New Zealand Possum Yarn

Finally, we are going to talk about the lovely souvenir I purchased for myself on the trip taken in March. It is the four skeins of possum yarn shown below. (Need more info about possum yarn, click here.)

Naturally Amuri DK/8 ply in turquoise and charcoal

I have simply fallen in love with the feel of this yarn. To me it is a more affordable cashmere. The possum is always paired with a wool and my set of four each with 170 yards/155 meters is a 75% NZ merino with 25% possum blend. It is so soft with such a wonderful halo.

The halo is what makes the yarn look so fuzzy

I wanted to make a signature piece with this yarn, something that had the potential of being a wardrobe staple. Stephen West's Groove with its stripes seemed to me to best showcase my two colours and if I found just the right buttons it could become the scarf I wanted of this yarn.

Photo of Stephen West and Groove by westknits

The combination of stripes with vertical cables intrigued me so I set off knitting. As the scarf grew the yo (Yarn Over) used to increase the size the knitting started to cause me concern. As a loose knitter everything I do is very loose, including those yo. They occur around those vertical cables, making rather large holes at each side of the cables. I noticed the holes but as the knitter I am, I ignored my concerns and knit on.

The holes are quite evident at the top of the turquoise cable

For some reason I went back to look at Stephen's sample. There are lots of great pictures on Ravelry showing what this scarf should look like and I found this photo.

Image credit to westknits

See there are no holes around his cables so I knew something was up. I was doing something wrong OR he was doing something special to minimize those yo. Trying to figure this out was one of the reasons I purchased the Shawlscape class by Stephen West from Craftsy. (I also wanted to see if there were other nuggets he offered about making and designing shawls. The class did not disappoint.) And sure enough he does do something special to neutralize the size of the yo holes.

Say goodbye, this is about to be completely undone

So take a good look at my Groove as it is now. It will soon be frogged and started over again using that technique Stephen shared. (I'd tell you what it is if I could remember it. Senior moments are so lovely, aren't they?) It is unfortunate I didn't first get the class and then start the shawl, but that's not what happened.

Knitting is a process and I generally learn something new from each project. The lesson here is one I seem to have to learn over and over--when you have a concern about your knitting stop and solve it. Don't just keep knitting, your gut is telling you something.

Groove will return in the future in a new and improved form.

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made. Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook. It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares. That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute. (Don't know what I'm talking about here? Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size. In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken. Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer. This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed. You will note the size ...

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