Souvenirs

I am not a collecter of tchokies. When I travel, I generally always end up coming home with exactly what I left home with, except for a couple memory cards for my camera laden with images or something really unique and beautiful that I will treasure forever. Moving around a bit and not knowing where you might call home next are big players in this habit, and I also have no love for the act of dusting in which tchokies on the shelf love to attract.

Alas, I have a downfall: the odd skeins of local yarns that would be impossible to find anywhere else.

While France and most of Europe is filled with yarn of the mill-spun and commercial variety (functional but boring), every now and then I end up someplace that has something special. True, none of the yarns I picked up in Denmark were remarkably soft, but they have a lovely rustic appeal that I love. The brown skein of yarn is spun from sheep in Greenland. I didn't even know there were sheep in Greenland, but whatever they are, they make Icelandic Lopi seem soft as cashmere in comparison. The dark gray is probably Gotland, the grey a blend of local breeds from the Falklands. Wintery yarns made so that both man and beast are at ease surviving in a harsh climate.

I've been knitting quite a bit lately as being on the road a lot means I have plenty of time to stitch away. My goal for the summer months is to knock out a couple lace shawls and at least 3 sweaters, and perhaps a few gifts as well. I have also decided that I can't leave France with more yarn than I brought here, so I'll be whittling this down from the rubbermaid shipping container I brought from New York that I can barely notice a dent in so far.

FO: Fortnight Hat

BT Shelter has fast become one of my favorite yarns.



It's a blend of Targhee and Columbia wools, very lofty and springy. It's a rustic, imperfect tweedy yarn, and it knits up to almost a velvety texture.

I brought along a hat pattern and a skein on my Rhinebeck weekend trip to have something simple to work on. This is the Fornight pattern from Jared Flood. He's really masterful at writing patterns to suit his yarn.



So I cheated a little bit and I decided to work the garter stitch section flat, instead of in the round as it is written. I love plain garter stitch and I don't do it often enough. When I hit the cable section, I joined in the round and then seemed up the garter section. I am the laziest motivated person on earth. You can barely see the seam. I can't chew gum and walk, so doing any other kind of knitting when running my gob in a social situation means I have to choose my projects wisely. I end up making a lot of sleeves and other plain things when I'm socializing or else it will look like a spider on LSD made it.





It only took me a couple days to make. It's a great little hat- completely unisex, cozy and easy to wear.

The cables have slip-stitches, which give them an elegant exaggeration that might have gotten lost in the fuzz of the yarn otherwise.



I'm currently working on a pair of textured lace mittens out of the same yarn- the color is "Soot"- and I'm hoping to have enough leftover yarn to whip up another Fortnight hat.



I didn't use up quite 1 skein for the original hat, and it seems like I'll have plenty of yarn leftover from the mittens.