Get Ready to Get Out!

Don't let cold weather or gray skies or rainy clouds keep you from going outside.  Our bodies feel best when we are active.  Though it can be challenging to get moving when it's cold and dreary, these hats are here to help provide warmth and color.

Don't Let the Cold Get You Down

Sometimes certain projects are...

REFRESHING!

I spun the yarn first without a specific project in mind.  It is two ply - one strand from wool mixed with splashes of dyed roving and the other of tencel blended with naturally dyed marigold, indigo, over-dyed green, cochineal, exhaust pot cochineal and goldenrod.  Once I had the yarn, I looked at it's luster and shinny quality.  Then I started knitting.  I liked the image of a triangle shawl draped nicely around one's shoulders or doubled up around one's neck.  The first triangle didn't satisfy the wrapping quality I was looking for, so I ripped it out and started again.  This time, I added a 4 stitch increase every other row, which eventually inverted the triangle.  Then I added short rows to get more wing-span breadth.  I think I'm going to keep this piece.

I am The Roving Knitter

I've been working on this project for a while, but it's up and running now.  See more at my website, therovingknitter.com

Is Spring Here Yet?

The first day of spring was a couple days ago, yet it snowed all day yesterday in the mountains of western North Carolina.  I had pulled out my cut-off shorts and sandals just to get blasted by mother nature's snow blower.  Gusts of wind flung snowflakes down from the sky up into the trees and then splatted onto our kitchen windows.  It is still so cold!  So my hats and mittens came back out of the closet to the easy-to-grab place right by the door.  

It's still hat weather that's for sure.  If you're in the Asheville area, get blown into Asheville Shades and Market Basket to find some hand-knit creations by your happy neighborhood knitter. It's the shop with the blue and white awning -- 36 Battery Park Avenue, right across from the historic Grove Arcade.

Asheville Shades and Market Basket

Window display downtown Asheville, NC

Stay warm!!

Spring Shawls

Yes, knitwear is functional.  It keeps us warm. But sometimes it's nice if it keeps us just a little warm.  Lightweight yarn, knitted into simple delicate shawls, provides the right amount of warmth and comfort on those first days of spring when the sun has come out but it's still chilly.  I usually don't dress warmly enough due to my excitement that spring is here!  But then find that it isn't actually here yet.  Wearing a lightweight type of neck scarf, I can act less cold even if my toes are freezing in my sandals and my ankles could use sock coverage. At least my neck and shoulders are warm!

Handspun and handknit wool and tencel.
Wool is dyed by the reaction of copper and ammonia.

Two-ply handspun

These shawls can be folded over and worn as scarves with the triangle point in the front or the back.  Stretch them width-wise and wrap them twice around or stretch them length-wise for a traditional shawl style worn down over the shoulders.

These two items are available for purchase by email or on my etsy site.  They are handspun and all natural fibers.  See them at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EmolynKnits

Color Everywhere

Sometimes customers don't have a lot of preference when they ask for a hat.  They say, "You're the artist!"  Other times, they know just what they want, exactly what they want, and I do my best to create what they are imagining - in knitwear.  I hung up the phone after speaking with a customer like this.  I pulled yarn from the shelves in my studio to match the description I'd just heard.  I looked at the balls of yarn and arranged them on the table, then put them in another order, then another.  It turned out, I was about to leave for Hawaii. I was going to have some fun with this one.

The Trial Run

The Finished Hat

The Matching Infinity Scarf

The View

As I was knitting, a rainbow appeared on the horizon.  I looked at it for a while.  There it was - a burst of color, like a wink from nature saying, "Yeah, I love color too."

Hand knit one-of-a-kind HATS!! -- Coming to a craft fair near you!!

Come visit me at my booth next weekend, October 5th and 6th from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the John C. Campbell Folk School Fall Festival.  This festival is something special.  It has been going strong for forty years! I will be sharing a booth with my mother Martha Owen and my sister Annie Fain Liden. Click their names to see their work.  We will have special handmade knitwear, hand spun yarn, fleeces, blankets, scarves, paintings, and handmade books for sale -- everything you need to cozy up for the winter (except for a fuzzy kitty cat or a hot cup of tea.) We probably will have tea cozies though! 

I wrote about this wonderful gathering a few years ago on the folk school blog. 

Read more here: Folk School Blog - Fall Festival

October is CRAFT MONTH in western North Carolina.  

"Winters'a'comin'!"