gazzal by hobium

they had me at ‘super bulky’,

(and ‘single ply’ didn’t hurt either).

you know how i love a good thick super bulky!

i’d never seen ‘gazzal pure wool’ by hobium before,

but i had been looking for a yarn to knit up into

the ‘leo’ scarf by jen geigley

ever since i bought her newest book

everyday: a casual, modern hand-knit collection‘ at stevenbe‘s pre-vklive party

and i knew right away that the natural colorways

of this 100% australian wool yarn were just what i’d been looking for.

with great stitch definition and oodles of squish,

the neutral colorways of gazzal have all the requirements

of a really good super bulky to me

as if that’s not enough, look at how it knits together.

two thumbs up!

‘looking’ taken from 37:18 of job.

now, time for just a little of the nitty-gritty.

i was given this ‘gazzal’ by hobuim to review,

but, you know me, a free yarn (even a squishy super bulky)

isn’t ever going to make me say that i like what i don’t.

i’m much too stubborn and pig-headed for things like that…

woodlands scarf

it is always so interesting to me

to see where an idea started and how it ends up.

today, swan’s island company released their fall 2016 collection.

my ‘woodlands scarf’ is one of the pieces.

if you like the ‘behind the scenes’

part of stories, here

it comes.

i thought that swan’s island was looking for patterns for their bulky weight yarn.

i was wrong, but that’s what i thought at the time.

i love chunky yarns and that attracted me.

so, i sussed out a new cable swatch and sent it along to be considered.IMG_2115sq

and they wanted it in the collection,

but in worsted weight yarn.IMG_1474sq

submitting designs is funny like that.

i once had a super bulky weight design accepted,

but was asked to rewrite the idea for a dk yarn

and you know what? i couldn’t picture it, but it looked great.

creative directors have visions for things that

i can mostly not even begin to imagine.

i just love the woodlands scarf stitches all done up in worsted.IMG_2116sq

in natural colors merino worsted,

both the yarn and the stitches shine, but

i never would have thought to try it without a little

push in that direction.

the photo above is the center back of the scarf.

you knit from both ends and wind up in the middle

where you graft the two end lengths together

so that the cool cable happening occurs right in the very center of it.IMG_2114 up2as a perk for designing it, i get enough yarn

in the yarn and colorway of my choice,

to knit one to keep.

i chose the same yarn the original is in, because it was so nice.

now, how well do you know me? can you guess which of these

gorgeous colorways i chose for my own?

and which one would you choose?

‘keep’ taken from 18:28 of the psalms.

‘water under the sky’

the summer i was fourteen years old,

i spent two weeks immersed at language camp.

IMG_4170cropthis meant only french

spoken, all the time.

the thing is,

most of us campers

knew very little french.

we’d whisper

in english

in our bunks at night

or behind

the counselors’ backs

trying to stave off

the deep feelings of homesickness

that were only intensified by the language gap.

in an effort to connect IMG_4158

(and to calm us down),

our cabin leader ingrid

would quietly sit

humming

while she brushed

our hair until it shined.

she would then

do different

braids each day.

french braids (of course),

dutch braids, pigtail braids and my favorite, fishtail braids.

four of us had long hair then and became known for our daily locks.

we loved our matching braids and we ate up the attention.

IMG_4173shadewe were so far

from home and from

our own sweet mamas.

even now,

braids

make me feel hugged.

this piece

of my history

is the inspiration

for today’s

new pattern.

‘water under the sky’ feels to me like a warm hug around the neck

and the fishtail braids are like emotional comfort food.IMG_4165sat

don’t you dare let

the braids scare you.

there are clear

step by step directions.

if you want more,

fishtail braiding

is easy to find

on youtube,

and tomorrow you can

to enter to win

enough yarn to knit and braid, your own ’emotional comfort’.

see you then…

1st and 3rd pics: julie asselin’s ‘yotta’.

‘water under the sky’ taken from 1:9 in genesis.

2nd and 4th pics: camaj fiber arts ‘boheme sari ribbon yarn’.

deep inside

in the dead of winter,

when i begin to feel that i might never get warm again,

i remember summers with my family near the ocean.

Pearl-5+

 

Pearl-3+i think about

walks on the beach,

the sun warming

the back of my neck.

these thoughts

bring to mind

that spring

is truly coming.

all the while,

i smile at the

memory of

the childhood hope

that every clam shell

in sight

held a pinkish pearl

patiently waiting

for me, and only me, to find it and set it free.

this scarf, ‘pearl’, was born of those memories

and how i long so for spring.

‘spring’ taken from 29:23 of job.

photos courtesy of classic elite yarns and meg myers.

‘pearl’ is a new pattern by me, available for free in issue #329 of the cey webletter.

enter to win, or don’t?

seriously, is that even a question?

it’s a luxurious yarn, a free copy of a new pattern and some other little goodies

of course you should enter.

i’ve just released a new pattern knit up in

galler yarns’ heather prime alpaca.

this stuff is amazingly soft

and there’s enough in

just one skein to

to knit this.

‘this’ being valleys of the sea

a rectangular wrap with wave like edging

along the right and left edges as it’s knit end to end.

really now,

does it get any better

than high altitude alpaca

(‘the cashmere of alpacas’)

that you can contentedly

knit an entire wrap in

out of a single

600 yard

skein?

did i mention that this means

no yarn ends to weave precariously into the lace pattern?

leave a comment to this post saying

which galler yarn you would most like to try and why

on or before saturday, december 8th.

i’ll choose 5 winners by rng.

(one for each skein shown)

winners will be announced on monday, december 10th.

check back this week for posts on my fav galler yarns,

and which one i so very badly want to work with next.

‘valleys of the sea’ taken from 22:16 of 2nd samuel.

from the start

after a few e-mails,

a small envelope arrives.

inside are samples

different widths,

different to the touch,

all silk.

i can pick three,

& then the colors that

each will be dyed.

i’ve stood at

many a yarn shop

and had certain colorways

call out to me.

          i usually know what i like and what i don’t.

but, this time i can choose any of the colors shown here.

my mind is speechless.

my ability to choose freezes in the waves of the near endless possibilities crashing

again and again inside my head.

i head to rocks (me and my thing for rocks) for inspiration.

but should i choose the colors in turquoise, or lapis or one of the agates?

i stumble across this ring on etsy.

this is it.

i know it.

wow, ruby agate.

when applied to the silk strands i chose,

it looks like this.

now the hunt begins: to find,

or to plain old make-up,

a stitch pattern of some sort

that will do it justice.

nothing else feels like silk.

nothing.

it has its own personality,

its own flair.

most of my cousins were ready to tear the needles and skein from my bare hands

as i worked three or four inches of one idea after the next,

each was frogged.

they were not quite right.

not for this yarn…

until finally, intertwined cables

(the result of graph paper

paired with more

than a few sharp pencils)

fit the playbill. ahh,

corriente‘s ‘born’.

‘different’ taken from 4:7 in first corinthians.

2 days out

this is my newest scarf, mnara,

(pattern is now available here on ravelry).

see how it’s climbed a tree to get a better ocean view?

come on.  use a little imagination…or just ask my 6 yr old.

he’ll explain to you in great detail exactly how it could happen.

‘mnara’ is swahili for ‘tower’ taken from 8:9 in the song of solomon.

ear to ink to fiber

i am, admittedly, a process knitter.

i am also a recovering perfectionist, so there it is.

in that vein of things,

here is the beginning to now of the ‘rib and button scarf‘.

it is a far from flaw-free process,

but since i aim to ‘recover’ from my perfectionistic bent,

i think i must accept the process, blemishes and all…

so this (radio city music hall):

inspired these:

which in the early stages of

becoming real looked like this:

(note how very unblocked and quite wrinkled it is

from me carrying it all about

to knit it here and there as i went along)

*

*

*

*

*

and

in the end,

all semi-solid

and buttoned up cozy,

wound up in

Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts 2011

looking like this:

and it sure did

come a long way, baby.

‘carried’ taken from 10:5 in jeremiah.

bottom photo courtesy of interweave knits.

‘rios’ in teal feather courtesy of malabrigo yarn.