podcasts

Episode 31: Love me some flannel

March 26, 2014 by Sara

This episode includes the following segments: The Back Porch, The Front Porch, and Ever-expanding Skill Set.

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The Back Porch

This week I completed Round 1 of Sock Madness by finishing my Brucie socks. This very clever pattern by Amy Rapp was a lot of fun to knit. Since I was on a field trip that yielded a lot of knitting time, I was also able to complete two other quick projects. Purl Soho has a great tutorial for the Bandana Cowl. This pattern is easy and fun, and is idea for men and women — and kids too. I think it’s a great project to turn 4 ounces of bulky 2-ply handspun into wearable art. I’m very pleased with the way mine came out. For the wraps and turns in the pattern, I turned to Alice Yu’s tutorial on shadow wraps, which can be found on the Socktapus blog. Since learning about the Sockhead hat, I think I will always have one of those on the needles. I just finished the one I started at VKL in NYC. The SockEase yarn in rock candy is nice, sturdy yarn. I’ve already started another hat, and I have a ball of SockEase in lemon drop to continue the project.

The Front Porch

My first order from Highland Handmades came in the mail and I immediately started a new project. Deviate by Lisa Mutch is an asymmetrical shawl pattern with a zig-zagging spine, garter stitch and stockinette stitch. It is working up beautifully in Heather’s yarn. I mean BEAUTIFULLY. The colorway is Fresh Flannel and the base is White Maple Sock, which is 100% superwash merino.

Ever-expanding Skill Set

This week, I’ve been experimenting with harissa, a North African spice blend of hot peppers, other herbs and spices, and oil. Because of the oil, it’s a condiment or sauce. I like the balance of mint and peppers — it doesn’t need to be searingly hot. And a home cook can really improvise with this stuff. Tonight, I’m drizzling it over some leftover mashed potatoes. For more ideas of how to make and use harissa, check out this series of recipes from The Huffington Post.

Once you get a spice into your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I’m taking with me when I go. — Erma Bombeck

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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