Magical Realism

On the opposite end of the spectrum from my Pumpkin Pie sweater is this monster, which did not so much inspire introspection into the nature of craft as it did provoke spates of cursing and self-condemnation.

The pattern in question is Casapinka’s Magical Thinking, the Local Yarn Shawl of 2019. As in 2018, I found it difficult to resist the lure of a “free” pattern in support of my beloved LYS Warm ‘n Fuzzy. I’ve put “free” in quotation marks because you receive a download code for the shawl only when you purchase suitable yarn for the project on Local Yarn Store Day (the last Saturday in April).

That’s where the trouble began.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t begrudge my LYS one cent of the money I’ve paid for yarn, needles, notions, or knitting swag over the years. But I have no shortage of sock yarn shawls already, and within the framework of having no particular need for another sock yarn shawl, I definitely spent more money than I should have. Whereas my 2018 Local Yarn Shawl required two skeins of fingering weight, this year’s offering demanded three—three! As you might imagine, these hand-dyed beauties—a semi-solid, a tonal, and a speckle—came with a premium price tag. I do very much love the colors, though, both individually and together. That’s how they get you.

Everything would have been peachy if all I’d needed to do was assuage a bit of guilt for indulging in luxury yarn (a trivial inconvenience for the veteran knitter). At some point, no doubt around the time I had an armload of yarns I was auditioning for my next neck accessory, it dawned on me that I had, in fact, been suckered into yet another striped project. (If you’re wondering why three out of the four links lead to apparently solid-colored knits, it’s because I had to alternate skeins to manage dye lots/color transitions, which works the same as knitting contrasting color stripes).

“It’s fine,” I told myself. “It’s knit in the round. I can carry the unused yarn inside the work.”

This is…not really the case. There are a handful of places where you can carry the yarn, true, but it’s not possible to carry all three yarns all the way through from beginning to end. My sense of betrayal and disappointment (mostly with myself, to be clear) when I realized there were actually going to be a lot of ends to weave in did not contribute to an auspicious start to the knitting portion of this endeavor.

The pattern instructions were, quite frankly, not my favorite. For starters, there seems to be no consistent logic to when the first stitch of the round is slipped. It’s supposed to prevent a jog in the stripes, but slipping the first stitch isn’t indicated for every color change, nor is it omitted when the color stays the same. There’s probably some esoteric bit of stripe-knitting theory I’ve failed to grasp here, and that’s hardly the designer’s fault. Regardless, I struggled with the transition between the end of one round and the beginning of the next looking like a gappy, jagged mess the whole time I was knitting, even with the slipped stitches.

Then, there’s the explanation of the increase rounds. In theory economical but in presentation inelegant, the increase rounds caused more than a few minutes of puzzling on my end. “Do them as you do the first increase round” it says in bold, and “Note that increase rounds are defined in bold, above” it says, but then doesn’t specify whether it means the first increase round in each section (nope) or in the whole piece (yep, it’s this one). The stitch instructions for this foundational increase round are not themselves bolded for convenience, which is baffling when you consider they’re referenced throughout the remaining 6 pages of the pattern.

Eventually the entire thing became so big and unwieldy that not even novel changes in the texture held my interest; eventually “one more round” was not the breathless whisper of anticipation but the ragged mantra of someone who just wants the thing to end.

And, wonder of wonders, it finally did. The issues I had with the beginning of round transition disappeared with blocking, and, as is so often the case, the memory of my agitation during the making-up has dulled with time. I may not have loved a single minute of the process, but I’m pretty fond of the finished product—fond enough that I wore this exact outfit for my birthday party, back on a bitterly cold night in November. (I was supposed to wear a dress I’d made myself, but that’s a story for another day…)

Reciprocity

The first designer item I owned was a Vera Bradley purse I received from my parents for my high school graduation. Over the years my mom, my sister, and I each gathered a small collection of Vera Bradley bags and accessories in a smattering of colors and patterns. Despite our varying needs and tastes, we all agreed that the bucket bag was an eminently practical choice whenever you needed to carry the usual wallet, keys, phone, and personal items, but also sunglasses, two water bottles, an entire packet of tissues, a book, and maybe a snack.

My mom liked the bucket bag she owned, but wanted one in a solid color. After sweetly dropping hints both to me and to my sister to relay to me, I figured it was time I put my skills (such as they are) to use to make that wish a reality.

Fortunately, my sister had an old bag that was too worn out to carry around anymore, which she graciously sacrificed to my seam ripper. By taking the bag apart over several days and photographing each step, I was able to understand the construction and use the pieces as templates for a new bag.

The bag has an exterior zipper pocket, an interior zipper pocket, and three interior open-top pockets. It closes with a magnetic button. The straps are fixed. There’s a sleeve in the bottom of the bag for an insert to stabilize the base so that it doesn’t sag and the bag can stand up on its own; I took the insert from the deconstructed bag, which is just a piece of mat board or heavy cardboard, for use in my re-creation.

I didn’t make any modifications to the design or size, but I did opt to use a thick stable knit with a quilt-like pattern (leftover from this cosplay) for the shell instead of quilting together plain cottons. The lining is a polyester silky solid that I’d bought several years/moves ago for an ill-fated Sorbetto top.

I definitely saved on quilting time as a result of using a a “pre-quilted” fabric, but toward the end it was a challenge to feed the many layers of thick fabric through my machine. For the straps, my attempts to sew a tube and turn it right-side-out proved disastrous. I ended up cutting new straps, sewing one edge right sides together, opening the seam out, folding under the raw edges, and topstitching them in place, then topstitching the first seam to match. I didn’t even attempt to machine-stitch the bias binding that encloses the last raw edges on the inside bottom of the bag, preferring instead to wrestle everything into submission with hand-stitching.

If I were to attempt it again—and I think I might—I’d use a thinner shell fabric, but otherwise the construction is straightforward and didn’t require any special tools or techniques.

Judging by her reaction, my mom was pretty pleased with the outcome, and this bag has joined the rotation with her other favorites. For myself, I’m glad I could reciprocate the gift of a good bag that she once gave to me.

Making Gingerbread

Although these photos look more or less seasonable—heavy coat, thick scarf, let’s just ignore those exposed ankles—they were taken on the last cold day of spring in 2019. In fact, by the time we were finished shooting, I was starting to get a little steamy under all that wool.

If you think roughly nine months between cast off and debut is a long time, you’ll be positively boggled to know that this pattern, Gateway by Glenna C., is the oldest surviving entry in my Ravelry favorites. Ravelry very helpfully notes that I added it on March 24, 2012, meaning it had been marinating in the back of my brain for almost 7 years by the time I finally committed yarn and needles to it.

It would be rather convenient if I could chalk up that long wait to the difficulty of the pattern or the cost of the yarn, but the lace is easy to read and Quince & Co.’s 100% wool Lark is quite economically priced.

This was my first time knitting with a Quince & Co. yarn, which is another head-scratcher, since it was the first small-scale (at the time, anyway) yarn company I learned about as I was starting to branch out beyond craft store offerings and widely available commercial brands like Cascade and Berroco. While Lark isn’t as snuggly as a superwash merino, it’s smooth and plump and not at all unpleasant to knit with. (I’ve got nearly 1,000 yards of it under my fingers to prove it.)

The color, Gingerbread, continues my simmering love affair with dark orange and orange-y brown yarns (Andraste, Oxidation, More of a Bourbon Girl, and an as-yet-unblogged sweater). What can I say—I’m enchanted by the idea of having knits in the same color family as my hair. I’m a simple creature like that. (In every other way, however…)

If you’re interested in the rest of the specs, you can find them on my Ravelry project page.

On the subject of seasonally appropriate and thematically related things, I made gingerbread from scratch yesterday and it is amazing.

Firstly, it’s proper gingerbread, not ginger cookie of the sort used to make gingerbread folk or gingerbread houses—though to be very clear, I also love soft gingerbread cookies and crisp gingersnaps. A lot.

Secondly, it’s dark and molasses-y and not overly sweet, with the added benefit of filling the house with the sweet and spicy smell of gingery delight for the hour-long bake time. I’ve already had it as both dessert and breakfast, and there’s at least half a pan left to enjoy before the festive season is over. I highly recommend it.

On that note, I’m off to soak up a little more holiday cheer before I have return to my usual routine. Merry Christmas all!

Pomme

A quick entry on an exceedingly quick project. How quick? More than a weekend but less than a month. I know that I started it after I finished my Stone’s Throw cardigan, but before I started my next project at the beginning of February.

Normally I print out patterns to take notes on, but this is such a simple design that I downloaded the pattern to my phone and referenced it only a handful of times to make sure I got the proportions of ribbing and body correct and decreased the crown in a pleasing manner.

The pattern is Rocky Ridge Hat by Knox Mountain Knit Co., and it’s available as a free Ravelry download. The yarn is
Swans Island Washable Wool Collection DK, the leftovers from my cardigan. You can view my Ravelry notes here, but there’s precious little to say about it. I knit the adult medium size as written, including the length.

Can you believe this is my eleventh hat, but the first one with a pom pom? I know, me neither! When it comes to hats, I’m a fan of the whole genre, and I have no qualms about poms. In fact, I’m rather fond of them, and encourage them for others. But somehow none of my many beanies ended up with a dapper topper. Really, it was long overdue, and I’m glad the shortcoming was rectified.

This is also the first hat I’ve made that could be described as even remotely slouchy. Between you and me, I think it could have been slouchier, but the extra ease would have come at the expense of the pom pom, and that was a sacrifice I just wasn’t willing to make.

I foresee many more slouchy and/or be-pommed hats in my future. Until then, enjoy this ridiculous picture of my pom pom hype.

More of a Bourbon Girl

Caitlyn is sitting on a stone ledge around a fountain. She is wearing her Henslowe shawl wrapped around her neck like a bandana.

Caitlyn is holding up her Henslowe shawl to show it has a wingspan of about 4 feet and a depth of about 1 foot.

A close-up of Caitlyn holding the Henslowe shawl to show the shape is a shallow, rounded triangle

This is the Henslowe shawl by Beth Kling. The yarn is a delicious fingering-weight merino single from Neighborhood Fiber Co. called Rustic Fingering. The color is Ramblewood, a warm reddish-purplish brown semi-solid. If my notes are any indication, there’s very little to say about knitting up the pattern: it’s neatly written and easy to follow, with helpful designer’s notes sprinkled throughout and a clear construction diagram. No head-scratchers here, just a soothing knit from beginning to end that yields plush garter stitch and an interesting lace.

Of course, I’m not sure my notes ought to regarded as an authority, since they completely neglect to mention when I started or finished my Henslowe. (Fortunately, I seemed to have had the presence of mind to create a Ravelry project at the outset.)

Why do I (usually) remember to write down the date I start a knitting project, but never the date I finish? It hasn’t been that hard to train myself to print off a new pattern and jot the date in the upper right corner of the first page. Is it so much harder to bind off the last stitch, breathe a sigh of relief, and then pause to scribble a second date under the first before putting everything away?

I mean, I guess I don’t consider a knit really finished until the ends have been woven in and it’s been blocked (unless it’s a hat; I don’t bother to block those), so I’d have to wait until that’s done for it to count. But if I can take the time to painstakingly set all those pins in place, then pluck them out again, how much longer would it take to pull out the pattern again? Especially since I’m going to have to pull out the pattern again anyway to transcribe my on-the-fly hard copy notes in Ravelry.

If I can set aside the time to pick an outfit, do my hair and makeup, shoot photos, transfer said photos from camera to computer for editing, and write a blog post, then why oh why can’t I write down a mere six digits (four if I’m feeling truly lazy)?

Sure, calendar days aren’t a great proxy for time commitment: I don’t knit every day, and even on days when I do knit, I seldom knit for the same amount of time. And that doesn’t begin to touch the amount of time spent eyeing a project up and down, admitting something’s wrong, succumbing to weeping and/or gnashing of teeth, tinking, and re-knitting.

In truth, tracking the dates is barely helpful to me, and useless to anyone else—so why do I even care?

The best answer I can come up with is that I like seeing the ebb and flow of this hobby. I like knowing how many things I knit in a year. I like being able to see when I’ve focused on a single project and when I’ve juggled two or even three projects (as was the case here; I knit this shawl from start to finish in the middle of knitting a cardigan). I don’t need to have something to knit all of time, but I definitely get restless and cranky if I go too long without a project. “Why do I feel out of sorts when nothing is really wrong?” has on more than one occasion proved easy to diagnose by checking the finish date on my most recent project.

Filling out every field in Ravelry also satisfies my inner completionist. And what knitting project is complete without an  overwrought explanation for its made-up and irrelevant name? The pattern moniker, Henslowe, and the color of the yarn reminded me of Hennessy, a cognac. I do enjoy cognac in cooking, but I’m not one to drink it straight—when it comes to liquor, well, I’m more of a bourbon girl.