Note: A very generous knitter is fixing the chart so it shows grid lines.  I’ll replace it as soon as she send it to me. See comments.  Some day I’ll be friends with Excel!  Thank you, Anne!

This past Christmas, my husband, our two dogs and myself drove to California to see our son and his family in our ‘new to us’ RV.   We planned on taking six days to get there from Michigan, and it was a good thing.  We ended up stopping almost every two to three hours for our four-legged children.

Jim drove the entire way, and I sat in my comfortable seat and knit.  We both thought the landscape of New Mexican and Arizona was breathtaking.  Especially once we started to go south on Rt. 17 in Flagstaff, the scenery really inspired me.

In Sedona, the mountains were covered with grasses, cacti, vines and short evergreen shrubbery.  I took pictures as we flew by, but it was what was in my memory that I wrote down.  The colors were surprising; in the middle of winter, most hillsides were brown and dry.  But in Sedona, the shades of greens, grays, and teals took my breath away.

As soon as we got to California, I printed out some graph paper and designed these stylized desert plants and cacti.  We drove up to Santa Cruz to see my aunt and she took me to a knitting shop there so I could search for yarn.  The selection of fingering weight yarns were mostly cottons and baste fibers, but I wanted wool.  There was some Baby Ull, not in a huge range of colors, but enough to get me started.  Since we got home, I ordered 26 different shades of green, yellow and teal of Jamieson DK, deciding I wanted the work to go a little faster.

The charts are in a printable PDF file; click on the link near the upper left of this page; the pattern repeat is 20 stitches.  Please print out the chart and tape the upper chart on to the lower chart.

To knit the hat, you can follow my simple directions or use any slouchy hat pattern, casting on enough stitches to fit your head but in multiples of twenty.  I knit 1.5 inches of 2X2 ribbing with two different colors, and then began the chart.  We have huge heads in our family and a lot of hair, so I started with 160 stitches.  I know, giant.  Another nice hat has 140 stitches cast on and then increase to 160.  A hat I love is Fair Isle Hat by Shelia Joynes.  Her basic pattern would work with any fair isle chart.  It is a lovely hat to knit.

Pattern

Yarn

Baby Ull, Six shades of greens, gray, and tan for the background.

Needles

US3 16″ Circular

5 dbl points US 3

Stitch markers

Tapestry needle

Cast on 160 stitches, join in the round, being careful not to twist.  Place marker at join.

Knit 1.5 ” of 2×2 ribbing using two contrasting yarns.

Using tan main color, knit one row, placing marker every 20 stitches.

Begin chart at bottom right.  I used the two handed method of stranding unless we were driving on bad roads.  Be sure not to get your tension too tight.

Knit through to top of upper chart; begin decreasing row in between saguara cacti.

Knit ten, knit two together.

Knit the next row.

Repeat decrease row every other row, decreasing by knitting two together in the center of each section of pattern.

When you are left with about five stitches on each of four double points, cut yarn leaving a ten inch tail, thread with tapestry needle, thread stitches on yarn, pull snug, tie and cut yarn, weaving in end.

My hat needed a rigorous blocking due to my uneven tension; I think driving and knitting fair isle may have been ambitious!

Betty Garpow will be here demonstrating felting.  She makes great felted flowers, which will be available for purchase.  We will also have spinning demonstrations.  My neighbors brought me their spent tomato plants and I may fire up a dye pot and cook those up, as well.  So much to do!!!!

When you come, remember that the studio is between 127th and 128th on 60th.  GPS loves to take us about ten miles south.  We are about 1/2  mile south of the Kalamazoo River.  If you see trees and a dirt road, that is us!

We’ll be open both Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine!  Hope to see you!

My 60th Birthday bouquet from my son and his wife.

So rather than have the month of September be my buffer, the time that I would get caught up and prepare for October, I decided to stir the pot and have a sale!  It would be a huge garage sale of some of the fiber and equipment that I have acquired over the past 30 plus years.  I would force myself to part with the beautiful tools that I no longer use on a regular basis.  Some of these things have traveled all over the country with me.

And this is just part of it....

Six spinning wheels, five looms, 40 boxes of yarn.  At the end of the weekend, I had one wheel, one loom, and 8 boxes of yarn left.  (This doesn’t count the two looms and three wheels that I use….)  The feeling I have is best summed as….Ahhhhhh.  Relief.  The knitting machine thing is probably growing, but they are easier to hide.

Here are few projects I have been playing with in the studio.

Tuck Lace knitting manually. My friend, Char taught me how to manipulate the needles on machines that don't have punchcards so patterns can be knit.

I am experimenting with dyeing yarn so that it will act a specific way when knit.

Detail.

I have a long way to go with this idea.  The knitting machine is wonderful because I can put those ideas into practice quickly.  With this piece, I dyed the yarn one day and knit it the next.  My goal is to be able to anticipate how a specific colorway will knit up.  Yarn Floozies certainly have inspired me.  There is a tutorial of sorts on their blog on how to measure space dyed yarn so that  you can anticipate how it will act in knitting.  I want to take that one step further and dye it purposefully.  It is harder than it sounds.

My friends Mina and Karen have asked me to teach dyeing at North Country Spinners 2012 Fiber Fallout. I think Dyeing for Knitting may be the way I will go, and will document my trials and errors here.

I’m also waiting to hear if a sponsor has been found for the Artist in Residency I’ve been asked to do at Art Place in Portland, Indiana.  This is supposed to take place next spring, which is right around the corner if time continues to fly.

This Friday we are having a spin in at the studio; several new friends are dragging their wheels out.  I am looking forward to this and will post pictures.  More later!