Hail Thee, Festival Day!

Posted on 2 November 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

That’s the name of a church hymn I’ve never sung. But I like the title of it, and it’s relevant to what I want to write about today, which has nothing to do with church hymns but with something else I do find sacred: Rhinebeck! (i.e., the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, in Rhinebeck, New York)

Months ago, I made the decision to attend (my first time in four years), but then when my mom died just a few weeks ahead of the festival, I couldn’t imagine going and enjoying myself. Or even knitting ever again, for that matter. But my husband pushed me to go, knowing that time there would be good for me. And it so was.

It was a kind of time-out-of-time for me. Surrounded by strong, creative, amazing women, curled up in our cozy house with knitting, coffee, snacks, and music, I discovered a renewed energy in myself, and a renewed connection with myself. In fact, the four days I spent there were the longest I’ve gone so far without breaking down into tears at some point. My heart was full of something like joy.

our backyard

the view of our house from our backyard

It’s hard to be down when surrounded by the delights of a fall weekend in New York with fabulous females (and their fabulous footwear).

boot game on point

The time at the festival itself was, of course, magical. But the best part was being with friends.

in our matching Shameless hats

with my gal Heather

with my gal Jessie

Blair+Elspeth (Look at Blair’s handknit cabled dress!)

Ann+Gwen

Curly girls in cabled hats

Are we cold or happy? (answer: both!)

And then, of course, there were the handknits. Most of the people in our house had made a Pi Shawl within the last several months. We arranged them into a pie, because we like puns, and also pies, and also pi.

We called this a Zimmermann of Pi Shawls

And then we all had to photodocument:
And while I spent the vast majority of my time with women, which I found very nurturing and healing and all things good, one of my favorite things I saw at Rhinebeck was this:

An all-male team in the Spin-to-Shawl competition – they called themselves “Men at Work”

Another favorite part of the festival was the Breed Barn:

I think she wants to come home with me (or am I projecting?)

Jessie made a new friend

I made a new friend, too!

It was over far too soon, and then we had to say goodbye.

Farewell at Newark International

But the memories of my time there have sustained and fortified me. I feel like I spent the weekend being knit back together, at least a little bit, and it was good.

Loop through Loop upon Loops :: Learning a Little About Grief from My Knitting

Posted on 5 October 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

Thank you so much for your very kind, very tender words on my last post. Losing my mom (and so unexpectedly) has been the most painful, most disorienting experience I’ve ever gone through, but the kind words and support of friends, acquaintances, and even strangers has truly made a difference for me. Some of you shared in the comments on my last post your own experiences with grief or depression, and I feel very honored that you would do that. It makes me feel less alone.

One of the weird things for me has been that, professionally, I deal with grief quite a lot. From a professional/academic standpoint, I feel like I know a fair amount about what’s “normal” and what’s “expected.” But none of my knowledge or experience makes any difference for my own grief. No matter how “normal” this is – how I feel does not feel normal. No matter how much I expect grief not to move in linear stages, it is still always a surprise to me to find myself back in the middle of feeling shocked. I can go for two or three days of feeling like the absence of my mom is the new reality, and I’m adjusting to it; and then, I’ll suddenly have a day where it will feel like a total surprise (of the worst kind), and something that cannot possibly be real. Knowing this is how grief works hasn’t made it any more comprehensible, or reasonable, or manageable.

I realized several days ago that the addiction recovery movement has something to teach me about grief recovery: one day at a time. You know this. I thought I knew this. But I’m knowing it in a new way now. When I think too far ahead – how can we celebrate Christmas without my mom? – I’m sunk. But if I can just think – today, I’m not going to have a chance to talk to my mom, and that can be okay, because there have been plenty of days like that in my life, and those days were okay – if I can just think like that, and approach each day as a single day, and just get through that one day without her, then I do all right, and I think that maybe I can keep being all right.

In other words: grief has a lot in common with knitting.

As you and I both know, the only way to knit a sweater is one stitch at a time. Not even a single round or row at a time – a single, tiny stitch. If you just keep doing that, you will have a sweater in your hands eventually. It may take longer than you’d hoped, it may involve ripping back and redoing some portions, it may involve tears, anger, frustration, and discouragement, you may have to set it totally aside from time-to-time. But in the end, the only way to move forward is to knit the next stitch.

Of course this analogy is imperfect because I don’t expect I’ll ever be “done” with my grief the way I expect to eventually be done with a knitting project. Still, for now, it’s helpful to keep in mind that all I have to do is the next tiny thing.

For me lately, that has finally meant picking the knitting needles back up. It’s not with the same zest and energy I typically have, and it hasn’t been every day. But I am making the time to make some stitches, and it feels good.

handspun Laurie pullover

Wooly stitches offer a kind of familiar solace that I’m cherishing now (handspan wooly stitches even more so!). This is supposed to be my Rhinebeck sweater, and with a cuff and a sleeve left, I’m still not sure I’ll get it finished in time. I have ten days to get ‘er done, so we’ll see.

I’m also, at last, back at the ~~wheel~~ e-spinner, and that, too, feels so good. If the grief process is like a spiral, then I suppose it has something in common not only with knitting but also with spinning.

Over the last few days, I took this:

Southern Cross Fibre Organic Merino, “Laurel Crown”

And did this:

and this:

And I ended up with this:

230 yds light worsted 2-ply

And I love it very much.

Squoosh!

And I guess this is one more thing I’m trying to learn from my knitting and spinning. If I just keep going – stitch-by-stitch, loop-by-loop, turn-by-turn – eventually, something beautiful might be created. I do believe this – I do believe that out of great sorrow, something new and beautiful and good can come. Pain can be a good teacher, if we let it be, and loss can shape us in ways that make us stronger and truer than we were before. I have seen the tiniest flashes of how this might become true for me – ways my mother’s legacy suddenly burns brighter in my life – and I trust that a new strength will grow and deepen in me if I can open my heart to my own grief.

In the meantime, I knit on.

A Wee Knit for a Wee Pup

Posted on 7 April 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

We got a puppy and he is straight-up adorable.

This is Louie. (Middle name: CK). He’s a chocolate Havanese, and we’re in love. He’ll be 13 weeks old tomorrow, and he’s already learned how to sit on command, lie down on command, and use the bathroom on his potty. He’s a whip-smart little dude!

Evidence of his intelligence: he’s also a Tigers fan.

I made him the first dog sweater I’ve ever made:

I made this for him to wear on St. Patrick’s Day. And yes, we matched (me in my Cape Cod).

I loved this sweet little pattern, which can be made to fit any pup (or cat, or rabbit, for that matter). It’s called the Perfect Fit Dog & Cat Sweater, and it’s free.

I made this one a bit short (let’s call it a crop top), but you can make it whatever length you want. I have plans to make him one in handspun for fall, once he’s quit growing. I mean, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, right?

That Time I Made Not-Socks

Posted on 2 April 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

For someone who doesn’t really consider herself a sock knitter, I realize I’ve posted a lot about socks lately. Yes, it’s true that I knit six pairs of handspun socks basically in a row, and then I began my plans and swatching for my Crackerjack Socks. But I did interrupt my sock-knitting to make a special wee baby gift.

I was packing for my trip to Nicaragua and wanted some good plane knitting. There was a wee babe in Nicaragua I wanted to give a little gift to, so my need for travel knitting and my desire for baby gift knitting converged. I found a pattern I hadn’t knit before – a Bunny Blanket Buddy – and cast on in the Detroit airport, by the time we’d landed in Managua, I was all done, except the stuffing and the embroidery.

I saved the pattern to my iPad but when I got to the part for making the head, I was a bit confused. Since I was in the air at that point, and had no access to WiFi, I forged ahead with the sense that I wasn’t making it right but with no way to look up any comments anyone else had made about the pattern. Turns out, the pattern is poorly written. If you know what you’re supposed to do, you can make sense of it, but since I was basically flying blind, I just made stuff up as I went along. The head is supposed to be double-knitting (which, surprisingly, I’ve never actually done before), but nowhere in the pattern does it actually say that.

The upshot is, I made the head HUGE, about twice as big as it was supposed to be. And then I had to knit a
back to it so that there was something to stuff. And then I needed to seam it. Basically nothing about the head was as per pattern. Even so, I think it turned out pretty cute:

Big-headed Bunny Buddy Blanket

I made this with Stonehedge Fiber Mills Shepherd’s Wool Worsted (are you surprised?), leftover from my Crackerjack Scarf.

I have a dark secret about embroidery. It is the number one reason I sew or knit so few stuffies – I get hung up on embroidering the faces! In fact, in my craft closet right now there are two adorable big-footed bunnies I sewed for my boys for Easter presents when they were four years old (i.e., six years ago), that have languished there for lack of a face. It’s a problem. But this time, I got right to it. We landed in Managua on Friday night, I stuffed and sewed up the head as soon as we got there, and on Saturday morning, I embroidered the face.

The baby did not seem judgmental of my embroidery skills, nor unhappy at the size of the bunny’s head, so I think it all worked out fine.

Now that I know what the pattern means to say, as opposed to what it actually says, I will definitely be making this again!

Crackerjack Socks :: Free Worksheet

Posted on 1 April 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

This is not an April fools joke! The free Crackerjack Socks worksheet is available now in my Ravelry store.

These are toe-up with an afterthought heel and optional calf-shaping. As we go through the season, I’ll be posting updates on my own knitting, including some detailed photos and explanations when I get to the afterthought heel. In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Let the games begin!

Swatching for Crackerjack Socks

Posted on 31 March 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

I know, I know! Baseball’s Opening Day is next week, and I’ve promised you a worksheet for Crackerjack Socks. It’s coming, I promise! I’m just still tinkering with it a last little bit. But my plan is to make it available in the next couple of days. Because this is one of the busiest weeks of my year professionally, and it makes all kind of sense for me to be putting together a knitting worksheet on top of that, right?

In the meantime, I’ve been swatching:

Even on my usual size zero needles, these are somehow knitting up a bit loose. The garter ridge indicates where I changed needles from one brand to another (but the same size). My knitting did tighten up a bit once I found my favorite size zero dpns (Darn Pretty brand), but it’s still pretty loose.

I’ve decided to knit two rounds per game. I just like the way that looks. For comparison, here’s how it looks with one round per game:

More of a zigzag stripe. So instead, I’m going to do two rounds per game. In other words, more knee socks for me!

And Then I Ran Out of Time

Posted on 27 March 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

After knitting six pairs of handknit socks in a row, I wasn’t quite ready to stop with the foot accessories. Ever since early last fall, I’d been dreaming of a pair of handspun Mukluks to keep in my office at work. I even spun up some bulky 2-ply yarn to make a pair, but then I decided I wanted to save that yarn for another (yet-to-be-made) project.

So in early February, I pulled out some delicious Hello Yarn fiber:

Fairytale

This is “Fairytale” on Falkland – one of my favorite fibers in a palette a little outside my usual. Spinning it up was a total dream:

I spun it fat, fast, and lofty, making it into 122 yards (out of 4 ounces) of bulky 2-ply.

I immediately cast on for a pair of Mukluks:

And then, it was time for me to leave for Nicaragua on a 10-day trip, to help install water filters in a remote rural village. I knew better than to think I would work on a pair of bulky wool slippers while traveling through the countryside. And by the time I got back, earlier this month, I had other things I needed to focus on. So the slippers have been set aside, perhaps till next fall. In fact, I think my sock-making days are on a hiatus now, too, as I turn my attention to more spring-like knits. The handspun sock-knitting gig was a fun run while it lasted!

So Guess What I Made Next…

Posted on 26 March 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

After completing five pairs of handspun handknit socks in a row (with a brief break to make a baby sweater), what do you suppose I made next?

If you guessed more handspun handknit socks, you’d be correct.

My Old Man’s son had a birthday in February, and it had been awhile since I made him anything (he believes that I now direct all my gift-making energy towards his girlfriend, and he may be right). Around the time I was completing my second pair of socks for myself, I realized that the yarn I had on the wheel at the moment would be perfect for socks for him.

This is Hello Yarn Targhee in “Bracken and Gorse,” the November 2014 fiber club, which I spun up as 280 yards of light worsted weight 2-ply. I had initially been thinking to weave with it, but my recent handspun sock obsession shifted my thinking.

As soon as I was done with my Munhacke Campfire Socks, I cast on:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have to marvel again at how quickly worsted-ish socks grow:

They grow so fast!

Of course I used David’s Toe-Up Sock Cookbook, this time with no afterthought heel or anything unusual at all, other than throwing in my beloved 3×1 garter rib for the leg. If you want to do ribbing for a sock but want it to be as fast and easy as possible, go with garter rib. Though if you are like me, you will forget that’s what you were doing and accidentally switch to regular rib for the second sock. I did this for two of my last three pairs of garter rib socks.

But this pair, I got just right.

I will admit that, once I tried them on, I really kind of wanted to keep them for my own self.

They are so soft and cozy! But since I had just made two pairs for myself already, I managed to give them away as planned.

The recipient seemed pleased!

And the fit seemed pretty spot on.

I am very, very happy with how this pair turned out.

Handspun Bracken and Gorse Socks

raveled

After I was done, I still had roughly 90 yards of the yarn left. I briefly experimented with turning into more socks, striped with some Stonehedge Shepherd’s Wool:

But I wasn’t loving it, and I soon came up with another idea of something I want to save it for. More details on that another day, but – believe it or not – it’s not socks.

More Socks for My Own Self. Or, How I Sat in the Snow in the Dark and Created Something I Love but Failed to Take Any Notes.

Posted on 25 March 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

Immediately after finishing a pair of handspun knee-high-ish socks for myself, I cast on for another pair, using my handspun Hello Yarn Superwash BFL in Mochi, the first yarn I finished in 2014:

Hello Yarn Superwash BFL, “Mochi”

I adore those bright, warm colors, which I spun up as another chain-ply (205 yards light worsted, out of 4 ounces). When I originally spun this up, I was thinking mittens, but lately I’ve been all about the socks, so that’s what I went with.

I decided to do the toe on this pair differently:

Basically, I pretended I was making a wee top-down hat. While I love the figure-eight cast-on I usually use to start a pair of toe-up socks, this cast-on was the simplest, fastest start I’ve ever had. Plus, I love the look of the toes. And the fit is perfect:

sock toes

Next, I decided to do some arch shaping, to accommodate my high, narrow arch. I’ve done this once before and was very pleased with the results. That was a few years back, but fortunately I made some notes on my Ravelry page that helped me get an idea of what I wanted to do.

arch shaping

Because I’m in love with an afterthought heel, that’s what I did for these socks. I knitted in a line of waste yarn where I wanted the heel to go, and then I just kept knitting a tube. Good grief that’s such an easy and fast way to make a sock. I put some of the brown parts of the yarn aside for the contrast heel, and then just kept knitting my tube.

When I got to where I thought I would need it, I started some calf shaping. And then before I knew it, I was done with the first sock, and I finished off with some brown for the cuff. I cast on for the second sock immediately, and when I was done with both tubes, I went back and added in the heels with the brown yarn.

I took this project with me on a winter campout with a Boy Scout troop my son is thinking of joining. I’ve got to say, sitting outside in the snow, watching the sun set, and knitting a sock is an experience I’d never had before. And I liked it!

It was a cold and snowy weekend, and we spent most of the afternoon and evening outside, around a campfire. Knitting a sock with an afterthought heel was basically the perfect project for this, because I was just knitting a simple tube. I continued knitting on into the night, because I didn’t really need to see what I was doing.

The thing is, I had intended to release this as a free pattern. And sitting outside in the cold, in the snow, in the dark, with the scouts, I totally failed to make notes about what I was doing. And now, more than a month later, I don’t know if I can remember exactly what I did. So at some point, I will need to study the sock and/or make another pair.

The truth is, I want to tweak the heel just a bit (this is another hat/bullseye heel like in the pair I showed you yesterday). So knitting another pair is probably the way to go anyway.

In the meantime, I have very happy feet (though I do need to back and close up that little gap at the heel on the right sock). (Also, I know more now about how to prevent that from happening in the first place, so I want to incorporate that knowledge in my next pair.)

sock blocking

I should add that this pair is cat-approved as well.

As with the pair I showed you yesterday, I managed to magically make a mostly matching set of stripes from one sock to the other:

That comes, I think, from how I spun the yarn. I split it as evenly as I could, straight down the middle, and then spun each half from the same end, and then chain-plied. I ended up with one skein of 101 yards and one skein of 104 yards, as close a matching set as I have ever managed to spin.

Maybe no one but me is interested in making handspun, toe-up, hat-toe, arch-shaped, afterthought heel, hat-heel, knee-high-ish socks. But they are fun to knit and a delight to wear, I assure you!

raveled

Handspun, Handknit Socks for My Own Self. Or, How I Got Through Winter.

Posted on 24 March 2015 by Stacey Simpson Duke

I like winter a lot. Even really cold ones, like the one we just had. But that could be because I know the secret to staying warm and cozy. (My husband says my other secret is that I’m never the one who shovels the snow….)

Last month, I showed you the handspun socks I made for my menfolk for Christmas. As I made those socks for my guys in December, I promised myself a little reward if I could get them all done – the next pair of handspun socks would be for me.

So in January, I made good on my promise. For starters, I pulled out one of my loveliest yarns:

This is 240 yards of light worsted chain-plied Hello Yarn Finn in “Winter Storage” (September 2009 Fiber Club), a fiber I loved from the word “go.” When I first received this fiber, I knew I wanted to chain-ply it, but I had only been spinning for a few months at that point, and I didn’t feel very skilled in chain-plying. So I waited until I felt confident I could get it the way I wanted, which turned out to be a few years (I’m slow I guess). And at last, in 2013, I pulled out this fiber and managed to get it exactly the way I had in mind:

I knew from the beginning that this was destined for socks. What I didn’t know was that it was destined to become knee socks. What a happy surprise!

As usual, I used David’s Toe-Up Sock Cookbook, my go-to for handspun socks. With my worsted gauge and my narrow feet, not only did the socks knit up very quickly, but they turned out a lot taller than I’d anticipated.

It might be a bit of an overstatement to call them knee socks – they don’t actually go all the way to the knee. But they are pretty long socks, and very cozy, and extremely happy-making.

I’m still kind of in awe of how well the stripes matched up between the two socks. With handspun, I just assume that fraternal socks will be my default. But look at that matchy!

With this pair of socks, I did an afterthought heel, which is one of my favorite ways to make socks these days. It keeps the stripes of the sock continuous, and it allows me to more easily plan for a contrast heel. This time, I decided to do a heel I’ve never made before – a “hat” heel or “bulls-eye” heel. Basically, I decreased for the heel the same way I would if I were making a brim-up hat. And this might just be my new favorite thing:

I love the fit, and I love the look.

Y’all, this was the fastest, most fun pair of socks.

So here is my secret for a happy winter: handspun, toe-up, afterthought hat heel, knee-high-ish socks. Both the making and the wearing. If you can wear a pair while making more, even better.

raveled

earthchicknits

Tag Archives: knitting

Hail Thee, Festival Day!

Loop through Loop upon Loops :: Learning a Little About Grief from My Knitting

A Wee Knit for a Wee Pup

That Time I Made Not-Socks

Crackerjack Socks :: Free Worksheet

Swatching for Crackerjack Socks

And Then I Ran Out of Time

So Guess What I Made Next…

More Socks for My Own Self. Or, How I Sat in the Snow in the Dark and Created Something I Love but Failed to Take Any Notes.

Handspun, Handknit Socks for My Own Self. Or, How I Got Through Winter.

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