Letters
Giftalong: Knitting for Every Mood
Dear Kay,
I am plugging along, glad to have three Giftalong 2017 projects that let me knit no matter whether I’m feeling brilliant, stupid, perky, or exhausted.
No. 1: The Mood to Make Airy Clouds
The thing that slows me down is that I keep holding this Sommerfeld Shawl up to the light. (This pattern appears in MDK Field Guide No. 4: Log Cabin.)
It is so beautiful! Ann Weaver really nailed the concept of log cabin taken to an unblankety place.
I’m almost done—two blocks to go.
No. 2: The Itch to Feel Clever
The Little Tern Blanket by Tin Can Knits? Satisfyingly interesting. This is one of the projects from A Year of Techniques that instantly had me in its grip.
Unzipping a crochet provisional cast on is such a tidy little moment in knitting.
The game here is to preserve live stitches at each end of the baby blanket so that you can add a lace border that is worked perpendicularly to the body of the blanket.
Zip! The waste yarn comes off like the string from a sack of your beloved pet’s favorite kibble. You put the newly enlivened stitches back on the needle to commence the border making.
Here’s Jen Arnall-Culliford’s video tutorial on this technique. Elegant.
Knitting a simple lace border onto that edge is one of the great skills to learn.
See the place where I join the border to the body? I carried my yarn in back rather than in the front at the moment where the join happens, so my Little Tern Blanket has a weird moment at the join. It’s supposed to look like a row of Vs, without the horizontal yarn crossing over the stitch. If anybody tells this baby about this weird join, I’ll be so crabby!
Thanks to Tin Can Knits for this pattern, to Jim and Jen Arnall-Culliford for A Year of Techniques, and to Fyberspates for a yarn that is perfect for the modern baby. (We have three colors of Vivacious DK remaining in the Shop.)
No. 3: The Desire to Knit without Looking
Season 2 of The Crown is proving to be suitably stately in pace—so far, the Queen spends most days staring off into the middle distance, wondering what her husband is up to 10,000 miles away. This sort of slow-rolling costume drama is just right when you have a torso-worth of stockinette to crank. Caitlin Hunter’s Birkin is at the point that I’ve done the yoke, and all that’s left are a bit of torso and two sleeves.
Gratuitious inside-out view.
Patio, o Patio! You are such an aquatic shade!
I love that you are so unapologetically bright!
You and your friend Jamberry up there in the yoke are giving me a lot of joy these days.
Thanks to Alice O’Reilly and her Backyard Fiberworks yarn for the eight special colors she cooked up just for the MDK Shop.
Love,
Ann
Torso knitting for the win!
PS I’m telling the baby.
I’m just using AYOT provisional cast on this morning to join another gradient band cowl that is a gift for my daughter for Christmas. This is a new technique for my tool box this year that I’ll use forever!
I’ve been doing it wrong for so so long. It really was a game changer to watch Jen patiently lay it all out for me in that video.
Ann, what gauge are you getting on that gorgeous yarn? I was considering it for an upcoming project (ahem!), but was made anxious by the possibly itsy bitsy gauge. I need a chewy gauge (read: fairly dense) in garter stitchfor the technique I’m using…
If you’re asking about the Birkin gauge, it’s a funny thing: the needle size is Officially Size 3, putting the gauge at around 26 sts = 4″. But for the torso you knit 4″ with size 3, another 4″ with size 4, and the last 5″ with size 5. I’m not with my Birkin at the moment, so I can’t tell you the different gauges. But I will say that a fingering weight sweater is a glorious thing and really not that much harder than a heavier weight yarn. It’s just more of that thing we like to do: knitting! ; )
I think the weird join is adorbs! Everyone loving on the Term, but I can’t possibly take on another blanket project – for babies that are too big now anyway. Sigh.
I do keep rolling around to see the Jamberry and Patio… They really are delish.
I was deep, deep into Colorwash Scarves during Season 1 of The Crown. It was a perfect binge knit-‘n-watch combo. I’m looking forward to similar binge with S2. Finish that Easel Sweater? The Really Warm Crete? Start my Sommerfeld Shawl? Too many good choices!
Sommerfeld seems to require just a bit more of my attention than I can give it while watching The Crown. I’d go with Easel, honestly, because it’s as straightforward a sweater as it gets.
I have a hard time knitting AND watching The Crown. What if I miss one of Phillip’s scowls? They aren’t all the same. I loved Season 1 where the Queen Mum told him he was a whiny baby and not supporting her daughter.
Don’t you find it amazing that this series is about people who are still alive? What must they think of this?
I suspect they are a little mortified. But QE 2 has to love the way Claire Foy rocks the role. It makes me like Elizabeth even more.
I agree!
Hey Ann! I love them all! Thanks for yet AGAIN making my day !! I am about 29 years behind on my Christmas knitting and eating all of the candy as it arrives in the mail or playing with the cats
Merry Christmas
Your friend
KATE Manning
Excellent strategy to eat as you go. I’m totally stealing this. Wishing you and the felines a cozy weekend.