A Traveling Rug

My brainstorm to repurpose the 10 year old Jill Draper yarn, as reported in my last post,  for a new sweater for NY Sheep & Wool  as part of the Rhinebeck Sweaters for Good came together fabulously when I emailed Jill and discovered only two options for a contrast color: dust (shown, when it arrived) or polar white. I went with Dust,  above. It's a  hard-to-pin-down neautral; slightly pink/lavendar/grey, sort of like lint.  Both the main color and the contrast color are now odd murky shades and I am loving them together!

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The last couple of weeks have been full of travel and activity, and the yarn came along for the rides.  First it went with me  on my annual camping trip with Zoe. We started camping together when she was 8 and we found a small tent in the basement during the pandemic. No one else in the family was game for camping that year so just the two of us headed to the woods in Vermont.  And we kept returning there. Now it's an annual tradition. This year, though, we went to Lake Damariscotta in Maine. 

We upgraded the tent quite a bit this year. 

 

And I cast on by the campfire. No notes! 

 

A bougie lobster roll at a shack near Boothbay. No notes on this either! It's Shannon Unshelled , we've been there before and if you're in that area you won't regret eating there. 

 

 Some years we do mostly nature activities and lots of campfire cooking. Some years we head out and adventure around the area, eat out, explore towns and either way, we love it. This year we went to Popham Beach, another Maine fave of ours. When the tide is out you can walkwaaaay out to  sand bars.

The colors are weird, right? The main color reminds me of a copper penny with green patina. Except fuzzy. I am super happy with my Rug so far. 

A day or or two after I came back from Maine I went to Montana for a photo shoot. It needs it's own post--amazing adventures, sheep, yarn, everything and knitting progress too, as the yarn came along. A sweater on size 9 US needles isfun, I forgot how fast it goes!

  

And since this is Unraveled  (a day late) I'll share  my reading. I am halfway through Kin by Tayari Jones and recommend it. No notes again! This is quite the 10:10:10 post. 

 

The other book I read...not so enthusiastic about it!  On the camping trip drive I listened to the book  96 Miles by JL Esplin,. Zoe had been avoiding it as her assigned summer reading  for school:  it's YA survivalist vaguely dystopian suspense... meh. Neither of us loved it but it got the job done.  Survivalists and dystopian novels for any level reader are not my jam!  I guess I'd say it's Ok roadtrip listening. 

To everything there is a season...

... it's spring, I finished a winter gift knit. (trombone sound here).  

 

Dave's intended gift for last December., Finest Kind, details here.  He loves it. This is his favorite color. In November I tried to hide I was knitting it for him,  believing I'd finish in three busy weeks. Delulu as the youth say! He rarely remarks on whatever project I have going on however around Thanksgiving I had to answer the question "What are you knitting? I really like that color, I could use a new sweater)!

 It is Juniper Moon  Santa Cruz in Cinnamon.   Not going to lie, I bought the yarn because I thought it was from California, (it's not) .I didn't read the label. It's a nice sturdy organic merino, dense and woolly, perfect for a winter sweater for our climate (maybe a little less bright than below) .

 

If I wait until I get a good photo of Dave in it, it could be another 6  months!  We have a Cobblers Kids situation around here. Although we have been together since our 20th birthdays (ie. a good long while)   he is  still not at ease posing for me!  He 'll readily selfie with me so we're good. TBH I probably couldn't share my life with a peacock personality! 

Moss Stitch is not fast knitting for me and this yarn /garment is substantial. I really like the pattern. I pormise it won't take you as long as it did for me, I kept putting it aside!   I may eventually knit one for myself.

Next up...finishing the (belated Xmas gift )scarf for my assistant.

We designed it together thinking I'd finish it in January.  Do you see a theme here?  I am closing in on her birthday mid-May!  It' super luxurious- the purple yarn main color  is Big Birdie from Lamb & Kid  (LOVE this yarn, this winter I lived in a pullover vest type thing I knit in it) . The wavy stripes are three strands of light fingering weight yarn held together, all of them  she acquired during jobs we shot  last year: a sparkly brown.rose gold metallic alpaca from Tennessee,  a hand dyed pink/purple/cranberry  from Texas and a pinkish-purple skein of Baah Yarn.

It will feel good to gift this. The started projects around here can feel like they're yelling for my attention, I may just hit a few more deserving WIPs next.  

What are you up to? 

Still here! Or..somewhere!

I'm still here and this blog is too!

Fast link to places I am teaching photo for makers coming up SOON maybe you'll join me???

Columbus OHIO 4/27/24 and Chicago IL 5/4/24

 

 Here's a little behind the scenes from a Berroco photo shoot we did in late fall.  It's a really wonderful fresh crochet collection, the theme was Summer Festival wear --and it being way beyond the summer festival season IRL, we created this kitschy set .  And yes I want her boots!

 We purposefully lit it to be as bright and pop as the astro turf and fake backdrop. I really love the collection.

Wait till you see the next season of collections  we shot for Berroco that will be out soon for the Fall 24. All shot  on location in amazing places, fab moels and styling and such good designs and yarns.

Some fun trends: more and more good crochet design made with good yarns. And more and more shades of yellow greens! And more attention paid to yarn sources and sustainability.

These three are from a photo shoot for the Hudson Valley Textile Project, showing off member products. 

I'm even finding myself drawn to a bright almost not-quite  yellow green!  What colors are you falling for lately?

18 and counting: Not Over Yet!

 

I am still alive and kicking and having fun and making things and traveling...and working A LOT!

 This was from a Berroco photo shoot on a farm. The horizon is never where I want it so I stand on my trusty step ladder.

 

Here's the Honeycomb Scarf I have been knitting off and on most of winter. It's a gem of a process knit. When I started, I figured I'd whip right through it.........I'm about 75% done now and a couple of weeks ago I took a good hard look and realized it doesn't look exactly like the samples in the pattern. Whatever I am doing wrong, I'm consistent so at this point, that's how it is!

 

I've been traveling a lot! Some  trips for fun and some for work. Above was all FUN: we went to the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver. This was at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, which is what it sounds like plus walkways in the tree canopy, just on the edge of the city in North Vancouver. 10/10 recommend.   I am normally not a fan of heights and walkways over sheer drops but it was so astoundingly beautiful I couldn't be bothered to freak out. 

Some of that trip became a Knitters Weekend: Olympic Peninsula on Modern Daily Knitting.

This was a photo shoot for Madeline Tosh yarn, I love the styling on this. If you wonder whether I am constantly ohhing and ahhhing and saying "oh oh I want to knit this" while I am working for this client , the answer is YES. 

I am glad to be back for this rare post, let me know if you saw this! This blog celebrated its 18th birthday in February, the least I can do is say hi.

State of the Making Report

 

 

The Fern Lake Baby Blanket progress!  On the upside I am loving this Berroco Remix yarn. The colors together and nubbiness are just exactly what I hoped they'd be. 10/10 recommend as an alternative to a woolly blanket, if you have non-woolly blanket people to please. Also it is 100% recycled fibers,!

 

I'm sticking to this till it's done.  Might take a few days at my snail pace of an inch or two a night. If I had a good get together with friends I'd knit on this and blab and make all kinds of progress. True confession: I find blanket knitting a little on the boring. Even with a pattern that hits the right mark between engaging and simple. Thinking back, I can only recall two other blankets I've knit, ever! Maybe three if you count a collaborative mitered square blanket* tho making small squares is a different kind of thing.  

One was on gigantic needles when I was in college...and the other, this baby blanket for Zoe, ten years ago. (!) and I am dying looking at the linked photos now....

 I tell myself it's the same number of stitches as knitting a sweater and that item always engages me. It's the lack of shaping. With sweaters, you can tell yourself ooh I reached an armhole! I am almost to the hem, go go go.  Conclusion: I am all kinds of immature and like a reward ahead to keep me motivated.

So, since I wouldn't let myself even think of another knit while working on this, my mind fixated itself on sewing flannel receiving blankets. If you're thinking "wow , I usually don't see sewing projects from gale" you'd be correct. I have sewing skills. I don't trot them out too often.

 

It would have been a fleeting impulse. Except I looked at the Joann's website. Turns out I could sit by my fireplace sipping wine late Friday night, choose all the flannels, order them, and pick it up all cut and ready for me first thing Saturday morning.

So. I did. 

If I got nothing else out of these past two years of pandemic, I got fierce online shopping skills and no hesitancy to use'em.

This will be four double sided blankets--two will be backed in orange, two will be backed in the pink dots and one will be two shades of purple. I spent way way  too much time watching online tutorials of making mitered corner borders....and hopefully my plan will work.

Had to share a clearer view of this one. Have I gone full granny with this post? YES I HAVE.

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*looking back at that linked mitered square blanket..it's pretty cool. I may have to do one of those again!

Brite Stripes Scarf Kit= happy knitting

 

 I may have made my favorite scarf photo ever! This was the last frame shot from the photo shoot for The Yarnery,  Brite Stripes Kit, in October.   The scarf feels so exuberant  that I wanted to see if we could catch that vibe.

The kits released yesterday .  I am thrilled ot share these, shot on a handball court in Brooklyn. I kind of love the location as a street studio setting. And I lovvvvve these models, Martine McKinney and Ariana McLean.  

 

The yarn is pretty fabulous as well--it's knit in solid colors of Snefnug and a skein of self striping Lang Cloud yarn.  It's bulky gauge knitting  although very light and airy. I am crazy about the Snefnug because the colors, I mean take a look. And also that name, it sounds like a funny sneeze. It means snowflake in Danish.

 This is a candidate for another Treat Yo'self project--and I say that as someone who feels the urge to knit a long scarf pretty much NEVER.  It would fly.

3 things: Talking About Knitting

1) Martinique Shawl in Liana from Berroco Yarn.
This from a photo shoot last September, when we soldiered through dozens of spring yarn designs in autumn, and tried to give a summery feel. At the time, with fall winds whipping, I wasn't sure we hit the mark fully. 
Months later I go online and see the release, and I fool even myself!  Summmmerrrrrrr. I am so ready for summer beach life, even 6 feet away from my friends. We did a trial last weekend and it worked .
 This yarn is a water-color-y linen in  dk weight, this is exactly how I'd want to use it.
Also, I adore the model, Frances.

2) I've left this MDK Field Guide coin project as my Zoom knitting. That's a category I never thought I'd need!  I don't do a tremendous amount of Zooms, thankfully, maybe 1-4 a week.  And when I do, this is  my happy-inducing companion.  I look forward to the end of quarantine-based Zoom calls but I do not look forward to ending this addictive tubular scarf......it may be really really long by next winter. That's all I'm saying. 

 3) That ShannaJean Cowlette is fini!   In the home stretch I surprised myself with two realizations. First, I was not tired of making bobbles*. Not even in the very long bobbled bindoff.  Something about the stabbiness of creating them matches my mood during Covid stay-at-home in a lovely stitch-to-moment ratio. Enough said on that topic, eh? 

The second realization? It's so not my style! I don't know when/where/if  I'll wear this.**  Somewhere along the last third of it, still enjoying the process, I had the cold clear light of day realization that it isn't me, at all. I love the colors and the yarn.  I have no regrets about the making.  Maybe for teaching at a knitting event?  I'll let you know....

* bobbles: I knit backward to make them, if I had to turn the work around, that'd be the dealbreaker.
** Above, I tried styling it in the only way I can imagine wearing it, with  a denim or chambray top. I didn't notice that I flipped the edging in every shot. I am never too professional to make rookie mistakes!

3 things on My So-Called-Mind

The surreal beauty down the street this month  boggles my mind. How is nature drumming up crazy storms with brilliant light and rainbows at the same time as the misery of a pandemic deadly virus ?

Thing # 1 my so called mind itself:  I don't know about you but this whole quarantine situation has me so scattered, I can't get to everything I intend to in a given  day  hour  minute .... I’m halfway through one effort and COMPLETELY lose focus before I finish it. I was going to give you some examples but....can’t remember which I was thinking of....
 Let's talk knitting.

 Thing 2  After 6 weeks of weird comfort in bobbles and mohair, I'm ready to return to my true love, garment knitting.  First up will be Lavallette by Mary Lou Egan.

She's so friggin' clever, that Mary Lou. This looks like lace on top but it's that 80's throwback, condo knitting.  I'm going to make mine in a yarn  that's a Mary Lou fave, Holstgarn Coast. It's 50/50 wool cotton, very economical and  so many colors. 

I chose Fig, thinking I was stepping away from my usual palette. Then it arrived and I took a look at my sweatered arm, shown above, in Malabrigo Rios Pearl Ten-- and at the Fig right out of the envelope from The Yarnery. Ha! Not so different! Tomorrow I swatch it, my reward for making it till May.

Thing 3) Using a new app My lovely client Berroco asked me to do a guest blog of photo tips for shooting your knits on an Iphone/Smartphone. I am always seeking distractions from my distraction! It was a great chance to play with the Jumprope app, so I made this little piece.

It's  5 minutes long. I learned a lot making it. Let’s just say it took a lot of takes to come up with passable narration. I am a long way from comfortable in front of the camera. The sequencing and editing is fun. It may not be the last instructional I make this year. Let me know what you think of the paper cup trick!

* if that's hard to watch small, you can click on a little icon in it that looks like a window as it plays and it'll open larger in another window---or you can go see it on IGTV, linked from my instagram account*

4 on Friday: recent discoveries

1)  Right now, right here, bobbles are my jam. The twitchy maneuvers and focus are perfectly suiting these twitchy times. Everything about this project is Not My Usual Thing. I think a lot of us can say that describes our lives now. 

The yarns are a treat:  Fig Lace from Once Upon a Corgi , I don't know the colorway name. She's a local to me CT dyer and soooo talented- go look at that link. The deeper intense solid is from Neighborhood Fiber Co., another of my faves. I rarely knit with skinny singles or skinny mohair and silk  yarns so the whole thing is a break from reality.  Even the project bag I'm using is out of character- a cheerful  indulgence purchase from MinnieMoonSewing. --it's made from a feed sack with canvas apple green lining and is so well made... (and reminds me indulgence is not necessarily wrong). 

The pattern is the ShannaJean Cowlette. .  Here I am trying on the sample of it at  TNNA last June when visiting the delightful BFFs designer Shannon Squire and yarn dyer Knittted Wit (LoraJean) in their booth.  Not my usual style or colors but I loved it . The design totally captures their playful spirit. And easier to keep around your neck than a light and floaty shawl.

                         
My blues are a little subtler than the sample colorways. So, as much as wearing bobbles can be subtle, I'm good.

Maybe I should note I am only in my second section of bobbles. When I sent Shannon a message saying how much I was enjoying the bobbles she replied, not very cryptically, wait till you'get to the longer rounds and you're on your 10,000th bobble ....she didn't add BWA_HAH_HAH but I sorta felt it.



2) I can give some love and handwash one handknit a day since I'm not going anywhere. By the end of April my wardrobe will be so clean and fluffy! 

This is my Dangling Conversation, fresh and clean.   I mean, I have a home office. Normally  I'm not near it quite so 24/7 .  The whole secret to home offices is to work in them, not mess up your productivity trying to do personal chores at the same time as working. This is a hard learned truth here for decades.  Since I'm not running out for any other activities, nor doing any  new photo shoots, all work-at-home rules are out the window.  Also--I'm homeschooling now...so....plenty of interruptions and a lot less productivity.

3) The one thing we can't live without in our kitchen is a can opener! Guess whose broke? With a huge pot of chili on the stove, 30 minutes before dinner at our full house, the can opener flat out quit just before I got the Ro-Tel into the pot.  After A LOT of swearing and unsuccessful attempts with alt  tools, I called a neighbor and did a socially distanced borrow. We are super well stocked with food here but that broken can opener brought us to a grinding halt.

4) The Fitness Marshall. A great find if you like to dance and don't mind making a fool of yourself pretending to be a pop music video dancer.  He breaks down the moves (kind of like Zumba) . If you walk by at the right time each day (or...maybe it's the wrong time) you might glimpse me and an 8 year old dancing along,  with my phone propped on the kayak rack on the side of the house,  laughing  at ourselves. This week we nailed Poker Face by Lady Gaga.  I hope you're finding some fun way to move-- or to laugh at yourself--because it really helps.

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Several on Saturday*: things bts from a collection photoshoot

Sometimes I scout and prep for a photoshoot and then the magic I really really hope for  happens: a triangle of sunlight at the right moment while photographing this angular sweater design. It's Lantana from Shellie Anderson's SP20 Collection from Shibui Knits. Just released!

Full lookbook,  which I'm so happy with and full of fabulous designs,  here .

Shellie commissioned me to shoot her collection about a year ago. Collections need to be photographed with backgrounds that tie all the imagery together, and connect with the designs yet aren't too monotonous. Or too distracting!  Shellie suggested a modern, graphic, architectural, slightly nautical setting.  So, on a chilly day last April, I did some poking around  the new boathouse on New Haven harbor. I'd noticed some nice light on it during quick drivebys.

No nice light the day we scouted!  Lots of potential. My junior associate here is kicking and crunching broken clams that seagulls drop on the cement pier so they can eat the innards.

I returned closer to the August shoot date, with my assistant, to see what the light was like late in the day, and if  there'd be lots of activity.  It was overcast so we still had no clue how shadows would fall but we could hope! Those are the stairs from the top photo, shown here with a different lens.

The shoot day was hazy sticky but not too hot. We have a lot of that weather close to the water in August,  with slices of sunlight coming through at times. We were shooting in the last hours of daylight, so first task  was seeing where the sun might fall if it did peep out. And of course figuring out which pieces to shoot by which backgrounds. The photos above are Yliana, my assistant, in test spots.  Can you tell she does this so much that she is 100% unphased by a lens pointing at her? 

Having so many horizontal and vertical lines in the background has the potential to make me crazy. Here, I love it with the sophisticated simplicity of Shellie's designs.
This top, Acacia, above,  is halfway between a T and a poncho. LOVE!

Mission accomplished! Until we saw ourselves in the group selfie we hadn't realized all three of us dressed in the exact same shades as the  colors in the collection.Sooooo stylish, we are. (NOT!)

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*I am, really trying to do Three on Thursday reliably but this week had a lot of curveballs-- i am sure you had the same!  My friend Beverly claimed the Four on Friday option this week--but I still couldn't get it  together. So here we are with Several on Saturday. Isn't 90% of life about showing up??
Also BTS= Behind the Scenes :-)

3 things about needing color!

I don't know about you but even with the frigheningly mild winter we've been having here on the Connecticut shoreline, I am craving color and light.  Three thoughts on this.

1) Images that looked too bright and colorful last summer look fabulous this week! I was pulling some images for a presentation and revisited this Nash Island sheep.  This image that I'd rejected as not quite right when I shot it suddenly is my new favorite sheep photo (for the moment.). 

 2) Colorful projects are irresistible.  On a whim I knit a hat to include in a gift box for some tiny cousins. I fell in love with this Urth yarn when I popped into Knit New Haven. I wanted something bright and cheery and soft and self striping.With no color decisions needed.

Except as I started knitting,  it was screaming Christmas Elf to me. It's just a little hat and all the stripes were shades of red/green. So I ended up cutting out a large chunk of the yarn until the colors shifted to something that said Cheerful Kid in Spring.  This yarn is pretty fabulous, btw-- and the company plants a tree for every skein sold, which you gotta love.

This is the colorway of the yarn thought I thought I bought, as sort of modeled in the shop sample by my favorite stripe-enabler 8 year old. I may have grabbed the wrong colorway.  Or the hand dyeing went greener in my skein. It's all good!

And there is more than enough yarn for a definitely-not-christmas hat for Zoe . The pattern is On the C Train, it's one-one rib.  As a thrower it's usually an annoying  stitch for me to sustain. I've been knitting two handed on those coins all winter and realized I could whip through the ribbed hat if I held the yarn in my left hand and knit it combination style.  So it's been a fun little distraction and I'm on the combination ribbing team from here on in. 

 If the one-one ribbing looks good to you too here's another one , the Basic Chic Ribbed Beanie which I would have knit, had I recalled that I'd bought the pattern and had it waiting for me in my Library!  Advantage it's already graded for different size heads, while the pattern I knit had to be sized down. Not brain surgery but...sometimes it's nice to know someone else did the figuring for you, y'know?

 3) A fabulous shawl to work in whatever colors bring you some late winter joy is Marblehead.  I shot this for Berroco in the fall and fell for it. At the time I was thinking muted greys  -- it's a great design to play with color and still have something light and flowy thanks to the stitch. The yarn is UltraWool Fine , which is really lovely yarn  and will not break the bank. Now of course I want it in color, color, color.

Closer look at the stitch and our model's smile. Do you like seeing this model? She's Betsy,  a real person, who works as a yarn rep, a flight attendant....and coaches a cross-country track team. And sh'es a grandma!   I adored working with her. If you like seeing women with silver hair and some laugh lines modeling,  drop an email to Berroco and let them know you approve of seeing models such as Betsy. It surprised me to learn that  yarn companies and magazines and book publishers often hear blazingly nasty and mean comments about models , but rarely receive positive feedback. And, they take it to heart! 
Ok, done with my PSA.

What kind of color are you looking at this week ? And what form is it taking?