Smitty is Knitting

Tag: yarn hero

  • WIP Wednesday: Diamonds are a girl’s biggest mess

    WIP Wednesday: Diamonds are a girl’s biggest mess

    Yarn management final boss

    In my last post I described my plans for a sweater inspired by Harlequin costumes and Venice, and how I finally found the perfect pattern in a 37-year-old issue of Vogue Knitting.

    I'm holding up an issue of Vogue Knitting magazine. My hand is visible in the lower left of the photo. The magazine cover features a blonde model with bangs wearing a black and white sweater that's knit in a houndstooth pattern. The title of the magazine is in turquoise blue, and at the bottom it reads "Time to knit!" in lime green. The background of the cover is bright white.
    A brunette model stands wearing the Harlequin Pullover, which has light orange and black diamons on the torso, black sleeves, and a coral pink cowl collar. She stands in front of a male model holding an umbrella.

    The pattern is #2 Harlequin Pullover by Anne Mieke Louwerens. I got started by pulling out literally every partial and single skein of DK yarn I had, determined to absolutely decimate my stash. I also frogged a sweater that didn’t end up fitting how I wanted, and used the yarn from that – Stipple DK from Yarn Hero in the colorway Dagger – as my main color.

    3 skeins of a multicolor, helix spun yarn with shades of black, gray, red, orange, and deep pink.

    This yarn is so pretty–and discontinued, which I only noticed last night when I had a sudden feeling that I would need more to finish. Whoops. I might be playing yarn chicken with this project, especially since I added two repeats of the diamond motif to make the sweater bigger. Published in an era before knitters were grading size-inclusive designs, this sweater is “one-size-fits-all”* (*read: would definitely not fit me). I’ll manage though. I should definitely have enough for the front and the two sleeves, and I can live with a contrasting back if needed.

    So far I’m most of the way through my front, which I’m also making a little longer with one additional row of diamonds, and finished one sleeve.

    a large piece of knitted fabric with the main color in a dark, marled yarn with black, red, gray, orange, and pink, with contrasting diamonds in purple, yellow, teal, red, brown, green, and gray.
    A sleeve, pinned to a white blocking mat. It's in the dark, marled yarn with black, red, gray, orange, and pink. It also has a roll cuff knit in orange yarn.

    But it wouldn’t be honest of me if I didn’t reveal the shitshow underneath:

    Many balls of yarn in multiple colors, tangled together in a big heap.

    Yep. I’ve knit intarsia before, but this is by far the most complicated intarsia project I’ve done, with the most colors in play at once. The yarn management is unwieldy–if I want to get up from working on this, I either need to finish a row so that all the yarn is on one side of my body, or I have to slide out from under it to avoid mixing all the yarn balls together. It’s like a really bad seatbelt.

    This project lives in the corner of the couch. A couch that belongs to my housemates, who I rent from, and their dog. If I work on this project every day, I can kind of justifying leaving it out, because putting it away means destroying the loose yarn ball organization system and having to spend a lot of time untangling when I want to bring it back out from the project bag.

    Obviously this project can’t travel, and suddenly I’m commuting again. I recently started teaching for a local university’s college readiness program, and now I’m teaching writing and composition to high school seniors at two different schools. So I’m back on that city bus, traveling from one to the other, and I physically can’t ride public transport without a knitting or crochet project.

    I’ve also been working on an improvised bandana for that cooler weather that’s supposed to be showing up soon. I’m using a lovely wool/cashmere blend, which I got from a yarn company that I will not name since they’ve since been exposed for toxic management. I had two balls of this, and used one to make a Wedding Necktie for my partner. Now I can match with my own neckwear.

    A triangule-shaped, unfinished bandana cowl knit in the green-gray color with rusty brown speckles.

    So beautifully mindless that it’s impossible for to lose my place when going over a pothole. I decided to use an i-cord edge, but now I’m worried that it’s too tight and causing it to curl in too much. I’ll see how it looks after blocking–if that can’t fix the tension, I’ll redo it.

    And that’s everything on the needles this WIP Wednesday. See you next time.

    A gif of a person with a mustache and shoulder-length hair, wearing swimming goggles and a Spiderman costume. In the first frame the caption reads "It is Wednesday, my dudes." In the second frame the person stands in a doorway and screams, the caption reading "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

  • Frederick Fiber Festival: A day of sidequests

    New-to-me dyers, a hyper-specific color mission, and the importance of showing up in the rain

    I had been wanting to go to the Frederick Fiber Festival for years and never had a chance because until recently, I had always been working on Saturdays. Tough, especially because FFF happens twice a year – twice as many chances for me to get my ass there!

    During my tenure at the yarn company, we typically went to the big events, like Rhinebeck, Stitches (before it imploded), and VKL (before the thought of unloading a truck in the middle of Times Square became enough to give one hives). I developed a preference for the farm-ier, more outdoorsy events, where in addition to indie dyers and designer appearances, there were also farmers auctioning sheep and herding dog demonstrations. FFF isn’t quite large enough for the complete county fair vibe (I’ll get my fill of that when I make another small roadtrip to Maryland Sheep & Wool next weekend), but it introduced me to a number of vendors I hadn’t had the pleasure of shopping with before.

    Before I went absolutely apeshit at every shiny new booth, I had to remind myself that I had a mission. I’ve been wanting to make an Artus Shawl ever since it came out, and I have a very specific color scheme in mind that revolves around luna moth green. My partner, who loves solving problems, was with me, so I asked him to keep an eye out for a similar shade. I was fully expecting not to find it that day, but I happened to find it at Cape May Fibers. I held up a skein of mohair and said “Look for this, but not fuzzy”; I put the skein back down but my partner had the good sense to take a picture of the label to get the colorway, and wouldn’t you know it, the color was called “Luna Moth”. So while I couldn’t get the weight I needed at the festival, I placed an order in sport weight that night.

    I also made a stop at Yarn Hero’s booth, another source for color-shifting fractal-spun yarn. What I really appreciated here was that in addition to their beautiful standard skeins, Yarn Hero had flawed skeins, mill ends, and test runs for sale, sold by the gram. Not only is it a more affordable option for festival-goers, but I find this also speaks to the sustainability of the company. It’s good to see businesses not hiding away skeins that are short or have slubs just because they can’t sell them full-price. And it’s a rare opportunity for people like me who aren’t picky about a little mill knot here and there, or for folks who don’t want to buy more yarn than they actually need for a project.

    This is another perk of going to festivals like these: you get to see products that often don’t make it to the business’ websites. Plus you get to actually meet the people who run the companies, see the colorways in person, and feel the yarns. This is especially important for companies that don’t have a retail space, and rely on trade shows and trunk shows to directly sell. These events are usually the biggest money-makers, and will often keep an indie dyer in business for months.

    Which is why it’s so crucial, if you’re able, to brave the rain if the forecast calls for it. It never quite stormed on Saturday, but we had a clap of thunder and the rain was off and on, like someone was turned on the spigot every ten minutes or so while the clouds blew through. Almost all of FFF’s booths, minus a few trucks and food vendors, were indoors and sheltered, but there was still a strong gust that blew through one of the buildings and threatened some stands. In those moments, everyone comes together to brace against the poles and pick up flying shawl samples.

    At many festivals, however, booth spaces are in outdoor tents more exposed to the elements and mud, and some unluckily-placed vendor gets the short end of the stick when the weather turns sour. Rain or shine, these events are planned well in advance and can’t be canceled.

    Eventually the sun came out, and we called it a day at the Frederick Fairgrounds with my new skeins. The yarn I got from Polymorph Dye Works is especially fun, black with neon neps – it reminds me (in the best way) of 90s arcade carpet.

    My little hoard from FFF, from (left to right) Robin’s Promise Yarn Co., Polymorph Dye Works, 29 Bridges Studio, and Yarn Hero
    The same image just styled like a Dark Souls
    achievement

    But Frederick is a beautiful little city, so our day didn’t end just yet. My partner is a massive coffee-lover, and we made a stop at Gravel & Grind, a cafe and bike repair shop that sells great drinks and independently roasted beans. It was also Indie Bookstore Day, so while we drank our coffees we looked up the nearest bookshop to support. That turned out to be Curious Iguana on Market Street, downtown Frederick’s main drag of boutique storefronts and restaurants. I picked up volumes 23 and 25 of Jujutsu Kaisen, which were missing from my collection, as well as Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina; I had read Indian Burial Ground and I’m looking forward to reading his first novel.

    My haul of books from Curious Iguana
    The same image but styled like an Elden Ring achievement

    Our last stop of the day was Gwenie’s, a Filipino bakery with a couple locations in the MD/DC metro area. We were introduced to Gwenie’s by a friend of ours, and they requested a slice of ube cheesecake if we were going to be in the area. We got there within an hour of their closing time, when everything is 30% off, so we left with an armful of of mamons and sylvanas.

    An ube mamon and ube custard cake, you guessed it, styled like a Dark Souls achievement.

    Driving home from a lovely day out, I think the highlight of my Frederick visit was running into a regular customer from my former job and exchanging excited greetings. At least now they know I didn’t just fall off the face of the planet when I quit. Closure!

    *I’ve never played a Souls game, Sekiro, Bloodbourne, Elden Ring, or even a Souls-like. I just think the title cards are funny.