Tag Archives: rosa pomar

Blog Crush: A Ervilha Cor de Rosa

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Blog Crush: A Ervilha Cor de Rosa

Apparently it’s possible to have a crush on a blog I can’t read, because I’m crazy about Rosa Pomar’s blog A Ervilha Cor de Rosa. I mean, clearly I have a crush on all things Rosa — I’m dying to go to Lisbon and visit her store (and meet her). Her Instagram feed is fantastic enough to leave me always wanting more, as you know, and her blog provides a little more, even if I don’t read Portuguese. Although, not all of the posts are in Portuguese: One of my favorites is this “pattern,” written the way I wish more patterns were — more like annotated charts and schematics and less like step-by-step methods — and it happens to be in English.  I do know about Google Translate, but I sort of love the mystery of the posts, and love looking at the photos and sussing out what I can without the language. Much better than reading butchered robot translations that take the poetry out of everything.

Rosa has an open invitation to Our Tools, Ourselves and I’m holding out hope she’ll take me up on it when she’s ready. Meanwhile, I fervently hope she keeps blogging …

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The perfect little knitting respite

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The perfect little knitting respite

Multiple new skills learned: check. New-to-me yarn: check. Fast finish: check. Amazingly great hat: check! I’m happy I gave myself this little break from knitting my Tag Team Sweater — it can be so rejuvenating in the middle of a long project to shift gears for a minute or two. And this hat is immensely satisfying, both from the process and the product perspectives: fun to knit (the Portuguese way!) and one of the grooviest things I’ve made.

Pattern: Gorro Montanhac by Rosa Pomar (previously seen here)
Yarn: Blackthorn (undyed/#7016) and Wynter (gold/#7650) both from Classic Elite Yarns

A few notes:

  • My favorite kind of pattern these days boils down to “Cast on X stitches. Knit the chart,” and this fits that bill. Love!
  • It’s charted from the wrong side, as the Portuguese knit from the wrong side. So the “right-slanted decrease” (the first in each pair) is actually left-leaning when viewed from the front. Knit it as an SSP. And conversely, knit the “left-slanted decrease” as a P2TOG. (Of course, if you’re knitting it from the right side, that would be SSK and K2TOG.)
  • I realized I haven’t really dealt with charted colorwork decreases before, so I’m not sure if it would be done differently here in the US, but I was momentarily confused by the decrease and the stitch next to it (which it actually consumes) both being present in the chart. In case that should confuse anyone else, note that the paired decreases are right up against each other — there are no worked stitches in between. So whereas the chart makes it seem like stitches 8, 9 and 24, 25 continue to be worked all the way to the top, they actually cease to exist as you work row 26.
  • [edited to add:] I skipped row 37 of the chart, the last work-even round, just to speed up the decreases that tiny bit for a less pointy hat.
  • The pattern calls for aran-weight yarn with US10/6mm needles and a gauge of 4 sts/inch. I went up to a bulky yarn and US10.5/6.5mm needles, because hats tend to be small for me, and my gauge is still smaller than Rosa’s! Her hat must be 20 inches and my finished circumference (before blocking) is about 19, which just fits my big head. I may gain a little room in blocking, but FYI.
  • Love this yarn, but I’m also eager to do it with Rosa’s own Beiroa.

Anyway, I’m smitten, and there are more of these in my future. Here’s this one on Ravelry.

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Top 2 ways to purl a stitch

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Top 2 ways to purl a stitch

Friday was a big learning day for me. I picked up all sorts of random stuff from Ragga Eiriksdottir in the course of learning to steek. (I steeked! And I was in the local paper!) I took another Mary Jane Mucklestone class wherein I learned the Norwegian purl — purling without moving the yarn to the front. Life altering! And then that night in the Marriott lounge, Brooke taught me to knit the Portuguese (ish?) way so I could knit Rosa Pomar’s ridiculously great hat as intended. (Coincidentally, Brooke had learned this from Mary Jane last month, in her Andean knitting class.) And wow, that is the most genius way of knitting EVER.

You knit with the “wrong side” facing — so it’s all done in purl — and the working yarns looped around the back of your neck, one each direction. So instead of working out how to hold two yarns, you hold neither! For tension, you just pull down on the work. And to purl, you insert the right needle into the stitch and use your thumb to pop the appropriate yarn over the needle. Hard to describe but I’m telling you: genius. I only want to knit this way forevermore.

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Vogue Knitting Live was good — much smaller than Stitches West, less manic — and once again it was great to see/meet so many of you. (And Laura from the Purl Bee! And Jared Flood!) Anna and I did do a Tag Team Sweater Project photo shoot on Saturday, with none other than Kathy Cadigan as our photographer, and I can’t wait to show you the results on Wednesday. But I’m in the van today headed back to CA and am pretty fried, so please forgive me if I don’t manage to get a post up in between. Blogging on a mobile device still leaves a lot to be desired!

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New Favorites: Rosa Pomar’s blanket hat

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New Favorites: Rosa Pomar's blanket hat

In all seriousness — no hyperbole or exaggeration of any kind — this is the single best hat I have ever laid eyes on. It’s Gorro Montanhac, which I believe means (roughly) “blanket hat” in Portuguese. It’s by one of the most inspiring people I’ve run across in the knitting realm, Rosa Pomar, owner of Lisbon’s Retrosaria Rosa Pomar. I’ve been following her on Instagram for a while and am deeply smitten with her knitting and her style and her photos and the whole equation, and dying to travel to Lisbon to visit the shop. (We both have a penchant for shooting our knitting on the floor, but she has far more interesting floors. And more interesting knitting, for that matter. I’m also hoping to get her to do Our Tools, Ourselves …) But anyway, this hat is just killer. It’s knitted Portuguese style, meaning the purl side of the fabric is facing the knitter. I’m planning to google it and see if it the method is any more complex than that — did I mention I’m also desperate to have her book? — or if you could simply work it right side out with no problem. (Anyone know?) But it’s so cool I will actually try that if, for some reason, it must be done that way. Make sure you look through her Instagram feed for all the variations she’s done, including the cowl version that turned into a mini-skirt. Too too good.

New Favorites: Rosa Pomar's blanket hat

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