Tag Archives: Stonehedge Fiber Mill Crazy

Crazy: think winter

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The world is roasting. I’m thinking about hats. Winter hats. Warm ones. Worn in snowy cold times. I’ve found some snow-filled photos of previously unblogged hats. Maybe it can be a breath of cool air. Probably a crazy idea.

Crazy is what Michigan’s Stonehedge Fiber Mill calls this version of its sport weight merino. Those colors have enchanted many a knitter. And, methinks, it’s exactly those colors that can keep the yarn languishing in stash while we look for what to do with it. I had plans for these 3 skeins. What plans? I don’t recall. But I remember getting help at a yarn shop with a great selection of colorways because I wanted two skeins that were somewhat alike and one skein that was different but would work well with the other two. Time passed. And passed.

Last winter I decided it was time to knit up some of the beautiful yarn in my stash. Crazy qualified as beautiful. I retreated to one of my favorite places in the knitting universe: hat patterns.

This is Katushika’s Wurm, a great Rav freebie. I had a lot of blue in my skeins. I decided to manipulate the colors a bit so that a band of red and some brown would anchor the middle of the hat.

The crown of the hat just happened as the colors in the skein progressed. I’ve knit 7 of these now and only have this one left in my gift stash. They’re a popular gift pick. You can adjust the extravagant slouch, of course. But I like them super slouchy. Rav has more than 17,000 project pages of Wurms. You might want to add one of your own.

Next up is Chrissy Graham’s River District Hat. In her pattern page version, the hat is beautifully sedate. In my version it looks like it could use some sedation. But I really like it like this!

This time I just let the colors progress as they lined up in the skein. That’s often when Crazy is at its best.

Here’s another River District Hat and another example of how Crazy colors progress in a skein.

That short length of black and white worked out perfectly to frame the crown decreases.

And, all together now, a long sigh for how nice that snow looks.

Michigan Crazy

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wurm_head

This Wurm is Crazy. That’s Katherina Nopp’s wildy popular Wurm hat pattern (mine is Wurm # 11,992 on Ravelry) and Stonehedge Fiber’s Crazy f/k/a Crazy Mill Ends. Nopp writes that Wurm has 3 special features: you can wear it with whatever kind of hair, it’s unisex, and it keeps ears extra warm. There are zillions of cool Wurms walking around on warm heads all over the world. The pattern was originally written in German and it’s been translated into English, French, Italian, and Finnish.

Of some interest on the extra warm ears part? That’s not one-by-one rib you’re looking at. It’s stockinette folded inward at a garter stitch turning ridge.

Here’s a better look at the top.

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Stonehedge Fibers says that Crazy is made from mill ends of Shepherd’s Wool and that it’s 100% merino. It’s considered a DK weight.

I used a different skein of Crazy, but actually they are all different, for another Chinle Cowl. This cowl, by Stephannie Tallent of Sunset Cat Designs, is a personal favorite. I’ve knit it four times in the past year and still don’t have one to call my own.

The work went from this:

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To this:

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My glass head finds it very cozy.

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Vera

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This is Vera, another Annita Wilschut pattern, available on her website and in her Ravelry Shop. Like Joris, it is a wonder of a pattern. No errors. Clearly written. Lots of photos to help out if a knitter gets confused.

One of the features I much appreciate is that, when you finish a Wilschut knit, you don’t have to spend an equal number of hours sewing tons of little parts together. There is no sewing. That bears repeating. There is no sewing. Well, you do have a stuffing hole to sew closed, but that can’t be helped and is an easy stitching job. I’ve made lots of stuffies in my more than fifty years of knitting. Completing the knitting and finding yourself with a giant pile of small parts to sew together can be daunting.

My Vera is knit in Stonehedge Fiber’s Crazy, a DK weight wool/llama/alpaca mix. It’s always a good idea to use needles a few sizes smaller than what’s recommended on the ballband when knitting toys. You want a close knit so that the stuffing doesn’t show through.

vera4I don’t know where Vera got that bow. I told her that it clashes with her skin tone. I told here that it’s not her color. But she insists she will wear it even in the bathtub. I told her if she’ll give up the bow, I’ll try again on her eyes and mouth to see if she can look a little less odd in the facial feature department. She’s a stubborn little bear. She says she likes the way her face looks and she wants to keep the bow.

This is Crazy

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Friends_meCrazy f/k/a Crazy Mill Ends is Stonehedge Fiber Mills’ merino, alpaca, llama entry into the DK weight class. If it were up to me, I’d gold medal it. Great yarn. My fingers tell me it’s heavy on the merino, which is just fine by me.

This crescent shaped shawl pattern, worked from the bottom up, is by Deby Lake of O/C Knitiot Designs. The only name it bears is Octoberfest Mystery KAL 2012. It’s available on Ravelry for $3.00. The drop stitch fringe is the star, but Lake provides an alternative fringe if dropped stitches don’t catch your fancy.

Here’s a few more views:

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I knit six repeats, rather than four, of the first two stitch patterns. That added some length, which I like. With the added repeats, the shawl used up all but 20 grams of three skeins. Mine is worked on US needle sizes 7 and 8, at a slightly smaller gauge than what the pattern calls for. Crazy was just not happy at the full gauge.

Minus the second skein from the left, here’s how the yarn looked skeined, before it grew up to be a shawl. I just let the colors land every way they wanted to. crazy_stonehedge

Friends Shawl

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Friend_Shawl

This is Friends Shawl or, as my paper pattern calls it, Friends Shawlette. It’s a Joan Sheridan pattern published by Heritage Fiber Publications. If you click on the link you’ll land on a page of thumbnails. Look for one, six rows down and three thumbnails to the right. The sedate wine-colored beauty that looks nothing like mine.

One especially nice feature of the shawl is that it stays put on the shoulders. I added three repeats of the modified feather and fan sections, to increase the length. The shawl is basically a circle with an opening. I had some blocking troubles. Mine did not want to block with a straight edge, so I ended up angling it. I’m satisfied with it, but I may try again to block it straight. It’s a comfy, not overly warm shawl.

This is how it looked skeined up, pre-knit:

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This is Stonehedge Fiber Mills Crazy f/k/a Crazy Mill Ends. It’s a DK weight mix of llama, wool and alpaca. Very lightweight and great fun to knit with. I just let all the colors land where they landed.

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