Of yarn, sock, mittens and a hat

Now that we have been talking about mittens, this is a good place to talk about one good yarn...

Quite some time ago I came across the Troubadour Range Organic Poll Dorset yarn by Renaissance Dyeing. I remember, when I was feeling it the very first time, thinking, that this yarn would be perfect for color work mittens.  When I was trying to think a perfect yarn for my Katrilli mittens I remembered this Poll Dorset 4ply I had somewhere in my stash. And I started ripping out the boxes feeling quite obsessive that it was my yarn. I found the tiny skein and set out to make a pincushion out with it.

The yarn feels very thick even though it is only a 4ply, it felt thick because it has ability to fill all the given space, there is more yarn or fiber there than you think... And it is very springy, so you start to get the feeling that it will bounce back and never lose its shape... sounds like a perfect yarn for socks too, don't you think.  I finished my pincushion and wanted to full it just a bit for it to keep its shape well. I poured hot water and soap all over it, I gave it a good go and after a while I thought that I was done.  I washed it and to my surprise it had not really felted at all. I had to soap it all over again and this time I worked for a good while, washed the soap away, and I had managed to touch its surface just a bit. This was the yarn. I had to get more of it. And I did.

I have not yet used the mittens, but I have a strong belief that the mittens will wear beautifully. There is quite a lot of information about this yarn in Renaissance Dyeing website. Take a look... and should you like to see the flock of sheep this wool comes from, there is a blog post about it.

Ever since I knitted the Wallflower socks,I have been wanting to knit more socks with colorful patterning. Finding a good all wool yarn has been a bit of a problem... Most of the all wool yarns are too soft for socks (my family is quite hard on their socks, blame the cold weather) but I have a feeling that this Poll Dorset just might be a good sock yarn also and I have cast on for a pair of socks - ok, I have cast on for one sock, too early to talk about a pair.

This is just a beginning. I have been knitting and ripping and knitting and rip... you get the idea. I would love to find a way to shape colorwork socks in a nice way. Stranded knitting, as we know, is not very stretchy and for that reason, I need to shape the cuff a bit and building a shaping into a pattern requires some serious thinking and thus starting all over again. I am happy at the moment with the shaping around the ankle but am not sure how to take it from there, how to work a beautiful heel and transition towards the toes.

Knitting this sock has been very demanding, so I wandered off to an "easier" pattern, and cast on for this mitten. It uses the same technique as Katrilli mittens and I must say, I kind of like it a lot. And then I hit a wall with the mitten (which I think is worked through now) and made a little baby hat.

I am not sure what it is with these baby things, but I just love making small things.

I guess, this is it for now... until next time, wool with you.

Lene

Katrilli Mittens

I grew up among these mittens.

When something is near to you, you get so used to seeing it that you don't see it anymore and this is what happened to me. I kept knitting for almost 40 years before I knit my very first pair.

I learnt to knit these mittens in Vaasa, in Nordic Knitting Symposium. Up till then I had not realized that my part of the world had a special mitten tradition. When home from Vaasa, I went to my library and there to the Lapland Collection to find any information of them. I came across few books that covered various mittens from the northern parts, but there was (is) very little written on these mittens. Later on while in the National Museum I read in the archives what was known of the origins of these mittens in their collections. The mitten that Mary Olki (1891-1974) called the Rovaniemi mitten was "found" in Tervola (village little bit to the south of Rovaniemi) and most likely in honor of my town, that once was called the gateway to Lapland, Mary Olki named these mittens Rovaniemi mittens. The Inari mitten is the more famous cousin, and it is the one that is referred to when someone here in Finland is talking about the Mittens from Lapland or the Northern Lights Mittens.

From the very beginning I knew I would make my mittens with small gauge. I had admired the intricate folk mittens from Estonia and Latvia and their small gauge and I had to see how the saw-tooth pattern would translate into small gauge. I knit few mittens, few fingerless mittens (Piecework article in Jan/Feb 2008) and that was it for a few years.

The technique is clever and unique, it is not intrasia, it is not stranded knitting, but a technique of its own producing patterning only on the top side of the mitten.  Every now and then I thought about the technique but it was so glued to the traditional pattern that I found it very hard to detach it from its original ground and could never see it outside that. The process has been long and it has truly been a love and a hate relationship. All along I knew that I was not done with the pattern, but I really did not know why the pattern kept pestering me and I am not sure just when I realized that I can uplift the technique from its traditional interpretation and do whatever I desired with it.  This is when the Katrilli mittens were born.

The technique in Katrilli mittens is almost the same as in the original and traditional mitten (I have tweaked it a bit to my liking), and where traditional Rovaniemi mitten has 11 small skeins plus the main color, Katrilli mittens have only two small skeins plus the main color. I decided to name these mittens Katrilli, as Katrilli is a Finnish word for Quadrille, a folk dance. There is a pattern available in my Ravelry store for these should you wish to knit them too. The pattern includes a pin cushion as a swatch and by knitting it you can try out the technique and check the gauge at the same time.

Ever since the symposium in Vaasa (2005?) I have talked a lot about the Rovaniemi mitten with my friend Susanna. She found the technical aspect very interesting and I of course, the traditional setting, after all, the workshop we both took in the same said symposium was named after my home town.  We have knitted samples wondering about the clever construction, comparing different ways to execute the pattern and she has developed an interesting work shop on this mitten.  If there wasn't her interest in the pattern, I most likely had dropped the subject altogether, but she has always believed that this technique is a treasure amongst the knitting heritage. My sincere thanks go to her way. Hugs.

I know, I am not done with this technique yet. I truly believe we have a future together even though its history seems to be hidden away. Somewhere, long time ago, possibly in humble surroundings, up in the north, lived a woman or a man with a very ingenious mind and a heart that yearned for beauty. Her/His legacy should live on.

The two pairs on the left: Blacker Designs BFL 4ply as main color,

and the pair on the right: Renaissance Dyeing Organic Poll Dorset

4ply as main color.

Wool with you,

Lene

My best blogging and designing tool

It is this long stretch of boring, straight walkway along the number four road. The cars roar past with high speed, there is very seldom anything exciting to see or to look at. I have my companions on the leash, the traffic is so fierce and there are so many heavy vehicles that I don't dare to have them walk or run freely there, and this means that when my companions find something interesting, and they always do, I have to stop. And wait. We walk, we stop, they sniff and I wait. This we do almost daily.  Although this sounds very boring, since I know every little curve, stone and crack on the road by heart now, I am free in my mind and thoughts.

When at home, there is always a thousand and one tasks to do and there seldom is peace to hear one's own voice.  When I sit down and think that I will write a blog post today or I will think of something to knit and will try to concentrate on it, I hardly  ever succeed in it. Even now when my girls are all grown up finding the perfect quiet spot in a day at home is difficult. So along this road, most of my thoughts are born and it is here where I rehearse all the difficult discussions or strategies. And this piece of road has suffered many angry stomps as well as happy and light steps.

No matter how much I have on my mind, and no matter how many tasks I bring along in my head to my daily stroll, I always realize after a while that I really can let all those thoughts loose because for the next hour and a half I can't do anything else but walk. I usually don't answer to my phone except for the calls of my closest family and they all have different ring tones, so I recognize them without looking at the phone and even those calls I keep brief. This is after all, my therapy, thanks to the dogs.

I am not sure what sparkles the imagination, if it is the time alone and the fact that I am not able to do anything else than walk or if it is the actual movement of the legs that gives blood to the neglected areas of my little brain so that they will bring up new ideas and new perspective. 

Oh, sure there are days when I come home without any ideas, but even then I feel very refreshed. And something strange happens too while out there... usually my hours of the day just fly away and it seems that one hour has diminished into fifteen minutes, but out there, this hour and a half sometimes seems like three or even more.

Therefore I have to take care of my feet and thus, socks. Again.

Wool with you,
Lene

Not just socks, I did little swatch, crochet with embroidery on top, but am not sure if this leads into anything...