Fine Kettle

Fall of 2008. I had been working at Lakeside Fibers for a year and a half. “Hey,” said my bosslady, “have you seen this new online magazine, Twist Collective?” Ten minutes later appearing in Twist Collective one day became one of my life goals.

This is Fine Kettle, my pattern from Spring/Summer 2013.

I had been submitting to Twist for a little over a year before this one was accepted. I have never ever felt bad when they turned me down; the patterns they put out are always so amazing there just wasn’t any point to feeling bad. And if I’m honest, I’m delighted they rejected the first two things I submitted because they were WAY above my skill level at the time. Now before I submit anything for publication I make sure that I have thought through every step and every eventuality. By the time I write a submission, I am sure that I can do it.

When the Call for this issue went out there were photos of fish on the mood boards. I love fish even though I’m afraid of them (aquariums are a wonderful combination of beauty, fascination, and horror) so I decided I was going to do some kind of Fish shawl. Of course, any shawl I design is going to be a Combination Shawl, because I am obsessed. I messed around with my stitch dictionaries for a while, and then I started thinking about scales . . . scales that got larger and larger as the shawl progressed! Why, I could HIDE the Combination increases INSIDE the scales! It would be the cleverest thing I ever did.

Lots of swatching later I was very happy with my increase-hiding scales, but unsure about how to finish the edge. I needed something to help counteract the stockinette stitch curl that was inevitably going to happen at the hem, and for this pattern it seemed like the solution was garter stitch. I didn’t want to just slap some garter stitch on the edge though – it needed to flow somehow. The fish needed some tails.

 

 

 

 

 

The swatch and drawing above are what I ended up with. Then I took a step back and realized that I had just designed a gigantic slipped stitch shawl that looked like a fish. “Oh well,” I said to myself. “It’s not like they’re going to get another submission for a gigantic slipped stitch shawl that looks like a fish.” Besides, it was too late. I was already in love with it.

But they accepted it, and got me beautiful yarn, we put together a beautiful pattern, and they had Jane Heller do some stunning photography.

The shawl begins with one long starter tab (I love a good starter tab) and then goes immediately into the fish scale pattern. The scales are all slipped stitches; you only use one strand of yarn at a time, and the wrong side rows are all “slip the slipped stitches and purl the purl stitches” so they’re about as easy as they can be.

The garter stitch edges are worked entirely in the main color, which means that technically the shawl has a bit of intarsia. Trust me though – it’s about the easiest intarsia ever. And it’s worth it to create those lovely unbroken main color edges.

The shawl finishes with garter stitch fishtails, inset into the last section of scales. The garter fishtails increase according to Pi Logic, so they have lots of extra drape.

Of course, from the photos you can automatically tell that one of the best parts is the yarn. Sunshine Yarns Merino Silk Fine was the perfect yarn for this project – soft, beautifully drapey, silky, and shiny. I’ve had some questions through Ravelry about the actual yardage used; my notes indicate that I used about 730 yards of the Main Color and 630 yards of the Contrast. If you are getting a different gauge, you’ll use a different amount of yarn.

I am beyond delighted with how this has turned out and working with Twist was absolutely lovely. I hope you like my Fine Kettle and are inspired to knit a gigantic slipped stitch shawl that looks like a fish of your very own.

Rockin’ Sock Club – March Shipment

The March Shipment of the Rockin’ Sock Club arrived weeks ago, but I’ve been waiting until Spoiler Time was over to show you. And here it is:

The yarn is Lightweight in the color Hope Springs Eternal, and I just think it’s lovely. So beautiful and subtle, and I’m just so happy about the first two packages this year – I loved Portland Plaid too.

The scarf pattern, Chaos, is very cool, it’s all about cables and braids and knitted fringe. It’s not really the kind of thing I’m into though, so I’m thinking that the socks, Petrosinella, are for me. They looks like fairly straightforward cables-and-lace, but we’ll see when I get into the pattern. You know, the next time I have a moment to myself.

But really, the home run of this package is the beautiful, beautiful yarn.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

I tried reading this several years ago but didn’t get past the first 30 pages. I can see why.

Connie married Clifford Chatterley during The Great War. They had a few weeks together before he was injured in battle and now he’ll spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Connie becomes his caretaker and the mistress of Wragby, the family estate. It’s a very lonely life and much of her time is spent wandering alone in the park, or listening to endless conversations between Clifford and his sexless male friends about what’s wrong with women today.

A new gamekeeper comes to Wragby, Oliver Mellors, who grew up in the village. After the war he stayed in the army and went to India, but then his Colonel died and he almost died of pneumonia, so he’s home to start a new life and recuperate. Connie and Mellors aren’t even attracted to each other at first, but soon begin an affair that quickly replaces all other considerations in their lives.

It’s a great book, to be clear, but there is a lot of long-winded, hand-wringing philosophical exposition about men and women and sex in the first half. I know that one of the themes of my Tell Me A Story posts is that I don’t like books that tell, I want books to show. This book mostly tells, but in this case it works. Connie doesn’t have anyone to talk to for most of the book and she’s one of those people who is almost entirely in her own head (I’m one of those people too). In this case all the telling makes sense.

I don’t know that I would have understood the book if I had finished it a few years ago. This time, after getting just a short way into it, I couldn’t put it down.

Guadalupe River Set

My new patterns from Hill Country Weavers are out! I present to you the Guadalupe River Set, photographed by the amazing Kennedy Berry.

They are a stole and tam knit from three colors of Brooklyn Tweed LOFT, which might be the lightest, softest, most wonderful, perplexing yarn ever. It is so light that it weighs barely anything, and the stole is so thin and flowy that even though it’s a bit huge (the sample shown is the large and it’s pretty gigantic) I wore it around as a scarf after finishing it – doubled with both ends threaded through the loop – and it looked amazing.

The stole is worked from end to end, but it’s not just a straightforward chevron pattern. I wanted it to have some curve and some wave to take advantage of the surprising amount of drape in the LOFT, so there are short rows worked in pattern. You can see them in the photo below; they help add some interest to the pattern and mean that the inside edge is shorter than the outside edge. It’s quite a dramatic difference.

I’m very pleased with the tam as well. I wrote the instructions to help hide the join where the colors change from one round to another and I daresay, the change is invisible from the outside. I’m always so pleased when I can get a little detail like that right.

Working with Hill Country Weavers has been one of the great joys of living in Austin and I feel so lucky to be a part of their pattern collection. They’re doing some incredible things and the patterns and the photos just keep getting better and better.

I love the colors the samples are knit in, but I think I’d like to make some for myself in some greens. LOFT has lovely greens.

If you have any questions about the patterns please let me know! You can get them together as a set in the store or on Ravelry.

Lucky Ewe in Gruene

Of course, one of the most important parts of the Gruene trip was finding the yarn store, The Lucky Ewe. It’s a nice size and has some good yarn, but they also had weaving and spinning equipment, which I always like to see, and a great line of naturally dyed yarn called Wool Tree – I may be going back for that.

The woman minding the store overheard me talking about weaving with my mother and showed me a great new book – Color and Texture in Weaving. I’ve only been able to flip through it so far, but it looks amazing. I haven’t been paying enough attention to weaving for the past few years – I still don’t have a loom so my interest in weaving has been left to smolder, but just looking briefly at the book has restarted my fire.

I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo Sock. You may remember me grousing about a pair of mitts in the fall with a thumb gusset that was making me mental. They were in Mal Sock too, and if I’m honest I wanted an excuse to frog them and draw a line under the whole affair. Getting the new Pink is my excuse. They’re a bit blinding when put together, but they make my brain spark with ideas for colorwork!

I want to reskein the green and wash it, but then I’ll be good to go!

Lucky me.

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