O-Wool Balance Pattern "Andy"

In the spring issue of Knitty.com there is a free downloadable pattern of this sweater known as the "Andy". It is made with the O-Wool Balance, (50% organic Cottton and 50% Organic Wool) which is a light weight worsted yarn. I think most men who would find a heavy wool sweater too warm for indoor wear would really appreciate this comfortable sweatshirt like garment.



You can find this pattern at http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring09/PATTandy.php
The colors used in this model are agate (brown) and malachite (green).
Jillian Moreno has designed such an interesting garment. I love the leaf pattern, and the twisted rib that almost hides under the arms and against the sides of the body. The malachite bands are knit from another ball of yarn, with twisting of the yarn to prevent holes.

New Knitting Patterns from O-Wool

We are happy to share some new patterns!

The Elements in Balance pattern is now available. This lightweight summer vest is made with our 50% organic cotton and 50% organic wool yarn called Balance. When I was originally designing this vest I used 4 colors which represented the Elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. And as I knit I had time to contemplate the balance of these elements here on our own Earth.



For this pattern release we used a different "Fire" only version of the "Elements" as our photo shot.



We also have our first two Legacy Patterns available. We used the Bulky O-Wool Legacy to make this Fun Earflap Hat in the color Grove. This is a quick knit up, uses just one skein of yarn, and can be worn with flaps down, tied, or bomber style tied up over the top of the head. You can see Courtney of Rosie's Yarn Cellar wearing hers in the blogpost below.



In the DK weight we have Marin's beautiful new Entrelac Pillow. This "interwoven" design is knit in the entrelac style, doing successive small rows of knitting. The end result is truly wonderful. You can find more information about entrelac knitting at many sites such as this one:

http://www.needlepointers.com/displaypage.aspx?ArticleID=34263&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwolfandturtle.net%2fYarnpath%2findex.php%2fYarnpath%2fcomments%2fall_aboard_the_entrelac_express%2f





The back of the pillow makes it possible to remove the pillow from its cover.


Finally, we are very close to releasing the pattern for a wonderful capelet which was designed by Joanne Cole and took first prize in our Danforth Button contest last year. It is knit using our Classic O-Wool worsted weight yarn, and uses three colors: these are willow, evergreen and rust.

The border of the capelet is finished in lacy crochet. Marin had never done crochet before, but found the crochet directions easy to follow, with great results.





Marin knit up the caplet in these colors: plum,sky and cornflower, which also look very nice. The beautiful buttons are Danforth Pewter, in a design called Celtic Knot. We are so very lucky to have Danforth Pewter as our neighbor!

Marin visits Philadelphia

Cathy Campbell, who has been our hand knitting yarn manager for the past 3 years has left us to pursue married life closer to her home in New Jersey. We will miss her wonderful loving style and wish her well in all her new projects. She is looking forward to staying involved (in a more part time way) in the world of knitting.

In the meantime, here at O-Wool in Middlebury VT, we welcome Marin Melchior to our routine. Marin is an avid (as in VERY avid) knitter who started knitting right after she learned to walk. Besides her great technical skills, she also has a vibrant, energetic sense of color. The one word I would NEVER use to describe Marin is boring. She always has a new project underway, (an older one to finish), a new idea, a pattern to tweak, a book to buy and a swatch to experiment with. She is a wonder, and it's great to have her working with us.



Last week Marin met with Cathy as they visited Caledonian Dye Works in Philadelphia. This is the dye house that dyes our yarn, and you can see Rick with his welcome smile outside the magestic entry way.




Inside the lighting wasn't really good enough for photos, but Rick gave them a tour of the large dying vats, and explained how the dye is washed back and forth through the skeins.

After the skeins are dyed they need to be wound into the right yardage for the small skeins that a customer will purchase. This winding is done by Bill Clemson, just a short distance away in another large cavernous building.




Here Bill is measuring out the correct yardage on some Classic Natural O-Wool yarn. Later these will be twisted and tagged by us here in Middlebury. Then they are finally ready for retail sale.

Speaking of retail sale, Marin and Cathy did get a chance to visit Rosie's Yarn Cellar in Philadelphia where they were greeted very enthusiastically by Courtney!




Courtney modeled her new O-Wool earflap hat, and held up some of the cozy yarn.

Bookcrossing

The other day, after writing the posts below I had a definite "bookcrossing" experience at our local library. If you are not familiar with this concept, wikipedia defines a bookcrossing as "the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise". I guess technically a library is a pretty obvious place to cross a book(!) but the quality of the crossing is what I am writing about. I went to the library to return a couple of books, and without looking in any stacks, or on any computer search index, I crossed paths with TWO books about the healing quality of knitting. Yes, the day after I had been writing about that. Not any of the last 10 years. No, just that day. See what I mean? One was a shelf end display, and the other had been donated by the library patron just in front of me. Now, truly, what are the chances?

So, with my assignment in front of me (has anyone else gotten reading assignments dropped on themselves like that?) I headed home to do a quick read and review.

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood
is the story of a mother, Mary, who has just experienced the sudden loss of her only child, and has found it impossible to continue finding comfort in the activites she used to. She is depressed with grief, and has trouble following her husband's lead to acknowledge, and then move on to once again regain the joy in life. At her mother's suggestion she (very reluctantly) takes up knitting, and then joins the local knitting circle. Mary meets a group of women with their own stories and each one teaches Mary a new technique in knitting. Through this process Mary is able to finally share her grief, and find the spark of life again, supported by her new friends and the rhythm of knitting.

Knitting, A Novel by Anne Bartlett
is a wonderful book written by an experienced Australian knitter. Again the subject includes grief over the death of a loved one. Sandra, who is studying textiles from an academic viewpoint, has just lost her husband to cancer and feels like she lives life from within an ice cold glass bubble. By chance she meets an eccentric woman who is her polar opposite, Martha. Their lives start to overlap, and Sandra persuades Martha to help her mount an exhibition of retro and contemporary knitting. What begins as a professional collaboration becomes a deeply personal and transformative experience. This is a wonderful quirky story in which knitting plays a very important part in the healing process.

For people that like lists

This is such a perfect list that I couldn't resist sharing it.... Perfect for persuading your professor to let you knit while in class perhaps?

What do you think of this list? Where would you post it? Can you add anything?


This is straight from the Stitchlinks Website:
Copyright Stitchlinks www.stitchlinks.com November 2007
Betsan@stitchlinks.com




25 WAYS KNITTING AND STITCHING CAN HELP RELIEVE STRESS


Slow down thought processes enabling you to think more clearly

Stop cycles of stressful thoughts – useful to use before sleep

Enhance problem solving enabling you to look at problems from all angles

Facilitate mindful meditation – you don’t worry about the past or fret about the future

Facilitate relaxation – necessary for bringing down high levels of stress hormones

Distract – focus your mind away from problems

Enable you to escape into the sanctuary of a quiet mind, giving your mind a break

Encourage positive thought cycles helping to break negativity

Improve mood and help to manage the worry associated with stress

Improve feelings of loneliness/isolation if you've been over working

Teach patience and perseverance – you don’t have to rush at everything

Improve feelings of helplessness – stress is greater if you feel there’s nothing you can do

Raise self esteem and confidence so you feel better equipped to manage stress

Enable you to experience excitement, anticipation and achievement again

Teach planning and goal setting so you become better organised

Involve you in the outside world – opening up an alternative avenue away from stress

Take them anywhere – their portability means you can deal with stress any time

Improve communication skills – build communication networks at work and outside

Help in peak stress times before deadlines or presentations

Introduce enjoyment and fun into life, so life becomes more than work and stress

Enable you to make friends at work or outside through groups

Occupy you on your commute to work, so you arrive calm and collected

Put you back in control

Calm – great tools for workplace stress

Encourage you to look forward to tomorrow

Therapeutic Benefits of Knitting

Just recently I learned that a friend has received notice, and will become unemployed shortly. Most likely a change in lifestyle will follow, and I have been thinking about her lately. I wanted to acknowledge the situation, but how? Then I remembered that before this job she used to knit beautifully and prodigiously. I found myself putting together a small care package for her.



For me this would be a good consolation package: some beautiful organic O-Wool classic yarn and a pattern.... and some chocolate. There is the immediate remedy of chocolate to scare the demons away (or dementors just as professor Lupine knew in the Harry Potter series.) Then there is the immediate project, an activity. It feels intuitive that hand work would help her feel better. I have always felt that the process of knitting had that power. I remember coming to some conclusions about knitting in college. (not an arts or crafts college by the way!).

I started knitting seriously in college, and liked it for a number of reasons. One important reason was that it made long stressful car rides tolerable. Being a member of several athletic teams, I was often on the road heading to a game or race, and then heading home again. The knitting helped tremendously with all the negative aspects: the length of the drive, the case of nerves, a depressing performance, and side dramas with teammates. Instead the result was a great creative challenge, a finished garment (usually a hat) and later, pocket money as I started to sell them. I loved coming up with new color combinations and charting designs. I loved that knitting was portable. I loved that wool was a natural fiber. And oddly enough, I also appreciated that I could be comfortably warm when others were chilly in our underheated group house. The act of knitting seemed to raise my temperature just a bit, and engage my metabolism. (This led me to think it burned calories as well)

Lately, while listening to all the dire news about the downturn in our economy, I have been reflecting that hand crafts like knitting provide a wonderful combination of lifestyle benefits for a wide variety of people. I decided to look into this subject online and found a number of interesting sites. Betsan Corkhill of the UK has been interested in the therapeutic benefits of knitting and has developed a whole website which helps foster support and positive development in the face of life's changes. All the stitch arts: needlework, knitting and crochet are included.

http://www.knitonthenet.com/issue4/features/therapeuticknitting/ http://www.stitchlinks.com/

There are several pages of quotes from people who attribute their ability to cope and thrive with their habit of knitting, or doing other stitch work. http://www.stitchlinks.com/quotes.html

Karen Zila Hayes of the Brainwaves School of Creative Arts has also written at length about the incredible therapeutic benefits of knitting, and has devoted herself to this mission in Knit Magic. http://www.knitmagic.com/4.html

Apparently knitting has been known to help people with chronic pain, ADD and ADHD, cancer recovery, Post tramatic shock syndrome, grief related disorders, motor skills impairment and possibly more. I'm not really surprised to read this list. And I don't credit knitting alone perhaps. But knitting can help in so many situations. It can help lower blood pressure (and get you through a stressful family gathering), it can make you feel engaged instead of bored....I know I have felt these things. Why wouldn't others have their stories too.


Knitting is also being used by a network of voluteers to increase the positive quality of life for cancer patients. This group is called Knit for Life and has the following mission statement:

To support and enhance the lives of cancer patients and their caregivers while going through the process of treatment and recovery by the gentle and healing experience of knitting. This program enables patients and caregivers to come together and share experiences and concerns in a relaxed and supportive environment.

Their website is complete with news events, testimonials, support, and sponsors http://knitforlife.org/about.html

In our overall economically stressful times, or in a particularly challenging time in a friend's life, maybe we should make a special effort to remember that hand work like hand knitting can actively play a positive role. Maybe now is the time to send out a care package, or start a new knitting group at your library, senior center, church or community hall. Or maybe now is the time for you to pick up a new knitting project; something that will calm, soothe, and engage you. A simple repetitious movement, with a natural wool organic yarn, (with or without a circle of friends,) can slow life down and remind us of connections that bring joy to life and help us remain resilient in the face of challenging change.

I had been wanting to try a felted piece for quite a long time, and when I saw this felted braid...I felt a spark.
And an idea started growing for a felted bag made of our new O-Wool Legacy bulky yarn. I had also seen a classic elite pattern that showed a cable bag, though not felted.


http://www.classiceliteyarns.com/WebLetter/20/Issue20.php


So I began casting on, and soon found out just what it feels like to knit with size 15 needles, the largest size in my KA interchangeable set. What a sloppy feel! You could see through the net bag I was making. I started to lose faith that it would ever look nice. This was the type of project I felt a bit embarrassed to take out in public...I did NOT want to hear the interested passerby ask "What are you making?" Actually, after awhile I caught on, and just brought the swatch along to show people. Knitting in public (KIP) really is a conversation starter. I'm sure other people have noticed that fact. Haven't You?



So, then came the moment when I had to drop this piece of knitting into the washing machine. I found this rather difficult to do. It really went hard against all my instincts. I actually had to go psyche myself up to the task by viewing a step by step on the computer, even though I knew the process.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How_to_felt_a_knitted_piece/


After this helpful nudge I managed to drop a pillowcase of my knitting into the machine with a pair of sweatpants. I went through 3 cycles of agitation, checking in after each one, and ended up with a wonderfully soft piece of fulled wool. I really was surprised to feel how soft, and pleasantly dense the wool had become. The organic wool was looking its best...I think even the sheep would be proud!



Next came the sewing, which proceeded pretty quickly. I forced the top of the flaps through the handle slots, and sewed them down onto themselves on the inside. I will definitely also be making lining, after I find the perfect material of course.




Since this is just the first model of the bag, I decided to keep things interesting by making each side a different cable pattern. I was hoping that I would like one alot more than the other, and then choose it for both sides in the future. Actually though, I think I like them both. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, in her Yarn Harlot blog recently mentioned knitters' inability to have a matched set of knit wear.

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2009_01.html


the child told me that she has noticed something about knitters. She says that she can spot them in a crowd because their hats, mittens and scarves don't match.






















I most definitely fall into that category ....heck I can't even seem to manage two matched sides! It is just too much fun to knit different designs all the time.



Well, I still need to get serious about this project, because the top opening needs some designing work, as does the bottom. I have plans to make another one. Like most everything else in my life, it is after all, still a work in progress.