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Two Toques, Two Tales

So as I have returned to knitting this fall I decided to use bigger needles.  The smaller ones used to knit socks were part of the problem making; so with socks off the table and I moved on to toques.

S9844 Hat
The first one is simply called S9844 Hat designed by Arne and Carlos using Schachenmayr Merino Extrafine.  Knitting this was part of a class Arne and Carlose taught at StevenB's in Minneapolis.  (BTW SteveB's was listed as one of the top 10 knitting shops in the US by USA Today in October 2016.)

Arne and Carlos are a pair of Norwegian knitters, designers and most importantly, textile artists creating self-patterning or striping yarn.  During the two hours we spent together they taught how to purl in the Norwegian way, something that you too can learn by watching minutes 7-8 of this video.

If you watch any part of that video you can see what talkers they are.  We learned about their newest book called Arne and Carlos´ Field Guide to Knitted Birds, due out in the U.S. sometime in the spring.  Additionally Carlos talked at length about the process of taking their colour scheme from concept to finished product.  He said it can take well over a year for a manufacturer to get the dying process just right to match their schemes.  Arne actually was the one to teach the purl stitch with the assurance it would change our lives.  I won´t say it exactly changed my life, but once I got the technique down I find I like it a lot.  The video is a testament to how little one´s hands move using this approach.

Above is a photo of the finished project.  The brim of the toque is doubled and the back of it is very slouchy.  All the apparent colour work is done by the yarn.  It is indeed self-striping and that might be the thing that changed my life; I love this type of yarn.  This toque is mine since it contains all my favorite colours and quickly became a real favorite of mine as fall ran into winter in Minneapolis.  For some reason I cannot explain, I forgot to bring it to Vancouver with me and I could really use it now.

A small Wurm

The second toque is one I made several times.  The inspiration came from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot.  I religiously read her blog and both she and VeryPink, wrote recently about process vs. project approaches to knitting.  The process approach means the knitter enjoys knitting and rarely is concerned about the degree of difficulty or ease of the thing being made.  Process knitters enjoy the process (amazingly!).  Project knitters work to finish something.  Their driving motivation is to get the thing off the needles or wrap up a project.  Project knitters resent ripping out mistakes; process knitters have no real emotion about mistakes because ripping it out means they get to knit more.

OK, so the Yarn Harlot wrote about how a toque pattern called Wurm wasn't a general bucket of fun for her because she needed to finish it quickly due to the change in weather.  This thought launched her into a discussion similar to mine above.  But the hat is what intrigued me most.

Photo credit to the YarnHarlot
Wurm is a toque designed by Katharina Nopp that has a doubled rim to keep ears warm, doesn't muss up hair much and works for either sex.  It has nearly 14,000 projects made on Ravelry, has been translated into four languages and is very simple to make, so easy I put together about four of them this fall.  Mom loved my first one, which was knit with black and purple yarns, so it now lives in Wisconsin.  The one above and one with a red and black combination lives in Indianapolis.  And the other is found in Portland, with this guy and the second guy in Indianapolis.

A large Wurm
Wurm #2 

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