Circle of Stitches

Purveyors of fine yarns and witchy goods

Old Port Hat

Annie LoutonComment

Old Port Hat

By Andrea Mowry

Andrea designed this hat during her first New England winter, and I can tell you from wearing this hat all season, THIS is the hat for our cold and windy winters. All the warmth you need around your ears and just the right amount of ventilation at the top of your head to keep you the right temperature. 

If you’ve seen me at the shop in the last few months, and you’ve brought up hat patterns, you’ve probably heard me talk about how much I love my Old Port Hat. 

The Old Port Hat was my second adventure in brioche. It’s the more mature older sibling of Andrea Mowry’s Harlow hat. It features a double brim and cute ear cover details. I had been looking for a use for my very special Rhinebeck skein of cashmere and wool blend yarn, and an excuse to give a Harrisville Nightshades a try. Old Port was the perfect pattern!

I enjoyed this pattern so much I knit it twice. Not something I do often! This time I was testing how well a fingering weight yarn pairs with the DK weight yarn in this pattern. I’m happy to report that any sock yarn will work well!

Below are some yarn suggestions for this pattern.

Maybe you have some Nightshades/Daylights leftover from your Nevasca shawl? My hat used a little less 30 grams of Harrisville Nightshades in Last Call. 

Woolfolk TYND would make a great companion to a Harrisville Nightshades/Daylight in this pattern! Woolfolk is known for their extra fine, extra soft merino yarns, and it will be so cozy against your ears! (Is making a third hat too many??)

There’s no reason you couldn’t make this using Harrisville daylights instead!

Crazy Zauberball is Happiness for Your Feet

Ana CamposComment

I’m sitting here on this very chilly Monday, after another snowed-in weekend in the Witch City. On these super cold days, I always reach for my Crazy Zauberball socks. I rarely stray away from hand-dyed sock yarns for socks, but Zauberall is one of my few exceptions (along with Regia Premium Merino Yak).

About six years ago, I whipped up this pair of Wintersmith Socks in their Kleiner Fuchs colorway. Today, they’re showing some signs of being well-loved over the years (a few pills, definitely plenty of cat hair from living with four cats), but they’re good as new.

My Crazy Zauberball socks always come out in the depths of winter. All the colorways in this sock yarn collection are gorgeous long striping gradients, and the burst of color on my feet always cheers me up - even if they’re hiding inside my snow boots.

Zauberball can be a little scary to my fellow East Coast knitters. West Coast knitters are more rugged, and they tend to have a greater appreciation for rustic, hard-wearing wools. They know how to layer them, and that these rustic woolens are warmer and offer better protection against the harsh temperatures. East Coast knitters tend to prefer softer wools, leaning more heavily towards the softer hand of merino wool.

Rustic wools are the unsung heroes of super cold weather knitting. Even I can admit that Zauberball is a little too scritchy and itchy for crisp fall days (I stick to my hand-dyed merino blends for that season), but it’s perfect for winter. The itchy barbs in wool lay flatter the colder it gets, so while your Zauberball socks may feel like too much in October, by February, they are the best things to wrap your feet in.

The Wintersmith Socks are a pattern I wrote a few years ago, specifically with Crazy Zauberball in mind. This sock pattern is knit toe-up with a short row heel, and the plain stockinette really lets the beautiful gradient colors shine. But it also has a special detail: the Wintersmith Socks feature a princess sole! This means the sole is knit with purl side facing out, so you get to walk on the smooth stockinette side. This simple detail really makes all the difference!

Wondering if you should make a pair? You can also check out Tessa’s gorgeous Crazy Zauberball socks!

Lifelines

Annie LoutonComment

Did you know that you can install an insurance policy for your mistakes into your knitting? Lifelines are a valuable tool to save your stitches! A lifeline is a smooth, much thinner thread that is placed through every stitch in a row. The stitches are not moved off the needles, the thread runs straight through a row and then is ignored unless you decide you need it. One of the most valuable traits of a lifeline is that it helps keep your stitches oriented in the correct direction. No accidental twisted stitches!

How does a lifeline work? After you “install” the lineline, you just keep knitting! If you make a mistake you can’t fix, you can comfortably rip back to the lineline to save your progress. Add a new lifeline after every vertical chart repeat, or anywhere you want a little safety net.

Lifelines are useful if you’re about to:

  • try something new

  • try something challenging 

  • deviate from the pattern 

  • or you want the confidence that you won’t need to frog beyond that point in the future

Our favorite things to use for lifelines:

Did you know that your Chiaogoo Circular Needles have a lifeline hole built into them? At the base of your needle is a hole where you can tie your lifeline, then you just knit your row as usual! If you tie your lifeline to your left needle your lifeline will run through your last row, if you tie your lifeline to your right needle your lifeline will run through your current row. (Warning: This method is not recommend for patterns with a lot of stitch markers as your lifeline will need to be untied and retied to the needle to exclude every stitch marker). Make sure you leave a few inches on either side of your lifeline so that your knitting can stretch and the lifeline doesn’t fall out of the edge stitches.

The lifeline hole on your needle is located where the needle meets the cord.

I used #10 crochet thread. This was about as thick of a string that would fit through the needle.

Tie a knot tight enough to make it through a row of knitting, but loose enough to take it off easily when you reach a stitch marker or finish the row.


If you don’t have needles with a lifeline hole in them, that's ok! You can simply use your darning needle to thread all your stitches onto your lifeline.  Tip: If you’re using circular needles, move your stitches to the cable to make it easier to thread your needle through your stitches.


Slippy V Triangle Shawl

Annie LoutonComment

I’ve been looking for that perfect pattern that will show off that one skein of Spincycle Dyed in the Wool that made my heart leap when I saw it. Stephen West’s Pattern Slippy V Triangle Shawl does just that! Just two skeins of fingering weight yarn set the backdrop to showcase any special skein of Spincycle yarn.

Little eyelets decorate the fabric and it’s all framed by textured ribbing. You can knit this shawl as large as you want by simply repeating the pattern if you have more yarn.

This easy slip stitch pattern has so much contrast color yarn showing on the right side of the fabric that it makes the most out of a Spincycle skein and celebrates those beautiful color shifts!

We think this shawl would look great in a tonal, fingering weight, single ply merino yarn like La Bien Aimee Merino Singles or Malabrigo Mechita. Both would look great paired with Spincycle Dyed in the Wool. This will make a soft and drapey shawl.

Malabrigo Mechita: Dried Orange | Spincycle Dyed In The Wool: Melencholia

La Bien Aimee: Anemone | Spincycle Dyed in the Wool: Midsommar

La Bien Aimee: Highgarden | Spincycle Dyed in the Wool: Rosy Maple

Malabrigo Mechita: Pegaso | Spincycle Dyed In The Wool: Verba Volant

Malabrigo Mechita: Three Little Pigs | Spincycle Dyed In The Wool: Wallflower

Malabrigo Mechita: Frank Ochre | Spincycle Dyed In The Wool: Nostalgia

Malabrigo Mechita: Sabiduria | Spincycle Dyed In The Wool: Light-Years

La Bien Aimee: RGO Tomato | Spincycle Dyed in the Wool: Burning Sensation

Snapshots from the Blizzard!

Salem MA, Snapshots from SalemAna CamposComment

Happy Monday, friends! Our little Salem shop was closed all weekend as we hunkered down for a massive snowstorm. Halfway through the blizzard, I went out for a walk (with many many layers on) down to the wharf to check on the shop. Here are some mid-storm snapshots!

Not pictured: the giant mountain of plowed snow right behind me

Giant snow storms mean two things: hours and hours of shoveling, and hours and hours of knitting time. I cast on a baby cardigan Saturday morning, and was almost done when it was time to shovel on Sunday! What did you knit this weekend?

Pattern: Sweetest Thing by Melissa LaBarre

Size: 6-12 months

Yarn: 2 skeins of Berroco Vintage in Calico 5172

Why I love it: it’s a top-down seamless cardigan that works up quickly and has just enough interest with the stitch pattern to keep you engaged - and it comes both charted and written!