Ja'ali Stole

When I was seven, my parents moved my brother and I from Deepest, Darkest Cleveland, OH to New Delhi, India. My dad had a Fullbright scholarship, so we spent a year in a far off and very different land. More then thirty years later, I went back for the first time, with my own seven year old (plus her younger sister). In some ways it had changed completely, but in others, it was just as I remembered it: the light was the same, the sounds of the birds in the early morning, the cows wandering through the city streets, and monkeys sitting on fences, waiting for the opportunity to snatch what ever they could right out of your hands.

We went and saw all sorts of sights in the Golden Triangle, and it was an incredible source of inspiration for my designing. The first design that came out of that trip was the Delhi Beanie, with a border inspired by a series of tombs in Delhi. The second one is in Issue 35 of Knit Now - the Ja'ali Stole.

Photo credit Dan Walmsley for Practical Publishing

This pattern grew directly out of my trip to India: one of the almost ubiquitous features of the numerous palaces and tombs that we visited were pierced stone structures called ja'ali. These were basically the Moghul version of window curtains, and served to let in light and air while making it very difficult for anyone outside to see inside.

This picture makes it pretty clear where the stitch pattern came from! I swatched in a number of different yarns, but finally settled on a mohair blend, in two colors to emphasis the eyelets and the solid hexagons.

The perfect finishing touch? A beaded fringe.

The finished stole is a lovely, lightweight wrap that is perfect for summer evenings, or days when you need a bit of extra warmth.

This issue of Knit Now is on sale starting today, Thursday, 29th May, in craft stores, newsagents and supermarkets across the UK. Outside the UK, you can get a paper copy from http://www.moremags.com/knitting/knit-now, or a digital edition from http://www.moremags.com/digital-editions/all-devices/knit-now. You can also get it digitally via Apple Newsstand. 

As a little celebration of the publication of this pattern, I'm going to give away the yarn and beads needed to knit the stole - that includes 5 balls of Wendy Air (70% mohair/30% nylon) in two colors, and approximately 75 faceted glass beads for the fringe. Please leave a comment on this post between now and midnight BST, on Sunday, 8th June, telling me which pattern is your favorite from Knit Now Issue 35*. I'll use a random number generator to pick one lucky winner. Good luck!

* Note: saying that this is your favorite pattern does not increase your chances of winning ;-).

And now for something completely different

So over the last few weeks, I've been noticing a particular hashtag floating through my Twitter feed - #yarnpadc. This is a photo-a-day-challenge started by princess deia, and has resulted in some really cool yarny photos. So when Ruth tweeted a link to the list of prompts for October, I thought - why not? I don't usually go in for things like this, but I'm looking forward to taking the opportunity to look around a bit more and use the prompts for inspiration.

Tomorrow's prompt is "on the needles" - shouldn't be too hard to cover that one! I'll be posting the photos on my Twitter feed, and do a roundup every week here. If you get inspired, come join us!

Holiday

If it's summer, it must be time for Porpoise et al to head across the Channel for some good wine/bread/cheese and some athletic insanity. This year, however, it was just Himself participating in the physical endeavours, while the girls and I played in the sun, went swimming and ate ice cream. Once he recovered a bit from his exertions, there was hiking, tadpole/grasshopper catching, snowball throwing and lots and lots of eating things that were not terribly good for us (fondue with bacon and onions, I'm looking at you) (you too, Cote du Rhone). And there was spinning.

Of course, my husband vehemently insisted that "There is no spinning on Alpe d'Huez!". Clearly his traumatized legs were affecting his visual acuity, because look:

There certainly was spinning on Alpe d'Huez, although in the interests of clarity, I should make it clear that this picture was actually taken on the Col de Sarenne, next to Alpe d'Huez. Perhaps he was thinking of a different type of spinning...

I did discover two things about combing spindling with hiking.

1) It's best not to try to spin silk singles on an alpine mountaintop with a sheer drop off when you haven't spun silk before and are finding it a bit slippery and difficult to manage.

2) Plying while hiking is a much more successful project then singles. So definitely go for plying if you have the option.

There were a few other yarny-adventures while we were away. There was this cute little guy, spied by my children one evening after dinner,

(I believe that's a knitting marmot)

And then there was the realisation that I may have yarn on the brain when I mistook some scarves in a kiosk in Annecy as some lovely skeins on display.



But let's be honest - you all would have made the same mistake, right?

Lost: My Sock Mojo

I used to knit socks. Lots of socks. I had grand aspirations of knitting my way through Cookie A's first book from cover to cover. I got through the first two and then...radio silence.

I used to design socks. Lots of socks. Two socks for the annual Sock Madness knitalong, one of which was difficult enough (read: effing fiddley) to be the final sock in the competition (the other was the second-to-last round). Socks inspired by the Tour de France. Kids socks. All sorts of socks. But then...the well dried up.

The last pair of socks I knit: started a year ago today.

They are lovely socks, toe-up, from handspun superwash Corriedale dyed by the fabulously talented Amy King of Spunky Eclectic. No patterning or fancy stitch work, just plain stockinette socks.

And since that fateful day in late March 2012 when they were finished? Not one single solitary sock has been cast on, or even contemplated. What's happened to me? It's not like I don't have truckloads of sock yarn to play with. Or enough sock books to sink the Titanic, full of fabulous, inspiring, gorgeous patterns. But I'm finding it incredibly difficult to even consider casting on for a sock, and inertia has me in its deadly grasp. What's a former sock knitter to do?

Last week may have given me the solution. We were gathered for our monthly spinning night last week, and our hostess was not feeling inspired with spinning. So she disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a bag of leftover handspun and some needles. Within a few minutes she had cast on and made measurable progress on a sock toe.

Just like that.

Clearly the answer to my missing sock mojo is to start baiting the trap with handspun. First on the docket is this:

Gobbler Cheviot that I spun up in February. To be followed closely or even simultaneously with this:

Turkey Day Cheviot that is being spun up now (singles are done and need to be plied). Both these yarns have been spun specifically to create fantastic stripey socks, so all I need to do now is wind up the yarn and cast on.

Can someone please hold my hand???? wanders off whimpering...

A glutton for punishment? Or just plain crazy?

I finally managed to take a browse through the new Brooklyn Tweed pattern collection, Spring Thaw, last week. I always like looking at these just for the photography alone, but the patterns are usually pretty nice, and the yarns are gorgeous. This time through I had a sudden brain wave that pretty much guarantees many future post bewailing the drama of knitting handspun colorwork sweaters (cause you guys haven't had enough of those, right?) (No, I haven't finished weaving in all the ends, thanks for asking) (don't ask again, ok?).

I was very taken with the Stasis Pullover in my initial look through. And I must have been in a somewhat weakened condition, because I suddenly found myself thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to spin up the yarn for that?" Quickly followed by the sound of the clue by four hitting me smack upside the head with "Hey! I've got raw fleece that is the exact right colors for this!"

One kilo of Gotland, purchased at the iKnit Weekender 2010.

And some lovely dark brown/black Hebridean fleece (organic!) that I received in a Secret Santa swap this past Christmas.

What I really need is someone to follow me around when I have these ideas so they can smack me and say "Get a grip woman! The last thing you need is a raw-fleece-to-hand-cards-to-yarn-to-sweater project! Lie down, have a cider, and get back to us when you've renewed your grip on reality." Sadly, such a guardian angel has not seen fit to grace me with her wise presence, so here I am, frantically finishing off my secret knitting so I can begin washing fleece. And getting the handcards ready to go. All the while ignoring the fact that there are two sweater lots of handspun yarn waiting desperately for attention, and at least two more sweater lots of fiber begging to be spun. Denial is my friend, while also being a river in Egypt.

The only upside to this whole plan is that I only need to come up with 1200 yds of fingering weight for the main color, and about 200 yds of the contrast. Totally doable from over two pounds of raw fiber, right? And I don't have to do any dyeing of anything. No problem...(those of you with comments about famous last words can just keep them to yourselves, ok?)

So, the girls get out of school on Thursday, and then it's washing fleece time! I will be sure to document the process for your edification never-ending amusement at my folly. Enjoy!

We interrupt this blogging drought to bring you an important update

I've got buttloads of new design inspiration.

It was a good half-term...

Truant

This week somehow totally got away from me, but it has been productive. This hasn't, of course, helped with the backlog of as-yet-unblogged projects, but there you have it. Sometimes life gets in the way of the whole blogging thing and that's just how it is.

Yesterday, I played hookey and took myself off to North London to Ally Pally, aka Alexandra Palace, the home of the Knitting and Stitching Show. I hadn't realized the show was coming up until my spinning group on Tuesday night, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go. The girls had an after school club yesterday, so I took them to school and marched myself off to the train.

On the one hand, it was the kind of event where you pay for the priviledge of going in and spending more money on stuff that really, do you even need? But, in addition to loads of booths of stuff to buy, there were the most incredible displays - tapestries, textile artists, design students' final projects, various guilds displaying samples...It was just such an amazing variety of the things people do with fiber in all its myriad incarnations.

There were beads, miles and miles of beads...

There were clothes, of various degrees of wearability,

and yarn, lots of yarn (this is just one example).

Have paid my £14 to get in, I wasn't too interested in spending a lot more. I spent most of my time wandering around just looking and taking in all the colors. But I got sucked in by a new-to-me local magazine (to which I now have a subscription),

a gorgeous orange sketchbook,

and a cone of mohair boucle to use in some core spinning, which I've been dying to try for a while now. I managed to make it out without getting a new sewing machine (though it was very tempting), or with any yarn. I was on a mission to find some DK weight, dark grey-slatey blue handdyed yarn, but by far the vast majority of the yarns available were sock and lace weight. Bah! Any UK-based indie dyers up for producing some heavier weight gorgeousness? Please?!!!!