The Gentle Knitter Ep 41—Black and Blue

foreign [Music] [Music] be me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hi welcome to episode 41 of the gentle knitter my name is nicole and today i'm coming to you from the traditional unseated territory of the algonquin anishnabe also known as ottawa canada it's sunday october 3rd and it's a bit of a cool rainy day but frankly it's quite lovely to feel cozy with my candle and my tea and lots and lots of woolly goodness to show you last time we spoke uh was in the summer i was just getting ready to go to visit my parents in new brunswick and it was amazing amazing holidays um you know once i was fully vaccinated i was just really chomping at the bit to get out and visit my family and so i stayed with my parents and my sister also lives in in the area they live in the sort of inshariak in the moncton uh area right on the ocean which is incredible so we spent most of our time sitting on their deck looking out at the water and my mom has recently gotten into knitting she's been bitten really hard by the knitting bug and um i like to think that i may have had something to do with that um she's always for my whole life she's always been an incredibly creative person and an incredibly talented maker mostly sewing and quilting but she's always been really artistic and always you know made a lot of things by hand and she's a wonderful cook and anyway i have i feel hopefully that through uh you know growing up uh with her that i've kind of absorbed some of that creativity but um she was never really much of a knitter but she's recently gotten into it and so it was so much fun my poor dad felt a little bit excluded from the conversation but um but yeah we we did a lot of knitting together and we also explored a few a few really wonderful yarn stores in in their area and i will actually show you a little bit of footage of one particular store it's a it's a relatively new store that just opened in bukhtush uh new brunswick and it's called the la vie le yarns a really beautiful store i will link to it below they have a great online shop if you're interested in checking out what they carry but it was really really great to visit that shop and a stunningly beautiful shop and if you're in the area i highly recommend uh you visit uh visit the shop and i bought a few goodies there so i'll be showing that to you also but yeah it's uh it's been a pretty busy time work-wise things have been fine um and you know we're the situation here in terms of um restrictions and all that things have have um loosened up quite a bit um i'm still working from home however and that's perfectly fine by me i think that for me that situation is probably going to continue for quite a while our office spaces are very very tight um and for those of us who can work from home that's sort of what um what we're you know sort of expected to do and uh frankly because i do a lot of writing and researching and reading uh working from home really really suits me and as you probably know i'm also a bit of an introvert so having a lot of quiet time at home is not something that um i find very difficult so i'm very lucky that way that uh you know the last couple of years have um you know they've been challenging of course and and stressful because of everything that's going on but uh but i've adapted i would say really really well to spending a lot of time from home being being a homebody um yeah it's it's been it's been okay and and yeah the only um sad thing is because of uh the situation uh you know because of covid the border between uh canada and the us is still closed the land border so i unfortunately will not be attending rhinebeck uh in a couple of weeks i'm pretty sad about it i'm i'm mostly sad because i won't get a chance to see and visit with all of you and and and friends that i you know that i really sort of rely on ryan beck as as the time when i can uh see see my friends and my my knitting friends and um that's just not going to be possible because i can't cross the border um so i had to cancel you know cancel um my airbnb and i have tickets to rhinebeck if anybody is looking for tickets um let me know i'm happy to uh to sell you my tickets but um anyway it's uh it's a good thing all in all i i won't lie i'm i'm relieved that the decision was sort of made for me because i was a little bit nervous i mean when i planned on going you know the vaccines like we were all sort of uh full steam ahead on on being vaccinated and um the delta variant was not sort of a big thing at that time when i planned on going i in my mind i figured that this autumn would be uh it would feel safe to go to a big um you know mostly outdoor festival and um i i'm not sure how i feel about that now so the fact that it was sort of um like i said decided for me is maybe a little bit of a relief because um yeah uh like i said i i i think i probably would have gone but um it's still a stressful time so still still a uh you know am i really ready to be in a huge crowd of people i'm not sure so anyway but i am really really sad uh to miss out on all the fun and for those of you who are going i hope you have a wonderful time i hope you have a safe time and and you know take in as much of the woolly fun as you can and yeah we'll we'll see you next year for sure i'll be going uh next year so anyway let's get on to what i've been up to these last couple of months i have a lot to show you as i usually do when it's been a while since i've recorded um so yeah why don't we start with um probably my biggest project and it's one that i talked about uh last time uh i finished my half and half wrap which is a beautiful shawl pattern that goes on and on and on forever it's a a free pattern by pearl soho and it is knit in their yarn i mean my version is knit in their yarn it's called linen quill and it's a fingering weight yarn that is a mix of alpaca wool and linen and it's a really beautiful yarn and um it really i mean i i've knit another one of these in a different yarn which was also an incredibly beautiful beautiful yarn but i have to say this one this version is everything to me the yarn is um it's a mix of it's i find it very soft i know some people do feel like it has a tiny bit of a prickle i really don't feel that um it's it's light and but it has a lot of body at the same time it's very drapey as you can see and it's got little um the linen is sort of remains undyed like either they um they blend the yarn with undyed linen or maybe the linen doesn't take the dye in the same way but um it is uh so it's got this beautiful heathered look so this side is the dark denim side and then the other side is the kettle black side and that is sort of um showing up it's blowing out a tiny bit so the blue is a bit more navy and the kettle black is a bit darker than this looks like a mid charcoal it's it is more of a black but basically you're knitting a gigantic garter tri and square um and you're doing short rows so you start with one color and by doing short rows you're you're creating a triangle and then once when the first triangle is done you're moving on to your second color and creating the second triangle so so it is really a square and the way i like to wear it i um i like to just wrap it around me it's it's so squishy and so cozy and soft and it really is an incredibly comfy and cozy shawl i also use it a lot as a blanket when i'm on the couch watching tv or more often than not napping this is a wonderful wonderful napping blanket and it's really really warm it's it's warm but you don't feel like you're suffocating it's a it's like a very cozy worm um yeah i i have to say i'm completely it may be my favorite thing that i've ever knit and it is the process of knitting it is also so enjoyable now a lot of people out there are knitting these these shawls i was gonna say these blankets they really are uh blankets and i know you know everybody's saying the same thing but it's so true it is the most comfortable uh comforting and uh stress relieving knit it it is a very long project this one took me about four months to uh to to make um because it's actually six skeins of fingering weight yarn i didn't use the full six um i don't know if i have my leftover balls here i probably use two and a half of each color so i guess that would be five skeins in total of fingering weight yarn so it's very long to make because it's just a ton a ton of garter but it's mindless and it's soothing and you know you can work on it while watching something or by a while listening to an audio book and it's just always there you're never like okay where am i in the pattern you just pick it up and go and um and while you're working on it you're creating this fabric that's just so lovely to uh to handle um yeah i can't say enough good things about it uh it was inspired i was inspired to make this uh through the caddy jacks knits podcast and uh and they've uh both knit several versions and i will be shortly starting my third i can't resist i've ordered some more yarn from some more linen quill from pearl soho and i'll be making a an heirloom white and pale mushroom version so heirloom white is a a lovely sort of cool toned white and pale mushroom is a cool toned beige gray kind of color and i really love this one and wear it all the time because it's so neutral and it goes with everything that i wear so i wear a lot of navy like this this dress i wear a lot of charcoal gray i wear a lot of black and i find that this is just so versatile because of that because i can wear it with so many things and so i think um and sort of a white and beige one it will equally be versatile for me because i do tend to wear very neutral colors um if you look at this yarn here and a lot of the projects that i'll be showing you today um i really sort of become um i know i waffle a lot between wanting to knit with more with brighter colors and then going back to my neutrals um i did a bit of a a wardrobe kind of purge and really kind of merry condo'ed my life a little bit and um just i just you know neutrals and soft colors and natural colors are really just what suits me the best and what is easiest to me and what i've always loved and what always has always made my heart sing the most for myself personally so uh so anyway i'm i'm excited so excited to make a third one and uh this one is like i said it's it's one of my favorite things that i've ever made and it's also one of the most worn things that that i've made um super super practical and just just a delight to make and to wear um what else do i want to tell you i i've talked about this project a lot in the past just quickly to let you know that i uh made a few modifications from the pattern so i did german shirt rose and jackie of the caddy jacks knits has done a really great tutorial on how to do those i find german short rows to be very very tidy and creates less of a sort of a a ridge at the um at the join area or at the you know the the area where the two colors are are sort of playing together so i'll link to that in the in the description um i'm not i mentioned this last time but just in case you didn't see my uh episode last time i'm no longer going to take the time to put uh words on the screen i will be captioning my videos um so that um you know um so that my videos are more accessible but i i won't take the time to have names pop up on the screen uh because it's frankly to be honest a huge pain to do um and i think more people benefit from show notes so i'm i'm decided to kind of take the time to do show notes instead of trying to edit in all the names of what i'm talking about uh so anyway i will link to the catty jacks knits uh tutorial on german short rows below and i also did a three stitch edging that is uh is really a it's an i-cord edging and it is super super easy if you look it up on on youtube you'll find a million different tutorials on how to do it but basically what you're doing is when you get oh i've got a fiber in my eye sorry when you get to the end of your row the for for the three stitch version um you uh you get two three stitches to the edge when there's three stitches left you bring your yarn so you're knitting you're knitting along your row you bring your yarn forward you slip those three stitches and then you turn your work and you just knit you you just start knitting and what that creates is a a rounded i-cord edge at the end of of your row and it creates a really beautiful very tidy finishing so that's uh that's what i did you can see it really well in blue there how it creates a really lovely tidy tidy uh edge there so those are the main changes i made um but apart from that i cannot wait to cast on my new uh half and half triangles wrap which is from pearl soho so uh yes if you uh if you've hesitated on you know casting one on and any of this these rapturous descriptions uh appeal to you i i think you won't be disappointed if you uh if you cast one on speaking of luscious and beautiful big shawls that are a delight to make i knit a it was a test knit for a designer named amy share of the thoughtfully made fiber vlog cast amy contacted me and they said that they had designed a shawl with me in mind and i had actually seen pictures uh kind of little glimpses of this shawl on their instagram and had commented how beautiful it was and amy said oh you know actually i've been thinking of you when i designed this shawl and i am blown away by how beautiful this shawl is and so touched that the shawl actually um is named after me so uh this is the nicole shawl and it is so gorgeous um here it is it's a very big shawl um and it's made with some i chose to do a dark gray and a paler gray yarn it's designed as part of collection for a yarn company called um hinterland yarns they're a canadian yarn company and they do a lot of alpaca and ramblae blends they have really gorgeous amazing wool or yarn not just wool alpaca and this is their range yarn so it's a worsted weight yarn and uh so i've got it in the colors smoke and i think it's uh sorry the dark i think is ash and then the paler gray is smoke and it's so so soft and very it's got a ton of drape as you can see being a an alpaca blend and it is just very very fuzzy and warm and luscious is the word that i want to use when i uh when i describe this yarn it's a very very warm and cozy cozy shawl and i love the mix of the garter micro stripes micro stripes so you've got basically alternating colors in the garter sections and then you have this you know i would call you know simple but it you know it doesn't look simple it looks quite beautiful and intricate but the lace uh is actually not hard at all and quite intuitive and the pattern is beautifully written so i highly recommend the pattern amy has has been really busy this year designing a ton of really gorgeous uh designs so i recommend that you check their their ravelry account or their instagram to see more of their designs but i really appreciate amy so much i love their podcast um [Music] they're a beautiful maker and a really wonderful presence in our community and like i said i i was so honored and so touched um to have such a gorgeous design uh named after me and and amy said that they really enjoyed sort of my discussion and appreciation of uh woolly wools and rustic patterns and and rustic yarn and different breeds so i think those are some of the things that inspired them and of course these sort of natural muted beautiful colors and the fact that that it's a canadian yarn company also is really lovely to me and important because i love to support canadian yarn makers and hinterland yarns is really one to to check out they have a beautiful website and in fact i did get some other yarn that they produce and we'll be showing you another project that i've cast on with with some of their yarn but anyway i absolutely adore my nicole shaw amy thank you so so much uh you don't know what it means to me um to have this gorgeous beautiful shawl named after me is is such such an honor and i i thank you so i did manage to cast on and cast off a sweater in the time that in between episodes um i really really needed and wanted a super oversized and cozy comfortable sweater that would basically act as a sweatshirt i i just wanted something that i could throw on that would be really easy to wear really comfortable to wear really unfussy and that would go with everything so along the same vein as my half and half wrap i decided to uh knit a charcoal gray uh dark charcoal gray uh sweater this is the favorite pullover i believe that no sorry the classic um it's a design by espastrico it's a free pattern and i knitted in some uh stash yarn i had its fiber company erin moore light which is a dk weight yarn and it's a beautiful uh tweety yarn so it's gray with beige and brown and white and gray speckles or tweeds and little nups and um the yarn itself is a really lovely yarn it's a mix of merino cashmere and silk it's mostly mostly wool um it has 10 cashmere 10 silk but uh a really really lovely blend and this is wearing like iron i run um can you see underneath there my arms and my sleeves like i have worn this i finished it mid-august i think and uh i've worn it a ton like i've worn it i don't know many many times a week almost daily i kind of throw it on if i need something warm sorry i keep moving i should really just put it on so you can see but this the classic is uh is exactly that it's a totally classic and simple raglan pullover i've talked in the past about not not finding that raglan suit me but actually raglans that have really generous amount of stitches in between sort of the different the two raglan increase points actually do fit really well now this is huge it's uh i knit the 56 inch size and uh i can't really move back here sorry so it really is a a really big and generous lee fitted sweater and that's exactly what i wanted i i i did um for the sleeves i kind of just worked them straight and i did a few less i'm full of hair here uh a few less increases than what the pattern calls for but um but i really i love it it's so comfortable and it's just like i said it's a sweatshirt it's it's meant to be just something that you throw on when you have a little chill the yarn is uh so comfortable and like i said it there's zero pelling on it it's um it's really lovely it's it's a pretty light yarn so i have a feeling that it it might over time kind of wear out in the in the elbows i'm pretty hard wearing on my sweaters so that tends to be where my sweaters blow out is the elbows but that's okay i'm gotten pretty good now at uh doing little decorative mending patches on my sweaters but you know this one i'm sure i have a couple years of wear before i have to do anything to it but yeah what a great pattern now the original it is um written for dk weight however the pattern i believe mixes maybe a sport weight with a with a mohair silk lace weight um i just used a dk i would i would love to make a version that has mohair silk but this one is like i said sweatshirt it's the no fuss no muss kind of sweater just really really basic and yeah it's great if i if i were to re-knit it i probably would go down a size it is really really big but honestly i i love that i'm you know i'm from the 80s big baggy sweaters are kind of my jam it reminds me of uh the days when i used to receive the j crew calendar although that was a little bit i guess more in the 90s but um just yeah just love these big oversized sweaters boyfriendy style sweaters um speaking of espastrico i also finished something else that is um really a theme of black and blue here but i made i i was gifted some of their beautiful new yarn called uh sunday morning they uh they came out with two different weights so there's a dk weight and a four ply fingering weight and they generously offered to send me some and and so i chose the the 4-ply fingering weight in this color here which is called cover to cover and it's a very beautiful um kind of navy dark navy it's a navy that is more is less on the reddish side and more on the on the sort of neutral cool um black side if you will or gray side and that's the kind of navy that i really love i don't i i well i was gonna say i don't like kind of a royal blue as much but that's not quite true because i do love indigo and indigo does have more of that royal blue uh look to it but anyway this this kind of cool toned uh blue is really my jam now this pattern is called the sunday morning wrap and the pattern itself was actually written for the dk weight yarn but i wanted a really light uh very flowy version and what i wanted was a a scarf i really wanted this to be to feel like a scarf that i could wear and so that's that's what i did so it took um it took two and a half skeins i could have made it wider still so the pattern is um is just a um a set of uh sorry i'm not showing you properly here it's um it starts off with uh with quite a few stitches couple hundred stitches and some ribbing and then you do a panel of stockinette ribbing stockinette ribbing i think the original pattern has maybe like three or four repeats of that but i did more because it's a finer yarn i just wanted i wanted it to be a generous scarf and then it's finished with some more ribbing at the end a wider brim of ribbing and you're doing increases as you go along so the original sorry the start is here but you end up with a parallelogram if you will and uh oh this is good this yarn is amazing i can always say that about every yarn that i use but really it really is it's a mix of uh bfl and maham maha merma masum masum and it's lofty it's light as a feather it's drapey it's silky it's got a luster to it because of the bfl and uh it's perfect as a as a light but warm scarf and i love this kind of monochromatic look i'm really really into that right now and uh it's got like a halo i don't know i just this yarn is so so beautiful and i and i would suspect that this is also a very hard wearing yarn because bfl i'm not so sure about maslin i i have to admit i i don't know the characteristics of the of that breed of sheep i should really look it up but i know bfl is a longer uh kind of very silky stape staple and so it does create a fairly durable yarn a nice durable fabric and it's really soft i mean it definitely feels woolly but it's not prickly in the least and have a look at the at that yarn because the color palette is stunning every color is um there's of course beautiful neutrals there's also some really beautiful saturated colors and that but the colors are they're saturated but in a moody way i absolutely love pretty much every color in that in the sunday morning palette i would love to make a sweater with the dk weight yarn but i just wanted to really thank melissa and lisa for sending me this yarn i i'm not saying all these great things because i was gifted the yarn i really truly do love the yarn and plan on purchasing more for those of you who may not know lisa and melissa were the people who started es pastrico a a really amazing knitting store in new in new brunswick in montreal and they have recently uh passed on the baton to new owners and i'm i'm really excited to uh to see what is in store for the store um i think melissa is moving on to a new sort of yarn company enterprise and i'm excited to see what is going to come out of that because i think if i'm not mistaken um she will be creating this yarn with the dyer that has sort of helped develop all of the uh store brand uh espacicco store yarn and which this is a part of that and i have to say i have used several of their different the espastrico yarns and they are all really beautiful and the colors are amazing so i'm excited to see what um what melissa will be uh creating next in her new adventures and lisa i i'm not sure i remember she's got some creative other creative endeavors uh coming along um and so i'm really happy for them and excited to see like i said where es pastrico goes next such a an amazing and wonderful uh shop in our community um yeah i i i'm hesitating on on all the information because uh some of you might know that i recently decided to quit social media and uh that's been a really big and weirdly momentous decision um i i'm a little embarrassed actually with how what a big deal i feel it is because i you know the the fact that it's a big deal is kind of why i quit it um i for me and i'm going to speak strictly from a personal perspective absolutely in no way is this meant to be a commentary on other people's use or you know enjoyment or relationship with social media this is my own personal uh experience that i'll be speaking about and um so yeah i just would not want anybody to feel that i i am judging them or anything that is going on in social media for me personally um i have been thinking about this move for a long time and i i have to say it's been life-changing in the best possible way and it's strange because i'm actually not somebody who is on who was ever a lot on social media um it's not something that i i certainly didn't post a lot on social media but i felt the pressure to do so and i felt the pressure to keep up and with the podcast um i'm you know i'm so lucky to have garnered a following that i i could never imagine to have especially in you know in the knitting like youtube world um i think um i haven't checked recently but you know to have over 20 000 subscribers is is very rare and so with that comes you know understandably a lot of uh you know you have a lot of people wanting to connect with you and that is a really amazing thing um [Music] it's just not a sustainable thing for me um i just had a lot of people following me and a lot of people that i followed and i really felt the pressure to stay in the loop and i couldn't and i didn't want to uh i didn't really i don't want to say i didn't enjoy it because that that's not true i actually the things that i've gained from social media are invaluable actually i've made incredible friendships a few of my closest friends or people that i met through you know through doing um sharing content on social media and and on youtube and uh i've gotten so much inspiration from what from the content of other creators on on instagram in particular and i've learned so much from other people on instagram um i've i've really benefited so much i've been enriched it with a lot of different perspectives and a lot of different points of view and a lot of different creative endeavors that i wouldn't have known about otherwise so that aspect of it is really amazing and and i won't lie i i miss it i miss being on instagram i miss scrolling and seeing all of the beautiful things that that you know the people on there are are posting about um but i i just felt super overwhelmed and i felt a real responsibility to stay up to date with what people were posting and when i would miss something something would happen or i would miss somebody's post somebody that i really care about that might have posted about a big thing happening in their life and i would miss it and then i would see it and just feel terrible that i had not kind of acknowledged this thing that had happened in their life and i think i'm just somebody who really does sort of take on uh wanting to connect with people and i'm not able to connect in a meaningful way with hundreds and hundreds of people i'm just just not able to do that and it was super draining and stressful and anxiety provoking and that's again that's just me that's i um i was you know investing a lot in that even though i might not have been putting a lot of content out there but i i was trying to stay on top of things in terms of commenting and acknowledging uh the things that were going on in in our community and also just the things that people were making the new patterns the new yarns the the new life changes um and i i was just so overwhelmed and i was just spending a lot of time thinking about it worrying about it on it you know i i went from being somebody who only i only got a smartphone like a like a fancier smartphone not like a i mean i used to have like a blackberry through work and it was technically a smartphone but it was my work phone so i didn't really use it to be on the internet and i only got a phone i don't know maybe five or six years ago and uh and i just as the years went by i spent more and more and more time on my phone to the point where i you know things that i loved doing i wasn't doing anymore i was barely reading i was not listening to a lot of music i was um you know spending i felt less and less time you know outside or talking to real live people and and i was also just feeling like a an overwhelmed of options and an overwhelm of of riches really an overwhelm of like there's just so many beautiful inspiring things that people are making and doing and i wanted to be able to access them all and do them all and and be kind of um engaged in all these things and the result was that i was on them on the screen on this tiny little screen and not in real life and i grew up i mean i i was born in 1970 i grew up you know the majority of my life i didn't have a smartphone i wasn't on social media and uh i didn't live a digital life i let i i lived an analog life i lived a life of real tangible objects of um you know paper and and fiber and uh food and my house and my friends real people that i could hug and and look you know eye to eye and um yeah i just i just couldn't um i i missed the real i missed my connection to real life and since i've shut out social media i do you know wonder oh you know the fomo is real i i know i'm missing out on new releases of things and beautiful things that my you know my friends and uh co-makers are putting out there and i so i know i'm missing out but i'm you know i don't know i'm trying to keep somewhat of a connection through youtube through ravelry i know ravelry is not the best place to do that because it it is a place that not everybody can access and i'm you know i i hate that i hate that that's a thing but um i really i just for my mental health need to really keep my screen time on my phone on my laptop to a minimum i don't plan on stopping my videos i love doing youtube it's really fun for me and it's really creative i love taking b-roll i love putting things together i'm definitely continuing to knit and make things so i love talking about them and and i will definitely continue to watch uh youtube um you know videos of other makers so i you know i will keep uh hopefully a connection to what's going on out there and uh but i you know and the other thing is i just cannot keep up with dms and messages on top of like all the beautiful lovely wonderful messages that i get here on youtube i was getting more and more of that on on instagram and that just became untenable too uh just taking up a ton of my mental space that i just didn't have so anyway i have gone on way way too long about this but um if you're you know if you're interested in in in what i'm talking about uh a couple of things that i can recommend that i did i read a book called how to do nothing um the name of the author escapes me but i really enjoyed that a lot and it talks a lot about sort of you know how the way that social media is set up being something that requires you to sort of be a cog in this production machine and how you know how the attention economy really takes a lot from us so that that was really an interesting book uh i also watched a bunch of different youtube uh ted talks and things like that about um you know social media and what you know what it can do to people in terms of their you know addicting them to that sort of those um those hits of you know oh did i get a message or who did you know this new post a new this uh new likes um and how that really keeps us going on these machines more and more becoming addicted to them so that's been really interesting and uh the other thing that i read up a lot about was sort of smart phones versus dumb phones and i kind of converted my iphone to a semi-dumb phone by taking most of my apps off um i have you know i i obviously my phone is still an incredibly useful and value valuable tool um i you know if i'm out doing errands it's wonderful to be able to google like oh what what are the hours of the store that i'm thinking of going to or what's the address um or you know just google a recipe or use use my phone and the internet as a wonderful information resource um it's it's great uh i'm using it obviously still as a camera it's it's a really decent camera uh in that it's highly portable and easy to use so when i'm out and about i can take footage for for these videos and uh i still subscribe to different news feeds so that i'm still connected to the world it's important for me to know what's going on in the world and and you know be able to check the weather and and that kind of thing so my phone is is definitely still has apps on it but a very very minimal amount of apps and uh i'm on my phone now maybe i don't know less than an hour a day for sure and that has been so liberating i i do use my phone a lot uh however i mean i listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks and music so that's kind of my main vehicle for that kind of content but i have definitely cut down on youtube videos and tv even just been doing a lot of reading a lot of knitting anyway i should get back to the knitting because you're not here to hear me waft on and on about uh you know the ills of uh of modern digital life but for those of you who wondered why i went off social media that's why and i really don't regret it um and i i do have a gmail address if you do need to reach me you can email me at thegentleknitter1970 gmail.com it's not a uh it it's not an account that i check super often so you might not get a very timely response from me but i will i do check it on occasion and so if you have a question or you really need to contact me that's a great way a great place to contact me you can also message me on ravelry and of course you can leave a message here on youtube um and for those of you who were sort of relying on instagram to find out when i had a new episode you know i guess the your options are and it's the option that i recommend is for you to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so that you will get a little note a little message that i have uploaded a new video and that way you can you know you can stay up to date with what i'm up to through through my youtube um but yeah i have no plans on returning to instagram i you know i will probably once in a blue moon maybe if i know that somebody is coming out with something new maybe i'll go on google and google their their instagram to see their posts but uh i don't know that's i'm not sure about that yet and so if if something really really big happens to you and you want me to know about it please let me know through these these other channels all right enough about that my goodness um so what am i i think that covers all of my uh my finished objects um i'm still working on my beautiful socks that i'm knitting out of uh yarn from roots in rain um i have not finished those i am still working on my lunenburg cardigan i've got the sleeves to do and i kind of have not just not worked on those for a while for i don't know what reason other than i put them aside i have been uh i did cast on a couple of other things one thing that i'll mention quickly is i'm making um a cowl i had uh one skein left over from my um from my classic pullover and i'm making a cowl that will basically be like a big cowl neck that i can wear on top i mean i can wear it obviously separately but i can basically add a big cowl to my sweater so i just uh you know it's a tube with the same type of ribbing i don't think i mentioned it but it's one by one twisted rib the the sweater and and the cowl so i yeah just just a big tube i'm gonna make it relatively tall so that it's kind of like a very um very blousy very big cowl that will be something i can add on to to this sweater um i just thought that would be a really fun way to use up the leftovers from my yarn um i'm also i mentioned earlier that i bought some more hinterland yarn this is their dusk base and it is a fingering weight yarn i would qualify it as heavy fingering it is um let's see i think it's seventy percent ramblae and thirty yes seventy percent canadian ramboulay and thirty percent homegrown alpaca it says the blend creates a yarn that has the squishy softness from the rambolay and the sheen strength and added warmth from the alpaca and and i that is a really great description of this beautiful yarn the color is honey and so it's a very warm toned ivory color it's it's definitely got a lot of yellow in it really really very beautiful very soft a lovely single that has a lot of body to it and i am making a cardigan called the orchid cardigan so the orchid cardigan by julia wilkins and um julia has a podcast here on with youtube with her friend matilda so it's called bentilda and julia's greatest knits it's a really lovely podcast uh short episodes um and they are really really fun um they knit really fun projects a lot of really colorful things and and kind of funky things i i enjoy their style and i enjoy their just they're um their demeanor on camera and and they seem to be great friends so enjoy their their dynamic uh so julia uh designed this beautiful uh brioche cardigan i'll put a picture up so you can see what it looks like but uh yeah i wanted a simple oh surprise prize simple neutral cardigan something kind of squishy i'm loving knitting brioche it's such an enjoyable and not hard at all um but it it creates this very accordiony flexible fabric that has a lot of um yeah it's just super squishy and in this yarn it's going to be very very beautiful so just at the beginning of that it's a back and forth so it's it's uh it's not worked in the round it's knit back and forth uh in brioche and um yeah i'm really very much enjoying working with this beautiful natural yarn i'm i've cast on another bios pattern i wanted a big brioche shawl wrap thing and i saw this pattern by steven west it's called the brio garter split shawl and so it's a a big kind of crescent-y uh shawl that has side panels that are double garter and a middle pattern that is two color brioche so it's two color garter two color brioche and so you've got the brioche sort of wedge in the middle uh i don't know if you can see that yeah there you go so you've got a brioche triangle in the middle and two uh side wedges in two color garter so each row is worked twice in each color so each row of garter has the two colors and then the brioche you've got the sort of dominant on this side is the blue and on the reverse side is the gray i'm using some very very deep stash yarn surprise surprise blue and gray this is felted tweed and uh i will look up the color name i'm not sure what it is but it's kind of a pale icy blue with brown and black and brighter blue speckles beautiful yarn by rowan and then the other yarn is 100 alpaca by tree frog i believe i think it's their sport weight but it's it's kind of a heavy sport weight so it's actually a really good match and in fact i think it's even though felder tweed is listed as a dk i kind of feel like even though this is a sport it's maybe even thicker than the felted tweed i i i find it often dk and sport to be interchangeable but uh yeah i just really wanted to do a stash busting project and so um so that's what i'm doing i think uh once it's it's looks uneven right now the the um the 100 alpaca is very uh drapey but in a kind of a very uh loosey-goosey way is sort of it has no bounce or sprawing if you will the way wool does and so it kind of looks a little uneven when you work with it but once it's blocked um it'll be it'll even out really nicely and it will have some beautiful it'll be very drapey and very warm so um i'm i'm really enjoying how it's working up i'm having a lot of fun doing the brioche and the garter at the same time and it's gonna just be very pretty i think with my eye color it's very sheddy now i'm covered in silver alpaca fibers but oh well um lastly uh maybe i'll talk about a couple of things that i got recently um i purchased when i was in bukhtush new brunswick as i mentioned earlier my mom and i went to to the lavialet yarn shop in booktush and had a lovely time there had a lot of difficulty choosing what what to get in the end i decided to get some local yarn something that was locally produced so i got this beautiful sock yarn and the company is wool u-knit it's actually um i think it's kind of like a sub set of the yarn indulgence yarn indulgences why am i having a hard time seeing that yarn indulgences company and uh it's a fingering weight yarn it's a you know typical eighty percent uh superwash merino twenty percent nylon but on this very beautiful marl base and i really love the color as you can tell i really love blue and just these dark black and dark gray marls if you will one of the plies is uh is a changing dark black and gray uh strand or ply and so yeah i just thought this was so beautiful it's it's so the hand dyer of this company lives in moncton and i just thought it was such a beautiful yarn and will make some really lovely um what's the word i'm looking for uh not memory socks uh what's the word i'm looking for souvenir souvenir socks so yeah so that's and it's just very oceany i found so it it spoke to me on on those levels and then the other thing i bought so the other thing i treated myself to is this gorgeous book when i saw it on the shelves at the store i couldn't resist i had actually not planned on buying this book i have the sock book and i love it it's it's a coffee table book it's so gorgeous it's put out by uh len or lina magazine and uh i had seen this book and thought it was absolutely gorgeous the when i saw the pattern previews but you know i will be honest it's a very expensive book and um i just i don't know i have a lot of patterns i have a lot of you know uh digital patterns and knitting books but when i saw it at the at the yarn store i just again when you're on holidays you kind of sometimes you're you're uh your um self-control it's a little lower and i thought it would just be a really beautiful souvenir uh to take home so i i don't regret it at all it is a very beautiful book and just has so many gorgeous patterns and of course as usual line of magazine the photography is spectacular the just the styling the types of patterns and colors are always really really appealing to me and it's you know 52 shawls and i am as you know a big shawl wearer this one is so beautiful um so i mean i i you know i don't like i said i don't regret it not one bit and you can see like the colors are just so me there's one shawl that i am i mean i i would cast i would say 80 of these on like they're just all beautiful but there's one that i am planning on casting on very soon i have the yarn for it um set aside let me find i'll just be a minute so the uh the shawl that i really want to cast on is called windy fields and the designer is i'm not going to pronounce this properly probably but it's a margit lund raccola is the designer i apologize for i'm sure butchering that but it's the most beautiful stole and it is uh knit in uh silk mole hair and it's highly textural kind of uh nups i guess or or bobbles in uh what looks to me like a like a branch with some buds on it and of course that color just got me and i have silk mohair i have some knitting for olive that is pretty much exactly that color so yeah so that is definitely going to be cast on sometime in the near future but yeah the book it's it's so beautifully bound it's got a linen binding a little silk ribbon and 52 insanely beautiful shawls and wraps and lots of lots of styles that i really love a lot of very textural but also very simple designs a lot of kind of fabrics that end up looking like woven fabrics this is by marie tobita drops of memories the name of the shawl that's really gorgeous so i am happy i picked this up very happy and uh can't wait to dive in this one's gorgeous corp sang i'm very beautiful cream shawl by lotta lothrin oh this one is very beautiful wildflowers so cables that end up looking like a field of of wildflowers by katya gorbacheva so you could probably see why i could not resist love this cabled scarf the cherry twist by helen mod um yeah i mean if you can afford it if if you're in the market to really treat yourself this is a this is a just a a winning collection of designs beautiful sota basque by elena sollier yanza so well done well done uh lina you got me again super simple rough by uh odd mark martin yeah anyway 52 weeks of shawls you could spend the rest of your life knitting these and uh that would be something i would love to do um i think that's it for me today this is probably turned out to be a super long and rambly episode but um i felt it was probably um you know you probably a lot of you might have wondered why uh you know what has happened in the last couple months and what's going on with me so and anyway i appreciate you being here and spending that time with me and i hope that you're all doing well and staying safe and i look forward to talking with you again soon bye

Channel: the gentle knitter

Views: 45,707

Rating: 4.9062657 out of 5

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Id: wHuhS8Wx_Hw

Length: 78min 27sec (4707 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021