There are a few family members that I don’t dare knit for anymore… my dad will kindly remind you of the failed “Snake Tie experiment of 2014” if given a chance 😉 Yes I’m big enough to admit it was a total fail and even to include a link to the ridiculousness (above). But the women of my family have, at least at this point, not begun to shun my hand made goodies.

Around the time of the Harry Potter Scarf adventure, I began to think about my sister and her love of the Outlander books. Her interest was piqued when the season 1 DVDs showed up on my Christmas list (yes I’m still asked to compile a Christmas list- it’s easier that way, and it’s always been understood in my grandma’s house that when you stop believing in Santa he stops coming….so, yeah, long live Santa!). She read the back of the DVDs and thought it sounded right up her street.

She has now watched all of the episodes, read most of the books, is growing an Outlander inspired herb garden and is compiling and writing a book about all of the plant life used in the series- she has greatly surpassed me and has attained Outlander fan level: Sassenach Supreme! I even made her Outlander Dolls when she sent me a link to some very simple ones on Etsy.

This project was a lesson for me in learning to envision what design would work best for what medium, and to look for that extra unique pop of something to grab the eye.

My first thought was to copy the “Always…” scarf idea… lots of small designs that each have something to do with one of the books. I googled lots of “Outlander symbols” and “Outlander designs” to get ideas. I even found an amazing collection of charms from “TheLiteraryCharms” on Etsy which gave me lots of ideas.

But the more I thought about it the more I drifted away from that idea and towards a “statement piece” design- one image that would invoke all of the sundry pieces of the series. And that of course was the standing stones. The stones are the central symbol of the stories as Claire’s conduit through time. Stone circles like Stonehenge are impressive symbols of ancient human traditions and are instantly recognizable.  I tried to capture a little of that but softened the look slightly by adding a tree to contrast with the strong lines of the stones.

Brief literary interlude:  There are many theories as to the purpose of Stonehenge and other ancient monuments. For a very interesting theory of these being constructed as memory spaces to aid pre-literate cultures in recalling the memorized information and history of their cultures see “The Memory Code: the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and other Ancient Monuments” by Lynne Kelly! 

Instead of a scarf I decided to try my hand at a cowl since the design would look best on a horizontal orientation and, as my family lives in South Carolina, you don’t often need a long or heavy scarf in the winter. A cowl would be lighter and could be worn even without a coat.

I went with a pitch black for the stones and, while looking at independently dyed yarns on Etsy, came up with the idea for a sunset background. But instead of buying a set of mini skeins and just knitting several rounds in each color I decided to see if I could manage a really smooth color transition. I found an amazing dyer called WhiteWhiskerStudios that had a beautiful sunset gradient sock blank, but since it was designed to knit two similar socks, it transitioned from red to orange to yellow and back to orange and red. So I requested a custom dye job to just do one color transition of yellow-orange-red.

I learned some important things using a sock blank for the first time. For those that may not have intimate knowledge (ooo la la!)  of such things, it is a machine-knitted rectangle of fingering weight yarn. Being pre-knitted allows the dyer to do really smooth color transitions that show up as beautiful color gradients in the final product. As I started my first double knitted cowl though I realized that many of my stitches were looking really kinky and messy. This was partly from the difference in tension of my knits and purls, meaning that since I was now knitting in the round instead of in rows, any unevenness between my knits and purls was being concentrated on each side of the cowl instead of being averaged across both. It was also due to the fact that since I was knitting directly from the sock blank the yarn was coming out of the blank rather kinked up. If I was to do it over I would probably unravel the whole sock blank onto my yarn swift, re-skein it (tie it up) and soak and let dry to remove the curls.

But oh well, due to more careful tension watching and blocking at the end, I managed to get enough of the unevenness out of the backside to make it tolerable. And since it was a gift, there’s nothing my sister can say about it! BWAHAHAHA!

In an attempt to get some variation in the models in my finished product pictures (even I’m getting tired of seeing me in them), my sister did a wind-swept photo session at the beach this summer which turned out fantastically! And I must admit, she’s quite the sultry sassenach 😉

Social media postscript: My sister’s and my attempts to use these awesome pics to elicit a Twitter response of some sort from Sam Heughan (Jamie), Caitriona Balfe (Claire) or Diana Gabaldon (Outlander author) has, as of yet, yielded no fruit. Alas, the Twitter-verse is oft a chasm, deep and wide, and our meager digital missive didst fall, unheeded, into the abyss. But we shall persevere and, at a later date, try again… for the Twitter-verse is also immersive, far-reaching and hope-giving as this humble picture can attest….