podcasts

Episode 216

February 9, 2019 by Sara

In this episode I share the details of my newest sock design, Venus & Cupid, as well as completed and just-begun knitting projects. As I often do on this podcast, I investigate how poetry helps me to consider important subjects. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been turning to the poems of Lucille Clifton, both as a source of personal healing and because Clifton’s has been such an important voice on the topics of race and identity.

News and Notes

Venus & Cupid is available for digital download on Ravelry at a special introductory price until midnight EST 2.10.19. Your purchase helps to support the work I do in recording and publishing episodes of the Yarns at Yin Hoo podcast.

Do you have an interest in contributing to the Barbara Walker Knitting Project? Find out more on the Tatter website. While you’re there, check out the workshops and classes available at the workspace in Brooklyn, New York. I fell in love with this stitch pattern, Carillon, which is named for bells in a bell tower, but which reminds me of seed pods.

Mary Jeanne Packer of the Battenkill Fiber Mill is taking a trip to Denmark and invites you to join her this fall. The Knitters Tour of Denmark promises to be a delight for any fiber enthusiast.

The Back Porch

I’m so pleased to finally be wearing the Hog Island fiber that started out as a shared fleece with Emily of FibreTown. Over the course of a year and a half, I scoured the fleece, made carded batts, spun a three-ply worsted-weight yarn, dyed it with indigo, and knit a poncho of my own design.

The Front Porch

I’m working on Nimue (bottom right), one of the designs I’ve selected for the MakeNine challenge in 2019. I love the drape of silky wool, and the deep chocolate color I chose is very close to the sample pictured. I think this piece will be a good fit in my wardrobe; the weight of the garment makes it appropriate for several seasons.

Off the Shelf

In this segment, I mention a few different entry points into the poetry of Lucille Clifton. If you’re new to Clifton’s work, the best way to begin, in my opinion, is “Homage to My Hips.” Even better, watch her read it! You can find this poem, and many other frequently-anthologized works, in her collection Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir. If you’re already familiar with Clifton, I suggest that you investigate Generations, which is the title of her memoir in verse and which appears at the end of Good Woman. When I first encountered it, about fifteen years ago, it really broke open what I thought was possible in terms of personal narrative, storytelling, and verse. To me, it is an American epic. Finally, I share a Lucille Clifton poem that has held personal significance to me over the past year: 1994.

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 216

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