This started out as a hat, and ended up as a headband…
Skiing in the spring always reminds me that I need a headband …or two… same procedure every year. Yet, I never seem to get around to knit headbands. So I decided the hat on the needles were not a hat, but a headband – much quicker! In fact I finished this so fast that I just had to add some time-consuming finishing at the end. The inside looks almost as good as the outside …It´s knitted in Telespinn´s Mari (mohair) in Gray/blue with Turquoise pattern – and lined with Du Store Alpakka´s Tynn Alpakka (alpaca) in orange and pink on needles 3mm / US 2,5.
No, I´m not referring to the Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush song from ´86. It´s not that serious, it´s just (ehrm!) yarn-related…
I´ve made an effort to remove some of the color from my overdyed “Mari” mohair yarn from this post. I managed to remove some of the yellow, it´s now a shade of purple…, so I´m sort of (…and hopefully) back to scratch.
I´m aiming to overdye the yarn to make it look close to the color in the last picture … a very dark, warm gray. I´ll give this yarn one more go, -and if anyone would give me some good advise…?
And when I say “one more go”, that´s exactly what I mean… I realize this yarn is an “impossible project”, but I´m not ready to give it up just yet!
Many years ago I ordered some yarn from Telespinn. I´ve mentioned this yarn producer before. They were until recently the only private-owned wool-spinning mill in Norway, and their own Mohair goats provide most of the wool for their great range of yarn.
I was looking to develop this project from 2010, including a new top-down shoulder-saddle / contiguous -method, without the turtle-neck. I called the new project: “SkiingJumper II”, but had to rename it: “SkiingJumper II meets an obstacle…”. But in my head I always refer to this sweater as: “The Madonna-sweater”. The reason for this is that I´ve “stolen” the stranded pattern from a cut-out magazine page from 1986, showing the artist Madonna in a Norwegian-inspired sweater – what we would call a “kofte”.
The magazine tempted it´s readers with a chance to win a copy of this sweater, and as you can see I´ve meticulously cut out, and sent in my ticket to heaven! This magazine (which I don´t remember the name of…) even provided the knitting-pattern for this sweater, so you could knit your own – should you not win – which I didn´t! So I had to knit it myself – the sweater is long gone, but wearing it did not make me look anything like Madonna …maybe because I had not mastered the art of biting my lip / gazing sensually… still haven´t by the way. The pattern was provided by Garnstudio and knitted in the yarn Karisma (no pun intended), both still alive and kicking today, -but the pattern isn´t. I´ve checked Ravelry´s pattern pages, searching through Garnstudio´s patterns (they are all free…). But the pattern for “Madonnas genser” was not to be found. The closest I found was this: “40-18 Sweater with ethnic borders” – a name which really just shows a lack of history – knitting wise… This is a knitting pattern with long roots in Norwegian history. It´s origin is probably Eastern European / Russian – but it´s been used and developed in Norway for at least the past 100 years…
On the back of the pattern-page I found the reason why I did not win my copy of the sweater – here you see the Horoscope for February / March 1986, and reading through my star sign, it says nothing about being lucky… Quite the opposite in fact, but “interrests and family-life will be smooth” – so I guess I sat there knitting my “Madonna-sweater” in front of the TV – together with my father – (we only had one (1) TV-channel in Norway in those days, and you watched what the Norwegian Broadcasting Company would serve you) – probably watching some obscure Finnish “TV-theatre”, including a lot of saunas and “birch-branch-whipping”. And if when the “birch-branch-whipping” would become too intense (as it sometimes would – involving a bunch of naked Finnish men) …I can vividly remember refining the art of “loosing-stitches-and-being-very-busy-picking-them-up-whilst-keeping-a-secret-eye-on-the-TV” – in hope of my father not catching it…
But back to my impossible project…
I started knitting using my old Telespinn “Mari” yarn – knowing I would have to order more. And also knowing the color would probably be a bit different. But I thought the difference in color would not be too noticeable keeping it separated by a block of stranded pattern.
As you can see from the middle picture, it did! So I did not even try to continue my knitting-project. Instead I tried to over-dye the new yarn. As you can see from the last picture, I did not succeed. By far! Instead I think I´ve ruined the yarn by adding too much yellow… Mohair takes color better than most other wool. I´ll give it another go, by trying to remove some color and add more blue / black to it. But as I told Telespinn in an e-mail conversation: “I won´t even try to pretend to know anything about the art of yarn-dyeing…” But it´s still worth trying …and I might even learn some more about yarn-dyeing, though this knitting-project probably won’t be finished with this yarn. I hate to have to rip what I´ve already knitted. In my mind, the sweater is almost done when the upper-body is done in the top-down technique (maybe you have the same experience?), and all that remains is finishing…
Note: I sent Telespinn an e-mail to let them know about the difference in color. Knowing the years between my orders it was not formulated as a complaint, but just to let them know. I got a nice answer – to let me know they are aware of the difference, and why the dyeing-process does not allow them to continue the “old” color.
Vertices Unite translated into Norwegian becomes something like Toppsamling. I´ve just finished my second one, and I think I´m going to leave it with that, though I find myself dreaming of even more great Vertices Unite shawls in hundreds of different color-variations… Enough shawls for a while…
I dug into my “precious-stash” for this one, -you know, the stash you often think of using and then decide against it for no obvious reason other than that it is a bit precious… And so the years passes…
I finally got to spend some of my Mari from Telespinn, got to throw in some left-over alpaca/silk (in Bitter Bug and Moody) from Old Maiden Aunt and even squeezed in a bit of Shilasdair Luxury 4 ply in Tansy Gold / yellow. I love yellow, but it´s a difficult color to be used with care… this shawl was perfect for it.
Mari from Telespinn ( see my last post) is a wonderful rustic mohair/merino grown and spun in Telemark/Norway. It´s listed in Ravelry as a light fingering yarn, but in my opinion it´s more like a fingering/sport weight… I have to add that my Mari has been in my stash for years, and the yarn may have been changed since I purchased it…
The Vertices Unite pattern comes in two sizes: Small and Large. I´ve adapted the pattern to a Medium. See my Toppsamling II ravelry project page for the details. My shawl measures 190 x 60 cm, and weighs 248 grams.
My fog & whisper cardigan is almost finished, and I aim to finish it by this weekend, and then I can go back to my last purling project; the raglan baseball sweater…
We´re sort of soul-mates, the Secret of Change shawl (by Veera Välimäki) and I. But when I decided to use the 2 skeins of WalkCollection BFL sock for a shawl, the search for a new pattern was on. I ended up with a few choices; Fresia, Dendrology and Charm. But as you see, I ended up with the Secret of Change, again… The Secret of Change V. I usually either knit from the top of my head, or jump at the opportunity at a new and exciting design. I very rarely knit the same pattern over again if it´s not my own pattern that I need to improve on.
So why have I ended up knitting the Secret of Change shawl 5 times? I could admit to poor imagination or laziness, but it´s really the great design. The shawl has a classic ease to it and the eylet details are a beautifully incorporated part of the construction and the overall “look”. It has a perfect size for a shawl (mostly used as a scarf) and the garter stitches makes it an easy knit. I simply just love the look of this shawl, and it´s also interesting to see the different versions in the different fibers.
Secret of Change V
Secret of Change collection
Secret of Change collection
My first version dyed&changed, was knit in a gray self dyed corriedale superwash sock yarn. The yarn is quite “hard” on the skin, and was only my favorite shawl until I knit the next one. The Another Secret. A dream in light pearl gray alpaca. My third: Secret III, was knit in Black Trillium Fiber Studio Pebble Silk Sock, in a pink/purple washed out color with some yellow and gray speckles. It´s beautiful but the color is quite special and you need the right occasion and the right outfit for it. My 4th version, the Secret of Change IV is a lot more versatile in that respect, being knit in a heavenly charcoal lambswool/cashmere lace yarn, held double. So I think knitting a 5th Secret of Change was a only a rational choice, since everybody needs a shawl in a great blue/green color, and my collection of shawls has got the perfect addition, just to wrap it up, so to speak…
Vertices Unite
And speaking of re-knitting a pattern, I just had to… a second Vertices Unite by Westknits. A long-time project this time, I think… I´m using “Mari“, a 80% KidMohair 20% Lambswool, fingering weight from Telespinn, a Norwegian grown and spun yarn. I´ve had this yarn in my stash for ages, and The VU shawl is perfect for this yarn. I´ll also mix in some left-over Alpaca/Silk from Old Maiden Aunt and Shilasdair Luxury fingering. I don´t have enough yarn for the Large size, so I´ll just adjust the size to the amount of yarn.
It´s knitted in Telespinn´s Mari (mohair) in Gray/blue with Turquoise pattern – and lined with Du Store Alpakka´s Tynn Alpakka (alpaca) in orange and pink on needles 3mm / US 2,5.
´86. It´s not that serious, it´s just (ehrm!) yarn-related…
