For Christmas Alex gave me a membership in Ysolda Teague's Colorwork Club. She is probably my favorite knitwear designer: I think she does a fantastic job blending traditional elements and innovative approaches, and I often learn something new and fun when I make one of her designs.
At the beginning of February, on a notably gray and discouraging day, I pulled a parcel out of the mailbox. I frowned at it, because I was feeling pretty frowny on that particular day, and then I saw the label. I ripped it open before I even took my coat off, and it was a most excellent antidote for that recalcitrant case of frownosis.
Packed inside were 5 50g skeins of yummy Norwegian yarn, squooshy and lavender-scented. Two were oatmeal-colored, two were a fabulous rich reddish-orange, and one was a lovely blue-gray-green shade. There was a beautifully produced print pattern booklet and a download code.
This first pattern is for a cowl called Brunstane. I love cowls. I once read an Iditarod champion's assertion that keeping your neck warm is the key to winter comfort, because so much of your blood supply flows through your neck. Is this true? I do not know. Do I wear a cowl almost every day in the winter as I trudge to and from work in the snow and ice and sleet? You bet I do.
The Colorwork Club is aimed at people who are new to colorwork, so it is a simple 8-stitch repeat. It's fun and rhythmic, and I've been inching my way through it while Stella and I work our way through The Lord of the Rings. ("How do you like The Two Towers, Stella?" asked a sibling. "It's pretty landscape-y," she said, but we should get to the White Rider chapter tomorrow and I can't wait.) It's making a delicious fabric. I decided to go down a needle size, since Ysolda seems to be a tighter knitter than I am, and I wanted a cowl that was sturdy enough not to flop down around my clavicles. I need my ENTIRE NECK to stay warm when the north wind doth blow.
Yesterday, though, I hit a snag. Do you see this picture of winter happiness -- cozy knitting, happy reading, and the aforementioned print pattern?
I looked at the pattern to figure out where to start the next round, and my entire brain froze up. It was as if Lewis Carroll had sneaked in from beyond the grave to swap out my pattern for one of the White Queen's. I kept tracing my finger up and down the end-of-round column of stitches, and feeling utterly baffled about why it was in the wrong place. Had I started the chart too soon? I felt confident that I could avoid that particular mistake even dead-drunk or delirious, but the evidence was right there in front of my eyes: my cowl didn't match the chart. I set it aside and came back to it hours later, but I was still flummoxed.
Finally in desperation I picked up the booklet to flip it to the facing page, at which point I realized that it was upside down. The chart has vertical symmetry (which is why I didn't notice the error) but not left-right symmetry. (I am guessing you probably did not look at the pattern booklet in the picture and say, "What?! That's upside down!" even though it is still upside down.)
There's much to be said for print pattern booklets on nice paper, but at least electronic patterns don't rotate themselves 180° when you're not paying attention.
I love to see the inside of stranded knitting. It reminds me of the long-ago Scots who looked at a persistent problem (it's really cold on the North Sea) and found a solution (two strands are warmer than one) that is both effective and a joy to produce. I am not sure how many people share my enthusiasm for wrong-side fabric, but perhaps it's a larger group than you'd think. Alex went to two different textile museums while he was in Malaysia and Indonesia. "I just really like interesting textiles," he explained. In case you too like interesting textiles, here's some wrong-side fabric for your delectation.
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