will be there. I wish I fit into the Tongue in Chic skirt from the book. That'd be just the thing. Or, at least a spectacle.

__________________________________  

I taught a new class, Photo Safari for Knitter/Crafters while in California. It's street photography meets handcrafting. We spend most of our time out & about. First, there are photographic calisthenics to warm up. For example, above. Limited amount of time, a limited space--in this case, the city block we were on-  and each person must shoot only versions of a single color.  Bossy, yes? I've got a ton of these visual squat-thrusts. They break you out of your box a little before we move on to subjects  like FO's in the streets and posing and action and choosing dfferent backgrounds....

Celeste Varner, Loop & Leaf owner, designer/author  & knitter extraordinaire with her beaded Girasole.

Karin & Sandy testing backgrounds & posing in an alley in Santa Barbara CA. Check out Karin's link for the photos--and also, her designs are pretty great. Sandy had to leave class, flying off for a work emergency in Mexico. She's a seismologist. Stressful for her--but fascinating to us all. And definitely a first in a knits' class.

Lori models her shawl on a borrowed downtown porch. Go to her link--she has such a wonderful blog, and scrolling down, you can see the images Mirna & Celeste are shooting.  Super talented group, they are. I get so seriously inspired in the classes that I don't know what to knit next... although, ahem, finishing something might be the way to go, right?