Joyce Makes Art

True Love: Cashmere

I am knit, knit, knitting away on a cashmere scarf.  The yarn is Plucky Cachet in Dreamy, and it is my second favorite yarn, only because Plucky's newest cashmere, Groovy, a felted cashmere yarn, became an immediate favorite when I knit this hat a couple of weeks ago.  The truth is, I love them both.  I have a thing for pure cashmere.  And Cachet, which is somewhere between a worsted and aran weight is a really wonderful yarn to knit with.  So wonderful that I don't mind the endless knit, knit, knit (because this entire pattern is in garter stitch) that will produce a wonderful scarf, based on a shop pattern at my local yarn store In The Making, when I'm finished.

It's A Gansey (Sort Of)

I'm a little bit obsessed with Amy Miller's new mini-sock patterns, and have been working on a pair of Jimmies in between other projects.

Because knitting Jimmies made me even more obsessed with the other three mini-sock patterns, I sent off yarn to Ravelry knitter, Mommajnine, for a pair  of It's A Gansey, another of the patterns in the set.  Ganseys are sweaters with distinctive local patterning, which this sock pattern mimics, and to kick up up just a bit, I sent four different colors of yarn to use for the sock, rather than knitting it as a solid. 

© Mommajnine

The yarn is Elliebelly Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) Constant, dyed in Dear Theodosia (Green), Muslin (Neutral), Lady Mary (Blue), and Lost Coast (Salmon Pink).

© Mommajnine 

Janine, who is the most amazing of sock knitters, turned the yarn into a pair of It's a Ganseys, quicker than I can turn the heel on a sock!  Here they are in all of their loveliness.  I adore how she aligned the colors.

I'm enjoying knitting my Jimmies and encourage you to pick up some sock yarn and knit a pair of Amy's socks.  They are the perfect quick little knit to make sure that you don't forget yourself in the middle of holiday knitting for friends and family.

Cables And Cables

 

I've been working on Rob Roy this afternoon. The cables were hard to figure out for the first few rows, but now they seem to be making sense. I'm a few rows shy of halfway through the first repeat of the cable pattern, and although it was hard to get a photo that shows much of anything, I did want to capture how pretty the yarn, Elliebelly Lyric in the Catherine, Are You Weeping? colorway, looks in progress.

This yarn is incredibly soft and the finished hat is going to be lovely and squishable.  Like all of Thea Coleman's patterns, Rob Roy has just enough of a challenge to it that you feel good about conquering it.  The quirk here is that on a few rows, the cable crosses start at the end of the last row, which sounds somewhat confusing until you get there, but her directions are so well written that all you need to do is trust the pattern and follow them precisely.

Rob Roy Hat Pattern, Paid Forward

I haven't made any progress on Rob Roy since last you saw it (because: Jimmies and Two Track).

But, I did want to do the pay it forward part of this project, so Eva, check your Ravelry inbox.  You should have the Rob Roy pattern waiting for you!  Thanks to everyone who commented.  I really appreciated the chance to help Thea, the pattern designer, with her charitable project and at the same time being able to help someone else get started on knitting this lovely hat.

 

Knit Socks!

I'm knitting Jimmies! These cute little low socks are so adorable that even the fact that I'm knitting them on size 0 needles isn't dampening my enthusiasm.

Part of my enthusiasm is the yarn, which is Elliebelly, pulled from my deep stash.  This is Ella, a paint brush colorway, dyed on BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) Cash-Silk Sock.  I love the subtle color transitions.

So far, so good.  I'm about halfway through the flap on the first sock and looking forward to making good progress during the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Although I'm typically a very loose knitter and struggle with getting gauge, often going down two needle sizes, I'm knitting these more or less as written.  The pattern calls for size 0 for the cuff and size 1 for the remainder of the sock.  I'm knitting everything on size  0 (mostly because I couldn't find my size 1 DPNS).  The cuff opening looks small, and I'll be interested to see if I end up with a kid sized sockie.  No problem either way -- this project is so manageable I decided to knit the first sock as my gauge swatch, as I have plenty of yarn, and I'll take it from there.

Early Morning Knitting

It's finally fall here; cool and crisp. Which means perfect knitting weather.

I took advantage of the opportunity to knit the ribbing for yet another hat. This is Thea Coleman's new Rob Roy pattern, knit in Elliebelly's Lyric Worsted in the Catherine, Are You Weeping colorway. I'm ready to start the cable charts and really looking forward to it!

Thea is using pattern sales to make donations to a charity that serves girls. The pattern was gifted to me by a Ravelry friend and I'd like to pay that forward, so leave a comment below if you're interested in knitting the pattern and I'll randomly pick someone to gift it to at the end of the weekend.

I was grateful for the company of my knitting buddy, Wingus The Cat, this morning. He loves my project bag from Fringe Supply and tries to climb inside every chance he gets. But he's still good knitting company and I'm glad to have the ribbing finished. Happy Saturday y'all!

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I Have To Have That Hat!

It came in an email from Churchmouse Yarns and I had to have it.  Right away.

© blue sky fibers

It really doesn't get any better than stripes and a slouchy hat!  The pattern, called the 21 Color Slouch Pattern, is available only with a kit of color in Blue Sky Woolstock.  The cute put up of the kit, with mini-skeins wrapped around a leather cord, is almost as much fun as knitting the hat.

I put everything else aside last night to get started.  It's a fun, compulsive knit, although there will be a lot of ends to weave in when it's finished.

Two Track

It looks a bit confusing at this stage.

This is my Two Track sweater. It's knit in two vertical halves, which are joined with a three needle bind off. After getting past the tricky bits of the first side (there is some cable cast on and a rather unusual pick up of stitches), I decided to go ahead and start the second side. I wanted to make sure I had a good memory of what I had done on the first side and could repeat it.

Next up is lots of stockinette.

But it's going to all be worth it when I can wear it with my flannel shirt.

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A Slow Sleeve

This week has been a family week for me, with a long overdue trip to DC with my second son. I really enjoyed the old photos of Presidents' wives knitting in the early 1900s at the Newseum. And all of the beautiful views in the city.

Not much knitting happened although I did get far enough along with the Two Track sweater to experience it's interesting construction, adding in the front left and front back simultaneously with an exposed side seam and knitting the ribbed lower edge of the sleeve.

The directions were confusing to me so I followed them literally and it seemed to work out. I've started the second sleeve so I can repeat the process for the right side before I forget how I did it the first time.

After this, it's just me and miles of stockinette for a long time so this should be a great counterpoint to my fairisle sweater.

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Fairisle & Janine, The Feral Knitter

One of the (many) high points of my Glamping with Plucky experience was my class with Janine Bajus, who goes by the Ravelry name feral knitter.  Her website is here.  Janine is an amazing advocate for an evolved but still traditional type of fairisle knitting and she is a superb teacher as well as practitioner.  I first met her as I was walking out of the market.  She was nice enough to autograph my copy of her brand new book.

Even though I wasn't sure what to expect from the class, I wanted to take it to help with my Sjølingstadkofta, which is coming along slowly but nicely.

The class was great.  It touched on the history and nature of fairisle as well as color theory and selection.  And Janine's patterns are beautiful.  I knew this when I met a knitter wearing one of her hats before class.

The sample knitting she brought to share with us was amazing and inspiring (and maybe a little bit intimidating, but she made it feel very much like something you could accomplish).

She designed a hat pattern, just for us, and showed off swatches in a number of different color variations.

I can't seem to stop working on mine.  (Ignore the nasty blue stuff on the bottom, that's provisional cast on cotton, so I can go back and do the ribbing later).

No mention of how much I'm enjoying knitting this hat (despite having to rip back three rows for failure to change color while flying home yesterday, and then an additional row because, when you knit on a plane after a full day of flying, you're just going to make a careless mistake in reading the pattern)  would be complete without mentioning the lovely little project bag my Ravelry friend Eleanor made for me.  It's incredibly sweet with it's little Liberty fabric lining and the perfect size for a fairisle hat, with interior pockets to handle the different little balls of wool.

I don't have enough superlatives for this class and this fairisle hat project, so I'll simply say I loved it all and am looking forward to working on the hat later this week!

 

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