Contemporary Irish Knits by Carol Feller

Carol Feller is an Irish knitwear designer whose designs have been featured in Knitting in the Sun, Interweave Knits, and Knitty and her own self-published pattern collections. I first met Carol when we both taught at Knit Nation in London last July.

Her book is organized around yarns available from Irish mills (and a couple of Irish hand-dyers). It’s interesting to learn about the production of yarns in Ireland, which now has just three major spinning mills to produce hand-knitting yarns like authentic Donegal tweed. I found this particularly interesting in relation to my recent trip to Iceland where we learned that all of Iceland has only one spinning mill compared to the Faroe Islands which does not have a mill at all and outsources their spinning to a Polish mill.

Carol includes a few pages at the beginning and the end of the book dedicated to ensuring proper fit and good technique. With 18 projects for men, women and children, there is a little something for everyone. The techniques include the expected Aran cables as well as lace and other textured stitches. She talks about how the “traditional” Aran sweater is only as recent as the 1950s, not centuries old as one might expect. Again, I thought this was interesting in relation to the Icelandic yoked colorwork lopi sweaters which have also been around only since the 1950s. I guess that was a great decade to begin knitting traditions!

Check out all the patterns from Contemporary Irish Knits on Ravelry here.

Little Red in the City by Ysolda Teague

Ysolda is a Scottish knitwear designer who has a lot to say about sweater shaping and fit. Probably best known for her Whimsical Little Knits series, Little Red in the City is a much larger volume with a wealth of information.

More than just a collection of sweater patterns, this book has over 100 pages dedicated to making sweaters fit at any size. The book is dominated by different kinds of modifications like short row bust shaping.

Each of the seven sweater patterns has an extensive size range, photographed on two models (Ysolda herself and Amanda of Lorna’s Laces), and is accompanied by a design story.

You can see all the sweaters from Little Red in the City on Ravelry here.

Whimsical Little Knits 3 by Ysolda Teague

The third in Ysolda’s series of little books of accessories is out, and it contains 8 charming patterns, each photographed on a different designer friend (or Ysolda herself). I was excited to see the photograph of Stephen West in Ysolda’s hat taken in London after Knit Nation last year.

Saturday Treat by Ysolda Teague

Ysolda worked together with the folks from Fyberspates to develop a few new colors in their Scrumptious yarns for this book. It features six quick projects, perfect for weekend knitting. While Saturday Treat has a similar concept as Whimsical Little Knits with quick knits, you’ll notice that it is more “grown up” with less whimsy and a different direction in styling.

For two lucky readers, I have a copy of Contemporary Irish Knits and Little Red in the City to give away! Comment on this post for your chance to win.

The fine print:

• Comment on this post before midnight PDT Friday, May 18, 2012 for your chance to win. One comment per person, please!
• Winners will be drawn by random number generator.
• One winner will receive a copy of Contemporary Irish Knits by Carol Feller; the other winner will receive a signed copy of Little Red in the City by Ysolda Teague.

As I was packing for my recent trips to Iceland and Chicago, I pulled out some of my growing project bag collection. Apparently, I’ve collected quite a few, and I know I have a lot that are still hiding!

I must really like the bags from ZigZagStitches because I have three of them. I got the first one with the cute French sheep from Alice’s shop back when I first met her in London. These bags are made with the most durable fabric, feeling thicker than my other bags which is good for keeping metal dpns from poking through. I love the attention to detail, finishing, and earthy feel of the bags. They are the smallest and most portable, so I take these when I am short on space.

I also have an adorable bag from Jessalu. I came across an ad of hers on Ravelry and just HAD to have one of these bags with the super cute sock fabric on the outside. And wait till you see the inside…

Super cute coordinating argyle! Seriously, how cute is that? Jessalu goes above and beyond with ALL of the bag being sewn from fabric, including all the pulls and handles. The dimensions are wider than the ZigZagStitches bags, leaving a little more wiggle room.

I was also gifted a bag from the lovely Anne Hanson. The bag is from Three Bags Full and is the largest of all my bags, making it great for non-sock projects. That’s right, sometimes I knit things that aren’t socks. The inside is lined with a cute coordinating fabric (as with all the bags above), and it has a taller, thinner profile than the Jessalu bag. Because the bag is taller, the zipper is also longer so the opening is wider, making it easier to dig into the depths of the bag for the pesky tapestry needle that’s fallen loose.

And last, but certainly not least, this is a bag I picked up a while ago from A Needle Runs Through It who is local to me. I was intrigued by the tetrahedron shape and of course am a sucker for green fabric. Unfortunately I’ve found that it can be a tight fit for my metal dpns unless I line them up against one of the long sides. This shape would probably be great for someone who uses circular needles. This bag has the plainest zipper pull with no fancy beads, but it’s actually my favorite because it’s so simple.

And that’s a glimpse of my expanding project bag collection.

Of course there were some sock addicts. Michelle showed off her license plate and her PB and J socks from last year’s sock club (pattern now available through Ravelry).

Frances showed off her pink Ripple Leaf socks also from last year’s sock club (pattern now available through Ravelry).

Rachel showed off her Stalagmites in progress.

It’s hard to say whose feet these are, but I think they are Rachel and Abby donning Kai-Mei and Monkey.

Michelle, Rachel and Abby also knit sweaters and wore some to class.

Frances likes to knit lace like this Estonian shawl pattern from Nancy Bush. Alas, I tried to get a photo of Tina’s shawls, but she moves too fast!

I had the pleasure of meeting Lynne of Grinning Gargoyle yarns, a local dyer. I especially love her gargoyle artwork. It reminds me of the University of Chicago.

She brought some of her goodies to class.

And of course, I may have walked away with a small reminder of Chicago.

Early on in the trip, I was lucky to teach classes at Storkurinn, a beautiful yarn shop in Reykjavik. Unfortunately I forgot my camera but was glad to return for photos. Such pretty displays!

They had copies of my book on display.

During some down time, Ragga showed off her lovely handknit socks while spinning.

We headed to Alafoss where the mill used to be located.

They have one of the best vans ever:

Then all the international knitters arrived. Here they are listening attentively to Ragga. She is probably warning them not to fall into the middle of the earth. This is the site where the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian tectonic plates meet. They are shifting apart and leaving a giant hole in the earth.

These people are ignoring the somewhat hidden signs that say not to step near the edge.

Here is the site of the first parliament ever.

We took a trip down and saw a fantastically clear pool surrounded by moss.

People toss coins into the pool and make a wish. Someone could make a lot of money diving in there and collecting them all, but then all their wishes would probably never come true.

Of course we stopped by a yarn shop that was connected to a cafe with the most delicious mushroom soup I’ve ever had.

The nearby town is yarn bombing the area. Here we have a knitted dude.

And of course his wife is a knitter with needles and all.

We saw lots of pregnant ewes. Some of them had triplets and were HUGE! They were skiddish about our presence because they’re protective of their unborn lambs.

Here’s a ram. Also known as one of the big papas. Isn’t he regal?

This pretty horse loooooved attention, jumping in front of the camera and pushing away his other horse friends.

This poor horse has an awesome ‘do. I joked that next time I’d bring a perm kit.

Then we headed toward Geysir, the geysir for which all other geysirs are named. The water there is HOT!

The steam amidst the landscape was stunning.

Here is Little Geysir bubbling.

Geysir and Little Geyser are not that active anymore, but their neighbor Strokkur spouts off every few minutes. I got to catch it in action!

Wow, that’s a lot of water.

Then we headed to Gullfoss, the waterfall with the most volume of water in Europe. It was so massive, I couldn’t get it all in my frame.

And then we headed to Isafjordur in the western fjords. It was gorgeous, but cloudy. I was too busy running about that I didn’t take very many pictures.

Ragga taught an awesome class on traditional Icelandic lopi sweater knitting. Here is the mini sweater I finished and steeked in class!

On our last day in Isafjordur, we got stuck in a pretty intense snow storm which resulted in flight delays.

So we spent our time knitting in the local knit cafe that serves booze! Natalie got some work done on her Wayward socks from the February sock club shipment.

I think she likes the color red. Notice the matching red nails with her handknit sweater.

Iceland is a pretty small country, so the local news heard about knitters stranded in Isafjordur and came to videotape and interview us. I think the camera man was surprised when we turned our own cameras on him!

Iceland is such a wonderful country. I highly recommend the trip if you can manage it. So much knitterly and sheepy goodness with the most amazing scenery.

We first headed to Knitting Iceland headquarters which is in a shared studio space.

Of course it’s crafty and beautiful.

There were some Icelandic lopi sweaters (known as lopapeysa in Icelandic), of course.

I especially liked this display with Faroese yarn in the upper left, Icelandic yarn in the upper right, and Icelandic knitting books and dvds by Ragga on the lower shelves. Ragga leads tours to the Faroe Islands too, since it’s so close to Iceland. She explained that the Faroese yarn is made with fiber from the Faroe Islands that is sent to a mill in Poland where it is spun and dyed. I am eyeing that beautiful yellow yarn, but let’s see how much suitcase space I have near the end of the trip.

Ragga’s studio-mates are locals who work in creative fields. I especially liked the pillows from her studio-mate who designs cute prints.

Another of Ragga’s studio mates is Ragnheiður of Umemi. If you’ve spent any time on Pinterest (here is my page if you want to follow me), you may have seen her NotKnot pillows. Ragga has one in her living room.

Ragnheiður makes the pillows by hand starting with tubes of knitted fabric that are made by locals using Icelandic wool and a knitting machine. She stuffs them (not an easy task), sews them, and assembles them into cuteness. Here are the knitted tubes stacked on top of her sign inside the studio.

And a NotKnot in progress. I love it!

While we could have easily spent all day at the studio, we ventured outside about Reykjavik. Surprisingly I don’t have a photo of the outside of this church, but it’s a striking building that is visible from practically everywhere in town. Whenever we weren’t sure where we were, we’d look for the church. Inside the church is a gigantic organ.

You can take an elevator to the top where there are fantastic views of Reykjavik. I knew the city was colorful, but even on this grey day I was surprised by just how colorful the buildings were. Everything in Reykjavik is super cute!

At lunch one day we heard there was going to be a horse parade, and lo and behold when we left the restaurant we saw the horses coming down the street. Icelandic horses are their own special breed and are protected. Horses from other places are not allowed into the country, and once a horse leaves Iceland it’s not allowed to return. They are small and cute and look! Lopi sweaters! Ragga told us that we’d see a lot of lopi sweaters about, but we didn’t realize just how popular they really are with the locals. They are everywhere.

Look at how cute these horses are!

We strolled by the pond next to the parliament building and saw some gigantic birds. I tried to get a photo of them with Jill for a sense of scale, but it didn’t really work out.

This guy is hoping I will feed him, but alas I don’t have any food with me. He’s pretty darn cute.

I taught classes at Storkurinn, a beautiful local yarn shop. It was really cute inside, but I forgot my camera! I snapped a photo of the window display later. The local Icelandic students were wonderful. I was worried about the language barrier at first, but everyone here has superb English comprehension.

After I taught classes at Storkurinn, Ragga took Jill and me out for ice cream and then a walk by the beach. It’s a “thing” here and was one of the first dates Ragga and her husband went on. I can see why it’s popular. The ice cream is delicious and the views are gorgeous!

I love all the signs around the city. This one had me in fits, especially if you consider just how short the rock “wall” was where it is posted.

Ragga demonstrates what not to do according to the sign.

We then went by the Perlan, a building that looks like it has a gigantic disco ball on the top that, along with the church, is a landmark visible from the other side of town. Inside is the Saga Museum which I didn’t have enough time to actually go to, but I did get a little bit of it with this creepy wax sculpture of a Viking.

Look, he’s wielding an axe. He is definitely creepy. The cool thing about the Saga Museum is that all of the Vikings are modeled on real people in Iceland, so you might recognize them going about town.

And last, but definitely not least, Jill and I took a little trip just outside Reykjavik to hike up Esja, a beautiful snow-capped mountain range. I wish I’d read the Wikipedia entry before going because it says “At sign 3 experienced climbers can choose to climb directly to the top, instead of following the path which goes off to the right.” Yep, the signs were in Icelandic, and we followed some clearly more experienced climbers who went to the left which meant hiking through lots of mud, rocks, and an area we began to lovingly refer to as The Bog. It was worth it though. The weather was perfect that day, and the views were spectacular. You could see how clear the water is.

Once we got to the big snow at the top, we decided to turn around. The path was hard to see, and our legs were a little miserable from all the rocks. Jill had spent the whole day before walking, and I had spent it standing and teaching.

Here’s a fantastic view of the next peak over from when we were at near the bottom.

It was a bit cold at just about freezing, but keeping a brisk pace and battling The Bog kept us warm. We ate heartily that night!

Here are some of her dye ingredients. Spring has just started, so her materials are still dry from the winter.

She had a lot of yarn brewing in her dye pots where she puts the yarn in directly with the vegetable matter.

The demo included showing us how ammonium enhances color. The skein on the left was dipped in ammonia for just a few minutes while the one behind on the right was not. You can see a definite color change.

Seems like she’s been doing a lot of dyeing for just a hobby. This is the yarn that greeted us in her living room!

I may have picked up some yarn and balled it right away to start knitting. The red is dyed with madder root. The yellow and green are both dyed with lupines. The beige is dyed with lichen. And the cream (which has a faint yellow tint) is dyed with daisies.

Besides the fabulous dyeing and yarn, the place was beautifully decorated with many textile-related items, including this antique knitting machine.

Also the view from Guðrún’s house was AMAZING. Her view was better, but this was the shot I got around the corner.

AND, she lives by a small farm with sheep and horses! These poor guys were scared of us and huddled to the other end.

These sheep were very friendly and eager to come forward to munch on food. You can see that they’ve just been shorn. Icelandic sheep roam free through the country in the summer and are gathered in the fall where they remain inside throughout the winter. They are shorn twice a year.

And here’s the first Icelandic horse I got up close to. They’re so cute and small and adorable.

I love this place!

Here is Ragga in her Lopi sweater looking excited about IsTex, the mill where all Icelandic wool is spun.

That’s right, there are twice as many sheep as people on this island, and all that wool from the sheep? Most of it comes here to be spun. That means a LOT of wool passes through IsTex.

This sign is a little misleading. IsTex also imports small quantities of alpaca, cashmere and other fibers to experiment with, but the bulk of what is spun at IsTex is wool from sheep.

There are a gazillion bales of wool. No really, everywhere you turn, more wool. LOTS OF WOOL.

The wool comes in different colors from the sheep.

Each of these bales is just under 300kg. Here is Jill standing in front of some bales to give a sense of scale.

Did I mention there is a lot of wool? Around every corner?

Ok, one more shot of bales. But really, I couldn’t even begin to capture the VAST amount of wool. We were giddy on wool fumes.

The first step in the production process is the dyeing of the fiber if the fiber is to be dyed in the wool. Here are the vats.

These perforated containers go in and out of the vats (they use heavy duty machinery to lift) to hold the wool within the dye bath.

They do lots of colors. Here are the color cards for Lopi, the traditional Icelandic yarn used to make the traditional lopi sweaters.

After the dyeing, the fiber needs to be dried which is a multi-step process. First it is “fluffed” which means a machine pulls the fibers apart a bit.

Then it goes through some super fancy air fluffing process that literally ends with fluffs of fiber flying down into a room. It’s so exciting it deserves an audience.

Here’s a close up of the fluffs flying down.

Then the fiber is carded.

It looks like gigantic cotton candy.

Then it is spun onto these cones with two strands in parallel.

These cones, each with two singles, are then moved to another machine where they are plied onto new cones.

Those cones are then put onto another machine that will wind the yarn from cones into hanks so they can be washed. I think that step is to remove the oils that are used in the spinning process.

This hank machine is pretty fast.

There are lots of hanks all over the place. LOTS.

And the hanks are huge. Here is my hand next to one for reference.

And then they are wound into balls and packaged and boxed.

There are aisles and aisles of boxes of yarn at IsTex.

Can I just say AMAZING? Want to see even more pictures of IsTex? Check out the Flickr set.

I’m leaving for Iceland in a few hours, and I’m VERY VERY EXCITED. Here are some shots I took of my packing yesterday. I spread everything out on my bed, so I could get a good sense of what was missing, what I still needed, and holy moly I think I’m overpacking! (I have since decided my fleece and snow pants were overkill and opened up half a suitcase.) The stuff on the left is boring stuff like pants and shirts and LOTS of wool tights. I spared you photos of my underwear.

This is the more exciting stuff. Knits! On the top row there are patterned socks that I use as samples for my class. On the bottom row are boring stockinette socks that I’m going to wear to keep warm. And there’s a hat that Anne knit me. And mittens that Kristi knit me that I wore on my last trip to Iceland.

Let’s take a closer look at those sock samples. We have, from left to right: Marilinda, BFF, Clandestine, Monkey size L, Lindsay, Rambutan, Gothic Spire, Monkey size S, Devon, Makoto, and Daphne. Which one is your favorite?

Of course, I wasn’t going to just throw all those precious handknits into my suitcase. They are lovingly placed in these Cookie A Sock Club bags which are perfect for travel.

I managed to whittle down my knitting to only 3 project bags. I almost added another but decided that I’m pretty sure I’m going to pick up some yarn in Iceland. I think they have a lot of it there. What’s inside each bag? I can’t tell you!

And… what else is exciting? I packed my swim suit because we will definitely go into some geothermal pools. I must try knitting in one! And, I may not have shaved my legs (sorry if that was TMI), but I did manage to get a pedicure so I can show off my feet when I’m not wearing socks.

Sign ups are now open for the Cookie A Sock Club 2012! This year has been so much fun that I’m really looking forward to next year’s club. Want more information? Check out the club webpage.

Every two months, club members get a skein of yummy hand painted sock yarn, two cookie recipes, and two sock patterns. I try to keep one of the sock patterns simpler for when times are rough. Next year’s colors and yarn choices will be different from this year’s, but here’s a sample of the patterns from this year’s club.

If you’ve been reading the international news (I’ll admit I’m pretty guilty of not keeping up much of the time),  you may know that about a third of Thailand is flooded. One article from Guardian had the subtitle “Red Cross warns of ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Thailand’s capital, as people face food shortages, illness and crocodile attacks” which really is no joke. Not only crocodiles, but Bangkok is home to a lot of snakes including king cobras. And then there is the threat of malaria and dengue fever. All in all, it’s really sad to see what’s happening. This CNN article has some photos, and I’m surprised how everybody seems to mostly be going on with life even with all the water around them.

So for today and all of November, 100% of pattern download sales will be donated to flood relief, most likely the Thai Red Cross Society.