podcasts

Episode 57: Wunderkammer

October 16, 2014 by Sara

This episode contains the following segments: Ever-expanding Skill Set, The Back Porch, A Little Bit of Learning, and Yarn Lover at Large.

LISTEN:

Ever-expanding Skill Set

There’s still time to sign up for a spindling course at The Inner Space in Highland Park, NJ. The first workshop was a lot of fun. Next, I’ll be instructing two sessions of Meditative Spindling and a special Spinning the Chakras workshop. Contact Kristy today and sign up for a course or tell someone who might have an interest.

The Back Porch

I’m pleased with the completed Planorbis Corneus shawl in Hunter Hammerson’s Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet, Volume 3. I’ve given the shawl the title of Sinistral because of the left-leaning curve of the spiral. Did you know that only 90% of snails have sinistral spirals? The planorbis corneas, or Ramshorn, as it is commonly known, is a mollusk found among grasses in still or slowly moving pond water with a high calcium content. For more on curiosity cabinets, you might consult the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

In my opinion, the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles of nature and the most marvelous examples, especially as regards the subject of the action of men. — Montaigne

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 57: Wunderkammer

LISTEN:

Ever-expanding Skill Set

The Back Porch

In my opinion, the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles of nature and the most marvelous examples, especially as regards the subject of the action of men. — Montaigne

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