Marmor is finished and I love her! The minimal design is modern, classic, and wearable. Marmor is knit in one piece with an Audrey Hepburn-esque stand-up shawl collar with a knitted-as-you-go i-cord edging. The pattern also uses a top-down set-in contiguous sleeve technique that looks beautiful in garter stitch. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow, although at the beginning, I confess to not knowing where the directions were taking me. I decided to suspend my knitting reality and just follow the directions and knit onward. Good decision. It's in the in-progress picture below when it finally dawned on me what was unfolding. All at once, the back collar and i-cord edging, the right and left contiguous shoulder shaping, the back, along with their slipped stitch faux seams are in process. All that will become clear after an hour of knitting and you'll realize it's an ingenious pattern. See the picture below.

I love and adore the look and texture of garter stitch but garter fabric is quite dense and it can make a sweater droop. Care must be taken with yarn selection and/or gauge as you will have to deal with droop if you don't. Knitting garter in a very tight gauge is one way you can keep garter from drooping. Another way is selecting a lightweight yarn. Luft from Woolfolk was a perfect choice for this pattern. Because it is such a "big" yarn (knitting to a bulky weight), yet is very lightweight, Luft is a perfect choice for a large garment such as a coat or long sweater.  You can knit a big coat that won't be too heavy to wear (or knit) and won't sag from being too heavy. The yarn itself is what makes this sweater so special. Luft is the fluffy kitten of hand knitting yarns and feels like a velvet cloud in your hand.  Heaven. Only the most unlucky knitter wouldn't think this was uber soft next to the skin. It is a blend of merino wool and organic cotton making it a perfect year 'round yarn.

I cannot imagine the process that makes a yarn both bulky and lightweight at the same time, so I dissected a strand to see how it was made. It looks like a netted tube into which soft fluff has been blown. Folks, this is a special yarn, truly gorgeous; very soft and tame to knit, yet sturdy.  I would not hesitate to wear my sweater anywhere, and wear it often, but I will take care and hand wash it.

While knitting the pattern with this lovely yarn, I couldn't help but feel that this is an exciting time for hand knitters. That's us!  The industry has grown so much over the last decades with so many new and time-saving techniques to master (contiguous sleeves comes to mind) and so many gorgeous yarns to try such as Luft.  Indie dyers and designers are now easy to find, and then there's Ravelry, God bless them, who make it all so easy for us to find each other for social connections, help and encouragement. And then fine yarn companies like Woolfolk who are making supremely gorgeous yarns for us. We are truly in a golden age of hand knitting.

After knitting Marmor, I'm looking forward to Woolfolk's new fall/winter pattern collection and I'll share that with you when it debuts on Saturday.

Garden hydrangeas have to be the easiest flower to preserve and now's the time, or at least near the time, to do just that by air drying. You'll know the time is right when the blooms begin to lose their pigment and start to fade. Our hydrangeas are bright pink in spring and early summer, fading to dusty pink in late summer, to hazy greyed shades of lavenders and pinks when they are dried indoors. Their opalescent beauty brings a hint of nature's fall artistry that is soon to come.

To dry, snip the stem and remove the leaves. Place in a vase and fill water to just one inch above the cut. Allow to dry indoors away from direct heat and sun for a few weeks until the water has evaporated and the petals are papery and fully dry. When dry, they last for months and are pretty in bouquets, wreaths, on the Christmas tree, and limited only by your imagination.

 Thank you for stopping by.

Every season we see many new knitting books, and I try to look at all of them, then share my favorites here with you. I don't often knit for men, but I know so many of you do, and my favorite designer for men's knitware, Martin Storey, has come out with a new book just for the guys. Jouneyman has 12 modern classics knit in Rowan Felted Tweed, Felted Tweed Aran, and the newish Hemp Tweed. The cover says it's for men, but they all look perfectly unisex to me. And beautiful. This is one of the handsomest knitting books for men I've seen in ages, probably since Martin published his last book for men! Inspiration comes from the leading men of past decades; from Cooper to McQueen, and everyone in between!  So many knitters are fond of old movies and count this knitter as one. I love TCM so much!  When I was reading though the book I was trying to think of favorite movies these actors have starred in and how much pleasure they still give. Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando. Some Like It Hot with Tony Curtis. Gone With The Wind with Gable. And here's one of my favorite Christmas movies--Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum and an adorable Janet Leigh. Try to see it this Christmas if it's new to you. You'll be enchanted.

The book can be purchased at your local Rowan stockist and also as individual PDFs on Ravelry or the Rowan website. 

The photos are shot at and around the Brooklyn Works in Sheffield, England, not too far from Huddersfield, the Yorkshire home of Rowan. The building has an interesting history and has been thankfully saved from demolition and is now used for residential and offices.

Do you ever download a pattern or purchase some yarn or cast on for a new project or all of the above and wonder, "What on earth am I doing?"  Well, this is me today. I've signed up for Joji Locatelli's fall KAL with not one, but two projects. But rather than feeling overwhelmed by these two new additions and the numerous works-in-progress I already have scattered about, I instead choose to feel like I'm a very lucky knitter. Here's why: