Category: Blather

This is an older knit that I finished last December. It was my stress knitting while I was crunching out the last of my Master’s thesis, a nice soothing garter stitch project that I could work on while I read and reread source material. Since it was finished up between the bustle of coursework and the holidays, it never got a proper photoshoot. High time to fix that!

KOIGU SHAWL

Pattern: Spanish Dancer by Sandi Luck
Yarn: Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino mill ends in every colorway I could get my hands on
Needles: US6/4.0 mm
Notes:
The Koigu mill ends are an event at MDSW, in a little booth that is packed as bad as a Lex Ave subway train during rush hour. I got the yarn for this shawl at the ’08 festival with an eye for a shawl, and then I just… kept it. For the rest of the year. I took what I think is my favorite stash photograph ever with it:

And I finally came upon the Spanish Shawl pattern, which is really just garter stitch with a ruffle, perfect for showing off all the colors of my collection. So I dove right in and came out with something that looks like watercolors.

It’s a simple pattern, but sometimes simple is just what you need.

So in case anybody couldn’t tell, I am an American — and a New Yorker. (Sometimes the New Yorker part comes first.) But I’m also pretty fond of lots of other countries, like Germany, which I visited in high school, and Austria, where I studied for a semester in college. And my family has roots in Germany and England and most recently Scotland, so I have a deep affection for those nations too.

But there’s a much closer neighbor who I think deserves a little love today. So I thought I would present
Things About Canada I Love Even Though I am not Canadian:

-Koigu. It is my absolute favorite sock yarn. Squishy and in so many beautiful colors and did I mention squishy? Canada has lots of lovely yarns but Koigu will always be my favorite.

-Tim Horton’s Maple Donuts. (See also: Official Donut of the Canadian People.) Speaks for itself. Maple. Mmm. See also maple syrup, maple candy, maple cookies — maple anything, really.

-Sharon, Lois & Bram. I can still sing all of Skinnamarink, complete with the arm motions. You can too. I know it. Don’t lie.

-You Can’t Do That On Television. Slime. Barth. Alastair. That is all. Nickelodeon apparently showed nothing but Canadian shows when I was a kid. Huh.

-Creamy Dill chips. Canada has all sorts of interesting chip flavors, like bacon and ketchup, which are all delicious, but to my mind Creamy Dill is the best of them all. I wish they’d import!

-Blue Rodeo, who kindly hold their summer Toronto show right around my birthday, which is always a good excuse for a visit.

-Kathleen Edwards, who I learned about because of Blue Rodeo.

-Jann Arden, who I learned about from J.

-the Canadian National Exhibition, which also happens around my birthday, and always has cracktastic butter sculptures and midway rides, and is another good reason to visit Toronto in August.

-that nifty font in the Toronto subways, because it’s nifty! (There’s the transit geek coming out).

-Anne of Green Gables, for breaking her slate over Gilbert’s head and having imagination and teaching me about bosum friends.

-Vancouver, for doing such a nice job of playing so many other cities. (Toronto doesn’t get that one because playing spot-the-CN-Tower usually gives it away.)

-Due South, because it introduced me to the first (and possibly only?) magical-realist-cop-show, and led me to discover:
-that Mounties are awesome
-Paul Gross
-Slings & Arrows
-Callum Keith Rennie
-playing spot-the-CN-Tower

-Canadian Actor Bingo. Canada’s very big into recycling, and this includes actors. They start popping up all over the place once you’re paying attention!

-Inukshuks, which are a Native tradition of stone cairns, and acted as a message of welcome (or a sign of shelter or food or whatever… very flexible). It’s a lovely idea (and now you know why the symbol for the Vancouver Olympics is a pile of rocks). Everyone would be much happier if they got to go play with rocks once in a while.

-Canadian Knitters. Because it’s cold, so there’s lots of them, like Amy who runs Knitty and Veronik Avery and Kate Gilbert and the Landriu family who dye Koigu and I’m going to just wave a white flag now because if I kept listing I’d be sitting here doing that all day.

-the Yarn Harlot, who taught me how to knit a sock without needing a pattern, and teaches me how to be awesome in knitting and everything else.

-J, my best friend, who likes to educate me whenever I come up to visit. This is how I know where they filmed Anne of Green Gables at UT and what Second Cup is, and where to get off the streetcar to get to the Purple Purl.

Dare I try to make this a meme? If you’re reading this, tag-you’re-it.

Father’s Day is over.

(Norah Gaughin’s Stag Bag, reimagined as a pillow, and Selbuvotter #10, both for my dad, who is pretty cool as dads go. Perhaps I will write these up later once he’s tried on the gloves for the camera…)

But that is not important. What is important is the following:

TOMORROW IS JUNE 25. SIX MONTHS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!

I cast on my first Christmas project tonight. Knit early, beat the rush.

Memorial Day Weekend: parades, barbecues, sales. All very traditional. Me? I’m a rebel. I spent it washing and packing away for the summer all of my woolen knitwear. Hats, gloves, scarves, all washed and clean and smelling of lavender and tucked away from those little winged menaces until the chill returns. Socks are packed separately in case I want to pull out a pair on a cool night, and because I have so many of them they need their own container. I didn’t realize how prolific a sock knitter I’ve become until I started gathering them up!

Since it’s now summer (if you ignore the solar calendar) that’s the perfect time to finish up another scarf, right? Right!

VINTAGE VELVET KNOCK-OFF

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Pattern: Vintage Velvet by Lisa Daniels, from Interweave’s Scarf Style — sort of. See the notes
Yarn: Muench Touch Me in Burnt Orange, 3 skeins, picked up in a Ravelry destash
Needles: US 8/5.0 mm
Notes: I have been coveting this scarf for a long time. I acquired Scarf Style ages ago, and the Vintage Velvet scarf leapt out at me immediately both for its appearance and the description of the yarn’s properties after felting — like crushed velvet, hence the name. Then I found out how expensive the yarn is, so it went on the backburner for a few years. During those few years got the chance to gladhand skeins of Touch Me in various and sundry yarn shops, and oh wow does it live up to its name. Actual velvet fabric has always made the skin on the back of my neck stand up when I touch it, but this yarn feels to me like velvet ought to — soft and cushy and rich. When I found someone destashing three skeins of the stuff on Ravelry for half price, I jumped on it heedless of the color. I’d always envisioned a scarf in a chocolately brown or victorian rose shade, but the available skeins were burnt orange.

It’s grown on me:

especially now that I’ve felted the finished object, which brought out a richness and depth that I really love.

The original pattern called for five skeins of Touch Me, and I only had three. I found a lot of modifications and ideas on Ravelry and I ended up abandoning the original pattern entirely. I swiped the double-sided cable from the Palindrome scarf and did an 8 stitch border on each side in seed stitch. (I am one of those few knitters who enjoys seed stitch.) The center cable gives a nice spine to the scarf, while the seed stitch relaxed — adding almost eight inches in length! — after felting and developed a beautiful drape. It’s a dream to wear, and I’m already looking forward to next winter so I can show it off properly.

And, because Memorial Day is more than parades or barbecues and sales or knitwear: if you’re a soldier or sailor reading this, thank you for your service, and come home safe to your families.

So I did a little more traveling with a sock (different sock…the BSG socks are a little complex for a game) and joined Melissa and her knit night at a Philadelphia Phantoms game. (Stick and puck, apparently? Who knew?)

Melissa’s knitting group (the Philly Burbs Stitch’n’Bitch) is awesome. They had gift bags for everyone:

Isn’t that awesome? Two skeins of Berocco (Jewel FX and Plume FX), a skein of Valley Yarns Southwick Southwick, a kiddie hat kit with three colors of Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, courtesy of Supercrafty.com, and a delightful little keychain skein, from (as you can see) Kitty Grrlz.

But wait! It doesn’t stop there!

In addition to the grab bags, there was a raffle! And I won! Behold my new Namaste Oh Snap! bags, and! and! a subscription to Louet! A year of Louet patterns! Not bad for one raffle ticket, especially when you consider the proceeds were going to Heifer International. How much better can it get?

Clearly, spending the weekend with Melissa is good for my swag count and my posting count. I think I should be visiting her more often, don’t you? (Considering I am currently watching Slings & Arrows, eating whisky cheese, and drinking homebrewed Raspberry Chocolate Port… yes. She is lucky I haven’t moved in, to be honest.)