Introducing: krona

Back in July, when Amy & I met-up at Knit Wit to check out the Quince & Co. Yarns, we both decided that we wanted to design something new with it. In making this project, Quince & Co.'s Chickadee has quickly become one of my new favorite yarns - and it's seemingly endless color range has pushed me into a bit of a colorwork phase.

As soon as I had my colors in my hands I knew I wanted to do some kind of diminishing colorwork pattern with the yellow fading into blue.  The color combination also had me thinking of the Swedish flag, so I did some internet searching for inspiration and came up with the concepts that became krona. Krona means crown in Swedish and a Swedish crown is both the literal  Swedish royal crown as well as a braided hairstyle, both of which I tried to reflect in this pattern.

The braided band on both the tam and mittens is knit flat and seamed, and then the main pattern stitches are picked up from the band edges and knit in the round.  The mittens are identical on the front and back and can be worn on either hand.

Because Chickadee is a sport-weight yarn, I lined the mittens from the braided band up for extra warmth.

The tam sports the same colorwork pattern as the mittens, adapted to the hat shape. The tam is designed for head 20-22 inches in circumference and sits shallowly on the head.

I received a good deal of good-natured ribbing from my knitting friends while working on this pattern, because I tended to unconsciously match my outfit to my knitting (does anyone else do this?), so my outfit in the photos is a tribute to the Portland Knitters on the Town.

You can queue up the tam and mittens on Ravelry.

You can buy the patterns individually Mittens - $5.00 USD; Tam - $4.00 USD; or together for a $2.00 discount

First Meet-Up, First Batch, First Harvest

Yesterday I had my first blogger meet-up with Amy of stash, knit, repeat (also the "Fit to Flatter" series). She was in town visiting some family and we met up at Knit Wit to checkout the new Quince & Co. yarn line, which is made in Southern Maine.

It was great meeting Amy in person and I definitely felt like I was hanging with the cool kids when Amy was recognized about 3 minutes after coming into the shop. It was even more cool when Pam Allen herself popped in to drop over another load of yarn.

The range of colors in this line is fantastic - there are so many variations of each color - 3 or so yellows a half dozen blues, it's a color lover's dream.  Amy came out with two sweater's worth, while I restrained myself to 5 skeins of the Chickadee in Delft and Carrie's Yellow (I'm totally in a yellow phase right now).  And this yarn is so new, it doesn't even have dye lots yet, because there's only been one!

In other news, I've had my first harvest from my garden - this little head of broccoli. It's been so warm, that it accelerated the growth process and I had to cut it before it bloomed. I actually dreamed about it the day before - I was so worried about the broccoli going to seed. It was ready to go on Thursday, so I chopped it off and ate it raw with some ranch dressing. Don't worry I shared some with Mr. Cleaver.

p.s : I must admit, whenever I work with the broccoli in my garden, I find myself singing the Dana Carvey broccoli song (it starts at the 2:00 minute mark).