podcasts

Episode 53: Extant of Autumn

September 15, 2014 by Sara

This episode contains the following segments: On the Porch, Ever-expanding Skill Set, Yarn Lover at Large, and Off the Shelf. Thank you to everyone who has been in touch with me over the past few weeks. Yarns at Yin Hoo has a vibrant audience ready to share exciting ideas and supportive feedback. Introduce yourself on the Ravelry welcome board, leave a comment on this blog post, or send me a personal message. Thank you for comments and feedback.

LISTEN:

On the Porch

Polwarth / silk fiber in the Rooftop colorway from Three Waters Farm

Clincher by Ash Kearns in Apothecary Yarns sock yarn in the Trident colorway

Batad by Stephen West in a combination of handspun and Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light

Planorbis Corneus Shawl by Hunter Hammerson in Creatively Dyed Yarns worsted yarn

Ever-expanding Skill Set

New recipe / menu idea: Hope Club Canapés

Yarn Lover at Large

New Jersey Sheep & Fiber Festival

Maggie Jackson fashion show and workshops at Mountain Knits and Pearls

The Knitmore Girls’ director’s cut with Maggie Jackson

Off the Shelf

This week I read a passage from Chapter 10 of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

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.