Noteworthy Knits

Life With A Knitter

2011-03-28T10:46:00.001-07:00

To make this monster I tried the magic loop knitting technique for the first time. When I told Mr. M about my intrepid feat he said... "All knitting is magic loop to me. You go *makes motion with hands* and POOF there's a sweater." Which reminds me, the other day he picked up the mail for me, and one of my fiber club packages came. He knew what it was, so he held it up and told me "I got your hair ball." He's a keeper :)

5 Months

2011-03-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

These little hands are busy!

Her hair is growing in golden brown.

She has her mama's eyebrows.

She LOVES to chew on things.

She blows spit bubbles (ewwwww...)

Her hair is just long enough in the back to make a curl that sticks up from her cowlick.

She can roll onto her side if she wants to, but shows no further inclination to try turning over (except for the night before last when she flipped off the sleeping pad... thankfully only 3 inches down to the floor)

Baths aren't so bad after all. Especially if you can splash Daddy.

Speaking of which... she loves it when Daddy is home. She watches him so carefully and smiles :)

That's More Like It...

2011-03-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

Via SnorgTees

The corned beef is cooking away. Have a happy St. Patrick's Day!

Etsy Review: woodenbuttons

2011-03-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

I love to troll the web for goodies (ahem) and I thought I would share some of the lovely Etsy shops I've come across lately. Today I'm happy to write about woodenbuttons, an Estonian business that crafts charming buttons out of European woods.

What to Love:

amazing woods... apple tree, rowan tree, Siberian pea shrub. Some of these have grain like I've never seen before.
buttons in range of sizes (0.8 to 2.2 in), including some of the largest on Etsy!
reasonable prices.
buttons are sold in sets... so you have enough coordinating buttons for a project.
what you see is what you get. I love listings where the pictures aren't just representative.
each is one of a kind, slightly irregular in color and shape. Gives a natural, simple feel.
smooth edges.
a variety of shapes... toggle, round, triangular.
pre-oiled and ready to use.
friendly service (I convo-ed, Valdur got right back to me)

What to know:

This is a relatively new shop (as of this writing 12 sales, 100% positive feedback).
It may take 2-3 weeks for your buttons to arrive in North America.
I have made one purchase from this shop. I have no other connection with it ;)

4 Months

2011-03-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

big, toothless smiles

a full body wiggle of joy

crying to communicate displeasure

much, much less screaming (as long as mommy avoids soy, wheat, dairy, garlic, onions & peppers... etc. etc.)

finally able to operate those hands

can such on the thumb, rather than the whole hand

trying to crawl, but moving backwards

rolling from front to back, sometimes

loves singing, silly faces, silly noises

desperately wants to chew on everything... and sometimes finds it easies to fall forward on a toy with an open mouth rather than grab at it

has slept 5 hours in a row (at least once)

doesn't need to be walked every night

wants to play, wants to watch, wants to go with you everywhere

still has most of that hair

How Fast They Grow

2011-02-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

Finished the Bee's new sweater last night. 300 yds of sportweight yarn, 5 miss-matched vintage glass buttons. Shown here with her first sweater (in sock weight yarn) for scale. Both are from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket pattern. I was sloppy about gauge, so I'll be needing to make another one soon. This one fits her perfectly right now, which we all know means it won't last long.

This pattern really is genius. The best part is that there is almost no sewing up at the end, which means this sweater is mostly knitting - not fiddling around. And after knitting it 4 times, it's finally sinking in how it works. I can see were I am, so I don't have to worry that a slipped post it note will result in being stalled for a week while I try to figure everything out again.

I wish the Bee had one of these for every day of the week. Wonder if my knitting stamina could hold out long enough to make that wish come true...

Back from the Dead Again

2011-02-15T14:46:00.000-08:00

I love TV shows where death is not an obstacle to a character's return... anything from the old fashioned "I jumped out of the train before the bomb went off" to "I'm dead but you can talk to me anyway because the rules of time don't apply to you any more" to something truly excellent like "I'm a copy stuck in a robot's body" or "this part of me lives in your mind due to our shared consciousness." (Care to name those sources sci-fi buffs?)

I'm living a new life over here... life with a baby, but perhaps it won't be an obstacle to my return.

One thing I should mention is that Mr. M and I have decided to limit how much we put out there about baby Bee. For now, if you want to see pictures of her, the best ways will be facebook or flickr (you'll have to be a friend on flickr because baby content will be protected). So drop me a line if you want in on that. We want to share her with our friends and family far away, but we also want more privacy than the world wide web affords. I know other people who have followed a different path quite happily, but this is right for us right now.

For a while, this choice has had me stumped. My brain is 95% baby, 4% work and 1% crafts. So I felt like I didn't know what to say here if I couldn't just post 100 pictures a day of ~~the cutest baby ever~~ the Bee, but I do want to keep this space, and I guess we will have to see what it sort of blog it becomes.

I have been knitting a bit while the Bee nurses, so right now I have about 70% of a BSJ out of this lovely Hello Yarn Fat Sock, colorway "Valentine."

The Bee just outgrew her first mama made sweater (at about 3.5 months & 14lbs), so the rush is on to make another one!

Baby Dresses

2010-10-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

Good thing all of these were sold out or I would have been explaining to my husband why our daughter needed a $40 dress for her first Christmas.

These dresses are Hug Me First brand and were spotted on Zulily. When I saw they were hand smocked I thought that explained the price, but after looking around (even on ebay) it seems $40-100 is the going price for smocked dresses. Can it really be?

Nest

2010-10-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

It just hit me this week that I might only have a few weeks before the baby comes. Or I might have a month and a half. But there is no way to know. We don't have basic baby clothes, or the crib set up, or diapers (or a decision on cloth vs. disposables). And I don't want to fill the house up with junk OR be unprepared, which means I need to think about how this all will work.

At the same time I want to finish all the spinning and knitting and home decorating projects that I wanted to do in the next five years RIGHT NOW because I am afraid that I won't get to do any of these things for the foreseeable future. Silly I know... I know lots of people who've had kids and been able to continue doing things they love. Some have done those things with their children, and some have found that these things have returned after a season. But I've promised people some handmade knits, and there are a few things I want to make for myself... and there are cute babies coming that will need to be snuggled in knitted sweaters.

The physical changes make it difficult to sleep, which is making the physical and mental work of adjusting just that much harder.

So I'm a bit of a nesting loose cannon right now.

I might decide to buy 13lbs of apples at the grocery store for applesauce.

I might decide to make a pie, but make two when I cut up too many apples.

I might order a pile of gorgeous yarn that I won't have time to knit.

I might buy big heaps of fiber I don't have time to spin.

And photograph it.

#4 & The Nursery

2010-09-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

Some of you may recall the 10 Shawls in 2010 challenge. Two of those shawls have to be over 546 yds. This is my first big one. Big enough in fact, to use as a baby blanket :) Although you can't tell from these pictures, the shawl is square in shape and about 36 inches on a side.

Alpaca Baby Shawl
in Rowan Purelife Organic Cotton DK, 778 yds.
US 6 needles

I love the softness of this yarn, but I'm reserving final judgement on its long term value. It is naturally dyed and is therefore supposed to be hand washed and stored out of direct sun. If I had checked into the care instructions before purchasing (duh) I might have chosen something more hearty. As it is, I plan to wash and tumble dry the blanket as needed and live with the consequences. The swatch I put through the wash only lightened slightly, although the water did show dye release.

My other boo boo was that I failed to plan on how to join the yarn. It is a fairly thick yarn, has no bounce and little grab. It is spun in multiple very small plies. I tried the knitting with two strands together... too lumpy. Russian join, very obvious. Weaving in didn't seem likely to stay put. I decided to tie knots and clip the ends, which I did. Then I chickened out at the thought of my lovely baby blanket unraveling and went back and dabbed superglue on the knots. Final result: lots of very pokey, hard spots on my soft, yummy baby blanket. So... maybe this will be a decor only / heirloom blanket? Or I could use it inside out? Or the scratchy parts aren't as bad as I imagine? Time will tell.

One thing that DOES thrill me about this yarn is how perfectly it matches my nursery color scheme. Maybe I should go back and mention where the idea came from... my mother-in-law made this amazing taupe wall quilt. She named it Taupe for Two and generously gave it to us :) When I found out we were expecting, I decided to use it as the focal point for the nursery. I think its gender neutral enough that if we have a boy it will still work. I also love the thought of quiet, warm colors for a snug little nursery. The shawl I knit coordinates with it and the artwork/frames/mats from earlier also pick up the tan color. I know the nursery is going to be full of all sorts of different colored things, but it is fun to put my stamp on some of it :)

One With The Yarn

2010-09-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

My new lens lets me get closer to my yarn...

Much closer.

And it inspires me to try to capture these trees outside my window.

Some days they seem to float in the fog...

A Very Small Sweater

2010-09-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Minutes after I told my husband we were expecting, we had this conversation:

Him: "So, are you going to knit something for the baby?"
Me: "But we don't know if it is a boy or a girl."
Him: "You could knit a brown sweater."

How could I refuse a suggestion like that? I did almost immediately start a brown baby sweater, but with pregnancy fatigue and pregnancy brain, I didn't get around to sewing on the buttons and photographing it until this week. So, here it is, the baby's official first sweater...

Knitting details are here. My major advice is to be careful with superwash yarn. I didn't block
my swatch and the sweater developed an unexpectedly floppy texture after washing. But no harm done.

Apparently...

2010-08-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

... I have a thing for blue green handspun. Isn't it funny how there is some deep part of one that loves certain colors and textures? And this time I'm not lamenting being "stuck in a rut"... I let myself create what felt right to make and that in itself is satisfying.

Knitting details here.

FO: Patchwork Skirt

2010-08-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have a new skirt!

It is bright and happy...

and looks good with a 6 months pregnant tummy.

Hurrah!

Epic Summer Sewing

2010-07-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

(This picture looks dark because there isn't sun in July...)

This year the summer skirt bug was particularly virulent :) Not only did I have to have a skirt, it had to be a patchwork skirt (ie - a skirt that involved more cutting and sewing than I had ever done before). The monster is still not finished, but I thought I would take some notes here so that next time I want to sew a skirt (you know, in two or three years) I'll have some idea of what I did. This won't make sense unless you know the basics for sewing this kind of skirt, but there are plently of online tutorials that will tell you how better than I could...

My first decision was what size I wanted each square to be. I decided on larger squares (after sewing most of the blocks are 5.5 inches square) to suit my large print fabrics... and my desire not to sew a million tiny blocks together.

The skirt is sewn in tiers. What you see above is one of the tiers before I attached the first square to the last to form a ring. The mighty internet told me that to make a skirt like this I should start with my desired waist measurement and make each tier of the skirt 1.5 x longer.

I wanted the waist to be scrunched when worn, and I wanted this skirt to be suitable for maternity wear, so I measured a similar skirt I love and came up with a waist measurement of 50 inches. Um, yeah. This thing is huge. When I say epic, I mean it.

Then, using the measuring tape, I figured out how long I wanted the skirt to be. It was not an exact multiple of the square size I was using, so I made the top tier shorter.

I fiddled around with the numbers for increasing each tier. There was rounding. There was disbelief. There was a measuring tape. I came up with something that sounded big enough, but not too big. Not very technical but true. It is always a good idea to check your crafting math against reality. Otherwise you might end up with a skirt with a bottom circumference of 12 feet - and be surprised.

The most fun thing about this skirt was sewing all the squares into tiers. I knew I would make myself crazy if I tried to perfectly place each square based on its color relationship to the squares around it. So, I assigned each of my fabrics a number, then I had the random number generator at random.org generate a random sequence of the numbers 1-9. I did this 10 times. I just sat there with my blocks stacking them in the order dictated by the numbers.

The least fun part of this skirt was gathering each tier. Fortunately, the machine I am using has a special foot that makes it easier, but it is always hard to distribute the ruffles evenly. The best way seems to be to divide each tier equally into four parts. Then match pins of adjoining tiers and pin together. The larger tier is then scrunched up to fit around the smaller one. Pinning about every 1.5 inches will more or less keep things under control.

Actually sewing the tiers together is the sort of task that makes inexperienced (hormonal) sewers cry, so I just decided that I would do one or two a day and stop if anything when horribly wrong.

So now I'm to the point where I have tried on the skirt. It is full and swishy and wonderful. Now it needs elastic through the casing I made at the waist, a decent hem, and a lining. The lining was a surprise, but the layers of cotton gathered together make scratchy seams inside. So, there must be some way to add one...

Booties

2010-07-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

Please stand by for more crafting posts... we are having a low energy day here, but hope for a better tomorrow. To tide you over, here is a photo of some booties my mother's friend made for me.

Aww....

Adventures in Framing

2010-07-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

This year I came across the enchanting artwork of Cori Dantini. Many of her pieces (I think) involve painting and ink drawing over vintage paper. I love her sense of whimsy and the way that snatches of old novels or workbook pages turn into evocative little puzzles when only part of them peeks out...

This is her piece "and I am I" (purchased via her etsy shop). The main color for the nursery is going to be brown, so I decided to get this framed up to hang in there. Also, it reminds me of the joy of being able to nurture this little one inside me, so that makes it even more fitting :)

I'm no expert, but here is a bit about my process for matting a picture at home. I hope this can help someone else. At the very least I can use this as a reminder to myself of the things I learned this time!

1. I purchase mat board from the local custom frame shop. It costs $12-17 for a whole sheet - which is usually enough to frame 4-5 pictures (depending on size and mistakes).

2. We have the the Logan Graphics Craft & Hobby Mat Cutter 250. It is sturdy and simple to use. I like that it will cut a beveled edge in such a way that the corners meet up. Yea! It costs about $60, but that is well worth it if you frame stuff all the time.

3. I buy frames at W*lmart or R*ss Dress for Less. It is a good idea to take a tape measure, because frames that end up discounted are often a bit odd. The Fetco "Eco Home" frame I used for this project was labeled as an 8 x 10, but the frame opening is actually smaller. Not a problem for me in this case, but it is the sort of thing you have to look out for.

4. Once you cut your big mat into dimensions that will fit your frame, you trace the lines for the inner opening onto the back of your mat and cut using the bevel edge. Here I have cut out the mat, then traced new lines to make the opening bigger. Corrections like this are hard to make, but this one worked out.

5. Most framing places will tell you to subtract 1/4 to 1/2 an inch from each side of your artwork to get the inner dimension for the mat. Then the mat will actually be covering up the edge of your artwork. That may work well for large pieces, but for small ones, or ones with interesting edges, it seems silly. If you want to get REALLY close to the edge, but not off it, you will find that your tracing and cutting abilities are probably only good to about 1/8 of an inch. So you might have to re-cut the mat several times. Same if you want to be slightly away from the edge of your artwork, and leave an even opening all around.

When I first cut this mat to cover the edges, it really took the life out of the art:

The edges are so textured...

That is why I went back to make the opening larger.

6. Don't be discouraged when you cut a mat wrong. I cut out four nice mats and four losers!

7. Last tip: use "Goo Be Gone" to get the yucky price label gunk off your frame :) Then slip you mat and art inside, secure the back and enjoy!

P.S. I also have several other prints of hers that I am framing. More on the nursery to come!

More From the Wheel

2010-07-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

2.9 oz, 164 yds, from drumcarded batts made of Merino x Romney locks

Above in the background you can see one of my favorite spins ever - Hello Yarn Club "Red Velvet" (Shetland Wool Top, 4 oz Approx. 118 yds). There was a secret place in my heart that wanted a little girl to wear something made from this (though of course I have yarns for boys too!). I know that ultrasounds are not entirely reliable, so I'm not trying to keep most of my preparations gender neutral... but one small pink and brown sweater is okay, right?

I spun this yarn rather early in my spinning adventure and it is bulky and low yardage. Turns out there aren't many infant patterns for bulky yarn (not surprising), but I did finally stumble across a DROPS design here. I'm short on yardage, so I spun up the brown Merino x Romney locks. I'm not sure if I should do stripes or just make the front pink and the back brown. I'm planning on getting rid of the texture elements, so just the colors will give the sweater interest. Even if I modify the pattern a lot, it is good to have a gauge and some baby measurements to go by :)

Tour de Fleece

2010-07-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

For several years now, a group of spinners, linked by the internet, has celebrated the Tour de Fleece. Inspired by the athleticism of the Tour de France, these spinners set themselves challenging spinning goals and try to complete them during the time it takes the cyclists to complete their 2,200 mile race. You know what's funny? I thought the concept of the Tour de Fleece sounded perfectly normal until I just explained it here and imagined my non-fiberfiend friends reading about it.... ahem...

Anyway, I am not the stuff that Tour de Fleece champions are made of, but I have been inspired to finish a spinning project that has been on the wheel a while. I'm proud of this because it was a difficult fiber for me (superwash merino/silk) and because I managed to spin it more finely than any other fiber I've spun before :) Hurray!

Tidepool (fiber color by UrbanGypz)
350 yds / 4 oz
80/20 Superwash merino / silk

Rainbows & More

2010-07-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

My sister baked this while she was visiting - she is pretty much made of awesome :)

As usual, summer is flying by too quickly. Camping in Arizona. 4th of July with family and friends. VBS (with 3rd & 4th graders!). Curriculum selection looms on the horizon, and of course 99 billion home projects... several of which involve nursery decor for a very small and precious person... making her first appearance here...

Dr. says he is 90% certain it is a girl. At 21 weeks she is making her presence felt with some belly jumping kicks :) If you are so inclined you can click over to my flickr for a few more belly photos.

Loving Right Now

2010-06-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

Each season of life has its blessing, and its fun little rabbit trails of interest... right now I'm daydreaming about the end of school (no more math prep, no more worksheets) and ready for a change of seasons. In the spirit of carefree summer days, here are some of the things I'm enjoying right now...

Painted toenails (with or without flip-flops)

Home-made pickles. For me this is one of those refreshing summer tastes. I use these on my salad and the juice makes a great dressing.

Patchwork skirts (I made an inspiration gallery on flickr if you want to check it out). It is finally almost warm enough to wear skirts, and I'm keeping myself going with a vision of a light, full, funky patchwork skirt in aqua, citron and olive. Totally not what the fashion experts advise, but a woman who has been wearing the same 3% of her wardrobe for months cannot be reasoned with. If you're wondering, these fabrics are by Laura Gunn.

Lovely

2010-05-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

My sweet in-laws sent me these. They are the flowers that come by UPS, still all closed up. It really is like magic, you just add water and plant food and you have a bouquet. They are just blooming away!

That Was Random

2010-05-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

So this is probably not the post you have all been waiting for, but I was up at 2:41 last night with a strange sensation in my ankles after lots of tossing and turning, so I'm just odd today!

I've been thinking about the last Fringe Episode: ***** SPOILERS*****

1. Continuitwhat?
Um, if the other Olivia looks so different, how was Olivia prime able to so easily flash over in her place last season? Or did everyone in alternate Fringe division just happen to have a change of hair-cut and dress code in the past year?

Also, it was SO much work to bring Walternate over, but then no problem to beam him and Peter back. "They have our coordinates?" Really?

In the much more advanced alternate reality, Charlie still got attacked by a monster, but they couldn't come up with a cure? Guess there's no substitute for Walter prime!

2. Cortexophan
On Polite Dissent it was mentioned that it seemed odd that this drug would look like diet Pepsi. Now we know why: if you happen to see that someone has a brown IV (as Peter does when he wakes up) you think you know what is in it. (Please let it be Cortexophan, please, please).

3. Normally skeptical Peter seems rather docile lately.

4. Poor expendable Cortexophan children. I was happy to see them back (and true to character). Didn't last long did it?

5. Anyone else sad that Pyro-girl didn't even get the satisfaction of taking one bad guy with her?

6. Anyone else feel like a lot more of this episode than usual needed subtitles?

2010-04-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

It is spring and I'm easily distracted...

strawberries!

nupps!

drumcarding!

Not A Shawl

2010-03-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

This stole doesn't quite meet the technical requirements for 10 Shawls in 2010 (not enough yardage), but I'm not at all sorry that I made it exactly like this.

If I had made it any wider the color repeats would have been shorter across the stole. And as it is I had enough yarn left over to make another scarf half as wide, which will make it easier to give the stole away as I intended.

The stats:
One row Lace Scarf
220 yds /69 grams of my handspun Wensleydale
Size 10 needles
Blocked to 11" by 66"

I did think that I could squeeze in a "true" shawl this month, but the lovely yarn I chose just isn't working with any of the patterns I've come up with. It is a bamboo/silk/merino blend with no bounce, low twist and lots of drape. One way or another though, I will get another shawl going for April.

Just one more shot... I couldn't resist!

Purse Dilemma

2010-03-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

My old purse was purchased about 5 years ago and is starting to show its age.

I think I just heard my very fashionable sister sigh, and we can all pause to recognize that five years ago was about 1/3 of her life... anyway, yes, I am an old stick-in-the mud with an unfashionable purse. But now you can rescue me, if not from my fashion sense, at least from having a decrepit everyday accessory... I've been looking for months, and here's what I've got:

Pros: Purse very much like my current one. Small, can be worn across the body with a strap. It even comes in some other colors.

Cons: Boring. I've had a purse like this for 5 years.

See the etsy listing here.

Pros: This one is also small, but has only a short strap. I like the pleats.

Cons: Might find it a pain to carry around when grocery shopping.

Listed here.

Pros: This one I really love the style of.

Cons: I'm concerned that it is too big for me to use comfortably. Would I adjust to a purse 4x the size? Would it make my arm hurt? Would I feel stupid if my purse was cooler than the rest of my wardrobe? What will I do if I have one black purse and want to wear brown shoes?

Listed here.

A Bit O' Green

2010-03-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day :)

The Sea

2010-03-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

The wensleydale is knitting up wonderfully.

Frothy texture and mesmerizing color transitions... there is something about it that makes me think of the sea.

Longwool

2010-03-04T16:28:00.001-08:00

When Mohair first turned on me, I despaired of getting to knit with shiny, fuzzy yarns ever again. But I had underestimated wool. Sheep produce an amazing variety of fiber, a fact that is often lost in our age of mass production. It is still fairly rare that I will find a yarn that specifies the breed. If a breed is specified, the most common is Merino - a fiber known for its softness.

Becoming a spinner opened up a whole new world to me. Not only do different sheep breeds produce very different fibers, but what you get varies greatly depending on the flock, the sheep, and preparation of the fiber. In my spinning life I've mostly spun commercially prepared Bluefaced Leicester (BFL), a longwool that has greater sheen and durability than most Merino.

Last week I took my exploration of longwool to a new level. I tried out some Wensleydale (check out the pictures of sheep with ringlets). The majority of the fibers were about 7 inches long. That must be quite a wool coat when the sheep is still wearing it! I got 360 yards of singles from 4 oz. The final yarn is shiny and has a huge halo (since these photos I've started knitting with it and the halo just grows and grows). To the uninitiated, I imagine it looks just like Mohair... hurray!

Spring Things

2010-03-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

Spring has certainly been in the air here. A chorus of frogs sings in the swamp behind our house every night, trees are budding and blooming, and crocus are popping up in the flower boxes. My thoughts are turning from sweaters and mittens to lighter things. Of course, that process has also been helped by the arrival of this book Haapsalu Shawl (Haapsalu Sall):

This is a coffee table book devoted to the Estonian knitting tradition unique to the town Haapsalu. The book has a brief historical introduction, an overview of the traditional design of the shawls (with handy explanations for how to plan and attach a separately knit border), and a pattern library of more than 120 stitches. I included a few of my favorite design motifs in the mosaic, but clicking through to the flicker stream will reveal a few more if you're interested.

This isn't a book where patterns are planned out for you. The mathematical formula is demonstrated, and the knitter is expected to use it to adjust for the lace repeat. The idea of knitting a separate border and sewing it on is also rather daunting for a beginning/intermediate knitter... however the instructions make it seem doable, and the results are so fabulous looking!

Also sprinkled throughout the book are women of Haapsalu (artists, writers, leaders) showcased with a quotation about the town and a shawl around their shoulders. Often the lace looks even more stunning as a whole than just one repeat can show, so I'm glad these photos are included, even if the entire directions for these shawls are not spelled out.

If you're interested in this book, Knit Purl of Portland has preorder open for another round of them. When I check several months ago it was possible to buy this book directly from Europe much more cheaply, but I'm not set up to do a European style direct bank transfer, so I sucked it up and paid the big bucks. Just for reference, I also have Knitted Lace of Estonia, and while both books are lovely, they are different enough in technique and stitch patterns for me to justify having both.

There is another review of Haapsalu Sall / Haapsalu Shawl here if you want to see more pictures :) This blogger has the version in Estonian, mine is the one in English.

Still Here...

2010-02-21T20:12:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I wound up this lovely cashmere I dyed:

...and had an unpleasant allergic reaction halfway through. I really should have thought of it, because cashmere and mohair come from goats (even if they are different kinds of goats) and mohair is certainly out to get me. Apparently all goats have it in for me. A moment of silence please for all the lovely yarns that make me sneeze. and sneeze. and sneeze *sniff* Anyway, that put a halt to two potential shawl projects that I had in the works. While regrouping on the shawl front, I've been poking around on other projects...

This is the Spiral Rib Hat for my lovely sister-in-law. It's knit with Aurora 8, a super springy merino that I really love. The hat is actually done now, and it seems to have taken only 96 yds, rather than the 120 called for in the pattern. I think there is some sort of magic that happens when knitting with Aurora 8, it just goes and goes and goes.

I also swatched for these unbearably cute Ladybug Picnic Mittens (you really should click that link and check them out). I'm grateful to Cosy for her reminder of how to swatch in the round. My ladybugs will be cuter once I put their spots on.

And in the rehabilitation wing of my knitting sweatshop, some yarn that was once 1/3 of a sock is now free to become something else. Something more likely to be finished in my lifetime... I'd forgotten what a brilliant yarn this was after having it stuffed in a closet for a few years.

Maybe a shawl?

2:10

2010-02-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

Shawl number two is off the needles!

I really needed a splash of color here at the end of winter and this yarn delivered. This is the first time I've worked with yarn from Striken Smitten and it was lovely. The base is Shimmer Glimmer, a 50/50 blend of superwash merino and silk. The spring of the merino allowed me to block quite a bit and still get a cushy shawl, while the silk made it shiny and super soft. I was really lucky to get this yarn in a rav trade.

The pattern is Wandering the Moor, a shawl "inspired by the shawls worn by Mary and Diana Rivers from the 2006 Jane Eyre Miniseries." I'm not one to miss a literary allusion, but even if you're not an English major, this shawl has lots of pros... it is reasonably priced, well thought out, and the directions for resizing are clear. I was able to use my new scale and the shawl progress calculator to get a shawl that has 2 repeats more than the smallest size. This blocked to 47.5" by 21," which is a nice wearable size. I may have had enough yarn to squeeze out a 3rd repeat, but I couldn't bear the thought of ripping out half the shawl if I was wrong.

The only thing I did to make the pattern easier to use was printing out a second copy of the chart and make a master chart that I could follow all the way across (you'll see what I mean if you use the pattern), but people who are more visual than I can probably see the pattern without that kind of crutch.

This is also my first shawl blocked with wires. Wow was that a relief. The top edge was so. much. easier. I did fiddle around to get the edge notched the way I wanted, I think this shawl looks better with some of the yarn overs pulled a bit further out.

A very pleasant knit :)

PS - Yarn Paradise is having a sale on 100% cashmere, the best price I've ever seen (with shipping, mine cost $35 for 300g). So you might check it out if you have mittens to line...

Valentines

2010-02-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

Inspiration came from these heart collages on Etsy. Don't you love the visual pun implied by hearts that are "fluttering" like butterflies?

What to do? What to do?

2010-02-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'm knitting Wandering the Moor (a pattern based on Jane Eyre, how could I resist!), and using my digital scale and the shawl progress calculator on this blog I find that if I do two extra repeats, I will have 7% of my yarn left over. 3 extra repeats and I will have less than 1% of my yarn left over. Should I dare? Would it be insufferable hubris?

Editing Your Yarn

2010-02-03T19:33:00.000-08:00

Today I'd like to provide a little tutorial for any of you who find yourself with a lovely skein of hand-dyed yarn that happens to have some white blotches you would prefer it not to have...

In the example above it appears the skein was tied tightly during the dye process, preventing the dye from penetrating one area. Having one or two bright white stitches every so often in an otherwise plum shawl is not to my taste. However, I certainly didn't want to overdye the whole thing and lose the lovely plum color. I figured I had two options: mix dye myself and hand-paint it onto the white, or see if I could "recycle" any excess dye already in the yarn. The latter seemed preferable given my color mixing ability, so here is what I did.

1. Soaked the skeins for 24 hours in coldish/room temperature water with just a splash of soap. I did this because silk is notoriously hard to get thoroughly wet, and any dry spots will not release or take up dye. I also pushed the skeins down carefully (don't make tangles!) several times to release trapped air bubbles.

2. Placed the skeins in my (dyeing only) crock-pot with as much water as possible.

3. Turned the heat to "high." With my crock-pot this will eventually bring the yarn to just under boiling. Crock-pots vary, so be careful.

4. This particular yarn had very little excess dye. The dye did not begin to release until the water had reached very warm temperatures.

5. I moved the yarn around to distribute the dye evenly, then added 1/4 cup of vinegar. I admit that I didn't know what type of dye had originally been used, so this was a bit of a shot in the dark. To set, acid dyes require heat and acid (vinegar), so I wanted to provide those elements to encourage the released dye to take up into the white parts of the yarn.

6. Some of the dye took up immediately. I could see the water growing clearer. Maximum uptake can be achieved by letting the yarn cool completely in the water, so I left it to cool overnight.

Not surprisingly, it was the red dye that was most prominent in the excess that was released (I don't know why, but red dye is known to be hard to fix). In my final product the white areas were turned a lighter, pinker shade of purple. Given the variation in the yarn, this should blend in fine.

A disclaimer here at the end: I'm not a dye expert, this probably won't work with anything not dyed with acid dyes, and submerging a whole skein of yarn and encouraging it to release dye could result in some DRASTIC color changes, especially if the yarn was hand-painted to start with (is this a run on yet?) However, if you've got nothing to lose, and you want to get rid of some white spots, this might work for you!

1:10 English Teacher

2010-01-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

There's a delightful knit-along on Ravelry challenging knitters to make 10 shawls in 2010. Eight can be small and two must be medium sized. There are prizes for those who complete the challenge, but (what really sold me) also prizes along the way. It just so happened that I was already planning to make this shawl for a friend, but the contest gave me that much more incentive to get it blocked and photographed. For perspective's sake, I'll mention that when I entered it into the completed projects for January there were about 650 other completed projects before me! Without further ado, let me introduce English Teacher...

I had my doubts when I was putting in that big black stripe, but after blocking the darker colors became proportional to the body of the shawl. I do hope that it is just what the recipient had in mind!

~Details~

Pattern: Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl - yes this is my third, and I'm not tired of it yet!

Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool - worsted weight, inexpensive, good sturdy stuff. Will use again.

Needles: US 7s - this gave a reasonable amount of flexibility for blocking while keeping the shawl mostly solid.

After all that grey, I've now cast on with this...

On to shawl number two!

Who Me?

2010-01-25T18:57:00.000-08:00

This is an auspicious beginning to the new year... at least as far as knitting goes.

I completed this sweater in 18 days. This was possible because of the gauge (things speed by on size 11's) and because a terrible cold landed me in quarantine. At least having a huge, fuzzy, cute sweater is some consolation for a missing a pay-check and spending the greater part of two weeks without social interaction.

So, the lowdown:

Pattern: Owls (long gone free version, although the fee version is quite reasonably priced)
I thought the pattern was straightforward. The only thing that struck me as odd was that the short rows to tilt the yoke were not centered. I hear these rows have been removed altogether from the new version of the pattern.

Yarn: 570 yds of Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky
Love the color. The yarn is softer than I expected and sheds easily. Not surprising for a loosely spun bulky weight. Would buy and use again.

Buttons: vintage Czech glass. Each pair is different. I had enough to do the whole sweater but I thought that was bling overkill. I picked out a set that made the center owl appear to be looking left, a sparkly set, and a set that reminds me of a rotary phone dial. That owl has WIDE eyes people.

Needles: US size 10 & 11 needles, I probably would have preferred to go down to 10.5s and rework for a tighter gauge. That might have made the sweater a little slimmer. However the specified gauge did give a nicely draping fabric and prevented the sweater from weighing 1oo lbs.
I went with it because I didn't think I had enough yarn to mess around.

Size: s/m up to the waist, size xs waist to neck (yep, pear here).

Mods: removed some rows due to different row gauge.

Christmas Knitting

2010-01-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

These mittens were my most ambitious holiday knit. The yarn was handspun and the pattern improvised to match the bulky gauge. Mittens knit on size 10.5 needles take less yardage than I would have guessed, which was nice. Although I started early, I reworked this project so many times that it was the second to last thing off the needles before Christmas.

My other projects were less colorful. One of my brothers got the exact same hat as last year, but in a different color brown. From the evidence on facebook he had pretty much worn the first one all year, so I thought it might be good to have a spare. To add something new to the mix, I also got him this print, which makes me think of the new heaven and the new earth. Had a bit of a hard time parting with it (it was the last. one. ever.), but I know that said brother will appreciate the art and the symbolism.

Other brother (as he is often called) got a handspun Gotland hat. The knitting was about as simple as it gets, the fiber was the star. Gotland really does have a great steely/green grey quality. I had to frog the hat back twice to get the size right, so it was finished only in the nick of time... sadly, no picture. This hat was apparently a win as I have heard that it has actually been worn... no word on whether the matching grey machine gun tie has been seen around town yet.

As of today, I am working on fulfilling two "gift certificate" knits. One of the projects allows me to fulfill my longstanding desire to knit something with gradients of grey...

In Blackwater Woods (an excerpt)

2010-01-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
at the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in the world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

~Mary Oliver

Holiday Review

2010-01-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

2 last minute trees. Avatar in 3D. Christmas Eve service. Newly made hat & mittens drying on the heater just in time. Thoughtful gifts from family. Secret family recipes. Coffee with childhood friend. Lucky visit to bookstore. Poetry books. Holding very cute baby. Shopping for clothes to match knitting projects. Cross country skiing & wienerschnitzel with mom. Russian shawl pin. Snow on the trees. Lost cell phone. New cell phone. Found cell phone. Chocolate overdose. B & B. Block building contest. Resolution to eat new mushrooms. Prayer for the new year. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle... until 2:00 am. More coffee with friends. Tired. Reunited. Fin.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

Some encouraging words from the Gospel of John (NIV): In him was life, and that life was the light of men... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Rusty Nail

2009-12-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

A little Friday eye candy. I am busy packing, packing, packing...

Checklist

2009-12-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

I'm the sort of person who writes things on the to-do list, after I've done them, just so I can cross them off. But you knew that. Anyway, guess what I got finished today?

No, I didn't think that you would guess a miniature bead purse from 1999 (1996?). Actually, I had 4 of these finished and waiting for handles. Seems silly that after stringing a zillion tiny beads and knitting a purse on 000 zero needles I would be so loath to take the 10 minutes to twist a handle. Sometimes a project just ~~ends that way~~ waits for a return of crafting will.

The other purses will not be appearing on the blog because a) I am too lazy to learn how to set the aperture/ISO/flash settings on my camera when there is no sunshine b) there was no sunshine c) the purses had to be sent ASAP as Christmas gifts (you know, after 10 years of sitting in my closet).

This beige and green one was the only one I knit for myself during my tiny bead knitting binge and I have renewed respect for my teenage self. I may have worn cargo pants, t-shirts and tennis shoes, but I knit killer sparkly miniature purses...

Remotely Crazy

2009-12-13T17:35:00.000-08:00

My camera remote arrived! So now I can show you the Plum Crazy Shawl. My photography with the remote is still pretty rough, but gotta start somewhere :)

Fiber: 8 oz Falkland wool
Colorway: 5 Plum Pie, May 2009 Club Fiber by Hello Yarn
Handspun by yours truly
Pattern: Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl

Now I need some long sleeve t-shirts so I can start wearing my shawls out of the house...

Miles To Knit Before I Sleep...

2009-12-09T20:05:00.000-08:00

I started earlier this year, but there's still a lot on the list.

Yarn Stalking

2009-12-06T19:48:00.001-08:00

Did I ever tell you about the time I stumbled across an obscure independent German yarn dyer? Her site was cute and she had amazing colors. But you know how difficult it is to special-order things from overseas. I thought maybe sometime if I really wanted to, I could figure out the process and get something from her. Well, then she was discovered by North Americans. For a while her stuff was so popular that it seemed to the only way to get it (beside luck) was to pay scalper prices for it on Ebay. It seems that only the recession has been enough to bring her yarn back into the realm of imagination. Some of her least popular colors are now being sold second hand for $40 per skein of sock yarn.

There have been other rushes on popular yarns. Remember when everyone who was anyone was trying KPPPM, then Socks That Rock, then Sundara etc. etc. ? So this time, when I started to see some work on Etsy that intrigued me, I decided to order some. You know, before it turned into a top dollar global phenomenon after being launched to fame by a leading knit-blogger's stunningly photographed FO (yep, I can tell I just lost my non-knitting friends - sorry y'all, tune in next time).

This is the first (more skeins coming) to be procured under my new early yarn stalking system. What do you think, will it have tripled in value by next year?

Dreaming of Christmas

2009-12-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

I've been enjoying the photography advent calendar by Moonstiches. You might want to take a peek too.

Today when unpacking the ornaments I came across these. I didn't notice until photographing them that there are five. Five Christmas trees on December 5th.

and five shadows...

Yes, I'm dreaming of Christmas. Here are some of my Christmas wishes:

- sing Christmas carols around a tree decorated with burning candles
- eat 7 Layer Cookies
- surprise someone with an unexpected gift
- laugh so hard my abs hurt for days
- go shopping for clothes with my awesome sister
- go LAST MINUTE shopping with my mom
- catch up with friends

Happy Swap

2009-12-04T21:06:00.000-08:00

Blindly swapped some alpaca blend fiber for whatever another raveler wanted to send me.

A few days later this arrived: 200g of lovely BLF/Silk blend. I've been watching this Etsy seller and now serendipitously, some of her work arrives on my doorstep!

But that wasn't all... Jennie also included stitch markers (matching olive green and purple), chocolate, and copies of TWO patterns currently in my queue. The pretty things were wrapped up with care in patterned tissue paper and stickers. Wow! Thank you Jennie :)

PS - Her blog is in Swedish, but my browser offers to translate it for me. It comes out a bit odd, but enough to follow the gist of things.

Life's Rhythms

2009-12-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

You know how it is, life is busy and the blog gets quiet. However, looking back on my past posts, I realize how this place has given me a place to journal. It's good to look back and see what I was thinking and doing a year or two ago. To see the flow of it again...

I don't want to lose this fall. This was the first year that there was Thanksgiving at my house. The stuffing came out just like Mom's (yea!) and because of her scripted schedule (emailed to me by request) the event was tear free. My MIL and FIL brought cranberry relish, 3 pies, and their wonderful company. It was cosy and joyful to be together. Next time I might even have the brain space to think about things like table decor... and napkins :)

Another autumn discovery - My neighbor just happened to be making apple-sauce when I came by - could it really be that easy? Yes, yes it was. Peel, core, simmer, enjoy. After that I went to the store and bought Golden Delicious and Macintosh. Peeling that Golden Delicious took me right back to the first taste of fresh pressed cider, hands and nose frozen after hours working with wet apples. It was like finding a long lost friend.

As usual December has erased my desire to spin and filled me with a longing to knit. everything. now. I'm not sure if it is the darkness, or the cold, or the strange combination of happy and sad memories that the season evokes. But I'm continuing my quest for the perfect hat and a few gifts are in progress.

I hope to share more here soon!

Saddle Mountain

2009-11-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

A hike under a sickly, November sun.

First through the deciduous trees.

Then by an uprooted pine.

The trail became a stream, and the rocks were mossy.

And on the way home, the last few leaves, a golden glimmer in the woods...

Thank you for the special day.

What did I ever do to alpacas?

2009-11-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

That this should happen to me?
.
.
.
.
I have some variegated deep gray alpaca batts that are just begging to be made into a shawl. A shawl that every so gradually shades to light grey at its beautifully blocked tips. A shawl that is so light, and so soft, and so warm that one imagines it has magical properties (like those cloaks from the elves). The fiber itself was hand prepped by the genius at Loop Fiber Arts
and I have hoarded it for the day when I would be "a good enough spinner."

And, dear friends, it turns out that I am allergic to alpaca. Not just snuffly allergic, but hand- itching, nose-running, pretty-well-miserable allergic.

For this reason, my lovely loop batts and lots of other alpaca fiber now for sale on my ravelry page (mention that you read about it here and I'll give a special discount to my blog readers... um... if I have any readers...)

*sniff*

*a-CHOO*

Yesterday

2009-11-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

My MIL kindly sent this little table loom home with me:

It is simple, two shafts, 15 inches wide. I've been curious, but not sure how to start without a warping board. Yesterday a friend from the guild showed me how it's done. With all the proper tools it is much easier than one might expect. My camera didn't make it to the lesson, but I look forward to taking pictures next time.

Putting all those ends through all those eyes is quite meditative if one is not in a hurry...

A Lovely Thing

2009-10-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Saw this necklace on Etsy. *sigh*

Try, Try Again

2009-10-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Have been trying to rescue some nice yarn that was not quite the right color...

New color on left, old color on right. This is with acid dye.

The purple is quite dark, but nicer in life than in the photo. I suppose a scale is in order if more exact dye results are desired... perhaps for my birthday?

I have also cast on for a new fall shawl (not the one I was making batts for - that is a story for another day). The fiber is hand-dyed, so I notice there is going to be some (big?) differences as I go along... but I hope it all looks as lovely as this part...

Mending

2009-10-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm home mending from some virus that declared war on my lungs. Along with the napping, fluid drinking, and doctor's office calling, there have been some moments of fun...

5 Plum Pie
Hello Yarn Fiber Club (begged)
4.o oz, yardage... um 200?

Before I was stricken, I spun this from the fold. Probably not an orthodox choice, but I found it easier to spin a fine(r) yarn from a large diameter top that way. The color transitions are long and have that wonderful quality of being somewhat barber-poled... I think you can see here a green bit with a brown bit... that makes a long stretch of green/brown yarn. Yummy. A kindly raveler sold this 4 oz, and another kindly raveler sold me a second 4 oz when I realized I had half the yardage I expected. The kindness of knitters to the rescue! If I have energy enough to be decisive, I will cast on either a Baktus or Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl this evening.

My lovely goodies also arrived from my swap partner:

Thank you, Paula! They are right next to the dining room table where I can look at them every day.

And there is also a cute little sweater that I finally found a moment to get buttons onto:

Babies grow fast, so it's good to get this finished a few months before my friend is due!

Win/Win

2009-09-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

Baby sweater + happy baby = win

Scrap yarn + someone else's creative genius = hat win

That was a nice start to the weekend!

The Last Days of Summer

2009-08-28T09:24:00.001-07:00

Ah those last few weeks of summer... when one tries to cram in all the craft projects, home decorating, sorting, cleaning and organizing that one somehow expected to have done before school started. My MO seems to be to start 3 (or 4 or 5) tasks and spend several days on the project circuit. Efficiency experts would object, but somehow I seem to get the most done this way. See:

All the artwork for the guest room is now hung:

Baby sweater one is finished except for sewing on the buttons:

And headway is being made on the fall shawl project:

What, you say? That doesn't look like a shawl? Well, first it will be batts:

If I'm lucky I can have all the *cough* 32 batts carded so that I can just grab some and go when spinning night comes around each week. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a school year to plan, curriculum to order, a baby sweater to swatch, a curtain to sew, four pairs of pants to hem...

Just So You Know

2009-08-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

Deep Water is all plyed and ready to go...

Drumcarding Workshop

2009-08-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

Our guild recently sponsored a workshop called Drumcarding Around the Color Wheel with Janis Thompson. It was inspiring! After having almost two whole days to play with the drum carder I came away with...

yarn!

some lovely hand-pulled roving...

a new way to spin mohair...

a sparkle addiction (oh dear)...

And a new desire to be one of those teachers who transmits not only the information, but the spark... the jump-start to try something new, to explore, and to enjoy the process. Thank you Janis!

Baby Blue

2009-07-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Along with the sad moments, there have been some joyous ones too. A friend of my recently had a beautiful little girl, and another friend is expecting a boy. Lots of opportunities for baby knitting :)

Alpaca Baby Shawl knit with Lion Brand's Pound of Love. This blanket already went to the little girl. She has a lovely light blue nursery and I hope this will match.

And this is Columbia/Dorset fiber in the colorway "Deep Water" from Woolthing. As I drafted it the tan and brown reminded me of toasted marshmallows...

This isn't the best picture - but the back bobbin shows what happened when I spun from the full thickness of the roving. I got relatively solid, long stripes. The second half I stripped and then randomly pulled into 18-20 inch lengths. That resulted in the softer stripes. They should barber-pole when I ply them. Usually when I love a roving this much... and then the singles this much... I have a hard time loving the plyed result, but I'm already committed and this should keep me from getting a strongly pooling yarn.

Bittersweet Symphony, Pt 1

2009-07-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

All by hand. A sympathy shawl.

Before I had faced grief in my own life, it seemed so hard to know the right thing to do for somone who was hurting deeply. What if I said the wrong thing? What if faith failed in the sight of suffering? Now, from the other side, I realize that what we do to comfort can never be adaquate - in the sense that it can never undo the loss - and yet we must do what we can.

O beautiful for spacious skies...

2009-07-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

Isn't the beauty of this land amazing?

Happy 4th!

(And I hope to be back to blogging soon...)

New Place

2009-05-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

All our stuff is finally moved to our new place. Didn't ever think I'd ever live someplace that seems so much like Camazots. Funny isn't it, that I love matching things, but am slightly frightened by matching shrubs...

However, any possible sense of claustrophobia is cancelled out by the view from my living room.

People, that is the sunset over the Pacific ocean.

Now, to finish school and get all these boxes unpacked...

2009-04-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

So what is going on in real life that prevents blogging:

Attempting to learn Koine Greek (and memorization doesn't come easily for me)
Spinning the brown alpaca (which makes me sneeze and must be spun outside the house)
Aparment hunting (trust me, I would only do this if I had to)
Teaching (only 5 weeks to go then no more paycheck)

I'll be back, sometime when I don't feel like Eeyore...

Work In Progress

2009-04-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Knitting my first shawl with true laceweight yarn.

Still carding alpaca from this:

to this:

and dreaming of other spring projects...

(my plum roving, all spun up)

(yarn rescued from the thrift shop)

Handspun Stash: Brown

2009-03-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

The twilight roving is all spun now. The red/pink braid became the singles on the far left, and the blue/brown braid became the two ply in the middle. Not sure what to make with all this!

In the mood for lace...

2009-03-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Belated

2009-03-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I missed posting on St. Patrick's day this year, which makes me a bit sad. However, it was one of those low energy days and I don't regret having focused my St. Paddy's energy on fixing dinner rather than blogging. There was corned beef, cabbage and mashed potatoes. Yum! I need to remember to fix cabbage more often.

Today, in the spirit of posting something green (better late than never) I present my belated St. Patrick's day FO:

a small, squishy scarf from this handspun.

137

2009-03-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

My first try at handpainting top :)

Elusive

2009-02-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

Many things have seemed elusive recently, including the color of the final Twilight yarn. A little grey, a little brown, an overwash of deep rose...

Actual progress on spinning projects also feels elusive. It may not actually BE elusive, because trail and error must be adding something to the body of knowledge, but still, an FO seems a far off dream.

Spend several hours today processing some alpaca fleece (a not to brilliant picture here). Staple is about 4 inches with some crimp. Light VM, some easily spotted second cuts. Initially the fleece was dusty, which produced a gritty spinning experience. Not for me. A wash left the fiber cleaner, but somewhat wadded together and crusty at the tips. Tried the following:

1. Separate locks. Drum card locks butt end first (on coarse guild loaner). Result - is it everyone else's photographs or do my batts really look tangled?

2. Separate locks. Flick with flea comb (oops, was that supposed to be dog comb?). Result: Almost all VM removed. Easily fed into carder "sideways."

3. Separate locks. "Topload" drum carder, initially holding locks until they are pulled open, then gradually releasing for take up. Result: like flicking, but faster.

4. For areas without discernible lock structure: pick into open cloud. Drum card. Result: slightly more textured batt. Slightly more VM.

In my mind, I picture a perfectly smooth batt, but I'm starting to realize that I don't know how to get that result. Do I card more (two or three runs through), or am I just hitting a wall with the coarse cloth and the fine fiber?

Spinning Survey

2009-02-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

Cosy is asking spinners for their reflections spinning different sheep breeds and preparations of fiber. In her post she asked:

"what have you spun in what preparation? if you’ve spun both top and roving, which did you like better? were either of these farm wool? was there a notable difference between the farm wool and the non farm wool? elaborate or not as much as you would like!"

Breed: Blue-faced Leicester
Preparation: commercial top (Underwater Sunset, Skittles, Insect Wings, Mild Child)
Experience: Of the breed specific top I have spun, most has been BFL. An easy spin, and the final product has some luster.

Breed: Corriedale
Preparation: commercial top
Had one batch that was neppy and semi-felted in the dyeing process. Not very fun, although the final product had a surprising amount of loft. The other lot of top was actually Corriedale X top that I dyed and blended on the drum carder. Spun bulky, that resulted in a fluffy yarn.

Breed: Shetland (Red Velvet)
Preparation: commercial top
A smooth, easy spin.

Breed: Merino
Preparation: commercial top (Verbena)
My only experience was superwash Merino. In retrospect I don’t think I per-drafted enough because the fiber was so fine and fly-away I was afraid to muddle it up. As a result of not pre-drafting enough the final yarn is very dense and thick – but so, so soft!

Rambouillet
Preparation: farm, roving (shawl, hat)
Woolly and springy. Light processing made this fiber seem more alive. My favorite so far.

Romney
Preparation: farm, roving
Love, love, love the colors. Have found significant variation in the scratchiness of this fiber.

Gotland (samples)
Preparation: commercial top
Spun a pinch from the fold. Seems sturdy and lustrous.
Preparation: farm, pin-drafted
Lofty, textured.

Coopworth (samples)
Preparation: farm, roving?
I sampled two different colors from two different sheep. One was certainly more neppy than the other. I would like to work with more of this.

Cotswold (samples)
Preparation: farm, top
Hairy. But I’d give it another try

I've only been spinning a year, and there is still so much to discover and learn! Right now I have farm Merino (pictured at the top of this post), Mohair, Teeswater locks, Merino x Romney locks, and silk in the spinning queue waiting for me to have the time and inspiration to turn them into something...

Here's To Year Three...

2009-02-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

Currently working on some Corriedale from Spindlefrog. The subtlety of color over color is exquisite. Reminds me of taffeta.

Still haven't decided how to ply it to get the color transitions just right, but there are many more yards of singles to go.

P.S. - today marks the end of my second year with this blog. It's fun to look back and see how the opportunity to journal about my fiber hobby (and life in general) has given me a sense of perspective and accomplishment. I know I haven't been the best at responding to comments, so this year I'm resolving to take the time to interact more. Thank you for allowing me to share my journey with you!

Merino & Shetland

2009-01-29T07:16:00.000-08:00

Hello Yarn Fiber Club March 2008
Colorway: Red Velvet
Shetland Wool Top 4 oz
2 ply, 120 yards

I should get a wpi tool and get a better idea of what weight things are turning out when the fiber is allowed to be whatever it wants to be. At 4 oz and 120 yards we are definitely in bulky territory. After reading Aldon Amos on plying I was plying the living daylights out of my yarn for a while. I decided to back it down on this batch and just ply until the yarn acted balanced. It looks good to me, but the final judgement comes in the knitting.

Pigeonroof Studios
Colorway: Verbena
Superwash Merino 4.2 oz
2 ply, 70 yards

I snatched this roving up because I wanted to try something from Pigeonroof Studios and her stuff sells out so fast. However this fiber really stretched my novice spinning skills. Merino is notorious for being soft, and the superwash process just makes it more soft and slippery. I was afraid to strip the top into smaller bits since the fiber was flyaway and seemed easily tangled. Next time I will try predrafting more as that will minimize the need to strip and also pull the stray fibers back in alignment. It amazes me that I could get so little yardage out of 4 oz - especially since side by side with the Shetland skein Verbena is smaller although it weighs more. Obviously I have a lot to learn about merino and loft.

Sample Spinning

2009-01-27T19:35:00.000-08:00

I am itching to spin something and then knit it, but what to make?

Above is the first round of sampling. Should I sample greater lengths of yarn? It might give me a better idea of the finished project, but since I am sampling from 4oz bits of fiber I'm limited.

The two browns on the left are Coopworth. The lighter one is particularly delicious. I would consider spinning for Owls if there was more money in the fiber budget right now...

On the right two different Gotland samples. The dark is the pin drafted lamb's fleece. It has these lighter bits that swirl around and make lovely texture (too soft and pretty to be called neps, but really I think they are tangled fiber). I wanted to spin this in a way that would preserve its loft, softness and texture. The two ply came out not very textured, and the single ply seems fragile... not too delicate to knit, but unlikely to stand up to serious wear in the garment. I probably just need to knit it in stockinette stitch to get the texture to pop.

The brighter silver is Gotland top. Just for the fun of it I did a small sample from the fold and it produced an unusually fine and even result (for me). As I have 10 oz of the lamb and 4 of the top I was thinking of combining them for a vest. I would put random stripes of the lighter silver through the dark. Overall though, I'm not certain exactly what the lamb fiber is best suited for. Both Gotland fibers also show a tendancy to full.

At the very end of the silver sample there is also a tiny, two row sample of some Cotswold. This top is one of the first things I bought as a spinner and now it seems rather sticky (hardened lanolin?) and hairy. Not pleasant to spin. Surprisingly though, once it was yarn it was pleasant enough to knit.

Not enough here to help me choose the next big project, but you know how it is. I'll want these notes to refer to as more possibilities come up and I begin to forget the characteristics of each of these fibers...

Nibbling

2009-01-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

Somehow I'm in a nibbling mood these days. Just want small(ish) projects to work on, and a bowl of M&M's to snack on as I do. First up in the queue:

Haven't even seen or read any of the Twil*ght series, but when pictures of Bella's mittens began circulating on the knit blogs I was powerless to resist all that cabled lusciousness. I snapped up some of the soon to be discontinued Cascade 109 (color 1108), and Subliminal Rabbit's nicely done pattern, and it was off to the races. Version one came out just barely too small lengthwise in the hand. I'm moving up to size 7's next, which will put me a tad over (rather than under) gauge.

In the spinning department I'm also snacking:

This is fiber from the Etsy seller Wildhare who offers wool from happy, well cared for sheep. She also sells samplers of the different fibers she has. I tried 2 oz each from "Stephen" and "Brownie." Both colors are beautiful, although I found the lighter color to be smoother to spin. So many projects, so little time...

Winter Break: The Fiber Version

2009-01-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

Isn't it wonderful to make the fiber blog rounds and find everyone unveiling the precious gifts they made for others and the thoughtful ones made in return? Just makes a person want to jump on in and contribute to the fiber-y goodness.

For one of my brothers (the other got money to go skiing):

Yarn: my handspun Rambouillet :)
Pattern: Habitat
Notes: What a wonderful pattern! The attention to detail in the instructions make it seem so simple. I do want to offer a word of encouragement to anyone who has a sudden fear that his or her habitat is turning out too big - I was worried halfway through, but the hat decreased more rapidly than other patterns I've used, so the length worked in the end.
Mods: I increased after the ribbing with K1F&B since I got strange holes trying to increase the other way. At my brother's request I also sewed in a small, polar fleece lining around the bottom. Works wonders for those who are scratch-a-phobic.

For a friend's birthday:

Yarn: Vanna's Choice, 1 skein - nice to work with and great color selection.
Pattern: improvisation based on a 40 st cast on. Thumb gusset worked with M1F & M1B increases every other row. Changed needle size at wrist for shaping.
Needles: size 7 cast on, size 6 for arm, size 5 for hand.

For my dear MIL:

Didn't get a picture of the FO (as I was up knitting it on Christmas Eve), but this turned into a tiny triangular shoulder shawl. Yarn is my handspun, BFL from Abstract Fibers.

For me: (ahem)

I got around to spinning up some of my Flawful Fibers BFL that I have been meaning to turn into a hat. Lo and behold... my sister gave me a coupon saying that she would knit me a hat for Christmas. Let's hope that this will turn into an awesome collaborative project...

The Wires of the Night

2009-01-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about this poem by Billy Collins. In the tangle of shifting imagery, I think he captures the repetition inherent in the process of grief. The minute but incoherent details give the sense that one is caught on the sharp barbs of introspection. Or perhaps it shows that once you think you have a handle on what loss means, it means more, and takes another shape. And then at the end... after a long hard night wrestling with death, the narrator awakens to the fact that this loss will go with him into the future. I thought about looking for a poem that was less dark this year, as I have felt less pain, and more peace. And through it all there has been been that firm foundation of my faith in God even when I discovered that grief was "a floor/ you could not lie down on in the middle of the night." I'm not quite sure how to wrap this up, so I think I'll leave it there.

How I Spent My Winter Holiday

2009-01-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

Driving through a blizzard. Buying pounds of chocolate caramels and candied cherries at Trader Joe's. Listening to a masterfully directed Christmas concert that soared into the vaulted radiance of a historic catholic church - somehow so open and yet so mysterious. Snowed in for a day. Eating my mom's turkey wild rice soup. Trying Wii boxing for the first time, and hardly being able to use my arms the next day. Knitting a birthday gift for a friend. Enjoying the sweaters in Hamish Macbeth and The Secret of Roan Inish. Reading (quite disparate titles). Cross country skiing through deep, powdery snow with my husband, my mother and my sister-in-law. Laughing more than any time in recent memory, especially because of a certain Fictionary game which included the following:

Pessomancy: the act of consulting a pessimist.

Limacine: of, pertaining to, or resembling a slug.

Ramfeezled: to be cheated or bamboozled by an Italio-German pygmy goat herder named Ramfe.

One is true, one is so good it should be true and the other is... well, an act of genius that one can't really appreciate unless one was there for the entire 2 hour game.

Discovering that my husband and my mother each have sweet fictionary skills. Enjoying a game where the score doesn't matter. Watching a sublime sunset with snowy cliffs reflected in cold water. Being glad that our radiator didn't give out until we were 25 miles from home (after driving 425 in the proceeding 8 hours). Dear friends and family - I miss you already.

FO: Forty Shades of Green

2008-12-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

Yarn: Kilcarra Donegal Tweed
I've gone on and on about this yarn, so I think you must know by now how I feel about it!

Needles: Needlemaster Circulars size 5, 6 & 7
They work, mostly. Wish I had remember to go down to a 5 for the ribbing on the body of the sweater, had to be careful that it didn't grow with blocking.

Pattern: Central Park Hoodie
A fairly straight forward pattern. As a beginner I found it accessable.

Pattern Modifications & Knitting Adventures:

As many of you know, I went around and around with this yarn trying to get gauge because I was afraid to recalculate the numbers on my first sweater project. After coming to terms with the fact that I just could not get 4.25 st per inch, I thought that the math would work out to do the second from smallest size (this was hard to figure out as I was unsure how much to allow for seaming and the cables). In the end I went with my gut and knit the size 40 which with my gauge came out to 35.5 inches around. It turned out that 2.5 inches of ease was just right for a cozy sweater!

I didn't do any modifications to the sweater pattern except recalculate for my gauge and shorten the hood by 1.5 inches. It still is functional, just not as bulky.

Things learned:

Seaming is mostly intuitive, especially with cables involved. It also didn't hurt to decrease in the middle of the cable (k2tog) the row before binding off in an attempt to keep the edge from flaring when seamed.

Picking up stitches is mostly intuitive. After marking of two inch areas and deciding how many stitches to pick up in each, it is remarkable how much flexibility there was.

Blocking works wonders, but not miracles.

Think carefully about how things will look when planning cuffs on a sweater. Make sure the seam is hidden and the "right" side of the cast on will show.

Testing button holes in a swatch pays off. Your results may vary.

It is very, very difficult to pick the perfect buttons for one's dear, darling, brand-new sweater.

All in all, I am beside myself that there is a happy ending to my "first sweater" saga.

FIN

Self Portrait With A New Sweater

2008-12-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

This picture taking with a timer thing was harder than I thought it would be. Is there some secret to all those self portraits I see on flickr? Any comments are welcome. For those who want to SEE the SWEATER, do not fear, better photos are coming soon with the FO post!

A Yarn Ball Wreath?

2008-12-13T16:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, JoAnn has a pattern for one (pdf link). And you know what? I'm tempted...

Things I'm Loving Right Now

2008-12-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

Kilcarra Donegal Tweed - it is true, I'm addicted. I'm already looking for another sweater pattern that will do justice to this yarn. This comes to mind. Now I just need the skills...

Buttons for the sweater of destiny. I highly recommend M&J Trimming for the makers of handknits who live in tiny towns and therefore must order the perfect buttons online.

A few knitting patterns of course - Liesel and Reversible Cable-Rib Shawl.

The Messiah - This makes the season come alive. Scripture to music. The amazon reviewers quibble about this version, but it makes me nostalgic.

The Snowman - I love the music, even more so because it makes me think of the animated film. So sweet.

Random House Book of Fairy Tales - This is the fairy tale book of my youth (I seem to be regressing here, yes?) and the artwork brings all my favorite stories to life. Strangely I have never seen a cover to this book that I like, but inside it is gorgeous.

Hamlet - as close to a definitive film version as we are going to get. Enough genius here to get me through four hours. See... now I've worked back up into my teens.

A triad of Amarna period explorations - Akhenaton: Egypt's False Prophet, The Search For Nefertiti, Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen. These three give a sweeping view of the many, many, many theories and the various evidence (and lack thereof). A great way to put the tidy history television specials in context.

Nothing New Under The Sun

2008-12-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

This next week I'm going to be teaching about one of the most fascinating men in history. To some a "fanatic" and a "madman" to others "a great reformer" and "a saint." He came to power in a great nation, at the peak of it's economic, political and military might. Although apparently young and inexperienced, he initiated sweeping programs and reshaped the political landscape. His message was one of change. His symbol was the rising sun. His incredible personal charisma and leadership inspired wave of innovative art, architecture, and poetry. Yep, him. It's a crazy world isn't it?

P.S. (About the sweater, I finished it but I'm waiting for the buttons... and a convenient opportunity for an outdoor photoshoot... in December... don't laugh!)

Two Views

2008-11-23T19:04:00.000-08:00

There were a few moments a couple of mornings ago when the sun peeked into my window and I finally managed to capture the beauty of Kilcarra Donegal Tweed. Don't you love the rugged greenness? I, in fact, am so taken with this yarn that the thought of having no more to knit (since this project will have eaten almost all of my 1,660 yds) that another package of it is now wending its way from Ireland at this moment. Since great service and a great product deserve due credit, let me put in a plug here for the ebay seller Irish Yarns & Crafts. She buys this yarn coned from the Donegal mill and makes it available for a reasonable cost. There is even a sale going on right now, so it would be well worth checking out the link :)

Now as much as we would all like to pretend that our knitting looks like this all the time, it does not. No, it looks more like this...

A giant, poorly lit blob, entangled with various needles and threads hanging off in all directions. For those of you who are non-knitters (and have managed to last this long - bless you), I will interpret this picture. It is a sweater "in progress." The orange threads on either side of the sweater fronts mark off two inch lengths in order to help me pick up an equal number of stitches along the edge. The needles down the right side show where I have picked up stitches so that I can knit a button band. The sloppy mass at the top is a hood - the top not yet stitched together. And that little scrap of paper safety-pinned to the right side says "buttons." I am hardly one of those knitters who can remember more than one thing at a time.

Since this photo, I have actually knit and bound off the right band. It pulls in *just* a bit. (Please tell me this will block out perfectly). Now all I have to do is figure out what I want to do for buttons, pick up and knit the left side - including button holes, block the bands, seam the hood, weave in the rest of the ends, and try to steam the shoulder seams into submission. Hmm... now that I wrote all that out, it makes my by thanksgiving goal sound less than realistic.

The Sweater That Ate My Brain

2008-11-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

Gets quiet around here when I'm up to my eye balls in a project, doesn't it? I think of how much I appreciate those people who snap photos of their wips at regular intervals and write detailed posts about the pro's and con's of button placement. Gives me some solace when I want advice from someone who has actually knit a sweater before. Also makes me think I too should leave some of these helpful posts in my wake as I stumble through this. Alas, I find I am not motivated to post when I can't get decent pictures. Where did the sun go?

The heap of wool on my couch is now starting to resemble a sweater. Sleeve one is seamed in and sleeve two is blocked, but still drying. I've picked up the stitches for the hood and made peace with the gaps between the neck stitches and back stitches by promising myself to go back and tidy those up during my final finishing of the sweater. Ever onward...

I have of late...

2008-10-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, I haven't lost all my mirth (unlike my good friend Hamlet). In fact, the house has been haunted by the smell of wet wool... and wet alpaca, which is less romantic, since to me it smells like wet dog. But I digress.

I finally finished the last of my Romney yarn - the finest I've spun yet. Don't get too excited lace spinners... it's hardly even sport.

It did not come out quite as planned. I started with a little under 4 oz of Romney and wanted to spin it at a lace weight. I spun up two bobbins and plied them together. And when I say plied, I mean I REALLY added some twist. Even after the initial wash, whack, and dry the yarn had some kinks. Though they seem to have settled out now.

So all that resulted in the skein of yarn to the left. Which came out to 200 yards - exactly half of the yardage I needed for my shawl. All was not lost though. I had more fiber, sort of. You see when I fell in love with the fiber originally, I realized that I probably didn't have enough, and I requested more from the lovely local lady at the farmer's market. So theoretically my second batch probably even came from the same one sheep. However, there was a marked difference in the quality of the second batch. It was much rougher. So either it was from a different year, or the first 4oz bump I got had a proportionally greater selection of the soft areas of the fleece.

Hope springs eternal though, so off I went to spin some more. The second 4oz yielded 230 yards. Not surprisingly, over the months I slowly gave into the temptation to spin thinner even though I used my cue card fairly regularly. I'm also wondering if my failure to ply the second skein as severely could have resulted in more yardage. The more the yarn is twisting around itself, the thicker it gets. Anyway: skein one, positively plump. Skein two, relaxed.

Finally, the second skein is really *just* at touch lighter in color. Interesting that that wasn't apparent to the eye until the twist was added, but is is discernible now. Although the overall color itself is hard to pin down. The brownness/greyness of this fiber has a certain phantasmagorical property. The camera doesn't ever see quite what the eye sees...

So, once again, another project where half the fun has been learning from the unexpected. I'm thinking I might try the shawl anyway alternating between the two skeins for a more rustic feel, but right now I'm distracted by a project that has previously fallen under a blog jinx.

Do you think a photo was permissible, or are the sleeves now in big trouble?

Blood Oranges

2008-10-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

I peeled my orange / That was so bright against / The gray of December / That, from some distance, / Someone might have thought / I was making fire in my hands. "Oranges" by Gary Soto

These were originally purchased for a photography experiment. I wanted to catch some of those vibrant autumnal colors that I so love - the deep purple of Italian prunes especially. Well, as you can guess (from the lack of plum photos), that my fruit photography has a ways to go. But these oranges were fated to be something special. I recently had the opportunity to borrow Apples for Jam from my local library, and in a fit of recipe testing (come on, admit it, you get carried away too sometimes don't you?) these were the only oranges I had on hand for orange glazed chicken. Ripe blood oranges have a surprisingly light and floral taste that mellows with cooking, but still adds an elusive sweetness to the final dish. These particular oranges were also highly pigmented and yielded a beautiful purple juice. So, with my plethora of alterations to the original recipe I give you...

Blood Orange Glazed Chicken

½ cup brown sugar
½ cup fresh squeezed blood orange juice (about 2 small oranges)
¾ cup tomato sauce
1 ½ Tablespoon soy sauce
1 ½ Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup water
2 Tablespoons wildflower honey
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Zest of one small lemon
2 chicken breasts

Preheat the oven to 325. Put the sugar, orange juice, tomato sauce, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, water, honey and lemon juice in a pan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve sugar. Simmer for 5 minutes. Put the chicken in a roasting pan and pour the sauce over. Bake for 1 hour, turning and basting. Near the end of the cooking time, turn the oven to broil to help reduce the sauce and glaze the chicken. Turn and baste frequently, being careful not to let your supper burn. Right before serving, grate lemon zest onto chicken.

Just a thought

2008-10-06T08:13:00.001-07:00

I love this skirt. I wonder if there is any way to use a drum carder to blend up some color transitions like that.

It's a grey day here...

2008-10-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

The rainy season is starting up. Fortunately, I fiber to play with.

This first photo is a Gotland roving that I purchased from Crown Mountain Farms last year.
There isn't quite enough fiber for the project I am envisioning, so I've been looking for something just as special that would compliment it.

This year at OFFF there was a stall with some gorgeous raw Gotland fleeces for sale. Had I not been on a budget, I might have given in. As it is, I am sorry enough that I had ditched my camera by that point... those perfect ringlets of wool were lovely. However, I did manage to score some pin drafted Gotland fiber that has lots of lamb's fleece in it.

For comparison, here they are together. Quite a contrast in feel... the roving is dense, lustrous, and a bit more course... while the pin drafted fibers are soft, airy, and even show a bit of curl.

(Cotswold curls/Gotland roving)

Together with the Cotswold curls from the stash I think these would make a great hat. And if, for some reason, I should get bored, I have some alpaca to play with too...

Oh, dear... I do get stuck in color ruts...

Guess What?

2008-09-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

Somebody's kind husband drove her to Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival.
*sqee!* More to come...

My New Hybrid

2008-09-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

(voice over) Previously on Noteworthy Knits... Rosina finished her mother's birthday shawl, but wondered if she had enough time to finish her own handknit for the event.

Well, the answer was... sort of. Knitting like mad during the 8 hour drive, I arrived at the point where I needed to decide what sort of edging I was going to put on the shawl. Not wanting to duplicate the Icarus I made for the birthday girl, I determined to knit the Icarus body until I figured out what I wanted to do for the edge. Long story short, I bound off and blocked it the night before the party, just as it was. It was *just* big enough to pin around my shoulders. Later I undid my bind-off and knit the edging. If I had been very clever, I could have slightly altered the body of Icarus so I could smoothly transition to the Shetland border. As it was I had to decrease two stitches within between every diagonal rib.

I figured that during blocking I could recover the triangle shape. While I was able to do so (with LOTS of stretching) the edge of the shawl tends to ripple and will not stay blocked into points. No great tragedy there, although if I ever make another, I'll make it easier on myself and set up better for the transition.

I'm glad I kept knitting, this size is much more my style.

One of my favorite thing about this shawl is how the sheen of the yarn and the pull of the pattern
produce this optical checkerboard. I'm hoping to get a lot of mileage out of this lovely wrap :)

(PS -For anyone yearning to see details about yarn or needle size please see my Ravelry project page.)

Recycled Herringbone Bag

2008-08-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

Remember pay it forward? My final project did get finished... and when I was mentioning to someone today how it seems to take forever for me to sew a bag with a lining, the herringbone bag (and its sad blog neglect) came to mind.

Last fall I found an enormous men's blazer at the thrift shop that had clearly seen better days... and yet the honest, woolly earthiness of the colors won me over. It had a brown with the deep reddish tint of good farmland soil and a nice solid grey. And really, what's not to like about herringbone? It took me ages to construct the bag because the deconstruction of the jacket provided oddly shaped pieces of fabric and I wanted something that reused some of the original details intact. Ultimately the plan for a fold-over flap was scrapped (too hard to line, and obscured the pockets) and a slim book bag was born.

My desire for a fusion of very modern lines and classic fabric was somewhat obscured by my amateur sewing skills. I was completely unable to to top stitch evenly around the top of the bag and handle (my usual trick) so some painful hours were spent hand stitching the lining and bag together. Oh, and there was interfacing and boning and a magnetic snap closure or two...
How people crank out heavy duty bags is a bit of a mystery to me.

When I was done I almost couldn't part with it...

Bring The Garden Inside...

2008-08-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

Parsley on potatoes. Chopped oregano on fettuccine alfredo. Chives and mint with Asian summer salad. Basil and tomatoes. I love it that summer dishes can be so flavorful and simple. If you have access to fresh herbs (farmers' market anyone?) may I recommend two of my new finds this summer: Chilled Golden Tomato Bisque and Summer Noodle Salad? In each of these the fresh herbs are the finishing touch that brings everything together.

Aside from the cooking, there has been much traveling and some preparation for a new job... so I'm sorry if it has been quiet around here. I'm planning on participating in the up coming Ravelymics, and I'm looking forward to getting back to my knitting.

2008-07-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

At last... a word cloud generator for the graphically unenlightened... wordle.

Now that was a party...

2008-07-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

Back home relaxing after a wonderful couple weeks (!) celebrating my mother's birthday.

We started out by picking up my grandparents and taking them to the main festivities in Pullman - a family BBQ with surprise "Palouse Home Companion" skit (brought to you by vanilla, the flavor a maturity), followed by an community wide ice cream social. It was all great fun.

I was supposed to do the monologue for the skit, but got all flustered and weepy thinking of what a wonderful person my mom is and what she has done for so many people. Mr. M came to the rescue with a superb keilloresque recap of the week that summed up a lot about our family life and let me give my little tribute at the end. You know what? We're so much better together, and that's why I am so glad we are married :)

Then there was an evening with home-made ravioli and black forest cherry chocolate cake... a trip to the lake... a chance to talk to my aunties... and hold my new little cousin... then the party came to my house and there were crab cakes and walks by the beach and thrift shopping and summer purse sewing and discussions about Njal's Saga and Middlemarch... *happy sigh*

I enjoy my family so much and I'm very thankful for the time with them this summer.

Oh, and that shawl that I was knitting and knitting and knitting for the party? I bound off and blocked it the night before and it was just big enough, but of course in all the hubbub I didn't get a picture on my camera. So, I'll have to wait for Grandmother's film to be developed. It's not the last of the shawl though, I have much more yarn and I'd like to figure out how to add a decorative border. Just need to summon the will to tink the bind-off, remark the stitches and figure out the math for the border... or I could just keep reading Kon-Tiki... hmmm....

Happy Birthday Mom!

2008-07-09T10:38:00.001-07:00

Pattern: Icarus, minus one body repeat, following errata as marked on the designer's web site.

Yarn: Garnstudio Cotton Viscose, 7 skeins (840 yards)
The rows of yo's in the body didn't block out very open, probably because of the fiber choice, but the rest of the pattern is quite defined. And I could run fishing line down each line of yo's and reblock if I wanted (just don't think it's worth reblocking the beast). Overall I am very pleased with this yarn. It has a wonderful sheen and makes a fabric that is thick, slick, and slightly cool to the touch.

With a shawl though, it's not just how it feels, or how it looks hanging in a window...
it's how the pattern looks on the body too. Design elements can disappear or suddenly become eloquent when worn...

And this is where I fell in love with Icarus. Wearing it 3/4 wrap style.

Love the shape, love the drape. You're sure you wanted a shawl for your birthday?

Climbing Mt. Icarus

2008-07-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Having summited once, the knitter embarks again. Is 3.5 more repeats before 7/13/08 at 3:00 pm possible? Who can say...

Freedom

2008-07-04T19:46:00.001-07:00

Glad to hear that Ingrid Betancourt and the longest held American hostages have been rescued by the Colombian government.

Eye Candy 4th of July

2008-07-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

Everything a small town, rural farming community 4th of July should have... blue sky, wheat fields, crop duster stunts, lots of flags, happy little kids, draft horses, the vintage fire truck from "No Cow Ranch," a pie tasting contest and sparklers in the pasture. Enjoy!

Herb Garden

2008-07-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Since we aren't moving this summer, I finally had the chance to start the herb garden of my dreams. Today I picked out some rosemary, lavender, oregano, basil, parsley, cilantro, sage, chives and mint. It is amazing how many varieties there are, and then there are many different colors and flavors of each kind. I passed on the pineapple mint for now, but couldn't resist the chocolate mint. Could you?

This the first time I've ever gardened and I'm so excited! I got all my little plants home and started potting them this evening. As I handled them I enjoyed their different fragrances. I am sure looking forward to fresh mint in my ice tea...

I am researching as I go, and I'm learning all sorts of things. I've already discovered that I may not get much out of the cilantro. It apparently has a very limited life, and it flowers as soon as its roots reach 75 F. However our weather has been holding mostly in the 60's, so maybe I can get it to grow enough to harvest some for salsa before it gives up.

Oh, and right now my camera is temporarily unavailable, so the photos above are the product of another round of flickr cruising. There are actually fewer herb pictures than I thought (considering the number of say, cupcake pictures), so once I do get the camera back I'll have to try for some cute herb garden shots. And with that cliff-hanging promise I will sign off...