Tag Archives: Martina Behm

Mrs. Watson

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I am beyond pleased with how my new shawl worked out. It’s Mrs. Watson, by Martina Behm. Actually, it’s Mrs. Watson on steroids. More on that in a bit.

My shawl is 100% sportweight alpaca. It was handspun from an alpaca herd owned by Christa Newhouse. She, along with her husband Shelby, owned Insel Haus on Bois Blanc Island for many years. (It’s “The Hideaway at Bois Blanc” now.) Anyway, my Yarn Dreamer alpaca was spun from two alpacas whose names I know: Leisl and Cressida. I needed a special pattern for this special yarn. It’s been in my stash for about 10 years, waiting for that special pattern. Mrs. Watson was it for sure.

My Mrs. Watson is huge. At its widest it’s 27 inches. That central double decrease spine is 56 inches long. From tip to tip it’s 75 inches, not following the curve. That compares to 20 by 66 inch dimensions as originally designed.

It was difficult for me to figure out how to keep the beautiful short row design features while still widening and lengthening the shawl.

Until I purchased the pattern I couldn’t figure out how this shape is achieved.  Ok. I figured short rows. But that swoosh? And that graceful shape?

The knitting begins at the lower left and the work increases at both edges for…awhile. Then the stitch count stays the same for the rest of the shawl. I knew that to widen the shawl I’d have to continue the increases. So that’s what I did. I added three of the marled brown leaves and then started in just blindly following the pattern. Blindly is the key word, unfortunately.

I had GOBS more yarn than I needed. Gobs. That’s a knitting term of art, right? No worries that I’ll run out of yarn, right? Eventually I understood the pattern and worried I’d run out of the lighter shade of yarn.

What I failed to appreciate may already be obvious to you. The shape of the shawl will be all wonky if that central double decrease doesn’t end with (basically) no stitches on one side of the decrease. But I had bunches more of stitches since I’d widened the shawl by adding 3 full pattern repeats (“body” and “leaf” in the pattern’s lingo). And it’s a subtle but beautiful design feature that those short row leaves change shape as the knitting progresses.

Bottom line, if you work extra leaves before “body” pattern 2, you need to work that same number of extra leaves in the later leaf patterns to get the shape (and spine) to work out correctly. And all the added leaves need to include an accompanying extra body section. I think I know that’s super hard to understand unless you’re actually knitting the pattern. But hopefully it will be of help to someone working the shawl who, like me, decided to widen it. Going into leaf pattern 8, you should end up with 7 stitches beyond the CDD “spine,” which is exactly what’s needed. I worked 3 extra sets of leaf (and body) pattern 7. It worked.

Here’s another look at this beauty before I go on with the rest of my tale about how this knitting yarn got to a happy ending.

I eventually understood that I would run out of the lighter color alpaca. Since each lighter section takes exactly the same amount of yarn, I weighed my remaining ball of that color before and after a section to figure out how much yarn one section needed. I figured it might look like I’d planned the added color if I completed the shawl with one strip of the lighter shade. So I saved enough yarn for that.

My supply of alpaca was lower than low. But I had an almost-600 yarn skein of Heritage Prime Alpaca in a marled black/gray labeled sportweight. Unfortunately it was a very lightweight sportweight. And the rest of my shawl is a very beefy sportweight. Having a limp section at one end of the shawl wouldn’t do. I started hunting around in my stash for a laceweight or fingering weight yarn I could add to the black/gray alpaca to get to the correct weight. I was so sad that my 100% alpaca shawl was going to have to diversify and include some merino. Maybe you heard my groans and sobs?

I was about to add in some black fingering weight merino. Then I remembered a farm stall a zillion years ago selling laceweight alpaca. Had I…? Yes!  I keep a little stash of black yarn set aside to sew critter eyeballs and noses. I had a ball of very fine black alpaca in my critter faces stash. Held together with my Heritage Prime that yarn gave me essentially the same weight as the beefy Yarn Dreamer. Maybe you heard my joyful hoots and hollers?

I’ve been wearing this shawl almost non-stop lately, especially through recent frigid mornings when it’s been as cold as 15 degrees below zero (Farenheit). In my world, there’s nothing like alpaca for warm.

This alpaca was part of Christa’s flock. Maybe it’s even Leisl.

Orange are the new cowls

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This is Taiga Hilliard’s Alana cowl. It’s a very different knit for me. Way more fashion-forward that I’d usually mess with. This is not going to be a warm cowl and I am typically a utilitarian knitter. Oh, I suppose it could take the edge off office air conditioning. But I left the office behind more than 4 years ago. Even though I like this, it’s just not me and I’ll be gifting it to someone. But I haven’t yet figured out who. This was a quick, fun knit.

Another reason why this knit is different for me is that I knit Alana in Anzula Vera, a sport weight fiber mix I’ve never worked with before. It’s 65% silk with the remaining 35% described as “linen/flax.” I’ve never knit with an Anzula yarn that wasn’t a satisfying experience. Vera was deeply discounted. I gave it a try. My reaction to all silks is that it’s a very dry yarn to work with. Borrowing an expression I heard recently from the young plumber who worked on my water softener system, “dry as a popcorn fart.” That’s not a feel my hands like. As I knit I feel as if the yarn’s sucking out all the moisture from my hands. Still, the yarn was uniform, with no knots.

You may be wondering about this stitch pattern. That was a first for me and it’s what drew me to the pattern. I figured it was a dropped stitch pattern, but I had no idea how it was formed. I won’t spill all the beans. It combines an elongated stitch with a dropped stitch. You knit tightly compacted cables all across the rounds of the cowl. Then, on the last round–as you bind off– comes all the magic. With apologies for the color disconnect, that’s when this:

changes into this:

Next up is yet another Wolkig, this time in Sun Valley Fiber, an 80% merino, 10% cashmere goat, 10% nylon fingering weight.  It’s Martina Behm’s freebie pattern, available on Ravelry. I’ve knit it seven times and only have one Wolkig in my personal collection. When it comes to my holiday-pick-your-gift gathering this year, I’ll wager that this orange one won’t last long.

I am always pleased with the organic look that the super-simple Wolkig pattern produces. Check here for other Wolkigs I’ve knit. 

Fingering weight cowls

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This is Stella Ackroyd’s Seascale. I knit mine in the yarn the pattern calls for: Brooklyn Tweed Peerie. Peerie comes in 45 shades. I chose “Aurora,” which is basically teal. This 100% merino yarn is from Utah and Nevada sheep. And it’s spun and dyed in Maine. Pricey? Yep. But I only needed 1.4 skeins of the 50-gram skeins–295 yards. The yarn is wonderful and I very much like the pattern.

You probably have a version of this “Wearwithall” pattern that gives wrong directions for the seed stitch border. I’ve been in touch with the designer. She initially wrote correct though somewhat idiosyncratic directions for the borders. As the pattern photo clearly shows, and as the pattern stitch is labeled, it’s supposed to be seed stitch. But if you follow the directions you’ll be knitting one-by-one ribbing. It would only be a newbie knitter who’d go awry, but still the error is unfortunate. My pattern is a paper copy, not digital. Hopefully the error will be corrected soon in the digital copies. After the original round of each border section,  you’ll be knitting the purls and purling the knits for the remainder of the border and all will be well. This works:  Round 1, K1, P1, ending on a K1. Round 2, P1, K1, across the round. Repeat rounds 1 and 2 for a total of 10 rounds.

I’m not an expert at lace and it took me a few pattern repeats to be able to confidently read my knitting in the lace section. But a bit of concentration was so worth the effort.

Until fairly recently, I’ve not been much of a fan of fingering weight cowls. For me, cowls are about warmth and I thought DK or worsted would be best. This next cowl, Martina Behm’s Wolkig, is probably what first convinced me to consider revising my view.  Wolkig has more than 2000 Ravelry projects posted since it was released by Knitty in the fall of 2017. Ahem…this is my 6th Wolkig.

And it’s the first one I’ve not gifted!  Mine is knit in Hedgehog Fibers Sock. The colorway is “butter.” I am so pleased with it that I’ve been wearing it around the house this spring, and outside. It’s lightweight enough that I don’t look silly wearing it even though it’s finally (but just barely) not cold anymore.

Here’s a closer look:

Soon after knitting my yellow one, I needed some mindless knitting and decided to cast on for another. OK, whoever wears this is going to be making a bit of statement. But I still like it:

This one is knit in Baah Yarn’s LaJolla in the Blueberry Lemonade colorway.

I’m setting my LaJolla version aside to possibly include as an upcoming charity auction item. Or it may make it’s way into my holiday “pick your knit” gift baskets. Maybe you’ll want to check out some of my earlier versions?

 

The knitting community owes Behm a big “thank you” for this great free pattern. In fact, I may go to Ravelry right now and put the pattern in my queue again so I don’t forget about it.

Every little bit counts

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My 2019 resolution was to try hard to knit all usable quantities of a colorway before I proceed to a new yarn for a new project. Kind of “finish your peas before you eat dessert” thing. Well, except that Schoppel-Woole Zauberball and Cascade Yarns Superwash Sport are hardly the peas of the yarn world. Apologies, to you pea lovers, but peas taste terrible and I bet somewhere deep down you know that too.

So, first I used a smidge of the Daffodil colorway to knit my Annita Wilschut Vera bear a rain hat.

Perfect. That was in the summer of 2014.

My Daffodil languished. Next, in the fall of 2018 I knit Wolkig in my black/gray/white Zauberball.

I broke into the  Daffodil for the cuffs of my adult moc-o-socs.

Such a great pattern by Rebekah Berkompas.

Then, with most of the leftover Zauberball and a dainty amount of the Cascade 220 sport Daffodil, I knit Justyna Losorska’s freebie beanie, Fasolka. I followed her instructions exactly, except that I went my own way on the color combination.

I see this sportweight hat as a great success. It even has an excellent crown, with no hint of the dreaded pointy beanie syndrome.

The Zauberball colorway worked out so excellently, I will be indulgent and give you another view.

What next to knit. I’d been eager to give Cecelia Compochiaro’s “sequence” knitting a try. My first attempt was her Swirl Hat, using her spiral sequence method.

If case you haven’t heard about or tried sequence knitting yet, let me intrigue you. All the patterning on this hat repeats the same 10-stitch sequence. Yep, the diagonal slices, separated by a few rows of stockinette, are several rounds of the same sequence worked over and over again, ignoring the end-of-round marker. The shift in the direction of the slice happens magically (or so it seems to me) by a minor adjustment to the number of stitches in the round that happens in the stockinette section.

There was even enough Zauberball left for a right-sized pompom.

My Cascade 220 superwash sport hadn’t run out yet, so I couldn’t quit on it. This next hat is Susan Villas Lewis’s Vitruvian Man.

The Vitruvian Man, at least the one who isn’t a hat, is DaVinci’s drawing of a man stretched out in a circle, with his arms stuffed into the top of a square and his legs stuffed in the bottom of a circle. You know, this guy:

It’s a fun motif to knit. The entire hat is very cleverly designed.

Check out the great crown.

I have a big gumball sized ball of Zauberball left. And what’s left of my Cascade 220 sport isn’t quite a golf-ball sized ball. Every useful bit is used up.

More for your neck

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This pretty is Betangled Cowl by Jennifer Weissman. It’s designed for an Aran weight yarn. But I decided to knit it in Stonehedge Fiber Shepherd’s wool, a worsted. It was mid-December during a dreary stretch of days. I succumbed to the lemon yellow colorway. And that luxurious 24-stitch cable. Yep. 24-stitch. I was finally able to use a gigantic j-hook cable needle that I’ve never used before to hold those 12 stitches.

I obviously knew that I was under gauge. This wool, in these stitches, wasn’t happy until I moved down to a size 8 (and 7) US-sized needle. Since it was going to be lemon yellow come hell or high water, I decided I’d accept a narrower version and just add some pattern repeats. My gauge was 20 stitches to 4 inches (not the 17 the pattern calls for) and 34 rows to 4 inches (not 26).  I knit the medium size and ended up knitting 10 pattern repeats (rather than the 8 that the pattern called for). Mine is 9.5 inches tall and 36.5 inches edge-to-edge.

I like this one. A lot. The pattern is available for purchase here on Ravelry.

I thought I’d sworn off buttoned cowls. Generally, even lightweight buttons add more weight to a cowl than I prefer. And then the cowl sags along the button-band line. But Betangled bewitched me. If I make this again, I believe I’ll do a provisional cast-on, ditch the buttons, and graft the ends together. I’m not sure how I’d manage the ribbing sections though.

This looks and wears much better on my glass head than it does on me. It seems to take more precise wearing skills than I possess. But I’ve been advised “Just put it on and ignore it because it’s beautiful.”

I sewed a button on both sides of the top buttonhole so that when the cowl flips forward, there will be a button.

This is Ann Budd’s Crimson Leaves Cowl. Mine is knit in Sun Valley Farms MCN fingering weight. The yarn is a great mix of 80% merino, 10% cashmere goat, and 10% nylon,

This cowl was a lot of work. 252 stitches and size 2 US needles. There are no resting rows in the 4-round, 18-stitch repeat lace pattern. But the pattern is not complicated. To the awake and alert, anyway. I am not a skilled lace knitter and I was able to manage it without lifelines, just using stitch markers to frame the pattern repeats.

I’ve not knit many fingering weight cowls. Glass head is able to keep it from flopping over at the neck and showing its reverse side. I’m not so successful with that because, well, because I move. Despite it’s floppiness I like this cowl and have already gotten a good deal of wear out of it.

I used Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind-off, as the pattern suggests. It’s very elastic, which assures that the bind-off won’t bind. And it does leave the fabric somewhat wavy. But it’s not much of an echo of the waviness of the cast-on edge. Sort of the nature of the beast, I guess. This cowl needed a rather stern wet block to open up the pattern. I wasn’t successful, though, in matching the bind-off edge to the handsome cast-on edge.

This next pattern is Martina Behm’s great freebie, Wolkig. It’s another fingering-weight cowl. But this one-row pattern (that’s not a misprint) is incredibly easy to knit.

Behm explains: “The Wolkig cowl is twisted and has extra volume due to strategically worked decreases and increases, so it can be stretched a little to fit comfortably over your head when putting it on. Stretched in the other direction (lengthwise), it will fit snugly around your neck without leaving any gaps where the cold wind might sneak in.” Here’s a look at it off-neck.

Wolkig, which means “cloud” in German, is even interesting on its non-public side, as this next photo shows. That’s especially true worked in a variegated yarn like my Zauberball by Schoppel-Wolle. Zauberball is a sportweight, though maybe a lightweight sportweight. It still worked out well.

This is my fourth Wolkig. You might want to check out the rest. I measure the success of this pattern partly by the fact that every Wolkig I’ve knit is sprucing up somebody else’s neck. My knitworthy folks like this pattern a lot. I really should knit one for me.