Sazerac

That Mercedes. She's done it again. She created another grab-and-go cardigan that's destined to be a wardrobe staple. This one is Sazerac, cleverly named after the classic New Orleans cocktail.

It's a little oversized, which will make it super cozy. It's got a little of that boyfriend thing going on if you know what I mean. I love it with the skinny jeans and boots shown here. It would also be great with leggings and a pair of flats.

The stitch pattern is a brioche variation along with garter stitch. I've always thought brioche is under utilized. It gives such nice texture, lots of bang for the buck.

Mercedes is always great with her details. The knit-in pockets here are a nice touch. I sometimes get lazy when it comes to adding pockets. I shouldn't though. I love pockets. Maybe a little too much. (Once I was meeting a friend I hadn't seen for awhile for a cocktail. She was with someone I didn't know. Kay told her friend to keep an eye out for a tall women who has her hands in her pockets. That'd be me.) Do you ever skip them?

It's knit in one piece to the armholes and then split for the front and back. There's also a nice deep shawl collar for snuggling into.

It's knit in our newest yarn Sportmate. Sportmate is Solemate's heavier sibling. It has the built in climate control of Outlast. This is shown in one of our new colorways, Spats.

Haven

I'm so happy that this is one of the years that Thanksgiving comes early and we have an extra week between now and Christmas.It allows me to delude myself into thinking that there is plenty of time and I'll get everything done. Often, this kind of thinking just leads to a false sense of security and I end of scrambling even more than usual because I believe that "plenty of time" will somehow turn into a temporal version of a tesseract. 

I know I've mentioned here that I'm not a big holiday knitting person. One of the big reasons is that TNNA is generally in January and I need to keep focused on getting things done for that. The other thing is that I want to have fun during the lead up to Christmas and I just don't need the pressure of trying to get everything done in the nick of time. I'll leave that craziness to The Yarn Harlot.

This past weekend, I finally finished my Haven, a super cute shawl from Mercedes Tarasovich Clark. This is knit from Sportmate in Farwell. The pattern comes in two sizes, this is the smaller, scarf-y one. 

It was the perfect knit for a family holiday gathering. There is garter stitch to keep things simple with a glass of wine (or three) and a little cable to pay attention to every so often to keep me from saying something inappropriate in front of the relatives.

Now I'm home, the weather is brisk and I got to wear something new on the first day back from the holiday. It took the sting out of getting back to work. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Step It Up Knits

The mailman brought Vickie Howell's latest book, Step It Up Knits, a couple of days ago. I don't know if I've mentioned it lately, but I love my job. I get books and yarn in the mail all the time. Books and yarn are two of my favorite things in the whole world. Some days, they beat out my husband. He usually redeems himself and ends back up with top billing pretty quickly. Especially if he brings chocolate.

I have to admit that I wasn't enamored with the cover. I haven't figured out what it is about it that doesn't sit quite right with me, but something is off. But we all know the old adage that tells us not to judge a book by its cover and that true here. 

The first thing I noticed as soon as I opened it was the bold, graphic font in the Table of Contents. 

I like the arrows at the top and the entire feel of this spread. The end papers echo the arrows too. This is the kind of thing that made me so happy back in my previous life in publishing. Geek-y, I know.

The premise of this book is that we are all busy but that doesn't mean we have to settle on ribbed scarves or stockinette washcloths. Step It Up Knits uses small projects to encourage you to try new things and expand your skill set. They are quick enough knits that you won't get bored yet they have enough meat in them to provide a challenge.

The book starts out with about twenty pages of technique. There are both verbal and pictorial instructions so all kinds of learners will be able to understand what Vickie is trying to teach you. 

My very favorite project in the book is Fancy Pants. In this project you'll learn about going from knitting in the round to knitting straight, and how to add and simple lace cuff. 

They are knit in a DK merino/silk blend but you could easily substitute our Honor. These are reason enough to have a baby. I mean seriously C.U.T.E. 

Downward Spiral uses Shepherd Sport in the Pullman colorway. Here you learn how spacing decreases will give you a pinwheel effect at the crown. It's very clever. 

This is a nice book. I like the concept behind it and it's executed well. Nice paper, nice layout, pretty patterns. It appeals to both the book and yarn geek that kick around inside my head. Well done! 

Vickie and the nice people at Chronicle Books gave me a copy to give away. This time I'm going to ask you what book you are reading. If you don't have one on the bedside table, tell me the title of the last book you read. I'll start. I'm reading Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz for my book club.

We'll use the random number generator on Monday at noon central time. 

50 Skeins of Grey

The other day, we were hanging out around the lunch table talking about what everybody was reading. There were the usual suspects. Amanda is reading a travel book and Laura has a stack of magazines on her bedside table. I'm in the middle of a book club book and trying to keep up with the New Yorker.

Then we started discussing the crazy popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey books. Seems like half the world has read them and they've been on the New York Times Best Sellers list forever. At some point, a lightbulb went on! We could do a series of colors to tie into them. We finally decided that we'd do five colors that each had 10 different shades of grey. Hence, 50 Skeins of Grey. Let me introduce them to you. 

This is Anastasia. She is the palest and she blushes a little towards the purple. 

Christian dances on the greener side of grey.

Charlie Tango kisses the brown edge.

Mrs. Robinson can be a little blue.

And Red Room is, well, reddish.

We'll be shipping these to your LYS after the Thanksgiving holiday.  We're dyeing them in all of our yarn bases. You can buy your favorite character/color or get alll five bundled together with a leather strap! 

Porto

The new Twist Collective hit the airwaves this week. One of my favorite designers, Sandi Rosner, did a killer design in our Honor called Porto.

The construction is clever. Her idea was to use the cables as a decrease element. She had a few missteps along the way to creating the design and talks about it in her blog. It's so interesting to hear people talk about their creative process, warts and all. I like that she didn't take the easy way out but figured out a solution that was relatively time efficient and got the job done properly. Yay Sandi!

She's also got a great article in this issue that debunks some of the grand knitting myths. She covers the dreaded knot, winding ball and casting on loosely among other things. It's worth taking a click on over there.
My big take away from the article is this: "maybe your life has plenty of challenge, and simple knitting si your stress-free respite--then don't let anyone insist you try something new. It's your knitting. If it makes you happy, you're doing it right".



Brava Sandi! I know I'm doing it right!

Ring Bearer

Yesterday a really nice woman from New Zealand stopped by Lorna's Laces. Her name is Maree Buscke and she was super interesting.

Like so many people who work in yarn, she wears many hats. She's the proud mom of two boys. She does back office stuff to help out her husband's optometry practice. She spends a couple of days a week working at a local mill.

That local mill thing really got my attention. Not that kids and husbands aren't interesting and all but...well, you know. If you're reading this, you're a fiber junkie too. The mill is called Skeinz. Kinda cute with the NZ since they're from New Zealand dontcha think? We talked shop quite a bit. About fiber and equipment and scale and lots of things you probably think are boring.

Then she gave me this.

This is made from Stansborough Gotland, a rare breed of grey sheep from NZ. It's spun by Design Spun Ltd. (If I understand it right, Skeinz and Design Spun are different arms of the same company.) It's the  fiber that was woven into the cloaks used in Lord of the Rings. Dude, did you hear that? Lord of the Rings!! This is the DK version, they used a finer yarn for weaving the cloaks. I'm still kinda flabbergasted by the whole thing.

I think it needs to be something kinda special. There about 100 gram of it. Probably 210 meters. I wonder what it wants to be.  Anybody have any suggestions?