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Episode 168

May 7, 2017May 9, 2017 by Sara

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This episode features the following segments: The Back Porch, The Front Porch, and Gratitude Journal. This episode includes a giveaway. Listen and post here for a chance to win!

The Back Porch

Socks with a double gusset heel, knit with speckled yarn from Beesybee fibers
Comments from Cristi Payne regarding her double gusset heel

The Front Porch

thread for #summertopsmal
Jasmine Tea by Amanda Bell, knit in Blacker Yarns Alpaca 2-3 ply and Devon Grey Wesleydale
Tsumuzikaze by michiyo

Gratitude Journal

Describe your region of kindness and enter to win a goodie bag from the retreat, plus a quilted bag made by Fernanda!

Click photos for links to shops, etc.

So grateful for the incredible women who knit, and shopped, and laughed with me over the course of the Knit Local Getaway. photo credit – Kristy Lauricella

The common room at St. Mary's Lodge is our home base. — The common room at St. Mary’s Lodge is our home base.

Carole of Foster Sheep Farm put together some great kits for the Bousta Beanie. You'll find her vending at Maryland Sheep and Wool and New Hampshire Sheep and Wool. — Carole of Foster Sheep Farm put together some great kits for the Bousta Beanie. You’ll find her vending at Maryland Sheep and Wool and New Hampshire Sheep and Wool.

Battenkill Fiber Mill is a great stop with a tour of the mill and some shopping. Can you tell how happy this sport-weight Shetland makes me? photo credit – Kristy Lauricella

Jessica mixed up an indigo vat and led us in the basics of indigo dying muslin and cotton project bags.

We raised $470 for 4H programs in Washington County, helping young people like Ella learn animal husbandry, fiber arts, and much more. photo credit – Kristy Lauricella

Jessica and Marybeth helped me attend to retreat details! photo credit - Kristy Lauricella — Jessica and Marybeth helped me attend to retreat details! photo credit – Kristy Lauricella

Arrows and Doorways

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!

NEW PATTERN DESIGN!

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.

Yarns at Yin Hoo

Episode 168

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