Destash Central...
Listing yarn, needles, and books in the next couple weeks http://ping.fm/duTSe

New Digs...

I finally have an official home at www.thefibreworks.com

Circular Logic

In this case, it's a good thing.

I've been obsessed with short rows lately. Specifically those that, when repeated at key intervals, result in the circular yoke of a sweater.
I've been trying to come up with a way to write a pattern for this yoke but have been flummoxed by the differing row gauges achieved by various knitters...
I'm working on it.

I've become infatuated with the horizontally knitted, circular, garter-stitch dickey Elizabeth Zimmerman was knitting in her video for Knitting Around. There was never a pettern for it, but the premise was that you knit a set of full rows (knit to end and purl back), then 2/3 of a row set, then 1/3... and repeat.
My yoke is a bit different since it starts at the neck edge:

knit across (from neck edge to shoulder), purl back
knit across, purl back 2/3, wrap & turn
knit across, purl back 1/3, wrap & turn

This yoke also takes into account the shoulder slope (for me or anyone) and the correct neck shaping. That is, not a circle, higher and straighter in the back than the front, and slightly straight when approaching the center front.

I've seen a couple of garments with circular yokes and decided I must make one with cables.
After experimenting with a bunch of cable combinations and starting and ripping back the yoke no less than 5 times, I've settled on the cables in the photo above.

This will be a free pattern, after I iron all the wrinkles out, and I'm working on a video/video podcast tutorial on working short rows for a circular yoke along with the first in a series of video stitch and technique dictionaries on cabling without a cable needle. It will available by mid-April, 2011.

I'm also concocting a v-neck version of this yoke for which there will be another free pattern/video.

In the meantime, I'll be spinning (and knitting) on...

What's Next

B E A C H . g l a s s

Here's what's next on the wheel.
This is a beautiful space dyed, Corriedale roving.

It's springy and "sproingy" and is very soft against the skin.
It would be great for hats or mittens.

My "Fingerless Gloves" pattern will be available when this batch is finished. It is available for purchase on it's own and is free with the purchase of a skein or two of:
B E A C H . g l a s s
Now available the Fibreworks on Etsy
s e e . a t . e t s y

Unearthed

T W O . p l y,  N A V Y . i k a t

Good Stuff to Come

City Girls Scarf, get the free pattern.

After finishing my first hand spinning class I'd spun a small amount of Romney yarn.

It was lumpy and bumpy... thick and thin, and erratically spun... 
I thought would be nice knitted up as a pair of socks (I didn't know much about knitting socks back then).

I had a hard time finding a pattern I could understand and that matched the gauge of my hand spun so I wrote my own.

The ensuing socks were completely different sizes and so bulky I couldn't wear them with shoes.
They sat in the bottom of a drawer for a number of years. Every so often I'd take them out and look at them but they were never actually worn.

I didn't know what to do with them, so I completely unraveled them and re-purposed the yarn as the City Girls Scarf shown here.

It turns out that lumpy, bumpy, thick, and thin yarn is just the thing you need for a soft and cuddly scarf.

You can find me under theFibreworks on Ravelry