podcasts

Episode 5

September 12, 2013April 14, 2017 by Sara

This week’s episode includes the following segments: Double Happiness, Yarn Lover at Large, The Back Porch and The Front Porch.

Double Happiness

Knitting and listening to jazz while sipping wine and nibbling cheese and sopressata on a sunny September afternoon is really the best life has to offer. This weekend, I took advantage of the time to work on a few projects while visiting with friends on the hill at the Delaware Water Gap Jazz Festival. If you ever visit the Poconos the weekend after Labor Day, put the jazz fest on your list. Here’s a photograph of the ambience, with my Sockhead Hat by Kelly McClure on my lap. I used the very stretchy cast on method in Tillybuddy’s YouTube tutorial.

Yarn Lover at Large

Laura Nelkin is well-known for her knitted and beaded jewelry designs. I was lucky to take her class on knitting the mudra cuff at my local yarn shop, Mountain Knits and Pearls in East Stroudsburg, PA. My skill set expanded as I learned to string beads before knitting, use double-pointed needles, and anchor I-cord onto a ringed clasp. Check out Laura’s blog for more details about her whirlwind weekend of teaching in Pennsylvania. And if you ever get a chance to take one of her classes — sign up without hesitation.

The Back Porch

After two weeks of intentional spinning, I completed my handspun from mixed Blueface Leicester in the Country Cottage color. This fiber, from Beesybee, spun up very nicely into 447 yards of sport weight, 2-ply yarn for the Batad capelet by Stephen West. I had a lot of fun wringing the water out by hand — becoming a human salad spinner and spraying water all over the leaves of the hostas in my garden.

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus

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Laura Brownlee says:

September 12, 2013 at 5:36 am

Hello Sara,
I am new to Yarns at Yin Hoo, episode 4 being my introduction. I am not a knitter or spinner, so you may be curious why I am interested in listening. I choose to listen in the quiet, wee hours of the morning when my mind is not preoccupied with my usual thoughts; I am transported “out of my box” and into a direction with an unknown destination by following along with your terminology, techniques, etc.. I enjoy listening to you speak of your own quest for learning and eagerness to experiment and create, and your pride in what you’ve accomplished. I also find it interesting hearing about the influential people you meet along the way, i.e. instructors, shop owners, fellow knitters. I like to look closely at the accompanying photos and marvel at how accurately descriptive you are! The expressions I hear in your voice make me smile along (I can envision you spinning your arm and spraying your hostas!) I am impressed at the depth you immersed yourself into this new hobby/interest and the wealth of knowledge you share, from information regarding the fibers to the names of the products. You are quite inspirational! Not in the way that causes me to take up knitting, but these are things that I can apply to my own interests, so I thank you for that. I look forward to future episodes.

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 5

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