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Woven Cable Scarf & Wrap now available!

Note: This pattern may also be purchased as a hard copy paper pattern at One Planet Yarn & Fiber’s shop.

Cables in cashmere, what could be better! Envelop yourself in luxury by knitting this scarf or wrap in DK weight cashmere. The woven cable motif grows naturally out of 2×2 ribbing; simple, yet elegant.

The scarf includes the woven diamond cable on each end, and the wrap has 3 repeats of the motif across the width. On the wrap, the triple cable diamond motif is repeated three times along the length of the wrap, so that one motif sits right between your shoulder blades when you wear it.

A discount code is included with the pdf download to receive 10% off the suggested yarn for this pattern.


Yarn Requirements: Wrap requires 6 skeins (1100-1200 yards) of Black Pearl Yarns DK weight 100% Cashmere. Scarf requires 2 skeins (400 yards) of Black Pearl Yarns DK weight 100% Cashmere. The wrap was worked in the color “Polynesian Plum” and the scarf was “Singapore Smoke”.

Suggested Needles: 3.5mm (US Size 4) needles or size to obtain gauge.

Notions: stitch markers, and a row counter would be handy.

Gauge: 32 sts of cable motif = 3.75″ in after blocking, and 24 rows = 4″ in 2×2 ribbing after blocking.

Finished Size: Wrap: 14″ wide x 68″ long; Scarf: 5″ wide x 66″ long

Techniques Used: Techniques used include knit, purl, slipping stitches with yarn in front and back and cabling.


The cost for this patten is $6.00 USD. For more information, please visit the MimKnits Online Shop

Posted 30 November 2006 † Mim § Designing § Knitting ‡ Comments (10) °

Winter…. Blech….

I came out to inches of fresh snow this morning (on top of the snow that was there yesterday), and FRIGID temps (-1 fahrenheit with windchill), and then I got onto my second train and it wasn’t heated (brrr…), and then I had to wait for 15 min. for a bus as all the traffic backed up must have made my bus late. So I feel like I’m JUST NOW thawing. Needless to say, there was no knitting at the bus stop this morning. Plus it was dark at 6:00 pm last night. No bueno!


If I am to make it through this winter (I HATE highly dislike winter) I need some help, so I’ve started a ticker until the winter solstice, when I can start watching the sun return and allow for the hope of spring to enter my head. If I post it, just know that it’s a nasty winter day and I need a bit of reassurance.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a new pattern to tell you about and possible some other good news 🙂 For now, be content, my naughty little ponies*.

M

*This is a phrase used frequently by Craig Ferguson, the new host of the Late Late Show on CBS. Even though I don’t watch TV, I had an inexplicable loathing of Conan O’Brian and I’m glad to see that he’s gone and has been replaced by someone who is ACTUALLY funny; Craig Ferguson. And if you go to bed at a reasonable hour, dont’ forget that you can watch bits of the show on YouTube (yay! internets! and yay! YouTube!)

Speaking of YouTube and cool internets things, check out the Etsy commercial on YouTube. It’s cute! Plus, if you want cool handmade things for Christmas presents, but don’t have the time or talent to make them yourself, you should really check out Etsy.com. They recently came out with a new version so it is easier to search now than it used to be. Plus you can shop by location too, so you can still support local crafters. If I get some time I’ll be making some more books to put up on Etsy for the holidays. I’ll let you know for sure if I do.

Kate finished her Adamas Shawl in a beautiful purple color! It looks great Kate!

Posted 29 November 2006 † Mim § Knitting § Others FO's ‡ Comments (13) °

Beautiful Beyond Words

This, my friends, is my new love. I’ve been carrying it around with me so I can pull it out and pet it. I’ve been showing it to strangers! This is my very best handspun yarn. For those curious, it is Spunky Eclectic Almost Solid BFL Roving in the Red Maple color. I <3 Biffle.
Things have come easily to me my whole life. But spinning has been different. It has sometimes seemed counter-intuitive, I thought I was underspinning when I was really overspinning, I felt that I just wasn’t GETTING it. But then I just tried stuff. I made a bunch of skeins about 5 yards long and found what small changes made big changes in the finished yarn. I found what it was I wanted… and I learned to let go. I learned to just trust that intuition that says “That’s good, right there.” And the result it beautiful! I learned to test the yarn as I go, to get it more consistant. I have never been so proud of something I’ve created. Not only because it is beautiful and magical, but because I had to struggle to get there. I am reminded of the words of Thomas Paine:

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

M

Posted 28 November 2006 † Mim § Spinning ‡ Comments (16) °

Ketchup Catch Up

I have a lot to show you, but the sun just barely came out (and blinded me through my VERY west-facing window) so I haven’t been able to take any good pictures. I spun my very best yarn this weekend (a whole 1.5 ounces of fingering weight! And another 2.5 ounces to go) and I finally overcame my hurdles with the celtic sock – which I was quite happily pretending didn’t exist. I swatched for those book submission designs (love one beyond all reason, hate the other… will be tweaking later), and I still managed to make good progress on the last pair of gift socks. Now… if only I could FINISH something.

But OTHER people are finishing things! Check these ladies out! They were all part of the Lacevember blog, and I bet they worked really hard to finish before the end of the month! Go give them some love!

Liz finished her Seraphim shawl in Socks that Rock Mediumweight. It’s BEAUTIFUL!

Danielle finished her Seraphim as well. This one in Colourmart UK Cashmere! *drool*

Al finished her Adamas shawl. I haven’t seen one finished in a while, and this one is GREAT! Good job!

Labean finished her Icarus shawl in hand-dyed merino. Brava!

Cynder has finished her Icarus as well. It’s lovely! Good job!

p.s. Claudia is done with hers, but it’s not blocked yet, so technically it’s not done. Go bug her for some finished pictures 🙂 Tell her I sent you.

Posted 27 November 2006 † Mim § Knitting § Others FO's § Spinning ‡ Comments (5) °

Giving Thanks by Gorging on Pie

Isela sent me a link to Anny’s blog where Anny registers her surprise at finding that her blog is reviewed in Vogue’s Knit Simple Holiday Issue. HOLY CRAP! I’m in there too! Go read Anny’s post to see the picture (don’t want to swipe it). I may have to go buy a copy! It’s been out since October and I didn’t have a CLUE!

Every time Thanksgiving rolls around, I’m reminded, as we all are, to be thankful for what I have. Last year I was being thankful for the little things. I have made a serious effort and am happy to say that this year I have done a much better job of being present and loving the moments I am in… instead of wishing I was somewhere else. For me, being present is the most fundamental way to be thankful every day. Being thankful that I am alive, that I am here in this beautiful place, that I have family who love me, and friends who I care enough about to sacrifice for.

I’ve always found that the big picture can best be seen by focusing on the little bits. Perhaps that’s because I’m prone to philosophical navel gazing, but it works for me. Small and seemingly insignificant things remind me that we each have a place in this universe and that unimaginable numbers of elements conspired to create us and everything we see and overlook every day. When the variation was infinite, we ended up exactly as we are. I think that’s worth being thankful for, don’t you?

M

Posted 22 November 2006 † Mim § Designing § Navel Gazing ‡ Comments (15) °

Stupid Sock Creature & Brother socks Fini!

Just a couple of FO’s to show you, only one of which is knitted.

Her name is Genevieve. Her bottom half is one of those cheap gloves that you buy in grocery stores. I cut the fingers all off evenly, then folded the palm in half so that the thumb was in the center of one side, the thumb, gathered in a few places and stuffed, became her tail. The 2 largest fingers became her arms and the other 2 were turned into legs. The cuff made a really great turtleneck 🙂

Her head is made from the foot of a stripey sock, and her lips are from the toe. I LOVE her little quirky smile! It’s just like mine! Up on one side and basically blank on the other.

The other FO is another pair of brother socks (different brother, but both Christmas presents).

Yarn: Some of the anonymous Norwegian sock wool for the toe and heel and top of cuff, but Schoeller & Stahl “Big Print” in Denim for the main color.

Needles: US 2 Boye Aluminum DPNS (my very first double points!)

Pattern: Generic Toe-up sock to measurements, with k2p2 ribbing on the cuff and instep.

Verdict: Snuggly and nice. I think he’ll like them.

I also did a bit of spinning on the weekend. I was at my sister‘s house for my niece’s Harry Potter birthday party, and I mentioned spinning and she said I could have her fiber since she wasn’t likely to spin again, so we pulled it out and she had a spindle in there too. It had a cup hook for the hook, but it was a bottom whorl, so I switched the hook and went to work 🙂 It was nice to spin again (I haven’t done it in a couple weeks) and I made my best yarn to date! Of course, being spur of the moment, I didn’t have any of my lovely tools, so I improvised 🙂 Truth be told, I like winding yarn off that way.

M

Lynn finished a Seraphim shawl a while back, but I missed it. I’m glad you e-mailed Lynn! It’s lovely!

Posted 20 November 2006 † Mim § Knitting § My FO's § Others FO's § Sewing ‡ Comments (12) °

It's 7 am. Do you know where your yarn is?

Clearly, I am an addict. It’s not even 7:00 am on a SUNDAY and I have just put in an order for $60 worth of sock yarn. 🙂 The Loopy Ewe got a ton of new yarn in and Sheri sent an e-mail out. As soon as I saw the e-mail I was adding new things to my cart. I got some All Things Heather sock yarn in the color Scarlet, and some Claudia Handpaints in Ink and Black Walnut. I don’t know exactly which patterns I’ll be using, all I know is that I want SOCKS! SOCKS OR DEATH! *cough* Anyway…..

I didn’t get around to blogging it before, but I have to tell you now…. The Loopy Ewe was fabulous to purchase from! First, she takes PayPal. Anyone that takes paypal has a permenant place in my heart. Second, the package came SO quickly! It was fast and efficient and everything was perfect. Third, not only was my order perfectly wrapped up with love and attention, she sent along extras. A cute little set of cards to mark your needles, and 2 little cards wrapped with samples of other yarns! Consequently, I’ve felt the new Regia Bamboo (which I was skeptical about) and know that it’s lovely! I could only complain about one thing, and that is that it’s so easy for me to reach the $50 free shipping mark! All those lovely yarns! All those potential socks! ARGH!

I love this store so much, that I’m adding it to my sidebar under places to shop. Help support Sheri, will ya? Oh and don’t miss these bright red, polka-dotty sock blockers! If I didn’t already have a pair of blockers I would have snatched these up in an instant!
M

Posted 19 November 2006 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (9) °

Icarus done (again)

This may be my second Icarus, but it’s really like finishing it for the first time. It was a completely different experience knitting it the second time around!

This time around I just got to follow the pattern (and find the mistakes that were printed in it. I’ll tell you about that in a bit), and I got to enjoy the yarn instead of stressing over whether or not it was too thin. Basically, it was just an all around enjoyable experience this time, when it felt like work the last time.

Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr (50% Merino wool and %50 Tussah silk), like buttah! In a light gray that I could have sworn was called Pewter, but I can’t seem to find it now. Margene gifted me with the yarn, which is my first Zephyr (and certainly won’t be my last).

Needles: US Size 3 (3.25 mm) 24″ Addi Turbos

Pattern: My design, first published in Interweave Knits, Summer 2006 Issue. Reknit so that I can republish as a stand-alone pattern.

Modifications: aka Optional Errata for IK Summer ’06. In Chart 4, where it is written to do a double decrease as sl1, k2tog, psso, it SHOULD be slip 1 as if to purl, p2tog, psso by picking it up from the back of work. Also, in the last 4 rows (the written instructions, the ssk that lines up with those double purl decreases? It should be a p2tog. I must have been writing the instructions pretty quickly to have made these mistakes, since I knit the original shawl the corrected way. *headdesk*. Regardless, they’re not crucial changes. The knitting still works out, but I think it looks better this way and the changes will be made in the republished version.

Verdict: I didn’t know it was possible, but I love it even more now than I did before. I don’t know if it’s poor taste to play favorites with your own designs (like having a favorite child), but this is my favorite and I can tell it will be for a long long time 🙂 Someone will be receiving this for a Christmas present, and I know she’ll love it!

The new pair of socks is coming quickly, and the weekend hold the promise of lots of knitting time, what with a drive out to Tooele for my niece’s birthday party. Have a lovely weekend and don’t forget to KNIT!
M

Wendy (who is blogless) has finished her Icarus despite degenerating eye sight (which should be fixed with surgery soon). You can see pictures of it modeled by her friend here and here. Good luck Wendy!And I hope you will recover quickly to get back to knitting!
Celia finished her Mountain Peaks shawl and it’s BEAUTIFUL! I love the colors! You can see it here.

Catherine has finished her Seraphim Shawl in a creamy white merino! I hope you enjoy it Catherine, it looks lovely!

Posted 17 November 2006 † Mim § Designing § Errata § Knitting § My FO's § Others FO's ‡ Comments (24) °

I almost posted this entry pictureless…

…. but then I realized that my title combined with a peek at my current knitting would be a pretty funny picture (or maybe that’s just me), so it’s no longer a pictureless post.
I don’t think I told you, but The Plan was to stop the insanity of Christmas crafting and just buy books for the kids in the family to make my life simpler. Leaving only 2 more pairs of socks to knit before Christmas, a number that is TOTALLY doable. And if I happen to have extra time? Then maybe I’ll knit some more presents. But in order to facilitate The Plan, I first had to finish Icarus and then and only then could I cast on for one of those pairs of Christmas socks. Since the toe of a sock is in the above picture, that must therefore mean that I have finished Icarus :D. I am blocking it tonight and will talk about it more tomorrow. But I will say this.

Icarus is now a new record for me. I knit a large shawl on US 3’s in… wait for it……. 12 days! 1-2 DAYS! I am more proud of myself than you will ever know. This is especially true because I managed to do it while NOT hurting my wrists. I took breaks when I needed to and physically relaxed before I ever picked up the needles and thereby avoided WEEKS of recovery. And yet I still managed to crank out a shawl in 12 days while sewing a bit in the morning and managing to clean my house. I’ve said it before but WELCOME BACK MOJO!

I’ve been used to being a very capable person. Extraordinarily capable. So capable that it hurt! I think that the transition to a new job and a new place was taking a bit of it out of me. And now that I’m comfortable and more knowledgable about what it is I’m actually doing, the competence is coming back. Of course it might be that the 128 ounces* of water I drink every day is laced with speed, who knows.

M

* I know this sounds surprising, but the other day I calculated out how much I drink on average during the day and this is the standard for me. Sometimes more, sometimes less, and this doesn’t count tea. But then again, I don’t really drink anything besides tea and water, so maybe it’s not that large a figure when compared with how much juice or milk other people drink. Also as another aside, now that I’ve cut back the sugar, water tastes sweet. Is that just me?

Posted 16 November 2006 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (8) °

Haberdashary and Chocolate: or why I love Europe and want to expatriate.

I cannot express my delight at reading Jane’s post this morning about Haberdashery. The picture she paints of the domestic life where one’s major concern of the day is to find the right “knicker elastic” (I love British terminology for stuff!) or the right color of darning thread is so appealing to me! I think it’s one of the reasons why I love period dramas. Part of the life lived worrying about what ribbon to pin to your bonnett on Sunday or agonizing over the lace for your ball gown. You should read it. Stuff like this makes me sad that I live in the United States of Disposable America. No shop here (if you could still find one that hadn’t been pushed out by JoAnn’s or Hancock) would have stock as old and full of character as the notions she shows in her post. I think this is part of my romance with the idea of living in Europe. I think that it’s full of those small communities where shops like this still exist and people know their neighbors and sit out on their lawns chatting about the neighbor down the street who just had surgery, and how the neighbor a block over’s dog keeps digging up your petunias.

And another thing! Europe has good chocolate! Sarah, my new favorite knitblogger, sent me a “parcel” in the “post” (see! I can be British! Let me live with you!) containing chocolate. I knew this was coming as she warned me. What I didn’t know was what a LARGE parcel it would be! Apparently, Sarah is a generous woman.

That cadbury bar is HUGE! She sent me enough chocolate to feed an ARMY of hungry children! Thank you so much Sarah! I had to share with my SnB girls last night, so we broke into the dark chocolate there on the bottom left. Here’s the thing. I haven’t ever really LIKED dark chocolate before. But having tasted this, I know that all the dark chocolate I have ever had was like the scrapings on the floor of a master carver’s workshop compared to REAL chocolate. Oh.My.God. I think I could just die right now and my life would not have been in vain!

And since it would be mean to tell you of this chocolate and not tell you what it is, It is Michel Cluizel Plantation “Concepcion” dark chocolate. It is fruity and rich and not at all bitter. You cannot purchase from their website, but you can purchase from here.

I haven’t tried the others yet, but the one in the middle is a Rose Milk Chocolate artisan bar from Rococo Chocolates in London and the other is Green & Blacks Milk chocolate bar which I have heard about, but never tasted! I’m so excited! But I must ration it until I can convince myself to order more for myself!

By way of a knitting update, I’m about 6 or 7 rows from finishing Icarus…. hopefully today. And since Tina asked, I figured other people might want an explanation. I’m reknitting Icarus because while I have been allowed to republish the pattern since it was first published as long as I properly attribute it’s first publication, I can’t use Interweave Knits’ pictures. So I have to take my own, and since I don’t HAVE a finished version of the shawl, I needed to knit it again so that I could take pictures.

M

Posted 15 November 2006 † Mim § Acquisitions § Chocolate § Knitting ‡ Comments (9) °