Hemingway & Faulkner

I've heard it said that if you want to write, you should read all of Faulkner, and then read all of Hemingway to get the Faulkner out of your system. The styles of these two greats are well-known for being at opposite ends of the writing spectrum, and I enjoy them both. (Though if I had to pick, I'd take Faulkner.) This quote found its way into my head after the long ordeal of spinning the raspberry merino tencel was over. After all that precision, concentration, patience, and striving for evenness and perfection, I wanted to spin something positively organic. (Okay, so this is more like reading Hemingway and washing it down with Faulkner - bear with me.) First, I pulled out my Maggie spindle:

Mystery roving from Spunky Eclectic.This was definitely an experience on the road to satisfying, and it was fun to play with a spindle again, but it was just a little wisp of roving (maybe an ounce?) and I was looking to make a big hank of soft, fluffy, thick and thin yarn, and really have some fun. So I pulled out the Rose, put it on the slowest ratio on the big whorl, and spun up the last few ounces of the chocolate-covered cherries bfl which was my very first roving purchase ever last year and the first thing that I really spun into something approximating yarn. The ChocCherries bfl has brought me good luck. It was also the first roving I spun on my Rose.

Treadling with Townes on board.When you are first spinning, more experienced spinners will look at your lumpy yarn and tell you that at some point you will have to work to achieve thick and thin like that, and that you should appreciate not having to work for it now. (Due to woeful inexperience, no less!) I've taken this to heart and made note of exactly what it was that I've done "wrong" to produce such incredibly large slubs, so that I could later reproduce them at will. If you're just starting, take note - your own foibles put you in a position to learn a lot about making designer yarn. One of my favorite thick and thins from early on was this Tahiti handspun, which reminds me of Manos (but lumpier). I was going for an even more extreme, fluffy version. This is what I got:

So fluffy! So soft! So fun!

I'm going to set the twist using Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' method of simmering the yarn, but I'm waiting until I have a chance to hop over to the Goodwill and buy some old stockpots, because I think it's probably a bad idea to simmer dyed yarn in the ones we use for our soups and stews. I've been really impatient to knit with some thick and thin yarn, though, so in the meantime, I've pulled out my Tahiti skeins and started knitting a Christmas Scarf for my little niece, Sophie. I really like how it's coming along so far:

Zoom in, zoom out.

This is almost as good as reading The Bear.

Pattern Notes: My So Called Scarf

This was yet another stealth knit. It snuck in among my unfinished gifts, charity knitting, and lingering projects and made itself a necessary (& fun!) part of my knitting days. Last year around this time I set several new aspirations for my knitting in 2005, the most important being to cut down the number of projects that I have on the needles at any given time to between five and seven, to design more, and to give more of what I make to friends and others.

One of the reasons to limit the number of WIPs was to allow myself to focus more on the projects at hand and enjoy them, rather than becoming scattered and racing from one thing to the next. I'll write aspirations for 2006 in the New Year, but I wanted to say now that the stealth knits have validated my feeling that less (at one time) is more. I feel much more connected and interested in what I'm doing when I can focus in on one thing. One of the reasons that I liked these knits so much was the feeling of spontaniety I had while knitting them. I was free! Creative! I could do whatever I wanted! I think this was primarily because the queue of knits that I was obligated to was not particularly long, and whenever I wanted to I allowed myself to knit the thing that called to me, rather than whatever I was supposed to knit next.

There's nuthin' 'so called' about it. This is a rocking scarf!

My So Called Scarf
Free Pattern, from Sheep in the City
Knit with three skeins (98 yards/skein) of Di.ve Teseo (Di.ve is a division of Cascade) (55% Wool/45% Microfiber) in color 39361, on size US9 Addi Turbo Circulars. I didn't take a gauge because this is a scarf, but 30 sts gave me a width of about 5 inches.

Size: 5 inches by about 7 feet!

The Pattern
This is a really beautiful stitch pattern that shows off both variegated and barberpole yarns beautifully. I first caught sight of it over at Mellow Trouble and it's been love ever since. (Go over and say hi to Andrea - she has a great site!) I may make a second one with my Tahiti Handspun below. The pattern is all of two rows, so it's really easy to memorize, but it looks complicated and sophisticated. There's enough variation that you can enjoy it for a stretch.

I don't often make scarves (I say this knowing that the only other projects I have going are a scarf and a stole - still, it's unusual), because the monotony of knitting a really long rectangle that ends in the excitement of fringe (at best), doesn't really do it for me. This scarf was different. Although there was a point somewhere in skein two where I suffered a bout of malaise, for the most part it was steady sailing. Near the end I was obsessed with using every last bit of the yarn. I cut the fringe from the outside end of the last skein while knitting with the other end so that I would know exactly how much yarn I had to work with.

[As an aside, my standard fringe is three 12-inch strands of yarn per tassel, which means each tassel takes one yard of fiber. This makes a lush fringe and is an easy way to calculate the yardage needed for the fringe as well. In this case, I had 12 tassels at each end of the scarf, so I used a total of 24 yards of yarn, or a fourth of a skein. Neat trick, eh?]

I'm glad that I made the scarf so dang long, because it really adds to feeling of lushness. Nothing like a bit of excess fabric to connote luxury. It goes for three full wraps easily.

What else? The stitch pattern lies very flat. This is an excellent attribute in a scarf. It is also thick and a little stiff which is fine for a scarf, but wouldn't work as well in a sweater. If I were to adapt this pattern to a garment I'd knit it very loosely to encourage drape.

Modifications:
I substituted the yarn and added fringe. I think that the gauges are close if not dead on, but really, it doesn't matter. If you want to use a smaller yarn, just remember that the pattern requires a multiple of 4+2 sts, and then cast on the number you need to get the width you desire.

This is one of Moxie's faves. I like the reeds in the background.

Impressions of Di.ve Teseo:
I have to confess that despite some serious geeky tendancies when it comes to yarn, I didn't even know that Di.ve existed until I bought this yarn, and then it took me a while to put together that Vergnasco was the location in Italy where this is made, rather than the name of the yarn company.

Di.ve is a division of Cascade, which makes sense. It's a wonderful yarn at a great price. Cascade excels at offering well-made yarns at good prices. In my perfect yarn store, if I could carry only three lines, they would be Rowan, Karabella, and Cascade. There are other lines that would fill in nicely and great niche companies, but for big and necessary, those three do it, and Cascade offers the "value" aspect of the trio.

Teseo is a beautiful yarn. I've seen several colorways and they are all fabulous. Usually, when we get in a new yarn at the store, I can pick out "the color" that everyone is going to buy. Teseo doesn't have a single "it" color. It has about five "it" colors. I must have more.

Teseo is a wool/microfiber blend, but it feels like a real wool, only softer. It's not quite to the level of merino in softness, but for a non-merino it's cushy. It also strikes me as a yarn that will wear well. I do not anticipate pillage, but I'll let you know if I find otherwise.

Oh yeah - almost forgot - very economical. It retails for $6.50 a skein. Gotta love that.

Possible substitute yarns:
Since bright wool variegateds are the thing this fall and winter, there are likely zillions of substitutes for Teseo, though for subtle variation in hue I haven't seen an exact counterpart. My favorite substitute for this would be a yarn by a new Westminster line called Nashua. I beleive the exact name is wooly stripes worsted. (Their equinox stripes and creative focus solids are also quite nice.) I haven't knit with any of their yarns yet, but they look extremely promising, and they have really nice supporting leaflets (I purchased a great one, but I can't find a link for the thing anywhere!). The Nashua yarn retails for a bit more, but I beleive it is also 100% wool, and the "real thing" is nice to knit with.

Gratuitous Scarf Photos:
The photos for this shoot were taken by Moxie. We went for a walk yesterday in a field in Wayland, Massachsetts, where we often go with the dogs when visiting family in Boston. I know there are a lot of photos, but you'll have to humor me. The light was perfect, and the colors were great, so we went a little crazy.

Oh, and Panda, eat your heart out!

Panda, I'm pretty sure if we work together we can overpower them -
we've definitely got more sense.