Hello! Welcome to those of you who found me last weekend thanks to the lovely Julia. I hope I won’t disappoint! It’s Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK (a 3-day weekend, basically). I haven’t enjoyed weekends very much since I left school (whatever happened to saturday night?). For a start, I always get the urge to order yarn on Friday evening, just when I’ll have longest to wait for it. Then if I decide to go to the library, or to the supermarket, it’s always extra crowded. And then the internet is always so quiet (where do you all go? sniff). Besides, I’m not going to stop “working” just because it’s not a “workday” for most people! But well, thanks to Julia and the Twist Collective, this weekend was devoid of its usual tedium, and I was bouncing around in excitement instead. So welcome! :)

It’s another grey day here, but I hope you’re making the most of your long weekend (if you have one) to do some knitting. I felt like something quick and cosy yesterday & found this in my stash. I love Colinette so much. This is One Zero in the colourway ‘Banwy’ (I wish their website still had those charming blurbs, remember those?). I found myself driving (well, being driven) through Banwy the other day, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop and scout out the Colinette workshop. Anyway, I absolutely adore this colourway (though no photos can do it justice), in particular the inky blacks that look like they’ve been dripped onto a light mossy green pool. Welsh slate, mossy rocks, tenebrous woods, and (this is pure genius) the rosy glow of morning sunshine on limewash. How did they do it? How did those clever Colinette dyers manage to put all this in a yarn?

You really don’t need to work hard to show it off. Sometimes the simplest thing is the best: stocking stitch (stockinette for Colinette, you might say). Wide and loose cowls seem to be in fashion this winter, but I like mine to actually keep my neck warm! And this is the perfect width for that. It’s jolly tricky taking photos of yourself with a manual focus 50mm lens, by the way.

There were so many sixes in this pattern, I decided to call it the Sixes Cowl, maybe it’ll make it easier for you to remember if you decide to knit one.

Simple Instructions for the Sixes Cowl

You might just be able to squeeze a cowl out of one hank of One Zero, but get a couple (or 6) just to be sure.
Gauge is also a bit tricky since One Zero is a thick & thin yarn, but mine is approx. 12 sts / 19 rows to 10cm/4in of stocking st.

Using 6mm 60cm circular needles,

Cast on 66 sts & join to work in the round.
Work in 1×1 rib for 6 rows.
Work in stocking stitch for 30cm / 12in (or however long you desire).
Work 6 rows in 1×1 rib.
Cast off in rib.
Weave in ends (my cowl is still umbilical).

Easy, eh? Look at that sweet wobbly cast off! Because of the uneven nature of the yarn, your stocking stitch will have gentle waves. I recommend you enjoy it that way, rather than trying to block it flat. If you need help with circular knitting, read All About Circular Knitting. And did I mention you can wear it either way out?

Just in case you haven’t got any One Zero handy though, and you can’t bear the wait, how about having a picture of it to warm up your desktop? You can download a large copy of the photo above from Flickr, which should shrink to size when you apply it to your desktop. If it doesn’t work though, let me know your screen resolution & I’ll see if I can whip up some specific sizes. :)

P.S. I was very tempted to call this ‘Cawl’ (pronounced ‘cowl’), which is a hearty Welsh soup made with leftovers. Just the thing after a long damp walk. But then I thought (cowls being addictive) that maybe I’ll knit another cowl to call Cawl, what do you think? ;)

A gift is not worth giving unless you’d rather keep it yourself.

I read this long ago in a novel and since then I’m reminded of it every time I’m buying a gift, or trying hard to convince myself not to part with it. For example, I bought a couple skeins of Debbie Bliss SoHo the other day, which I believe is now discontinued. It’s in that ingenius blue/lilac combination and oh, what a cool hat I could make with it. Something floppy for an autumn pallette of browns, blues, and purples. Siigh.

But I restrained myself (really, I did!). They were the last two left in the yarn shop, and they’re now safe in the hands of a very capable knitter, who will doubtless make something fabulous out of them.

You may remember the gift tags (with garment care symbols on the back) from a while back. They were one of my gifts to you. :) Well you loved them so much that I decided to extend them into a whole range of printable knitty goodies for gift-giving. You can download it here. The PDF file is stuffed with everything I could think of that you could possibly need to give, send, present, yield, lend, donate, surrender, devote, label, write, organise, entrust, relinquish, pass down, bequeath or swap:

• Labels
• Gift Tags
• Writing paper
• Notecards
• Envelope
• Stickers
• Bookmarks
• Bookplates
• Wrappers
• Sleeves
• Small sleeves
• Pillowboxes
• Straight sheaths
• DPN sheaths
• Yarn bag
• Tips & tricks for printing, cutting, and construction.

You can view all the photos here on Flickr. I hope you enjoy them. I have at least one more collection planned, with useful things like calendars, index cards, invites, etc. Suggestions are most welcome!

It’s sweltering on the Aegean today! If you’re travelling to the sun this summer (perhaps escaping the gloomy torrents of British rain?), you’ll want to do a little thinking and preparation before you get there, to ensure you get the most out of your knitting time. Even if you live somewhere where it regularly gets hot in summer, you might find some of these tips helpful in keeping you cool and keeping you knitting.

What to Knit

• Naturally, something light and lacy is better than a big, thick piece of knitting.
• Loosen up. Thin yarn with large needles is perfect. Knitting too tightly can be hard work at the best of times, let alone when it’s too hot to move.
• Knit something circular, so you don’t have to keep turning rows. Basic socks, hats, and other accessories are just the thing.
• Knit something that you can wear even in the heat. Summer hats, sleeveless tops, and lacy beach wraps are about all you’ll want to wear if it’s really hot.
• Avoid knitting anything complicated. I know we all get tricked into thinking that the summer holidays are the perfect time to catch up on knitting, but if the weather’s hot, chances are you won’t feel like working on much at all. There are several reasons for this:
  1. The heat can add to your frustration if you’re knitting something too fiddly, especially if you make a mistake! Even if you’re not a tight knitter, 20 K3togs in a row are enough to make anyone’s brain boil.
  2. If you’re knitting outside, in bright sunlight, it will be very tiring for your eyes to be scrutinising your knitting & the pattern all the time.
  3. You’re meant to be relaxing!
  4. It’s more fun if you don’t have to keep referring to instructions, and you don’t have to carry them around and make sure they don’t blow away.
  5. If it’s hot, it’s too hot to think. Take it easy.

Read on for more summer knitting advice

Well may you ask! When I came back to Turkey for a few months, I hadn’t realised that a combination of heat, intermittent internet, and a general lassitude would keep me away from work for so long. Many events have passed unrecorded, including my birthday, and the Skein Queen contest I won, to name one of her gorgeous colourways. The name I entered was ‘Summerhouse Love’, and it’s fairly descriptive of my current state. Ironically, I must await my return to Wales to fondle the Plushness, but the cool colours will be a reminder of my indolent summer days. I had already treated myself to a hank of Skein Queen yarn for my birthday (look at Deb’s gorgeous packaging! I admired it for a long time before I let myself open it), along with a tiny hank of Artist’s Palette ‘Glisten’. Really, the difficulty of the larger questions of life (its meaning, what one should do with it, etc.) pale in comparison with the painful hours of deciding which colourway of handpainted yarn to purchase.

Much of my time has been spent reading, listening to Cole Porter songs, taking photos of congruous colours, and of course, doing a lot of mindless knitting. These socks are now finished, though it’s too hot to wear them.

I mentioned in my entry to the Skein Queen competition, how much I love summerhouse novels. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Proust’s Swann’s Way (the only one of the series I’ve managed to read so far), and Colette’s Ripening Seed are the chief ones that occur to me. To a lesser extent perhaps von Arnim’s The Enchanted April (which I suppose is not summer), Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Forster’s A Room with a View, and maybe even Bellow’s Herzog, though they’re all very different books. Admittedly A Room with a View doesn’t even involve a house, but it is still one of my favourites.

And if you’re looking for musical accompaniment, here is my Cole Porter mixtape:

1. I Concentrate on You by Frances Wayne
2. I Loved Him but He Didn’t Love Me by Kaye Ballard
3. Get Out of Town by Chris Connor
4. Night and Day by Ella Fitzgerald
5. Just One of Those Things by Diana Krall
6. I’m in Love Again by Bobby Short
7. The Laziest Gal in Town by Marlene Dietrich
8. Where Have You Been? by Judy Holliday

So close to your side I’ll stay,
You can never say,
“Baby, where have you been?”

I was at Wonderwool Wales on Sunday, and it was such a treat! Living in the Welsh countryside I’m surrounded by sheep, but I have yet to find a yarn shop close by that stocks anything inspiring. I spend ages looking at yarn (longingly) online, but to actually be able to see and TOUCH it all was simply overwhelming. Seeing all the Ravelry badges, the smiling faces, and finally meeting some of the lovely people I follow on the internet was also very exciting, and I even spotted Sasha Kagan holding a workshop! I’d love to share my small purchases, but most of them are intended as gifts, and I must be a little secretive. I did get some Faery Lace from Fyberspates though, which is all my own.

I have known for a long time that if I ever tried spinning, I would be hooked, and I really didn’t want anything else taking away from my knitting time (and fund!). Well, all such prudence vanished from my mind when I spotted a lovely spinning starter kit at the Blueberry Angoras stand. Angora! Having grown up in Ankara, I decided it was fate that I should start spinning with angora mohair. I could hardly wait to get home to try it out, but on sunday evening the only winding I managed was to wind myself up. I could spin about 2 inches of yarn which just grew kinkier and kinkier. But knitting hasn’t taught me anything if it hasn’t taught me patience, so I calmly put the spindle aside.

I spun all night, metre after metre flying through my dreams. On Monday I watched all the Youtube videos on the subject again, and realised my problem was with the elusive term, ‘drafting’. Spinners throw this word out with much abandon, but it took me a while to understand it, and even now I’m not sure I’ve fully grokked it. I do know that I was trying to spin a thin yarn with way too much fiber though, and separating the roving out into thinner strips helped a lot. I still do a lot of stopping and frantic drafting, but I managed a vaguely consistent yarn. It’s magic watching the spindle spin and spin and spin, the twist shoot like electric up the fiber, and the way the spinning thread will pull everything (fiber, hair) into it, like a small tornado. Having spun all my fiber I tried to ’set the twist’, but the twist has no intention of settling just yet. The yarn writhes with energy, too full of my novice over-enthusiasm, and its own life. The angora is gorgeous, so soft and nice-smelling, and I would love to travel over every inch of yarn again with my knitting needles, but I think perhaps my first handspun is fated for a small hank, to mark the beginning of another journey.

Participating in Fiber Arts Friday.

Last night I was sitting on the sofa by a lovely roaring fire, typing away at my blog post. My boyfriend had gone down to the pub with his friend, and I was all alone in the small Welsh cottage. As I got up to get myself a mug of tea, I glanced at the woodburner and noticed that the candle that had been left on top of it (note use of passive) looked a bit lopsided, so I thought I’d better take it off there and put it to one side. The saucer was full of hot melted wax though, so it was rather tricky to do, and I noticed that the flames were licking away at that side of the burner, making it even hotter. Not knowing a whole lot about fires, I opened the woodburner door to try to rearrange the logs. Woosh! The flames licked out of the hinge and one side of the woodburner caught fire. It finally clicked that there was hot hot wax dripping down that entire side of the woodburner. In a few brief moments, many thoughts ran through my head:

- My God, the fire is outside the woodburner.
- Maybe if I leave it, it’ll just burn up.
- I can’t call my boyfriend.
- How am I going to tell him I burnt his house down?

Read the rest of this entry »

I noticed that a discussion on the Ravelry forums linked to the garment labels I posted yesterday. The question is “how do you educate non-knitters you knit for, to care for their garment?” Especially with the Christmas season coming up, this seems like an important problem to try to resolve. Sewing in a fabric label, such as those found in shop-bought clothes, seems an ideal solution because people are accustomed to consulting them, and they are always available for quick reference on the garment itself. But this is clearly not an option for smaller knitted items such as socks and gloves, and may not be feasible on lacy pieces where they would show through. In these cases it would be necessary to provide the instructions separately.

So where would the recipient be most likely to keep the instructions?

Read the rest of this entry »