amazing stuff

i was looking for a lightweight fiber to knit a few projects for the summer. in my stash i found Araucanía Ruca Solid. i was so excited. i totally forgot i had it until i was rummaging through the drawers.

i stashed it a few years ago. i remember walking into a yarn shop while on a business trip and picking up a skein and walking around the store with it in my hand. it was so so soft and so light. i couldn't put it down so i bought 4 skeins.

the amazing thing about Araucanía is that it is sugar cane. like many other plant fiber yarns (cotton, linen, hemp, etc), the plies in the twist are loose so they tend to split while knitting. to overcome this problem, i'm knitting with lace point needles, my favorite, Signature needles with stilettto points.

this pattern is a wrap called "A Litttle Romance" from Quince and Co. i'm really enjoying the pattern, it is very simple, moves fast and seems to be working well with Araucanía, which has a nice drape and the colorway (108) has a subtle varigation thoughout.

triangles

i've never worked well with triangles. i usually avoid triangular scarves and shawls, favoring rectangular ones. i can never really figure out what happens to the point when i wrap it around my neck. does it look too matronly?

i am spending much of my crafting time recently working with and doing things that i have not done before. soon, i will show you a quilt of triangles. today, i finally photographed a recent knitted triangle. the pattern is Foothills Shawl by Marnie MacLean. i started it on a recent trip and the triangle grew very quickly on the plane flight. the pattern is simple and very easy to memorize. as suggested in the pattern, i used Quince & Co. Tern. i chose a lovely soft colorway, sea grass.

 

on the blocking board....the shawl is made up of pattern repeats that graduate in size, with a soft ruffled border. if i were to knit this again, i would balance M1L and M1R stitches in the breaks between the sections. the pattern called for M1 without specifying right or left so i used M1L throughout.  halfway through the pattern i realized that it would look more balanced if i used both M1 stitches.

Quince & Co. Tern has a nice drape. the silk content nicely softens the wools and adds a subtle sheen. i like this yarn.

same but different

i'm working on two spring sweaters. both knit with Quince & Co. chickadee. both have easy little lace patterns worked in the body. both have short sleeves. but, that's were the similarities end.

 

this is colorway Frank's Plum. the pattern is Soay by Gundrun Johnston. the construction is similar to another lovely pattern of hers called audrey in unst that i knit last summer. knit in one piece from bottom-up, it has no side seams and the shoulder seams are joined with a 3-needle bind off. i absolutely love the sleeve contruction (by the way, knitting sleeves is my least favorite part of knitting sweaters) because it is really simple and the end result looks like the sleeves have been sewn in. stitches are picked up around the armhole and short rows are worked to shape the sleeve cap. genius.

  

at the other end of the color spectrum is the second sweater, knit with colorway Egret. the pattern is Judith cardigan by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. the construction top-down with classic raglan sleeves. it has a cute little lace pattern down the back of the cardigan. it is hard to appeciate the lace now, but soon, you will see.

it's a nice exercise to knit two such different patterns with the same yarn at the same time. i'm learning that this yarn is forgiving and nicely holds up to disparate construction techniques and stitch patterns. it has become on of my favorite sport weight wools.

another chance

i'm giving Brooklyn Tweed Shelter another chance. the Lawrence pattern recently released in Wool People Vol. 2. is a gorgeous shortsleeve cowl neck sweater pattern. i ordered Shelter in colorway Sweatshirt to knit Lawrence but after the wool arrived, i realized that a large cowl neck was impractical for me to wear for any length of time at work or anywhere so i decided to use the yarn for another shortsleeve sweater called Castle Pullover published on the Quince and Co. website. Castle Pullover is a simple top-down raglan sweater with a lace patterned body.

i wound each skein by hand to see how much, if any, straw bit or vegetable matter was in the yarn because my previous skeins of Homemade Jam had quite a bit. i was initially really excited not to find any and the yarn felt really good between my fingers as i wound and wound and wound each ball.  there is a nice stiffness and rustic nature to this yarn that i curiously like.  it is a stark contrast to the soft and supple nature of fibers such as cashmere, silk, and bison. after a short time i was disappointed to find bits of straw again mixed in the yarn. i thought oh well...it is what it is and it has bits in it and then i started knitting.

an eternal optimist, i still like this yarn even with its flaws. i like the fabric. i like the hues of this colorway. compared to other tweeds, it's more muted, not so obviously tweed, which works well in pattern like this that doesn't scream tweed. 

i have a feeling the lace pattern in the body should look pretty nice in this yarn and colorway....

avery

until recently, i've had my doubts about the practicalness of cowls. it's the process of pulling it over my head once i'm indoors. it's just so much easier to unwrap a scarf. i just didn't see the point. my doubts unraveled recently after discovering two cute patterns. this is the first, Avery Cowl from Quince & Co, knit with their Osprey yarn in colorway Honey. i like it because the pattern is a clever combination of interlocking diamond motifs that is very simple to memorize, providing just the right amount of knitting zen. i was able to start and finish on a recent train trip to and from New York.