Tag Archives: Calorimetry

Favorite: Calorimetry

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Many knitters have patterns they knit, and enjoy knitting, repeatedly.  My newest welcome repeat is Kathryn Schoendorf’s Calorimetry, a free pattern published in Knitty, Winter 2006.

I’ve posted three Calorimetries in the past several months and have recently completed my fourth. It’s a wide headband. It’s an ear warmer. It’s a hat specially adapted for folks with pony tails. It’s a fun quick pattern that knits up in about two hours, even allowing ample time for distractions.

Click on one of the photos below for a slide show sampling showing Calorimetry off in different yarns and colorways: The multi-color two are in Plymouth Yarns Boku. The pink and yellow one is Brown Sheep Lanaloft Worsted. And the denim one is in Paton’s SWS Soy Wool Stripes.

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Calorimetry, again

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Yes, again. This is my third Calorimetry: a headscarf that covers the ears and adjusts to assorted head sizes by clever use of short rows with unwrapped stitches. It’s great for the pony-tailed, because it allows one’s tail to wag freely.

Calorimetry is designed by Kathryn Schoendorf. Her free pattern was published in the Winter, 2006 Knitty.  13,514 Ravelers have completed the project and posted it on their project pages. This one is knitted in Brown Sheep Lanaloft worsted weight wool in the aptly named colorway: Salt Water Taffy. I’ve always thought it fun to knit dead-of-winter accessories in colors that evoke summer.  You can complete this quick knit in 2-3 hours.  100 yards will be enough. This version fastens with a big, pink vintage button that I found in my mom’s button jar.  

Why Calorimetry?  It is the scientific term for the measurement of heat loss or gained.  A somewhat appropriate name for what is basically a knitted headscarf.

Off-Season Knitting

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I have always been prone to off-season knitting. I’ve been known to knit heavy wool afghans in the summer. You put the work in a flexible clothes basket so it doesn’t have to rest on your lap. In the dead of winter I may be knitting something in light spring colors, just to brighten up the mood some.

It will be awhile before anyone can wear this Calorimetry--an earwarming headband. Knitty’s free pattern has been knit and posted 13,160 times on Ravelry and it’s waiting to be knit in more than 6,000 Rav queues. It is blast to make, all the more so because even a pretty pokey knitter will have it completed in 3 hours. All the short rows are left unwrapped, creating small holes in the fabric, which gives the wearer flexibility in adjusting the button. This Calorimetry is knit with about 89 yards of Plymouth Boku, a 95% wool, 5% silk mix. Just a tad softer hand than Noro Kureyon.

I am working on a major slow poke blanket at the moment. It’s a fun slip stitch (mosaic) pattern, but after about 20 rows in a sitting I’m fighting to keep awake. So the new plan is that I am going to make some quick knits to give myself a break. This headband pattern is threatening to become my new favorite quick knit. I’m trying to convince myself it will look good even with my short hair. And when it’s on a head it doesn’t look a bit like lips. Not a bit.

Ravelry Blog Swap

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This week I participated in the Ravelry Blog Group’s yarn swap. The “rules?”  Simple. Choose a skein of yarn from your stash and mail it to your swap partner at the appointed time. It might be a very special skein. It might be something left over from a project. It might be something that’s been in your stash for years because Aunt Ethyl wanted you to have it but it’s so ugly you’ve never been able to figure out what to do with it. NessaMcTastic on Rav, who blogs at mixedmartialartsandcrafts.com was my partner.

I lucked out! No “vintage” wintuk acrylic 100% nonallergic orange-green-tan mix. Instead Vanessa sent me a lovely denim-colored skein of Patons SWS (Soy Wool Stripes). The yarn is an Aran weight, with subtle color gradations.

The yardage is 110, so whatever I chose to make it needed to be dainty, size-wise.  I thought about knitting fingerless mitts. That would have worked. And I like to knit teddy bears in colors that do not appear in nature, so that thought competed for my attention too.

I decided to use the yarn search on Ravelry to inspire me on a one-skein project choice. There are currently 9627 projects posted on Rav knitted or crocheted with Patons SWS. The yarn is stashed 5438 times. Even in the first several screens of projects, one kept catching my eye. A cool, quick-knit, headband/headscarf, from Knitty’s winter 2006 edition: Calorimetry. It looked like it would show off the color changes in an interesting way and the yardage looked about right.

My Calorimetry definitely captures the color changes. I was short a bit on the yardage, but was able to modify the end of the pattern to complete the increases in fewer rows. My version is very close to the original. I am well satisfied.

I always have an interest in how patterns pick up their goofy names these days. Calorimetry is a scientific term for the measurement of heat lost or gained. So, I guess this headband is supposed to be a way to, to, to reduce heat loss or or or something like that.

Thanks Vanessa a/k/a NessaMcTastic!