Rowr Mitts - Test Knitting - New Pattern Review

Knitting designer, Nakia Casey, had asked me to test knit her recent pattern, "Rowr Mitts" (Ravelry download here).  It's a colorwork design, using two colors of your choice, and a quite easy-to-knit technique called mosaic or slip-stitch. I hadn't tried this method before, so I was excited to see how it went, in comparison to fair isle. It's a very cool method, and if you haven't tried colorwork before, or don't like trying to figure out how to hold both yarns at the same time, then give this pattern a try.

My daughter loves anything animal print, so she instantly took to her little leopard mitts!

I spent about one day of knitting for each mitt, and made the child sized pair for my daughter. I used my Twisted Sock yarn for these, but would also suggest using my Classic Sock yarn as it's 100% merino and fluffy fibers love to "hug" each other while doing colorwork. You will end up knitting one row of the chart with only one color at a time, and slipping the opposite colored stitches. Then you repeat that same row once more, then switch to your other color, knit those stitches, while slipping the opposite colored stitches and repeating the same row again, one time. Then move to the next row of the chart, and so on. This method makes it fast and really simple to manage.

The charts themselves are quite clear and easy to follow. The pattern itself is well-written so there's no guess-work. Overall, I really loved the pattern itself, and am loving the end result! This is the perfect kind of knit if you want some instant weekend gratification, or have a gift you'd like to make, pronto. They're pretty versatile as well, because the adult pair uses 3 repeats of the chart for the wrist until you get to the thumb gusset, but you can easily knit two or even one repeat depending on how long you want them to be on your arm/wrist. I used my kettle dyed yarn, and it looks great! You can also try out a gradient yarn as the background, or the contrasting color to change the ending effect.

It's a great project for giving colorwork a go, for a fast knit, and it definitely makes a little statement of it's own! It also uses a very small amount of fingering yarn... I believe I used less than 150 yds for the kids mitts with 2 chart repeats for the wrist/arm. I know I could not have used that much, since I used the remainder from that 400yd skein to make my husbands "We call them Pirates" fair isle hat.

I think one of the reasons these mitts knit up so quickly is because the chart and pattern changes enough to be interesting, and has a really great rhythm to it so that you don't want to put it down. It's more fun to just keep knitting it until it's done.

You never know what the Owls are going to deliver~ Harry Potter Sock Yarn Club!

Okay, so maybe I'm a little obsessed. But well, it's fun! The signups are ready at my Etsy store for the newest Harry Potter sock yarn club. It's a six month club, and there will be goodies included in each shipment, and shipping in the US is included in the price!

Harry Potter 6 month Yarn Club in my Etsy shop

This time around, I have some ideas in mind, and I can't wait to put them onto yarn for the colorways. Good or bad, nice or naughty, person, place, or thing!

Colorways will be exclusive to the members of the sock club, and members can purchase additional skeins of their choice at any time. I'm not sure if I'm going to re-release the colorways after the club, but if I do, it will be at least six months after the club closes in 2011.

First shipment goes out December 15th, 2010, hopefully getting to you in time for the holidays. Oh, and this club could be anything from any of the books..

The Black Lake ~ New Harry Potter companion yarn!

With the start of my Harry Potter 2010 Yarn Club underway, there is a new yarn that is a companion to the club. The dyeing process for this yarn is unique so the colors for this turned out just amazing!

The Black Lake ~ Hogwarts Lake

"And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood."
~Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone

"There were rocks littering the lake bottom. He dived and snatched up a particularly jagged one and returned to the statue. He began to hack at the ropes binding Ron, and after several minutes' hard work, they broke apart. Ron floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of water."
~Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

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Do you remember Hogwarts Lake?... The Black Lake. Harry crossed it in a tiny boat with Hagrid as a first year seeing Hogwarts Castle for the first time. The Merpeople lived there, and they held his friends under the water, captive, for the Second Task in The Goblet of Fire. The Merpeople came out to sing a lament song for Dumbledores final rest into The White Tomb...

Beautiful, luxurious colors of deep blues, paler blues, sea greens, emerald and browns play onto the sparkling blue faced leiscester yarn base. It has a high aqua cast in natural and bright lights, and outside of that you can see the deeper blues that play into it. This effect is achieved from the over-dyeing and gives it unique color.

BFL yarn is shimmery, quite strong, and soft; this blend has nylon added in to make it an even more durable softy. This one is also a superwash so you can machine wash it for ease if you choose.

It's a unique colorway with an initial kettle dye, then colors were hand painted on, then another immersion into the kettle to overdye the yarn.

Specs:
BFL Sock (80/20 superwash light sportweight BFL, nylon)
333 yds approx - 100g.
Heavy fingering to light sport weight sock
Machine wash gentle, dry flat

Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival

This past weekend was the Oregon Flock & Fiber festival. I headed out there with my daughter so we could have a little girl-time (important when you're outnumbered by males 5 to 2 in your household ;) ) and check out the fiber stuffs.

The sheep, goats, alpacas, and rabbits were a big hit with my daughter, as well as all things soft and fluffy - which is most everything there really - she loved the angora rabbit and decided that this really needs to be our next animal for our household.

I found some dye that I needed at an excellent price, as well as picking up a drop spindle and some roving so I can try my hand at something new: Spinning! Now I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but if I ever want to own one of those gorgeous spinning wheels, I better get the hang of the drop spindle!

Just a little over 2 oz. of roving (mostly BFL from Tumble Creek Farm in Bend, OR) and my spindle bought from a Canby OR spinning guild. 

Autumn Harvest Yarn 2-skein Packs for sale!

Ohhhh I just love the Autumn season... I'm going to have to dye up some of these special Autumn Harvest yarn packs for myself too! I've had that Mythos pattern from Knitty's First Fall issue in mind... I think I might have just the right yarn in mind now too..

Order Autumn Harvest Yarn Pack

Right now in my Etsy shop I have Autumn Harvest Yarn packs for sale. Each pack is like a mini-club, meaning that it's two skeins of yarn, dyed in the same colorway and going out in one package. Each package comes with surprise Autumn goodies to enjoy during your seasonal knitting.

It'll be enough yarn for knitting a shawl, or a sweater like I'm thinking of above, gloves, mitts, a scarf, whatever project you've got in mind. It's available in my Twisted Sock yarn base, which is soft and plush, with a nice twist to it. The yardage for each double skein pack is listed below. And like always, anyone who orders yarn clubs or packs can order additional skeins of yarn if you want more of the same limited colorways. Just convo or email me to find out price per skein :)


~ Twisted Sock (80/20 superwash merion/nylon)
400 yds/100g. each skein = 800 yds/200g per package


Happy Autumn! 

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows 3 month Yarn Club - Now Open

Come and join in the HP knitting fun! Signups are open for the Harry Potter Yarn Club. This is going to be so much fun to work on... I can hardly wait to get started!

There are two clubs, a kettle dyed version, which will be yarns dyed in a dyepot with one main color that isn't mixed evenly. This results in the dye having tonal variations in it. The other option is variegated colors, which will be hand painted by me, and each colorway typically will have 3-6 colors per skein.

All of the colorways represent characters (or things!) in the last book. The movie is going to be released into US theatres in November and I can hardly wait to knit up some things with Harry Potter yarn!

Clubs go for 3 months, starting in October and continuing through December. There are two payment options, to pay in full, or to pay in two installments. Club price is $70 with free shipping to the US (shipping to Canada & Europe for a fee) or pay $35 now and $38 in October.

So far, the list of characters and things that have been suggested by members of the club, from my Facebook page, and from the club Ravelry group are:
Snape
Molly Weasley
Fred & George
Ginny
Draco
Lucius
Dumbledore
Voldemort
Shacklebolt
Grawp
Fenrir Greyback
Harry/Ron/Hermione
Horcruxes 

Anything else that should be on the list? I will be choosing 3 of these for the colorways, and likely there will be different choices for each club since not all choices can be translated into a solid color for the kettle dyed club.

Feel free to join the Ravelry group even if you're not going to join the club, but love Harry Potter and want to keep an eye on things. Also, I'm updating my Facebook page with all of the news for the clubs as well.

Purchase a slot for the HP club through my Etsy shop.

My Buttony Sweater Pattern ~ or the Tweedy Fall Cardigan

I have fallen in love with short-sleeved cardigans! The weather was rainy and cloudy yesterday, cool and in the 60's... Perfect for trying out my new buttony sweater! And oh, was it fun to wear. I can't wait until the next time I wear it, it really does it's job. It kept me warm and cozy, but it was lightweight in feel, and because of the short-sleeves it wasn't bulky. Quite amazing how it all fell together.

I kept notes of what I did as I knit it, and I would say it turned out to be an xsmall-small size. If I could knit it again, I would definitely start with less stitches (I would give it about 2 inches more negative ease) and start the decreases about an inch sooner (although if it was slimmer probably wouldn't need to do that). The yarn is very stretchy, the tweed yarn that I used I mean, so it really has a lot of spring and sproing and give.

Check out the buttons I found! I really love these... these are stones from a beach in southern California. Hand-drilled to make them into buttons. The organic energies of these buttons feels so great on my sweater! When you touch them, you can almost feel like you hear the waves splashing gently on the shore...

You can find these buttons by a wonderful Etsy artist, Made For Fun . Not only are her stones reasonably priced, and well-made, but they came packaged & wrapped beautifully, and with a couple of extra buttons to boot!

I love to buy local when I can, and definitely hand-made when I can... I'm always on the lookout for local or other hand-made artisans of every type, buttons, beads, fibers (I love finding great yarn/roving bases for dyeing!), or anything else. Drop me a line if you are a hand-made artisan so we can talk :)

OK, so onto the rest of the pattern and pictures.....

I'm very happy with the fit around the wait and hips

Perfect Fall outfit is complete with this quick and cozy knit...

Now... onto the pattern I ended up working out for this sweater. You can find the original pattern here on the web, and here on Ravelry. I looked over Raptwithfiber's notes and then started off on my journey on making it fit for me.

I choose to use two worsted wools held together:
Araucania Nature Wool & Plymouth Tweed
I started with a size #10 needle, but switched to a #9 needle. I would suggest using the #9 for the whole way. I just didn't want to tear it all back out again and thought it would be OK like it was. Knit back & forth on circulars. The edging with the buttons/buttonholes is knit in garter stitch, so you will be knitting the last 6 sts no matter which side you're on (WS or RS).



WindingRiver Buttony Cardigan