Fiber Fool

As I mentioned on Friday I wanted to share a bit of my stranded colorwork workshop with you last week, but time just ran away from me. Up top there is just a small smattering of the examples of colorwork I brought to My Sister Knits for the students to paw through. I also included some examples of different treatments for a top-down crown. The table was full up with samples and my library of various colorwork-centric books. For all day workshops like this one I like to have lots of samples and books to be perused when students need to take a break so I schlep a bankers box full of stuff to be sure there is something to inspire everyone.

For this workshop I start the morning off with knitting the crown of the A la Carte Hat. We took a break for lunch which we ordered in from a local sub shop. Over lunch I answered questions and we talked a little bit about color theory and choosing your main and contrast colors for colorwork. Then after lunch it was on to two handed colorwork, each student choosing which of the included 8 stitch patterns they wished to try.

There were some fantastic color combos being used in class that day. I’ve shown only half of them here (I’m still trying to get accustomed to my P&S camera and many of the shots taken were not of good quality). But everyone headed home with about an inch or so of their colorwork done and well on their way to a finished hat. A few opted to head out a little early due to the long drive home they had ahead of them (2/3 of the students were from out of town).

It was a long day, but very fun and inspiring! I had to fight with all my might to not go home and cast on another colorwork hat of my own. But I was good and stuck to my current designs in progress.

Our two October snowfalls this year pretty much killed the fall color. That is unless you start looking closely at the right time of day. With the sun low on the horizon all day and even lower a few hours before sunset and I discovered our trees are glistening with bold color. The trick for the dull, almost brown leaves is for them to be backlit (see a non-backlit example of the leaves). So the past two days I’ve headed out after feeding the dogs their lunch in the mid-afternoon and exercised my shutter finger.

This week has been a bit draining so it was nice to take just a little time out from work. Since I do my own (and sometimes other designers) photography that time out really pays me back two fold - once in giving me practice taking photos and also in refreshing me by giving me a bit of a break out in nature without taking up so much time that I feel more rushed than before the break.

There were other blog posts in my head this week that I wanted to take the time to write, but it just didn’t happen. Hopefully I’ll have a few posted next week. I wanted to give a peek at last Saturday’s Colorwork Workshop and there are still some newer patterns that I haven’t talked about yet…

I just couldn’t hold back these photos though. Plus, they are much more worthy of ECF than the other posts I wrote only in my head this week. I hope you enjoyed them!

Some of you may remember the hat pictured above. It was my first of the A la Carte Hats I made very early in the year. The pattern was created to support an all day workshop on two handed stranded colorwork which I first taught in February at Nanytutu’s in Wellington (now sadly closed). Well, I’m teaching it again today - to an overfull class, with a waiting list which means it will almost certainly be put on the schedule again in the new year.

The pattern was designed to work for many different sizes and many different gauges so it is flexible no matter the yarn and gauge a student may show up with (though I recommend worsted for the workshop so a hat is knit in a usable size in the time allotted). I also designed it to be top-down so precious workshop time is not spent gauge swatching. This way you cast-on and increase to the smallest crown stitch count and measure your gauge and add as needed for your desired size.

Once the crown is done it is time to think about the colorwork. I offer several colorwork motifs that can be mixed and matched or even invert the MC and CC for a different look. The pattern includes a small worksheet to help you center your colorwork band on the body of the hat if desired if you know you desired hat body depth and the depth of your chosen band treatment. It makes for a very versatile pattern.

Orignally the pattern was only going to be available in the workshop, however I got tired of answering Rav mail and e-mail about it regularly so it has been put up for sale for the last few weeks. So, anyone can knit the A la Carte Hat. The pattern does not include all the information for starting to knit colorwork, that is still only available in the workshop. But there are some tips sprinkled throughout. The pattern doesn’t even have to be used for colorwork. It is a great top-down hat guide that you can add your own touch too, such as Amanda did - no colorwork and earflaps with a picot edge all around! You can even add textured stitches, just be sure to measure your gauge over the pattern when determining the final stitch count for the body.

This multi-sized, multi-gauge pattern for a spiral topped top-down, no swatch colorwork hat that includes finished hat circumferences from 16-24” and many gauges. There are 8 colorwork charts included that can be mixed and matched for a wide variety of looks. 6 of those 8 charts require no catching of floats and are suitable for those new to stranded colorwork.

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With the nearly two feet of snow last week we had a couple days at home. Nothing seems like better comfort food on days like that than a nice bowl of hot soup, unless of course it is accompanied by a loaf of freshly baked bread! I hit the store shortly before the storm hit and re-stocked the pantry with soup essentials for a couple different kinds. I kept finding myself drawn to the white navy beans so I threw together a Tuscan-inspired soup with onion, garlic, carrots, celery, fresh rosemary, and pinches of marjoram, basil and thyme.

The first meal of this soup we ate, I ladled the piping hot soup over coarsely chopped kale, though I found the kale this time of year could have used a bit of steaming or to have cooked in the soup pot. I’ll probably opt for baby spinach this time of year as we aren’t fans of reheated greens so I’m loathe to add them direct to the soup pot. Each bowl was topped with a dusting of freshly grated parmesan cheese and fresh cracked black pepper (yes, I *love* my black pepper) before serving.

I served the soup with freshly baked bread made once again from a batch of dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Normally one is not supposed to cut into bread that is still warm as it tends to cause the crumb to go gummy but sometimes it is nice to just not care and enjoy it warm from the oven. Since this dough makes multiple loaves and the loaf size can vary somewhat I just made sure to bake only what I knew we’d eat with our soup and it was perfect!

I have found my bread results from this book have varied quite widely, even from the same batch of dough. I know for certain the different batches of dough were significantly different - my first batch was likely too moist as the loaves tended to spread more than rise very much, but the last loaf from that dough had fantastic crumb that I just loved. The second batch I mixed stiffer and drier, but I think I ultimately need to strike a balance between the two. Everything I’ve made has been great, I was just surprised at the variety of outcomes from the same batch of dough. This week we even made pizzas with the dough and it worked great (except when I dropped one of the crusts on the floor anyway - I’ll need to practice forming pizza as that is normally Drew’s job).