Not for Christmas

I don't have much to report on this first Sunday of Advent, except that I've finished another pair of Veylas and a small cap to go with it. They were made on request and what a fun and fast knit! These were made with Indigo Moon sock yarn, in Midnight (black).



The buttons are vintage glass from a closed Czechoslovakian button factory, so they're what antique dealers call "old stock" - never used stock from an old store. I'm not sure how the photos will show them, as they have both brown and black swirling through the glass.



In other news, we had our first snow (a little flurry) and the world is cold and stark, suddenly, without warning. I'm almost prepared for winter, so its fairly cosy here and a fire in the fireplace with a cup of mulled cider or spiced tea is just what I need!

Nancy and Liesel Learn to Knit

Do you remember the little wooden doll from your childhood that helped you learn to knit? You would loop a string of yarn around four posts on the top and then use your fingers or a wooden pin to loop the yarn around and over the posts to make stitches. From the base of the doll a long rope of knitting would appear. We always made them into floor rugs for our doll houses by coiling the loop and sewing the edges together to make a thick flat coaster shape. I think other people were more creative!

But I have very fond memories of these Knitting Nancys, as we called them. When I recently mentioned to my friend Nad in Germany that I couldn't find a nice wooden Knitting Nancy she said, "Oh! A Knitting Liesel! I've seen them over here - let me look for one for you!" Now, something you should know about my friend Nad is that she doesn't let anything stop her! If she has a problem to solve, she just goes to it and finds a solution - so, before the day was over, we had organized a great swap and she had located not one, but several vintage and new Knitting Liesels for me!

Here is my new and wonderful collection (in no particular order because I love them all so much!):

Here are the Knitting Toadstools -


a new one, with it's nifty knitting pin included (you can see the little round red top of the pin), a beautiful vintage one - it's stump is painted white, just like a real Amanita Muscaria, and the large one lying on its side is a handmade darning egg made by an 86-year-old elder who makes things for Nad's local farm fair!!!

another picture of the lovely Toadstools:


And here is the Knitting Angel - her wings are really intact, one is just a little off-center in the photo but it is really there! She also has her original knitting pin.


Next up is something amazing - a complete vintage kit! This company offered three versions, all pictured on the cover: a jaunty mushroom-man, a cheeky ladybug, and a traditional knitting doll - this time a man doll. I was so lucky because Nad found the Ladybug which is much sought-after and hard to find! I do love him! and the direction booklet is in German and English and other languages, so I am able to refresh my memory...lol



Here is a closeup of my lovely bug:



and lastly, this most marvelous find - a very vintage Strickliesel from the GDR!:





Such lovelies!! Aren't I lucky to have such friends who send me treasures from around the world? I really am and I love my friends so dearly! They are greater treasures than anything they could send me.

In other news, I am about to adopt two feral kittens, whom I will name Holmes and Watson, and so I warn you that there will be kitten picspam on this blog in the future!

Travel in Pictures

I love travel. There's nothing like exploring a city that you have fallen in love with and always discovering treasures in every street.

Oregon Winter

by Jeanne McGahey

The rain begins. This is no summer rain,
Dropping the blotches of wet on the dusty road:
This rain is slow, without thunder or hurry:
There is plenty of time – there will be months of rain.


(this is a bubbling fountain in the summer)

I love TeaZone on 11th near Glisan, the little Ace Hardware store on Glisan, and Tea Chai Te on 23rd, and Pearl Bakery on 9th and the Whole Foods downtown and the Infants Story Time at the Library (and the awesome children's Librarian who helped us out so much!) and the poems on the MAX and the Pony Club gallery that displayed Amy's art, the little "Resting Garden" where I stopped each day...



On one walk, I stopped into a new Yarn Store on 11th, Urban Fiber:



Although the space is small, it was full of unusual, local yarns and accessories. There were so many beautiful fibers to choose from, and the prices were good. I fell for the cashmere blend in The Road to China and got enough for two winter scarves:



In the front, to the left of the door, is a cosy space with comfortable chairs for a small group of people to sit and knit - very friendly! Even the accessories were unique - I didn't think I would see anything new, but ended up with a nice little bag of unusual items. A friend of the owner makes the stitch markers, and they even have little lace markers. Since I knit on mostly small needles, this is the kind I like. I liked Urban Fibers and would like go to one of their knit nights or other group activities!

Another favorite of mine is Twisted, up on Broadway. This is quite a long way from the Pearl district where I am (I take the Gresham train) but is so worth the trip. When I visited this time, they had moved the enormous stock of fingering weight (sock) yarns across the entire right hand wall. The Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarns of all types - not just STR but also Silk Thread, Seduction, Peru, De-Vine, WooBu, Laci, and Geisha - covered two sides of the corner. This may not seem unusual to those of you who get to go to the Sheep and Wool Fairs and Sock Summits and Knitting/Spinning/Dying retreats where Blue Moon yarn fondling is rampant. But for someone who usually only views it online, this face-to-face encounter was pretty mind-blowing.

It was educational too. They had almost all of the new colourways and they were all different. It was amazing to see several skeins of the same colourway with none of them looking exactly alike. Often, there were two in the same colourway that were like fraternal twins, with the same depth of colour, but never more than two. I really had a jolt of realization of what “hand-dyed, two at a time” meant! It was amazing, and amazingly beautiful! And I realized that when I see a photo of a skein example online and expect the skein I order to look just like it, I am truly on the train to Looney Town, headed for City Central! Because - they are all different! Of course the colourways have a definite family resemblance, but none are identical twins. None. But each one is so beautiful! (did I say that already?)

Getting to choose the exact looks and depth of colour that I wanted was so much fun. I got a Spike that had a deep blackish red (the other two skeins had a lighter black) and a Drusilla with a lot of nice grey-mixed-with-red, and a Paula Mae that had an incredible little touch of light blue in one spot (one of the other skeins had that and third seemed to have no blue at all).



I also went crazy over the other yarns, especial A Verb for Keeping Warm. This yarn uses natural substances to dye their yarns so the colours are subtle and soft. There was so much to choose from that I stood back, on the other side of the store, to view the wall as a whole and then picked out the two skeins that my eyes kept going to again and again. It was quite funny, because, although they looked different from a distance, they turned out to be the same colourway!



Here is The Peacock's Wild Plume in Metamorphosis, the sport weight yarn with 70% Superwash Merino and 30% Silk... and The Peacock's Wild Plume in Annapurna, another sport weight in 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, and 10% Nylon. So Soft!

Okay, so I got a little carried away with all the yarn love, but you know that I'll use it and lots of lovely cosy clothing will result. So it's a necessity, right?

I also visited Knit/Purl on Alder and 11th which is a lovely store but very inconvenient with a stroller and a sleeping baby and I have to say that, although my several experiences before the baby were great here, this time they followed me around like I was going to tuck yarn into my carriage. It was embarrassing. And although they opened and held the door for a couple of people ahead of me who were carrying their packages out, they actually stood right near me and smilingly watched me struggle with the heavy wood-and-glass door, the stroller, and my bag (with the Rowan book I had just purchased) as I tried to carefully back down the one big step out of the store without tipping over, and they never even stepped forward to hold the door! I didn't buy any yarn there, although there was a lot I wanted. I'll go back sometime when I'm over the sting of that experience and can visit on my own. Because I really do like the store and I know that sometimes people don't think to help until after the opportunity is over.

Now it's time to actually create something with the yarn I bought. Right now on the needles are a pair of Veylas in Indigo Moon black (from Twisted) and I'll also make a hat from this... I found two scarves in the newest Holiday Vogue (they have a section with several lace scarves) that will be perfect for the cashmere Road to China yarn, and as for the STR... The Paula Mae will be stockings for Jule, the Spike will be knitted ribbed pants for the baby, and the Drusilla will be for me. The Annapurna cashmere blend from A Verb for Keeping warm was going to a Peak's Island Hood, but there is not quite enough yardage, so I need to re-think that... There is the Holly Berry Cowl in the latest Piecework magazine, and although it's gauged for lace weight, I might be able to adapt it... So many possibilities!

Hallow's Eve Revelry

"When the bats like ghosts are gliding,
witches soar, on broomsticks riding,
jack-o-lanterns twinkle, grinning.
Our Halloween revelry will be just beginning!"

According to the verse on my collection of old Halloween postcards, at some time in American history Halloween was considered a time for fortune-telling - for fore-telling the future... your fate, your coming year, your true love...



Legend was that if you turned out all lights, and held a mirror in one hand, and looked in it with a candle in the other hand while walking backwards (sometimes while walking backwards down a flight of stairs!), you would see in the mirror a vision...

If you will but backwards go
Several rods or so –
With a mirror by the handle
And in your other hand a candle
You will surely meet your fate
Now’s the time – it’s ne’re too late!





For my part, I'm just happy to make costumes out of old furry jackets from the thrift store, make simple autumn food from the Organics to You delivery, and walk through the crispy leaves to the tea shop for Pumpkin Spice Tea...



Still, I won't be surprised to see the Goblins dancing if I walk out after dark!



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sophia's Butternut Soup recipe

Roast two medium sized butternut squash in a hot oven - split the squash, remove the seeds, sprinkle with olive oil and a little maple balsamic vinegar; place in a pan and cook in the oven for 45 mins

Scoop out the cooked squash and mash it. You should have about 2 cups of squash, but I never measure things exactly - this is just approximate. In a heavy pan on the stove, add to the squash 1 cup cream, 1/2 cup milk, a dash of cinnamon and of salt, a tiny pinch of ground cloves, red pepper, and of nutmeg. Stir constantly while heating slowly. Do not boil. You may want to use a wire whisk to blend the ingredients.

You may also add very finely minced onions, leeks, and/or mushrooms, first sauteed in butter or olive oil.

Core two fresh apples and simmer with a small amount of water in a separate pan. When thoroughly soft, press through a sieve and add a teaspoon of brown sugar or honey and a dash of salt. It should be thick. Set aside.

Pour the squash soup into bowls. Place a scoop of the applesauce in the middle of each bowl. Sprinkle with a little more nutmeg. Some of my friends like it with a small spoonful of sour cream, or some grated cheddar cheese on top, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

another Brat

I have very little knitting content to report, because I've been.... well.... knitting presents, and those need to remain, you know, Secret! So, no pictures, no descriptions, no fiber-y hints. Just lots of surreptitious knitting and silence.

But I am making another hat for myself. Because I am stepping westward, I need a hat that will do what it needs to do in wet, cool weather but definitely not cold, snowy weather, I needed something a little lighter than those thick medieval helmets I've been making for myself! I started another Brat Sister Hat, this time in cashmere fingering weight to match the Veyla gloves in my last post.



I've been working on my collection perfectly normal-sized stash also. Ahem. A box from Blue Moon Fiber Arts might have arrived this week. And inside might have been several skeins of their new fiber Marine Silk, which I showed you earlier in it's Quilla incarnation, I think.

Here it is in Lodestone, a most lovely pale green with a subtle swath of spring yellow like the edge of a newly unfurling leaf in Spring:



These two skeins are the ones for Miss Marple's Shawl, which I described below. The shawl, square but lightwieght, is part of an indulgent set I'm making for myself that includes, in addition to this 1930's shawl, a silk and merino undervest from the 1930's, and a pair of merino sleeping socks of my own design. All this is in aid of those times when I'm ill and have to stay on the couch feeling sickeningly sorry for myself. These comforts will be perfect for resting in this cold old house!

More Marine Silk, this time in My Blue Heaven, Winter Solstice, and Lenore:



I have no plans for these skeins, but wish I had ordered more of the Winter Solstice. It's winter-sky silver really appeals to me right now!

And finally, because Marine Silk comes in three different weights, here is Lenore in the Lace weight. It is beautifully silky and shiny:



This skein is actually not mine, but is part of a trade with my friend Nad in Germany. She is a fearless knitter and doesn't hesitate to use the micron-thin lace weight yarns! Here is a close-up of how the blood-red blends with the raven black on the end of the skein:



Don't you just love Blue Moon?

Stepping Westward
~ Denise Levertov

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

The Art of Knitting

Strange things happen around my old New England farmhouse sometimes. Things disappear. Sometimes I think that I am living with The Borrowers, or that the field mice are lining their winter nests with my knitting! The most recent things to go missing are all my fingerless mitts (I would call them gloves, except they don't have fingers). I've had a couple of pairs of my own Koigu Gloves pattern - one was my favorite green Broccoli mitts - and use them every fall before the weather gets cold enough for really serious gloves. But when I cleaned out and organized the coats, jackets, and accessories they were nowhere to be found - nowhere! Borrowers, indeed.

So...here are my quickly knitted replacements: Veyla, from Ysolda.



I can't say enough about this pattern. The finished gloves are so lovely and with their lace and details they look like a complicated knitting project - but they're not. The pattern is clear and very fast. I made this pair in three days, just working on them in the evenings while watching Rubicon.

My yarn is the wonderful MacKintosh Yarns in the Iona Fingering, which is a merino-cashmere blend, with a little nylon for durability. It's so soft and her colours are stunning in person. This colourway is a deep blend of dark teal blue and black - very "ocean-depths" coloured!



The buttons are antique faceted and silvered black glass. They were a gift from a friend and, I wanted to use them on something where I would see them often. I have enough for a sweater, though, so if I make something else that they would be good with, I might switch these up and use smaller ones on the Veylas.

These mitts fit perfectly and I'll use them on those early frosty Fall mornings we are having. (like today - 39 degrees Fahrenheit right now, although later today, it will be closer to 70!) I see more pairs of Veylas in my future!



The book in these photos is a precious antique volume of The Art of Knitting, 1902, published by The Butterick Publishing Co [Limited], London and New York, Price: fifty-cents or two shillings.



This incredible original came to me as a gift from my friend Marky in Australia - its a real treasure! This was obviously a well-used volume over the past 110 years, as the pages are filled with faded photographs of mysterious people, patterns cut out of other magazines of the day, and hints on cleaning felted hats and pressing silk sash ribbons between muslin... This photo is the beautiful "Maggie" holding a garland in her lap and perhaps dressed for a wedding with her deep V-necked gown and dainty button-up shoes.



The frontispiece is a very familiar one - a scene that I've found in several of my old knitting and crochet volumes from the mid and late 1800s, that of a grandmother teaching her granddaughter to knit, and leads me to believe that in a publication from 1902, at least some of the patterns have their origin in an earlier century. Perhaps this picture is meant to indicate that the patterns span generations?



The patterns are quaint, like this simple and quick pattern for sleeping socks:



Its heelless design and openwork pattern would make it a very easy pattern to work up in a bit of leftover wool or silk.

I particularly like this pattern for a cuff, with it's scalloped design and think I might make a pair to peek out from the slightly-too-short sleeves of my brown jacket:



And, of course, these beautiful mittens will have to find their way into my wardrobe this year. I don't really wear mittens much, so I'll probably re-design these to have open fingers.





On the very last page of this fragile booklet, the previous owner has pasted a pattern article from a 1915 newspaper - the WWI years. It is "A Cap Comforter for Tommy" - a hat and neck-cowl combination for a soldier in winter. With it's ingenious design and historical significance, I think it deserves it's own post, so plan to put that up in the future.

Miss Sophia Marple

Today dawned with a definite sharp crispness (I lighted a fire in the fireplace!), and it reminded me that I hadn't finished preparing for winter. I do have balaclavas made for everyone now (you wouldn't believe the storms we get here) and here is the baby one:



I used a most wonderful vintage pattern that shapes the headpiece so perfectly with no piecing or sewing. Everything is made in one piece. Easy. The yarn is Blue Moon's lightweight fingering STR in "Manly, But I Like it Too." Babies are always overheated, so the lightweight will be perfect.

Now I am on to another vintage pattern, this one from the recent Sept/Oct Piecework magazine:



This magazine was so unique in that it explored the handwork, mostly knits, in classic literature. Miss Marple mysteries by Agatha Christie had their own feature and a project alluded to in one of the stories was the central pattern. In many Miss Marple mysteries, she is described as discreetly knitting on a shawl or on baby things while suspects spill the beans around her. I think it is The Caribbean Mystery where she is knitting a pink shawl.



The shawl chosen by Piecework is from the same era, 1930, and was donated by the fabulous Iva Rose who rescues vintage and antique patterns and preserves them for the rest of us and for historians. The pattern is printed in its original form, but only the pattern - definitions of the vintage stitches aren't included.



In the Interweave Piecework group on Ravelry, a few of us have banded together to knit up this pattern and figure out the needle size and yarn requirements. (Come visit us if you want to knit along!). So far, it seems that a fingering weight yarn with size 6 US needles are the favoured choices. There has also been a lot of discussion about which stitch to use for increases: kf&f, bar lift, or backwards loop cast on. In the original, the increases are almost invisible so this will influence my choice. There is also an obscure mention of knitting into the back of stitches, without specifying which stitches so this might refer to the increases, in which case probably the lifted bar increase was used. The original pattern was for a square shawl, though some are halving this to make the lighter triangle.

My own yarn will be Blue Moon Fiber Arts Marine Silk (merino, silk, and sea cell) fingering in the Lodestone colourway. I ordered two skeins just in case, since I plan to make the original square shape in full.

This is what Marine Silk looks like (this is the Quilla colourway; it will be a while before my Losestone arrives):



and this is what the Lodestone colourway looks like - a subtle very light green (it didn't photograph well, but you can get the idea):



I'm really looking forward to this project! I think it will be fast and relaxing to knit a simple square shawl in the cold weather.

One more cold-weather knit for myself is part of my plans (I really need to get back to knitting for others!), also from this same Piecework magazine - these gorgeous gloves:



I'll use the leftover dove grey cashmere yarn that I used for my own balaclava. I know, they won't wear well, but maybe I'll save them for special winter occasions!