For the past several weeks I’ve been deep into some interesting rabbit holes. There are so many compelling things to learn, tips to explore, and amazing images to see. That means I have not touched my tablecloth warp in three weeks. I do feel a little guilty. I am at the point of threading the final border, and it’s the hard part, considering whatever I thought I was doing 12 years ago that I now cannot remember or understand. I will tackle that final area of threading soon, but in the meantime I’m enjoying my rabbit holes.
I went looking for a stranded sweater pattern that I started quite a few years ago. I did not find find it on the first or second go-round, but it finally turned up late last week when I was looking for something else. Isn’t that always the best way to find something? A few months ago I came across this sweater and decided I ‘needed’ to finish it. That’s when I learned I don’t seem to have the pattern! I searched through my Ravelry library, my emails, and even through the printed patterns I’ve collected in two huge notebooks. No luck.
Do you see why I want to finish this? The yarn is a Finnish brand called “Kauni Effect.” I am using two different colorways. One is called ‘rainbow’ and the other is something like ‘autumn.’ Sorry I’m not sure of the second colorway. I’m knitting with one yarn as color A and the other as color B, and the yarn does all the work to create this amazing, glowing, beautiful effect! I know, I’m gushing.
I could not figure out what happened to the pattern. I posted a photo on Facebook, and many people began responding to help me retrieve the pattern. After more than a hundred responses I began to remember a few things about this design. The sweater pattern was designed by Ruth Sorenson, but the stitch pattern was from Dale of Norway. Someone whose name I don’t know put the two together to create this stunning sweater. It was easy to find the stitch pattern on Ravelry. It’s in quite a few people’s stitch libraries…but the sweater is no longer available, and for some reason I have lost it.
When I started googling various ways to get in touch with Ruth Sorenson or to see all of her designs, one of the top hits in my search was my own blog. Seriously? It turns out I wrote about my plans for this sweater here. That was March of 2014. That sweater has been laying in a canvas bin in my wall unit for almost 10 years. Yikes!
One of the 100+ people who responded with help on Facebook contacted Ruth Sorenson and got permission to share the pattern with others. She sent it to me, and by now I’m sure others have it too. Thank you, Ruth! Between the sweater directions and my own notes I plan to get cracking on this sweater again. I won’t be wearing it this fall, but hopefully in fall of ’24.
In the sweater department, there is also this: “Hild” by Elsbeth Lavold, from her Desinger’s Choice, Book 9. I made this years ago and have worn it a few times. It no longer fits, but I still love it. Last week I un-sewed the side seams and am adding gusset to each side. I hope that gives it enough flair for me to enjoy wearing it again.
The sweater bug has definitely bitten me. I haven’t been knitting much over the past several years, but clearly I’m back in knitting mode now.
I’ve started a class with Fran Curran at the Weaving Center of Hartford Artisans. She is leading us in designing a project using linen. We had a short presentation on designing huck lace by Jill Staublitz, and I decided that would be the weave structure I’d use for my project. I’ve woven a lot of linen projects over the years, and a lot of huck lace too. It was hard to decide what my project would be since I have plenty of napkins, placemats, even a couple of linen tote bags with huck lace. Then one evening I remembered that I’ve wanted to make bread bags for a couple of years now, ever since Handwoven Magazine featured a linen bread bag pattern. I fear my bread bag may be a bit over-designed, but I will have fun with it.
I will have a center diamond motif on the bag fabric, surrounded by plain weave stripes and a mix of natural and half bleached linen for the background fabric. The stripe colors are in the photo of the sweater above. They happened to be laying on the counter in my studio where I took the photo. I wanted the huck diamond look particularly blue, so I’ve made sure the huck floats are in the warp, which will be blue in that section. I’m looking forward to this!
Lastly, I have started teaching another 9-week tapestry class, also at Hartford Artisans. I’m intrigued by this new batch of students and hope they will enjoy tapestry weaving enough to continue to pursue it.
My son Chris calls this kind of distracting activity “bike shedding.” He says this phrase came about when a group of engineers were ‘stumped’ on a building design. They decided to design a bike shed for the building before working on the building itself. Who knows if this is true, but it seems to be something I’m rather good at…bike shedding, procrastinating, and going down rabbit holes. I could do worse!
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