The pretty part of fall has whizzed by and the colorful leaves are now mostly on the ground. My deck garden has drooped and the more tropical plants look like they’ve been strangled. It will be a little sad this afternoon to cut these plants down to the soil and button the planters up until spring.
On the other hand, we haven’t completely transitioned into fall; the mornings at sunrise are lovely with mist rising off the lake like fairy sprites. The birds and squirrels seem to be coming around more frequently (actually I think that our deck buffet is just easier than scrounging) as the temperatures cool.
Ducks in our lake on a misty morning in November 2022
My knitting output has been pretty pitiful. I’m blaming it on the fact that my days are so interrupted by physical therapy appointments that I end up distracted and don’t get back to it. The good news is that my walking is now back to normal after the September accident and I’ve been able to increase the length of my walks to over a mile at a time. It doesn’t sound like that much, but up to the middle of October I could barely make it to the mailbox and back without the muscles seizing up. Have I mentioned that getting old(er) is a complete pain in the whatever?
This is the flying geese pattern that I’ve been using in a number of different contexts including this hatband. The hat is done and blocking. I used two of the Windover Farm and Mill yarns that I got a while back. The hat is a little poofed up for drying, but when it’s done, will have a shape much like the “Hermanna’s Hat” from Knit (Spin) Sweden.
I did a review of the Windover yarns here, and you’ll see Clare’s response in the comments section. Please take a look because she has some very worthwhile things to add to my review about yarn from small mills.
The hat was a little too small for me (I needed to do one more repeat of the chevron on the band), but it does seem to fit most of the ladies in my Wednesday knitting group. They all decided that this hat literally works for anyone. Usually I select a name for my patterns based on a person that the pattern brings to my mind. In this case, the hat name will be Everywoman Hat (pattern forthcoming).
I had a very different reaction to working with this yarn than I did with the Gotland spun by Windover Farm and Mill. For a start, the natural colored wool (her Wensleydale) has been paired with a pinch of alpaca and a dash of merino, so it’s soft as butter. The green did have a flaw in the plying, but it was small, and easy to work around. Well worth it, I think, since the color is outstanding. It’s somewhere between green apple and spring willow, but somehow neither of those. Clare has a really great eye for special colors.
I’ve also managed to finish another pattern to post on Ravelry, this one for the beret-style hat I knit from my hand spun yarn. This was a fractal spin so you see the very different colorways in the upper left corner of this photo. I need to take a photo with this on someone’s head as my wig stand doesn’t do it justice at all (my head being much larger than the styrofoam “head”). I still have to do a final edit, so I’ll announce it’s completion and posting later this month. It’s called Barely a Beret.
The hand spun I used is somewhat uneven, so it was a little difficult to size the yarn to a commercial equivalent, but I’m recommending a DK weight. As always, I recommend you swatch to pin down the right needles to match the gauge of my patterns. None of us knit alike, so it’s really easy to end up with something that doesn’t fit if you don’t take that extra time. I’m going to suggest a skein of something like Kelbourne Woolens Scout.
I want to get this up and posted since it has taken me so long to get it written, so I won’t go into the travails of the Gotland beret. Surprisingly, it came out way too big and required surgery. It’s not quite finished….so next time.
Meanwhile…
I haven’t touched my spinning wheel for at least 2 months, so I’m feeling a little rusty. I had to get up yesterday morning and spin for a while to make sure the wheel was in good order so that I could attend a woolen spinning class.
I might just be beginning to make yarn, but so far it’s very much a beginner’s output — thick (enormous) or thin (breaking immediately) with substantial slubs and lumps. I’d call it art yarn, but it clearly is not. It will take much practice to get yarn I’d like to use. I have several bumps of fiber that probably would look and perform best in woolen format, so I’ll put my mind (and hands) to it over the next few weeks and we’ll see what happens. As the teacher said (when we appeared to be using the fleece too preciously), “you won’t run out of fiber. The sheep will make more.”
Happy crafting until the next time.
A perfect hat! Thanks Sara.
Thanks, Nancy. Hopefully I’ll get the pattern up without much delay!