Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Hey, y’all!

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

I’m still over here, knitting on occasion, dragging my little dog to outdoor events, and wishing the pandemic were over already.

I’ve been getting questions about knitting classes (there aren’t any) and private lessons (scarce and infrequent), and while I applaud your efforts to learn to knit (!) I am not currently teaching at this time. Will I once the pandemic is behind us? Maybe. Do I know for sure one way or the other? Nope.

In the meantime, I am slowly updating the patterns for sale, contemplating making new tutorials, fiddling about with weaving, knitting a scarf for a friend, and trying to plan my Covid vaccine booster and flu shots so they will be optimally effective. All while wearing my mask still.

What are y’all up to? Knit anything cool lately? I’d love to see it!

And if you have any ideas for patterns you’d like to knit, techniques you’d like to see featured in my tutorials, or good ways to convince the cat to jump on the wearable hand knits bandwagon, let me know!

Knit Together

This week, I joined with many of you as we watched in horror the events unfolding at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC. To say that the actions of those who chose to terrorize elected officials, staffers, journalists, and the citizens of the greater DC area was reprehensible is an understatement. 

I am aware that I am not alone in seeing this attempted coup as a line in the sand. For many years, I operated KnitOasis in as non-political a way as possible, avoiding talk of elections and policies. If you follow me on Instagram, or know me outside of the yarn biz, you already know that things changed for me rather drastically in the last 18 months or so. As I became more and more aware of the damage that the current president has inflicted on this country, on our people, and on the world, I began to speak out in favor of reform and change. I believe that the time to silently "stick to my knitting" had passed. 

Several times in the history of America, knitters used their skills and their savvy to serve their country in battles against tyranny and oppression, passing on intelligence through clever stitch work and subversive alliances. 

This week a sitting US president told his followers to storm a building where democracy was being enacted as an election he lost was being certified, and he did it after 2 months of over 60 failed lawsuits attempting to stop the counting of legal votes. It truly boggles my mind that this is something that was allowed to happen in America. They have called for war, for a fight to retain power illegally, and for harm against those who disagree.

In WWII, those who helped the occupying forces were called collaborators and when the war ended these people were publicly reprimanded for their complicity in fighting against their own country. Thus should it be for those who still support the evil being perpetrated by this man and his followers.

The time has come for me to say: if my statements against his racist empire offend you, so be it. I don’t want to knit with collaborators, and I won’t turn a blind eye to injustice. If you agree with me then I encourage you to fight for voting rights, for the rights of all citizens regardless of color, for the return of decency and compassion that trumps hatred and bigotry. Together we can knit a new future of healing and “build back better.”

Happy New Year 2021!

So…2020, amiright???

While I’m trying to hold space for the optimism of some of my friends, I’m also allowing myself the full measure of grim resignation that living in a pandemic for 9 months and counting can bring. Yes, it could have been worse, but also yes, it was bad.

I knitted less than I had planned, I wasn’t able to teach much, and I lost my Rex. I miss seeing friends and I wonder if we will ever be able to go back to the regular Friday pizza night, or Taco Tuesdays or travel or any of the other things we have put on hold.

The good that happened this year really was GOOD, though: I still managed to make some new friends, Biden + Harris won the White House, and Billie Holiday came to live with me. And if you have the chance to meet someone amazing before the world goes completely insane, it makes it all so much better—I highly recommend it.

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The Year of the Sweater was a success, despite the fact that I’m still knitting the sleeves on the sweater I knit for myself (the one for a client and the one for Billie Holiday both turned out great).

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It was also the Autumn of the Hat thanks to a super fun order of adorable Christmas gifts.

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What will 2021 bring? I have no clue. Normally I have business goals for the year that I put in place by the end of each January, but this year, I’m going to wait and see. If it becomes safe to go back to in-person knitting lessons, I will. Meanwhile I have some knitting goals and as always I’ll tackle commissions and new pattern ideas as they come along.

My biggest wish for us all is health, happiness, and community. Cheers to 2021, y’all! 🥂🎉

Fabulous Fair Isle

#01 Nordic Gloves by Fru Soleng. Knit by my daughter (her 1st Fair Isle project!).

Fair Isle Knitting really is fabulous. Daunting at first, knitting stranded Fair Isle quickly became something I enjoyed doing, for several reasons:

• the charts are easy to follow,

• following the chart made it knit up (relatively) quickly,

• the results are amazing,

• it takes just enough extra concentration to do to make it fun

There are rules that define what is a traditional bit of Fair Isle knitting, and there are some knitters that will argue those rules with you. Actually, I might be one of those people.  If you are calling something Fair Isle, but are NOT stranding the colors across the back, but instead are twisting them when changing from one color to the next, then you are knitting Intarsia. The other criteria for something being "Fair Isle" include: using only two colors per row, using only 5 colors or less in the project, and working in the round.

#08 Fair Isle Hat by Mary Ann Stephens, published in Vogue Knitting, Fall 2011. Knit by me.

Stranded Fair Isle knitting is commonly thought to have originated on a cold island in the north of Scotland. The double thickness of fabric created by the strands running along the back of the knitting gives an extra warmth needed for the harsh climate there. The bright colors of Fair Isle knitting also included indigo, which would have been, historically, natural indigo. (See? It's everywhere, once you start looking for it!) The actual origin of stranded knitting seems to be possibly Estonia or even Ancient Egypt, but the popularity of the design can definitely be traced to the tiny Fair Isle.

There are two specific spikes in the trend toward Fair Isle knitting: When the future King of England wore a Fair Isle sweater:

and when designers leaned heavily on Fair Isle in the 1960's:

Does this matter now? Well of COURSE it does. Ralph Lauren famously designed a hat like this one for the 2010 US Olympic team:

Team USA Reindeer Hat by Helena Bristow. Knit by me for my daughter.

And Brooks Brothers is awash with Fair Isle this season, even featuring this on a page of the Christmas 2014 catalog:

It's back and it's better than ever, especially since we can now knit it ourselves, thanks to wonderful yarn choices and patterns galore. Don't like wool (the traditional yarn for traditional Fair Isle)? That's OK, you can use other yarns as well. What? You say you don't really know the first thing about how to knit Fair Isle? No problem. I've been known to teach a class at the drop of a hat!

Mr. Deeds hat. A pattern I designed to teach fabulous Fair Isle. Great beginner project!

This post has been dusted off and run as an encore in conjunction with my current fascination with Fair Isle.