Tag Archives: Fibra Natura Kingston Tweed

Tuesday Afternoon

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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

What a morning! No fog today and we saw the sun come up this morning after a couple of days of fog and gray, rainy weather. It’s been downright dreary but today feels so much better. I’ve been busy tearing apart and putting back all the stuff in the sewing side of my atelier. I’m making room for my granddaughter to have a space of her own for when she comes to visit this summer. I have a few more things to do until it’s finished but step by step we are building a little nook for our little monkey.

It’s also been a good opportunity to go through and clean out a little bit more (again) and clean it all up. Spring cleaning? It feels good. Today I got a thing to hang up my ironing board and put away the iron … I had to assemble it and when I put it where I thought I wanted it, there wasn’t enough room between the wall and door to work so I moved it to another door but not before the iron fell out of the little shelf and hit my arm on its way to the floor (and it dented my floor). Oops!

I’ve been really working on my Bolin cardigan this week. I’ve mostly finished the first sleeve and I’m working my way down the second one. When they’re both at the same place (just before the ribbing) I’ll try it on and see how much more length I need to make it “just right” and then keep going. I’m getting close!

I really like the color of the fabric, too. The base is a camel color with the rosey mohair it has a haze of mauvy rosy neutral It’s different from other sweaters that I have and I think it’ll be good to wear with jeans or dresses. Time will tell.

AND I have finished my Cardoon! I wore it yesterday (without having cut all the bits left after weaving in all the ends. I’ve done that now and will probably wear it to work on Thursday. I like it a lot. I’m still not 100% sure of the way the collar/neck works but I like it.

Cardoon

I’ve mentioned before that I love the yarn. It was in the clearance at the LYS where I work and I brought it home a couple of years ago. It’s been sitting in my stash waiting for me to knit it up – I een knew it was going to be a Cardoon. The yarn is Fibra Natura Kingston Tweed, a DK weight wool, alpaca and rayon blend. When I wore it yesterday, it was really light but also quite warm. It’s the perfect weight sweater. Of course the yoke is doubled because it’s stranded so it keeps my shoulders warm and toasty.

I’m teaching a workshop in April and I’ve begun planning the sessions and knitting the samples and doing some research on how to teach colorwork to a continental knitter. I can knit continental but I’m naturally a thrower so I’ve got to figure out how it works so I can teach it. I know I’ll have at least one continental knitter. I have to pull together some samples of colorwork knitting from my “collection” too. I have plenty!

I’ve just finished a book I loved. The Blueberry Pickers is a Maine story about indigenous people who picked blueberries and who lost a young child. The child disappears from the field one day and her brother Joe is the last one to see her. In a parallel story Norma is an only child of a wealthy Maine family that’s dysfunctional and she searches to uncover the family secrets and the reason why. I highly recommend it. AND I’ve been baking again which tells me that my soul is either in a good place or troubled or both. I made our favorite oatmeal scones this week and a pineapple angel food cake. We’ve finished the bread I baked last week and there are a couple of banana muffins in the freezer. In the last couple of weeks I’ve made s curried red lentil stew that was sent to me in Ann Budd’s newsletter. It was delicious! I also made my “dump, dump, stir, stir” soup recipe, too. Also delicious. So, while the country is going down in flames, I’m making soup and baking and I’m so grateful that I am not in danger of losing my job and I hope and pray that some sanity and balance is found soon.

Gone knitting!

Sunday Funday

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Sunday, February 9, 2025

Sunday morning is the only morning that I “never” have to wake up to an alarm. Most other mornings I set my alarm for 6:30am (and head to bed between 9 and 9:30pm.) This morning the alarm went off around 8am and I was still in bed sound asleep. Not a normal morning for sure. But it did feel good to sleep and maybe I will “catch up” with the sleep I’ve lost over the last week with this coughing crud I’ve had. I did get to the doctor on Tuesday and have an antibiotic but the cough remains. The sinus infection seems to be resolving, thank goodness.

So, we’ve been really spending a lot of time at home. I’m starting to get a little bit of energy back and am getting a few chores done around the house. I finally replaced the batter upstairs in the guest room (I’d disconnected the whole thing to stop the infernal beep) and I vacuumed my atelier yesterday. I need to make a trip to Costco tomorrow to stock up a bit and we’re supposed to get more snow on Thursday (my day to work).

Cardoon by Isabell Kraemer

I have been knitting! I started my “Bang Out a Sweater” project with Cardoon by Isabell Kraemer. I’ve had the yarn in my stash for this sweater, in two shades of purple tweed by Fibra Natura Kingston Tweed. I like the yarn, it’s got a wonderfully smooth hand despite being non-superwash wool. The color contrast isn’t high but I think it will be enough to work and the weight of the yarn is going to be perfect. If I can bang out the yoke, it’ll be clear sailing down the body. I made some good progress yesterday morning. I’ll work on it again for a bit today.

I finished a headband for my daughter’s friend Sheldon. I made him fingerless mitts for Christmas and he’s asked for a headband. I used the same yarn and the Petite Knits pattern, Weekend Headband. It’s an interesting construction. I made the small size and I hope it fits … I do have enough yarn to make a larger one if it doesn’t. AND if it doesn’t fit Sheldon it’ll fit Sylvie, I’ll bet. I’ll be sending it off with a headband for my daughter that I cast on yesterday. She chose another Petite Knits pattern, Ingeborg. I’m knitting it with two yarns held together a creamy white Berroco Ultra Alpaca and a silver Kid Seta lace-weight mohair silk.

Ingeborg by Petite Knits

I almost wrote to the designer when I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the pattern work. The pattern didn’t specify which provisional cast on to use so I used a crochet provisional cast on and then struggled to figure out how to keep the brioche rib with an odd number of stitches on the needles. BUT I pulled out some scrap yarn (because frogging with mohair is a pain) and gave it several tries and was able to figure out what the designer meant when she wrote the pattern. She doesn’t use the traditional terminology, BrK1, in the pattern which may be part of my “problem” but once I figured out the two-row pattern, I was knitting up a storm. In fact, I probably could have made two in a day if I had had a clear understanding of the pattern from the get-go. But it’s all good because I’m learning. Last night I found a partial dropped stitch in one of the brioche columns and was able to successfully drop my stitches down and fix it. That also felt really good. A few more inches and I can graft the headband and cinch it at the center front and then block it and send it off. Woo! Hoo!

I’ve pulled the pink mittens out of the time out area and had a look at what they still need to continue and finish. I think I may simply finish the one hand of embroidery on the one mitten and skip it on the second one. I’m not finding that I am enjoying the embroidery and I love the pink mittens so … it’s either cut off what I did already (and that’s not out of the running) and finish the two mittens or finish one mitten with embroidery and one mitten without. Time will tell. I’ll let you know.

I found a pattern for a really cute Jolly Gingerbread doll cushion/pillow by Jenny Watson in a WYS book. The doll is knit in a worsted/aran weight yarn. I happen to have a gingerbread cookie color of wool in my stash and I think I am going to make one for our house for next Christmas. I even have some left-overs of the sock yarn for the scarf and hat. If I love it, I may make more to give as gifts. It needs to be big enough to be easily visible, though. I also have the knitted zoo animals pattern book and yarn sitting waiting for me to prioritize them. I think I need to finish my sweater and the pink mittens before I allow myself to cast on something fun like that.

I also have a sweater’s worth of Rowan Felted Tweed and a silk mohair yarn to make either a vest or a sweater. I want an orange garment to wear with my orange sueded boots – I can see my kids cringing! Ha! Ha! I like the Bolin Cardigan by Norah Gaughan that is being used as the Bang Out a Sweater pattern for the MDK month-long KAL. I’m just not sure that an orangey orange cardigan will be flattering on me. (Or will I look like a pumpkin?) I’ve swatched with two different colors of mohair …

On the left is the Felted Tweed (zinnia colorway) with a beige/tan lace-weight mohair and the right is with an orangey lace-weight mohair. Amazing difference, don’t you think? I like both combinations and the question remains, which one should I choose and for which garment? Since I can’t decide, I’m letting the yarn sit on the counter in my atelier until I can figure it out. I have the full sweater’s worth of mohair in the orange. I’d have to switch it for the tan if that’s the way I choose to go. The tan color makes the orange more subdued, for sure. Maybe I need to get my boots up next to the swatch and see what they look like together.

I’ve done a bit of work on my Jelly Roll Blanket and a little bit of the lace re-do on the Winter’s Finery Shawl. Nothing remarkable accomplished but I am trying to continue to make some progress each week. Eventually, all the projects will be completed. Right? I haven’t had the head space to work on my daughter’s fingerless mitts this week. This virus-thing has taken ahold of my brain. Lucky I only had to work one day and teach one day this week. Next week is going to be much busier with a MeAA board meeting and a MCSC business meeting to attend.

Off to move the laundry into the dryer and then it’s time to knit.

Gone knitting!