I woke up to the most glorious sunrise. The living room was glowing orange as the light poured in the windows. When I went out onto the deck – the run was rising in front of me and there was a rainbow forming behind me. So awe inspiring.
The Mini Rose also produced a new bloom this morning that is absolutely perfect. The Hibiscus plant has several new buds, so many beautiful flowers. Just an amazing start to the day.
Knitting et al.
The GreenMan Shawl is progressing nicely. I am about 20% into the Oakleaf and Acorn insert and I am very pleased with the effect of the beads on the knitting.
I have started another shawl for myself. I didn’t really intend on this one. I am not even designing it. If you are old enough you will remember or will have knit a Clapotis shawl. I am more than old enough.
Clapotis can be considered one of the first viral patterns on Ravelry and has over 24000 projects listed. It was designed to be knit with some of the glorious hand dyed yarns that were appearing at that time. It has just been re-released on Ravelry as Clapotis 24. There is an accompanying KAL that features lots of yarny prizes.
I didn’t knit it the first time around, so I am giving it a go with some yarn from my stash. Not hand dyed, but striping and lively, and I was not having any luck designing a sweater for myself with it. I had already ripped back a couple of attempts. The yarn is Lang Cloud Tweed.
Clapotis is designed for a worsted/aran weight yarn (I keep seeing it in some Rios), but is very easy to adjust for almost any weight! The knitting is basic, stockinette on a diagonal, but the addition of the dropped line of stitches keeps it interesting.
Have you knit a Clapotis?
I am also working on another class project. Remember the loopy st? Meet the Jingle Gnome Chapeau. Still under construction, but already looking like a little bit of rustic “happy”! The class will feature the loop stitch, basic stranded knitting and how to make the perfect pompom! I am working with the Eco Shetland Worsted by Estelle. It is yarn that I really like to work with and gives me great results.
Boho CozyBoho MittsBoho Crown
I hope that you have a wonderful day. Mine is off to a great start!
My favourite cast-on is the Emily Ocker Cast-on, also called the German Pinhole Cast-on.
Do to technical difficulties I am going submit a short video and then a series of photo’s on how to start the GreenMan Shawl.
Tools that will make the cast-on easier; a straight crochet hook or a hook/point tool, it simplifies the moving of the sts from the hook to the needles. Wooden or other lightweight dpn’s, they are a little sticky and very light, metal needles are usually quite heavy and slide out far too quickly.
If you have never held a crochet hook I can recommend a simple cast-on;
Cast-on 6 sts to a single dpn, transfer the sts as the photo tutorial below, join into a round and start to work the shawl. The center of the shawl will not be as neat to begin with but when finishing your shawl the tail can be used to gather up and gently close the hole in the center.
In the video you will see the yarn, tail to the right and underneath the working end of the yarn. There is no sound, but the written description is below the video.
Please note: I am not a confident crocheter and you will see that in the video. But that does not mean I can’t fumble my way through a single crochet.
Emily Ocker Cast-on also called German Pinhole Cast-on
Grasp the ring where the yarn crosses
with your hook go through the ring and hook a loop of the working yarn
pull through the ring
hook the working yarn again and pull through the loop already on hook.
I single crochet is on the loop
Repeat from the top five more times until there are 6 loops on the hook.
Below is the step by step set-up and first rounds of the shawl.
6 single crochets on the hookSlide the stiches to the end of the hookDivide the stitches onto 3 dpn’s, 2 sts per needlePull the tail to tighten the loopWork the 1st set-up round, *YO, K1; repeat from * 6 times – 12 sts.Work 2nd set-up round – K12.Work 1st round from charted or written instructions ; Double YO, K2tog, 6 times – 18 sts.Work 2nd round of charted or written instructions – K1, P1, (K2, P1) 5 times, K1 – 18 sts.
Once you reach this point the needles will start to co-operate and the knitting will go more smoothly.
I hope that this helps you start your shawl.
I am hoping to make the video as promised with sound and moving pictures – perhaps tomorrow. Getting my tools to co-operate has been a challenge.
Really it is still Summer, but the evenings have a little chill and it gets dark just that much earlier, letting us know that Summer is on the way out! So I am working on stuff for the Fall, both personally and professionally!
Part of my job description is teaching. I teach people how to knit, how to knit better, how to execute specific skills that you, the student, may want to add to your repertoire. It is one of the more challenging aspects of my job. Just figuring out what to teach and how to present the goals.
Professional Projects
This fall has started with a successful Thrumming class and a not successful cables class. Perhaps the project wasn’t interesting enough or perhaps those who wanted to learn were looking for something more traditionally shaped. I will still write up the pattern later in the fall as I really do like it a lot! The thrumming headband will be out later this week.
This one didn’t work.
Right now I am working on a 3 part series on finishing for knits. This is loosely based on a Fear of Finishing Workshop that we at Mad About Ewe Fine Yarns ran for years. It was our most popular workshop – Tons of information presented in a six hour workshop. Everyone went home dazed and confused. So this time, it is three, four hour workshops, with time in between so there is time for everything to sink in!
Part 1 – Button Holes and Button Bands. This will be an in depth look at how to pick-up stitches to create button bands. We will look at ratios and gauge, at button holes large and small, how to sew on buttons, and we will start to look at I-cord. This class is already more than half full and I think that the new format is going to work really well.
Part 2 – Seams – I think that says it all. We will look at ratios – ratios are very important to all aspects of finishing. There will be 8 seams built off of the swatches. Seams will include; grafting, 3 styles of mattress stitch, 2 styles of 3-needle bind-off. One unique seam and I am still looking for the last option. There may be some finishing techniques as well.
Part 3 – Everything Else! You know, how to lengthen or shorten our knits. How to add anything after your knitting is finished. Ie Heels to tubes, afterthought pockets. Maybe some dimensional embellishments. Things to consider before we start knitting as well. Swatches, how to make and use them before we start knitting. The best place to work shaping. How to work a short-rows. All of those extra things. Which really aren’t that extra.
Every workshop will include homework beforehand of some kind. Mostly some swatches, something to practice all of the new techniques on!
Personal Projects
Yesterday I cut out a blouse and a pair of pants for myself. Though apparently I made the blouse for my daughter. I missed a couple of key measures. I am really thrilled with the finishing. French seams and fine finishing on a napped wool flannel fabric. My daughter is thrilled.
I hope that the pants turn out a little better as I know I am the only one who will want to wear them!
Italian wool woven fabric. I am planning pleats in the front and maybe a button fly instead of a zipper. Those colours!
When I was much younger I collected coins. Old Canadian and English pennies and coins from when we went to Malaysia. When I was a teenager my father gave me his coin collection. I
As a collection it was very informal. It consisted of an old plastic tub of coins most of them from Panama and Peru. Most from the late 1950’s, from when he was in the Navy and his ship cruised those waters. I had put away my coin collection by then and wasn’t actively collecting, so I put the tub with my collection and proceeded to spend the next 50 years carrying the collection around with me.
A few months after my father passed away I hauled out that old tub and looked again at those coins. In the collection were about 30 old silver coins, all the same size and all from the Republic De Panama. I started to think of what those coins could become. I wanted to use them as embellishments on a shawl, So, I took the coins to my Silversmith friend Joan and left it with her.
I think that this will be an interesting way of creating a unique piece of knitting while honouring my memories of my father.
Remember this one? Well it was put on hold while I waited for the book and then it arrived and needed to be examined for new ideas. Which I really couldn’t find. I was in an odd headspace I think. I was looking at my knitting, on the 1.75mm US #00 needles, and thinking it was too loose. I had to get my head around that. So, yesterday I also ripped out my little bit of knitting and put away the the 1.75mm needles and pulled out the 1.0mm US #00000 needles and cringed. I have never, ever, knit with anything that small. So sometime in the next week I will be casting on a new project.
Still trying to get my head around that as well. Do I order more yarn, or do I design a smaller project. Still thinking on it!
This one has been on hiatus for a while, but I am planning on picking it up at the end of the month. I am not far off the waist and I am hoping to reach the shoulders around Christmas.
There are other projects in the background and more classes to share, but that can be for another day!
Here are a few of my thoughts, and reasonings as to why I choose to use these symbols in the GreenMan Shawl. I think that the need to work towards the renewal of our environment has more to do with some aspects of our past. From when we were closer to the environment and had more understanding of why it was so important to our well being.
This is a circular shawl. Why?
Circles are magic. Circles in knitting are even more magical! Where else can you take a straight line and make it do circles and spirals.
Knitting is a straight line.
Knitting is a straight line made with curves.
Every individual stitch is curved.
It is tremendously fun to take something that most people think of as a straight line and make the knitting run in circles, hence my love for circular shawls.
In history, in folklore, in magic, circles are powerful objects. They hold, they contain, they encompass. They can be everything and nothing.
I love to knit circular shawls.
A circular shawl is very important to the concept behind the GreenMan KAL. Because circles are magic. Because the Green Man is an ancient and powerful concept. Because I may be more than a little superstitious and have a tendency to be intuitive and to trust my intuition.
This shawl is full of superstition. It starts on Friday the Thirteenth of September. Usually considered unlucky, the number 13 has always had a positive influence in my life. The Green Man is a figure of legend and lore. There will be mistletoe in the Oak and Acorn band. and there is power in the spirals that form the knitting of the shawl. Our knitting spirals out from the center of the shawl.
A spiral that spins clockwise (from the inside-out) represents growth, expansion, evolution, harmony and cosmic energy. It can also represent the inner (spiritual) and outer (physical) worlds and the connection between the two.
The center of the spiral is often associated with the Source, God, or One Consciousness, out of which everything emerges. The spiral emerging from the center and expanding outwardly in all directions in an everlasting manner represents creation, cosmic energy, and infinite possibilities. It also represents the cyclic nature of the universe.
22 Powerful Spiral Symbols & Their Deeper Symbolism, by Lyza Hayn
The spiral and the Green Man are related in their basic representational meanings of growth, rebirth and future possibilities.
Together, the oak tree and acorn represent the cyclical nature of life. The oak tree, with its roots firmly planted in the earth, represents the past and the present, while the acorn symbolizes the future and the potential for growth and change.
The Oak has for centuries represented strength in thought and purpose, the Oak stands for longevity. It stands tall in growth and last long when used to create the things of man. The Acorn, the seed of the Oak, is a symbol of fertility and growth, but also of wisdom because of the slow growth of the Oak, the Acorn also represents the slow passage of time as wisdom is attained.
And Mistletoe, because it produces berry’s in Winter and is evergreen, represents rebirth, life and fertility!
I hope that I have entertained you, enticed you and made you curious.
Apologies to “Queen” here – Knitting is a “kind of magic”!
Tomorrow we are going to Surrey (across the big water). The World Men’s Fastball Championships are there. So we are going for a day of ball! I am going to be knitting as well as watching and there is nothing like Ferry travel to enhance one’s knitting time!
I will be taking a half knit sweater for myself. I started it a couple of years ago with some beautiful Italian Wool from Gathering Yarns. Just a basic top-down v-neck and since the yarn was limited I had to get creative with the colours. Just some simple striping but it is very effective with the slightly varigated colours.
It is such a rich yarn, full of texture and the two colours are blending beautifully.
Why wasn’t it finished a while ago? Well, one time when I tidied, the project went in one place and the yarn went in another. I would find one and never the other. So this time when I found the extra yarn I put in on my desk, after I had cleaned it up and had a clear surface! Remember that big clean up? Yesterday I stumbled across the project! A match! And it is so close, arms and maybe a third of a body and it is chunky!
Looking for the next project? I seem to be in constant search lately. I have several projects on the go. My main focus is the Greenman Shawl and it is really taking over. I am already planning the next section. But I do need to look to my classes for work as well. What is your next project?
I am working on the thrummed mittens to go with the headband. I do enjoy thrumming such a relaxing way of working in colour. And I love the wool I am using, Shelter, by Brooklyn Tweed.
Look deep into my mitten. Doesn’t it look warm and cozy?
And for something new I am going to try to finish off the sleeves of an old sweater. Knit with Mountain colours hand dyed Weavers Wool it is gorgeous. It is now slightly felted and starting to wear at the end of the sleeves. So I am going use an old English (or European Technique of finishing things that wear with leather. I found an absolutely stunning piece of leather from Gala Fabrics last time I was there. It is a glorious shade of blue and is perfect!
I’ve been talking a great deal about the Green Man Shawl, something for a new KAL.
So what is a Green Man?
I guess it depends on how you want to research the motif. The Green Man as art is mainly that of a face covered by foliage. It is known as a foliate motif and is found in art across the globe dating back in Europe to at least the 1300’s, and is much older in other cultures. Many art historians think that the motif was from India and then was carried across Europe. It was often seen on churches or in the art of the Celtic monks.
The motif could also have been brought across the European Continent even earlier. Many ancient Roman sites in Great Britain have contained masks that relate to the Green Man.
So basically the Motif is old, ancient even, and has meaning throughout many cultures. In folklore the Green Man has many meanings. He symbolizes fertility and harvest, regrowth and change. Peter Pan, Robin Hood were Green Men. They symbolized the need for change. We are in need of change.
Green Man as a concept has inspired artists and authors alike over the 500 years. And he still inspires today. For many modern pagans, the Green Man is used as a symbol of seasonal renewal and ecological awareness.
I take a lot of photographs and I am constantly in awe of the beauty of this world. It is all around us and you just have to look. I have been looking.
I stay pretty close to home. Most of these images are from around Nanaimo or the West Coast. Whistler, Bute Inlet and the west coast of Vancouver Island.
While I am not a modern pagan, or perhaps I am, (obviously a conversation for another day), I have been inspired by the Green Man images I have seen, in books, on the internet and in conversations about the image.
To me, Green Man is the modern environmental warrior. A symbol for the modern generation. Of making small and large changes in our lives with the environmental future of our planet in mind. As a long time reader of science fiction and science fact, where the future of our planet has always been up for for speculation, my head is filled with a myriad of ideas. Will we destroy ourselves or will we reinvent ourselves or will we move ourselves outward into the rest of the universe. I think all three.
Change takes a monumental amount of personal energy, a destruction of current self. I am slowly making my own personal changes and watching the changes happening and also not happening around me. I want to encourage others to think about the changes they can make. They don’t need to be big, small changes, incremental change is the most sustainable and can, when added together create a major shift. Think of water on stone… We are the stone.
I am an optimist at heart. I really believe there is a future for our world, the only question is, will humanity be a part of that future. Our choice. Our actions will make the decision.
Google Green Man. The images are amazing, inspiring, beautiful, ugly and all places in between.
This is my Green Man. My third attempt at capturing the feeling in knit. I am happy with it now. The next step is to incorporate it into my shawl.
My swatch is knit with Estelle Eco Shetland Worsted
What do you think? Should I give up my day job? LOL! I am satisfied.
In the Summer I always try to finish up a project for myself. A sweater or vest, something new that I can wear to work.
This year I have at least two things on the go. A light and airy mohair sweater knit with Amitola Brushed by Louise Harding. This is a heavier mohair and silk blend and I am knitting it quite loosely. I love mohair’s loft when the you let the fuzz fill in the stitches. It makes the garment light but still cozy! This sweater is underway and will be knit from sleeve to sleeve. The Amitola has a long, slow stripe and it is showing beautifully. I am barely through 60 grs of the first ball. I think that I will have plenty of yarn. I am knitting on a 6.0mm US #10 – this sweater is knitting up fast!
The Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed yarn is going to take much longer to knit. Right now it is going to be a vest. But I am loving it so much and I think I have enough yarn, so it might turn into a full sweater. I am loving the stitch pattern. Time, as always, will make the final decision. And yardage, where is the rest of the yarn? Somewhere in my stash!
Summer is also when I make tea cozies. They are small and fun and I think I might design a class around a new idea I have.
Last week I bought a new toy. It is designed to hold my phone as I video myself knitting a new technique. You have already seen it at work as I ripped back my last hat!
The weather here is back up to being hot again. So I am looking at small projects as well. Beading something, anything, is always good for hot weather knitting.
I also love to knit shawls in the Summer. Tomorrow I hope to have the Green Man motif ready to show.
Do you have a “colour” ? Something you know you love to knit with. Something that you “lean” towards. Something you sometimes are unaware of. I do. Apparently I wanted a co-ordinating set. LOL!
Don’t they look great together? I guess I will have to finish the gloves sooner rather than later!
Below are some random images of this Summer and Summers past! They are part of my inspiration as I dream up new ideas.
Have you ever made thrummed mittens? Or slippers? Well I am working on a Thrummed Headband. It has an easy shape and will be easy to learn the technique so that you could make mittens or slippers if you wished!
2) Cables
A simple cable hat?
Or maybe a not so simple cable hat?
How about a reversible cable scarf? As you can see this idea is still in the very early stages!
3) Maybe something more long term, with once a month meeting/classes.
I am planning a Knit-a-Long. KAL for short. The Green Man KAL. This will be a lace shawl for the more advanced knitter. It could be knit in a fingering or lace weight yarn, knitters choice and there will be how to video’s attached for those who don’t live in the area and in person classes for those who do. Techniques we will cover include circular cast-ons, adding beads (if desired), three dimensional embellishing, some interesting lace techniques and finishing with knitted on edging. Sample below is knit with Schoppell Zauber Lace 100. Right now I am working on the chart for the the Green Man and will share updates as that comes together.
4) Of course I will run the Fear of Finishing Workshop – an in depth look at some basic and not so basic finishing techniques. Including the best start to create the best finishes and things the pattern always forget to tell you.
5) I am thinking of a designing a new tea cozy this fall. Something with birds I think!
6) A class on mending is in the works as well! Darning socks, fixing holes with some creative mends and swiss darning the old fashioned way!
I am also looking for new ideas. What do you want to learn? Can I teach it in a class or does it need a workshop? I could teach something in Mosaic Stitch, or maybe Twinned Knitting? Some simple fair-isle mittens or cowl for gifts?
What style of project would you like to see? A simple shape to show up the new technique, a pillow perhaps, maybe bolster style with knitted on fringe for finishing. Or a new hat, a pillbox or cloche style, something a little different from your basic beanie.
I am off to dream up and then knit up some new samples. I hope that you have a dreamy week as well!
