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Episode 138: and now for some pockets

October 4, 2016November 13, 2016 by Sara

cover138 This episode includes the following segments: Yarn Lover at Large, Ever-expanding Skill Set, and On the Porch. I’ll be sure to add an Off the Shelf segment to a future episode. The Bressay dress I’m knitting in anticipation of Rhinebeck is almost complete. Have you been tuning in to watch or listen to Fleecewise: The Series? Two episodes have dropped and another is due out this week. Episode 139 will be devoted to the question: What do I do with the fleece once I get it home? If you have questions or suggestions on this topic, post them here.

#slowfashionoctober

Field to Frock: Fashion Lessons from the Slow Food Movement — hosted the the Museum at FIT — tickets are free, but you must register here

Special Guest Speaker Event- Betsan Corkhill “Knit for Health and Wellness

October 21st 7:30-8:30pm Threefold Center (Upper Brookside) – $10 at the door; refreshments and conversation to follow

Bovine Social Club performed a special, unplugged, set.

Fungus Fest

ep138-06 — The New Jersey Mycological Association held its annual Fungus Fest at the Frelinghusen Arboretum.

Jim Barg led a walking tour with information about local mushroom varieties.

Ursula with her beautiful display of yarn and fiber dyed with mushrooms.

I purchased this shiitake "log" on Sunday and began harvesting on Friday. — I purchased this shiitake “log” on Sunday and began harvesting on Friday.

Ever-expanding Skill Set

Delicious and fragrant bread pudding right from the oven. Bake at 350 until the top is golden brown and the pudding bubbles in the center.

Delicious mushroom risotto with shiitakes harvested right in my kitchen.

Arrows and Doorways

The design for this super-cozy cowl was inspired by textiles in a hotel lobby. Concentric geometric shapes kept playing in my mind until finally I was able to chart the pattern and get it onto my needles. The interplay of this chevron-like patterning has a mesmerizing effect–while you’re knitting and when you wear the finished accessory.

Knit up a cowl with yarn from your stash, adding some magical new mini-skeins from your advent calendar, or exchange leftover yarn with a friend. The design invites frequent color changes, and makes an ideal knit for the advent season. It could be just as striking knit with two high-contrast colors.

While most cowls of this type are seamed within a band of a single color, this pattern incorporates a technique called stranded donut grafting, an incredibly clever and completely seamless graft that allows you to maintain colorwork patterning so that your starting and ending rounds are undetectable. Really! With many possibilities for color play and a new technique to add to your skill set, this cowl pattern is really an opportunity for knitters to level-up!

NEW PATTERN DESIGN!

ONE DARK BLUE NIGHT

This hat is the third in a series of patterns inspired by teachings in Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves. This time, I drew inspiration from Estés’ retelling of a Japanese tale, Tsukina Waguma or “The Crescent Moon Bear,” in which a young woman travels to the cave of an incredibly intimidating and ferocious bear. She makes several journeys to the cave, leaving food and quickly retreating, until “one dark blue night,” she musters the courage to stand her ground and ask for what she seeks--one hair from a moon-shaped patch on the bear’s chest--which she is granted. The young woman returns, triumphant, to the old healer who has sent her on this quest. She believes this single hair is the magic ingredient in solving the problem that plagues her. She holds it forth, but the healer tosses the hair into the flames. The young woman is in despair until she realizes the true lesson of her quest: that using her determination, courage, and patience, as she did with the crescent moon bear, will help her to confront the challenge at hand.

The moon phase motif of this colorwork hat is meant to capture the magic of a dark blue night--when the moon shines brightly overhead, the frosty air sparkles with possibility, and we succeed in summoning accumulated wisdom from deep within ourselves so that we can apply it to our own healing. Choose colors to conjure a wintery night sky, or select a palette of your signature colors.

Available on Ravelry December 20th.

Yarns at Yin Hoo

Episode 138: and now for some pockets

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