Tag: queue check

in the pipeline, august 2017

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I’ve just returned to Tromsø after about three weeks away, visiting friends and family in North America, but things aren’t going to slow down any time soon; in the next three weeks we are packing up our place as we prepare to leave Norway by the end of the month (my degree is well and truly finished, and we’re moving on to what’s next for us… but more on that at a later date), followed by some travel for academic conferences, and then hopefully moving on to our new home and starting to get settled there. In the meantime, I’m daydreaming of garments.

Tromsø’s summer hasn’t been much of a summer this year, as far as I can tell. Beyond a few spectacularly warm and beautiful days here and there, I think it’s been largely wet and chilly. Spending time in North American summer for three weeks was a little bit of a shock – I think I managed to be in Seattle for the hottest week of the year there – and I’d forgotten how much really hot weather makes me positively pine for autumn. So, garments…

I’m determined to get my Garland off the needles before I cast on any new garments (not to mention I’m still working on deadline knits, one of which is a sweater), but I’m on the second sleeve of Garland now and it feels like the end is near! So here’s a glimpse at the next several garments I’m planning to cast on, all of which I already have the yarn for.

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First up is the Mount Pleasant tee by Megan Nodecker of Pip & Pin. I’ve been fairly obsessed with this tee since I first caught sight of it on Ravelry, when it was still in the testing stages. I’ve got two skeins of a special yarn set aside for this one: a merino singles base from Garnsurr, which is a small, new indie hand dying company here in Norway that’s also a refugee integration project (you can read more about Garnsurr on their website in English – and if you’re in the NYC, Do Ewe Knit in Westfield, NJ is stocking their yarns!). This is a project I’m so pleased to support, and this blue is going to be pretty gorgeous knit up. I think I’ll probably cast on this one first once I’ve finished Garland. Incidentally, Megan has also started a video podcast on YouTube, so if you’re into knitting podcasts, you should check it out!

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Next up is the Ingen Dikkedarer Genser, or the No Frills Sweater as it’s known in English, by PetiteKnit (the pattern is available in Norwegian, English, Danish, and Swedish). This is a super simple fingering/sport weight sweater (one strand fingering held together with one strand lace mohair), and I found myself craving something just like this to wear during our lingering winter this year, especially around April/May. Warm and cozy, but lightweight and easy to wear. This one’s exciting because I’m going to use the Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine that I frogged during last year’s Slow Fashion October, and it’s good to find a new purpose for that yarn. I’m planning to hold it together with Pickles Silk Mohair in a similar dark grey, which I picked up in Oslo in May.

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Third up is a very special combination: Norah Gaughan’s Circlet Shrug from issue 3 of Making, knit up in an unusual-for-me shade of Hillesvåg Tinde, their sport/DK pelsull yarn (swoon – pelsull is the same fiber my Dalur is knit in; this is just a different weight). Looking at my existing sweater shelf, my affinity for blue, green, and especially grey comes through loud and clear, so between my pink Garland and this deep golden yellow shade, 2017 is turning into the year of getting out of my color comfort zone. It felt a bit crazy to buy this yarn, and when I got home the first thing I did was photograph it against my face to make sure I hadn’t made a huge mistake. And while this color still makes me feel like a slightly skittish cat when I look at the pile of skeins on their own, the photo helps me feel more confident in this decision. It’s a color I always find myself drawn to in autumn, so I’m willing to try it out in my wardrobe.

This was another pattern I fell in love with immediately the first time I saw it (it’s easy to obsess over those cables), and I hope this yarn will work out for it. The Tinde is a woolen-spun 2-ply in structure, so it’s not going to have the same amazing stitch definition as Brooklyn Tweed Arbor (which the sample was knit in), and the natural heathering of the yarn runs the risk of obscuring the cables further (although that natural depth, caused by the undyed grey shade of the yarn, is one of my favorite things about Hillesvåg’s pelsull yarns). So it’ll require a big and proper swatch to make sure I’m happy with the fabric before I move forward with it. And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be happy to use this yarn for something else – it’s a yarn I won’t really be able to get easily once we leave Norway, so I wanted to scoop it up before we go, as a kind of souvenir of my two years here.

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Are you thinking about fall yet, or does it feel too early to you? What kinds of things are you thinking of casting on in the near future?

queue check: may 2017

Dianna1 Comment

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I continue to be a fan of Karen Templer’s Queue Check posts over at Fringe Association as a way to keep track of knitting projects and to prioritize upcoming projects, and it’s been a little while since my last check-in on that front. I sent off a version of my thesis draft to my supervisor today – and while it still needs a lot more work in the next two weeks, I thought I’d take the evening off and do a little queue check of my own!

Starting with the projects mentioned in my previous queue check post from February: both pairs of socks mentioned in that post are off the needles and I’ve been wearing them constantly (they’re pictured above). I ended up working on them at the same time, and that seems to have started me on a trend of working one patterned pair and one plain pair of socks at the same time, which I’m really enjoying. Socks are definitely continuing to be soothing knits in a stressful time. I’ve finished a third pair since that post, which I haven’t mentioned on this blog yet, but I’m going to save all of that for another day for what will probably be a blog post dedicated solely to socks.

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I have two new pairs on the needles at the moment. The plain pair above is Lumineux by Ysolda Teague, which I’ve wanted to knit since it came out in last fall’s Knitworthy collection, because it looks like the coolest afterthought heel of all time. I’m knitting the vanilla sock version, not the textured one shown in the pattern photos, because the heel construction is the main thing I’m interested and I love the speckled yarn in plain stockinette. I’m using the We Love Knitting yarn from sweet Claire that I got at last year’s Oslo Strikkefestival, and it feels great to cast on with it after it’s been waiting on the shelf for a few months. I’m using the speckled blue and white as my main color (and I believe the colorway is called Icicle, which feels super apt because it makes me think of nothing so much as Elsa from Frozen) and the lovely tonal grey for my contrast heels and toes. On the bottom, the patterned pair of socks I’m working on is super special: Aimée of La Bien Aimée in Paris has a brand new colorway called Everything is Awesome, named after the song that Tegan and Sara did for the Lego movie, and it’s a silvery grey base with vibrant rainbow speckles. I love Tegan and Sara and this yarn has got to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever worked with – it is so much *fun*. My skein is on Aimée’s Merino Twist Sock base and I didn’t want to knit just vanilla socks with it, so I’m working up a pair of Speckled Space Socks by Amanda Stephens, which are proving to be really enjoyable. But enough about socks for now!

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Moving on to garments, I’ve finished my Norwegian wool Dalur (pictured at left), which I started in March for Tolt Icelandic Wool Month (and I blogged about my initial plans for it here). I’m planning a full FO post with proper photos for this one once my thesis is turned in, because I love this sweater and I love Norwegian wool and I want to give myself space to say everything I want to say. For now, just know that I’m super happy with how it came out and I look forward to sharing it with you properly. I do still have a greyscale garment on the needles, however – last month I finally cast on for my Bruntsfield vest (pictured right), another Ysolda pattern. I first swatched for it nearly a year ago last May, around the same time I swatched for my Sandneskofte, and I am absolutely loving how it’s working up – the colorwork has proven very addicting, even with the frequent color changes and spit splicing of yarn. I’m nearly through the main part of the body and will be adding steeks for the armholes and the V-neck soon. This one also happens to be Norwegian wool (Rauma Finullgarn) so even though it’s a very different garment, it feels like a cousin to my Dalur somehow.

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I’m wanting to clear my needles of old WIPs as well, so I recently picked up a project I started last year which has been hibernating for months and months: my Loess wrap (pattern by Christine de Castelbajac for Brooklyn Tweed), which I’m calling Sommarøya after a nearby island with beautiful turquoise waters whose name means “summer island.” This one’s a laceweight project, although it actually moves fairly quickly on US 5 / 3.75mm needles, so it feels like I could finish it this summer. I’m knitting it in a merino silk hand dyed yarn, Soft Like Kittens Nestling Lace, which is super beautiful. Annette of Soft Like Kittens stopped dying regularly a few years ago so I’m so pleased to have gotten one of the lace weight yarns she did (of which there weren’t all that many, I believe). The colorway is called Pool Tile, which only adds to the summer vibe of this project, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s going to be a lovely lightweight summer scarf when it’s finished.

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I have some upcoming projects on the brain as well. I’m planning a Zara tee in Quince & Co. Sparrow with one of the new marled shades, Mineral (I seriously adore these new Quince & Co. marls, you guys), and I’m planning to use the luxe Blue Sky Fibers Metalico in Platinum as my contrasting color. While that one will absolutely continue the greyscale garments trend I have going so far this year, the other planned project definitely bucks that trend and even gets me out of my usual color comfort zone entirely – I’m planning a Garland by Stefanie Pollmeier from Pom Pom issue 7 with some super gorgeous yak lace from welthase, which is a luxurious lace weight merino/silk/yak blend. I’ll be using the colorway Rosen, which is a subtle dusty pink that positively glows. Something about the spring months puts pink on my mind, even if it’s still too early for any kind of blossoms in Tromsø. This one will be my project for the Pomfest KAL, the knitalong taking place in conjunction with Pom Pom Quarterly‘s fifth anniversary celebrations – but more on that later!

Once I’ve laid it all out like that, it seems like an awful lot of knitting. But for various reasons we don’t really need to go into here, I’ve been seeking out comfort constantly lately, and for me that’s meant an hour or two of knitting before bed every night while listening to Harry Potter audiobooks. I can think of worse things, can’t you?

project planning: soothing knits

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I mentioned on Instagram this week that I’ve been in a little bit of a slump lately. I’m sure there are several contributing factors – the slog of mid-winter (and so far one with much less snow than usual), the feelings that come with the weird middle stretch of my thesis work (totally normal, but hard to shake all the same), and the political situation back in my home country (let’s just go with “it’s a mess” and not say any more about that here, shall we?). I also fell of the metaphorical horse with my exercise plan after several months of working out regularly and it’s been hard to find my way back in. Exercise makes a huge difference when you’re feeling down, or at least it does for me. Nonetheless, I feel like I’m on the upward curve again, thankfully.

A trip to Montreal at the end of January helped with that. I’ve been before, but it’s still not a city I know very well, so there’s so much to explore – and as a result, seemingly endless inspiration. I popped into La Maison Tricotée while I was there on a beautifully sunny Sunday, where I picked up a skein of sock yarn as a souvenir. That seemed like a great way to kick off a post of my upcoming knitting plans – and I think you’ll sense a theme: soothing, repetitive knits.

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The skein of sock yarn I brought back from Montréal is Riverside Studio‘s Merino Cashmere Nylon fingering in the colorway Storm. I’ve knit exactly one pair of socks using a sock yarn with cashmere – these plain stockinette socks in Dream in Color’s Smooshy with Cashmere – and they shot to the top of my “favorites to wear” list almost immediately. The cashmere feels so luxurious. So when I saw a merino cashmere base at La Maison Tricotée, I jumped on it. Riverside Studio was new to me, but Kat is located in Farrellton, Québec, not too far from Ottawa, and it felt good to bring something home from a Québecois dyer. I like these colors, too, and the way they bring to mind winter to me – on some of Kat’s other bases, this color seems a bit bluer and more saturated, but something about the merino/cashmere/nylon base takes the color a little bit differently, and it really feels like it suggests snow, water in the mist, the sea reflecting snow clouds, and bare branches all at once.

I plan to make a pair of Siv socks with this yarn, from the first issue of Laine magazine. Another of my all-time favorite pairs of socks is my Twisted Flower socks, from the pattern by Cookie A – but I know that the allover traveling-stitches-and-lace pattern will be too much for me when I’m working to get my thesis done. Siv’s panel of traveling stitches feels like a nice compromise. But I won’t be starting these until I finish my current sock project…

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When I got back from Montréal I started a pair of Fika socks, with this springy green Jorstad Creek BFL Tweed Sock yarn. The twisted rib leg and stockinette foot definitely counts as repetitive and soothing right now, and I’ve wanted to make a pair of Fika socks since the issue of Pom Pom that they’re in first came out – nearly two years ago now. I’ve been wanting to use the yarn even longer – it’s been in my stash since 2013, since I bought it at Knit Fit in Seattle, where I had a booth at the marketplace and the Jorstad Creek both was right across from mine. I’m about halfway through the first sock now and it feels so good to finally use a yarn that’s just been languishing in the stash for years.

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I’ve also been thinking about what I want to do with these two skeins of Woolfolk Tynd in Pewter. I bought them back in 2014 and I originally planned to make a pair of Fure armwarmers from Woolfolk’s first pattern collection with them, but I’ve gone this long without casting on even though I really want to work with this yarn. So I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s probably not the right pattern for me (and besides, my Inglis mitts are plenty long for me, it turns out). Again, I’ve been thinking about patterns that are soothing and repetitive, which will fill a gap in my wardrobe, and I’m pretty sure some kind of simple cowl would be a good way to go here. The Woolfolk is really soft, which makes it an ideal next-to-the-skin sort of yarn, and a cozy cowl I can tuck into the top of my coat when it’s not cold enough for a big scarf sounds fantastic. I’m not totally set on this yet, but I’m thinking about Lilac Wine by Amy Christoffers, which is a perfect blank canvas for a really beautiful yarn to shine. (Note that Amy’s site no longer seems to be active, so clicking the link on Ravelry will give you an error message, but you can copy/paste the direct link into the Wayback Machine at archive.org to access it). For a stretchy cowl, the difference in yarn weight isn’t an issue.

There are more projects in the pipeline, but I’m trying not too get too ahead of myself as long as my thesis is my main focus. But these are some of the projects and yarns I’m looking forward to the most. Interestingly, two of these involve a lot of 1×1 ribbing and one involves traveling stitches – and I recognize that for some folks, neither of those things says “soothing.” So I’m curious: what kind of knitting is most soothing for you? Are there particular kinds of yarns, projects, or stitch patterns you gravitate towards when you want some easy comfort knitting? I’d love to know!

project updates

DiannaLeave a comment

Since the whole idea of my queue check of sorts from a few weeks back was to hold myself accountable to my plan, I figured I’d post a follow up! I’ll start with the good news:

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I finished the Hugin and Munin mittens! As I mentioned in the earlier post, these only needed thumbs, so once I had time to sit down and chart them out, the knitting itself was pretty quick. I’m so pleased with how these turned out, and even more pleased that they’re finally done! The Rauma Finullgarn is so fantastic for mittens, and since these are knit at a fine gauge (on US 1 / 2.25mm needles) they’ll be very warm.

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I also powered through and finished my Inglis Mitts in time to wear them this year before it’s too cold! Already I’m wearing them without the top folded down a majority of the time, so they’re extra long. My project page now also incredibly has an absurd number of faves on Ravelry, since Sarah featured my mitts in a community eye candy post on the Ravelry blog (thanks Sarah!). And if you’ve been eyeing the Inglis Mitts but didn’t get the Edinburgh Yarn Fest magazine in which they were originally published, I’m really happy to be able to let you know that they’re now available as an individual pattern on Ravelry.

I’ve also made some progress on my Dunaway scarf, though I have yet to finish it. I think that’s probably top of the priority list now.

The neutral news: I haven’t touched my Sandneskofte since I last posted about it, but I still have plenty of time to finish it before the Oslo Knitting Festival, so I’m not too worried about that.

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The curve ball: many of you probably saw on Instagram that I did end up casting on something new after all. It was one of those times where you get an idea in your head and it just takes hold – I tried to push it to the back of my mind for later, but this was one was stubborn. I got an idea for a stripe sequence that would use up a bunch of worsted weight yarn in my stash and I couldn’t get it out of my head. After a couple of days of trying not to think about it, I gave in and decided to work up a little swatch to test the sequence of stripes to see if it would work out in real life the way it was working out in my head. And oh, it did. I wrote last time about how satisfying it is to find a happy marriage of stash yarn and pattern, and once I saw that this stripe sequence would work, imagining the sweater I could use it on was the easiest thing imaginable. And so I threw caution to the wind. I decided to join in on this year’s Fringe and friends KAL with my stripes, so I’m working my way through an improvised top-down pullover. To make it go quickly so as not to disrupt my existing project plans too much, I’ve worked the whole thing seamlessly in the round, with purl columns on the sides of the body in case I want to seam the sides. Stockinette in the round is my speediest knitting, and on US 8 / 5mm needles it is flying along. It’s ready for the sleeves, but I think I’ll knit those flat.

I’d like to wrap this up soon, but I think I should finish the Dunaway scarf first! And so that’s my planned weekend knitting. What will you be working on this weekend?

in the queue: simple knits

DiannaLeave a comment

It’s been wool weather off and on since I arrived in Tromsø, so there’s been a lot of wearing of hats, scarves/cowls, and fingerless mitts. I have a lot of beautifully patterned accessories – textured knits or pieces featuring colorwork – and I love those, but I’ve realized I’m craving simple accessories at the moment. Pieces that are a single color and either plain stockinette or ribbing keep drawing my eye. I’ve updated my queue to reflect that, so here’s what I’m currently daydreaming about casting on for:

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Fure by Olga Buraya-Kefelian. These were part of the first collection for Woolfolk yarn, and I’ve had it queued for awhile. I have the necessary yarn in my stash: two beautiful skeins of Tynd, in Pewter. I have a feeling these are going to be a tedious knit (the length plus the twisted rib pattern make for repetitive and fiddly knitting) but I love the end result so much. The length of these is especially appealing, too – the ability to wear them long, bunch them up, or fold over the top makes them really versatile. I’m hoping to pair them up with this cardigan, which has bracelet-length sleeves and has become a little bit of a uniform these days, but I expect by the time I actually get these knit I’ll be needing heavier layers.

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Middle Fork by Veronika Jobe. This hat was released over the summer as part of the Camp Tolt collection and I even have one of the little leather sheep patches that can be sewn on (as seen here). Middle Fork feels like a perfect basic ribbed beanie and I love the FOs I’ve seen. The pattern calls for Green Mountain Spinnery Mewesic, a yarn I do not have on hand, but I thought one of the skeins of the Norwegian pelsull from Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk pictured above might make an excellent substitute. The pelsull was actually my first yarn purchase post-move, so I’d love to use it for something that’s going to get a lot of wear. Now the only question is: which color?

Do you have simple staples in your handknit wardrobe or do you tend toward more complicated knits? Or maybe you have a good mix of both? I’d love to hear about your favorite patterns for simple knits in the comments!