All cozy

I've been doing a little knitting! This is the Cabled Tea Cozy from The Knitter's Book of Yarn. I finished one side a few weeks ago, but I had to wait for my Malabrigo order to arrive before I could start the second side and keep going. The green is Lettuce, and the blue is Indigo. I like the way they go together.

This pattern, designed by Jennifer Hagan, is just my kind of clever. There are all those interesting textures and cables and varied backgrounds, a sweet little i-cord handle that's kitchenered together, a simple stockinette lining, and lots of i-cord bringing everything together. Besides, it's fun!


I took these pictures this morning, after I had seamed the two sides together. Since this cozy will be lined I decided to crochet the seam. It was an easy out, I know, but I like how well the halves fit. I moved on to the very cool seed stitch i-cord that edges the seam, and not long after the photo shoot I was attaching it all the way around.


And now, after spending a wonderful afternoon knitting and watching old movies, I'm working on the lining, which is picked up around the bottom edge and knit in the round. There's another i-cord to make, and about six inches of lining left to knit, and then I'll have a beautiful cabled cozy for my non-existent teapot.

My dear friend Kris pointed out that he has not one, but two teapots in his house. And he uses them, too. Merry Christmas!


In keeping with my own weird tradition, I've already finished my KR Retreat New Beginnings project. It's the Diamonds and Pearls Shawl, also from Clara's book. Shelia January is the designer of this piece and several others in the book that I'm looking forward to knitting.


The yarn is beautiful worsted weight silk/merino dyed by Jen Heverly of Spirit Trail Fiberworks. I used just one 200-yard skein, less than the pattern suggests, because I was working with a very different type of yarn than Shelia used in her design. The finished shawl is a bit smaller than the original, which is just right for me.The fabric I was getting was perfect on US 9's so I didn't want to go up a needle size just to make it bigger.


I began knitting on Sunday the 11th, and I finished on Wednesday the 21st. I did a quick blocking this past Sunday afternoon (love those blocking wires!) and by evening I was prancing around the house with my pretty new shawl on my pajama-ed shoulders. What could be better?

Thank you all for your comments on my Thanksgiving post. Balancing the demands of work and my need to feel close to family and friends is always tricky, but I seem to manage. I sometimes feel like I'm on the verge, but verging isn't always a bad thing. This year, as always, I spent a lovely day with Judy and her family. We created and enjoyed a wonderful meal, laughed a lot, and spent hours in good conversation.The store did well on the first holiday weekend, the customers were in fine form, and I remained sane. I can't wish for more than that.

With thanks

On this bright Thanksgiving day I remember my father, and I send love to my sweet mother, in whose honor I made the best gravy ever today.

I send hugs and kisses to my sisters and brothers and their wonderful families.

I thank Judy for sharing her family with me, and for using my grandmother's tablecloth on her Thanksgiving table.

And to everyone reading these words, I send a wish that you, too have known the joy and comfort of perfect gravy, well-loved linen, and family.

Retreat

I had a lot to say, but it feels like all the words I was going to use to describe my wonderful weekend at the Knitter's Review Retreat were lost to a crazy work week. Photos will have to do (there are more in my Retreat Set on Flickr), and I can ramble, I suppose. Here goes.

After all my fussing and fretting about getting packed and leaving on time, I managed, thanks in part to a bonus afternoon off on Wednesday. It was cloudy and only a bit chilly on Thursday, and the drive to the Seven Hills Inn took about four and a half hours. The Inn was comfortable and cozy, and who can resist a bed with six pillows?

From the Taconic Parkway on the ride up to Lenox

On Thursday evening the early arrivals had a nice dinner, a good visit, and lots of laughter. Then Friday morning arrived, and we spent a few hours learning how to knit in the Swedish Bohus tradition with Shelia January. I'd never done colorwork before, at least not successfully, so I'm thrilled that I got off to a good start on my little headband.

Friday morning preparation for Bohus workshop

The rest of the knitters arrived on Friday afternoon, and the fun and the decibel levels went through the roof. We knitted, we talked, we ate, we showed our stuff, and it was way after midnight before my head hit the (many) pillows.

On Saturday morning we had the great pleasure to take an inspiring lace workshop with Pam Allen. Many of us had knit lace before, but that didn't matter. Our swatches explored the effects of different arrangements of decreases, and we talked about so many other things as we knit -- yarn, reading charts, blocking, and the Next Big Thing in knitting (we might have arrived at a consensus, but I don't think so). While everyone was bent over their knitting I went around the room and took some pictures ...

Knitters' Hands

I spent Saturday afternoon assisting Ms. Clara at her table in the Retreat Marketplace, visiting with friends, and having an all-around good time. Saturday night there was more knitting and fun (and cake!) in the big ballroom.

On Sunday morning, after another late night on Saturday, we gathered for my favorite part of the Retreat -- we read the letters we'd written to ourselves last year (I didn't cry this time), wrote a new letter that we sealed and gave to Clara, and began our New Beginnings project. Mine is the Diamonds and Pearls shawl from Clara's book, designed by Shelia. I'm using some beautiful silk/merino from Spirit Trail Fiberworks, chosen for me by Purlewe on Saturday afternoon.

The weekend was too short. I was just getting going, just beginning to settle in with my dear friends for a visit (hey Martha!), just about to forget my daily life. I need more of this, these connections to the people and the knitting and the creative energy. I even stayed an extra night -- to keep from having to drive home late at night, of course, but also to prolong the goodness. Clara puts together quite a magical weekend. I wish I could describe it better, tell you just how much it means to me to be in that place with those dear people, and give you a real sense of it. Words fail.

Now that I've been home for almost a week, and life has returned to what passes for normal (normal does not really exist for a bookseller in the week leading up to Thanksgiving), I'm in a quandary. What to work on? Should it be Cormo?

Foxfire Fiber Cormo Roving

Or Cormo?

Foxfire Fiber Cormo/Silk Yarn

How about silk and merino instead?

Yarn archeologist

I went on a dig this morning, and I came up with a few things to put in the Stash Lounge at next week's Knitter's Review Retreat.


There are two bags of carded wool, a bag of miscellaneous cotton fiber, and a big bag of yarn. I could have continued excavating the closet, but I had had enough after about an hour. A good thing came of it, because I rearranged a few boxes to make things neater. I also found a brand new pair of corduroys that I bought last year and "forgot" about, located my bobbin winder, put the fan away, and added a few things to the stash bins.

Here is one of my discoveries:

It's my very first skein of handspun yarn! I'm pretty sure it's Romney, and I'm reasonably sure it was spun in 1978. It's funny that I no longer remember the exact moment that I learned to spin. I can't remember where I bought my first wheel, either. The cotton cloth in the picture is one of the first things I wove, in 1977, or thereabouts. I still use it.

Here's something else that surfaced:

It looks like just a messy pile of knitting, but it's my oldest UFO. I started this shawl in 1998, as far as I can recall. I was using a formula that my friend Susanne used to make the most beautiful shawls. She assembled all sorts of yarn, kept a stitch dictionary handy, cast on at the back neck, worked paired increases at the center and edges, and off she went. She changed patterns, switched yarns, and just knit.


I did the same thing here, with my friend Virginia's vegetable dyed yarn and some of my handspun. All the yarns could be considered vintage at this point -- there are a few rows of the very first yarn V dyed and sold, a nice round singles that she got as mill ends in the late 1970's, and that took color beautifully. There's some Gotland, some silk, and some this and that. The dyes were most likely to be madder, marigolds, cutch, walnuts, and water lily roots.

I still have one small box of yarn that V dyed back in the old days, and I think that one day some of it will become a knitted piece. I used to use it to crochet little bags that looked like landscapes, or like garden plots from a bird's eye view.

I don't know why I abandoned this piece, except that I think I was running out of ideas. And I wasn't a good knitter yet, either, because some of the stitch patterns are pretty messy. I might have stopped when there got to be several hundred stitches on the needles, or when I lost sight of the reason I started it, or when life turned upside down.

When I found it today I remembered why I liked it back then. It's like a knitted landscape.

I've been knitting a bit in between some work insanity and preparations for the Retreat (yes, there are preparations such as hemming of pants, packing of yarn and projects and fibers, and laundry, always laundry). The easy-peasy project has been this little scarf that I'm knitting with the Qiviut I got at Rhinebeck.

It's a simple pattern, a short garter stitch scarf with little double-knit holes to pull the end through. I've worked the shaping increases with a yarn-over and continued that all along the straight edge so that this little luxury won't be all garter stitch. It's Qiviut, after all, and it deserves a little something extra. Now all I have left to do is finish the decreases on the end, and I'll be ready for any weather.


I've started another project from Clara Parke's Knitter's Book of Yarn, but it's stalled while I wait for yarn in another color to arrive. This is Jennifer Hagan's Cabled Tea Cozy. It's the first time I've used Malabrigo, and I love the way the cables knit up in the yarn. That Clara -- she's so smart, she knew this would happen. Great stitch definition with a soft singles! Am I the only one who hasn't knit with this sweet yarn before now? I love it. Love it. I don't even own a tea pot! Yet.

I'm going to get up out of this chair now and head over to Sag Harbor to knit with Judy and the R's for a bit. We're keeping our Rhinebeck momentum going.

Rho and I are packing up and heading to the Seven Hills Inn on Thursday morning, so I'll be back to report on all the hoopla after the Retreat. This is going to be fun with a capital F!