For the Love of...

Do you know what I love about merino wool? That moment when you've got a project off the needles, and you're proud of it and all, but it's just not quite right yet...

And then you dunk it in water, let the liquid seep into every fiber of your hard work, knowing that something disastrous might come out in place of your dreams-- what if it felts? What if it grows four sizes? What if I made some huge mistake and I'll have to unravel all this yarn after it's already set?

And then you pull it out of the water, and it smells heavenly-- like sheep and happiness and love and wonder-- and you can feel that it's ten times softer now, which you hadn't thought possible, and not only that, but it drapes like a dream... 

And you lay it out on a towel, and squish it and set it and pin it out until it fits the math you've already worked out so carefully, and you bounce to yourself a bit because now you have to wait before you can use it the way it's meant to be used, even though you know already that it's perfect.

That's what I love about-- well, really, yarn in general. Especially really nice, high-quality, deliciously woolly yarn, like the project I've just set to blocking. (Yes, that was what inspired this post.) It's a design, and it's sort of cold-weathery, and I haven't gotten the pattern part written up yet, so it might be a while in coming, but, gosh, do I love it.

It's moments like these that make me so glad to be a knitter.

Featuring Cutthroat Worsted, the story behind which is coming next post!

Works in Progress; also, Rapunzel!

Now that school is finally out, I've been able to get the wheels turning on a few projects. The first of which is something that's been in the works all semester, that is finally (almost) ready to be released!

So, I've been on something of a Disney kick lately, which has inspired the creative part of my brain with so many knitting ideas that I think there could be a Collection in the works (if I can ever get up enough follow-through to knit them all!). The first of these ideas to reach glorious woolly fruition is a sweater-dress inspired by Rapunzel.

The dress is meant to evoke the ethos of Rapunzel's dress in the movie Tangled: the stripey shoulder-puffs become ribbed raglan sleeves; the lace-edged square neck becomes a square scoop neck with a fold-over picot edging; and the corset-lacing down the front becomes an intricate (but easily memorized!) cable panel, framed on either side by cable-knit braids. I also found just the right shade to match Rapunzel's signature color in Knit Picks' Swish DK line: Sugar Plum.

The sweater-dress is just now going into testing, so I hope to release it not too much later this summer.


Rapunzel promises to be the first of (hopefully) many future garment designs of mine to get their inspiration from the stories of the Disney Princesses. I've already got sketches drawn up for some of them, and others are as yet amorphous concepts. In the meantime, I'm also working on some smaller projects, including one using some delicious yarn I picked up at my first visit to a proper LYS! Stay tuned for more on that. ;)

Celebi Headscarf and Other Updates:

Goodness gracious, it's been a while. This semester has been incredibly busy, but school hasn't been the only thing on my plate!

Freshly released, just in time for spring (and upcoming summer): the Celebi Headscarf.

This project has been waiting patiently for the return of warm weather, so I'm really excited to finally release it! It's a feather-light headscarf (with two additional scaled-up sizes) made in Knit Picks Gloss Lace, in the Peapod colorway. 

Celebi is a tiny, green, fairy-like Pokemon, whose power is deeply connected to the forest and the protection of life. The scarf is super-quick to knit, and light enough to knit in the middle of upcoming summer. 

And there are more things on the way! I have a freshly-finished project lying around now, a new type of pattern that I've never attempted before, inspired by a new fandom. Stay tuned!

Shores of Valinor: A New Mystery Knit-a-Long!

I have been woefully negligent in posting here, especially when there's something so newsworthy going on:

I would say this shawl has been in the works since last summer, but truthfully, I've been batting the idea around since late 2012, when I bought two skeins of a beautiful DK-weight silk/merino blend from a friend of mine (Carolyn of Tale & Tendril). The yellow one is called "Lady of the Golden Wood", and the blue one is "Galadriel's Mirror". I knew when I saw them both in her shop that they belonged together permanently, I just had no idea what project they wanted to become. 

My only criterion in sketching up design ideas for these skeins was that the pattern had to be inspired by Lord of the Rings, or, more specifically, the Lady Galadriel. So after a lot of sketching, exploring, writing, and rewriting, I finally admitted to myself that what the yarn wanted to become wasn't exactly the shimmery, flowy sort of thing that Galadriel herself might wear on an everyday basis. Instead, it was becoming something a little sturdier, a little warmer... Something that you might wear on a long journey... 

At that point, I knew that the pattern had declared itself to be an elven travelling shawl, done up in a golden-sand-and-crystal-blue-seas sort of colorway. The final product is warm and squishy, but also elegant and drapey. 

This is the first clue. The knit-a-long group has already made it to the second (again, apologies for my negligence in posting!), so if you want to join in the fun, see the pattern page on Ravelry, here: Shores of Valinor. The full details of the shawl and the knit-a-long are located there. Happy knitting!