epicflood

As predicted, the thought of a different yarn for Stonecutter finally got the best of me, and I just happened to find myself at an LYS that serves as a Brooklyn Tweed fiber flagship store. Of course, that could only mean one thing: The sweater was trying to tell me that it wanted to be knit in Shelter.

Photo copyright Brooklyn Tweed-Jared Flood.
Brooklyn Tweed's latest look book release was teeming with drool worthy patterns, per usual, but there was one sweater that was so utterly preposterous in its magnificence that it had me hooked at first glance. The sweater tour de force I speak of is none other than Michele Wang's Stonecutter.   This talented designer never disappoints, but she has really outdone herself this time. The gods of Aran bow down before its cabled glory.

My only reservation is in the yarn I've chosen (Cascade 220 Heathers), which may be entirely too plebeian for such a marvel of engineering. At close to 1,800 yards, sheer economics won me over to the mass produced dark side.

Stay tuned for the next installment. Which may feature a totally different yarn. Probably.

I decided to take a very short break to infuse a little color into my woolly world. My beloved Ash cardigan in stormcloud gray, as lovely as it will be, is not exactly a technicolor dream coat. Being the sort of girl who needs a lot of color in her life (as well as the sort of girl who can't commit to just one project), I thought I'd try my hand at a sweet little Knitty.com fingerless glove pattern called Spatterdash by knit designer Dagmar Mora (which is quite possibly the coolest name ever...). This pattern offers three things that I find impossible to resist: 1) It only requires small amounts of leftover sock yarn 2) There's an opportunity to mix and match colors and 2) Excessive use of buttons (you'll have to refer to the pattern link above to see what I mean...) In fact, so fond of buttons am I that I'd be right at home as a pearly cockney.


I'm using up some hand-dyed Araucania yarn called Ranco Multy in two different colorways. Both skeins have been in my stash for years, and it's about time they came to life.


I'm thinking this color combination will look pretty snazzy with my turquoise rings.

Imagine a day when knitting needles are welcome in the corporate boardroom. The thought is inspired by an important discovery I made today, namely, that knitting makes for more productive listening, especially in situations where concentration is needed over long periods of time. Allow me to boldly offer the following hypothesis: Knitting allows the mind to achieve an alpha state that is infinitely more receptive to auditory information.

While I’m not quite ready to brave this experiment in public, a 3.5 hour remote web conference made for an excellent opportunity to test my Nobel-worthy theory today. Under normal circumstances, you’ll find me multitasking by running multiple desktop screens, answering emails, and catching up on research during these types of web-based conferences. In other words, all of the things that are supposed to make me more “productive.” Invariably, I eventually lose track of what the speaker is saying, and understanding is limited. The alternative to this is to sit in one’s chair and attempt perfect focus by resisting all urges to multitask. I’ve given this one a go as well, and trust me, it doesn’t work. Zen masters aside, I defy anyone to go an entire 3.5 hours without their mind wandering to thoughts like how it might be time to clean out the refrigerator or the contemplation of weighty matters such as whether or not they should stop for takeout on the way home from picking up the dry cleaning.

Listening while knitting, on the other hand, produces an entirely different effect. The repetitive motion of knitting quiets one’s mind like a simple mantra would, freeing one’s cognitive self to be fully present. I was able to absorb every. single. word. of the conference without any other mental noise competing for my attention. It was a beautiful thing. And I will never be able to admit it to anyone even remotely connected to my professional advancement. Never, ever.

Someday, we knitters will have our own Rosa Parks. She will bravely take her knitting into the boardroom and break down the barriers that corporate America has ignorantly placed on us. Engaged listening will flourish. Productivity will soar. Ideas will fall on fertile and receptive ground. And best of all, we will all be able to walk out of meetings with progress like this:

Having fully recovered from my mock cable embarrassment, I find myself lost in the beauty of Brooklyn Tweed's Loft yarn. As anyone who's feasted on the BT lookbooks can attest, there's a very wholesome quality about Brooklyn Tweed yarn, and I truly believe it's what gives the sample garments pictured an extra edge in the character deparment. If you're the type of knitter who likes his or her stitches to achieve perfect alignment on every row, Loft is probably not the yarn for you. What's more, doubling the yarn, as required in Ash, will likely make you seek out a quiet and darkened room. As for me, it's actually the imperfection I've grown to love most.

As the label says, the yarn is 100% American, from Wyoming sheep to New Hampshire mill. Maybe we should take a moment to appreciate what that really means.

There's a painfully gorgeous documentary movie called Sweetgrass that chronicles the sacrifices of a sheep ranching family in Montana and truly helps put things into perspective. It's readily available via Netflix instant streaming, and every knitter who has ever held a piece of wool ought to pick up a project and settle down with this little gem. The documentary contains virtually no dialogue except for the bleating of sheep and the cursing of cowboys. This epic journey of 3,000 thousand sheep over 250 miles and the tribulations of grizzly bear and wolf attacks, lame herding dogs, and spent horses will have you seeing American-grown wool in whole new light.





There was a not-too-distant era when wool and textile mills dotted the entire Northeast as well as a time when the grassy foothills of the American west were the domain of cattle and sheep ranchers. Sadly, this America has all but disappeared. Even the 100+ year sheepherding family depicted in Sweetgrass have since retired their operation. I'm immensely proud of Brooklyn Tweed for throwing out a lifeline to this vanishing way of life. At some point very soon, we are going to have to get serious about what kind of America we want our children to inherit. Knitters know all about the power of incrementalism. One stitch is seemingly insignificant, but many stitches can create an amazing thing of beauty. Maybe by giving more thought to the wool we make our stitches with, we can make the world a better place, too.

Mock: adjective, 1) Not real

I feel a duty to issue a global warning to all knitters everwhere (especially those of us who jump right into projects without reading through all of the directions first) that the word "mock" apparently does not apply to "mock cables." Imagine my shock in learning that the mock cables in Ash are cables that presumably aren't real cables but nonetheless require cable needles and cabling charts that look exactly like real cable instructions. Because they are. To the people who said, "Wow, that's a lot of cables" who I smugly rebuked with, "Yes, but they are mock cables. Isn't that clever?", I now submit an alternate definition:

Mock: 2) verb, to make fun of, to treat with ridicule

Go on. You know you want to.

Photo copyright: Jared Flood

It seemed somewhat appropriate that my year of all things Jared should begin with a pattern whose name is symbolic of transition. "From the ashes the Phoenix shall rise." I experienced profound loss in 2011 with the loss of my father, but I'm still standing and dreaming big.

All symbolism aside, "Ash" by Amy Christoffers also happens to be a brilliant pattern strangely reminiscent of one of my beloved sweaters from the past--a gray, diamond cabled Benetton sweater I purchased in Venice on my 18th birthday. Given that it's still several sizes too big on my considerably larger post-18-year-old body, I think it's safe to say that I must have looked completely lost in it back in the day. What can I say? It was the 1980s. The entire decade was oversized.

Me and my fabulous knitting posse have been tossing around the idea of "the perfect cardigan" for months now, and when I saw Ash in Brooklyn Tweed's newly released Wool People 2 lookbook, I instantly recognized it as The One. It didn't occur to me at the time, but on a subconscious level, I must have recongized that it offered a sleeker and more modern interpretation of my old Italian flame. So off we went to Fibre Space in Alexandria to gather wool for our dream cardis.

There, I zeroed in on a versatile gray colorway tucked into the corner of the store's fingering weight motherload: Brooklyn Tweed Loft in Stormcloud. This is the pattern recommended yarn, which should be held double throughout in order to add weight and texture.


And just like that, the reincarnation of my teenage Italian love was born. I hope to offer a few progress reports between biscotti breaks and the ocassional Fellini flick.