Kotare Icorded Vertebrae - NanacindyNZ's yarns

This year my dear friend Cindy has rebooted her indie yarn company nanacindynz and kindly gifted me a skein of 100% Superwash New Zealand Merino worsted to knit with and review.

Cindy themes her products as New Zealand/Aotearoa focused with detailed descriptions of the inspiration of each of her products.

The Kotare yarn I knit with is described as: "Kotare (pronounced Cohr-Tah-Reah - the R is rolled)

The Kotare (New Zealand Kingfisher) used to hang out in the gully next to my house on a branch overhanging the stream, where it would fish for its lunch.

The New Zealand sub-species... is distinguished from the Australian sub-species by its larger size and broader bill and generally by the distinctiveness of its green and blue colours." 

Cindy is very generous with her put-up, even though its sold as 100grams = 150m my skein was 140g and therefore 192m!

I used the yarn to knit a Newborn Vertebrae which I modified by knitting the worsted on 4mm to get a six month size and using an icord edging and therefore called it Icorded Vertebrae on Ravelry.

The yarn knit up really well one 4mm needles, soft and squishy but with great stitch definition. I really love the stripy look on little kids and the chunks of colour on the icord caston, edging and bindoff look great too. I will definitely use the icord edging on other kids cardigans, its such a soft and flat finish on stockinette fabric.

Due to the generous put-up I ended up with 38g left! I thought before I weighed it that it would be a struggle to get the full length sleeves with the 100g. But fortunately Cindy is a very generous dyer. So I've got 57m to make a wee hat or something, yah!

I've washed the finished cardi in prep for the baby and there was no dye leakage. Cindy really knows her stuff, I've got socks from last time she was dyeing who's colour is still very true. 

There's nothing better than superwash wool for kids and worsted is even more ideal as it knits up so quickly. There are also lots of great American patterns available for this weight.

I would definitely recommend Cindy's work, so please check out her NanancindyNZ etsy shop and her NanacindyNZ facebook page.

She also dyes sock yarn in superwash merino and bamboo and merino roving for the spinners. There are also gorgeous New Zealand themed stitch markers.

Marmalade Three-Way(s)

Marmalade Mark I
Respect to Liking Pineapples

Start 1.5kg citrus = five grapefruit and one lemon
Citrus into suprêmes, peel skin off and chop
Reserve membranes, seeds, pith

Boil remaining citrus & skin = 550g in 1.25L, 250g of reserved bits in muslin bag for one hour

Cut muslin bag in strainer pot over pot of boiled fruit & peel

Left for ages as went out etc

Added 460g sugar, 35g of Hansells Pectin (1/2 packet) to the around 1kg of water & fruit

Boiled for 24 min stirring, testing every six till very thick and dark orange, bubbling like hockey pockey.

Yielded two jars of extremely well set marmalade, almost like fruit cheese. I definitely could have stopped boiling earlier.

Mamalade Mark II
Respect to Naturally by Trisha

Start 1.5kg citrus = six grapefruit and one lemon
Cut off ends as if to supreme, cored with apple corer and removed obvious pips
Reserve cores, pips
Slice with food processor disk finely, discarding large pithy pieces and slicing large peel pieces

Boil remaining citrus = 1.1kg in 1L of water, reserved bits in muslin bag for 45min as it started sticking

Left overnight as busy

Added 550g sugar,  35g of Hansells Pectin (1/2 packet)

Boiled for 12min at 115 degrees (got to nearly 120 at the end) with minimal stirring, testing every six till set as obvious through leaving in small glass bowl and separating into halves by finger and flaked off a spoon.

Yielded three jars plus 75mL cook's treat of soft, runny and very nice marmalade. I'm not sure its sour enough for my taste but I think I would struggled to set it with less. I think the slices could be thicker and larger but that would be hard to achieve without a larger food processor pipe or the effort to slice it myself.

Marmalade Mark III

Same as II but just cut core end off not whole top
Slice with FP disk thicker

Soak remaining = 1.4kg in 1L overnight

Boil remaining citrus = 1.6kg, reserved bits in muslin bag for 45min as sticking

Left two nights as busy

Added 500g sugar, 70g Hansells Pectin (1 packet)

Boiled for 6min at 105 degrees, burnt bottom and caramelised. Was very brown and seemed lightly jellified so stopped. Definitely sets quicker using all the pectin.

Yielded five jars of tart, runny and slightly caramelised marmalade with large chunks of fruit. I still like it but its an acquired taste as its slightly burned but tart. I think this would have been the perfect recipe with a bit more sugar and unburned!

WIP roundup aka do I have the right to knit a sweater

Actual WIPs
Noro Linen Bits (see above) - Most successful socks ever, finished one in ten days, going well on the second.

Nightwatch Lily - Not being sure if it will get much wear by my daughter has put me off knitting it. I hope to finish it before the end of the year but its not a priority in my knitting mind.

Hibernating
4 pairs of Socks - Vinnland are too hard, Hungry Bees pattern is stupid, Twin Rib is boring, Jays are tedious and tricky

Red Twisty Turvy - Will try to get it done before Autumn

Gotland Driftwood - Need to prepare and spin fibre to finish, not on the cards right now

Rock Island - This pattern kills, don't have the time for fancy lace.

Finally a dragon Gail!

I've finally finished my Gail aka Nightsong shawl in the lovely Grrrl Shape Yarn Silk Merino Sock in Wyrmberg a variegated yarn with silver, green and purple to look like a dragon from Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic.

Here's a closeup of the tip which I messed up slightly due to the confusing double yarn over instructions, more details on its Ravelry Page.

It took me two years and its kind of too big for what I find easy to wrap around me but I'm glad I did it. It also encouraged me to do another shawl which I'm soaring through.

Here's a preview: yes that's handpun rainbow pastel yarn! And my daughter is 'knitting'.

Pear Jam

I almost had a fail on this jam but I saved it just in time.

Ingredients
550g Pear, peeled and chopped
100g Apple, peeled and chopped
6 cups of water
1 cup of sugar
30 mL of lemon juice (one small)
Bit of zest

Added fruit and 2 cups of water, heated for 45min, adding further 4 cups as it dried out. Mouled and added sugar. Heated for about 15min, didn't check quick enough and almost burned. However succeeded and ended up with one jar of sweet thick fruit spread.

I really enjoyed the hints of lemon I got, next time I will add more.

Grape jam journey in Autumn

Jam
So far I've done five batches of grape jam:

1) 1.5kg of fruit to 4 cups water, strained everything and then added 4 cups of sugar, heated for ages till it jelled, ended up with four jars of soft jelly.

2) 1kg of fruit with no water, separated innards from skins, heated innards and put through moulee and food processed skins. Used 500g of sugar, jelled very quickly after 15 min, resulted in one jar and one tiny jar of very strong jam. Followed the method of The Waitakere Redneck's Kitchen: Grape Jam

3) 1kg of fruit with 1 cup of water, strained everything and then added 2 cups of sugar, set after 15 min and produced one jar and three little jars of nice standard sweet jam.

4) 1kg of fruit with 4 cups of water, strained everything and then added 2 cups of sugar. I added some of the skins in too and it set after 30 min but stuck to the bottom of the pan and got very dark. Made one jar of slightly overcooked, slightly chunky jam.

5) 1kg of fruit, separated innards from skins, heated innards and at the same time softened skins in a cup of water over low heat.  Used 2 cups of sugar, jelled after 15 min. I put half of the skins in the jam and then topped up the jars with the remaining skins. Resulted in two jams of chunky jam. Adapted the method of The Waitakere Redneck's Kitchen: Grape Jam

I'd say that method three was my favourite method, quick, great result and good yield.

Knitting
I've just finished an Autumnal cardigan for my daughter and I'm planning a new cardigan for myself in purple Perendale wool from Skeinz.

Am I creative?

in threes: a baby cardigan size 6m, knit with Malabrigo Worsted in Applewood with Buttons for Benji buttons, Ravelry link
Knit with no creativity!

I've recentlty joined a creative Mum's group which I really enjoying attending. However I feel like a bit of a pretender as I don't really consider knitting to a pattern creative. The other Mums are painters, quilters and card makers. They choose what they are going to make, put the bits together in the colours that are pleasing and make it. In knitting I choose the yarn, choose the pattern and follow it. I do a bit of adapting but not in a creative way, just for practicality or to work around problems like gauge.

Whenever I have done psychometrics I end up testing analytical rather than creative. When I think about it something I love about knitting is doing the math for adapting gauge, where to place the decreases and how to use a completely different weight yarn than that intended for a pattern.

But surely doing a craft is creative? It just doesn't feel like it yet. If I was designing new patterns, colour work or stitch patterns I'd feel differently. I don't think I'm a pretender to do attend a creative Mum's group its just that I don't specifically have the creative urge in general. I love to knit but I'm not sure I'm creative in knitting or the other hand based hobbies I do. Analytical Mum, that's more me.

Monday Muffin: Pineapple, Orange & Ginger Muffins

Pineapple, Orange and Ginger Muffins for morning tea with a cup of Twinings Christmas Tea with milk. The tea is in Paragon Bride's Choice china and the muffin is also on a Paragon saucer, pattern name unknown but mark indicates it’s from 1921 to 1933.

The Muffins

I made Pineapple, Orange & Ginger Muffin from Simon and Alison Holst's More Marvellous Muffins, avialable from their website for NZ $13.50 as I had 1/3 can of 425g crushed pineapple leftover after making pizzas on the weekend. I didn't have quite enough for the recipe and had drained the juice so increased the amount of orange juice and crystallised ginger.

I like the flavour, not too sweet and reasonably fruity. Next time I would up the crystallised ginger and put in some ground ginger too. Perhaps it would have tasted more fruity if I'd had the right amount of pineapple but at this amount I can't really taste it.

Experimenting

I wanted to try using the muffin liners which make transportation easier, here's a side shot of unlined (left) and lined (right).

One of the results of using the liners was that the muffins became soggy, as you can see the bottom four and half in the middle on the right had liquid come through while baking. I thought it would be orange juice but its actually butter as its now hardened up. I think this is a normal thing but I do think the unlined muffins taste better due to the crust.

Make again?

Yes I would but with the right amount of pineapple, more crystallised ginger and some ground ginger. Perhaps even some ground cloves would be nice with the orange.

Granny G Podcast

One thing as a New Zealand crafter that I've always wanted was a New Zealand craft podcast. There are lots of great podcasts and blogs out there and I love many of them but just as I especially love reading blogs from New Zealanders I really wanted to listen to a podcast by a New Zealander.

I would have been happy with someone just having a 20min chat about their knitting but wow we got so much with than that thanks to the wonderful GrannyG's podcast: Crafternoon Tea with GrannyG.

Not only does GrannyG talk about her knittings she talks about her sewing, spinning, weaving, baking, crocheting (is that all of them, think so). She also does wonderful interviews of New Zealanders who are involved in the fibre arts, everyone from the very famous like Margaret Stove through to Gottland sheep farmer Hamish.

I salute GrannyG for her fantastic podcast and encourage you all to go listen.

Cast offs & WIPs & a UFO

I've had a good week, two cast offs, hurrah! I don't think this has ever happened to me before.

First was my Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl which was a way of dealing with an odd pale green fingering yarn called Daphne I didn't want to make into socks. I'm really happy with it, quite big and soft. I think it looks quite fashionable, which is awesome. I very inexpertly blocked it, but it came out alot better than before blocking.

Second was Camo Gentleman - casual socks for hubby. Nanacindynz did a lovely job on this yarn for me, I'm really going to miss her yarn when I run out. I've still got 50g left of this yarn, 150g of Party dress and 100g of Aroha though. I like the simple pattern and that the yarn colour is a bit different on each sock, one has much paler green stripes than the other.

On to WIPs

I've got serious work to do on the finishing chart of Haruni to get it done. I do hope to get it done this month but its not knitting I can do in the car or anywhere I can get distracted.

My grey Los Monos Locos (Monkey) are now my car knitting, I'm zooming through the ankle of the second one at the moment. I'd like to get them done this month too.

The very stalled Vinnlands look great but the tricky pattern makes me tire of them after one row. I think I will try and finish them before I start another pair of sock, we'll see.

The baby twisty turnies's needles have been stolen for the Haruni so its stopped at the moment. I think it looks good but I wish I'd waited to get some soft merino, but I do like the colour. I'd like to get it done by mid-year.

The matchy-matchy cardi just needs sewing up, which I'm scared of. Like picking up for the ribbing around the front, I'm sure I'll do it inexpertly and make a mistake. Again I hope to get it done mid-year.

The horrible UFO of doom is my Mum's horizontal stripe scarf, I hate it and the horse it rode in on. I might finish it one day but if I make my Mum possum socks for her birthday I hope she'll forgive me if I don't.

Ten shawls in 2010

In this first year of the ten-ties, I'm quite keen to try to knit ten shawls. This is definitely an aspirational goal and I'm happy to include the shawl I started last year. I'm really enjoying shawls at the moment, and they are perfect for all the fingering weight yarn I have collected for sock knitting.

Here's what I think I'd like to do:

1. Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl in VP Daphne 
• I'm 2/3s through this one having started in December last year
• A bit stalled as its boring now and there's no finishing chart
2. Haruni in Wollmeise Ballerina
• I've only been working on this for five days but I am going really well
• Halfway through the second out of four repeats of Chart A
• With Chart B being an exciting and beautiful biggie I'm feeling very motivated to get there
• I love the almost single ply nature of the Wollmeise, beautiful stitch definition and no splits
3. Northern Lights
• I love how this looks but it maybe a bit boring and I'm not sure if the yarn I have has a long enough repeat
• Yarn options
• NF Fruit Salad
• NC Aroha
4. Swallowtail Shawl
5. Adamas
6. Percy Shawl
7. Something else?
8. Entomology
9. Ishbel?
10. Gail?

I may come back and re-post this list with editing later on, but good motivation to do it now.

2ply manly socks?

I'd love to make some manly socks in Touch Yarn 2ply in 190 It'd be brave to make 2ply man socks but the socks would be so dense and lovely I'm sure I could do it. I'd probably do a basic rib.

Freeform

I'd love to try freeform knitting one day, if I did I'd love to try  a kit to get me inspired, I like this Freeform Knitting Yarn Packs from Fab fibres:

I've never tried freeform but I have this work on my wall at work to remind me of my knittyness in the middle of the crazy

Blendy's NZ Yarn Sampler

I've never bought a knitting sampler but I'm keen to try this one: Blendy's NZ Yarn Sampler. The box will have 15 samples of yarn and embellishments. It has some of my faves in it Needlefood and Vintage Purls. Other ones I haven't heard of sound fun, like the Nut & Bee illustrations.

Grrrl Shaped Yarns

My friend Brooklynne has been working away at her online yarn shop for a while now. Creating her own yarn line, thinking about different options for selling other yarns and knitting items like needles. She's launched the shop today as Grrrl Shaped Yarns (GSY) with three fingering weight yarns and eight different Knit Picks fixed needles in sock sizes

In the top left we have Fire Island - 50/50 Merino Silk for NZ $25, top right Life On Mars - Superwash Merino $20 and Theresa - 50/50 Merino Silk $20 of which 50% of all proceed will be donated to UC Davis Cancer Research.

I love these yarns, they are well priced for hand dyed quality yarns which would look great in socks or shawls. I think Theresa would look gorgeous as soft colour changes in silk, lovely.

I wish Brooklynne good luck with her business and look forward to seeing the new yarns she dyes.

Needlefood Sock club shipment 1 [Spoiler]

Here's the first shipment of Needlefood's second sock club:

I really love the thematic colours of this sock club pack, very clever. Items included are a 100g skein in the club colour 'For the Girls', a semi-solid pink, chocolate fudge, floral Soak, a 2.5mm crochet hook for picking up dropped sts, a floral brooch and four st markers.

Here's the yarn 'For the Girls', 100g of 80% merino, 20% nylon fingering weight yarn with 352m per skein. It's a semi sold with quite a strong contrast between the dark pink and the light pink.

I couldn't decide what to make with this yarn, I considered Monkey, Pomatomus, Love Struck Hearts and Oblique Openwork before deciding on Nanners.

I think Love Struck Hearts looked really nice but I decided I wanted a repeating pattern with distorting angling sts like Monkey.

So here's the Nanners:

I really like the fish scale like look of these, one day I'm hoping to do Pomatomus which is sort of an advanced version of this.

I'm glad to be doing a Wendy Johnson pattern, her blog is great and I'd love to buy her book Socks from the Toe Up. I love toe ups so Wendy patterns are perfect for me.

Rationally knitting socks for the toe up

I've learnt a painful lesson, cutting a 100g skein of yarn in half does not equal two balls of the same yardage. I knitted on yarn over cable sock doing 39 repeats of the 4rw pattern from the heel and cast off. I knit the second to 36 repeats of the 4rw pattern and didn't have enough to cast off. I attempted to spit splice with the small amount of yarn left from the other sock but it didn't work, perhaps because the yarn is superwash. So then I tried a knot and kept knitting and it looked ugly. So I gave up and undid both, ended up with 33 repeats of the 4rw pattern which are still lovely long socks and actually fit better too.

& So I am left with a nub of yarn. Now I used to think that avoiding this was the whole point of knitting from the toe up. However the stress of trying to get equally long right to the last tiny bit of yarn socks is just too much. Next time I should just pick a length, know I'll end up with two nubs of yarn. Pick something from 653 patterns to knit with 1-285 yards and have fun. Long live the nubs.

No hole Monkey or No Yarn Over Monkey

I love the Los Monos Locos version of the classic and much loved Monkey pattern by Cookie A. I have done one pair in a beautiful 'Odd Ball' (limited edition) variegated yarn called Martinborough Vines by New Zealand dyer Needle Food. I did a twisted rib cuff for only a few rounds and should probably do more next time as they fall done a bit.

I would love to try the pattern without yarn overs, to make a moving rib but not lacey sock. The options I've seen are:

Cayenne's MonkeyToes

She removed holes by replacing YOs with M1L/M1R (as appropriate) increases in the following round, for similar reasons

MyYarn's Toe Up Monkey Mods

She eliminated the lacy holes by knitting the yarn overs through the back loop

Jauping's Sedate Monkeys

She used a “lifted increase”…for each pattern repeat, using a right lifted increase (knitting the right leg of the stitch, then the stitch) in place of the first yarn over and a left lifted increase in place of the second yarn over (knitting the stitch, then the left leg of that original stitch). [Thanks to Jauping for messaging me this detail]

I know that M1L and M1R would drive me crazy, I'm using M1 for Vinnland and I don't love it. I quite like the idea of knitting through the back loops of yarn overs and using the right and left lifted increases. From the description it sounds like Jauping used LLinc LRinc which I use for toe increases, I think I'll try both out.

Socks: Needlefood Martinborough Vines in Crazy Monkeys

Here's my beautiful Needlefood Martinborough Vines yarn balled up using my new wool winder (looks a bit grubby here but I gave it a clean). I'm so glad I bought the winder, saves me the main thing that frustrates me about knitting from hand dyed yarn, balling it up by hand.

I got the idea to knit Monkey socks using this yarn from KiwiRaven's wonderful Plumberry Ambrosia No Purl Monkeys. I don't like to purl and always knit tow up so I was really pleased to find the Los Monos Locos pattern. Here's how my Crazy Berry Socks are knitting up:

I think they look great, and so did kitty, after this cute photo was taken (below) she un-wound and messed up all the yarn which resulted in a very frustrating two hours getting all the knots out.

I've since turned the heel and here's where I deviated from the pattern. I had tried with the toe to reinforce it using the Eye of Patridge stitch which didn't work so I was not going to try it on the heel. I absolutely adore the short row no wraps heel from the Lifestyle Toe Up Socks so that's what I did, holding 12 sts on each side with 8 active sts left in the middle. I turned after row 1 so started again using row 2 from the back and front. It's going to look really cool with the triangles lining up the side of the ankle.

The yarn itself is wonderful. It doesn't split and wasn't damaged by the numerous test knitting of the toe and the hammering that the cat gave it. The resulting fabric has lovely stitch definition and quite a stiff hard wearing feeling that I'm sure will soften beautifully with wear. It feels so soft on my feet when I try them on with a nice feeling of elasticity. I love how the colours are playing around in the sock pattern, especially the yellow against purple.

The next Needlefood yarn I'd love to have is Black Forest:

I love the new pictures: skeined on the left (how it comes) and re-skeined on the right (how it knits up).

Update: Hats

I've been very remiss in blogging about crafting lately, not because I haven't done any but mostly because I've been using Ravelry instead. But here I am with an update on hats. I've knitted two spiral hats which was really fun with cheap but nice Warehouse single ply variegated wool. Here's the first one (with my cat & without).

For some weird reason the pattern didn't result in the spiral working evenly but I fixed that in the second hat which was blue & grey. Amazingly my second one was a commission! I was paid $20 for it with yarn coming to about $6 and labour of about five hours it certainly wasn't living wage but I really enjoyed making it and gives me confidence with hats that I didn't have before.

I've almost made two hats hisotrically with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky. I completely mal-sized the first one for a baby so frogged it, it was also ugly because I didn't know how to knit in the round (left). I then reknit the yarn as a ribbed beanie once I learnt how to knit in the round and I gave it to my dad (right).