podcasts

Episode 326

March 24, 2024March 24, 2024 by Sara

The winner of Q1 Ko-fi contributor prize is Jennie / Salmon! Jennie wins a pair of custom made socks by Woolen Waves. Check out Sarah’s sock styles and try to catch up with her at a festival or event.

The Q2 prize will be awarded at the Summer Solstice. Battenkill Fiber Mill is contributing a skein of Granville sock yarn (RWS certified wool) dyed by Lily Marsh or Sassy Black Yarns. To enter, become a monthly contributor or make a one-time contribution by June 21st.

I’ve been working to mend runs and thin spots on my Cambria Duster, sewing in Merchant & Mills wool/linen double gauze. I’m using woven patches, seed stitch, patches sewn on with blanket stitch, and some tambourine stitch (see below) which is blanket / buttonhole stitch worked in a circular fashion.

I’m incredibly pleased that Cal Patch will be teaching a Mending = Love workshop at Orange:Coffee.Art.Music. on Sunday, May 19th. This will be a big and important weekend for me, since I’m organizing a fiber arts show at the Orange gallery and celebrating my 50th birthday. Come celebrate with my by engaging in some mending! It will be a great time and a chance to learn from Cal’s expertise. LINK to tickets!

Here is my completed Botanical Sweater, featuring yarn dyed by Patricia of Tidal Yarns. I re-knit the Därta sweater designed by Inese Sang, with multiple modifications, including a pretty complicated chart called Pusteblumen. You can find the details for this knit on my Ravelry project page.

I continue to spin on my Jenkins Turkish spindles (here is the Lark in Osage Orange) during the #the100dayproject, encouraged by Beverly Army. Each month, I receive her Creative Endeavors newletter with personal observations, plans, links, and inspiration. Check it out.

Off the Shelf: “The Last Hummingbird of Summer” by Beth Ann Fennelly in POETRY March 2024

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 326

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