The Golden Iris

... kind of. Like [seemingly] every other knitter out there, I couldn't manage to finish my Christmas knitting on time. Simon's got finished... mine did not. Thankfully Santa understands knitters and filled my [half-knit, still on the needles] stocking anyway. These stockings are from the pattern collection A NEW Family Portrait by Dorene Delaney Giordano. There are three different main patterns and lots of different border patterns to choose from. I am knitting them toe-up on 2 circs (not my favorite, but it works great for the colorwork) and the yarn is Miss Babs Yummy 3-ply Sport  - the red is Vlads and the green is Nori. Since it's past Christmas and I'm picky, I'm going to rip my stocking back to the toe and re-knit the body. I have been holding the wrong color in each hand so the color dominance looks wrong - there's too much white against the green pattern and it's drowning it out. Simon got to help design his stocking - the border pa...

What else have I been knitting? Samples, samples, and more samples. I suppose it keeps me out of trouble. Vermont Shawl and redwoods The first Vermont Shawl that I knit for Miss Babs was apparently such a hit that she needed another one. This one is knit in Northumbria fingering weight, a 100% blue faced leicester wool. The color is called Vlad's and is one of my favorite reds. It made its debut at this year's Rhinebeck festival. I would have liked to join it in New York but... well, California is a long way away. From the back (gee, really) One of the wonderful things about this project that you couldn't really tell from my earlier post is that it's BIG. No skimpy little shawl here. Of course that means more knitting and more yarn (over 600 yards) but the effect is so lovely, it's worth it. Details on Ravelry here . We shot these photos on my birthday during the several hour span of time where I was gently kicked out of the house so my birthday...

Hooray, it's a scarf thing. Because we all need another scarf thing or three. Yep, from the same photo shoot as earlier. Okay, no really, I like it. It's called Lintilla , by Martina Behm, and it's fun and easy and made out of garter stitch and short rows and the infamous Wollmeise. (Colors look weird in these photos, for you WM junkies the color is Spice Market WD 100%). I knit it on a US #3. Not that that really matters. It's a scarf! I saw my first one of these when I was working with Miss Babs at a show and we pulled a brand new one fresh from the sample knitter out of its mailing box. It was big. It fluttered. It had life in it! I knew I had to have one and grabbed the pattern right away. Then I spent quite some time agonizing over what to knit it out of (the original is made in Wollmeise, which has 575 yards and is tons bigger than almost any other sock yarn). I thought I could make it out of one yarn I had, but I wasn't sure I liked the colors. I...

Escargot It was June 2010 and Kel, Danielle, and I were flying down the highway coming back to Alexandria from TNNA (the yarn industry trade show) in Columbus, Ohio. Danielle may or may not have been pushing the speed limit just a smidgen, and Kel may or may not have been clinging to the Mini's door in abject terror. There was a lot of chatter and planning, interspersed with laughter and highway-induced exasperation. I was taking notes as we planned the next year in yarn for fibre space ... and I was doodling. One of the doodles turned into the Hatskarfenmitten . The other doodle became Escargot . But it took a while. Things changed and we moved to California, but I couldn't get the idea of a funky, asymmetrical, spiral-enhanced cloche out of my head. This summer, I bumped into Amy Singer, the editor of Knitty , at a couple of yarn festivals, and told her I had a really cool hat idea. She said, "send it in." Pretending we are waiting for the train. With r...

It's been quite a while since I finished my first Featherweight Cardigan as a sample for Miss Babs. I swore at the time that even though it was boring, I'd make my own - it's very wearable and simple and has the potential to go with a lot of different outfits. There's a reason there are over 3,500 of these on Ravelry. Rarely does a sweater take me six months to finish anymore, but I'll blame all the sample knitting in between. Those deadlines really do it. Oh, and endless miles of stockinette stitch, that helps too. Oh! And alternating skeins of a hand-dyed yarn. Even better. I never quite know what to do when I'm having my picture taken. I knit this in 3 skeins of Madelinetosh tosh merino light on #5s. The colorway is called Mare. I cast on 6 fewer stitches for each sleeve, as the sleeves on my first Featherweight were too baggy. I made the sleeves and body longer, and did 3x1 rib at the bottom for reduced ugliness. And I did a daisy stitch on th...