Yarns at Yin Hoo

A Podcast About the Fiber Arts and Other Post Apocalyptic Skills

podcasts

Episode 68: Thrummed

Yin Hoo is covered in snow and there has been a lot of shoveling to do . . . but I’m trying to take advantage

February 3, 2015February 3, 20153 Min Reading

Episode 67: Handwork

Snow has covered the ground at Yin Hoo and there’s more on the way. Hopefully there will be enough time between shoveling sessions to work

January 26, 2015January 26, 20154 Min Reading

Episode 66: Orientation

This week’s episode includes the following segments: Ever-expanding Skill Set, Off the Shelf, The Back Porch, The Front Porch, Yarn Lover at Large, Double Happiness,

January 19, 2015January 19, 20153 Min Reading

Episode 65: Gertrude Gets a Job

Happy New Year! The has been much more wintry this week. In this episode, I provide some tips for pantry organization. On New Year’s Day,

January 4, 20153 Min Reading

Episode 64: Ewe-ltide Greetings

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you enjoy this episode, recorded along the Delaware River–unscripted and without segment titles. I do a great deal of chin

December 29, 2014January 3, 20153 Min Reading

Episode 63: More than Sweet

It’s the holiday season and I go on a bit about the Christmas decorations at Yin Hoo. This episode contains the following segments: Ever-expanding Skill

December 20, 2014December 20, 20141 Min Reading

Episode 62: (a different kind of) Gift Knitting

I also announce the winners of November’s Bulk Bins Cook-along and Another Door Opens. This week’s segments include: Chin Waggin’, The Back Porch, The Front

December 5, 20141 Min Reading

Episode 61: Warping & Weeping

This week’s episode includes the following segments: The Back Porch, Chin Waggin’, The Front Porch, A Little Bit of Learning, and Double Happiness. You’ll hear

November 23, 20141 Min Reading

The design for this super-cozy cowl was inspired by textiles in a hotel lobby. Concentric geometric shapes kept playing in my mind until finally I was able to chart the pattern and get it onto my needles. The interplay of this chevron-like patterning has a mesmerizing effect–while you’re knitting and when you wear the finished accessory.

Knit up a cowl with yarn from your stash, adding some magical new mini-skeins from your advent calendar, or exchange leftover yarn with a friend. The design invites frequent color changes, and makes an ideal knit for the advent season. It could be just as striking knit with two high-contrast colors.

While most cowls of this type are seamed within a band of a single color, this pattern incorporates a technique called stranded donut grafting, an incredibly clever and completely seamless graft that allows you to maintain colorwork patterning so that your starting and ending rounds are undetectable. Really! With many possibilities for color play and a new technique to add to your skill set, this cowl pattern is really an opportunity for knitters to level-up!

ONE DARK BLUE NIGHT

This hat is the third in a series of patterns inspired by teachings in Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves. This time, I drew inspiration from Estés’ retelling of a Japanese tale, Tsukina Waguma or “The Crescent Moon Bear,” in which a young woman travels to the cave of an incredibly intimidating and ferocious bear. She makes several journeys to the cave, leaving food and quickly retreating, until “one dark blue night,” she musters the courage to stand her ground and ask for what she seeks--one hair from a moon-shaped patch on the bear’s chest--which she is granted. The young woman returns, triumphant, to the old healer who has sent her on this quest. She believes this single hair is the magic ingredient in solving the problem that plagues her. She holds it forth, but the healer tosses the hair into the flames. The young woman is in despair until she realizes the true lesson of her quest: that using her determination, courage, and patience, as she did with the crescent moon bear, will help her to confront the challenge at hand.

The moon phase motif of this colorwork hat is meant to capture the magic of a dark blue night--when the moon shines brightly overhead, the frosty air sparkles with possibility, and we succeed in summoning accumulated wisdom from deep within ourselves so that we can apply it to our own healing. Choose colors to conjure a wintery night sky, or select a palette of your signature colors.

Available on Ravelry December 20th.