Monthly Archives: April 2014

This Week in Darwin

Posted on April 24, 2014 by | Comments Off on This Week in Darwin

When he stops being the cutest creature that ever lived, we’ll stop documenting every moment of his adorable life and posting them here, ok?10277675_10203334598543494_2557050032489332746_n

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Cindy, Darwin’s Nana, sent him this awesome trench coat so he can solve mysteries.

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Veggies In The Sun …

Posted on April 23, 2014 by | Comments Off on Veggies In The Sun …

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- by Joan -

(mvobsession.com)


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Relax On The Vineyard …

Posted on April 23, 2014 by | Comments Off on Relax On The Vineyard …

I saw this shirt in a window on Martha’s Vineyard… it says  …

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… and this where I’d love to be doing that right now.

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Bring something that you like doing to relax and come join me.

 


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Awesome Con 2014

Posted on April 23, 2014 by | Comments Off on Awesome Con 2014

We’ve been busy little bees around here lately!  Spring is exploding all around us and that means there is no shortage of work to be done, despite the allergies making us all feel like we were hit by a bus.

This past Saturday, though, we put it all aside to take the kids to Awesome Con, a convention in DC for fans of various Sci-Fi and Fantasy shows, books, etc.

Neither Paul nor I had ever been to one of these conventions, and it wasn’t something we ever thought we’d wind up doing, but when we found out that Billie Piper would be there and that we could get the girls’ pictures taken with her, we knew we needed to be there.  Her character on Doctor Who has always been everyone’s favorite.

It was a lot of walking, A LOT of waiting in lines, and way more fun than I’d expected it to be.  There were plenty of actors present from The Walking Dead, yet another show we are fans of, and what surprised me most was how integrated into the event they were.  Neve walked right up to the actress who played Sophia from the show and asked to take her picture (after I had sneaked one earlier, unsure if we were supposed to or not!).

Seeing all of the people dressed up as their favorite characters was also a lot of fun; Oona especially loved all of the Ana and Elsas there were from Frozen.   The girls are already asking to attend another convention in September in Richmond – a lot of the cast from The Walking Dead will be there, and it looks like the “meet and get your picture taken with an actor you really like” bug has hit them hard.

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The kids dressed up, too.  Emily was something or other from an Anime series that I know nothing about.  Oona was dressed as Draculaura from Monster High.   Katie was dressed a Rose from Doctor Who (in honor of meeting her), Brett was dressed as something called Deadpool.(as you can tell I don’t really know my Japanime or comics).  Neve went as Claudia from Warehouse 13.

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Emily stayed up the entire night before, working on sewing her costume. By HAND. She drafted the pattern herself and used very small, even stitches.  I am crazy proud of her.

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Maddie went as Amy Pond and Jessie went as a Dalek, both from Doctor Who.

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Finding people dressed as characters that compliment your own character is a big part of the fun.

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Melissa McBride, or Carol, from The Walking Dead. She’s so much prettier in person than on the show.  Carey Elwes (Westley from The Princess Bride) was in the next booth over.

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Oona found  Elsa and Ana to have her picture taken with.

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The Lannisters! Sadly I found out later that two more of the Lannister clan were there as well and I missed out on a pic of all of them together.

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Maddie found a very convincing Doctor.

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BUT. Everyone’s most treasured moment for the day was meeting Billie Piper. It was well worth the wait in line and the aggravation of dealing with a very disorganized convention to see the looks on my kids’ faces.  And hey! I got to sneak in the picture, too!

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She was everything they had hoped for: lovely and friendly.

Some kids are really into dolls. Some, barbies.  Some kids are into makeup and dating.

Mine are cosplaying fangirls.

And I kind of absolutely love it.


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Drum Carding From Locks

Posted on April 23, 2014 by | Comments Off on Drum Carding From Locks

A few weeks ago, I found a pretty good deal on etsy for some washed Corriedale locks. I love Corriedale. It’s probably my favorite wool to work with (that I’ve come across anyway, I am still trying out new wools whenever I can.) I have long been wanting to play with locks on my drum carder, and while I have plenty of fleece stashed around, I haven’t really had the time or energy to wash it properly. (Horrible, I know I shouldn’t let it sit.)

The locks I got were a bit yellowed and tippy.
corriedale locks
But, the crimp was darling and the strength in them was fantastic. If I had a flick comb, I would have flicked out the ends, but since I don’t, I just picked the locks apart pretty thoroughly. There was still a bit of vm in these locks, but no too much. Most of it came out all over my table in the picking and carding process.

I ran the picked and opened locks through my drum carder sideways. I didn’t weigh them out first, as I had 8 ounces and was planning to give the whole lot the same treatment. My first batt ended up being about 2.5 oz.
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It’s a start.

Then, I pulled the batt apart and ran it through the drum carder again, this time pulling the batt apart in strips and fluffing out the strips and getting some more air between the fibers.
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This batt looks much smoother and fluffier than the first, but the fibers were still not quite blended enough for my tastes, so I repeated the process again.

round three
After a third time through the carder, I was really pleased with the texture of the batt and the distribution of the fibers. This is a super spinnable little batt. However, I am not all that pleased with how peachy it is because of the yellowing of the wool. My plan is to slowly card up the rest of the locks in this manner–slowly because it’s really hard to turn my drum carder without standing at a funny angle so I don’t hit my giant belly with the handle–and diz it all out into roving, and then dye the lot.

Besides the yellowing, I really like how this came out. It makes a girl feel a little powerful, turning some dirty looking locks into usable, perhaps even pretty, fluffy spinning fiber. I’ll keep you updated as I continue the project!

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The Wild West: Cables Slide Rock Socks (and contest!)

Posted on April 22, 2014 by | Comments Off on The Wild West: Cables Slide Rock Socks (and contest!)

SUNSET CAT-151Slide Rock is the second sock pattern in the overall Wild West  collection (the first is Cholla, in LACE 1).

I love these socks!  I love the undulating side cables, the seed stitch, and the tiny hint of eyelets in the middle cable pattern.  I used some of the aspects of this pattern in Sedona.

The pattern is written for 3 different sizes, so you can choose which will fit your foot width best.  Length (both leg & foot) is easily customizable.

The yarn, Knitting Notions superwash merino sport, is lovely to work with.  I love the color, Garnet, that I chose for the socks — when I saw it, I knew I wanted it for the collection!

Would you like to win a copy of The Wild West: Cables e-book and a skein of the Knitting Notions superwash merino sport?  Leave a comment on this post by 11:59pm PST April 28th with your favorite Knitting Notions colorway (see them here) and your favorite pattern from The Wild West: Cables.

Want an extra entry?  Tweet about this contest (here’s the link to use:   http://wp.me/pkySt-1uw) and leave a comment on this post letting me know you tweeted the link.

Here’s the rest of the pattern info:

PATTERN NOTES 

These socks sport a subtle Aran Lace pattern in the central cable and a lot of textured in the seed stitch borders and gusset.  They are worked cuff down with a standard heel flap and gusset construction.

At 8 sts/inch, these socks are knit very densely for the yarn weight (sport weight). You can certainly use fingering weight yarn as well.

SIZES
Women’s S (M, L)

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS 
Foot Circumference: 7½ (8, 8½)in / 19 (20.5, 21.5)cm

YARN
Knitting Notions Classic Merino Superwash Sport, 100% superwash merino wool (340 yds per 100g), 1 (1½, 1½) skeins, shown in Garnet.

NEEDLES
US1 / 2.25mm needles or size needed to obtain gauge

GAUGE
32 sts and 48 rnds = 4in / 10 cm in St st.

NOTIONS
(1) stitch marker; yarn needle

SKILLS
knitting in the round, cabling, reading charts, cuff down heel flap construction, Kitchener stitch

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2014 Share Update

Posted on April 22, 2014 by | Comments Off on 2014 Share Update

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As you know, our annual Shearing Party was held a couple of weeks ago. The party is always a good time, but the main purpose of it is to shear our flocks of Cormo and Colored sheep (plus a handful of Angora goats.)

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Now that we have all that glorious fleece off the animals and bagged up, it can start the process of becoming yarn, which will then become wonderful knitted garments made by you.

Here’s what happens next:

On May 2nd or 3rd, we will be dropping hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fleece off with our favorite American woolen mill at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. We always try to have the flocks shorn before MDS&W because I prefer handing the fleeces off personally to the people who will be milling over putting it in a box and shipping it to them. In additional to saving us around $1000 in shipping charges, passing the fleeces directly to the people who will be processing it gives me more confidence that our order will be handled properly. There are a lot of details that must be passed to the mill and I am always more confident that they know what my expectations are when I can check all the boxes right in front of them and discuss my order personally.

After the fleece reaches the mill, it will be scoured to remove all the dirt, vegetable matter and lanolin. Believe it our not, half the weight is usually lost in the washing process! It’s always a little disappointing to get the post-wash weight, even though I know what to expect.

The clean fleeces will then take their place in the line to be combed and spun. Our white fleeces and colored fleeces are processed separately, both from each other and from all the other wool coming in from other farms and ranches. (We only want yarn made from our own fleeces, naturally.) The white wool is generally processed fairly quickly, with a turn around time of three our four months. The colored wool takes a bit longer, as the mill has to shut down the equipment and clean everything before processing colored wool, and repeat the procedure afterwards.

Once the wool has been washed, carded, spun and hanked  it is shipped back to us for dyeing and shipping out to you. As you can see, there are many steps in the process to making yarn, and for a good part of that process, everything is out of our hands. That can be really frustrating for a control freak like myself, but I’ve learned to work with people I trust and check in with them frequently.

And while we’re waiting for our yarn to return, we can distract ourselves with LAMBING SEASON! Lots and lots of lambos should start arriving in just a couple of weeks. More on this let this week.

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Tutorial: Zig-Zag Quilt

Posted on April 22, 2014 by | Comments Off on Tutorial: Zig-Zag Quilt
You can make your own Zig-Zag Quilt top from stash scraps, and it's not too difficult!

Main requirement for piecing this quilt top:
72 white pieces of fabric, 4.5" square
72 print pieces of fabric, 4.5" square

You'll also need:
- additional yardage for sashing, backing, and binding
- batting for the center of the quilt sandwich

Side Note: Someone asked me how I get the fabric for my stash and how I chose the colors for this quilt.  My stash was built up from fat-quarters and yardage for garment sewing.  I am a bit compulsive after sewing projects.  I can't remember where I got the idea to save scraps larger than 2" square after sewing projects.  But, that's what I do. After a project, I cut down the smaller bits of fabric into two categories: strips or squares.  I trim the squares to be 4.5" because that's the size of my plastic template.  And the smaller stuff gets turned into strips or dresden plates.  Then, I have little clear plastic bags where these scraps are organized by color.  Obsessive yes, but hey, it made this project a real snap!



First, the basis of this quilt is the half-square triangle.  It's known in the quilting world as the HST.  After you've mastered that, you're pretty much set to go.  Here's how I did the HSTs for this quilt...


As described above, I started with two fabric squares in contrasting colors of identical size.  In the case of the Zig-Zag Quilt, I started with squares that measured 4.5".  As long as all your squares are consistently cut and pieced, it's all good.  Each pairing makes 2 HSTs.  You lay one white, one color square with right sides together.  Mark the diagonal, and stitch 1/4" above and below the mark.  Then, cut across the diagonal mark, open, and press the two squares you just made.  I do loads of squares at a time by chain piecing and then press them all at once... I learned this from Craftsy's 2012 Block of the Month with Amy Gibson - the February video here is all about the HST.

Once you've made a bunch of these HSTs, they can be combined in so many different ways!


In the case of the Zig-Zag Quilt, here's how I pieced the top:


Each row of zig-zags used 24 HSTs.
The final quilt had 6 lines of zig-zags, which equals 144 HSTs.
This also means that I started with a total of 144 squares of fabric: 72 color and 72 white squares.

In any case, once I had the long pieced rows of zig-zags, I carefully joined them across these rows, making sure to use pins to line up all the seams.  I tend to press my seams open, and this was no exception.



Next, I added sashing to the outer edge of the top (that white outer frame).  My sashing had extra width to it.  If I remember correctly, the sashing was 6" wide so I could trim it down if I had to square up the quilt after free-motion quilting.  I didn't end up FMQing, but it's always good to have a bit of wiggle room for squaring up.

You cut your batting (the fluffy middle) about 4" longer and wider than your top so you have 2" of adjustment... just in case!

For me, the trickiest part of this quilt was the backing.  If you have a really vertical/horizontal element on the back like in my version of the quilt, you want to be sure to hand-baste a few cross-hairs across the quilt so it's accurately aligned to the front.  I ran a line of basting down the center of the big vertical element, and across both the horizontal elements.  This help me to be sure it was oriented correctly to the quilt top. If you want to avoid this extra step, just use a non-directional print, and a whole cloth style for the back.


My first quilts lacked this kind of precision (and were really wonky) because I didn't understand how important basting was.  Once you learn to hand-baste quickly, there's no excuse! It takes a few minutes for a quilt of this size.  I did both pin and hand-basting for this quilt.

Lastly, is the actual quilting.  First, I stitched in the ditch (along the main zig-zags).  Then, I echo-quilted which means I ran a line of stitching about 3/8" away from the zig-zags.  I just used my presser foot's width as a guide.  Then, I quilted the sashing, added the binding (that final outer edge) using this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew and Mary on Lake Pulaski.

And, that was it!

The final quilt including the sashing and binding is 51" x 51".
The main print for the backing is Tula Pink's "Turtle Bay" print from her 2011 collection "Prince Charming" in Indigo.  Everything else was scraps and leftovers from my stash.

I hope this tutorial helps clarify the process of quilting something like this improvised quilt.  Have you ever quilted before?  What were your first quilts like?

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A Month of Knitting

Posted on April 22, 2014 by | Comments Off on A Month of Knitting

After leaving you for a month with a frustrated and tired post, I am back with some knitting! (I feel like the previous post is indicative of the end of pregnancy–and I haven’t had the energy to update much since then.) In fact, I haven’t had much energy for anything by working and knitting, so I have a lot of knitting to share with you!

Now that I am officially overdue and on maternity leave, I have a little time to catch you up. First, I finished my citron about a month ago.
citron before blocking
A quick snap before it’s bath.

citron blocking
An even quicker snap as I was pinning it out. It already looks so much better.I don’t have any action shots yet. I’ll have to work on that, but I have been wearing the heck out of it. It’s so elegant and soft–and this is definitely one of my colors!

I also finished some more baby stuff.
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Evidence as to why you always need to do a gauge swatch. Two newborn vertebrates knit about a year apart on the exact same needles with the same yarn. Obviously the orange one is bigger. I made some cute little pant to go with the blue sweater, but somehow haven’t photographed them yet.

Last week, in a fit of frustration that the baby wasn’t here yet, I finished the blanket I cast on when I first found out I was pregnant.

And I was working on a pair of rainbow socks for Brock, but I left them out at my father-in-law’s house a couple of weeks ago, so that project is still looking a lot like this:

I also cast on a post-partum sweater for myself, one of the cute tops from the Spring Knit Picks collection. It has a cute lace yoke, but the body is solid stockinette in the round. My hope is to get through the yoke in the next couple of days and be on to the stockinette body by the time the baby comes (in a couple of days.) I am about halfway through the yoke, but since it’s lace, it’s really hard to make out. Photos when it looks like something other than a wad of yarn.

What have you been up to this April?

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Tell Me Something Good Tuesday!

Posted on April 22, 2014 by | Comments Off on Tell Me Something Good Tuesday!

Tell Something GoodTuesdays

Okay, y’all! You know the drill. Tell me something GOOD!

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