patterns – Page 2

A Knitter’s Memory Lane…

December 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Sometimes early in the new year I perform an “Airing of the Stash” where I get all my yarns and spinning fibers out and have a look. I will be doing that as soon as I step away from the computer today.

Earlier today I did something that I rarely do: an airing of the stash of knitted garments. I opened my cedar-lined, cherry chest which my husband made 35 years ago as a wedding present to me. This chest holds three decades of my adult life in the form of knitted garments. It holds every sweater I’ve ever made with exception of the ones I no longer own. All the baby, toddler, and youth sweaters that my sons wore, all my own sweaters that I do not currently wear, and all the sweaters I’ve made for my husband in past years before I realized that he was never going to wear a sweater of any kind. There are a few precious sweaters that were knitted by my husband’s mother and one of his two delightful and eccentric great aunts. One of her sweaters is a cream wool Tyrolean-style cardigan with vertical columns of beautifully embroidered flowers between the columns of cables, bobbins, and eyelets. You probably know the style. No one does this much anymore because of the labor involved. It is a gem.

Sweater Stash 1 crop Dec 29, 1 30 11 PM — Aunt Ruthie's Tyrolean Sweater

Then there are about a half dozen sweaters that I obviously knit in the 80s… they are painful to look at! During that same decade I was knitting the baby and toddler sweaters that are so classic and timeless, but somehow, for me I was knitting sweaters with styles that could never stand the test of time. I have removed these sweaters from the chest and am contemplating either throwing them out or donating them somewhere. It’s hard to imagine donating them….they are truly awful, their single attribute being that they are at least made from natural fibers.

In the chest is my very first knitted garment which must be from the mid-70s, a textured vest pattern from Tahki that was made from their Donegal Tweed yarn in brown with rust colored flecks. I have a clear memory of knitting this vest during numerous evenings, sitting on a metal bar stool in my future-husband’s woodworking shop in order to spend time with him while he worked on a project. Also in the pile is my first attempt at lace knitting….not a shawl or scarf, but a lovely lace Chanel-type jacket that was a Phildar pattern for which I used Phildar’s mohair blend yarn. Sweet, sweet memories!
The children’s sweaters bring back a flood of memories. In particular there was one spring when my small community held a fashion show, and I decided to participate by modeling my first Marion Foale’s design, “Badminton,” while both boys joined me on the runway wearing matching cabled vests and coordinating knickers that I sewed for them. (I wore a store bought skirt with a print of ships’ signal flags on a sky blue background.) We were all in shades of daffodil yellow and pale sky blue. This memory is hilarious to me….my sons modeling in vests and knickers….how cruel!
I am sorry to say that the Marion Foale sweater, while classic, has not made the cut for staying in the chest!

This trip down memory lane is prompted by our hard decision to leave our current house and move out of the NY metro area. We hope to go back to a slower pace and quieter lifestyle that we used to enjoy when we lived in New England. I know that times have changed everywhere, but we hope to downsize both our possessions and our frenetic pace. Hence, the airing of not only the stash, but everything we own!

Knitting and Fabric Shops in Coastal Maine

August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

Several of our usual ports have surprised me with wonderful knitting and fabric shops! Our ‘guest room’ is quickly filling up with my treasures!

Bath: Halcyon (the photo on their homepage is that Ecobaby sailor pattern! Ha!) I have to admit that I’ve never been to Halcyon by

HALCYON-YARN-STORE-PICTURE — Halcyon Yarn

boat, but I have been going by car for 15 years. You could get there by boat if you wanted to go that far up the Kennebec River and brave its challenging currents. In all the years I’ve driven over that bridge I’ve never actually seen a sailboat moored in the river near Bath. That’s not to say no sailboats ever go, just that I haven’t seen them on my yearly visit. And what can I say about Halcyon, other than it is a weaver’s and knitter’s Mecca, not to mention spinners, rug hookers, crocheters, braiders, felters, etc…etc… If you do anything related to fiber, this is a great resource! Halcyon is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. I had a wonderful shopping spree there!

Boothbay Harbor: You need a car to get to Onboard Fabrics, but it is really worth it! It’s a barn on Rte 127 (and their address is Edgecomb but my point of view is the harbor where a sailing seamstress might disembark), not far off Rte. 1 on the way to

onboard_fabrics_barn — On Board Fabrics, near Boothbay Harbor

Boothbay Harbor. They have lots of nautical fabrics, inweights from upholstery to cotton lawn. This year I bought fabrics to make aprons for gifts. No sewing machine on board Pandora, so these projects will have to wait ’til I get home (meanwhile, my husband does have his sailrite sewing machine on board…but it will only sew heavy canvas and sail materials!).

Rockland: Quilt Divas. They have fabric and yarn! And the selections for both are great! It is walking distance from the harbor

for us sailors! I bought the Debbie Bliss “Ecobaby” book here as well as the yarn for the sailor sweater that is currently challenging me to re-design the collar! I also bought more fabric for aprons here. Now I’m going to make a lot of aprons for gifts!

Camden: The Cashmere Goat is new this year, in a good location right in the center of town (what used to be a shoe store). The shop

cashmere goat camden me — 'The Cashmere Goat in Camden

is not yet full, but they do have some wonderful yarns. I bought Manos del Uruguay’s “Serena” (kettle dyed, 60% baby alpaca, 40% pima cotton) in a handpainted colorway (#9796) of watery blues and greens. I’m going to knit a lace shawl from one of the free patterns at Interweave Knits

Belfast: Sock Heaven. This yarn store has been in business for about 10 years now, but I haven’t been to Belfast in about 15 years,

Knitting Sock Heaven Belfast ME — Heavenly Socks in Belfast

so it is new to me! There is an entire wall of yarns produced in Maine, including Hope Spinnery and Done Roving. My big score here was Louet “KidLin”(49% linen, 35% kid mohair, 16% nylon) which I’ve been hoping to find during all my yarn store hunting. It was hard to choose a color for Louet’s “Cia” Pattern, but I finally settled on “Mexican Orange,” a fun blend of gold and warm pink.

There is also a beautiful fabric store on High St. in Belfast. I did not note the name yesterday, but I hope to go back today to spend more time there. I will take a photo and get the name!

Other places. I’ve been to the guild shop in the center of Blue Hill, as well as the yarn shop slightly out of town that has since gone out of busines (sigh…), and I’ve been to Shirley’s Yarns in Hancock (where I bought Dale microfiber years ago for a tank top I never finished because it was so unflattering on me!). Now I understand there are two shops in Blue Hill that I may not know: Blue Hill Yarn shop on Ellsworth Rd. and String Theory on Beach Hill Rd. I don’t know if we’ll get to Blue Hill this year, but now I hope so! And a google search shows two promising shops on Mt. Desert, one in Southwest Harbor (Lilac Lily Yarn Shop) and one in Bar Harbor (Bee’s, Inc.), so I hope to visit both of these since we are on our way there for the weekend.

I am putting aside the Debbie Bliss sailor sweater for the moment. This is quite a disappointment to me, but I do want to give some thought to that collar. The knitters on Ravelry did not have any solutions that appealed to me, so I will take a look in my library of knitting design books when I return home in September.

Here is my next knitting project, Louet’s “Cia.”

Louet KidLin Mexican Orange — Louet's KidLin Mexican Orange

First I will finish my own design that uses Tess Designer Yarns’ micofiber ribbon. I’ll be writing up that pattern to share here and on Ravelry. It’s a very simple pattern, and I’m almost finished!

>A Weaver’s Legacy

May 11, 2010 | 4 Comments

An amazing turn of events last week brought three weavers together after three years…

About three years ago, a good friend of mine died from complications related to breast cancer. She was a very artistic woman, someone I admired. She wore her handwoven clothes with enviable flair, and she knew how to accessorize. When she could no longer sit at the loom she continued to knit accessories that were as striking as her woven items.

(Well, this is not the best photo to demonstrate Bonney’s fashion flair, but do notice the t-shirt on the sheep commemorates National Spinners and Weavers week!)

Her daughters held a sale before selling her house, and I got some precious items which always make me think fondly of Bonney’s friendship. I have two shirts, commerically made, that look deceptively handwoven, a sterling jewelry pin of a castle-style spinning wheel, and Bonney’s 8S Baby Wolf.

When I got the loom it had samples on it, lovely samples of what looked to me like a ‘Sharon Alderman’ fabric. There were several small samples, separated by unwoven warp. The warp looked like 20/2 mercerized cotton in a medium grey. The weft was the same size cotton in ‘rust’ or ‘burnt sienna.’ The color difference between the warp and weft made a lovely iridescence in the fabric, giving the finished cloth the look of silk.

I thought of weaving off the rest of the warp, but when I went searching for what the treadling might be I did not find this pattern. Also, I did not have the weft. Eventually I cut the fabric off the loom so that I could warp it for a weaving workshop. I thought I might serge the fabric samples and give one to each of Bonney’s good friends in my guild, keeping one for myself.

But I never did it. The fabric has lain on top of my serger now for three years….

During these three years my path has occasionally crossed the path of another New Jersey weaver from the Jockey Hollow Guild. I heard her name numerous times through mutual acquaintances, and I finally met her during her guild’s holiday sale last December.

Last week when I had again warped this loom in readiness for a weaving workshop from the Jockey Hollow Guild, Sally was the organizer, so our paths crossed again.

At one point during the workshop Sally offered to tweak my loom into better working condition. I mentioned that this loom had belonged to a good friend who had left this life. I asked if she had ever known Bonney, who had on occasion attended meetings at Jockey Hollow.

Well, Sally did know Bonney. In fact, some time before Bonney’s final days, Sally had visited her to weave off some samples that were part of an exchange (indeed, a Sharon Alderman design). Shortly after that visit Bonney died, and Sally did not know what became of the samples or of Bonney’s loom. The participants in that exchange never got the samples.

Isn’t it interesting that I had wanted to give those samples to some of Bonney’s friends, but I just never could bring myself to cut them apart and serge the ends?…. and equally interesting that I kept hearing about Sally from a couple of friends. I, too, had visited some meetings of Sally’s guild, but I did not met her until recently…. And it is interesting that we did not get to the subject of Bonney and her loom on our first meeting, but obviously it was meant to come about at some point.

I think Bonney knew it would happen, all in good time, and I think she smiled when it finally did. I will miss seeing the yardage in my studio, but I’m immensely happy that it will go to the recipients who were always meant to have it. It’s a lovely length of finely woven cloth. Good weaving endures, friendship endures. It’s all good.

>Knitting Pattern

August 7, 2007 | 2 Comments

Two years ago I started a knitting ministry group in my area. It was not about religion per se, but about the power of knitting to heal us and others. I think the act of making anything by hand and wearing it or giving to someone to wear or use is a powerful totem for good health and protection against bad things. There just has t be a lot of good karma in something that you’ve made stitch by stitch for yourself or for someone you know. I’ve made it a point for many years now to wear something handmade everyday. I was surprised at how easy it is to wear some little something made by real hands, mine or others, each day.

So, I figured there were plenty of people in my community who would want to learn to knit now that knitting is so hip and there are so many LYSs (local yarn shops) cropping up again, and so many mega craft stores carrying yarn. I also figured there were plenty of past knitters out there who wanted to start again and just needed a little impetus. So I decided to offer knitting lessons for free and to focus on knitting for others. I was happily surprised at the number of people who have joined, and very pleased at how they each help each other. Even the new knitters now help others. I’m awed by what they do!

Most of the group knits shawls since fit is not an issue and since they don’t require any complicated shaping. Some people have moved on to interesting stitch patterns and/or triangular shawls, and some have just continued to knit, knit, knit! Some of the members have learned to make socks, and some have rekindled their talents at making sweaters. Everyone has felt the healing power of just going through the motions of knitting.

So here’s one of the shawls for which I’ve written a pattern. It’s not complicated; it’s based on the traditional Faeroese triangular shape that starts at the neck edge rather than the bottom point, and makes a shape that stays nicely poised on one’s shoulders. Hopefully later today I’ll have the PDF!