I knit this beret back in April. April is a pretty sensible month to wear some kind of hat in Oregon, because it can still be pretty wet and cool. (Actually, it turns out July can also be wet and cool, at least this year.) The yarn was a perfect spring green, and the design (Autumn Vines) of leaves and twisting vines was so evocative of new growth. But it turns out I need to wait until we’re really back in the depths of midwinter gloom to wear this hat. The yarn is colored with natural dyestuffs — plant matter — and it is even less lightfast than I would have suspected. I blocked the hat over a plate, and I thought I’d set that plate outside on the laundry rack for the afternoon so it would dry more quickly. I always avoid laying any of the woolens out in bright sunshine, especially if I think their colors might be vulnerable to fading, but this was an overcast day.

Not overcast enough, though. After just a few hours, the top of the hat was distinctly yellowed, while the brim that was turned beneath the plate retained the original green. It’s even more noticeable in person than in these photos, and not exactly a look I was after! With wear, the whole hat should “weather” to yellow, and I’ll admit I’m curious to see what its final shade will be. Yellow is not really a great color for me, unfortunately. I can always overdye it, so I’m not counting this a failure — it’s still a nice little hat, and the yarn (a 65% wool/35% silk 2-ply from Rainshadow Yarns in Kingston, WA) was a pleasure to work with. It has a faintly crunchy woolen-spun hand with a bit of luster from the silk and the longwool fibers. And I don’t mean to criticize dyer Marcia Adams; plant-dyed fibers are processed close to the earth and it’s only natural that they should be less resistant to sunlight or hot water than fibers treated with stronger synthetic chemicals. I do mean to caution knitters to treat these special yarns with extra tenderness and to accept that change and weathering are to be expected. That’s nature’s way.

Thanks to Lorelei for being a patient and photogenic model!

These pictures are from a little workshop I took with my friend Vivian to start making better use of my DSLR, an Olympus E-500. It’s amazing how a few simple pointers from a pro can make a difference. Begone, busy backgrounds that distract from the simple story of the portrait! I shall place my subjects farther from textured walls. I shall boost my ISO in low light. I shall think in terms of the triangle created by the photographer, the subject, and the light source. I think I shall even start saving for a 50-mm lens.

(Vivian did not, alas, impart any nifty tricks for those times when you wish to photograph small, fast-moving subjects who want only to climb the photographer and get their sticky little paws all over the camera. Plays hell with the aforementioned triangulation and depth of field, not to mention the focus. But this, of course, is also nature’s way.)

I have yet another photography class planned for Sock Summit, this time with Franklin Habit. Because it’s tough to take interesting and effective pictures of socks, and I do have a new one I’m hoping to share with you soon! By next week, I may even have two: I’m spending Friday with Cat Bordhi (whom I have never met, despite hailing from the same small town) in “Personal Footprints for Really Rebellious Sock Knitters.” I don’t know that I qualify as a really rebellious sock knitter. The word rebel comes to us from Latin rebellis and originally connoted a fresh declaration of war by the defeated party. In truth, I’m happy to knit socks in the traditional top-down ways, with their multitude of heels and toes developed in different cultures and time periods, each handsome and useful in one situation or another. But I heartily admire Cat’s toe-up architectures and have found them both beautiful and comfortable as well as mind expanding. In short, the more possibilities, the better. I go to embrace rather than to make war. And I go in happy anticipation of rubbing elbows with sock-loving fools from around the world: welcome to Portland, my people! (And how did I miss our mayor’s proclamation that this week shall be Sock Knitting Week? I am always going to wish I could step out my back door and be in the woods and fields, but I love my adopted city.)

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know what July means: the Tour de France and its celebratory knit-along! I already know I’m going to fail at completing this year’s epic project (on which more later), so I thought I’d at least kick things off with a little bonbon… after all, it’s been a while since there was a new free pattern up here, ne c’est pas?

How about a simple pair of fingerless gloves inspired by cycling wear, with just a few classy details? I’m calling these the Vilaine Gloves in honor of the river the peloton will cross on their way into the finish town of Redon tomorrow. I knit them using far less than one skein of The Fibre Company’s Savannah DK, a summery blend of wool, cotton, linen and soy, but the pattern is written with length and percentage measurements so that you can use a yarn of any weight from your stash.

If you’d like to have at it, the pattern is here: VilaineGloves

More pictures? Glad to oblige.

I used one of my favorite thumb gussets, placing the increases only on the palm side. This treatment is most useful if there’s patterning on the back of the hand you don’t want to disturb, but I like the way it looks in general.

Final point of polish: a professorial leather button to close the wrist band. One needn’t, of course, wear these gloves for actual cycling, so you can choose as dressy a button as you wish.

As always, please contact me right away if you find errors or tricky bits in this pattern. Full disclosure: I knit and wrote this sucker in the space of two days. During the first, the yahoos up the hill who can’t wait until 4 July to light their illegal fireworks panicked my poor dog, who jumped or squeezed under the fence and went on the lam for a night and a day, causing anxiety and heartbreak in all quarters. (Thanks to all that is good in the universe, she was not run over on Sandy Boulevard and kind souls Jean and Tim coaxed her into their home and reported her so I could retrieve her the next afternoon. She is terribly footsore but safely home.) Then last night the baby decided to conduct a one-girl circus in our bed for several hours. All this is by way of saying there are probably errors, so knit with sense and trust your judgment, mes amis.