Verdant Love

This post comes from a knitter who is omgsogladit'stheweekend. But it is finally Friday and I have exciting things to share!

Have I thoroughly discussed my love of The Verdant Gryphon with you? I know I've mentioned Bugga (ha, mentioned!), but most of my stash came from The Sanguine Gryphon before they closed. Funds and yarn-stalking time have been pretty limited  so I haven't really been able to properly profess my VG love through yarn hoarding yet. Until now. I wasn't supposed to (due to a poorness-induced yarn diet) but then I went and got some new yarn (thanks credit card!) because it was just too darned pretty.

The top skein is Traveller (superwash Merino DK) in Barbary Coast, which is perhaps the most fantastic blue-green color ever. I'm a complete sucker for blue-greens and teals, and this one is extra fabulous. It has much more complexity than I expected from the photo. Luckily it is one of their standard colorways so it is easy to get if you are patient. Most VG yarns require a bit of stalking, particularly the special ones, but the Back in Stock Notifications are helpful. The bottom skein is Eidos (superwash Merino fingering) in a one-off colorway called Parzival. Eidos is one base I haven't yet used so I'm excited to try it. I think I'll make some Ribby Holiday Socks out of it, something simple and fun to show off all those great colors.

Speaking of VG, they are going to be releasing a new yarn very soon! You can read the details in this Ravelry thread. It's going to be a worsted weight yarn called Lyrical composed of 60% BFL wool, 20% silk, and 20% baby camel. It sounds absolutely divine and I can't wait to try some! They have a fun Nomadic Knitting activity planned for the yarn's release, as well. As per Gryphon:

"We have a little game planned, which we’re calling Nomadic Knitting. It goes like this: We’ll start a thread in which interested knitters can post. Again via lottery, we’ll select three of you. Those three will be sent a nomadic skein of Lyrical along with its passport, travel log, and a pattern. You’ll cast on for the project in the pattern, knit an inch or so, and then pass it on to any other knitter you like. That person in turn will knit a bit and pass it on again, and so on. The final knitter will return the FO to us, and we will donate it to a charity. Each knitter should record their name, email, and any notes on where they are in the pattern in the travel log. When we receive the logs back, we’ll send a coupon code to every email in it."

And guess whose pattern will be one of the three sent out with the new yarn?!?! ;)

It's true, my little Beribboned Wrists are going nomadic! I am so excited for one of my designs to be included in this and can't wait to see the projects that result. I am completely flattered that an artist whose work I admire liked my pattern enough to associate it with her gorgeous yarns! I bet that Lyrical is going to make some really luxurious wristwarmers, too.

The yarn should be released in early September. The Nomadic Knitting sign-up thread is here, if you'd like to participate (though I think you need to join The Verdant Gryphon group to play along). I like the idea of so many different people contributing to one piece of knitting. It's like knitting penpals or some sort of mobile quilting bee. Have you ever participated in something like that before?

Work-In-Progress Wednesday #6

Hello, hello! I haven't made a whole lot of progress on some of my other WIPs this week, but I did make lots of design-WIP progress!

And Sing My Ribbons:

The Sanguine Gryphon Codex, colorways And Sing Myself (purple) and Lionness of Brittany (silver

This hat went from WIP to FO quite quickly because I was anxious to get the pattern out to testers. Look for it to be released near the end of the month! And it is my second completed Year of Projects project, yay!

Lillypad socks:

The Verdant Gryphon Bugga, colorway Yellow Fringe Doris

I (finally) finished the first sock of this upcoming design! It did turn out to be a bit too snug so I will be adding a few more purl stitches to provide more room in the final design. Those cables and twisted stitches really tightened up the fabric. Luckily, I was able to obtain another skein of this colorway through a trade on Ravelry, so I will be able to gift this pair to someone with smaller feet someday and still be able to have a pair for myself in the same colorway! I know it shouldn't have too much weight in the process since the finished pattern will be knit in a variety of colors, but some of my designs are very much inspired by the colorway I use and I really love this particular pairing.

My Own Fiasco:

BMFA Socks that Rock Lightweight, colorway Sigur Ros

I'm making some good progress on my Fiasco socks. The colorway is striping nicely and I think the textures of the pattern are bold enough that they still show through, even with so much variegation. It's a very odd colorway, really, containing red, teal, tan, mustard, lavender, and aqua. It sounds like that mix should be really gross but I dig it! In my patterns I like to include multiple size options for multiple weights of yarn whenever feasible. For my first pair, I knit size 1 at the DK weight gauge to fit my Fiasco's man-sized foot. This time I'm knitting size 3 at the fingering weight gauge for me. I think that sometimes the sizes in sock patterns are not very explicit and I'm hoping my way of describing sizes is helpful (rather than just more confusing) and allows for more flexibility in yarn choices. Here is what the sizing table from my free Ribby Holiday Socks pattern looks like:

What do you think: helpful, not helpful? I'm curious! Do you have an example of a sock pattern that you thought described the sizes very well?

Besides a few secret swatches, that's all the progress I have to report this week! Be sure to click the images below to see what everyone else has been up to.

 

Happy Days

I had a wonderful weekend, how about you guys? My little-cousin-who-is-like-a-sister-to-me (and who is not so little anymore!) came to visit and we had a grand old time. We spent Saturday kayaking with the Fiasco's family and Sunday strolling through the beautiful Wickham Park and the fantastic Coventry Farmer's Market. I even convinced her to model my upcoming Beribboned Hat design for me. :) Here are some photos from the day:

These were as big as my head!

We made a furry friend!

I almost took this little furry friend home with me.

Aww.

This is the worsted weight version of my Beribboned Hat design, which is also the 2nd project completed from my Year of Projects list:

The yarn is discontinued Sanguine Gryphon Codex. This version of the hat is less slouchy than the DK weight version and uses a tiny bit of contrasting yarn knit into i-cord instead of ribbon for the bow. I liked it both ways so instructions for both will be included! The pattern is in testing now and should be available around the end of the month.

And before I forget: congratulations to Lisa from Wicked Artsy, she won the needle/mini-skein/free pattern giveaway from last week! Thanks for spreading so much Shoelaceswitcher Designs / Woolen Diversions love. :)

Finally, I received some exciting news today: Malabrigo Yarns accepted my design submission for their Malabrigo Quickies series! Malabrigo Quickies are 1- or 2-skein patterns from independent designers that are featured every couple of weeks on the Malabrigo blog and other social media outlets. There is a call for submissions open right now and the program fills up quite quickly so submit soon if you are interested. My design won't be released until late January but I still can't wait! Malabrigo was the first yarn that I fell in love with and it's still my go-to for holiday gifts and comforting knits, so I'm really psyched to have one of my designs associated with the company.

SS: Icelandic

I finished spinning up the fifth breed of my Spinner's Study, Cormo:

I really love the feel of this one. The shorter staple length and fineness of the fiber made it a bit difficult to spin (lots of dropping!) and I seem to tend to spin more thinly when the fiber is fine so this skein looks like it has more yardage than the others, but I still loved the feel of it running through my fingers. The Cormo breed is top of my list for keeping on the future farm I dream about.

Here's a family photo of the breeds I've finished so far:

L to R: Polwarth, Finnish, Black Jacob, Bluefaced Leicester, Cormo

I'm about a quarter of the way through, as long as I don't keep adding breeds. :) I really enjoy this little exercise. On to the next!

Photo from the Icelandic Sheep Breeders of North America webpage.

According to the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, the Icelandic breed descended from the sheep the Vikings brought with them when they settled in (you guessed it) Iceland around 900 A.D. The breed has developed in isolation since then because they made it illegal to import more sheep. Thus, that makes the Icelandic breed very genetically "pure" which is especially cool evolutionarily-speaking. The breed is a part of the Northern European Short-Tailed Family, like the Finnish wool I spun up earlier.

They are characterized by a naturally short tail, a dual-coated fleece, faces and legs that are free of wool, and apparently very tasty mild-flavored meat. The outercoat consists of long, strong fibers called tog and the undercoat consists of short, soft fibers called thel. Both types of fiber are used for spinning and they can be prepared to be spun together or separately.

The top I have appears to consist entirely of tog, the outer layer. The staple length is long, and can range from 4-18(!) inches. The micron count ranges from 27-31, landing this on the coarser side of the medium range. This is another fiber that feels more hair-like than wool-like, but it is still a true wool (meaning it contains crimp which makes it elastic), not a kemp or guard hair. This fiber drafts extremely easily and in that sense is a pleasure to spin. Despite that, I'm not a huge fan of how it spins up. Too many ends sticking out! Prickly-town, people!

Please excuse my messily-wound cop. I had just dropped it and things got all loose and crazy.

However, this could be a case where changing my spinning style would result in a more likeable yarn. I tend to grasp a handful of fiber, fluff it up with my fingers, fold it in half, and spin woolen-style "from the fold". The F&F Sourcebook suggests spinning the tog fibers worsted-style for increased strength and probably to keep those pesky ends more in line.

As a quick refresher: woolen spinning means that the fibers are not perfectly aligned, they go in all sorts of directions trapping air between them and resulting in a fluffier yarn. Spinning from the fold creates this misalignment of fibers for me. Worsted spinning means that the fibers are lined up nice and straight before spinning and are spun end-to-end with little overlap, producing a denser and potentially smoother yarn.

How do you tend to spin?

Finished-Object-Friday #1

It is rare for me to actually have a Finished Object to share (I'm much better at WIPs) and it almost never happens to fall near a Friday, so I'm pretty excited to participate in my first FO Friday! This post is also about the first project I finished from my Year of Projects goals. (Please excuse the crummy Ipad photos, my camera battery charger went missing and I am anxiously awaiting the new one.)

This is my aptly-titled Shiny Slouch project, also known as the Regina hat designed by Carina Spencer. I can say without a doubt that I love everything about this design, the pattern, and the finished hat. The pattern is well-written, detailed, and provides instructions for knitting the hat in different weights of yarn, of which I am a strong supporter and aim to do in my own patterns. The design is also interesting in and of itslef: an unusual brim, simple shaping, and easy knitting that feels like a surprise when you turn the hat inside out at the end.

I love the way the slipped stitches look over the reverse stockinette background as well as how they come together neatly at the crown. I appreciate a hat with well-constructed and interesting crown decreases.

For my hat I used the The Sanguine Gryphon Codex, which is sadly discontinued. It is a fantastic mix of 52% silk and 48% BFL wool, meaning it has a lovely shine and drape which I highly recommend for this hat. It will be available from The Verdant Gryphon on Monday, August 13th at 9pm. It will likely sell out extremely quickly so I suggest you seriously stalk the yarn if you want it, its fans are many and quite fervent.

I used about half a skein for the hat body and just a small amount for the brim, the whole hat weighs 65 grams. I made a few modifications based on how it was knitting up at the time. I initially knit my brim to about 17" and then picked up 60 stitches and increased to 80. I knit for a few inches before I felt the hat wouldn't be slouchy enough so over a couple of rounds I increased to 90 stitches total. I also knit to about 7.5" before decreasing. I'm very glad I did this even though I have a pretty average-to-small-sized head. The hat is slightly under-slouchy but the silk still helps it drape nicely and I love the way it looks. Other people on Ravelry have mentioned that it is more like a beanie than it is slouchy, so if you want the slouchy look and are in doubt, increase more and knit longer.

Overall: I adore this hat and highly recommend the pattern, which is incredibly offered for free as I would gladly have paid for this one. What's your favorite hat to knit or wear?

Also, don't forget about the little giveaway I'm running right now for some knitting needles in larger sizes, a couple of mini skeins, and a free pattern. Details in this post. I will pick the winner on Sunday. There aren't very many entries yet (leave a comment to be entered) so chances are pretty good!

Check out more FO's here!

And more YoP posts!