200 Work as written

Knit. Knit like the wind.

This is Cast On with Brenda Dane.

200.

Work as written.

In this episode, off the needles and on again.

Tour de Fleece wrap-up.

Notes from the production line.

A new bag.

Good materials.

And lessons learned.

It's time to cast on.

Greetings, KnitSib. How you doing?

I am well and I am happy.

It's summertime and the knitting is easy.

The endless socks have reached their apogee.

I realized while compiling the show notes last time that I misspoke the name of the pattern in the last podcast.

I called these socks KnitSib.

I called these socks Mrs. Macaulay, but the correct name of this pattern is Catherine Macaulay.

She wasn't a missus.

She was a member of a religious order who founded the Sisters of Mercy in Ireland in 1831.

Apologies to anyone who looked for the pattern and couldn't find it.

And apologies to Catherine Macaulay.

Words cannot express how good it feels to have these socks off the needles.

Washed, blocked, and in the post.

I was so worried.

I was so eager to get them packed off, I actually neglected to take the all-important F.O. pick.

So you'll just have to take my word for it.

They are really gorgeous socks.

I got a text from my mom today to let me know the parcel has arrived and she does indeed love them.

I now find myself at an odd place without a project on the needles.

That doesn't happen very often.

I do have Esther on the needles, of course, but it's too warm to have Esther on my lap right now

because the summer weather has finally arrived.

Technically, I suppose I have begun planning the next sweater.

The project is a replacement for Parodia, the v-necked grandpa sweater that I began last winter,

using a strand of kid silk haze and a strand of laceweight souvenir yarn from northern Italy.

For a variety of reasons, Parodia was a bust.

There were a few contenders for this yarn, but I chose none of them.

We'll talk more about Parodia in just a little bit.

as there are many things to be said about this project.

But first, Tour de Fleece 2024 is over,

and congratulations to everyone who made time for spinning in the month of July.

I can't say that I was a productive spinner last month.

I've posted an image of my paltry output in the Patreon chat.

I may not have been a terrifically productive spinner,

but I am happy that I made time to touch fiber during the month of July.

Sometimes I forget that there are other crafts in the world besides knitting.

And it was really kind of nice to have the spinning wheels out

for more than just dusting off every few months.

I have really enjoyed the moments of spinning that I managed to steal from even the busiest days.

So I'm going to keep going.

I'm going to carry on working through my boxes of sample fiber on the wheels

and then spinning up the little rolag waifs and strays on my drop set.

I'm going to keep going.

I have so many sweater ornaments for the woolly Christmas tree that I am determined to have this year.

My collection of little rolags, you may recall, came from Fell View Fibers.

I really love Carol's hand-blended and pulled rolags.

They spin beautifully, and they're just lovely little things to look at.

The mix of fiber is always interesting,

and I love how she finds her color inspiration in the ordinary,

from fishing nets on a beach to spring buds,

twisting into leaf as the trees break dormancy.

She usually sells her rolags in bundles of 100 to 150 grams,

but I emailed her a couple of years ago

and asked if she had any waifs and strays hanging around,

as I wanted small quantities of many colors in order to make Christmas ornaments.

And she did.

So I bought them all.

Don't ask, don't get.

I'm using the Cheer Ups.

I'm using the Cheer Ups pattern by Cheryl Nyamath, which is free.

I'm using my friend Katie's mods,

because Katie has knit many dozens of the Cheer's ornaments,

and Katie knows the ways of the Cheer's.

Some of the yarn I'm using was hand-spun on autopilot,

and the gauge is a bit all over the place between the different skeins.

I'm using 3.25 millimeter needles, that's a US 4,

to work my tiny sweaters,

and I'm letting my hand-spun do most of the work on these sweaters.

The yarn is free, and I'm using it to make my hand-spun.

I'm using it to make my hand-spun.

The yarn is really quite lively enough,

and there's no need to over-egg the nog on these.

I've been so inspired by getting my fingers into fiber this month

that I treated myself to a new drop spindle.

This one is hand-turned by a maker who sells on eBay as Raven's Flight,

or Raven's Flight UK, one or the other.

I might be their first customer.

The spindle is turned from Spalted Beach,

and at 46 grams, it's the heaviest drop spindle in my collection.

That's about one and a half ounces in old money.

I felt I needed something with a bit more heft to it

than the tiny Turkish spindles or my little spindle ship

that I bought from Grafton Fibers before they became Diacraft.

I feel pretty lucky to have a spindle ship,

but it's very lightweight, and I just wanted something a bit beefier.

The new spindle is lovely,

and of course, I took it for a test spin.

As soon as I had it out of the box.

This is a top-whirl spindle,

and it is perfectly balanced and spins for days.

You can go and make a cup of tea and come back,

and this thing would still be spinning.

I love it.

I also ordered a wee bit of spinning fiber

from a new-to-me vendor on Etsy,

some hand-pulled BFL and silk Rolex in a bright green,

and two baths of merino and silk in colors

that were made by me.

They range from icy blue to deepest midnight blue.

It's kind of a gradient bat.

Both are slated for Christmas yarn,

and they both feature Angelina fiber.

You know I normally spin granola, right?

So Angelina fiber, the sparkly stuff,

is well outside the norm for me.

But I think Christmas yarn needs a bit of sparkle,

something to reflect the lights on the tree.

So I'm going for it.

Some of my hand-spun yarn is a bit heavy for the tiny sweaters,

so I've begun to use a little bit of the hand-spun yarn.

I'm thinking about all the other things

that I can make with it for the holidays.

There is Hunter Hammerson's knitted star pattern,

Scintillation, which I purchased about two years ago.

I'm sensing a theme here of projects

that are emerging from deep storage

that were begun two years ago,

plans that were hatched two years ago,

all of which went directly into boxes,

most of which were only unpacked really this past spring

after I completed the studio revamp.

So I'm still playing catch-up with my projects.

Scintillation's time has now come.

I really can't wait to get into this one.

Hunter Hammerson designs the most wonderful,

perfect, tiny-nonsense knitting patterns,

and they're just a joy to read

and nothing if not comprehensive.

In addition to knitted stars,

I plan to use the hand-spun that is the wrong gauge

for tiny sweaters to knit some kind of garland

to be named later.

I don't know yet what I'm going to choose.

I could make decorative chains from I-cord,

and I kind of like the idea of making a link in a chain

in an individual color and doing five or six of those

and then another color of links

and then putting them all together at the end.

So I'm basically just knitting strips of I-cord

about four inches long

and then grafting them together

as a multicolored chain at the end of the process.

I also, though, found some adorable patterns on Ravelry

for I-cord garland with,

knitted, old-fashioned-type Christmas lights

attached to it.

I'm really tempted.

I might make some of those.

Yes, I am starting early this year.

I am determined to have a proper tree

in the window of the living room this year,

and I'm going to need a great many more knitted ornaments.

I did a bit of a roundup of holiday-themed whimsies

two years ago,

so I won't bother repeating myself again,

but I will link to that episode in the show notes

in case you, too, feel driven to get a jump.

on your Christmas knitting.

If not, forget I said the C-word.

It's not happening.

I am also very happy to have completed

all of the needlepoint and cotton velvet cushion covers

that I am willing to sew.

These are not projects from two years ago.

They're for the current house,

which is why they kind of jumped the queue.

The largest cushion,

which is for the Victorian iron bed in my studio,

was a bit of a process

as I accidentally pulled the zipper slide

off the zipper during construction.

Don't you hate that?

It took two weeks to correct my error,

although, honestly, the first week was spent sulking

about having made this stupid mistake.

The following week, I watched YouTube videos

until I found a method that worked for me,

and I was finally able to complete the cushion cover.

It looks great.

I'm so glad it's done.

I want to use the Victorian bed as a sort of day bed,

and it really needs cushions to make it comfortable.

So this one is on the bed, and I'm loving it.

One of the completed canvases I bought was

an Ehrman kit.

Ehrman? Ehrman?

I want to say Ehrman.

It's E-R-H-M-A-N.

This is still on their website,

and it sells for £60.

I found the completed canvas on eBay

for £15 plus postage,

and that felt like a win.

If you know Needlepoint,

you know Ehrman represents

some of the highest quality Needlepoint kits in the world,

both in materials and design.

So this was a score.

I've been tempted by Ehrman kits in the past.

Kay Fassett's Needlepoint designs are in their catalog,

and I love his vegetables on cushions.

I have always wanted a cushion

with one of Fassett's blousy cabbages on it,

but there's no way that will happen

unless I do the Needlepoint,

and that is not going to occur.

It's not for me.

I chose a rose-colored cotton velvet

for the back of the Ehrman cushion

and charcoal gray velvet piping.

I cut the back in two pieces

in order to add an invisible zipper between them

so that I could launder this cushion cover occasionally.

And, annoyingly,

I managed to reverse the nap

on one of the pieces of velvet.

The nap of a fabric is the fuzzy bit

that sticks up on things like corduroy and velvet,

and it absolutely does have a direction.

All of the pieces must be sewn together

with all the nap facing in the same direction.

If you get it right,

you will see differences

in the way the fabric reflects the light,

which means there will be a color change in the fabric.

I'm so annoyed that I did this.

I thought I was being so careful,

but I didn't notice the error

until the cushion was actually complete.

So, not that careful, apparently.

It's too late to do anything about it.

I'd have to take the whole thing apart,

and I don't want to.

It's that simple.

I just don't want to.

Fortunately, it's on the back,

and no one ever looks at the back of a cushion.

I will get over it.

Eventually.

I am honestly amazed

by the numbers of unwanted,

often partially finished,

needlepoint canvases that exist in the world.

For the past few months,

since we began acquiring them,

we have been seeing them everywhere.

We are done acquiring these,

for now at least,

and I've been giving the extras away to friends

because I can't bear to take these unloved bits of handwork

back to the charity shops.

They remind me,

of the job lot of hand-embroidered tablecloths

I bought a few years back

that I talked about in the episode called Fine Work.

There is a decided lack of reverence in the world,

I believe,

for the fine work of the people

who chose to make the things

that they surrounded themselves with

in their homes, in their lives,

instead of just going to a shop and buying them.

At least, there will always be people like you and me

to appreciate the work that we do,

the work of those who came before us,

and it's a comfort, if small,

to know that 20 or 30 years from now,

someone will find the cushions I've made

this last month or so at a charity shop.

He or she will part with a fiver

and take a cushion home

and feel they got a bargain.

I am really happy that I have just a few cushions

left to cover,

not with needlepoint,

just with cotton velvet.

It's like two squares and a zipper.

Bada-boom.

One that has reached the top of the pile

in the unloved,

up-next basket,

is a backpack for my grandson, David.

His birthday is in September.

He will be five.

I've been wanting to make him a backpack

for about two years now.

I have all the materials in hand.

So this week,

I got everything out of deep stash.

I had already cut out the paper pattern

for the little backpack,

and when everything came out of the Ziploc bag,

I realized that the finished backpack

is about the size of a salad bowl.

And it's probably going to be too small

for a five-year-old boy.

My son said David needs something large enough

to hold his iPad.

So, back to the drawing board.

I went straight to Noodlehead,

purveyor of patterns

for all manner of hand-sewn bags,

where I found the perfect backpack pattern.

It's called the Making Backpack,

and it comes in two sizes,

the smaller of which is the perfect size

to fit an iPad.

I'm going to add an internal pocket,

which I plan to line with iron-on padding.

I can use the original fabric that I bought.

I only needed to order

a slightly wider woven strap

and the strap hardware to fit

and the padding for the pocket.

That was it.

Everything else was here.

So this is my main project for this weekend,

and it's the first Noodlehead bag

that I've made.

But they are highly recommended

by my sister Pam,

so I have high hopes for this project.

I'm really excited to get stuck into it.

Area beautification continues this month.

with plans to paint the kitchen.

Dorset Cream is the color by Farrow & Ball.

It's the soft golden yellow

that we used on one of the walls of my studio.

When we first began decorating,

we were going to use this brand of paint

very sparingly,

like on feature walls,

as it's really quite expensive.

And then we sort of splurged

and covered the entire dining room with it,

and we found the paint so lovely to work with

and the depth of color so gorgeous

that we've decided to use it for the kitchen.

That we've decided to embrace this paint

and just use it liberally

and unapologetically in our home.

Some things I think are worth

the added line item in the budget,

and we all know that good materials

are usually worth what they cost.

It means our rooms will be decorated more slowly,

but the results will be worth the wait.

Fortunately, most of the Dorset Cream paint

from my studio is still in the can.

I think we'll have enough paint to do the job

as most of the walls are tiled,

and that will leave just three walls

of the living room to do downstairs

and the downstairs loo,

which hasn't been decorated since 1993.

It's currently a festival of beige tile

with sky blue fixtures

and vinyl flooring in harvest gold.

Mmm, pretty.

The whole thing needs gutting,

but that is not a project for this year,

so I'm just pretending it does not exist.

The best part of all the DIY

has been not that we're making the cottage delightful,

which we are.

I mean, Tanya,

and I are both still charmed

by this cottage daily.

It's that the past few months

have been increasingly physically demanding,

and yet I am no longer

completely wiped out by the work.

We are going to bed

at a reasonable grown-up hour these days,

like 10,

instead of 8.30,

like we did last winter.

When I said that I feel well and happy

at the beginning of the podcast,

it wasn't a throwaway comment.

It feels wonderful

to be getting started,

stronger,

and to be feeling a return

of my own resilience.

I came across a recommendation

on Twitter last week

to create a new note in a notes app

and call it

Good Things Are Always Happening to Me.

It may sound kind of silly,

but I did it.

I'm just making a note

of a single good thing

that happens each day,

and I'm finding it very helpful

to my mental health

to find one small thing

that's worth recording.

Sometimes these good things

are quite banal,

like I found the hammer

and the picture-hanging hooks,

and they are now both

in the same room.

Sometimes they're cryptic,

blue and green together.

Today it was,

my patrons are amazing

and they have my back.

See what I did there?

As you know,

I take a moment in each podcast

to thank my wonderful patrons

and to welcome new patrons

who signed up this month.

Patron support provides

the regular monthly income

that I need

in order to make podcasts.

I love this work as much now

as I did when I began

in the autumn of 2005.

It feels like such a long time ago.

I can't believe I'm still here, frankly,

talking about my knitting

to people who get it

in my 200th podcast.

And it's my patrons

who make that possible.

Thank you to all my dear patrons,

past, present, and future.

If you'd like to become

a patron,

you can do that

at patreon.com

forward slash Brenda Dane.

You can sign up

for a free membership

to test the waters.

And if you like it there,

toss a little dosh my way

to help cast on,

keep on keeping on.

I'd love to see you there.

As I've worked through

the backlog of projects last month,

I've been thinking a lot

about Parodia,

the fluffy grandpa sweater

of my dreams

and trying to figure out

in my head

just why this project

went so horribly wrong,

why it did not work.

Ripping back two entire sleeves

worked in half fisherman's rib

in mohair

was not a decision

I made lightly.

There were enough aspects

of the project

that felt correct,

many reasons I could find

for continuing.

The stitch pattern,

half fisherman's broken rib,

had made the project

really slow to knit.

And the completed sleeves

represented many weeks of work,

especially as

the yarn is dark

and it was impractical

to work on

outside of daylight hours.

The stitch pattern

is worked over two rows.

Two row patterns

are really easy to screw up.

If you work the same row twice,

you're thrown off stride

and the mistakes are easy to overlook

until you've worked many more rows

and then they show.

This happened to me a lot

on this sweater

because the yarn was dark.

And because it was mohair,

I had to tink back

instead of rip out.

A third of the sweater,

was done.

And with all the time

that I'd invested,

ripping out was something

I really wanted to avoid.

And yet,

that's exactly what I did.

The sweater is no more.

I really want to figure out why,

in the end,

there were more reasons

to rip out the sweater

than there were reasons

to keep knitting.

What lesson do I need to learn

or, what is more likely,

relearn from this sweater?

Partly, it was the direction.

You know I love top-down.

And there's,

there's a reason for this.

When you get to the parts

that are stretchy,

like at the cuffs

and the lower ribbing,

you can bind off

using a stretchy bind-off.

But more than that,

when you knit top-down,

you can try on for size.

When you knit top-down,

you don't have to worry about

running out of yarn

because you just knit the body

until it's as long as you want.

And then you divide

the remaining yarn

and you knit the sleeves.

Worst case scenario,

you wind up with three-quarter length

or bracelet-length sleeves.

No big deal.

I am willing to play yarn chicken.

On a top-down sweater.

But bottom-up?

I might have to rip out

the sleeves I've just knit

if I don't have enough yarn

to complete the body.

And why did the pattern begin

with the sleeves anyway?

Why hadn't I thought of this

before I began knitting

when I could have changed

the order of construction?

After much thought

on the subject,

I have realized

that the reason

parodia went

from a satisfying knit

of a garment

I was looking forward to wearing

to a problem knit

that I was never going to be

completely happy with

was because

I didn't have enough yarn

to complete the body.

So,

I decided

to change the pattern

of the sleeves.

And what I ended up

with

is that

I had worked

the pattern

exactly

as written.

In so doing,

I turned over

my responsibility

for creating

a wearable garment

to the person

who wrote the pattern.

Of course,

I noticed

that the cast-on

at the cuff edge

was too tight.

I just didn't stop knitting

when I should have

right after the cast-on

to question it.

That was my biggest mistake

with this garment.

I should have asked myself

why

the designer

spent so much

money on this

particular cast-on.

A German

twisted cast-on

has some stretch

more than a long-tail

cast-on

at any rate,

but it wasn't enough

to compensate

for an inelastic yarn

like Kid Silk Haze

and not in a place

that really requires

a high degree of stretch

like a cuff.

Yet,

this was the yarn

specified

in the pattern

and this was one

of the reasons

I chose it.

It would have been

a good idea

to stop

after the cast-on

because

I had to stop

after the cast-on

and ask myself

why the designer

had made that choice.

I failed to do that

and as a result

every stitch

I worked

after that cast-on

was destined

for ripping out.

I just didn't know it.

And this

is the dichotomy

of knitting.

The act

is simple

and you can get

good at it

so quickly.

After a short while

it becomes

muscle memory.

It's like driving.

You don't need

to think

about specifics anymore.

You find a rhythm.

You settle in.

It's just

so easy

to forget

that the art

of knitting

requires critical

thinking skills.

You check

your brain

at the door

of knitting

at your peril.

It is not

possible

to work

a pattern

as written

unless one is fond

of a gamble

and I am not.

Not when one

of the yarns

is mohair.

It works

but not

when one

of the yarns

is mohair.

It would have been

a good idea

to read

and assess

the designer's

choices

in the rest

of the pattern

after casting

on the sleeves.

It was clear

at the beginning

of the process

that the technique

specified

did not lead

to a desirable

result.

The next

question

should have

been

what else

in this pattern

is going

to make

a difference

in the design

of this sweater.

I loved

the design

of this sweater.

Loved it.

It was slouchy

and casual.

I loved

the squish

of the fabric.

I was so

looking forward

to working

the little bit

of lace patterning

on the body.

The tightness

of the lower

ribbing

that I complained

about

was completely

alleviated

by Jenny

having worked

to slipknot

to work

a new cuff

from the top down

but the mohair yarn

made that

really impractical.

There were just

enough things

wrong

or slightly off

about the experience

that ripping out

really felt

like the only solution.

I lost confidence

in my choice

of pattern.

And that was

my fault

because I didn't

stop

and take

the time

to really

think things

through.

I've been

looking at patterns

that have

the same

two strands

held together

one of them

kids silk haze.

They're not difficult

to find

and many knitters

have been drawn

to knit them.

They're everywhere.

I can only surmise

that they're very wearable

but I'm just guessing.

If you've knit one

let me know

how you like

wearing it please.

I have looked

at

what seems

like

all of the sweaters

there are

of this ilk

and none of them

are quite what I want.

So I'm going

to design

my own top-down

V-neck

half-fisherman's

rib grandpa sweater.

It will be based

on my own

body measurements

and have the degree

of ease

that works for me.

The sleeves

and the V-neck

will be precisely

as deep

as I want them to be

and the garment

will have

the proper degree

of slouch.

Not too much

just enough.

The best part

of designing

the two-strand

top-down raglan

V-neck

of my dreams

is that

I have a sweater

I actually want

and one that

I want to wear.

I'll be posting

my sketches

of the garment

to Patreon next week

and they will be available

for everyone

to look at

so do check in.

At the bottom

of the knitting bag

this week

there's a new

non-knitting

related podcast

in my playlist

that I wanted

to share.

It's called

As the Season Turns.

It's a monthly podcast

exploring

the seasonal changes

of Britain

with essays

on plants

animals

weather

and folklore

set to original

acoustic music.

I found it

through Apple Podcasts.

There are about

four years of episodes

to listen to

and after listening

to the August episode

I went back

and listened

to the episode

released in August of 2023

and I can report

that this is

an excellent way

to catch up.

With everything else

happening in Britain

and the rest

of the world

these past few weeks

I found

As the Season Turns

to be

a grounding

and calming

reminder

that time passes

and all things

are but temporary.

I'm delighted

to say

that I have

obtained

the Bennett family

excellent

boiled potatoes

tote

thanks to

patron Heidi

who helpfully

sourced it for me.

I'm so glad

I asked.

Every time I see it

it makes me smile.

I bought

the last one

that they had

but I've since

checked back

and have restocked.

You will find

the link to that

in the show notes

as well as links

to everything

I've mentioned

in the podcast today

at BrendaDain.com.

Links to the music tracks

that I use

are always

at the bottom

of the show notes

for each episode.

I'm happy to say

that interview requests

have gone out

for the new series

based on the bold

new manifesto

I shared

in the last episode.

I've invited

quite a few

subject matter experts

to become guests

of the podcast.

I'm really looking

forward to speaking

with them.

I'll be posting

further details

on Patreon

before each interview

and if you have

any questions

for my guests

you can drop those

in a comment

below the post.

Thank you

my Knit Sib

for choosing

to squander

another perfectly

good half hour

here with me today.

You could be doing

literally anything else

so thank you

for listening.

Talk to you soon

and as ever

if you're cold

put on a sweater.

That's what they're for.

The sun's up

let's get down

I feel the rhythm

and I hear the sound

of you

and me

on our dancing feet

in the summer street so

jump up

dance around

it feels good

living in this town

with you

and me

and our hearts

that beat

to the city street so

we're dancing

in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in the world

Oh, life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

Good dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in the world

Oh, life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

Shout out, have some fun

Everyone is smiling in the sun

With you and me

And our friends around till the sun goes down

Oh, don't stop, feel the groove

Pull the shape, make your body move

With you and me

Yeah, it feels so right, we're in paradise

Oh

Good dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in the world

Oh, life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

Good dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in the world

Oh, life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

Dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in a world

Our life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

Dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in a world

Our life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

We're dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in a world

Our life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on

We're dancing in the summer sun

It's wonderful that we're in a world

Our life can be just so much fun

Let the good times carry on