FO: Scrollwork Hat

After my last blog post, I totally shamed myself into finishing this hat:

The Scrollwork, a classy little number from Wool People Vol 4. It sat crammed on a shelf (a former CD tower, now useful as a place to put all the odds and ends of life when you live in a 1 bedroom flat- flashlights, stationary, pens, pocketknives, sunglasses, a button jar, scissors, and odd balls of yarn and anything you want off the table when you sit down for dinner) with just the brim done for more than a month, waiting for me to just put a couple of hours in to turn it into something more useful.

And finally:

The color is much more accurate in the first photo: a lovely, dusty pink with bits of tweed (as it is still permanently nighttime here, it's hard to get knitwear photos during good light, especially if one might be a desk jockey for pay all day).  The yarn is Classic Elite Portland Tweed, now discontinued.  Why?  Because it's weird, most likely.  It's a blend of 50% wool, 25% alpaca and 25% rayon, which is just...odd.   While I didn't curse it and hate it, it was not my favorite to work with- very little give and spring and life to it.  It's not terribly soft, and the alpaca/rayon makes it drape really nice, but I was warned up and down the internet that it would grow terribly huge and lose shape right away.  Also:  it is labeled aran weight, and it is nowhere near that chunky- it knit up DK.  So I knit it down 3 needle sizes for a very tight fabric, and the moment the heat from my head warmed it up during my victory lap (I always don whatever knitwear I just finish, at least for a couple hours when I finish) it started to relax and grow slouchy and loose and start to creep down my forehead and splay out where it hit the back of my neck, threatening to eventually suffocate me and perhaps even eat my brains.  

What to do?  I washed it and threw it in the dryer, tightening it up quite a lot, and with these puny Euro energy efficient driers, it was nowhere near enough heat or agitation to felt the fabric into a stuff, unyielding mass .  It's better now.  I would never normally do that- knitwear gets washed by hand in a bucket and dried flat in world.  I just recently started using the spin cycle on the dryer to wring it out to expedite the drying.  

But looksie, it fits perfect!  At least my head, which it is not intended for.  

FO: A couple of hats....

I think I might have expressed this before, but I do love making hats.

They take very little time.  I can usually crank one out in four hours or so, unless it is with very skinny yarn or very complicated.  That's about a week's worth of commuting time, or some idle tv time in the evenings.  Speaking of which, 2007 called and I'm really into the Danish show "The Killing" right now, and it's NOT JUST BECAUSE OF THE AWESOME KNITWEAR.  Why am I watching a dark, wintry, Danish crime drama in high summer?  I can't answer that, but the UK Netflix doesn't get nearly as many films as the US counterpart, and it's mostly loaded with British sitcoms, which, like almost all sitcoms, I find insufferable.    

Anyway, hats make fantastic gifts.  Everyone could use one.  Or eight.  I made these both as gifts.  They also take up odd skeins of yarn- a ball leftover from a sweater, some scraps from your scrap bin, a skein that you impulsively bought with no real project in mind for but you just had to try it.  

First up is the Nantes hat from Interweave Knits Winter 2011.  

It's got the perfect amount of cables and lace, making a lovely cathedral-like pattern.  I loved this pattern and will be making it again in the future.

I made mine slouchy, but you could go down a needle size and make a beanie and it would work as well.  I do love slouchy over-sized hats.  I tend to not wear hats with the brims straight across my forehead, but I rather like to push them back so they cover my ears.

The yarn is Rowan Pure Wool Aran, a soft superwash wool.  It comes in 186 yard balls, and I shortened the pattern by three rows so I would have enough yarn to finish it nicely.

Next up is the Nottingham hat.  I used a skein of Quince and Co Osprey leftover from my Aidez cardigan that I made last winter.  The color is pea-green, which, honestly, is a tough color to pull off this close to your face.

It's slouchy as well.  Almost rasta-like, but I did want to use up every last bit of wool.  The lace pattern makes nice diagonals, it was simple and it looks fantastically hip if you can pull off this color green.

These will both be gifted eventually.  The right person, the right season.  No one I know is allowed to be cold.  

FO: Kissing Koi mittens

It's April, I wanna make more mittens!



Am I the only one who gets kind of nostalgic for the chill of fall when spring arrives?  Yes, probably.  And realistically, it's just a passing emotion for me, as I do love the warm sun and the beach and outdoorsy things.  Still, the long days and thawing of the earth is somewhat sad because it means I should probably stop making heavy mid-winter knitwear.

NEVER! says I.  I will sit there in the park on a sunny day making dastardly winter wear no matter how hot it gets.  As an aside, everyone here says they don't get much of a summer anyway.  You'll be wearing tights and a cardi with that cute summer frock regardless of the the calender.

Honestly though, I think it's time to get out the linen and cottons and whatnot and at least do one summery project before the days shorten and a protective coating of knitwear is once again standard gear, and all of those who rolled their eyes at me purling away on a pair of socks in July will start wishing they had the foresight to be nicer to me as they lose all feeling in their extremities.

I've been slightly obsessed with colorwork mittens lately.  To me, they are perfect...they take a bit of time and concentration to get through, but they make fantastic gifts.  While I wouldn't be keen to do an entire sweater with fish or snowflakes or wolves or whathaveyou, mittens are the perfect vehicle to put your spirit animals on display.



I have a fascination with goldfish, especially the fancy, fin-bedazzled kind.  Except every time I've kept a fish tank, I've had dreams that the goldfish have tried to kill me.  I no longer try to keep fish of any kind because of this.  Totally irrational, but it's hard to wake up in the morning and throw some fish flakes to these little monsters when you are convinced they are going to slit your throat in your sleep.

Still...there's something just so peaceful about watching goldfish.



Or is there?  (cue music from Psycho)



Yarn is Knitpicks Palate in Bittersweet Heather and Cornmeal.  Palate is awesome for colorwork based on the sheer number of colors available.  It's not incredibly soft, but it's good, utilitarian, fingering-weight yarn.  Pattern is Kissing Koi Mittens.  The only mods I made was starting the decrease shaping early on the mitten tops; as written I thought they were a little to blunt.

FO: Snowflake Mittens

Hey now, it's springtime.  I should get some mittens on.



I don't know what inspired me to make such wintry-themed mitts so late in the season- maybe it was east-coast empathy!, but, eh.  There's always the sunny optimism of  next year's winter, and I will always have friends with cold hands.



The yarn is KnitPicks Palate, a fingering-weight rather affordable wool yarn that comes in many, many colors.  The pattern was also from KP, although, I can't recommend it highly.  The adult sizes run so small that I had to go up three needles sizes from the recommended gauge just to be able to get a good-sized mitt happening.  Still, they are pretty and worth the effort.



I love the wintry colors.  Those are words no one has ever said in March ever.  

FO: Aidez

Hello!  I haven't had a lot of free time or reliable network lately, as I am still in a hotel waiting to move in to a more permanent home.  It's been...less than ideal.  This might be a personal record as far as living out of suitcase goes for me...two months now.  

 

Did you know this was created by the Ministry of Information to get people through the Blitz?  It makes every other use of it seem trivial.  

I'm liking my new adopted home, but I think I'll just like it more when I feel more settled in these next few coming weeks.  I think I miss cooking the most- not having a fridge, a coffee maker or even a hotplate means I'm getting awfully sick of ready-made sandwiches and salads.  

I made a sweater!  I started it while I was still in Paris and just finished it up and blocked it.  It's a welcome addition to my very limited wardrobe.  A nice little mid-winter pick me up for when I'm sick of the same five things that I have, along with the panicky few pairs of clean undies I have.  Launderettes are few and far between here, as it is pretty standard to have a washer drier crammed in the kitchen.  I guess the good thing about having to make the schlep is I did get some knitting done, and a nice older Italian woman commented, "Oh!  A jumper!"  Sweaters are jumpers here.  Pants are underware.  It's a flat, not an apartment.  The flat has a lift, not an elevator.  

It's the Aidez sweater, which is somewhat ironically the French word for "Help".  "Aidez-moi, si vous plait!" is quite the useful phrase when in France.

The yarn is a souvenir from my trip up to Maine last summer- it's Quince & Co Osprey.  A lovely cushy Aran-weight wool yarn that is really quite fun to knit and the 3-ply structure really made the cables pop.  The color is "split pea", which is kind of an atypical color choice for me as I usually go for greens that are darker- more hunters and forests and olive greens.  It's a fresh, bright color. In wintertime, this makes me insanely giddy.  

The pattern is straightforward- I finished the sleeves in a matter of days, then the back in a few more.  I hit some hiccups as I ended up knitting two left fronts (distracted and drinking when I read those instructions, I was) and had to rip one back, but then that progressed quite nicely once I saw the err in my ways.  

I blocked this piece by piece in the hotel room sink and on the bath mat, and seemed it up using hair pins to keep the pieces in place.  Now that I think of it...it's kind of a miracle that this worked out at all.  

I love it so.  It's very warm, and cozy.  I am thinking about discreetly adding some hook-and-eye closures to the inside once I have my sewing kit.  I think it would be more wearable if it fastens in the front somehow, but I like how clean it looks without a button band or buttons to distract.  The sleeves are very fitted, which I don't mind, but if you like some ease to your sleeves, you might want to go up a size.  

I made the Medium size (40") and used 1020 yards of yarn, which was six entire skeins.  I still have one skein left that I have to deal with, which will be a hat or a cowl eventually.  

I've been taking lots of walks with my camera, especially on the odd sunny days.  I'm having fun exploring and browsing all the shops and food markets and trying to hustle and get things done before the dreaded tube strike this week.  

FO: Pup Tent

Growing up, I had many, many cousins. I lived pretty far from them, so I wasn't really part of the tight-knit core group. When I would visit them, it was fun, if mostly because I got to ride around in the bed of a pickup truck and I was allowed to operate heavy farm machinery at a tender age. Plus, my vocabulary of bad words and insults would grow tenfold anytime I spent more than a few minutes with them. That is if I could stop coughing enough from all the cigarette smoke being inhaled second-handedly.

Anyway.

The name of this hat is Pup Tent. I can not say the words "pup tent" without cracking up a little bit. It's mostly because my disrespectful trash-talking cousin once yelled while observing clothes hanging out on the line, "Aunt Linda, your underwear are so big, I could use them as a pup tent!" and then we all scattered like so may giggling deer to escape the wrath of a chubby, angry aunt. When you are six, it's funny. Or, as we might say, "wicked funny".

The pattern is a freebie. I made it a little larger to use up the yardage and ended up with a nice slouch. I used it to use up the last 150 yards of Canopy Worsted leftover from the Vine Yoke Cardigan. It's simple and it used up what I had left, and it will now make a very nice gift for a winter-climate dweller (although perhaps just not for my Aunt Linda).

FO: Vine Yoke Cardigan

Just in time for warm summer breezes, a heavy winter wooly cardigan to see me through. It's the Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda from a Twist Collective that was published in 2009.

Springtime here was not exactly an airy brief silken clothing inspiring event, so I sat down and churned out a quick sweater despite the fact it might be a while before it actually gets some use. Some people make hay when the sun shines, I make wool winter sweaters while the populace dons winter coats in June.

Actually, this was intended as a gift, so I made it size up than what I normally would make myself. The pattern is unusual as you knit it sideways, which lets the unique lacy cable wind its way across the shoulders, and I loved the small lace details of the cuffs and waist. The pattern wasn't hard at all, but there were a lot of short-rows involved so you had to pay attention, but otherwise you could have this done and blocked in a week or two and be done with it. It's hard to adjust the fit in sweaters like this, but you could easily modify to make the sleeves longer of shorter.

What's better than getting a wintery-warm sweater in July? Nothing. It's almost like one of those anti jokes: What's worse than finding half a worm in your apple? Cancer.

The pattern called for buttons and button holes. I thought it looked sloppy, so I left them out. I am currently in the market for some lightweight pewter clasps to fasten the front. That dpn is just for show!

The yarn is The Fiber Company Canopy Worsted. I used 8 skeins- a mere 800 yards, so it's very easy on the yardage. It's a 50% alpaca 30% wool 20% bamboo blend. Quite warm, if I have to sum it up. It's lovely to work with, with very little of the prickle that I grew tired of alpaca for. Every time I declare myself "over alpaca" this yarn brings me back. The color is a lovely heather green "yerba mate".

FO: Herbivore

Oh, hey! I made a pretty shawl.

One of my friends gave me a pretty skein of Brooks Farm Acero last summer, and I thought the best way to make use of such a pretty yarn is a shawl. It's a lovely, heathery fingering-weight yarn of wool, silk and viscose. I paired it with a simple Stephen West pattern- Herbivore. I'm determined to make more lacey-lace scarves and shawls, but when I'm traveling, I like mindless stitch patterns to just knit away the hours of planes and trains and waiting for bubble tea to be customized.

I already bemoaned how the security at Orly threw my needles away, but I got to Berlin and bought a set of Knit Pros and carried on. This scarf was so easy and fast that I had most of it done by the time I was on the delayed flight back to Paris. I knit until I was out of yarn, blocked it best I could on the couch with scrap yarn and pins, and it's just lovely. The yarn drapes beautifully, and it softened up nicely once it was washed.

It's big enough to wrap around your neck without it coming un-done, but not so huge it's unwieldily. Which, to me, is perfect sized.

While it's not the warmest scarf ever- these pictures were taken in Copenhagen and I did spend some time chilled, but more on that later- I love the twisted stich pattern and increases give it a shape that means it will stay put.

I am totally embracing and carrying on with the style of Parisians and their love for scarves. I now feel naked without one.

FO: Brattleboro Hat

Oh, it's time for the return of the masses of Paris! I've grown fond of having the city practically to myself in the cold dark winter, but, alas, it is not meant to be. The soundtrack of my life now consists of the daily parades of people awkwardly banging along with their wheely-suitcases dragging along the cobblestones. Alas, I live in a good Paris neighborhood with nary a tourist attraction within a kilometer, so it's only when I veture out of the neighborhood that I realize what a crazy lovely place Paris is to visit. And everyone does.

I can't hide, so I join them. A very chill Saturday, picnicking on the Trocadero. People watching and watching the tchotchke vendors occasionally getting chased across the plaza from a rather elderly cop that had no chance at all of catching them.

I also had a total freakout meltdown at how flithy my camera was. It wasn't the lens, but one of the internal mirrors somehow got coated in dust, but I didn't notice until I got home and loaded the pictures up. I suffer no more as I found a nice camera shop that humored my french and cleaned her up like new.

Yet another quick like a bunny, easy as pie hat.

This one is from the book, "New England Knits", which has a pretty good assortment of warm woolies that are slightly more fabulous than anything you could possibly purchase at LL Bean. Since it seems to be still winter-like almost everywhere that I have friends, I'm sure it will get some use.

The hat is made by starting a rib band until it fits around your head, then picking up stitches along the top and working in moss stitch before decreasing for the crown. The pattern calls for working buttons, but I couldn't be bothered and just sewed them into place.

Easy, cute, warm. Another good gift to send off. I love making hats for gifts because I can throw them in an envelope and ship them flat, which cost about half the price with international shipping being what it is.

FO: Snowtracks Hat

Another gift hat!

By the time La Poste gets around to delivering it, there probably won't be much need for such a warm hat, but eh. There's another winter coming up soon.

This one worked up quick-as-a-bunny with another skein of Cascade 220 Tweed. I'm trying to knit my stash down to scraps, and then make a striped hat out of all the scraps. One can dream, no?

It's simple, it's very warm, and a bit oversized for a friend who has a lot of hair to tuck under.

It's called the Snowtracks hat. That made me think of cocaine, so I made it in an un-pure purple color. I made the ribbing at the bottom extra long so you could fold it over to keep the ears extra warm. I found it very much to be a caricature of a winter-hat shaped hat.

FO: Utopia Hat

A quick, simple gift hat for a friend that's been pestering asking for one for quite some time.

It's the Utopia Cable hat. Quick, simple beanie with nice results. It's a free pattern (and written in the style that fee patterns tend to be) but it's not difficult. It's perfectly unisex to downright manly, depending on your color choice.

I love meandering cables. I used a skein of Cascade 220 tweed in a very dark coffee brown shade. I actually like the tweedy bits in this shade- no more rainbows, just subtle flecks of lighter colors.

Spring has not made itself so known that this won't get worn a couple times before it's put away.

FO: Knotty But Nice Hat

I've been cranking out hats pretty regularly this winter. I'm finding, as always, they make great gifts, especially when I'm out making new-ish friends and don't want to commit to something crazy, like socks. You suffer for me, you cook for me or bring me ultra amazing chocolates, you bring me good booze. Then we will discuss socks. Until then, I am only devoting a couple hours of my time to keep your ears warm.

Hence, the Knotty But Nice hat from knitty.com. It's a simple, straightforward, very little brainpower knit that takes no time at all to whip up. I do love cables, especially when the pattern is intricate or woven-looking. Added bonus that the bunched up fabric makes any garment extra-thick and warm.

It's made for a man with a bigger, more oval head than myself, so it's a bit large one me. It would be much less pointy on the intended recipient.

I will vouch for its warmth. Any day that the sun is out, I will be out, walking around the city, exploring with my camera in tow. This day was windy and freezing cold and I totally got wind burned on my face, but it was lovely having a part of the city to myself that is normally packed with tourist and almost always unnavigable.

I made it from a single skein of Cascade 220 Tweed.

Furnishing my Future Palace

I had no real intention on purchasing and lugging around beautiful large-scale handmade rugs. Being a migrant with no real home makes it difficult to buy home furnishings. I'm loathe to buy as much as a tea pot without having to seriously consider the consequences of having to pack it up and ship it eventually. But alas, I am a sucker for beautiful artwork.

There were lots of places in Marrakech that had rugs, and Fes had its fair share as well. One place in particular caught my eye- Coin Berbère. The shop, a bit more enclosed than the rest, was filled with treasures. Amazing things. Antique things. Pottery and Jewelry and carved panels and weavings. I would have gladly paid admission just to look...it was a treasure trove. Not too many souk stands get a nice write up in the New York Times either.

The owner, Mohammed (oh, everyone other guy we met shared the name) motioned for us to follow across the street and up a narrow staircase. There, a room, bursting with color.

I knew this was the man I would be buying carpets from. It's just narrowing them down that's the problem.

We talked dyes, we talked tribes, we talked spinning, we talked sheep. Each Berber tribe has their own distinctive style and pattern and palate. Indigo, saffron, flowers, cochineal, roots, and henna are all used to make the amazing colors. Everything is handspun, hand woven, by Berber women, working for a pittance, with the skills passed on through the generations. It is much more than a mere floor covering.

Mohammed patiently pulled out the ones that fit the criteria. Not too huge, not small. Nothing with sparkles or too much knotting. No silk. No pressure.

I loved this embroidered one.

But they were all amazing, one-of-a-kind works of art.

Some of them reminded me of Gee's Bend quilts.

Mohammed had the habit of unfurling the rug dramatically, while simultaneously hushing everyone in the room.

I kind of fell for this slightly shabby antique:

But the more intricate ones called to me as well.

This one he called the "Berber Picasso":

It was enormous, but I wanted it. He says it sells for $40,000 at ABC Carpet in New York. Having shopped for rugs there, I believe it.

The idea of buying a house and decorating completely with furnishings and rugs from this store started playing out in my mind.

But remember, no pressure. He said, "Think about it. Discuss it. Come back when you are ready." Which no one else in Morocco has ever said, ever.

And come back we did. After browsing more rugs around town, I could honestly said he had the best of the best, and he had handpicked the finest out there. And we brought friends with us as well. And the friends also had no intention to buy, yet they went home with three of them.

I showed Mohammed the pictures I had taken of the ones we liked best. He pulled them out of the piles, put them on the floor, and sent his brother to fetch some mint tea.

I found out I was terrible at haggling. It was just too much pressure. Plus, the price he was asking, I thought it was more than fair for the amount of work that went into it. So count me out when it comes to negotiating something handmade.

"Close your eyes, open your heart, and take this rug home with you" Mohammed commanded.

Several cups of tea and bathroom breaks later, I went home with the above carpet. It's amazing. Now that it's home, I'm even more in love with it. It's my colors, all wool- natural grays and browns and mauves that were dyed with poppies and then left out in the sun to age and fade.

This one was purchased as well. It's much larger than the mauve one, with a sturdier cotton warp and it's mind blowing to have this currently in my apartment:

The colors...the patterns...

Our friend went home with the "brother" of the colorful one. It's the same pattern, but more negative space.

Which, if I wasn't so afraid of spilling wine, I would have grabbed that one too.

Everyone went home happy. Mohammed rolled up the rugs snug as a bug in a rug, wrapped them up with plastic and tape, and we were even able to put this in our hiking backpack for the plane ride home. He does ship as well, but it was going to cost way too much and take weeks (and I am just in love with La Poste in so many ways right now) so we opted to carry it out.

If you are ever in Fes, do yourself a favor. Buy a rug from this man.

Coin Berbère 67 Talaa Kebira (in the Haddadine quarter of the Fez medina) (212) 35-63-69-46.