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Merry Christmas! New Colorways, January Club Painting, and the Fiber Arts as Stress Relief

December 22, 2022

Good morning, and happy Friday to you! I’m actually writing this on Thursday, and it’s getting very cold outside–cold enough in fact to wonder if the Texas electrical grid will withstand it. It was 46 degrees when I got up this morning, and now it’s 17 degrees! I’m wrapped up in a poncho I knit several years ago, and we’re getting ready to put up our Christmas tree and lights. Our family tradition is to wait until it’s almost Christmas to decorate and then to keep celebrating through all twelve days of Christmas. The children take turns being in charge of the tree and how it will be decorated. This year it is our 8-year-old’s turn, and he’s excited to be in charge of picking out the ornaments and lights for the tree.

While the children have been on vacation from college and homeschooling, I have been busy dyeing yarn and also doing some more interesting experiments. This week, I dyed It’s Complicated, but instead of dyeing it with half gray and half speckles as I have in the past, I dyed it with assigned pooling in mind. It’s one quarter gray and three quarters speckles on white. Here it is on my new Super Sport yarn base:

As I have mentioned before, I really love Dawn Barker’s wonderful assigned pooling patterns, so I got to thinking about the idea of assigned pooling and what else could be done with it. I took a skein of It’s Complicated on Super Sport to answer that question. What would happen if I knit the accent color in a double-elongated stitch or a triple-elongated stitch? What if I just switched from knitting to purling when I got to the gray? What if I did yarn overs and k2togs whenever I got to the gray?

I’m finding it all very addictive and stayed up way too late last night just playing with stitches. Here’s an absolutely crazy swatch of my experiment so far:

I have an idea for a triangular shawl using the elongated stitches. If I can work it out, there may be a pattern in the future. We’ll see.

Rivendell

After I dyed It’s Complicated, I created a new colorway inspired by both The Lord of the Rings (surprise, surprise) and my Lothlorien colorway. It has all the same colors as Lothlorien, but it’s dyed in a different manner, and it has more white, which made me think of elves as well as “the last homely house,” so I named it Rivendell. It has several shades of green, eggplant, gold, and brown as well as white. Here is Rivendell on Sock Perfection:

…and here is a hat I knit as a sample on Wonderful Worsted using Rivendell:

After Rivendell, it was time to move on to my Monet colorways. I dyed up Monet on six different yarn bases. Here it is on So Silky Sock:

Then I dyed up Monet’s Cathedral. I actually dyed it on all nine current yarn bases, so you can choose your favorite. Here it is on Super Sport for the first time:

Next up will be Monet’s Water Lilies. I would actually really like your opinion. Should I keep Monet’s Water Lilies the way it is now as a splashed and speckled colorway, or should I change it to an assigned pooling colorway? I’m having trouble deciding.

January Club Colorway

For December, I stepped out of my progression through art periods, but now we’re back to it, moving from Rococco in November to the Neoclassical period for January. Like so many things, the Neoclassical period was a case of the pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other–from the frilly to the austere, both in terms of method and in terms of subject matter. I chose The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David for January as a great example of both. David painted it in 1784. Here it is:

Joy and Stress

This time of year is supposed to be a time of joy, but it can also be a time of terrible stress and loneliness as well. I was thinking about that in relation to the fiber arts and what tremendous stress-relief they can be. I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling stressed out, I find that just a few minutes of knitting, spinning, or weaving can really help me to feel calmer and happier. I know I’m not alone in this. Here are a few articles and blog posts about the mental and even physical health benefits of the fiber arts:

It seems like it’s the combination of repetition with creativity and mental challenge that do it. Maybe if there is someone in your life who just doesn’t get why you love to knit, crochet, weave, spin, or felt, these articles will help you to share a new part of the value of your craft.

I have some exciting things planned for the next couple weeks, so be sure to check your inbox on Friday.

I hope you have a very merry and very peaceful Christmas.