Festive Panic

Countdown to Baltimore: T-minus 3 weeks. We have acquired an apartment, sight unseen. No living out of our car for us, no sir!

In the meantime, INSANITY!

This year we have eschewed our usual Christmas tree for a makeshift holiday shrine:

 

Under that shrine there are now a few very small presents. Anything Chris and I give or receive has to be packed and moved, so present choices were based on size.

Before the move, I'll be visiting my family in Michigan and having some knitting events at my hometown yarn store, Country Needleworks. I'll be signing books on Friday, December 28, from 10 am to 2 pm, and will be teaching on January 2. I'll have White Whale Vol. II, Cityscapes, individual Container Ships patterns, and samples from all these publications. In addition, Country Needleworks will be carrying the Neighborhood Fiber Co. kits for The Sermon (the only store to have them!). Come check out the colors in person before you make your selection!

Amid all this, I've found time to knit someone else's design: Syrinx Shells by Alicia Landi. The pattern is for a cowl that uses one skein of bulky yarn, but I've turned it into a long, cozy scarf.

When I saw Jeremie, one of the students in my most recent triangle shawl class, wearing one, I had to have it. The pattern is so much cooler than most bulky stuff out there. Also: I LOVE KNITTING THINGS I AM NOT DESIGNING! I knit this in a few hours of television watching, so there's plenty of time to crank out a few in time for the holidays!

Now, back to work, packing, knitting, writing.

Surprise destash!

For your consideration:

The last of this destash, Reynolds Whiskey! This is the yarn to make the smallest size of this cardigan. Obviously you can use it for whatever you like. I love the cardigan, but I'm not a tweed person.

$30 plus $8 shipping.

Interested? Email me at weaverknits77@gmail.com. Make an offer! I'll be out for the afternoon, but will get back to everyone this evening!

BALTIMORE!

Greetings from Editing Mountain, under which I've been buried for several weeks!

Big news! Chris and I are moving to Baltimore the second week in January. Chris has a new job at Johns Hopkins Medical School, so we're off! Hooray!

As a result, the blog might be a little sparse for the next few weeks. Editing Mountain, moving, holidays, mortgage prequalification (not an easy task for someone with income as, um, multifaceted as mine), and struggling to not lose my mind. I promise, however, that big CONTAINER SHIPS projects are in the works.

Detail of Cardigan 1:

Detail of Cardigan 2:

I've been fortunate to be using some AMAZING indie yarns for these projects, and I can't wait to share them.

And now: BOXES! Microsoft Word with Track Changes! Email! Frenzy! And more destash this coming weekend!!!

DESTASH MANIA!!!

Thanks, everyone! All the yarn is off to new homes!

Final destash of Sunday! Note that a few things from two posts down are still available.

Thanks to everyone who's helped me so far! More is coming later this week. If you haven't yet sent payment for your claimed yarn, please do.

Feel free to make me an offer on anything that's still available. All must go this week!

Nearly two skeins of Handmaiden BFL Aran in a yellow-green (leftovers from this), and nearly one skein of a slightly different green, more blue than yellow.
$12 plus $6 shipping SOLD

LACE! 1750 yards of Yarn Hollow Merino lace in a semisolid blue, 1500 yards of Filatura di Crosa Merino lace in red, and a good-sized ball of what I am nearly certain is Handmaiden Camelspin in a blue/green. SOLD
$30 plus $8 shipping

Rowan Felted Tweed explosion! This destash is a big step for me. I am not a tweed person. I accept that. Twelve balls, three in a rich brown, two in a pale pink/tan, and a bunch of others.
$40 plus $10 shipping SOLD

DK yarns! One skein of Sheep Three in orange, one skein of Fly Designs Flying DK in semisolid red, and one skein of Mountain Colors Twizzle in Wild Raspberry. SOLD
 $12 plus $8 shipping.

Malabrigo single-ply softness! Two full skeins of black, one skein of red-orange (redder than in the photo, I believe the color is Sealing Wax), about half a skein of a different red, and nearly a full skein of gold-yellow (wound into a ball).

$12 plus $8 shipping. SOLD

Next, Sundara Aran Silky Merino, 4 complete skeins in Persimmon. I love this yarn, but it's not a regular color so I can't design with it. SOLD


$50 plus $8 shipping.

DK-weight wool grab bag including Rowan Classic Merino, KnitPicks, some Fibre Co. Savannah (center), Zara 8, and so on. SOLD

$8 plus $6 shipping.

Manos Wool/Silk, about two skeins of a rusty red, a little blue, a full skein of moss green, and about a skein of black. These are the remnants of this, plus some other colors.

$10 plus $8 shipping. SOLD

Bright worsted! One skein of Farmhouse Yarns Andy's Merino in Chocolate Covered Cherries, and about one skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Berry (it's brighter than in the photo).

$8 plus $6 shipping. SOLD

Interested? Email me at weaverknits77@gmail.com. Want multiple things? Email me and I'll combine shipping.

Black Friday Hideout

I hope none of you were trampled in the Black Friday madness. Since working Black Friday at Macy's a few years ago, I have a tradition of not leaving the house on that day. And Macy's was so calm compared to Walmart, or Best Buy . . . some of which were open YESTERDAY.

As a result, I didn't go to my studio to get the massive destash for the blog, but I'll be up there tomorrow and will be posting tomorrow evening and Friday. My studio is very near a MALL. The horror.

In the meantime, I have a new pattern in the latest issue of Craftsanity magazine, the Lost Hightway shawl:

If you've taken my Design Your Own Triangle Shawl class, you might recognize this as a reknit of my original improvised shawl that gave me the idea for the class.

This version is knit in Shepherd's Wool worsted weight (from Michigan!).

You can purchase print copies of Craftsanity here for $12. It is PACKED with awesomeness: sewing, baking, cooking, crochet, weaving, and obviously knitting. You can get the pdf version here (on the left, scroll down) for a mere $6. That's the cost of most individual shawl pattern pdfs!

Thanks to my sister for modeling and to my studio building for the great peeling-paint character.

And now, a little destash for those who stopped by. First, some Evilla unspun. This is the yarn I used for my World Series Sweater. When I purchased it, I purchased a LOT of it to offset the cost of shipping it from Germany.  A LOT. Each of these two wheels is about 500 yards, enough to make a World Series Sweater or a very, very large shawl.

$12 plus $8 shipping. SOLD

Next, enough Knit Picks City Tweed DK to make the first two sizes (36-inch and 40-inch bust) of Form Follows Function! Please ignore the colors in this photo; the colors are those pictured on the KnitPicks site. SOLD

It's about 5 skeins of Tabby, 4.5 skeins of Tarantella, and 2.25 skeins of Larkspur.

$12 plus $8 shipping.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and survived today!

Pre-Thanksgiving YARN SALE!

Surprise! I've started my most massive stash reduction yet, motivated to an upcoming move to Baltimore, possibly as soon as early January. But more on that later. Here's the yarn:

Elann Baby Silk, 9.5 skeins in Oxblood. A little redder than in the photo above.
$10 plus $7 shipping. SOLD

Grab bag! Includes purple tweed from a Hanne Falkenberg kit, some angora, some silk/mohair with sparkle, two balls of bulky wool, some odd handspun . . SOLD
I can fit all this into a $10.95 Priority Mail shipping box, so . . . send me $20.95 and it's all yours!

Two skeins of sock yarn: Socks that Rock and Yarn Hollow. A little too variegated to use in my current color theory classes.
$10 plus $5 shipping. SOLD

Three skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in dark green/black, blue/green, and a heathered tan.
$10 plus $7 shipping.

Four skeins of Madelinetosh Merino Light: Two in Fig, one in Fragrant, and one in Isadora.
$15 plus $8 shipping. SOLD!

Email me at weaverknits77@gmail.com if you're interested, and stay tuned for Friday's Weaverknits Stash Reduction Supersale!

Ann + Karida =

CITYSCAPES!

I had some free time this year (ha ha ha! OH ho hoho!), so I did a book of accessories using Neighborhood Fiber Co. yarns, hand dyed by my friend Karida in Baltimore. The patterns are an extension of a club I did with Karida through Fibre Space. It seemed natural to knit up some new variations and make a collection that showcases the various Neighborhood Fiber Co. bases and colors. It was cool to make a book of only accessories, each of which uses an interesting technique or two, but none of which are particularly difficult.

The book is available as a print book/ebook combo and an ebook only, and the patterns are also available as individual pdfs.

(The patterns aren't up on my website yet, so I'll put purchase buttons in this post for now. Sorry in advance about how they're going to clutter this up visually. Now, on to the patterns and photos!)

The patterns include High Street, which is a big cozy cowl that uses a simple cable chart, knit in one strand of Neighborhood Fiber Co. Studio Worsted held together with one strand of Neighborhood Fiber Co. Loft, which is a silk/mohair blend. The resulting texture and halo are fabulous. Here's Karida:

And here's me, looking particularly elegant:

Pattern is $5.


The second pattern is a hat, Old Town Mod. It uses short rows to create slouch and includes braids. I love braids. It's garter stitch worked in the round.

Pattern is $5.


Next is Station North, named after Karida's Baltimore neighborhood and inspired by the graffiti found near her house and studio:

Pattern is $5.


And The District, a scarf in two widths using Neighborhood Fiber Co. Penthouse Silk Fingering. The thinner version uses one skein; the wider version uses two skeins. The pattern includes instructions to make striped and solid versions of both the single-wide and double-wide scarves:

 

Pattern is $5.


And finally, Traffic Furniture, which I published a few months ago through Zauberwiese, which is now available to all. It's knit in Neighborhood Fiber Co. Rustic Fingering, which is a single-ply merino that is soft and remarkably affordable.
 

 

Pattern is $5.


Interested in purchasing the book/ebook? It's $12 plus $2 shipping in the U.S. Here's the button!

The ebook alone is $10. 

You can crank out some of these projects before the holidays!

In other important news, Kate at Dragonfly Fibers has created kits for The Line cardigan in a variety of gradient colors. I love, LOVE the yellow, but understand it's not for everyone. Perhaps Flannel Pajamas is more your style?

Or maybe Winter Woods.

These are just two of the six gradients Kate's created. I'm excited to see how the cardigan looks in different color schemes. If I had time, I would be knitting a Winter Woods one NOW.

Posting irregularly is resulting in monster posts. Yikes.

Next post will be on Black Friday, and it will be a VERY LARGE destash post. I'll start posting the yarn around noon. Check in and get some bargains!!!

"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea . . . "

After returning from Travel Madness (Vogue Knitting Live Chicago, HURRICANE!, staying in Chicago, two-hour turnaround in Boston airport before going to Seattle for Knit Fit, Seattle, teaching, back to Boston, 40 hours in apartment before Baltimore!, driving!, book signing at Fibre Space! Driving home!), I am back in my closet/office in Boston, happily catching up on my life.

For all of you who have waited patiently, White Whale Vol. II is now available through my updated website, where you can read more about and purchase the individual pdfs, the ebook, or the ebook/print book combination. I'm thankful to my web designer, Josh, who accomodated my piecemeal delivery of information for and slow review of the site while I was traveling.

My latest project, about which I'm giddy, is a collaboration with Neighborhood Fiber Co. We're doing a mystery knitalong that will start on January 7.

It's called "The Sermon" and is based on the chapter in Moby-Dick of the same name. It's heavily influenced by the work of painter Ad Reinhardt, who my friend Ruth brought to my attention over a few beers last year. I remembered loving his work when I was in art school, and Ruth's passion for it rekindled that love.

I thought about making a book of garments and accessories called Ad Reinhardt Black, but decided that was not a marketable idea.

To participate, you can purchase the yarn and pattern for the project on the Neighborhood Fiber Co. webiste, starting tomorrow (Wednesday, November 14). It's $75 for the pattern plus five approximately 250-yard skeins of Rustic Fingering in five colors. You can choose from four color stories: warm blacks, cool blacks, blues, and reds. The colors will be posted on the site tomorrow so you can see what you're getting. We haven't decided when to cap orders for the yarn/pattern combination, but sign up early if you're really interested in the yarn component.

The pattern is available for $8, and will be delivered in five installments, the first of which will arrive on Jan. 7, with subsequent installments every two weeks. You can purchase it now or at any point before or during the knitalong:



Here's some Ad Reinhardt (a little blue here, not just black):

Here's one of Matt Kish's illustrations from "The Sermon":

I promise that the pattern will be intuitive and accessible to the adventurous beginner. We'll have all manner of support for you during the knitalong.

HOORAY

OBAMA!!!

White Whale Vol. II

"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method."
—Melville, Moby–Dick

It's here. I think it's the best thing I've ever made. But it's not really something I made. We made it.

My sister did the design and layout.

Matt Kish did the illustrations.

Brandy Crist-Travers did the photography (going so far as to squeeze through barbed wire and locked gates to photograph at an undeveloped area on the shore of the Port of Baltimore).

Skein,

Sweet Fiber,

Cephalopod Yarns,

Neighborhood Fiber Co.,

and Dragonfly Fibers

dyed the yarns. HOW DO I KNOW SUCH AMAZING PEOPLE?

Kate at Dragonfly dyed the colors especially for The Line, shown above. They're three gradations of Grellow that we developed when playing around with yellow, gray, and black to create what became Weaverknits Grellow. Kate has created kits for The Line that include the necessary amount of yarn in the three colors here.

But wait, you ask, where can I get this book?

To celebrate the beauty of books, White Whale Vol. II is currently available only in print form. At the end of the month I will partition it into individual pdfs, but right now I'm too attached to the physical book that took so much love to create. If you missed me at Rhinebeck, you can currently purchase it

• at Vogue Knitting Live in Chicago this weekend from the Neighborhood Fiber Co./Weaverknits booth (!!!);
• at SAFF this weekend from Dragonfly Fibers and from the Dragonfly Fibers website (just send Kate a message); and
• from Fibre Space.

It will be available on my website early next week when I get my next shipment. I'll be discussing each of the designs in depth over the course of next week—after editing deadlines; after creating a Weaverknits sign from plywood, stencils, and spraypaint; after Chicago; after many Red Bull–fueled all-nighters.

I can't wait to share more with you . . . but now, to bed!