Knitting Cold Weather Happiness with knitscene Winter 2017
As usual, it feels much too early for winter issues to start hitting newsstands, but time is rolling on and there is no stopping it. I’m not looking forward to the cold weather, but I am very excited to share with you the release of knitscene Winter 2017 and all of the cozy winter projects therein. We enjoyed every moment of creating this issue for you, and as a sneak peek before the issue is in your hands, please enjoy the knitscene Winter editor’s note below, in which I detail a winter mishap. Happy winter knitting!
In May of this year, I got trapped in a blizzard in Kansas. After spending the weekend with my family celebrating my brother’s birthday, I headed back to Colorado on a Sunday morning. Because I lacked foresight and the weather seemed perfectly pleasant when I left, I foolishly did not check the forecast for my journey home. Blissfully ignorant, I headed west.
At Hays, Kansas, the highway was closed, and all cars were forced to exit. In my second poor decision of the day, rather than stopping to assess the situation, I drove on to find another highway that wouldn’t so rudely cut me off. Soon enough, I found myself deep in a windy snowstorm on a tiny Kansas highway. And when I reached the town of Hoxie, the sheriff was stopping all cars and directing everyone to local churches to take shelter because the roads out of town were closed. Hoxie was as far as I’d go that day, and my dog and I spent the night on the floor of the children’s nursery in Hoxie Methodist Church as the blizzard continued until midnight.
The next morning, I managed to get my car, which was very low on gas, stuck in the snow. At that point, I felt absolutely hopeless about ever making it out of Kansas. Three different strangers with big trucks stopped to help me, and together were able to pull my car out. They directed me to a gas station that was pumping despite a town-wide power outage. The outage also meant that the owner of the gas station couldn’t run my card, and I had no cash on me. He fronted me ten dollars’ worth of gas so I could make it to the next big town and asked only that I send him a check when I got home. Thanks to all of these helpful people in Hoxie, Kansas, I made it home safely—despite all of the stupid decisions I’d made over the previous twenty-four hours.
In dark moments, it is important to look for light. Winter becomes a dark time for many people because of the shorter days, lack of sun, and cold temperatures, which is why we create so much in the wintertime—the act of creation is our light in the darkness. We work to incorporate color into our daily lives when it’s grim outside in order to make it to spring.
We hope that this issue of knitscene Winter 2017 brings light and comfort to you during the dark winter months. We celebrate color with the Color Work It! story, featuring sweaters and accessories that incorporate stranded colorwork in traditional palettes. We celebrate comfort and contentment with our interpretation of the Danish philosophy of hygge in the Hygge Style project story and in a piece by Louisa Demmitt on her personal experience with hygge during her time living in Sweden.
And since gifting season will be upon us before we know it, we’ve included a small project story featuring four fun designs to create and gift to those you love. Melissa Leapman’s article explains the stranded method of colorwork in an approachable, easy-to-absorb way, even for someone new to the technique, and Heather Zoppetti shows us how to use the duplicate-stitch technique to fix colorwork mistakes or to add color to projects. Lastly, we talk to Nat Raedwulf of Wolf & Faun Knits in Blogspotting.
So, this winter, I hope that you are able to hold onto your light through your knitting, that you learn what hygge means to you, and that this issue is with you each step of the way.
Happy knitting,
Hannah
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