The Gentle Knitter ep 36 — Thankful

[Music] is me so hi welcome to episode 36 of the gentle knitter podcast my name is nicole and i'm coming to you from ottawa ontario today is monday october 12th i believe it's actually thanksgiving weekend here in canada and i actually really love the fact that we get to celebrate thanksgiving in mid-october um for me i always associate thanksgiving with the fall uh christmas is is definitely um like a winter holiday for me but thanksgiving is sort of at the height of the autumn colors and it's at the height of sort of harvest time so you have all this beautiful bounty of food and so it feels really appropriate to sort of give thanks at this time of year for all of the blessings that that we have and certainly i feel incredibly blessed um you know it's been a difficult year personally uh beyond you know the whole covid um you know tragedy uh it's been you know i've i've as you know had some health issues this year and so it's not been easy but i i still am so so lucky to be able to um to be safe and quote unquote healthy uh in our home we can work from home both myself and my partner and that we have a a comfortable cozy peaceful home is another thing that i am so grateful for and of course uh super grateful for what making brings to my life and uh and that includes uh you and the podcast because i i get so much enjoyment out of doing the podcast and talking to you and hearing from you um i feel even though i have this very sort of introverted quiet um life i don't do a lot of um you know i don't have a ton of like social interactions especially this year but uh i don't feel lonely for one minute and part of that is because um because of you so thank you for being here and thank you for watching i i so appreciate it and um yeah i i just feel very very grateful so let's get into some of what i've been making in the last little while um i should probably start with what i'm wearing this is the sweater that i cast on a couple of weeks ago and i think i got it done in a week it was so fast it is called the bragna sweater it's designed by lerka of fibertails she's got a podcast uh she's fiber tales on instagram and ravelry and and by the way if you uh if you don't know her podcast definitely check her out she is somebody who also loves very rustic yarns very natural yarns her designs are all absolutely gorgeous i would literally knit everything she's designed they're always like fairly simple things but always with like a lovely detail that just makes it so for instance with this sweater it's this incredible um i don't want to say yolk because it's not a yolk sweater it's it's knit um it's a drop shoulder instead of a yolk and but it's got this gorgeous herringbone stitch and uh it was really i really enjoyed working this um it's not that hard to do and i just feel like it has so much like it's just super kind of intricate looking but it's not it's not hard at all um yeah so her designs always have that little extra little touch that just really makes it elevates the the garment um this is meant to be sort of a cozy kind of um sort of comfortable pullover i um made it relatively sort of loose i wanted it sorry it's a little hard because i don't have a lot of room here but um yeah i didn't want it to be tight in any way shape or form i wanted it to just be easy to throw over a dress and go out rambling um i knit this in um in aliphos um let lopey sorry um the pattern excuse me actually calls for worsted weight yarn and lopi uh let low p is usually listed as an air and weight yarn but i do find that it's quite easy to get worsted gauge with uh with let lopey um it's a fairly airy yarn and so it's a single ply and it is um it's quite lofty so i feel like um it can it can be knit at a slightly tighter gauge but honestly this is not even that that tight um but yeah i love it um i didn't make a lot of modifications um the pattern is written and you can either start with the sleeves and that and you would work the sleeves uh cuff up and this is a really great way to uh sort of you can use that sleeve as your swatch because you you'd be knitting it in the round and you kind of get you know uh get into it enough to be able to measure your your gauge um and then if it works out then you've already started the sweater which is really cool um there but you can also knit it where you would basically do the body and then pick up the sleeves to knit the sleeves uh top down and the advantage of that is that you're not having to mattress stitch you're you're you're picking up your stitches and it's kind of a more seamless way of of doing the sweater so i ended up doing it that way and the pattern basically gives you instructions for for both the one change i made was the sleeves have decreases well they would be increases if you were starting cuff and going up but uh but top down it would be decreases but basically they're shaping in the sweater in the sorry in the sleeves to make them a bit more fitted but i've just been really enjoying these kind of puffier uh sleeves so i didn't do any of the shaping i just knit the sleeve till i had the right length i always make my sleeves slightly shorter i always like to have a bit of wrist showing mostly because i find that long sleeves kind of get in the way and i can more easily just sort of if i'm doing housework or whatever i can push up these uh slightly shorter sleeves um but so what i did with the sleeve is i knit straight and then when i got to where i wanted to start the cuff i decreased uh in one row i basically eliminated all the extra stitches to get the right number for the cuff as was written in the pattern so that's kind of my my go-to right now in terms of sleeves i just like that sort of slightly um balloon look so i find it very comfortable and and i know cozy but uh yeah this is a really wonderful design very easy and uh just uh i love love love the results in the low p the colorway is i believe is something called like heathered oatmeal or something and uh just a lovely soft brown um the only other thing i can think of that i wanted to say is that um i've never done a pullover in low p and so one thing i discovered is that um this part of my body is sensitive to low p um and i guess in the in previous uh my previous low p garments they've been cardigans and i always wear my cardigan like you know often just buttoned here and so the neck wouldn't be against my skin and usually i'm wearing almo always i'm wearing something underneath the cardigan uh whereas this i when i first wore it i wore it sort of with um i had i didn't have a an under layer because i'm not sensitive to low p like my arms or anywhere on my body i've never felt a sensitivity i can wear it against my skin except for right here so when i first wore it um you know i noticed sort of oh i was like getting really itchy and then like i i looked at myself in the mirror and i had this like crazy red spot just right there um and so yeah so i guess i am this is the one part of my body that is sensitive to lopi so now i just wear it with like a shirt or a dress underneath and and it's fine but uh yeah it's kind of funny because i i sort of always pride myself for being like oh you know impervious to to uh like wool like the innate sort of itchiness of more rusticals and uh turns out i guess i'm more of a delicate flower than i thought but but it's fine i i'm still gonna get tons of wear and enjoyment out of this beautiful cozy warm uh sweater time for tea break i love this tea this is something i've been meaning to talk to you about for a while um because it kind of has a sort of a woolly connection it's a it's a tea the plant is called a sideritus clandestina and uh but it's known as shepherd's tea and it's an herb that um i first heard about through uh carolyn of the uh honer okay company carolyn i don't know if i got that right um but uh it the uh basically they're the makers of that beautiful uh nutiden yarn that i talked about uh that i have talked about in the past and um carolyn had uh talked about this tea on her podcast um it is produced by a company called the spartan table and there they have a shop on etsy and they sell really beautiful products from greece so they sell olive oil and olives and and different herbs including this uh gorgeous tea and apparently uh shepherds in greece traditionally would pick this herb that's commonly found uh in the countryside and makes themselves a tea out of it and it has a really beautiful kind of like resinous uh camphor slightly camphorous uh smell it to me it's a taste that is very um reminiscent of rosemary of thyme of oregano it has that kind of kind of herbaceous quality and it makes a really really lovely tea i find it quite relaxing it's not a stimulant tea but it it does sort of make you feel um like a nice calm energy and um good for digestion and it's it's really delicious so because it was called shepherd's tea i thought i would uh i would show it to you so i have a couple more finished objects i thought i would share with you uh one of them i actually meant to share with you last time i recorded and i totally forgot um but i finished my uh fishy blue uh shawl uh so i talked about it i was working on it um maybe two or three episodes ago and uh and i finally finished it um here it is it is i can't see it is a pattern by um ted besh who's also known as uh and i had seen a version of this shawl knit by um another her name on instagram sorry on um on ravelry is uh p-u-c-c-o and when i saw this picture which i will put up now i just wanted the exact same thing so i think i did a pretty good job and it you know it actually even this sweater is sort of reminiscent of uh of the sweater in that photo that i saw um but yeah i wanted something really really simple and uh really soft and so i had this gorgeous uh cashmere in my stash and so yeah i was fortunate enough to be able to work with this incredible yarn the yarn is by a handmaiden it's a canadian company and i've had this yarn in my stash for a very very long time and was just kind of hoarding it and um oh i just i really really love this um kind of the opposite of you know talking about um low p being itchy i mean this is just so so soft and luxurious and just really such a pleasure to wear it's it's so drapey and i love the sort of off-white color um and i love this pattern i think arlan is just the best at designing shawls and garments frankly that are very again sort of what i was saying about about lyrica's designs like very elegant simple but always with a little a little touch some texture some some beautiful stitches that really allow your yarn to to shine and that's that's really the the kinds of designs that that really appeal to me speaking of designs that are beautiful and simple and let the the yarn shine here is my finished toon small hat and uh the pattern is designed by donna smith who's a lovely lovely designer from shetland and um she also designed a scarf wrap that that has the same pattern and i would really love to make that also um this was knit in west coast color and it is their home-grown base it's a cvm rumbledale yarn uh worsted weight and this is an undyed um their undried clip so they have dye a dyed version of this yarn which is also very beautiful and then these natural colors it comes in this beautiful vanilla color and then sort of a light brown a darker brown and a more like caramelly color and uh i love the the crown patterning of this hat and i love the the sort of sort of fit of it it's very um sort of not super slouchy but just frankly for me just the right amount of slouch although i must say that um i have a very big head and so i did an extra repeat excuse me i did an extra repeat of the main pattern before i started doing the crown shaping with hats i pretty much always have to do extra um extra body before i start decreasing and um i i knit it as written and then i tried it on and realized it wasn't going to fit me the way i wanted to and the way it does in in the patterns so but other than that i knit it as written it's beautiful simple pattern to follow and i just really i love kind of how um how this yarn i talked about in my last episode is is just um got the right amount of poofiness and so it's slightly slightly fuzzy but you still get beautiful stitch definition as you can see and i actually you know i just think this hat is gonna go with so much and it's just so classic and simple and uh yeah super super happy i would absolutely love i mentioned it last time but goodness wouldn't a a traditional gansey sweater be amazing in this yarn we'll put that in the in the uh the wish list i guess that's it for finished objects but i uh continued to work on um my yell cardigan which i'm holding in this beautiful project bag which you can find on instagram and there is a link to her etsy shop i believe she is having a a shop update very soon with other bags in this design so check her out she makes the most beautiful things um but yeah my yell my sort of coastal beachy yell continues i have um finished sort of um the main body and started on the sleeve stick here so basically the body is knit as a tube to be cut open to make it into a cardigan and then you also have you know when you get to the right spot you start you increase with more stick stitches for either side so basically we'll cut that open and then pick up stitches around to knit the sleeve and yeah this continues to be a complete joy i'm still so in love with these colors um they're very subtle i appreciate that it's probably not everybody's taste but you know they are definitely right up my alley so really enjoying this it's uh it's a very easy fair isle pattern because there are no really large motifs so um it's quite easy to sort of with every row to sort of um figure out that the repeat is you know let's say four two four three one three four two four three one three that kind of thing and you're kind of doing that all the way around so it's uh it can be surprisingly fairly meditative meditative to work on this um and yeah i'm i i love it i love working on it the yarns i'm using are pretty much all uh jameson's uh of uh shetland the their spin drift uh i have been asked by several people to uh maybe put up the colors that i've used sort of key key out those colors that i've used and i will do that i i apologize i haven't had a chance to do it yet but i will put it in my ravelry notes of course if you don't have a ravelry account or can't access it because of [Music] visual problems or whatever issue um you know that unfortunately ravelry may be uh causing you uh please get in touch and message me and i will be sure to send you the uh the colors that i've been using once i've had time to sort of write it all out and figure out what it is i'm i'm using for this project some of the other stuff i've been up to lately i've been really uh very much in a spinning mood and i've picked up a spinning project that i started years ago um i bought a sweater's quantity of some shetland um roving and it is um it is this beautiful very soft brownie gray um and like i said i have about a sweater's worth i think i bought about a pound of it and so i've been slowly um making singles i'm hoping that i might have enough uh singles that my singles are fairly fine um and so this is probably like fingering uh maybe even lace and so i might end up applying it uh do making a three ply i'm not quite sure yet um but uh anyway i i'm hoping to have enough to make a really pretty um rustic sweater it's very very soft very beautiful fiber i'm spinning it in the fold or on the fold basically you take sort of a staples length of the fiber and you fold it over your finger and then you spin from from that folded part and what ends up happening is even though this is a worsted prep so if you know any a little bit about spinning fiber can be prep prepared to have all of the hairs kind of going combed in one direction this is how this fiber was prepared it's all kind of um the the hairs are more or less all parallel to each other so that's a um that's a worsted prep whereas some fibers would be prepared in a way that the fibers are kind of all jumbled together and so when you're spinning you can uh when it's worsted prep you can spin it so that all the fibers stay in that one direction and what you end up with um is like a very strong of course it broke but you know um a very strong um single and very smooth and not as lofty but very kind of durable you can end up with beautiful durable yarn but if you spin it from the fold uh what happens is you're you're folding the those uh hairs over themselves so you end up introducing a little more air into uh into what you're spinning because you're you're folding you're folding that those staples so you end up with a slightly uh fuzzier single that has a little more um it has a slightly more rustic look and um a lot of uh shetland uh wool is um like a lot of the traditional shetland sweaters that you see nowadays are spun uh woolens so um this is a semi woolen prep but i think i'm kind of hoping that i will get sort of the best of both slightly more durable and less likely to pill yarn but still with some of the warmth and um rustic quality of a woolen woolen anyway i am clearly not a spinning expert uh sometimes when i when i talk about spinning i will get questions people uh ask me advice on spinning and uh you know and and i'm i'm so not an expert in any way shape or form um i'm very intuitive spinner i just kind of go with whatever it is that the fiber and whatever my hands want to do um i would like to eventually become more of an intentional spinner and and sort of be able to plan out uh with some kind of accuracy what what it is i'm i'm going to do um but for now i don't um i i have not been able to dedicate the uh the time and the the sort of mental space for uh learning about intentional spinning i still very much just do it uh in a very intuitive and sort of easy going way so yeah so it's um it's something that i do that is completely not technique based and i and i really just enjoy um just enjoy the the meditative uh quality of the type of spinning that i do somebody who is a beautiful and quite talented spinner lindsay she her instagram account is artifacts of appreciation and she also has a really really lovely video journal on youtube called quarter past i highly recommend it yeah lindsay is the person who uh who clued me in to the beautiful um west coast color yarn that i used for my hat and uh we've just been corresponding as you do on instagram i think we have a lot of similarities in terms of the kinds of uh fiber that inspires us the kinds of colors that inspire us and um she um sent me something and it is so beautiful and so special she sent me two skeins of her hand spun yarn and um i feel so so grateful and lucky to be sent some um some of her incredible work so i would definitely check out her instagram because she has been putting kits together spinning kids and what she is sort of excels at doing is marrying different fibers together to create some beautiful marled yarn um she sent sent me this incredible care package of the yarn and in this beautiful project bag and she also sent me the most beautiful stitch markers which i forgot there um in a different room but uh with some uh beautiful lavender sachet and um so she sent me uh this little card here that um that shows the different uh fibers that she used so there's some choriodile and mohair by dystero ranch and rob rommeldale by uh crinog ales left field farms and then the third um fiber that she used is from west coast color and it was some dyed fiber that it's a little bit hard to see because it's so beautifully subtle but you might be able to sort of see there there's this beautiful lilac and there's some very subtle blues and yellows so it's two strands of natural natural fiber naturally colored fibers and then one strand of the dyed fiber by west coast color and it's just absolutely gorgeous so she sent me two skeins and so i decided that i would make a shawl to uh i wanted something ultra ultra simple so that i could really really showcase this amazing hand spun so you can see this very subtle and gentle striping there of the of the hand spun so i did um i used one full skein to do the body of the shawl and the shawl i'm making is the black river blanket shawl and uh it is was designed by sam lam who's actually a dear friend of mine um sam lives in the toronto area and we have had a chance to meet up on several occasions through different fiber related events but also when she's been visiting either her visiting ottawa or myself in toronto and she she has a lot of really lovely designs that are super super simple um but very charming and i love how this design calls back to sort of traditional wool blankets and so what i wanted to do because i got this yarn because of lindsay the beautiful west coast color yarn i thought it would just be so beautiful to mix the two mix my leftovers from my tune small hat with her gorgeous hand spun so i will be creating those stripes on this on this beautiful shawl and i just love the fact that this is kind of like i said based on a blanket design and blankets to me are very protective and very comforting and just to have these uh fibers from uh from a friend from far away but that feels um like just a lovely thing to wrap myself up in and uh to have the design be from another friend i don't know i just i felt like it was just a lovely way to infuse this incredibly uh precious yarn with with some meaning so um so i'm sure i'll be uh i'll be showing you this finished sweater i think uh shawl i think you can maybe see a little better here this kind of almost uh lilacky and then the yellow in the in this hand spun but uh it's really gorgeous um and i really appreciate uh this incredibly beautiful gift so i think that's probably it for me today um i had some other things i wanted to talk about but i think i am feeling rather um low energy today and uh i'm going to uh to maybe get a little bit of rest and then do the editing and and put this up for you soon so um i hope that you are doing okay and that um that you have a lot of things in your uh life that feel like blessings and and uh that you can sort of celebrate and and be thankful for so like i said earlier i'm very thankful for you and thank you for joining me today and i'll talk to you soon all right bye [Music] now [Music] you

Channel: the gentle knitter

Views: 42,626

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Id: sPYNng0s2bE

Length: 43min 37sec (2617 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020