Spoils of the Season

My favorite gift this holiday season was a complete surprise! The Farmer traveled to Amsterdam last October. I jokingly suggested that he pick out something fabulous at Stephen & Penelope for me, thinking he could not be bothered to find the shop and pop in to look at yarn. I was mistaken:

Not only did he stop by, he engaged the staff to help him find a shop sample that he liked and then find the yarn and pattern for it! Apparently it took three staff members and an hour of time, to everyone's delight! I will enjoy knitting with these beautiful skeins.

Over the break, we spent a day in Washington DC looking at all the monuments. I had never done this activity in spite of many trips to the area. The afternoon was very enlightening.

In other news, we are celebrating New Years Eve with a cheese plate and chili on a very cold and snowy evening tonight. Here's wishing friends and family a wonderful new year. Happy knitting!

Transitions

After many years of talking about it, we finally spent all summer in a different city, Milwaukee. My last Thursday, I visited an up and coming neighborhood called Bay View where i stumbled upon a sweet little used bookstore with resident cats, Fiber Fever yarn store, and an old fashioned habidashery. It also looked like one could eat yummy things here, but time was not on my side.

Bookstore with funny cats!

Handmade hats, new and restored, made on antique equipment.

The souvenir yarn from Fiber Fever yarn store is worsted weight from a Shetland sheep named Flora, who lives on the Rose Boulder Farm in Wisconsin.

I transformed the yarn into a hat using the Mossy Lane Hat pattern two weekends ago on a trip to New Jersey. (I used size 4 & 6 needles.) Its a perfect way to transition from a lovely summer to leaf peeping this fall.

After a long and early cold snap at the end of August and drought conditions, many trees are changing color early and shedding their leaves already. Enjoy the last day of summer, and of course, the delightful return of cool weather in the fall! Happy knitting!

Summer Knitting Reboot

 After a week of decompressing after a tough semester of teaching orchestra, I am ready to take a look at some summer knitting. I unearthed a half finished cowl/hat made from Shady Grove Dark Star, some cool painted yarn I got for my birthday a few years ago, and a sock pattern with yarn. 

Not sure what’s first, but I’m looking forward to being productive in some other non-teaching way. 

Happy Summer! Is anyone else freezing? Maybe I should knit a sweater instead…

Souvenir Sweetness

Nothing is quite as amazing as a local yarn shop in an artsy town you are visiting. I spent a week in Black Mountain, NC going to fiddle camp earlier this month and barely had time to dart in to make a selection before our last concert down the street. 

 

This shop was extraordinary, and I regret not taking pictures of entire walls of some of my favorite yarns by Brooklyn Tweed, La Bien Aimee, LITLG, and others.

The shop owner suggested an item that could only be acquired in her store: a special color way dyed only for her shop by Spincycle. The colors reflect the colors of a sunset in the mountains and is just lovely! Five years ago my souvenir yarn was also by Spincycle, and I made THIS cowl with it. I added a shop tiny stitch marker to my purchase because I love their logo.

Looking back at my previous souvenir projects, I predict another cowl or hat for this lovely skein!

Happy Knitting!

Here a Sheep, There a Sheep

Here's circling back to my Coast to Coast Walk for a few posts as the year ends! Old Mac Donald was most likely a sheep farmer, from what I could tell. The abundance of sheep on this trip was a constant delight to encounter. On the train, so many sheep on pastures the further north we rode. Sheep in St. Bees on the way to the hotel.

Sheep on the beach and sheep with the best views of the land and sea. The animals seem very engrossed in their non-stop meals, I'm not sure they are noticing. 

I personally noticed that very few sheep had been sheared so far. Our alpacas need to be sheared by early June if you don't want to deal with animal heat stroke, but northern England is indeed much further north than central Indiana and still quite chilly. Shearing usually happens in July up here. It was super windy on top of that plateau and I was glad I had my jacket on to keep from freezing despite the mild day. 

I loved how many sheep breeds we passed. The brown and grey ones below are particularly interesting and adorable. They are Herdwick, and they can survive the fell landscape by only eating forage without other food supplements. The brown animals are lambs or very young sheep while the grey ones are a few years old. They turn from brown-black to grey as they mature. Beatrix Potter had a flock of Herdwicks on her many farms and was instrumental in helping the breed survive.

Sheep enjoyed the landscape around abandoned monasteries...

The barren landscape and lack of trees (partly a side-effect of grazing sheep) makes it necessary to build fences with stones. These stone fences were everywhere, well-maintained, and thick. There were often stone barns and shelters as well. 

Oooops, these aren't sheep; they're alpacas! But since they were the only ones I saw during the entire trip, I decided to give them some room on the blog!

These guys really wanted to get out, or get our attention, or both. Lots of noise from this crew are we passed by!

The other sheep breed that was prolific was Swaledale, where the adult animals have beautiful round horns. The town of Swaledale was also near the walk. Above is a great example of the many stone fences that divide the landscape into pastures. 

Finally, this sheep seems to know that there are no real lions who live in the English mountains or on the moors, so might as well catch a snack on the hotel lawn. The employees were half-heartedly trying to get this sheep to leave, but it was quite happy and persistent. 

I hope you enjoyed looking at a few of the hundreds of sheep that I saw! I decided to spare you the knick knack collections that these animals inspired. There was endless kitsch in every little tourist shop. 

 

Orange Creamsicle Hat

After finishing the Artesian shawl and another project in short succession, I was really excited to get another project “on the needles.”

Enter: vacation yarn from Swaledale sheep! I decided to use both of my England yarns knit together. I had just knit a swatch for another project in seed stitch and thought it looked fun for a hat. I cast on an odd number (81) using size 5 needles and off I went.

When I ran out of the orange yarn, I was able to split the white yarn and knit with 1.5 thickness. It worked well. I started five decreases per round and stayed in pattern as best I could. When twelve stitches were left, I finished with the tapestry needle.

My niece was nice enough to model it, but the intended recipient was my sister-in-law. Her favorite color is orange, and she had been extra sweet last year at the holidays. 

Sadly, life shifted back to high energy busy-ness shortly after finishing, and my knitting has been taking a short hiatus in the last month. Hopefully the weather turns cooler soon, and life settles into a routine as well. Happy Back to School to all who are going back this fall!

Travel Knitting

Picking the right knitting is so important for successful travel. I was delighted to find Romi Hill’s Artesian Shawl about a week before leaving for Europe this summer. 

This particular shawl only uses one skein of sock yarn. I immediately remembered a very interesting skein that has real silver in the fiber. I was almost certain I would never use it. Small project, lots of interest.

This project would have been enough for the whole trip (especially since I did some yarn shopping; see previous post). But of course I also brought a whole sweater’s worth of yarn “just in case!”

There was lots of knitting in public. Knit In Public Day landed on my rest day in Grasmere, England. But as you might imagine, taking selfies while knitting is tricky. So instead I got caught knitting after dinner in the Aquavit on the boat on the Danube.

Most importantly, I found a happy recipient for it. My mother-in-law was admiring the knit-in-progress the entire cruise. So I gave it to her on her birthday!

Yarn Haul

Vacation yarn souvenirs are some of my favorite items to collect. I had some excellent adventures this summer, but it so happened that I was also able to sneak in an impromptu pilgrimage to a yarn store that I have admired for a few years. Let’s all dreamily stare at the front window of Stephen and Penelope Fine Yarns in Amsterdam!

More importantly, let’s admire the vast and gorgeous yarn selection! I spent several hours on two different days drooling here. Don’t worry, I swallowed the drool!

I eventually chose some skeins from this section of the store. Have I mentioned that I am a fan of orange?

I really like this wooden display holders and think I will try to make a few for the day that I start selling Shady Grove Alpaca yarn at fiber fairs…

Violá! Three coordinating skeins in orange plus a branded project knitting bag to keep them safe. Watch out for those crazy bicycles in Amsterdam!!

Prior to Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to visit England and purchased some Swaledale sheep yarn (white) and some sock yarn dyed in the same neighborhood. More on the sheep of England in an upcoming post.

Final picture of entire yarn collection, including four skeins of sock yarn that I purchased at the request of my parental unit. It’s her favorite, and it came in some lovely colors!

And finally, some fiber whimsy brought to you by local knitting and sewing artists who decorated this bridge in the town of Melk, Austria. More on that trip in a later post as well!

Stay safe and happy knitting! 🧶