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Episode 98: Attentive

November 15, 2015April 11, 2016 by Sara

This episode includes the following segments: The Back Porch, The Front Porch, Sheep to Shawl, Ever-expanding Skill Set, And Sew Forth. Thank you to everyone who has responded with such positive comments to Episode 97. Mom and I had a great time recording the Piecast. Hopefully, you were inspired to open the doors to your baking pantry and try something new, or bake an old favorite. Post photographs of your baking on the #powerpantry thread for November and you’ll have a chance to win a $25 gift card to the Three Irish Girls yarn store.

Mentioned in this episode:

brioche hat by Purl Soho
all-in-one-piece korknisse
Miranda by Josée Paquin
Fiber Craft Studio’s one year course; now enrolling for 2016
how to win a $25 gift certificate to Three Irish Girls
Ginger Apple Torte
Schoolhouse Tunic by Sew Liberated
Pearl Shift Dress by Green Bee Patterns

Craft is a link between contemplation and action.

– D. M. Dooling, introduction to A Way of Working

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 98: Attentive

Mentioned in this episode:

Craft is a link between contemplation and action.

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