Flagel Knitting Files

My U.S. Thanksgiving found me at the farm.  There I spent time with my own family of origin.  One of my sons made a quick trip down from Minneapolis and the other will go in a couple of weeks.  As families often do when they gather there was lots of reminiscing as well as making of new memories.  One of the events that took me back was triggered by this: Go to the website to see the entire nachaq.  I wanted you to see the lovely design so I took a closeup. It is a hand knit nachaq (Eskimo for hood) which looks in many ways very much like a balaclava.  This nachaq is knit with qiviut (ki-vee-ute), the down or under wool of the domesticated musk oxen.  (It is one of the most expensive yarns available.)  Indulge me by letting me share the memories associated with this item. In 1987 my family of four travelled with my parents to Alaska.  The six of us spent 16 days together driving north from Anchorage to Fairbanks then east to Whitehorse in the Yukon and back around to Skagway, V

There are two, well maybe, three or four things to report here from Minneapolis.  For starters the temperature when I arrived was warmer than in Vancouver.  I know, it was making me scratch my head too.  Generally in November, Vancouver temperatures hover around the 40 degree F mark or about 2-3 degrees C.  Minneapolis, however, should not be 50 something degrees F or 10 something C.  I was walking around outside in sweaters for the first days. My MSP knit buddy, Susan, and I took in the Weavers Guild of Minnesota's Fiber Fair on Sunday the 15th during this heat wave.  It is a free and relatively small event, but the fiber goodies they had for sale packed quite a punch.  Needless to say we did not walk away empty handed. Susan purchased a gorgeous large hank of cooper coloured wool and I scored some roving plus mohair curls.  Actually both Susan and I purchased these curls grown on mohair goats located in Mora, Minnesota.  These curls caused both of us to independently search t

I am writing from Minneapolis where I came to help celebrate Miss M's second birthday.  It started with a family dinner where I made a butterfly cake (well more appropriately I tried to make a butterfly cake).  But first a bit of back story. Sometime during my early years my own maternal grandmother made me a beautiful butterfly cake.  It is the style made from a round cake, cut into pieces, then rearranged into a butterfly shape.  I remember being completely enamored by how pretty her cake was.  Perhaps it was because I was so young, or that I had never seen a cake like it, but it was very special to me then and even now.  I knew it was a bit early to expect Miss M to remember, but I wanted to pay it forward. If you squint, perhaps you see a butterfly.  The splotches of colour and candy helped or so my son told me. The carrot cake with cream cheese frosting tasted good, but it did not live up to the standard my grandmother had set.  Perhaps another attempt will need to b

There is a tendency on my part to highlight here only those things I make that are something I consider a success.  But be assured as in any creative adventure there are a lot of mistakes made as well. The soon to be frogged Clapotis For instance, Tena gave me a beautiful, oh what did Pantone call it, yes, Marsala coloured yarn.  (It is the name of the Pantone Color of 2015, but to many of us it might be merlot in colour.)  There are three 100% wool skeins.  From the start I could tell this wool had a high degree of stickiness, by which I mean it holds on to stitches well.  (The little lighter colour nubs also contribute to the stickiness.)  Why I decided it would be a good idea to make my first Clapotis (not the dummy ones I did this summer) is well below being clever.  It took me until the first small set of dropped stitches to determine it was not the right yarn for the job.  Say goodbye to it in this form; it is going to be frogged and turned into something lovely.  And I w

Yesterday in class someone mentioned they knew a person who put herself on a yarn diet and that the dieter had lost about 200 pounds of yarn!  I like the idea of cutting back on a stash as a diet and want to tell you about my own yarn diet of 2015. In March of this year I gorged on yarn in Portland at the Rose City Yarn Crawl.  There were skeins and skeins of yarn on sale far too many of which I had to own.  (Read more about that adventure here  and here .)  I was embarrassed enough about the amount of yarn purchased I chose not to show it on the blog.  When I started to put that yarn indulgence away in my stash I found the cubes in my bookshelf stash container were overflowing.  You know that feeling when nothing fits anymore and you either have to lose weight or admit it is time to move to the next size.  Well, my stash takes up all the space I have in my office so it was time for a strict yarn diet. And I have to say from March through September I was good, in fact very good.  O

Today during our spinning class I shared the toque and booties, both knit in part with wool I spun.  There is a great deal of satisfaction sharing this work with people who really understand what goes into the creations.  And like all fiber artists I know there was the appropriate amount of ahhing to keep me happy.   As we discussed them I could name the toque pattern but because I hadn´t written about it I forgot the name of the booties pattern.  Alas, I was remiss because I didn´t have the name of the most important element.  But first let´s have another look at the now two completed booties. This is close to the actual size of these booties.  The handspun in the neutral on top These crossover booties were designed by Saartje de Bruijn, who must be Dutch since the pattern is available in English and Dutch (and Spanish as well, but de Bruijn doesn´t sound Spanish to me.)  The pattern is available for free on Ravelry here . There was a question about the buttons, to which I

Just in case you forgot, I live in the Pacific Northwest and our idea of Fall is cloudy with rain and Winter is cloudier, rainier and cooler.  We are now experiencing the Fall to Winter transition meaning there are long stretches of little to no sun for days.  We have just experienced several days of lack of sun; but today, today it is bright and sunny.  I must seize this opportunity. Such a lovely view from my office.  I know, I am very lucky  First I took a longer than average walk this morning because it was so delightfully bright and the air was an appropriate degree of crisp.  I will also get out of the house to do fun things like wash my car and get a flu shot.   (Pam, Tena that reference is for you two!  For the rest of you, trust me it is a funny inside joke.) I have been using the cloudy days to seize the opportunity to spin as much as possible for my days of using the spinning wheel are numbered.  (Say if any of you reading this know of an upright, double drive (doubl

Mike is my 17 year old pure bred Tonkinese cat, for those of you who are new to this blog.  (Mike is a relatively frequent contributor, BTW.)   As a cat of approximately 84 years of age in human years, he has slowed down over time.  He is most often found doing this: This is the best way to capture an image of Mike, although not the most flattering shot of him. Lately I have added the indignity of brushing his teeth to our daily routine together, something we didn´t do for years. His teeth have been professionally cleaned by a vet, but this process requires a general anaesthetic, a procedure very tough on a cat of Mike´s age.  So we agreed as I started this brushing that he could have more of a say about his opinions in general and on this blog more specifically as a reward for putting up with the brushing.  (My indignity I guess is that a cat gets to speak his mind.) First a bit of background.  Mike has only known me as a knitter meaning during his entire life he has had knit

So I promised more information about the cowl, tam and those Badger mittens.  Let´s start with the cowl, shall we. Jami´s  chunky cowl was in a cream colour but the style remains the same.   The cowl was knit with a super chunky yarn and large needles (I used 12mm or 17 US needles for this set, but the needle size varies depending on the chunkiness of the yarn.)  One casts on any even number of stitches to create the width of the cowl and proceeds using a ribbing pattern of k1, p1 etc. for Row 1.  On Row 2  k1, yo, p1, yo, etc.  For Row 3 repeat Row 1, the ribbing pattern, and all the yo stitches are dropped.   So on the yo rows the width of the cowl is doubled and then in Row 3 the regular size is again achieved; essentially Row 1 and 2 are repeated dropping the yo as you go along on a new Row 1.  The effect creates a very open weave perfect for a temperate climate.  This style of cowl has been quite trendy the last few years and I have made several of them. The tam I guess

I promised a look at the inside of the Badger toque and mittens, but both have been washed and blocked since their Saturday night outing.  (I know, you have all been breathlessly waiting for those photos, right?)  The reason I am holding off is they are still too wet which would make turning them inside out a mistake.  So instead I will distract you with other things. Yesterday was a day of down-pouring rain.  We don´t have a rain gauge, mainly because we would be emptying it constantly, but when the rushing of the water through the downspouts can be heard inside the house for hours at a time above the noise of a football game, I know it is really raining hard.  Here´s a pic out my office yesterday when the rain took a quick break in our area and the skies lightened up.  Across the inlet, they were still getting wet. Those wispy clouds, like pulled cotton balls, always capture my attention.  Too many years on the Prairie where this type of cloud did not exist, I guess. ~ ~ ~ ~

There has been much talk about spinning in the last several posts and indeed it has been taking a bite into my knitting time.  But fear not, there has been a bunch of knitting going on behind the scene. First, I think the chunky cowl for Jami has finally been done right.  She always asked for a 29¨ cowl, but because there was so much leftover yarn (yarn that she purchased) I felt the need to use more of it.  So I either made the cowl too wide or too long or both.   (Want to see the first misstep?  Check out that past post  here .  The other two were not documented.)  Finally, I did what Jami wanted and created a rather thin 29¨ cowl.  With the extra I created a matching tam.  And here they are all together, Jami, the cowl and tam. Jami was being distracted as I took the photo last night Second, I wanted to use my Bucky Badger toque and mittens as a part of a Day of the Dead Badger Fan costume for Halloween.  I knew that was one costume I could carry off with enthusiasm.  (I