ooooooooo, la, la!

bonjour!

this past week i've had the opportunity to take advantage of long periods of knitting time. i was the passenger on a five hour car trip and i attended a two-day conference with lots of time spent listening to speakers - perfect opportunities to keep my fingers busy with needles and yarn!

and the perfect quick and easy and somewhat mindless project - a sweet little beret!

and not once, but twice (actually, three times as i reknit the gold one in a smaller size)!

i encountered this yarn at the madrona fiber festival in february and i have been chomping at the bit to get knittin' with it so this seemed to be the perfect moment - i didn't want a large project like a sweater to haul around, just a small item that fit in a small bag with a small (16 inch) circular needle.

the yarn is called 'loft' and is from brooklyn tweed. it is a fingering weight and is knit on size 1 and 2 needles. the beauty of this yarn is that it is 100% american made - wool from sheep raised in wyoming and spun at a mill in new hampshire. somewhat unusual in this day in age but something i can totally get behind - buy american!

the pattern is a churchmouse classic 'cashmere beret' from churchmouse yarns and teas from bainbridge island, washington. usa, all the way!

the yarn is a wonderful tweed with little flecks of color throughout.

this colorway is called "old world" and is a navy base with a haze of red with little flecks of light blue and red sprinkled about.

this colorway is "hayloft" and is gold with an orange haze and flecks of orange, yellow and green throughout. oui, oui, oui!

i would be a tad remiss if i didn't mention that i found this yarn to be a bit tender and as i tugged on my yarn at several intervals, it broke apart. this wasn't a big problem since it was wool and i could 'spit join' it back together and carry on.

i am very pleased with the outcome and it has been a 'tres bien' week, for sure!

entrelac anyone?

in the middle of february i hopped in my little buggy and headed north to tacoma, washington for the annual madrona fiber arts gathering - a first time adventure for me! i got really lucky and had wonderful driving weather - sunshine, clear skies and not a drop of rain, pretty unusual for february in the pacific northwest! 

since this was my first madrona experience i decided to ease into it slowly by only taking one afternoon class. i also decided to allow myself only a couple of hours to cruise the merchant mall - i already have enough yarn that will far exceed my life expectancy!!

my class of choice was 'entrelac basics' taught by gwen bortner. entrelac is a knitting technique that involves knitting rectangles at angles facing right and left - instead of knitting a large number of stitches, you work on a small number stitches (usually starting with 6 and using short-rows work down to 1).

to learn the technique, we knit this:

tada! a can cozy!

the perfect project - it satisfies both the process and product personality that dwells in each and everyone of us! the perfect way to learn the process of this knitting technique and the perfect usable end product - who can't use a can cozy?! i mean really - win, win, win!

i was so excited to master this technique that i came home and immediately knit two more of these to reinforce the skill!

there was a little more to these covers than just knitting - once completed, they needed to be felted and since they were relatively small, it meant hand felting which was a new experience for me! that turned out to be a pretty simple process that involved about 30 minutes of manually malling the wet yarn until it had felted to the desired size.

the yarn i used in the black and white cozies is paton's wool - the one on the right i knit on size 8 needles, the center one i knit on size 7 needles. as you can see, the middle one is about an inch shorter and not quite as heavily felted as the one on the right. the cozy on the left is knit with brown sheep lamb's pride yarn on size 7 needles. i didn't felt it as heavily as the one on the right so there is more stitch definition which is pretty much non-existent on the far right cozy.

not being able to leave this new found skill alone, i created these fingerless mitts.

they were a quick project - well, i guess that is a relative term without perimeters and for me, i guess that would be a day or two or 6 to 8 hours!

the yarn is blue moon fiber arts socks that rock lightweight in my all-time favorite color 'pond scum' combined with a nice variegated number whose name eludes me at this moment - truth be told, the skein band disappeared long ago!

i made pattern notes as i knit these and as soon as i find them i'll post the pattern. 

this technique is a good thing and i'll be giving it a go, again soon!

oh, yeah, btw, i did do some damage in the merchant mall area!!