Inversion

Jan 9, 2015 By Sarah in Jolyon, Kambur cardigan 15 Comments

Back in September I contributed an offer to knit a child’s sweater to the school auction. The winner was the president of the parent-teacher association, a lovely woman who does a great deal for the school, and she’s a knitter herself, so I pulled out all the stops. I was in the mood for colorwork and thought of Jared Flood’s Atlas design, but it’s written for fingering weight. The small nephew who’s getting the sweater lives in the frozen midwest, so we decided something heftier would be appropriate. I opted for Védís Jónsdóttir’s Kambur pullover as a good substitute. I’d just make it a cardigan by adding a steek. I can’t remember why I decided I’d also flip it upside down and work the yoke first… I must really have been jonesing for the colorwork. Anyway, it’s a Kambur Inversion and I finished it at the turn of the year. Our Jolly modeled it for me.

In case you can’t tell, my boy quite likes modeling and he’s a bit of a clown. I should have just shot video; these are stills from a spontaneous boogie as he worked it for the camera in the parking lot outside his sister’s ballet class. I had to make him take the zipper out of his mouth first. I don’t know what it is with little kids and zippers, but they love them. Definitely the way to go if you can stand the extra work required to install them and finish them prettily. And boy did I finish this sweater prettily. Tubular bind-offs everywhere, including on the collar, which I picked up from a provisional cast-on. Natty applied i-cord edges to cover the zipper. And admire, if you will, this ribbon facing that conceals all the hand-sewing on the zipper itself:

(If you follow me on Instagram (@whistlinggirlknits), you’ve already seen that last shot, but I can’t help reposting it here. I just love the attitude.) Was it a little psycho to go to this painstaking level in the finishing of a garment for a toddler I’m never going to meet? You can say it. I know the answer. But as soon as I saw this ribbon at Bolt, matching the colors and motifs of the sweater so delightfully, I was helpless. And there’s such internal satisfaction to be had in knocking it out of the park even if no one’s watching. (Not that I’m quite so zen as that. I carried it around for a week and made all my local knitting friends coo over it. Plus I get to boast to all twelve of you reading here.)

The yarn is Brown Sheep Naturespun Worsted. I simplified the yoke motif to use only three colors because Twisted didn’t have a fourth shade on hand that I loved with the red and grays. I could happily make another Kambur in an alternate colorway… honey ochre with robin’s egg blue and coral pink and navy, perhaps? In Quince & Co. Lark, which I somehow still haven’t tried? Maybe just a pullover, though. I’m not sure my zipper mojo is back at full potency quite yet.

Selkie Hill

Jan 2, 2015 By Sarah in Island 2 Comments

The first of the year was as soft and shining a winter’s day as you could wish. The children went a-horseback, perched on two kind-hearted little Arabs all plush and patient in their winter coats. Today the clouds have called a gathering of the clans. Rain is freckling the windows. Indoors there is Hide and Seek in the double-depth coat closet, packing up for the journey home, winnowing of desk contents from my childhood in the house my parents will sell in the spring.

The compensation for bidding my childhood home farewell is this view from the new dining room, which is lovely even through the murk. And I have the knowledge that my roots are in this land-and-seascape, not in the house that grew the year I was born. It’s the time of year for looking forward. This is the view my children will remember, the view from Selkie Hill. When the clouds lift you can see Mt. Rainier across the straits. The Olympics rise dusky blue in the south—my grandmother once insisted they must be clouds themselves.

Between sweeps of the house for errant train cars and finger puppets to tuck into our bags, I pour another cup of tea and sneak in a few rows of knitting. Tonight I’ll finish sewing the zipper into another small sweater, having saved the fiddly bits for the very end of vacation. (By the by, zipper sewing is the perfect complement for stressful movies like “Captain Phillips.” It’s hard to get too anxious about desperate men waving guns when you’re trying to make your backstitch follow a course of stockinet without meandering.) I made the incredible blunder of forgetting the rest of the yarn I needed for the sweater I most wanted to finish, so I may suffer the agony of having not enough car knitting for the ride home. All I’ve got is two wee button bands to finish on a little sweater I cast on Christmas Day. I may have to… I don’t know… offer to do the driving?

Oh wait! I bought yarn! How could I have forgotten about the two skeins of dusty blue DK merino/cashmere for a nephew sweater and the sweet little hank of fiery handspun Ada chose for a cowl? Whew. All shall be well. I’ll have to leave this beautiful knoll and madrona grove in the morning, but all shall be well.

A winter’s walk

Dec 25, 2014 By Sarah in Island, Jolyon, Outside 1 Comment

Dark comes early. No one wished to rush the children through opening gifts when they preferred to head immediately for the art table and draw with the “water pencils” or add those twelve new sections of track to the train set, but that meant the beautiful day was closing up shop by the time we got out in it. The littlest asked to go on the walk with the farm animals, so down to the valley we went. Usually there are some sheep on offer, complete with guard llama, but this time we saw only a handful of wary cows munching hay in the twilight. At least there was the still, cool peace of a mild December, with a sunset sky and a wooden bridge over the swampy section of the path.

Once again I regretted not having brought the real camera, as the phone just can’t capture the depth of the winter palette in this landscape — the burgundy and deep greens of the blackberry vines, the cardinal flash of Oregon grape, the cheer of the rosehips and snowberries suspended like ornaments in the hedgerows, the plump rose-lit clouds billowing up behind the disheveled firs.

“I take a picture?” my boy demanded after I made a few more lackluster attempts to catch the golden light above an old barn. Here’s his work:

Mostly he nestled against my back, against the old down coat my mother used to wear when I was little, cementing his two and a half years’ wisdom about the world: Millions of trees makes a wood. The lightness is all done and the clouds is going down. Dere tiny moon swimming frough the sky. Then he broke into “This Little Light of Mine.” And that’s a pretty good way to close out a year, carrying our little lights through the gloaming. And this is a welcome sight at the end of any walk:

Wishing you all a snug harbor among those who “love you to peace,” as my four-year-old wrote on a card to her grandparents this afternoon. And see you soon. I have some new knitting to show off at last!

Whistling Girl Knits

whether or not the laundry is folded

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Inversion

Selkie Hill

A winter’s walk