Daily Photo: Koigu, you're still my #1 love.
This photo's certainly over-exposed but I think it looks kind of cool that way so I'm using it! Hope you don't mind =)
On Friday night the idea for this design sprung into my head fully-formed. That rarely happens, believe me . . . most of my designs take tons of swatching, sketching and trial and error before they're finished conceptually. But every once in a while something like this happens, and those designs have generally turned out to be the most successful and popular (see the Runner's Watchcap and the Soho wrap for examples!). So I had to cast on ASAP. It still took me a while to settle on a color palette, and in truth I actually made 3 palettes and set them aside for later (more on that when I publish this), but after weighing and winding up the yarn, I was off like a rocket!
What you see above is the almost-completed scarf, all of which was knit over the last 2 days. And my hands don't even hurt!
Koigu in garter stitch is such a wonder . . . I love how the bumps accentuate the color changes and how no section is at all like any other section! Of course I'm maximizing that effect by shading colors in an out of eachother, which is one of my favorite techniques to use with Koigu. If you look closely at the photo above you can see that the colors fade into eachother seamlessly. So so pretty, I can't get enough. I can already tell that I won't be satiated by making just the one sample scarf for photography, I'm going to end up with at least two of these scarves for myself for sure . . .
A tale of two yarns
How did I miss hearing about the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week? It's a good thing I still check in on blogs every other day or so, or I would have missed it entirely!
So, a day late and maybe more than a dollar short, here's my first entry for it:
The first prompt is "A tale of two yarns" and it says to "Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them."
Well it probably will surprise no one to see that I'm about to write about Koigu!
I remember my very first skein of Koigu vividly: I bought it in 2002 from a LYS in Englewood, NJ that no longer exists. The colorway was mostly mint green with bits of yellow and blue in it, and I fell deeply, irreparably in love with the yarn the second I laid eyes on it. At the time it was one of the most expensive yarns I'd ever bought at $11 for 50 oz! Those two skeins became a scarf which is now long-gone, but my Koigu obsession lives on.
When I first discovered Koigu it was still very hard to find, so any store I went into that had a Koigu stash meant I came home with at least a few skeins to hoard away for the future. Looking through my Ravelry projects, the earliest documented FO I have in Koigu is the Charlotte's web shawl:
Which was also my first "real" lace project. I remember very clearly picking out colors for this shawl, most of which came from Purl's old tiny store in Soho. I knit most of this shawl while at work (I used to work in a call center where we were allowed to do anything at all as long as we were sitting at our desks with our headsets on!) and finished it in about a week, and wore it pretty much non-stop afterwards. It's still one of my favorite projects and I still wear it all the time! I should probably take a better photo of it now that I own a nice camera . . .
I've knit everything from shawls to baby items to blankets to sweaters in Koigu, and in every case the finished item is one of my favorites. Many of my original knitting patterns are designed around Koigu's wonderful yarn, too!
Here's a few of those projects, but you can see them all on my Ravelry projects page if you're curious:
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="338" caption="Socks finished in 2007 and still going strong 5 years later!"]
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="372" caption="Remember when mini ponchos were all the rage?"]
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="278" caption="Favorite armwarmers in Koigu Cashmere"]
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="427" caption="My first Koigu design, Tramonto"]
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="360" caption="Koigu scraps blanket"]
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="360" caption="Yes, sometimes I use solids"]
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Between the oldest project and the newest (the Koigu socks I finished a few weeks ago), I've knit literally dozens of items from Koigu and it never fails to please. The texture of the merino, the bounce in the stitches, the excellent laundering qualities, the way it wears beautifully even when abused, and above all, the colors, keep me coming back for more year after year. Now that Koigu is easy to find I no longer hoard it like it's going out of style, but you might not be able to tell if you came over and looked at my stash . . . I still own over 100 skeins of the stuff and I don't plan on letting it go anytime soon!
And now for the not-so-great-yarn:
On the other side of the spectrum, Noro's Kureyon Sock was a yarn I expected to love so much that I bought multiple skeins of it, sight-unseen, right when it first came out.
I tried to knit it into a dropped-stitch shawl design:
But it hurt my hands so badly that I had to stop.
I then tried crocheting with it:
And while that was easier on the hands and the in-progress scarf was gorgeous, the work itself wasn't pleasant. The yarn feels like string in your hands while you work with it, and it cuts into my tension finger in a very unpleasant way. I knit/crochet for fun and relaxation, so anything that isn't pleasant doesn't make the cut! These two half-finished projects are still in my closet and will probably be UFO's forever and ever . . .
I'm still on the hunt for a yarn with these long color changes, in this gauge, but with a good texture. If you know of one, send me the link!
Daily Photo: March 24, 2011
Today's hackathon at work, which means the tech team will be working from noon today to noon tomorrow. I don't know why I got up so early but I did, and realized I don't have any stockinettte-only mindless knitting in progress right now! Which is not OK considering the amount of reading I'll be doing over the next 24 hours as I work on a project using a framework I've never used before . . .
All that to say that the photo above is of me winding up a skein of Malabrigo Sock, color Abril, so that I can start yet another pair of simple stockinette socks to work on while I read. This very clearly explains why I have SO MANY single pairs of stockinette socks around . . . although it does NOT explain why I never manage to knit the second simple stockinette sock when I have an "emergency" like I did this morning. Think my "system" needs a bit of work? Yeah, me too.
Knitting with Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter
I went to Purl to check out Brooklyn Tweed's new Shelter yarn and I'm really glad I did: it's just as lovely in real life as I expected from the online previews. Although I have to say that the colors were underwhelming for me (as I also expected), I did like this plum color and so came home with two skeins. I was happy to see that Purl had them for sale at the MSRP too, that was a nice surprise!
The yarn is so light and fluffy, yet woolly, that it makes me want to squeeze the hank and pet it all the time. (Yes, knitters are weird.) The little flecks of color that make up this color are really stunning, check out this closeup:
This shot is over-exposed, the picture above is more true-to-life, but in this one you can really see all the different colors that make up the overall color. It's sort of a tweed without being VERY tweedy, if that makes any sense.
I wound a skein up the second I got home and started swatching, and decided I wanted to knit it up in a fairly loose gauge. The biggest gauge I saw Jared using was about 3.5 sts/inch on size 9 needles, so I tried a size 9 needle and decided I liked the airy fabric. The stitches have a surprisingly crisp appearance which I wasn't expecting due to the yarn's light weight, but I guess that makes sense given the way it's spun. I'm knitting my two skeins up into a cowl (yes, another one), a very simple one that's mostly stockinette with some dropped cables:
It's knitting up super quickly and I'm almost done with the first skein! After months and months knitting on nothing bigger than a size 5 needle I'd sort of forgotten how quickly something can knit up at this gauge! I can't wait to block this out to make the fabric more drapey and wear it with my black blazer . . . it's not quite cold enough here for winter accessories yet, but I'm sure it will be soon.
Bottom line on Shelter: Go try it! Jared's taste in wool and thoroughness in developing this line cannot be argued with. I do hope he adds some more funky colors next season though . . .
Destashing, 2010 edition
UPDATED 6/27 with lower prices!
I'm streamlining and you get to benefit!
Here are the rules:
- Paypal only.
- Domestic shipping: Flat $6.00 no matter how much stuff you want. Packages will go out the next business day and will be mailed Priority or First Class, depending on weight.
- International shipping will be the actual cost for Global Priority. I will email you the shipping cost and you can approve it before paying for the item. Please do not ask me to lie on the customs form, I won’t do it.
- Leave a comment on this post letting me know what you’re interested in and whether you’re domestic or international. Everything is offered on a first-come basis. Once you comment I will send you a PayPal invoice. Payment is expected within 24 hours or your item goes back up for grabs.
Everything is from a smoke-free home, but I do have a dog. The yarn is all kept in a closet he doesn't have access to, but there may be a bit of dog hair in it anyway.
Unless otherwise noted, multiple skeins are all the same color and dyelot.
1 Skein Koigu Mori 50/50 Merino/silk in color M729. Retails for $27. $13. $10
6 skeins Classic Elite Stormy in color 10357, a deep tweedy plum. 100% cashmere. Retailed for $45 a skein. $120
3 balls Rowan Classic Cashmere Tweed in color 854, Iron (tweedy very dark charcoal gray). Retailed for $25 a ball. $35. SALE PENDING
4 skeins Classic Elite Romance in color 103831. It's a pink and orange marl color. I got these skeins before the yarn was actually released so the labels are blank. Retailed for $45 each. $80. $60.
Artyarns Kaleidoscope Crochet Scarf Kit. Includes laceweight 100% cashmere yarn in lots of colors. Partly started project included. All the skeins have been wound into balls and labeled with their colors. Retails for $160. $90
Karabella Margrite Bulky, 2 balls winter white #13, 3 balls beige #15, 3 balls purple #25. 20% cashmere/80% extrafine Merino. Retails for $15 each. $60. $50
4 balls Karabella Margrite Bulky in red #7. $30. $25
8 skeins Cascade Luna cotton in color 721. The color's a bit darker than it looks here but just as bright, I'd call it an intense indigo. One skein has been wound. Retailed for $6 a skein. $25. $20
