Category Archives: Finds

Q for You: What are your Fall making plans?

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Q for You: What are your Fall making plans?

Hi, friends. How was your week? I’m supposed to be out of town right now but the universe has been tossing up nonstop roadblocks this week, to the point of also derailing my blog output. So rather than being ready to talk about my Fall making plans, or sharing a meaty Elsewhere list, I’m here asking about yours! (Mine are uncertain anyway — I’m hoping you’ll help get me unstuck.)

So that’s my Q for You for the long weekend: What are your Fall making plans? I want to hear about your knitting and/or sewing goals, patterns you’re fixated on, anything you’re willing to tell me!

And I’m also still hoping to finish crocheting my hat this weekend, even though I didn’t get the road-trip hours I was counting on … I’d love to hear your weekend plans, too!

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PREVIOUSLY in Q for You: What’s your time-worthy detail?

New Favorites: Lightly cabled

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New Favorites: Lightly cabled pullovers

I’m on the brink of knitting myself a simple fall pullover (if I can find exactly the right yarn) and have been picturing it as stockinette and, ideally, a finer gauge than my norm. But the mere thought of actually knitting a sweater’s worth of fine-gauge stockinette sent me running to Ravelry to pore over cable sweaters. As much as I want to knit another fisherman, it’s not a closet priority. So I’m weighing the possibility of something lightly cabled:

TOP: Coastal Pullover by Hannah Fettig features allover cables so subtle they become textural white noise

BOTTOM: Hawley Pullover by Julie Hoover is a little more pronounced about its cables, but still.

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PREVIOUSLY in New Favorites: Little hugs

Elsewhere

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This has been a distressing week in the US (one of far too many of its kind), and you know I feel so strongly that every one of us needs to be informed and engaged and to work for peace. (Boy have my thoughts on how advanced these past three years.) But we also have to take care of ourselves and keep up our strength, which means being present with the people we love and also allowing ourselves to disappear into our knitting or sewing for a minute, to catch our breath and boldly face the world again.

I’ve got a mixed bag of links for you today, for your edification and/or enjoyment; I’ll see you back here on the other side of what I hope will be a comparatively peaceful weekend—

— Squam’s diversity-and-inclusion panel from last month has since been posted online. It’s long, so maybe watch it in chunks if you need to, but I hope you’ll watch

— I love every word of this interview with Oaxacan weaver and natural dyer Porfirio Gutiérrez: No one told us we were artists (via)

— Podcast eps I’m eager to listen to: The Dressed interview with Joy Bivins on the history of the Ebony Fashion Fair and the debut of Ceci Knits the World

— I’m in MDK’s debt for linking to Lorilee Beltman’s brilliant video about how to memorize the Kitchener Stitch — I always have to remind myself which way it goes and will never need to again!

— … and also for asking Jillian Moreno the question I’ve always wanted to ask someone: the difference between fingering-weight yarn and sock yarn

— Remember that wrapped hoop earring tutorial? Anne updated it on her own blog — and look at this lovely espadrille project

— Why the American shoe disappeared, and why it’s so hard to bring it back

— and totally fascinating use of a sock blank

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On an unrelated note, I want to acknowledge the loss of Toni Morrison this week, which feels especially sharp within this particular news cycle. I don’t really even have the words for it, but I loved this passage by Tracy K. Smith from one of the many NYT tributes I’ve read in the past few days:

“… the living monument of Ms. Morrison’s body of work assures me that the language of peace, justice, safety and stability must enter our imagination as they always have — not through the language of policy, but via our willingness to regard one another as worthy of attention and love. Such ideas must be sat with, moved through, married to our vocabularies for love, desire, loss, resentment, remembering, healing and hope. And those vocabularies are the primary terrain of the artist.”

I’ve been saying lately it’s been too long since I’ve read any of her novels. Time to dig back in …

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New Favorites: Little hugs

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New Favorites: Little sweaters

I don’t know whether it’s the back-to-school air or wanting to “hug” the ones I love, but I’m preoccupied with the notion of knitting more little sweaters to send off to small humans of various sizes. These two patterns (one new, the other a longstanding fave) top my list for being both timeless and gender-neutral, all the better for future hand-me-downs —

TOP: Willard Mini by Alicia Plummer is a sporty little drawstring funnel neck I’d love to have in my own closet

BOTTOM: Arlo by Michele Wang is the one I wanted in my size at the time (and then along came Bellows) but now want to make in miniature

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PREVIOUSLY in New Favorites: Puzzle wrap

Wardrobe Planning: Latter 2019 (mood/palette)

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Wardrobe Planning: Latter 2019 (mood/palette)

So how does a color-shy minimalist like me factor in significant color, as I’m itching to do? That’s what I’m trying to figure out as I pause for the first time this year to think about what I have and what I want/need to make between now and the year-end. As I alluded to before and will talk more about, I’m focused on the most potent needs right now: a Venn diagram of sleeves, dresses and linen, plus addressing the imbalance in my stack of pants, which are almost entirely heavy cotton/canvas and next to no linen or summer-weight anything.

The challenge of working with linen is it means mostly solids. It’s like a box of crayons. And whereas I have no problem combining solid neutrals (and the occasional stripe), it’s taken some thinking to figure out how to work with crayons in a way that still feels like me. I’ve determined that the secret lies in the specifics of the palette and in combining colors in offbeat ways. What got emphasized when I went to put this into a 2019 Mood board was that it also means tonal dressing, maybe even more than mix-and-mismatch, which again I totally get! I’m just used to doing it with neutrals. But now that I’m seeing it that way, it seems like a no-brainer.

What it comes down to in terms of the palette is augmenting my existing blues and camels and stripes with rusty-pinky-melon tones, yellow, and a hit of spearmint green.

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PREVIOUSLY in Wardrobe Planning: Me-Made May data

New Favorites: Puzzle wrap

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New Favorites: Puzzle wrap

Can we talk about this beauty for a minute? It’s the new Easy Puzzle Blanket (free pattern) by Jake Canton for Purl Soho and it not only looks like it would be spectacularly fun to knit (log cabin forever, please) but would be a great stash buster and a perfect travel project. The sort of thing where a little bit of yarn would go a very long way and the project would grow relatively slowly while keeping your hands busy the whole time. (In other words, it’d take up time, not luggage space.) And I’m still so into the idea of a lightweight square that can function as a blanket or a shawl, folded or not. I’m that person who does not have a stash full of fingering weight yarn leftovers, so there’s that to consider. But I can’t stop picturing possible color combos …

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PREVIOUSLY in New Favorites: Fall warm-ups

Elsewhere

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I apologize for being AWOL this week but I want to be perfectly honest with you. I don’t really care right now who has a cute new pattern out or what I’m going to knit when I finish my WIP. I mean, I do, obviously, but not nearly as much as I care about trying to do my part toward helping build a more inclusive knitting community. So to that end, I’m trying to facilitate a conversation on Instagram. The first two questions are here and here. I hope you’ll join me, or feel free to answer here in comments if you’re not on IG. But please be aware that comment moderation is on and I’ll only be approving comments from previous commenters and/or those who demonstrate a genuine interest in a productive discussion.

Thank you for understanding, happy weekend to you, and I’ll be back next week!

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