Yak Yarn

Don't know if y'all know much about Yak as a yarn fiber; but I lucked into a bunch of it at Stitches South, and now it's gradually making its way into my Etsy shop.  I am in LOVE with this fiber!  The weight is a light fingering weight, about the weight of the Australian merino that I used for the Traveling Woman Shawl.  It's as beautiful undyed, with its buttery tones, as it is dyed.  This particular yak is 50/50 yak/New Zealand merino, which may make it the warmest combination of fiber in the world! 

You already know how merino is so fabulous for helping to maintain body temperature even when wet, which makes it ideal for sweaters and outerwear and cozy socks.  Well yak, is one of the rarest fibers in the world because only the high quality fiber can only be "harvested" from herds that are grazed in the Himalayas, due to their very climate-specific habitat requirements.  Yak is, as I understand it, the warmest fiber in the world.  After all, it keeps people in the Himalayas warm in nightmarishly cold sub-zero temperatures, right?  So, these two combined, even though it is a light fingering weight, are going to knit up to be some some awesomely warm outerwear garments!  I'm thinking of a pair of gloves to match the Autumn Leaves Beret that I've just started in my Zibeline Knits "Spinster" colorway.  I'm also thinking that this light-weight fiber is going to be, despite its wooly content, a fantastic fiber to knit with in the summer months--not heavy enough to make me uncomfortable while knitting on a shady summer porch.  It's a little scratchy to work with raw--kind of like sari silk can be; but once dyed, it begins to soften.  I dyed a skein in the "Spinster" colorway, and it's already significantly softer and more pliable, and it just got a cold water bath with not detergent.  I think it will be super soft and snuggly once it's been knit up and hand washed. 

There are only a handful of sellers on Etsy who have yak--rather pricey they are, too!  I think I am the only one with the soft and snuggly mix of yak and merino.  Right now, there are some undyed skeins available, and hopefully next week (AP exams start next week, papers need to be graded, and we're doin' the Girl Scout thing all day Saturday, so not going to be too much time for dying this weekend) there will be a few color options to choose from.  You should stop by and check it out. 

In the meantime ... Rocket's second skein of Ella Rae arrived today--shipping only took 2 days?!--so that's going to get finished up next week.  And I made it past the initial ribbing on the beret last night and into the hat pattern.  I guess I make it sound like more progress than it is--really I peered at that chart for two hours and knit maybe 10 rows--52 more to go before the next pattern change for the decreases.  This little number is NOT being knit in the Russian method; though I find myself reverting back to it now that I have been practicing it.  I'm pretty sure that I don't like that new habit much at all--I like my old habits of knitting and don't want to lose them.  I'll post pics as soon as it gets a little bigger and actually looks like something more than a sock for the Jolly Green Giant.  I did, however, get the most gorgeous set of Harmony DPNs in the mail today from Knit Picks, too, for this project.  So, I'm going to knit quickly because I can't wait to try them out!  (The beret begins on one circular and transfers to DPNs when the pattern decreases begin to get hairy.)  Well, off to knit.

Happy knitting to you!

A New Sweater and A New CO Technique

Cast On #1:  Finishing the Traveling Woman Shawl was quite the accomplishment; but it took so long that I started to itch for something new.  So, on Saturday, I cast on for not one, but TWO new patterns.  The first is Rocket's short-sleeved sweater. This pattern is coming together so nicely that I am sure it will be available by the beginning of summer (well, summer that is if you have a spring--here in Georgia we have about two weeks of spring and then it's summer until about Halloween!)  Although it's coming along very nicely, Rocket insists that she absolutely has to have three colors of striping.  I'm knitting the button band intarsia style rather than separately; so now I've reached the point where I am going to have to work from two separate skeins of blue, and that means I had to order another one.  With gas prices so high lately, it turns out that it is about 1/2 of a tank of gas cheaper to just order the one skein online and pay shipping than to drive to the only LYS that I actually like and buy one skein.  So, waiting on the postman to go any further.  You're probably wondering which yarn I am using.  Rocket picked out a rather scratchy, but hopefully very soft after a few washings Ella Rae "Marls" combo.

I'll even give you the site where I got a fantastic deal by comparison to places like Yarnmarket.com:  Webs.com has Ella Rae "Marls" on sale for $3.99 a skein.  With shipping, it cost me about $1 more to order it than if I had bought it at the LYS--40 miles of gas excluded.  Let me tell you, the colors are three variations of the same basic color (light, dark, darkest), and the "strawberry" and "tangerine" are just gorgeous!

Besides, I can use the break because I have vowed to use what I learned at Stitches South and knit the entire sweater using the Russian knitting techniques (great for purling, not so comfortable for knitting) from the class that I took.  I have discovered that my fingers are suffering because my woolen stitches are so much tighter and more difficult to move along the needles.  Flip side:  the back of the sweater is not a series of groups of pearled rows, but one solid pearled fabric.  It's rather lovely.

Cast On #2:  I started the Autumn Vines Beret for the YOTH KAL.  I'd show you my progress except that three rows of ribbing isn't very impressive.  I discovered that the silk/wool/nylon Knoro that I had in my stash for this project was not the right weight once I purchased the pattern.  I ended up dying my own yarn for this pattern with some sport weight superwash merino.  I am calling it "Spinster", and it is a rather lovely--even if the pictures don't show it--variation of gradations of greys and lavenders.  See?

Now the pattern for this endeavor is where the "learn-a-new-CO-technique" comes in.  The directions begin with instructions to use a long-tail CO, purl-wise.  Purl-wise?  I didn't even know there was a purl-wise option!  This is kind of a pain to master, but quick to pick up if you are already pretty adept with the regular long-tail CO method.  Turns out, I no longer have to have a row of knitted stitches before I can begin a top-down sock or the neck ribbing of a sweater. HMMM!  I can just cast on in the ribbing pattern and go!  So, thank goodness for Youtube.com, right?  Here's a little video that I used and have pilfered (lawyers should think of this as "free Youtube contributor promotion") that taught me how to do this nifty little CO technique.  Watch it, try it, learn something new!

And as always, happy knitting!

FO: Traveling Woman Shawl

Drum roll please ...  Ta Dah!  The Traveling Woman Shawl in my Zibeline Knits Mermaid colorway is finally finished. 
F-I-N-A-L-L-Y.

You know, I guess I lucked out--or maybe not--because when I started this pattern, it was free.  When I finished this pattern, it was not free.  I say that maybe I didn't luck out because I spent so much time trying to get the first row of the first chart right that I could have knit two of these babies.  The math didn't make sense--no matter how carefully I followed the directions, I ended up with two many stitches.  Finally, after the 6th or 7th time of tearing it down and starting over, I altered the directions of the pattern for the first row of chart A and then was able to move on through.  Maybe the pattern that has to be paid for his this problem worked out.

At first, the chart was a quick knit--once I got to the 5th chart A repeat, it started to become very time consuming with so many stitches to count through.  I could have done 6 chart A repeats before doing chart B, it turns out. The pattern, as written, called for more yardage than I actually used with my Australian merino in my Mermaid colorway--it called for 389 yards with four repeats of chart A.  I really like the weight of the shawl in the merino--anything heavier and I think I would have been a bit disappointed at the invisibility of the pattern.  This merino blocked very nicely, I think.  Although, I have determined that I am going to have to get some new blocking wires if I am going to any more lace--either longer wires or more of them.  Certainly, I need more blocking pins.

So, on to the two next projects, an improvised top-down short-sleeved cardi for Rocket and the Autumn Vines Beret for the YOTH KAL that I joined. I need to get that in gear--so many people just jumped right in that I am afraid I will be the last one finished!  Off to cast on!