Danube Waltz

We have a new design, this one made from two skeins of fingering weight yarn - a great stash buster for those of us who have lots of that lurking around!

Danube Waltz

We were fortunate this year to have been able to take a lovely trip to central Europe over the holidays.  I'd wanted to see the Danube River ever since I was teenager reading the magnificent Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel.  I used to pore over the tiny maps in the books, following Ayla's journey, imagining the places where she was, excitedly noting that the "Great Mother River" must, in fact, be the Danube River, the "Sister" must be the Rhine, and that these were real places that I might some day visit.  After seeing the Rhine a few years ago, this year I finally saw the Danube.  Beautiful blue, even in winter,  making its way through the city of Vienna, which is also home to a museum that any fan of Auel's books would love, the Naturhistoriches Museum Wien,   

If you are ever in Vienna, you simply must visit this museum.  It has the single best exhibit of artifacts and interpretation related to prehistoric man that I have seen anywhere, and is the location of the famousVenus of Willendorf.  I was also thrilled by the small artifacts related to spinning and fiber work.  Imagine spinning on a spindle with these stone whorls!   I have always been interested in archaeology, especially that related to the Paleolithic Period, so I was in hog heaven at this museum.  Someday I'd like to return to the area, as there are a great many sites in the vicinity with artifacts from the same period, not to mention, the landscape in northern Austria and southern Czechia is stunning!

Our trip was originally scheduled for November, but due to a detached retina my husband needed emergency eye surgery a few weeks before we were to go.   I was luckily able to reschedule things over the last days of December, meaning we were able to spend New Year's Eve in Vienna.  I've never been abroad on New Year's Eve, nor yet spent that day in a city that rolls out a huge celebration like Vienna does - wow!  Close to midnight we joined the crowds heading towards the Hofburg Palace to see the fireworks.  I had read that at the stroke of midnight they play the Danube Waltz and everyone starts waltzing!  No one near us waltzed, but we could heard the Danube Waltz playing nearby amidst the popping fireworks.  Having grown up watching looney tune cartoons, we found this hilarious.

Right - so the pattern!  Inspired by the colors of the winter Danube.

That is, of course, the Great Mother/Danube River behind me.  It was a windy blustery day!  And no, I did not make the sweater.  It's the Elsin Sweater Coat from Prana, and I think they are on sale right now in case you want one.

The pattern is available here.  Ours is made from Cat Mountain Fiber Arts Mist, one each of the colors Rain, and Stoney Brook.  If you purchase two skeins of Mist from our web site, we'll include a free paper copy and email you an electronic copy of the pattern with your order.  If you already purchased the pattern through Ravelry, let us know and we'll refund the pattern cost to you.

Thanks for reading and best wishes for your wellness!

Nightshift

First I want to start off by saying Andrea Mowry is a genius.  I have knit several of her patterns and they are all exquisitely written, very clear and just so clever.  

First the Fades, oh the fades. Love them!!  I am not comfortable confessing how many of them I have knit to date.  Maybe when I get to know you a little better I will tell you.

So then this Nightshift shawl came up in the Ravelry top 20 patterns.  And stayed there. And stayed there, sometimes falling out of the top 20 but I've never seen it out of the top 40.   I didn't actually like it at first, because it seemed too big, blocky and chunky.  Then I saw a few up close and thought that it actually was pretty cool looking.  

And just let me gush for a minute here.  Have you seen the flipping darling "Shifty" sweater yet?  It is so cute.  Not for me, mind.  We's way too big of a girl for a cropped sweater with horizontal-ish stripes, but I have a few skinny pants little nieces that it would be very cute on.  Right, done gushing for now.

Being someone who now only buys "other" yarn under the rarest of circumstance (since I make my own) I decided that rather than spend nearly $200 for the yarn it calls for (which I am sure is awesome yarn and well worth the price - I'm in no way disparaging it) I piddled around with some colors in a nice DK weight that I get from one of my suppliers.  Its an 85% Polwarth Wool and 15% Silk blend that blooms delightfully when its dyed, and is super soft to boot.  I liked the way the colors in the pattern sample looked, so I tried to get reasonably close to those.  

Yummy earth-ish tones.  My favorite is that carmine, second from the right.  When I was first knitting it, I actually went back to my original "too blocky" opinion, and didn't like it much.  I decided I was going to soldier on at least until I got through the initial section, where you knit the first background color completely through with all of the other colors.  As soon as I started with the second background color, I decided that I did, in fact, love it.  Abso-freakin genius pattern.  Here it is finished, whee!

Next, I did something I have never, ever done.  (Ok, maybe I did do this on those darned addictive Find Your Fades.  Seriously though we are not going to talk about that.)  This thing was so fun, I immediately started another one, and whacked it out in about 2 weeks.  It would have been faster if I had not been frantically dyeing as much yarn as I could for my first time vending at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  

I'm knitting something else right now, but I have to own up to fantasizing about one in beiges and browns.  I even have a color name picked out.  Stay tuned for that.

Since you asked, these are available now as kits, currently in our Etsy Shop and very very soon on The Yarn Gallery web site.  The first one is named "Eartha" and the other one is "For the Love of Purple."  

Knitting Across the Pond

Last month I had the amazing opportunity of exhibiting at the Spring Knitting and Stitching Show in London.  Having decided to do it on relatively short notice, I had only four days after getting home from Stitches West before I was on a plane heading to the UK.  Whew!

The Spring event is held at the Olympia exhibition hall, located on the west side of central London.  I had the tiniest of stalls, but that was all I needed, since I wasn't exactly bringing truckloads of product with me.

Brian designed a special scaled-down banner for me, and made these dandy little velcro hangers (the walls provided are velcro compatible - jolly!) for me to hang things from.  The table and shelves were rented.  Probably won't do that again - they were very expensive, and the black paint on the shelves rubbed off on my labels, ack.  

Knitters in the UK are every bit as enthusiastic about yarn as they are in the US and I had a blast talking with them.  I met some fantastic people!  

Imogen, owner of Fig Tree Yarns on Jersey (Channel Islands) had actually purchased a skein of my yarn at Yarn & Coffee in Santa Fe, and now is carrying my yarn in her lovely shop.   I also made contact with editors from  Simply Knitting and Simply Crochet magazines, both of whom took some Cat Mountain Fiber Arts yarn for their design team to create projects for features this coming fall.  Whee!  

I even had a little time to play tourist: visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, went to the Borough Market, walked in Hyde Park, and ran across this landmark outside of the Earl's Court Tube Station

I learned a ton about what to do and not do should I decide to exhibit again, and was overall very pleased with how the show went.  There is another one at Alexandra Palace in London in October RIGHT after the Taos Wool Festival.  As in, I'd need to leave the next day.  Not sure how that might work out, but we'll see.  

Dunadd

The path up to the top of the hill fort.

I love when a knitting design has historical, geographical, or situational relevance.  I love it even more when I have the privilege of visiting a place and knitting an object whose design has ties to it.

"Dunadd" (Dun Ad in Scottish Gaelic) means "fort on the River Ad."  This site is located in the Kilmartin Glen, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Activity at this site dates back to the Iron Age, and it later became an important political, trading and ritual center for the Kingdom of the Dal Riata.

We visited on a predictably cloudy day in April, while touring the Kilmartin Valley, an area rich in neolithic sites and standing stones.

View from the top,  of the River Ad and the valley below

The "Inauguration Stone" Dunadd is thought to be the site where kings were inaugurated.  Note the outline of a foot in the center of the stone; it is believed that the king placed his foot into this carving, linking him to the land and people (Webb, Sharon (2013) In the Footsteps of Kings. Kilmartin House Trust, Argyll, Scotland

Prior to this trip, I had purchased a kit for a wrap, designed by Alice Starmore, named Dunadd.  It features two moderately intricate Celtic knot designs.  It has been a pleasure to knit so far.

As with many things that I knit for myself, this fell into queue behind samples for my yarn business, gifts for others, and other activities.  Now though, I am nearly finished.  Happily, it even matches our new bedspread!

 Virtual Yarns Kit for Dunadd

I chose the color Caper Caillie, one of my favorites from Virtual Yarns.  My gauge is off, so it will use more yarn than called for, but that is not a problem - I am pleased that it will now be large enough to serve as a throw, or a very large cosy wrap for our chill nights in Colorado.

All the cool kids were doing it

Of course I am about a year behind the times compared to all the cool kids, but I just had to make a Color Affection.

I think I saw about 30 of these at Vogue Knitting Live in New York, and I really was wishing I'd had mine finished then as it was cold and windy where we were there.

I used three skeins of Cat Mountain Fiber Arts Superwash Merino Sock Yarn in Dusk, New Jeans and Terra Cotta.

I did the added yarn over on the edge that Yarn Harlot suggested, and it was still pretty tight.  Not sure what would solve that, but it seems okay.  Its very cozy, and I liked this color combination.