Monthly Archives: February 2012

Slow Start on Saturday

Saturday morning is usually when I deep clean the apartment. Truth be told, there isn’t that much to do today. Instead of a morning of cleaning, I have an hour or so of small projects. In one sense, this is good because it means the apartment is all ready pretty clean. On the other hand, it is easier to say, “Oh, I don’t really need to scrub the shower this week. Let’s work on fibery projects instead.” And that my friends, is a slippery slope that leads to an apartment full of grime and yarn. And I don’t like grimy yarn, so soon I will give in a start the mopping floors.

Just to procrastinate a little bit longer, I’ll show what I did yesterday. It’s interesting because I worked on it so much, I didn’t do any knitting! I know. That hasn’t happened for awhile.

I warped and wove most of my second inkle loom project. This time I am using my own wool, the left over charcoal cascade 220 from the linen stitch scarf and some orange elann peruvian highland wool I had laying around. I think it’s coming out nicely, but it’s obvious (to me at least) that this is still a beginner’s project. I find that even when it comes to weaving, I prefer working with wool over acrylics. This wool forms a much softer fabric. It’s not as bulky as the acrylic was and it seems like it will be just as durable (and possibly easier to sew). I am making the longest project I can make again, for optimum practice weaving. I am not finding the wool to be too sticky on the heddles, and it’s going really quickly. I am already thinking about what my next project will be.

Next to my loom, I have a pile of cotton yarn in pretty colors.

Because I decided it would be fun to make some useful things for the shop, and because it looks like (though I do not yet have official confrimation) I am going to have my own booth at the Farmer’s Market this year! (Which means I am going to have to start doing my cleaning on a different day.) The cotton is just the tip of the iceberg really, but I have a lot of preparations to do, so I better go mop the floor so I can get started planning for this new adventure.

Today


Breakfast


with my neighbor


loom partially warped (a long overdue commission)


Pots!  (And there is a secret in this photograph.....)


LOTS of pots


Anyone???

JJ Blouse Tutorial – Part 3

Fan Fiction

btt button
A while ago, I interviewed my readers for a change, and my final question was, “What question have I NOT asked at BTT that you’d love me to ask?” I got some great responses and will be picking out some of the questions from time to time to ask the rest of you. Like now.

Pepca asks
Have you every written any fan-fiction? If yes, why and for which book(s)? If no, would you like to and for which books(s)?

For that matter, do you ever READ fan-fiction??

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!


I am feeling productive I guess?

cord and tassel detail

No big shocker I suppose, that as I am trying to take it a little bit easy, AND it is still technically winter here, I have been spending most of my time knitting.

There is now a hat for Miss Lydia's first winter next year,

Lydia's winter hat (for next year)

and a coming home hat,

Lydia's coming home hat?

I made this braid out of a bunch of different yarns to thread through the ingenious eyelets the hat's pattern included.

I love braids :)

Hat is finished and waiting to be washed. Super cute and easy pattern. I highly recommend it!

Another fun pattern is this sweater/tunic type thing I am working on.

baby sweater

Not sure what size I'll end up with, but it doesn't matter. She'll grow into it eventually!

Now something for mama, in the form of MY FIRST FAIR ISLE EVER!

Fair Isle Boot Toppers!

These are the Fair Isle Boot Toppers from the Juniper Moon Farm Chadwick Booklet and they knit up so fast! I did the actual Fair Isle part in only a few hours, but the ribbing at the top is taking me a lot longer.

ANYWAY... I was super excited to have a reason to make them because for my birthday over the weekend (32nd, if you're counting), I ordered myself something I have been longing for for a very, very, long time.

that's right -- it's birthday boots time

My very own wellies!!!

Now I am all set to hit the garden in any weather!

all set to to do some gardening

See? I have a new compost pail and everything now.

lettuce friend!!!

New compost pail's name is "Lettuce Friend" in case you were wondering, and he will become fast friends with this little beauty:

new composter!

A real composter! For as proud as I was (and still am) of my compost house, the increasing neighborhood feral cat population has destroyed any desire I had to use the beautiful soil in my little heap. Between the terrible odor and the threat of, well, piles of cat crap in my compost, I am shutting down the house and moving on to something a bit more enclosed. Let's hope this guy does the trick!

On a brighter note, I made a dress today, based on a beauty I saw on, where else? Pinterest!

new dress

It has now joined the ranks of only a handful of articles of clothing in this house that can accommodate my rapid expansion.

new dress front

(Needs a wash and press obviously, but I was too impatient to wait for all that.)

new dress back

As far as the expansion goes -- I'm 27 weeks today and now have exactly three months to go!

new dress side

VERY hard for me to believe that spring and baby are both just around the corner!

I have comments to catch up on (bad blogger), and a skillet handle cover tutorial to do, and probably a million other things I wish I could get organized enough to share, but all we should realistically expect in the immediate future is a thousand pictures of knitting, my new red boots, bizarre combinations thereof, and blathering on about any of the above...

Magic in Their Fingers

Until you know the trick, magicians can hold you spellbound as they do the seemingly impossible.  Sawing women in half, rabbits out of hats, vanishing elephants... there must be a way, but how?  The same is true of spinning wool into yarn.  How do they DO that? 


The amazing thing with spinning is that even when you know the trick, the magic remains.  It never gets old.  And even when you're the one making it happen, the magic entrances the magician.  Beautiful clouds of wool become solid lines of yarn, right before your very eyes, and under your own hands.


Is it any wonder that the attraction to spinning draws in more and more practitioners today, just like it has for thousands of years of human history?  We're lured into the wonder of the magic--the crazy combination of presto-chango and pedestrian utility.  We're hooked on the voila moment.

Mickey, Linda, and D'Wanna got to Aha! tonight at the Little Red Barn.  Stand amazed.

All twisted up

Towards the end of last year, I was kind of on a cable kick with my knitting.  Of course most of my "knitting" time is actually spend browsing Ravelry and perusing knitting magazines rather than, you know, actually KNITTING, but still, I found myself drawn to cables.  I have visions of knitting myself some kind of lovely cabled sweater or vest or something, but for now, I'm taking the edge off with little accessories.  

First up, a hat.  An impossible-to-photograph hat -- what IS it about purple?

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Pattern: Bramble Beret, from the book Vintage Modern Knits
Yarn: Valley Yarns Northampton, less than one skein 
Needles: US5/3.75mm and US7/4.5mm
Time: September 2011 (about two weeks, start to finish)
Ravelry project page

When I got this book for the library, as soon as I saw this hat I knew I'd have to make it.  I decided to make it in time to enter it in the Harwinton Fair -- and it won a blue ribbon in the hat category!  Even as I was knitting it I was thinking that it would be a perfect gift for my sister Katie.  I mentally earmarked it as a Christmas gift for her, which is why I didn't blog about it sooner.  (I did give it to her, and she proudly wears her Award-Winning Hat now :-) )

This wasn't a particularly difficult knit for me -- but it was very fiddly.  I prefer to knit things like hats on double-pointed needles rather than circular needles, which always makes for some "octopus wrestling" moments once you work cable needles into the mix as well.  The reason the pattern took so long for me to knit was because it has about eight million bobbles.  I love the texture of the finished product, but oy, I never wanted to see another bobble ever again.  The pattern is charted, and I found it to be very well-written and easy to follow.  

I loved the yarn -- Valley Yarns Northampton.  I actually got this particular skein for free, as a giveaway at the Storey booth at Book Expo America last year!  It reminds me a lot of Cascade 220 -- a 100% wool yarn that I am told felts beautifully (though I've not felted with Northampton myself), but is still nice and soft and perfect for next-to-skin wear.  I have already used Northampton again (see below!) and will do so in the future, too.  It's a great basic yarn and comes in a lot of colors.

This particular color, of course, was nearly impossible for me to photograph.  Neither of these pictures is quite right -- it's a deep, dark eggplant purple.  So not only was it hard to get the color right in pictures, the project was so dark it was hard to capture the pattern too! 

DSC_3696

I had so much fun cabling with Northampton, I did it a second time!

DSC_3525

Pattern: Twisty Sister Cabled Handwarmers (free pattern available here)
Yarn: Valley Yarns Northampton, less than one skein 
Needles: US6/4.0mm
Time: November 25 - December 1, 2011
Ravelry project page

These were SUCH a fun knit -- I LOVED them and want to make another pair, if not more than one!  They're a small project so they go quickly.  The cable is intuitive and fun to knit, and looks a lot more complicated than it actually is so you get a lot of bang for your buck.  The pattern is free, but is exceedingly well-written -- personally, I think the designer should have charged for it!  It was better than any number of patterns that I HAVE paid for.  

I used Northampton again for these (another freebie ball from Book Expo -- this one picked up by my coworker).  It's a great yarn for cabling -- it makes the cables nice and plump -- and the finished product was so nice and soft and warm.  I gave these to my sister-in-law Kate for Christmas, but it was hard to give them up!

DSC_3524

I see more cables in my future...I'm just not sure what, exactly, they'll be a part of!

It’s the Principle of the Thing

Post image for It’s the Principle of the Thing

Yes, my copy of Hiatt’s new “Principles of Knitting” came. And yes, I’m definitely going to be reviewing it. How exciting is this? This updated version has only been in the works for ten or so years, right? And meantime the original has been like the holy grail. The book is massive, though. Luckily for your patience (and mine), I will NOT be waiting until I’ve read through the entire thing before writing a review. Fast reader though I am, that could be months. It looks amazing. Can’t wait. The only problem? It’s HUGE, so carrying it around is not going to be an option. If it weren’t $11 more, I would have bought the Kindle version instead (grin).

February Cliffs …

I took this picture of Gay Head on a 28 degree day in Feb 1989.

101_2014

I took another shot and as I turned to walk back to the car my camera opened… I was concerned that all my pictures were ruined.  I took the roll of film right to the camera store to be processed.  Not only were all of my pictures okay but look how the last picture came out.  I sort of like it.

101_2015


JJ Blouse Tutorial – Part 2