The Virginia Purl

What's Old is New Again!

2011-10-10T16:54:00.000-07:00

What's Old is New Again!

I have been waiting for my youngest son to leave home for the third time. He left the first time to move out on his own. Then he was called to active duty and go to Iraq for a year. Now he has a job and have moved out again. While I have mixed emotions about him finally leaving home, I am excited about turning his room into some new...again.

I had thought years ago when son #2 moved out I would make a guest room. I have hung on to that for such a long time. Then it occurred to me that I could make an office/fiber studio in there and use the smaller second bedroom as a guest room. So it is taking place now. It's horrifying to me to post this first picture but I wanted you to see the before and in working progress pictures.
This is my son's room right before he moved out. And now it looks like this...
My husband ripped out the carpet and the padding. Then (because it drives him crazy) he screwed down the under flooring that squeaked. Here is the primer, paint for the ceiling and paint for the wall.

Here is one corner primed near the closet. Please ignore the time stamp. It's way wrong because I took these pictures today.

This is a shot of the only window in the room. The black area to the right of the window is the access to the pipes for the water in the bathroom that butts up to the bedroom. There is framed square of wood that covers that up with molding. I will have to paint the molding so that stuff has been moved. I have to rough it up a bit and then paint it the new trim color.

The really cool tool that is the tallest in this picture, is ceiling popcorn scraper. It worked like a charm and all that mess is gone, gone, gone. So now the ceiling has to be primed to cover up the little marks from scraping the popcorn off. It looks so much better.

Here is another corner of the room that has the water pipe access for the other bathroom. I thought that this room should be the fiber studio because every time someone runs water in either bathroom, the poor person who sleeps in this room has to hear every drop. Not great for sleeping so I have been told about a million times by my son. I painted five different colors on the walls to see what I liked. I wanted to do a more tan color for the wall and a beige color for the ceiling. Since there is going to be so much color from all the yarn stash, I figured neutral colors would be the best.

The ceiling got one coat of primer so far. We bought flooring for this bedroom and the smaller one since it was on sale. When we get all the stuff out of one room the other one will be cleared to start the whole process all over again. A metal shelving rack has been purchased from Lowe's and I think I will go and get another one that is a wee bit smaller to put in front of the window. I want to put some plants in there and fix up a spot for the cat for when he out runs the dogs. So that is where we are in the fiber studio so far. I will make updates as soon as we get something done.

It's Sock Time!

2011-09-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

It's Sock Time

I joined a group on Ravelry that is knitting socks all year round. I started off with the best of intentions but fizzled out when I lost my knitting mojo. When I finally found it, I knit all of those Waffleknit Dish/Wash cloths (40). It was mindless knitting that I could take anywhere and thankfully,they sparked my desire to knit again. Since then I have knit one pair of socks and have another pair on the needles. I helped someone put a border on a handspun knit gift for a wedding and a misc. scarf for a coffee shop owner where we gather twice a month to knit. I was just trying to burn up yarn and Angela said she liked it and it's found a new home. I know I have not made as much of a dent in my stash as I wanted but I have been trying.

I just finished these socks a few weeks ago but my blogging has been hit or miss lately. So here is the newest green socks with a pattern that I have used before. I truly love this pattern. I tried another yarn with this cabled pattern but it just didn't let the cables shine through so I frogged them and changed yarn.
As much stuff as I order from KnitPicks over the years, you would think that I would have actually ordered some yarn from them, but I have not. Well, at least not this year. Right before I knew I would not be ordering yarn, I went in with a mass order with some friends. So I ordered some yarn and this is one of the yarns I ordered. I think it's Stroll but I can't find the ball band. Here is the sideview of the sock. I didn't line up the cables very well for the photo op but they are there. There are two in the fron and two in the back up to here I put in the after thought heel. I love that heel! It's a bit annoying to pick up the stitches later, but the look is so worth it. I did not use reinforcement on the heel or the toe. I forgot. I like the extra strength but opps!
I know there is a huge ladder right down the front of the sock. I had a run-away stitch that I dropped and had to pick it up. When I did it made the ladder. I am hoping when the socks are washed and dried that will go away. These are some of the easiest socks I have ever knit. I would recommend this pattern to an advanced beginner who want to try cables.
Here is a more close up view. Can you tell I really love these socks. This is pair number three I have done with this patter and I think there will be more down the pike. Happy Knitting!

A Quickie Craft Idea

2011-09-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

A Quickie Craft Idea

I have been cruising craft blogs for months now looking for inspiration and I found it. This seems to be a new trend and I for one, love it! It's such a simple idea that I can't believe I have not done this sooner. This is the simplest idea ever! Not much money either. So it's a hit with me!
How cool is this? In my search for great organization ideas I found this one on the net. First you find a glass jar or vase. Of course you have to purchase a spray can of chalk board paint and some masking tape of some kind. You mask off an area around where you want the spray to go. There might be over spray but that's quickly fixed by using a dry SOS pad and the little tiny droplets come off quickly. Then you spray the chalkboard paint on the open spot in small strokes. I let the paint dry for about two hours and then put on another coat. I think I may have done either three or four coats. Then I pulled all the tape off. I cleaned off the over spray areas. I think I read somewhere on the net that it's best to take your chalk and completely cover the painted area then wipe it off with a soft cloth of some sort. After that anything you write on the area should look great. I was tickled pink with the results. The above photo is of all three of my one gallon zip lock bags of 5 gm. sock skeins for my sock blanket. Now everything is in one place and I can see all the yarns I want to use!
I really dislike laundry detergent boxes. They are awkward and usually pretty ugly. So I bought a jar at Tuesday Morning and decided it was going to be my first project. It worked really well so then it was the sock jar above.

In my zeal to organize even more I found a vase that was collecting dust in one of my kitchen cabinets and I gave it the chalk board treatment. Mind you, this is still the same can I started with. So now I have all my straights in one place and that emptied out an container that I donated to another knitter. I can see all my needles which in the long run will save me money. I won't be going to out and buying more needles because now I can clearly see what I have.

I have clearly been smitten with this idea. I am going to use the chalk board paint on some other items so stay tuned. My youngest son has gotten his own apartment and I am hoping to make his old room my craft haven. So there will be more organizing coming down the pike. Check out this site and you will be blown away with new and fabulous ideas!

2011-08-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

Dead Wood

When we bought our house I have to admit that having a deck was a selling point. I didn't give the up keep much thought; ever. I think the first owners of the house had it installed while they lived here before us. It was not brand new but new enough. We didn't do any preserving or much up keep and it shows. It's been through hurricanes, standing water, animals, carpenter bees, paint splatters, rats and bunnies gnawing on it and tons of snow, not to mention the scorching hot summers. I think the deck was well worth someone else's money. Now it's our turn to upgrade the yard and make it ours. After eighteen years, I think it's time.

So the weekend of July 4th we finally decided to do the deed. It was a back breaking deed, but it got done. We tore down the deck to parade rest (my husband loves that expression). There was digging, prying, hammering, sweating and swearing , but it got done.
This is the deck before the day of demo. As you can see the steps coming down into the yard had rotted away and my cheap solution was to use pavers stacked up to serve as the new steps. It's hard to tell from this photo, but the section of the deck we tore up sits up higher than the portion of the deck that is closest to the sun room door. Let's face it. It's a mess.
This the view from the deck after all the floor board were taken off. It took all morning. Then we took a break to top off our fluids, eat lunch and have a nap to recoup. The afternoon was spent taking out the bottom frame. What a job that was. We had to get a rather large sledge hammer to tear up the foundation boards.
This is the view from the part of the deck that is still intact. You can see part of the garden straight ahead. Notice the fence? We did that to keep the dogs out and so far it has worked really well. So as you can see everything is still in progress. We plan a small herb garden that will have a potting bench. A small fence has been put up since these pictures were taken. We still have to decide on stones for the new patio and rip up the other half of the deck. Weekends is the only time we have to work on this so it's going to be a slow process. I don't care if it takes all summer as long as we make some progress on it every weekend. We are planning on taking some of the foundation deck boards that are in good shape and making two more large raised beds for the garden and to make the potting bench. I hate thinking about the good wood being wasted so we have plans for it. I am excited that we are finally making progress. Stay tuned.

2011-08-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

Old Fashioned

...nope that is not referring to the alcoholic drink. It's referring to something that I remembered from my childhood. My grandmother lived on a very quiet street in Temple, TX when I was a child and well into my adulthood until she moved to another part of town to a much nicer house. I have some really great memories about the old house and her neighbors. It seemed to me as a child that everyone on that street was old. I mean really old. Of course this memory was from elementary school, so I guess everyone was really old to me then. I suspect those "old" people weren't really that old.

The woman who lived next door used to make homemade donuts and gave them to my grandmother for us when we came to visit. In turn, my grandmother would send over a small brown bag of her cherry tomatoes. Long after my grandmother passed away, I went back to the old house and knocked on the neighbor's door. That donut woman still lived there but now she really was old. I think she told me she was in her 90s. I am pretty sure that she has passed away by now, but I still have such wonderful memories of her donuts and how nice she was to let me come over and spend time with her.

The neighbors who lived next door to the donut woman were a married couple. They were so cute together and again were so sweet to me as a little girl. I don't remember too much about them except their names and how slowly they moved. They used to have a wooden screen door on the front door that would make the neatest squeak when it opened and closed.

Then there were the two old ladies who lived on the corner. I never knew their names and never talked to them but I would walk past their house on the way to the grocery store at the end of the street. My grandmother knew them and used to say they were two old maid sisters who lived together. The thing that I loved most about walking past their house, was their killer garden. They had the white picket fence on the side yard and there was all kind of green stuff growing gang busters there. I remember seeing them in the scorching hot sun in their plain long sleeved prairie dresses and their prairie bonnets on working their magic with a hoe. I don't ever remember seeing their faces. Their bonnets covered up their faces. I know they wore them to keep the sun off of them but I have never forgotten how cool and old fashioned I thought they looked. Does anyone here remember Holly Hobby? They looked just like her.

So when I saw this post from my blogger friend Paula, I had to do something quick to get some of these! Since Paula admired my dishcloths, I asked if we could do a swap and she said yes! I was so excited. The bonnets came in the mail a while ago. I should have posted this sooner but I have been just a bit busy with work, the garden and taking on a new responsibility and posting often got pushed off to the side. It posting this sooner did not lessen how crazy I am about the apron/bonnets. Wait until you see the pictures I took the day I opened the box. Please be gentle as you look at my pictures. Remember, you are admiring the bonnet not my bad hair...

This is taken in the bathroom so that you can see the hat. Not such a good one but the next one is much better.
I just love it. It gets the thumbs up from me for sure.
Paula exactly what I would like so she made me two bonnets. This one is the second one. Pretty cool? I am just thrilled with my new bonnet/aprons. I have to confess, they probably will never be used for an apron because I just love the sun bonnet look. If you have not read Paula's blog you really need to. It's cute and all about the country life she leads. I am always tickled when she has a new post.

Thanks Paula, for such a wonderful exchange. Please accept my thanks and my apology for not posting this as soon as I got them.

2011-07-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

Meet Mortimer
Last year I expressed an interest in a tea cozy to cover up my tea pot. I am an avid tea drinker as of late. I had been eyeing a cute tea cozy in a book that my friend Romelda had. She was knitting a tea cozy for someone else's birthday. I made a passing comment that I liked the sheep. Romelda filed that comment away for a later date.

Romelda quietly got started on my 2010 birthday present. I had no idea what she was up to. My birthday came and Romela showed me what she had been up to so that I would know she didn't forget my birthday. I have seen in over the last year in pieces, together, ripped out and then put together again.

I went recently to Romelda's for knitting and we had tea. Mortimer was the guest of honor.
Here is Mortimer from the back. Doesn't he have a cute backside??? And this is Mortimer from the front...
Isn't he cute from the front too? Now who wouldn't love a face like that? Thank you very much Mortimer maker. You did a nice job.

2011-07-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

My Dirty Little Secret

We have lived in our current house for over eighteen years. With time comes complacency. Ever since I have been married we have moved every four years. So that means things are cleaned out, given away, sold at a yard sale or just thrown away. I have to admit that I have gotten lazy about keeping house the longer we stay here.

This is what laziness gets you; a big fat unorganized mish mosh of chemicals that have been there for who knows how long. Too long I think. So I felt inspired one day and decided to clean it up. I don't get inspiration too often so I had to go with it.
There was so much stuff under the sink, I piled it on the kitchen cart and stood on a three step kitchen ladder and took this picture. It's my private kitchen shame...
I really wanted to do the baskets that you can get that will slide in and out on a plastic track. We measured and we can't ft them in there because of the garbage disposal, pipes and misc. things hanging down.
So this has to be the solution for now. The plastic bin is for my bathroom cleaning supplies that I carry upstairs when I have to clean up there. Eventually I will have this stuff moved to the bathrooms I clean and then there will be more room under the sink again. This is the view on the right side of the divider board.
This is the left side. I have a metal tin for the sponges and rubber gloves. Below that in the green bucket I bought from the dollar store are all my dishcloths rolled up and stowed away. The tall metal tin are my kitchen garbage bags. I really don't like the boxes. Since this photo was taken I found another way to store those clear yard bags so I don't have to look at those boxes either. I found doubles and triples of cleaning fluids that I need to use up and get rid of for more earth friendly nature cleaners. It's going to take a few months, but I will whittle down the stock.

I know there are others out there who dirty little secrerts too. Clean them out and confess on your blog. You will empowered to move on to another little secret place that needs purging. I know I did.

2011-07-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

It's Not Mine
The most wonderful thing about knitting, crocheting and spinning is the people who do these things. They are some of the most generous people I have ever met. One person comes to mind the most; Juanita. I have been lucky enough to get all kinds of things from her over the last few years that I have known her via my knitting group Yarn for Breakfast. (This link will only work if you are a member of Ravelry)

Between Juanita and I, we must have swapped a whole sheep one ball of roving at a time. I have given her roving and then she picks up something wonderful and she passes it on to me. It doesn't stop with roving, but now it's finished crocheted items like a hat, a flower for that hat, and a dishcloth with the state of Texas knitted in it. I know Juanita is more a crocheter than a knitter so the dishcloth will be a treasured item.

She has even give me zucchini and squash that someone else gave her that she couldn't use.
I made a vegetable and sausage lasagna and a grilled vegetable and penne pasta salad.

The other day when we were knitting at The Coffee Shoppe, she gave me two nice sized balls of the most wonderful cotton yarn. She said it came from a spool that she got from Walmart. While I loved the cotton balls, I decided I could not add them to my stash. So since one good turn deserves another, I made something for Juanita. I am hoping she will be surprised and happy.

I don't crochet very often but it seemed appropriate I should crochet something for the crocheter. So I did. I made Juanita a market bag. The pattern came from a search on Ravelry for a free crocheted market bag.

The pattern is called Crocheted Market Bag. If you are not a member of Ravelry you can find the free pattern here. It's super easy and was an extremely easy crochet. I did it in less than two days. It wouldn't have taken me that long but I ripped it out a few times to be sure I understood the directions. Like I said, it's been a while!

Here is the bag laying flat so you have some idea of size. This is laying on my couch and it takes up one cushion size and a wee bit of the second cushion. I have not put anything heavy in it. I will leave that to Juanita to do when she gets the bag.
I wrote this post a while ago and since have handed back the lovely cotton balls that were gifted to me back to the giver. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did making it.

2011-07-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

Tour de Fleece
Every year that the Tour de France runs, Ravelry has a group that challenges themselves to do something every day the race is on. This year the YfB (Yarn for Breakfast) group I belong to decided to do a mini event. The challenge is to spin at least fifteen minutes a day for time the Tour de France.

Here is what was on the wheel. It's a wool, mohair and bamboo blend that I bought two years ago at a quilt show in Hampton, Virginia. I set it aside thinking I would be so excited about it I would be all over it: NOT. I started it and then for some reason wasn't happy with it and quit. Since I am limited on the amount of spools I have for the singles I spin, I had to get the stuff off of there. I figured I might as well finish it and be done with it.
Here is the finished product on the swift. It's not consistent spinning but there is one thing it is...FINISHED!
This is a close up of the yarn. I haven't weighed it yet nor have I figured out the wpi (wraps per inch) to see what size it is. At this point I am just glad it's done. Finding a project for it will be in the future.
I have seen other spinner's do this with a coin, so since I thought it looked cool, I did it for mine to. They put a coin under the singles or finished yarn to show how small the stuff is. Mine is not small but like I mentioned earlier, I am just glad it's done. I have more roving on the wheel right now and will blog about that stuff later. Without the Tour de Fleece challenge from my fellow spinners, that single spool would still be sitting upstairs for who knows how long.

I'm Feeling Blue

2011-06-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

I'm Feeling Blue.

A blogger whose farm blog I really love reading admired some dishcloths that I have been knitting (check out the post before this one) and asked if I was going to sell them. Nope, nope, nope. I admired something she made and talked about on one of her blog posts. So I proposed we do a swap.

Even though I have been on a yarn diet, I figured a purchase to give to someone would be okay. Off to A.C. Moore I went. I was really surprised at how many blue cotton yarns there were. I never have noticed them before. I picked four different blues and one Ecru. I figured that I could use the Ecru to supplement the blues when the cake ran short. Sure enough some of them did.

I have knit somewhere around 40 of the same pattern of these dishcloths. Knitting these was a walk in the park. They are ready for shipping to parts unknown. I am excited they will be in a country kitchen and they will be used. Here they are!

This is a short post, but as you can tell from the last two posts all I really have been knitting is dishcloths. I think I started on May 2. I used a #6 Addi Turbo circular for every one, two stitch markers and a row counter. Such an easy project to carry in a bag stowed in the car to drag everywhere. Now, I just need to get her address and they will be off to a good new home.

2011-06-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

It's Back!!!
I thought a few months back that I had lost or at least misplaced my knitting mojo. I fretted and wondered if I would ever be able to knit with the passion I have had in the past. It was such a simple thing that gave me back my knitting mojo. One word describes it...dishcloths.

I haven't ever gotten into dishcloths but for some reason doing them has given me back my desire to knit again. I say dishcloths but it started out was a washcloth for the husband. He likes the knitted washcloths. I have knit them in the past but for some reason they didn't last. So in the trash they went. Out with the old and in with the new in progress. So I am using the same pattern from Ravelry for both washcloths and dishcloths. It's the Waffle Knit Dish Cloth. I followed the link and it lead to me here. I had to laugh after I saw where to link lead me to. I have been reading this blog for a few years now and totally missed this dishcloth. I guess you don't see what you have to see until it's time to see it.

The Waffle Knit Dish Cloth is super easy to knit. It's great for those of us who need a project to drag around with us in the car for the kid's games, dentist/doctor appts, and for knitting groups where there is a lot of talking going on and the attention span is shot! Great project. I don't think I can have too many dish/washcloths in this pattern.

To this day I have completed nearly 30. I want to keep knitting these but I am running out of balls of cotton. So I guess I will have to move on to some other projects that are UFOs. At least I am knitting again and want to keep knitting. So here are the beauty shots...
Here is a stack of my work in progress. I have various colors but the same pattern for everything. It just works so well.
I especially love the white cloths and the Ecru with the green.
There are some solids and some variegated.

So as you can see, there is a really good reason why it's been a while since I have blogged about what I am knitting. I have been knitting these for over a month now. I have three medium sized balls left and then the marathon Waffle knit will be over. I am now looking for a new project.

2011-06-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

A Childhood Memory Revisited

Last weekend was my husband's birthday. I am always at a loss about what to give him. This year I gave him back a memory he had as a kid. I have been hearing about this for years and years. We have been eating all kinds of cakes trying to figure out what the recipe was for this special memory cake he had. So I did some research on the Internet and came up with something that sounded like it was what he remembered.

I completely understand how a memory attached to a certain food is very powerful. So I tried to recreate something for him and kept my fingers crossed.

I got out the wax paper and put it on the cake plate. I saw this trick on a number of TV shows and it works great. Only thing is, I should have done smaller strips and not covered the whole plate. utting the wax paper on the cake plate helps to keep the edges clean when you frost the bake. It was a real bear pulling them from under the cake.
The recipe I was using called for a from scratch cake, but I cheated and used a box mix. It said it was a white cake, but it looked more like a light yellow cake to me...turned out okay though.
I wanted to make the cake a four layer cake so I cut each of the cakes in half. I don't have a turn table so it was wonky. It really didn't matter since it was going to be smeared with icing.
The icing is called a "7 minute boiled icing". It really doesn't boil and it didn't take seven minutes; it took longer. I used a white vanilla extract that my friend Julie (a professional cake decorator) recommended to keep white really white. Worked perfectly!
...iced the first two layers and then stacked the rest of and iced them.
When you cover the cake with something totally, you don't have to worry about how pretty your icing is done. No one will know you are not a professional.
Here is the finished product. My husband's wonderful memory about his grandmother Marylee was her coconut cake. Something so simple has been in that man's memory his whole life. Who knew that one recipe could make him tear up when he talked about her coconut cake?
Here is the birthday boy cutting his "Memory Cake".
I am thrilled that I could make something as simple as a coconut cake that would make my husband so happy about his birthday. Here is the recipe that I used. Unless you are hellbent on baking a cake from scratch, use a mix and save yourself some time and supplies. A white box cake and that fabulous icing is every bit as good as anything else. Ask my husband, he'll tell ya!

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

2011-06-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

Farmer Brown's Garden June 2, 2011

I am not ready to post what I have been knitting on so I went out this morning and took shots of our backyard garden. We are very pleased the way things have gone so far, but if it doesn't rain soon everything will suffer. Here is what is going on in the garden today.

We have sixteen tomato plants. Some are in this bed and some are in pots around the rest of the garden. There are also carrots that are planted in the bare looking spot to the right. They are struggling but hanging in there so far. Some of our tomatoes are heirloom, some romas, some sandwich tomatoes and some really wonderful yellow pear tomatoes. We are just trying lots of different ones so we can see which ones we might use over and over again through the years.
This is one of two eggplants that are planted in pots. They are both Black Beauties. We planted the little skinny Japanese eggplants but grilling them on the grill was a bit of a challenge. So we are back to the black shiny eggplants.
This is a picture of another eggplant in a pot in the back. The front pot has two tomato plants. The pot you see the edge of has Provence Lavender.
It's really hard to tell but there are five pepper plants in the front of the box. The Jacob's Cattle beans take up the rest of the bed. Jacob's Cattle beans are for drying. So I don't pick them but let them dry on the bushes until the pods turn a light crispy brown. We have planted them two years on the past but really don't have enough to cook. So we are growing them again this year to save them for the winter cooking.
This bed is filled with bush beans, pole beans and carrots that are along the side of the bed. These beans are Haricot Verts. I love these green beans because there are very few strings and the are not as touch as some other green beans that we have grown. They can be tough if not picked when they are small. When I pick them, I leave them in the refrigerator until I think there is a pound. Then I get them ready for freezing. Last year we got over sixteen pounds of beans. Did I mention how much I love green beans??
This bed looks almost the same as the one above. There are more bush and pole Haricot Verts and a squash plant and baby carrots in the open spot.
This bed has eleven potato plants. It's our first time to do potatoes. So far, so good. There is also a pot of two tomato plants. As well as everything in the vegetable garden look, they still need lots of water. We need rain to fill up our water barrels. They forcasted rain for after midnight last night and not one drop. When our local Master Gardeners had the first of their two plant sales I bought this baby Japanese Maple. It seems to be doing really well. We already have one Japanese Maple in the backyard and since it has done so well, I decided we needed another one. I planted the petunias to give the baby tree some company.
I have always wanted to try Hens and Chicks. So I bought three pots of them and planted them in the strawberry pots I haven't used in about ten years. I think these guys will do just fine in them.
The Provence Lavender that I planted years ago is really starting to produce. It's hard to see but there is a bee about mid screen buzzing from stem to stem. It's time to pick the Lavender but I hate for the bees to miss out. So I usually pick about 2/3s of the stems and leave the rest of the bees.

So there is the garden up to date as of today. I am hoping it rains soon. If it rains really well, the garden usually increases it's size by about 1/3. We have baby tomatoes on almost all the tomato plants so I don't want to lose them. So now it's back to knitting. Hopefully soon I will be able to show what I have been doing for the last month. Nothing exciting, but very useful.

2011-05-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

'Tis The Season

I talk about how much I love fall and winter and now for some reason my new favorite season is spring. I think I might have had cabin fever during these past winter months. While I enjoyed doing winter activities, hearty foods and football; I have been dying for spring. I have been bitten by the gardening bug BAD. The first day the weather looked anything like spring weather, I was outside thinking about what would be planted where in our garden. I don't have any garden pictures yet because there are still some bare spots but there are still colorful things blooming all over and I just had to share them. I went nuts on a nice day taking pictures. This is not about knitting in any way, shape or form. This about color and the happiness that spring and digging in the dirt brings me. I have never grown this kind of a flower before; Foxglove. I hear this a very popular flower for an English garden. I just bought it to attract hummingbirds. I only bought one plant to see how it goes.
I did research on the Internet about the kinds of flowers that hummingbirds love and this one is on the list; Hibiscus. I have never had Hibiscus before so there is a learning curve on this one. The blooms are so beautiful.
My face is not the only happy face in the garden lovin' spring. This Johnny Jump Up wintered over in a hanging box. Most of the ones that I planted made it. The Petunias didn't. They don't seem to be as hardy as the Petunia, Violas and Johnny Jump Ups.

I love all the color! I admire strength of enduring our 18" snow fall this past winter.
My parsley has wintered over for five years now. I want to put it into the ground but I am nervous it will not do as well. So for now it is waiting for the first caterpillar to come and consume it. I love that I am helping local butterflies. I just wish they stayed around longer so I can see them...
My French Thyme is blooming and soon will be nice and green. I plucked some off today, cut off the blooms and threw it in my chicken stock pot. I love having herbs in the garden both in the ground and in pots.
I think these two basil plants get the most use of the herbs. I love making pesto and I use it all summer and freeze what I can for the winter months. Just love this stuff!
So as you can see I am excited about spring and the garden. It's too bad that I am not that excited about knitting...I am knitting but it just doesn't excite me for now.

2011-04-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

Unexplained Absence (If you are on a diet or a Diabetic, you might want to avert your eyes and try to find another blog to read. This will throw you into a Diabetic coma...please save yourself!) I noticed the other day that it's been nearly a month since I have posted. I really don't have a good explanation. I started a sock and was going to post about it as my March sock for my two Ravelry groups, but for some reason I could not get motivated to make much progress on it. The weather has warmed where I live and I think I hear dirt calling me. I am dying to get out into the backyard and work on our garden. I keep waiting for the soil to warm up. While I have been waiting I found another pass time. It was not without side affects. I have gained a few pounds testing my newest obsession. I know I am years behind the rest of the pack, but the upside is that there is a ton of information out there for me to play with. I have been playing with baking cupcakes. I know I not supposed to be eating things with sugar in them so I force them on my weekly knitting buddies. They haven't said stop so every week I look for some new baking trouble to get into. I truly can not explain what is going on. I guess because I have not knit for a month, I need another tactile outlet to satisfy my need to create. These are some of the first ones I got started with. Then one day I went to my local Target to buy a jar to store laundry soap and found a six pack for $2.50 of different kinds of sprinkles to add to cupcakes for Easter. I bought two different packs and the sprinkling began... Then I moved on to different sprinkles and to another color and piping tip. Fat and plain wasn't good enough... So now it's on to a large star tip and yet more sprinkly things as well as a different color. So as you can see, one color wasn't enough. I took two colors and double loaded the pastry bag with the same large star tip and make a giant swirl. You can see all the different way the double color loaded bag comes out. No two cupcakes turned out the same. The only downside to this is...your tongue turns blue when you eat these. With Easter coming, I dashed out to the grocery store where I bought five different candies that were Easter related and went nuts! Then I totally lost my mind....I will post more about that on another day. I think I need to get back to knitting. It doesn't make me gain weight!

2011-03-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

Same Song Different Verse

I already posted this pattern in my last post about Lavender Love. I said that I was doing the same pattern again. So here it is.
This time I can tell you the name of the yarn. I got smarter from hanging out with other knitters who told me to NEVER lose the ball bands. It finally sunk in!
This is sock yarn that I bought at Maryland Sheep & Wool. I think it was either last year or the year before. The yarn is from Tess' Designer Yarns. The business is based out of Portland Maine. It has a basic generic name. It's called Super Socks & Baby. The yarn is 80% wool and 20% nylon. The band says it's got approx. 450 yards. Since it says it can be machine washed and dried, I bought it. I seldom buy yarns where I have to hand wash. I am not really consistent with hand washing my socks.They always get washed in the washing machine, however I do use the octopus dryer I purchased from Ikea several years ago.
Here is my favorite foot model. She never complains and never frets about her pay.
I did the standard heel flap because the Lavender Love socks had the after thought heel. I hadn't done a standard heel flap in a while so thought I shouldn't forget how to to it. I like the way it looks and they are nice snug fit. I started out using 2.75 mm needles and then did the heel flap and on down 2.50 mm needles. I need to extra room towards the top but my foot narrows down around my ankles and I wanted a more fitted sock. Got it. Love, love, love the pattern. It's a walk in the park!

2011-03-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

Irish Ale Socks

I asked for opinions about which sock yarn to use in honor of St. Patrick's Day and almost everyone has said the Yarn Tattoo Celtic Green was the best choice of my green yarns. So today I cast on with the Celtic Green yarn. I did however have to change my pattern choice. A friend gifted me a pattern she thought would be a good fit for the yarn I have. It's called Irish Ale Socks. I wanted to use a different pattern, but when I sat down and read the pattern I realized that I don't have the correct yarn for the socks. Since I am on a yarn diet this year, I can not purchase the size I want. So instead of fiddling with gauge, I decided the Irish Ale Socks would be a perfect substitute.
This is the picture that shows the Irish Ale Socks. The top cuff is done in white and that is for the foam on the head of the beer. Since Ale is pretty dark the body of the sock was done in black. I don't really want to do the white foam or the black but will do the whole sock in the Celtic Green.
Here is a larger view of the bumpiness of the pattern. Below is a reddish version of the same socks. I think the Celtic Green will do just fine.
So the project has begun. Thanks to everyone who posted a comment. I was hoping some of the lurkers would come out but maybe another time.

2011-03-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

In Honor of

St. Patrick's Day, it was suggested that I knit a pair of Irish inspired socks. What a great idea! The only problem is I can't decide which green yarn I want to use. I have four choices for all my followers to check out and decide. Your opinions matter. I have chosen the design from Ravelry. They are called St. Brigid's Carnamoyle Stockings by Lahome Nally-Kaye. I love the cables and all the details. So below you will see all the green yarns that are more or less solid green. Some have subtle shading and others are solid. So let me know what you guys like. I love green so no matter what it will be a win/win situation for me!

Here is the group shot of all four greens. This is a teal sort of green and is by Tess' Designer Yarns

This yarn is by Yarn Tattoo. My friend Peg has a dye lab and she made this green called Celtic Green. It has different shades of green in it.

And the last one is from Schaefer Yarn Abigail. It's a more lime green color which is called Laura Hobson

Lastly this is Bright by Spirit Trail Fiberworks. This green is a more earthy green. So what do you all think? Those of you are not members of Ravelry will not be able to link but you can still weigh in with your pick of green for my March socks. Thanks in advance for everyone's help!

A Work in Progress

2011-02-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

A Work In Progress

As much as I love making socks, I enjoy other knitting too. This next project combines the element of socks and sock making yet it's not a pair of socks. I joined a group on Ravelry that loves to use sock yarn to make projects but they don't knit socks. I have seen some really nice projects with sock yarn, especially shawls. I have made two shawls with sock yarn that I enjoyed, but there are other projects that interest me. I have a lot of sock yarn so finding other things besides socks will help to use up my stash. So the next project fits that bill to a T.

My friend Jen has done some designing and I have fallen in love with her design Lillyfield. On my list of things to do this year is to do two color knitting and use charts more. Lillyfield helps me with two of my three challenges for this year. I love the Lillyfield mitten because they are so well done and I love the fact that I can just change one color and use the cream for the backround and make the gloves for anyone (more than likely females).

Right now I am working on my Feb. socks so the mittens will get worked on between socks projects but I wanted to show what I have done so far. I have gotten one cuff done and are about to start the chart work. Here is the cuff...
Can you see the scalloped cuff? I love that added design element. Plus the cuff is lined. Yes, lined.
The pattern says to knit about 15 rows in the CC (contrasting color).
After add the MC (main color) and the knit more rows the that color, turn the CC (in this case it will be white) up inside the cuff and pick up stitches so that they are attached to the MC (in this case the blue/green). The only part of the mitten that are lined is the cuff.
Such a clever idea. It took me a few minutes to understand but when I finally got it, I was so pleased with the way it turned out.

I wanted to show you how the colors look in a caked skein. I am using this yarn from KnitPicks. The name of the colorway is Northwoods. I used Chroma's Bare colorway as the contrasting color. That's the color of the lining of the cuff.
Here is the outside of the caked skein. It's a single ply. I don't have a lot of yarn for socks that is single ply. I don't usually buy a lot of KnitPicks yarn but I have to say it's been a pleasure to knit with so far. I am using size 2.25mm needles or US 1s. I love how the tiny stitches give it such a refined look. So stayed tuned as I knit these mittens between all the other projects over the next few months. I think they will be a joy to knit and a feast for the eyes once they are done.

2011-02-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

What to do?

I am beside myself about what to do with a pair of socks. I have no love for the yarn I used. I confess that I got caught up in all the excitement about the new product in 2007. I was a fairly new knitter when I bought this yarn. I don't think there were many of us at that time who knew too much about this yarn so we all jumped at the chance to try something new and trendy.

I just knew since this new product was a sock yarn, that I had to knit socks. I knit a very basic ribbed sock and wrote about them in this post. Then again in this post later. Now here I sit with some pretty pitiful socks that I used to love ready to toss them into the trash. This is what they look like now.

This hole is on the other foot that I didn't darn the first time in 2009.

Now there is a hole at the base of where I turned the heel. The heel was reinforced and the hole is right after the heel.

I have had the socks sitting here on my computer table for over a month just looking at them. Should I darn them? Should I unravel them and use the yarn for another project? Should I just throw them away. I have darned other socks but they have not developed another hole since. I have never unraveled a pair of socks to use for something else after having worn them for over three years. So having said all of that, you know I have NEVER thrown away a pair of socks. If this was any other yarn, I think I would unravel it and give it so someone who wanted the scraps, but I think this stuff is worthless as actual sock yarn. It has not been four years since I made these. November of this year be four years. So I am going to toss them. I am sad to throw away socks but I won't miss these. They have not worn well for me so they are going. I have another skein of this yarn but have decided to donate it to my Yarn For Supper group's grab bag. Maybe someone else will have better luck with them.

2011-02-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

Lavender Love

I have a friend who has designed two pairs of socks. Her patterns are on Ravelry here. I was a bit nervous doing someone else's pattern that I hang with in a knitting group, but she promised me it was really easy. After a few moments of panic when my first pattern row did not come out, it went very smoothly. I love the pattern! It's great for a more advance beginner. I am past that but, still enjoyed the pattern so much that I am working on another pair with the same pattern. It's the kind of pattern you leave in your car or purse and knit on them when you have time to kill.

One of my knitting goals this year was to do cables in socks. This pattern has four little cables. There are two on the front and two on the back. Super duper easy. I did the standard 2X2 rib and then just took off from there.
I am still in love with the after thought heel. This pair was no exception. The patterning does not go on the back of the foot so it was extremely simple. For those who have never tried an after thought heel; it's like doing a toe for the heel. So I get my toes down to sixteen stitches then do the kitchner closing. The same was done to the heel. So I got a load of practice on the kitchner stitch.
Here is a closer look at the sock from the side. You can see the one cable that is on the front and one cable on the back. I tried on the sock and decided that it needed to be tightened up for around the ankle and foot. This sock was made for a larger size foot than a size 7/8. So I used a 2.75mm to start the leg. Then for the foot, heel and toe I changed the needles to 2.5mm. They fit like a glove.
I would love to tell you about the yarn, but I have had this yarn for a long time. I think I bought it when I was a "newish" knitter and didn't understand why you should save a ball band. So I have no idea what the stuff is but it's soft and springy. I really wish I knew what it was because I would buy more of it. All-in-all, these are a great knit. Thanks to my friend Ashley for coaching me through the first part of the pattern. They are totally lovely!

PS. How is my new camera doing with the pics? I am so glad to have a new one so that my knitting pictures look much better. Thanks to my sweetie!

Do It Right

2011-02-07T04:20:00.000-08:00

Do It Right

You are all familiar with that annoying say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right." I feel like that has been the bane of my existence since picking up knitting and crocheting back six years ago. I really thought that I could get away with a mistake here, there, and yonder and it wouldn't drive me mad. Ah... but it does. It's like a blinking beacon screaming my name every time I look at something with a mistake. I am a champion ripper. So I find myself at the cross roads of a decision.

My second pair of Spring Forward socks is that blinking beacon screaming my name. They have been screaming my name for a few weeks now. I have a drawer that is dedicated to my handmade wool socks. Every time I open that drawer to put on a nice well fitted pair of socks, those orange Spring Forward socks stare me down.

(Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. My camera was having a tantrum and will soon be going to a time out for good!)

One sock is longer in the foot than the other and I avoid dealing with them but not wearing them. How long can I avoid it? This winter, next winter or the winter after? They will languish in the drawer and I will have to look at them every time I open it.

I can't take it anymore so I am going to fix my big fat honking make. I have no idea how I got one larger than the other in the foot but I did. I foolishly thought I could handle it. I can't. Does that mean that I have sock mistake OCD?

So today I am doing my best to find the places where I wove in the ends from closing up the toe. Then there will be teeth gnashing and moaning as I rip row after row of reinforced toe to get to the rest of the foot. Ugh!

Finally found the place where the threads were woven in and the re-knitting process is taking place. To be honest, it's going on the third time I have knit this one toe. Yesterday while knitting with friends I picked the wrong size needle (2.50 mm) and just knit away. Then later I discovered a mistake and ripped out the toe again. Today I am home alone and figure that if I have total quiet, no phones ringing, and the dogs are sleeping, I can actually get these puppies done!

TADA...I got them done and they both fit the same way. I finally got a picture of them today. I am so glad I ripped them out and made them right. Now I can wear them all winter and not worry about them starring me down from the sock drawer.

Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Sometimes things are more right than others but these are right on target! So I am going to sit back and admire my handywork!

2011-02-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

The Unspeakable

There is a running joke with myself and my knitting friend Cheryl who move to Arizona this past fall. Our joke was about how private our stashes are. A girl never kisses and tells and she never shows her stash. I posted on Facebook the other day that I was reorganizing my stash. It's sure not because I want to, I have to. A smaller closet in our master bedroom is going to be sheet rocked up and made into a solid wall for more space in our room. The nice part the whole process is, the closet that backs up to the master bedroom closet is in my office. That closet wall will be torn down and then that will extend the "office" closet. Since I am no longer in business, I have decided that the spare room will now be my hobby room and my stash will be stored there. So decluttering, reorganizing and rearranging is taking place a little bit everyday until it's done.

I had cleaned out the small master bedroom closet a few years ago and got rid of all my cross stitch, flower arranging, candle making and any other hobby I had stuff. So much stuff that I got eight large black plastic bags of stuff. I didn't feel a thing when I got rid of all of it. There is still much in the closet that needs to go so the second purging cometh.

All knitters are curious about another knitter's stash. While I am not going to show all of mine, I will show how I have been organizing it so it makes sense when I go to look for something for a project. Remember I am not buying any yarn this year and after looking at what I organized today, it might have be extended to two or three years...plain and simple-I have WAY more stuff than I need and realized.

My stash has been split between large bags of yarn for afghans and sweaters in the closet and the rest of the stuff in baskets on a bookcase and eight plastic drawers sitting out in the bedroom. So here is how I have started organizingI . I bought four new larger drawers yesterday and have been trying to get things off the shelves and into the drawers.

I bought these drawers at Big Lots (a discounted store like a Dollar Tree store), but I am sure that you can find these at Walmart, K-Mart, Target and the Container Store. I bought four of the largest size they had yesterday. In a few days will go back and look for four more. Yes, I did say four more. I have not even gotten into the closet stuff yet so I am going to need more drawers.

Okay here is how I start rearranging things.

I divided my sock yarns into two drawers. One drawer is sock yarn in skeins.
Sock yarn in hanks is the second drawer.
I needed two drawers for misc types of roving that needs to be spun. Drawer #1
Roving drawer #2. I still have five processed fleeces underneath the bed in rolling double sided sweater boxes. There are also two plastic tubs; one with crochet threads and one with acrylic yarn.
A cotton drawer.
Two drawers are dedicated to my hand spun. One is a drawer with hanks.
The second hand spun drawer is the stuff that is caked up already.
Another drawer is just lace weight.There are two drawers with just misc fun fir, ribbon and spooled yarns.
Misc. yarn drawer #2 . I have two more drawers left. One has nothing but my handmade wool socks. Since I don't want any winged creatures eating my socks I have put them in their own drawer with cedar blocks to project them year 'round. Then there is a drawer that has some acrylic yarn in it. That will be moved and condensed down after I get two or three more drawers. I want one drawer dedicated to acrylics that I want to keep, one for baby yarn and the rest to go for the bags of yarn for sweaters and afghans that are sitting in the closet right now with no where to go.

I still have these items to contend with...
This basket holds the two mitered square blankets that I have set aside for awhile.
There are plenty of things like this still in the closet. One bag has the last KnitPicks order of yarn for 2010. The basket is filled with Alpaca skeins to make my husband a scarf. I want this stuff in drawers so it's more organized and I know where everything is. I am not even going to show the closet. It's just too messy for public consumption. I will show you more drawers another time after I get them together.

So I did something I swore I would never do-show my stash. Well sort of show it. I will never drag it all our for display. It just takes too much time. Besides, I told Cheryl I would never show my stash and I am sticking to that...sorta.

2011-01-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

January Socks

Most of you know, I am a very proud and excited member of Ravelry. If you are a crocheter, knitter, spinner or dyer, you really should join the sight. There are discussion boards from A-Z. I joined a board that challenges me to knit one pair of socks a month and I have finished the January socks.

I have knit this pattern before and posted about it here. So I thought they would be easy the second time around, are they didn't fail to deliver! I love these socks because they fit and they look good. They are not too plain and not too girly.

Here they are! The yarn is Austermann Step. I used 2.75mm KnitPick nickel dpns. They are my favorite sock needles. So worth every penny.
Here is another view of the pattern.
Here is a really good close up of the pattern. Can you tell I love these socks?? I also love Austermann Step yarn. It is so soft and the yarn seems to wear well for me. So there they are...first completed socks for the year 2011. I have eleven more to go! Feb pair will be cast on shortly after I finish what I am working on right now.

Back to Basics

2011-01-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

Back to Basics
I haven't really been knitting very many socks this past year. I have forgotten some things so I decided to go back to some things basic about how I knit socks that fit my feet. I learned and completed one pair of toe up socks. During making those toe up socks I learned how to do an after thought heel.

Here is my first toe up sock.

I used Bare from KnitPicks because it was left over from this project. I really didn't see any need to waste perfectly good yarn. So I did the sock class in the Bare. I think I mentioned in the post about the Vortex shawl that this kind of Bare has been discontinued. So that the finished socks extra special.

Not only are the socks above special because of the yarn and the first time method but I learned something else. I learned how to make an After Thought Heel. It seemed pretty easy until didn't pick up a stitch with the waste yarn and had to pull out several rows on both sides of the waste yarn to fix it but it did work. I can say that I have worn them about four or five times, washed them and dried them and they are still together. So I guess I did okay.

Feeling all special about making the above socks I tried my hand at some other socks that I had knit before.

What a mess! The yarn is lovely, the color is lovely but the fit, well...I don't think that went as well as I had planned. One foot is longer than the other. I love the pattern, Spring Forward. I love the texture and the lace work.
So after getting a high from the top pair, being put in my place with Spring Forward I decided to go back to basics. My very first sock was a basic rib pattern. For this next pair I did the cuff in a 2X2 ribbing and the rest of the sock in a 3X1 ribbing all the way to the toe. I used 2.75mm KnitPick dpns with 64 stitches.
The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit 100g Uni/Solid. I guess I have had the yarn for a while or maybe it was given to me but I getting a color number from the label was rough. If you are a Ravelry member you can check out my project page under VAPurl. I hope the picture shows that the colors are a cream, blue/green and a navy blue with a touch of grays thrown in. I am not fond of blue but these are okay. Not so bad...for shades of blue, gray and green.

I knit basically two long ribbed tubes. At a certain point I had to use some waste yarn to hold my place to open up to insert the after thought heel. Once I did that and continued up to where the decreases were supposed to start. I got a bit nervous about how long the foot was after my last pair of socks. So the person who taught me how to do the toe ups told me to put the stitches for the heel on waste yarn and try the socks on so I could see where the decreases need to start for the toe. So here are my pics. So here is the beginning of putting the live stitches back on to the dpns and then they went on to a chibi with more waste yarn.
Here is the heel all on waste yarn and ready to try on.
Here are the socks that are just about ready for the heel and the toe. After trying them on I decided that I needed to rip the foot back about 5 rows and then will make the toe decreases. Having some basic sock knitting skills and no pattern is helping me learn more and more every time. I am getting better. What amazes me is that I still love making socks after all this time. I would give my eye teeth to attend Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon this year in July. I don't know if I could keep up but it sure would be fun to talk about socks to others who get just as excited as I do about them.
Here is the completed after thought heel. I believe I still need to tweak how many stitches I need for teh last row to kitchner. Right now it's 16 but I think I might try 20 next time. Below is the completed sock. Yeah!
So now it's on to the next pair. This pair was started in December so it's not my very first pair started and completed in 2011. The pair I am working on now will be the first pair of 2011. It's something I have knit before so stay tuned.

2011-01-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

Carousel
My efforts to corral my knitting supplies where I knit the most, are going well for my second effort. Along with the scrap booking bag that I purchased the other day, I snagged another organizational helper. It's another scrap booking tool but it's a great one as far as I am concerned. I have steadily been putting things into it and I am so pleased.

As you can tell from the photograph, I am not the only one with a clutter problem (on the other side of the carousel is where my husband's pile sits). While I was cleaning up I was having some tea as you can see. My Jennie the Potter knitting bowl has my latest sock project in it too (at the time this post was done there were bowls listed on her Esty shop). I was not kidding about having things handy. I don't knit in bed so this is really "Knitty Central" for me.

The Carousel has a ton of storage spaces for loads of things but they have to be on the smallish side. There are a few drawers but they are shallow. So far one drawer has a Burt's Bee Lip Balm and one green row counter. The other one has dental floss. See how small the drawer is. There are two in the carousel.

I decided that I am tired of getting up and down to grab another pair or needles when I need to change because I didn't get gauge so I brought all my Addis downstairs. I have Addi Turbos and Addi Lace Needles. Here is how I used to store my Addis.
I met a lady who said she used plastic pillow case holders to store her needles. They truly are the perfect size but I want to use a different method to store my needles. I had one pillow case holder for the Addis and one for the Lace Addis. When I was sorting through them to put them in the carousel, I found out I had duplicates of more needles that what I wanted to admit. I think that being disorganized I didn't keep track of what I had so I ordered more. Not good.

There are other things that I use on a regular basis that need to be handy that are now stored in the carousel.

Scissors

Bobbins for color work and there are spare places for more things to be stored.

I store my knitting do-dads in little candy tins

Do-Dads
Do Dads new home
And last but not least...a lovely picture of a friend's mini sock skeins for her sock blankie. I thought the perfect place for it was not in a frame but here where I can look at it every single day. It's lovely.

So it's onward and upward with organization. I still have to conquer the craft closet and the dreaded yarn bins. It might take me a bit before I work up the courage to organize those but it will happen this year. It has too!

Sock Central

2011-01-03T04:28:00.000-08:00

Sock Central
(part one)
This is part of my New Year's Resolution-Re-use, Recycle, Re-direct and Re-purpose. I hate to cut into my knitting time by cleaning but I have to do this or I might be on the Hoarder's shows. I know that things are getting out of control when I can't see my dining room table any more. I continually clean it off and then pile more stuff on it. This is a vicious cycle I am trying to break.

Not only has my dining room table become a problem, but so have all my knitting supplies. So in keeping with the 4 Rs I have decided to start with my downstairs knitting mecca. It's a total mess. I have a pile on the left side of my chair on the end table and a three drawer rolling cabinet the right side of my chair. The top of the three drawer cabinet is piled and needs to be purged, not to mention the contents of all three drawers.

I have decided to give attention to the task for two hours a day so maybe it won't wear me out mentally. I was hoping to have some modicum of control over the clutter. Today was the test run.

I went out this week to this place and bought two items that helped in the de-cluttering effort. This is the first item that I bought. If you are looking for one of these bags you can also find it here for a better price than what the other place sells them for.

It's for scrap booking. I could see the potential for my new idea. I signed up for two different groups on Ravelry. The first group was to knit one pair of socks a month for 2011. The second group that I committed to was knitting those items from my ever growing sock stash. So I needed a "Sock Central". Below is what I came up with for the new bag.
Sock reinforcement yarn pocket

Silver crochet hook roll, assorted sizes of dpns for sock knitting, and KnitPicks needle gauger, chibi, and darning needle

Daring egg, tape measures, row counter, tin containing needle points, stitch markers, and jump rings

Introducing the completed "Sock Central"

So all of the sock related items have a new home. I am so excited that it cleaned off the top of a three drawer rolling cabinet and one drawer of that cabinet. Not only did some things get tossed into the trash but I put items in a box to trade or get rid of at a friend's upcoming Recycle party. We are all fiber folks so there will be someone who wants or needs misc. items so they are going. Cleaning up and out wasn't so painful afterall. Stay tuned for part two of my de-cluttering efforts.

First New Thing

2011-01-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

First New Thing

I mentioned in my very first post of 2011 that I wanted to do some changes to my blog and today is the first one. It's a pretty small change and actually I have made two changes. One, I got rid of the counter that used to be on the left. I never kept up with it so it's gone. Two, I have added a new blog to the "Blogs I Read". I added a link to my old food blog, The Moveable Feast Food Blog. I hated that if I updated the blog to a new format, it would be lost forever. I had some good things on there that I really didn't want to lose so I just linked it to this blog. I really don't want to start another food blog so there will be posts in here that will be related to food and I will give them a tag of "food" so that if you are looking for the food articles you can find them. Nothing drastic but two small changes nevertheless.

I would like to add more knitting blogs and country living blogs to my side bar. I have been reading about ten new blogs and want to share those with you who love those kinds of blogs. Something else that I need to do is do a new post at least once a week or more. I have the time now and have got backlogs of photos that I have taken and have never posted. So consider this just a little update. Nothing earth shattering, just two little changes and one of them you can really look at. The rest will come as they may.

Fresh Peach Pie

Happy New Year 2011

2011-01-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year 2011

I hope that everyone had a great time ringing in the new year with friends and family. My husband and I have always spend New Year's Eve together at home and this year was no exception. We managed to stay awake until midnight to toast the new year. This year we tried something new and it was yummy! We bought champagne and orange juice to make Mimosas but I got an idea at the last minute and gave it a try.

I remembered that I had frozen strawberries that we picked last summer. So if we were using orange juice, why not fresh strawberries? So I whipped out the little mini chop and dumped some red frozen clumps in the processor and pureed away. Each glass got a couple heaping spoon fulls and then we added the champagne. A quick stir and we were in business.
Oh, what business that was. We toasted the new year with the strawberries and champagne. The second glass was a mixture of orange juice and the strawberries. Even better!
I am not usually a drinker, but the combination of the bubbles and frozen love from last summer I was ready to say good bye to 2010 and hello to the new possibilities of 2011. I am planning to add some new things to the blog this year and will work on that all during this next year. I do have a one sentence New Year's resolution, so here goes. This is it for me in a nut shell and I will make it work as best as I can and not beat myself up when it doesn't.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Redirect. That's it. Pretty vague but I can still do this. I hope that each of you can make a resolution that you can stick to. Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-26T12:04:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to wish everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I am going to take a break until after the new year so that I can work on projects and of course shovel snow. We are getting pounded with tons of snow most of us here don't know what to do with. Forget about driving in it.

So we are hunkering down and chilling (literally) out. I am working on setting up some knitting projects (socks) for 2011. I will come back after the new year with some 2011 knitting challenges.

I hope that everyone has had a great holiday season no matter what or when you celebrate! I wish that everyone has a wonderful New Year's Day and a very productive and happy 2011. Thanks for reading my blog this past year. I hope that you stick around for 2011. I would like to do more things with my blog this next year so let's see what happens. Hugs to you all and very warm wishes.

2010-11-29T13:23:00.000-08:00

Handling Things

I have been trying to knit on three different projects at once and they are all coming together but just not fast enough. Over Thanksgiving weekend I did make some progress on two of the projects. I like to challenge myself and this project is really doing that!

I am making a pair of Convertible Mittens. Mind you have I have never done gloves or anything with a finger but hey why should that stop me?? I got the idea from Ravelry and actually found the pattern there. The only problem was I had to order a book to get the pattern. So I did. Well, I got two books by the same woman. I am excited about the other patterns but the Convertible Mittens pattern was the main reason I got one of the books by Sandi Rosner. Here is one of the books I ordered. Here is the other. They are small books but I have found plenty of patterns that will get used sooner or later...mostly later because I am running out of time.

The Convertible Mittens are pretty cool. They are wrist warmers with finger holes for four fingers but the thumb is knit completely.

Then there is the "hat" of the gloves that covers up the fingers when you aren't using them to pick up something.
The "hat" is attached to the body of the glove it self so that you don't lose it when it's not being used.

There is a button attached to hold the "hat" in place when you need to use your fingers. I don't know who came up with this idea, but it's practical and cute at the same time.

I finally finished the gloves and they will be on the hands of a really nice person that I have met over this past year.

I hope that she likes them. I will be finding out this week because we are going to surprise some of the workers at Borjo Cafe with handmade gifts for them. My favorite group of knitting friends go there once maybe twice a month to knit and sip on coffee and listen to live music. A nice surprise for good service, conversations about our knitting and loads of laughs are rewarded with a gift. 'Tis the season, right.

I was hoping that before post time tomorrow that I would have picture of the happy person who was gifted the Convertible Mittens. Sadly our weather was horrible and I am not going to see that person so when I do see them, I will post her picture. Love the snow, blast the bad timing!

It's a Guy Thing

2010-11-19T04:33:00.000-08:00

It's a guy thing!

I have been knitting with a friend for over two years now and have gotten to know more about her and her family as I sit and knit with her. I have made several things for her over the years as gifts but have never done anything for her husband. John is a very nice man and it frankly never occurred to me to give him anything that was knitted. His wife knits so I just figure she would knit things for him.

Recently, well a wee bit ago, I made some felted bowls. Do you remember these? I gave them both away to different friends and I am happy to report, they both get used. During a conversation on a knit day John's wife commented to me that after they bought some new furniture and did some rearranging, there was a territorial felted bowl conflict. The felted bowl that she received for her birthday seemed to be collecting male "stuff" when it was moved to another table in the den. My friend said that John needed his own bowl. I know it was just a comment made in passing while lamenting over the guy "stuff" being in her bowl where her knitting "stuff" usually sat.

So the light bulb went off in my head and I began plotting. John would need HIS own felted bowl for his man "stuff". In the passing conversation about brown bowl, a favorite color was mentioned. Bingo! I had a secret project and I set off to get it done and done it is. As a matter of fact, it's been done for a very long time but our schedules have not been great lately and we have had little time knitting together so the gift has been sitting on my cluttered dining room table forever! As much as I love how the bowl turned out, I need to see the table for Thanksgiving dinner and the bowl has got to go!

So here is the bowl already knitted, felted and being dried. It is not a color I love so there was some purchasing done at the LYS.

It's a bit hairy but some of my friends said they wouldn't shave it because it adds to the charm. Seriously? Hairy has charm? Uhmm...okay...

Here is the finished unshaven, very charming hairy guy bowl. Since it has no design, I had to give it some character with some plastic apples I usually have on my dining room table. Nice contrast right? So I hope that my friend will be happy when I gift this " guy thing" to her husband. I am hoping it will add to the marital bowl bliss at their house.

2010-10-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Vortex

I thought I knew what the definition of Vortex was but went to this place to verify I knew what it meant. Here is what I found.

1. a whirling mass of water, esp. one in which a force of suction operates, as a whirlpool.
2. a whirling mass of air, esp. one in the form of a visible column or spiral, as a tornado.
3. a whirling mass of fire, flame, etc.
4. a state of affairs likened to a whirlpool for violent activity, irresistible force, etc.
5. something regarded as drawing into its powerful current everything that surrounds it: the vortex of war.
6. (in Cartesian philosophy) a rapid rotatory movement of cosmic matter about a center, regarded as accounting for the origin or phenomena of bodies or systems of bodies in space.

With all of those explanations I understand this pattern. It's the Vortex Shawl. When you look at the pattern you will see a few things. One, it's mostly the stockinette stitch with a few yarn overs thrown in to give it the "whirl" look. Two, it's so simple that most any advanced beginner can make this shawl. It truly looks harder than it really was. For me, understanding the directions was the hardest part. There were directions that didn't make sense to me and an error on the last row. It took a fellow knitter (thanks Ashley) to help me get through the directions. If I was going to stress anything about this pattern, it would be to use stitch markers as the directions say to. It will save you loads of heart ache later, ask me how I know...

The whole project from beginning to end took about five weeks. One of those weeks was my vacation in Seattle. I made the mistake of not taking this project with me for fear someone would take my needles and I would surely cause a scene at the airport. Addi Turbos are not cheap needles to be confiscated. I did not bring a SASE with me like a friend suggested. I would have been one very sad camper if they took my needles. Pulling the shawl with hundreds and hundreds of stitches would have just about killed me, so it stayed safely home.

The yarn is from Knit Picks and it's called Bare. This is an odd Bare because it has flecks of blue, red, yellow, and green. It's been discontinued so needing more was not an option. I used a size 7 needle with many different lengths as the shawl grew. I finished up with a 40 inch.

In the beginning, the pattern is a bit tricky but as it grows it gets easier and if you use the stitch markers like you are supposed to, you have very little to memorize. I didn't even print off the pattern.

Can you see what I mean about the beginning? It was a wee bit fiddly but I did manage to get it started. I think I took about three or four times and finally it took off.

Can you see the red, blue and yellow bits in the yarn? It's kind of an oatmeal color. The current Bare is pure white and is promoted by Knit Picks easy for dyeing. This is not the same stuff by far.

I was worried the shawl wasn't going to be large enough for me. When I washed it in the bathroom sink in the wool wash, it got to looking much larger than it was on the needles. Then I took it out and put it through the spin cycle in the washing machine and it got even larger.

It's too large. Look what I saw...
Yup, it doesn't fit on my 9 blocking squares. It sure doesn't fit on my dining room table either. See what's hanging over?? So I did not pin it down. Not enough surface space. I would have pinned it on to my bed but we have an air mattress bed so that won't work.
If you have read the Vortex pattern you know the edging is a picot edging with eight total stitches. I did not like the way that looked so I did mine with a total of four stitches. After doing it that way I could see the shawl was curling horribly. After it was washed, spun out and laid out, it didn't curl as badly as I thought it would.
All-in-all, I really enjoyed doing this very simple advanced beginner shawl. If you have a round dining room table and needle to table cloth, I think this could be done with a cotton of some sort. It would make a lovely gift.

Time Killer

2010-10-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Time Killer

I know the title to this post is an odd one. It's not like many of us have extra time these days to be killing some, but I have a few irons in the knitting fire and a project to kill some time until those projects come completely together was truly needed.

Recently, I signed up for my first toe-up sock class. Since that class will take at least a month, I needed sometime to do in between times I had class. So I searched through my Favorites on Ravelry and found something I thought would be more or less easy to complete. Boy did I get that wrong!

I wanted to make the Seafoam Shawl in some yarn from my stash. I found some that I bought at a"Yarn Yard Sale" when I was a member of my local Knitting Guild. I can't tell you exactly how much yarn was in the bag but it said there were 15-2- ball. The yarn is Lino-Fino. The balls are pretty small and only have about 170 yards each. I paid $15 for the whole lot. Lino-Fino is made from 62% cotton and 38% linen and comes from Switzerland. So it seemed like a good deal to me. Besides it was green. What's a girl to do?

The Seafoam Shawl only has four rows. Two of those rows are just stockinette. So I'm thinking, this is going to be a breeze. UGH! For some unknown reason, the simpler the pattern, the harder I seem to make it. To make a long story short, after ripping out the shawl row after row after row, I resorted to a life line. I just didn't want to rip out anymore rows. The shawl only increases two stitches a row. One increase is at the beginning of the row and the other is at the end of the row. The rest consists of knitting and YOs. It would be a great beginner lace project since there are only four rows.

YOs seem pretty easy until you discover three rows down that you missed one. Every row should have an even number of stitches at the end. If there is an odd number, you have to rip out at least two rows to find and fix your error. I am not good at fixing a YO three rows down so I counted every row's stitches and I did finally break down and used a life line.
Here is the finished shawl from the front. The edges have a nice little ruffle made from kfKb increases. The main portion of the shawl is knit first and then the ruffle is added last. Be sure and use a 40 inch needle. I had a 32 inch and it got a bit hairy at the end. I forgot to mention that the doubled the yarn so that it would be more heavy. The pattern recommends a sock weight if I remember correctly.
Here is the back. It's a very small shawlette. I am planning to use it as a neck piece more than a shawlette. Do you see the cute ruffle?
As you can see the shawlette is pretty small. It doesn't even cover the back of my dining room chair. It was a fun project to fill in the gaps of working on my socks and a present for a friend. Now on to work on my sock for class.

Where Has All The Time Gone?

2010-10-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Where Has All The Time Gone?

I have not been a good blogger lately but I have still been a good knitter and I have been doing some other things that have kept me from keeping up here. Even though I have not been faithful to blogging, I have been faithful to my knitting. I three projects in progress and two of them have been long term projects. The two long term projects have been the sock blankie and the cotton blankie. They have been sitting around waiting for project number three to be done which is happening.

Besides knitting on the frog ensemble I went on a vacation of sorts. My husband had a business trip in the Seattle area and I got to tag along. It was really fun and only rained four days of the nine we were in the area. So it wasn't so bad. Seattle took my breath away as always and I would go back there to live any day of the week despite all the rainy days.

While my husband was working the first four days in a small town on the outskirts of Seattle, I had the rental car. So I got to go out everyday and play. I took my Garmin on the plane with me so we could use it in the rental car. I had big plans for shopping. I made it to three places that were on my list. There were way many more places I could have gone but you can only pack so much yarn in your suit case without paying even more money.

The first shop that I made it to was recommended to me by a friend here who used to live in that area. She was dying for me to go there and I was given strict instructions to take pictures, which I did. While I have not read these books, it didn't matter. I still got to the shop.

This is the shop that has Debbie Macomber's name on it. It's in Port Orchard, WA. The shop was bright, cheerful, clean and full of goodies that any yarnie would be thrilled to fondle. I know I was. I tried to use self control while in there keeping in mind that I have to get back on a plane with a suitcase that does not weigh as much as I do.
I just loved all the little Preemie hats on display. Who could pass these cuties up when shopping there? My eye feasted on this display.
I loved the color work in the vest, the matching hat and the baby doll with her own little vest.

Here is a close up of the adult sized vest and hat.
They are both really beautiful. Someone put in a lot of work on these. I am not sure I would have the patience for this and I think that's why I so admire these so much.
There were so many colorful things in the shop and this is just another example why I loved the shop.

This hat was next to the sweater above. I think they might have been examples of what was going to be taught in a class. Either way, I loved them both.

For some reason I seem to seek out buttons in yarn shops. Debbie Macomber's didn't disappoint. I bought two skeins of yarn to keep me busy in the hotel room in the evenings or when I would wake up at 4 AM everyday! The time difference gave me loads of time to work on projects because bed time was at 8. Ugh.

So that was the first shop I visited. I will post about two more places in the next weeks. It would be a really long post if I did all three of them at once so just one for now. Plus it will give me time to finish my current project so that I can take a picture. Time as you know, is not always on my side. See ya!

2010-09-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

Feeling Froggy

There are some days I don't feel like getting anything done. You know those days where you would rather stay in your jammies all day? Now that I have cut the amount of hours I work, I have time to get a long neglected list of things done both for the house and knitting. I have been working on the blankies (not really-they are UFOs in waiting right now), a baby gift, one pair of socks that have been on the needles for a year (that is disgraceful) and the newest project that I am lovin'.

The more urgent project was started and almost (99%) finished within a few days. I was supposed to attend a baby shower for a co-worker and waited until the last minute to get the gift done. I had a conversation in passing with her one day and I got inspiration from our conversation. Since she doesn't read my blog-forget even knowing about it, I will post my pictures for the project.

My co-worker wanted a hat and booties for the baby to come home from the hospital in. She is due in December. Okay, the search was on. I bookmarked at least 10-20 baby hats in my Ravelry favorites and then viola, it came to me one day. The co-worker's husband is an avid bicycle rider. He's a chef like his wife but he has a passion for riding bikes. There is a local bike shop here called Fat Frogs. I am not sure how he is connected to the shop; maybe just a customer but it gave me a great idea.

Frogs. The baby needed a frog themed gift. I searched Ravelry and guess what I found?? Yup, I got myself a pattern for a frog hat, no scratch mittens and some very simple booties. Not sure if any of them will fit but she can use them for as long as she wants and then give them away. I thought the gift would be good for some laughs from the daddy. So here are my efforts.

First the booties. These are the simplest booties and the are knit in one piece and have to be sew up. If I have time I might make some more complicated booties but for now these are it. I haven't done my finishing yet as you can see from the ends hanging down.

Next are the "No Scratch Mittens". These are every bit as easy as the booties but they are done in the round. So quick to make and they are cute. I made them in green too so they will match everything else.
Last but not least...the hat. This is the cutest part of the whole ensemble. Just too cute.
What is a frog without the eyes???
I have not sown on the eyes yet. I have to either find or purchase some fiber fill to put in the eyes so they sit up on the head when they are put on. I will sew too little slits for the nostrils.
And the finished product...is still not done. Hopefully I will feel motivated here shortly. I will post it when it's done.

In A Jam

2010-08-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

In A Jam

I have been knitting every day, really. The body of the yellow and white blankie is nearly finished and the wool blankie is resting until cooler weather prevails. I have to move on to other projects that are calling to me. One project that is being worked on is a baby gift. Pictures and pattern link will happen next week. I want to finish it before posting about it. It's about 75% finished, so you know it was a smallish project.

So in the mean time I have been caught up in the summer months food fest. I am such a fan of doing as much food from scratch as your time allows. Lately my time has been plentiful enough that I managed some food projects. One of which was canning. I am not a real experienced canner but I am throwing my hat into the ring and am trying everything I can right now. My favorite canned foods are fruits. I started about five years ago by making strawberry jam and blueberry jam. We picked all the fruit ourselves and I give it my best try. I was thrilled with the results but because of work I did not canned anything again for five years.

I felt inspired by a fellow knitter that it was opening up Pandora's box. I picked strawberries this year, twice. I made jam and we froze about 5 quarts of berries. There is only one bag of strawberries in the freezer and I am sad. Blueberry season has come and is nearly gone so we dashed out last week and picked four pounds of berries. We took three buckets with us but because of the heat and humidity and the fact it is the very tail end of the season, we barely filled up one bucket. My yield from the very brief picking was two batches of fresh blueberry muffins (we ate some and I froze some), froze one pound of plain berries and ended up with five half pint jars of blueberry jam. I am not a fan of jelly so all of my fruits end up and jam. I hate the thought of wasting the fruit.

The next season that is going on right now is peach. We had to drive to this place to pick peaches which ended up being a very pleasant tour of country back roads of Virginia and North Carolina. We went for the first time two weeks ago and we picked two pecks. Each bag they give you holds about 1 peck or 12 pounds. Since we were beginners, we didn't know we should have picked a bushel. When we got home I canned five quarts of my very first peaches. I made a peach cobbler and we ate some of the peaches too. I was so pleased with the results that we decided to go back and pick more the next week. So last Sunday we drove back to Knott's Island and picked three pecks. So that's 36 pounds of peaches. I have already canned six quarts and still have more to do. So today I am going to make peach jam and save some peaches for peach cobbler for a cookout this weekend.
The next season I will be looking forward to is apples.

2010-08-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

Blankies

I have been very busy working on two afghans and have not been blogging. I have been reading blogs but not keep up with mine. I didn't intend for there to be such a gap in time since my last post but I have actually been making very good progress on so many things. I have been cooking more, painting chairs, getting things ready for a fall yard sale and trying to finish two afghans before I lose interest.

I have talked about the mitered square afghan here in an earlier post. The wool mitered square has blankie has taken on a life of it's own. I am smitten over the whole process including five (yes I did say five) swaps to add different kinds and colors to my afghan. It has over 250 2"X2" squares. The afghan is knit on 2.25mm needles (the smallest sized ones). I usually knit my socks on that size because I like how smooth they look. I thought that since the afghan was going to be knit with sock yarn, I should honor that fact by knitting the whole thing with my sock needles. When I professed this fact in public, someone, anyone who was a friend should have knocked me upside the head. An intervention might have been needed at that point. Now it's just too late.

I have three one gallon bags of mini swap yarns to add to the wool blankie. I think maybe now I might have just about enough to knit the approx. 1,000 squares it's going to take. I have been averaging at least 2 squares per 5gm mini skein. I am very excited to want to finish this blankie whose finish time is estimated at about one year. Yup, one year. I don't want to take that long but there have been a few bumps in route to completion. One bump is blankie #2. I went with a friend to Michael's and they had Sugar and Creme 100% cotton on sale from $1.79 to $1.00 a skein so I purchased 20 skeins. I had a plan in mind and I was hoping to do it cheaply.

I wanted a summer blankie. After sitting with that wool afghan on my lap for hour after hour in the sweltering heat, I decided I needed a cotton version. Nuts, right?? Well, it's been so much fun that's it about half way finished. The wool blankie was temporarily forsaken for the newly loved cotton blankie. This time though I learned from my first mistake. I increased the needle size to #7s to accommodate the bulkiness of the cotton yarn. It has worked beautifully.

I am super pleased at how it's coming along. It's so much easier than the smallness of the wool blankie. Either way I am going to finish both sometime in the next year, but not before I start this blankie. I got invited to a baby shower. So tomorrow it's off to the yarn store to buy yet more yarn to make yet another blankie. I guess knitting on socks right now is totally out of the question...

Learning Curve

2010-06-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

Learning Curve

I think that every time I try something new there is a learning curve. I have confessed in the past that I am big about reading directions but today was a different matter. I have been trying to dye roving and yarns these last few weeks. To help myself learn I have purchased two books. The first one is The Yarn Lover's Guide to Hand Dyeing by Linda La Belle and Teach Yourself Hand-Dyeing Visually by Barbara Parry. I have been extremely pleased with both books. What one doesn't have (which isn't much) the other has. They have been very helpful and talk about dyeing with different methods, equipment, mediums and anything else you can think of. Both books were money well spent.

I have been investing in equipment so I decided to invest in some different dyes besides using Kool Aid. I ordered some Jacquard dyes and have been playing with them every chance I get. My first experience with dyeing was using Kool Aid and I wanted to step it up. And step it up I did.

My first try was roving. I tried two different methods. The first was using my crock pot. This method was totally random. I presoaked my roving in vinegar and water for 30 minutes. I t was wrung it out about half way and then put it in the crock pot. The instructions said to put about an inch of water in the crock pot and a wee bit of vinegar. The vinegar helps the roving to be more accepting of the dyes. I did use Kool Aid for this roving. I used two packets of orange, two packets of red and one of the grape. To make a long story short, I sprinkled the packets as per the directions and when the water was clear (after sitting for 2 hours) I got this result.

This is what the roving looks like in the crock pot. As you can see there are loads of colors everywhere. This can not be duplicated so I hope there is enough to make something good out of it someday! I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I rinsed it, washed it in Wool Wash and laid it out to dry for two days. The one upside to having horribly hot weather was that the roving dried much faster than I thought it would.

Here is the roving spread out on the drying rack getting dried. There are lots of color variations. I hope they will translate into some great looking yarn later down the road.

I was feeling so good about what I was doing that I tried another method. I used an old crab pot for the dyeing part. Anything that any dye has touched is now strictly for dyeing purposes. It's recommended in both books that you get separate equipment. So I have been using some old things to get myself started. I am going to need some measuring cups but am sure that the dollar store will be good for that.

So here is effort number two with the total immersion method. I did use some of the Jacquard dyes for this roving. I can't tell you which ones I used but boy did I love the results.

See the lovely red/maroon color. That was the second attempt at dyeing. I am so excited about how this turned out. I do love that color. Both rovings were dried and then rolled into balls and have been added to my roving stash.

So feeling very smug about how well I thought the two above attempts went I went full guns this time. I actually dyed sock yarn to see how that would go. I can see there is a problem for me. The skeins need to be tied up more so that they aren't a tangled mess when they dry. You will see what I mean here shortly!
These are two of my latest adventures into dyeing. They were both done in the crock pot. As you can see the blue one fared much better in the tangle department. I have no idea what I did to cause the purple one to look so horrible but I am going to buy some cotton shoe laces like one of the books recommend. The purple one will be a total nightmare trying to find the end and put on the swift for winding.

Here are some closer looks at the two above.

So the learning curve continues. I am so excited about all of this. If you have never dyed anything, try it. It's like a package that is waiting to be opened.

2010-06-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

Spinning Binge
I have been inspired by loads of spinners around me lately. The last few months I have been trying my best to decrease my desire to buy yarn and increase my desire to spin. I have way more roving than what I need so I have been spinning to try and decrease my roving stash. So I dusted off my wheel and got to spinnin'.

This roving actually doesn't belong to me but I did spin it up. I loved the roving colors. They are my kind of colors. I was under the mistaken impression that what I saw on the outside would be what I would see in the finished yarn. Wait until you see this...
Okay, I can get it small but look at that color. Where is all that fabulous color I saw in the braid? Gone, gone, gone.
This is the finished product. What a difference. I was just as surprised as the person who owned the braid. Actually she gave me two braids and I spun each on onto separate spools. Then I plied the two singles together and that is what the outcome was. I was disappointed but liked it at the same time. I loved the green but this sure was not what I was expecting. The yarn weighed 110 grams. I didn't measure yardage because the scale was new and had to be tested.
The finished product went back to it's owner. I didn't need more roving in my never decreasing stash. On to the next project.

This finished yarn is ages old. It's so old that I am thinking that I have had it at least 5 years or more. I bought it at a craft show and was such a new spinner, I didn't even ask what kind of fiber it was and I threw away the tag. I think it used to be a pound but I couldn't tell you so many years later.
It's a two ply that is almost lace weight. I have enough I could probably do a shawl. I again, did not measure the yardage but only the weight.
I got a total of 177 grams. I have to admit I used this roving to blend in with other colored yarns in the past so the 177 grams was the left over amount in ball form. I want to dye this yarn but just haven't gotten around to it yet. That will be another post in the future.
Here is one spool of two that came from the roving below. This time the roving and the singles look the way I thought they would. The roving came from Juniper Moon Farms when I went up there to attend their spring shearing day. There is 8 ounces of roving but for the life of me, I can't tell you what kind of sheep it came from.

Here is the finished yarn. I love the color variations. This is small enough to make socks and I have...113 grams. I have never knit socks from my own hand spun, but I think this winter I will.
Now off to find the perfect pattern for my yarn. It will have to be a cuff down sock and it could be a lace pattern...the search is on!

Obession

2010-06-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Obsession
I have many obsessions but this current one has been so much fun and is moving right along. I have read blog after blog about knitters/crocheters that hate doing the same pattern more than once or who have so many UFOs they will never finish them because they were boring. What is boring to one could be the most quieting project ever. This is one of those projects for me.

I have written about this newly found project a few times ago and I am still in love with how this project is unfolding one square at a time. I have been having so much fun with this. Who knew? I was knitting socks and then BAM, along comes the mitered square blankie. It's a free pattern on Ravelry. If you belong and you have scraps of yarn you are wanting to chuck, this could very well be the project for you!

My project started with the most humble of little squares and has grown quite nicely. Here is my first set of squares. The yarn in this picture is yarn that I got from swapping with some other local blankie makers. The one on your left looking at the screen is mine. Remember this post? Well that's the yarn knit up in a 2"X2" square. The top one with blue is from another swapper that dyes her own yarn. The last one is from yet another swapper and it's name is so cute. Yarntini. The colorway is called Mint Choclatini. Love the name!
I have some beauty shots of how much the blankie has grown. I have found it to be super easy. I have enjoyed how simple it is and I am comfortable with doing the same thing over and over. It's sort of like telling your kids to pick up their room, over and over and then one day...they have a clean room and you are surprised! So here is my "Everything but the kitchen sink" blankie as of today. It's hotter than ever outside so took the beauty shots outside in the backyard.

Here are pictures showing the different yarns that I have either been given or I have already made socks from. I don't have solid colors as of yet or really large squares but they might be down the road.

I even have a nice baggie of various balls that are going to get smaller and smaller as time goes by. I will do updates when I have something to show. I am about to swap with 11 other women so there will be new yarns to add to this.

Got the swap yarn this evening. I am very excited about all the different interpretations about rainbow colors. This is exciting to me. So onward we go into rainbow mitered square land. Whee!

So This Is What All the Fuss Is About!

2010-06-11T05:13:00.000-07:00

So This Is What The Fuss Is About!

I had no idea what all the fuss was about until yesterday. I have been reading and reading about it but didn't have a clue until this morning! I got to see an experiment come out just the way I had hoped it would. Isn't it great when a plan comes together especially when you are crossing your fingers and holding your breath the whole time it's unfolding?

I have been wanting to try my hand at dying fiber/yarn myself for a long time. So I read about half a dozen blogs and decided to take the plunge. Gathering up the supplies was super easy because until I got my confidence up I wasn't going to invest a ton of money in something that I wasn't sure was going to work. Now that I know it does, I will invest a little more money and see how it goes.

The first investment was a crock pot. I read how others who were dyeing things were using used or new crock pots dedicated to just dying. It was advised in every blog I read not to use the same crock pot for dying as you do for your food especially if you are using chemical dyes. I used simple food coloring so it wouldn't be problem but I had a feeling I was going to move up the dyeing ladder so I bought a nice red crock pot from Target for about $20. I could have gone to a yard sale and bought a used one but this was easier and I got a color that would fit in well in my kitchen.

First I started with fiber that I had spun back in 2006. It's been sitting in the stash for way too long and it's time I start using the stuff I spin. Since I have a pillow pattern via another blog, I decided that this fiber would be dedicated to the pillow. My room is yellow and I want a pillow to put on the bed.

This is only a small skein of what I had to dye but it gives you an idea. This was one of my first efforts as a newish spinner. It's Border Leicester that I was either given or bought. I see from the tag that I spun it on 1/27/06. See did I tell you it's been a while. One skein had 176 yards. The second skein didn't have yardage on it, but 4.3 ounces. I have no idea why I didn't keep track of the yardage. Anyway, I dyed both of those two skeins.

Here is a shot of the two skeins in the new crock pot. I think I filled it with too much water but when I drained out all the water the water was clear like I read it was supposed to be.

Here is one of the skeins after it was gently wrung out and it about to be put into a bag and then to through a small spin cycle in the washing machine. I am surprised at how bright it is. Looks just like sunshine!

Here is one of the skeins spread out for drying. Here is the second one...
Sorry about the background but the drying rack is in my sun room where I think it will dry much faster than inside in the house. I will have to go out and turn it over to make sure that it dries all the way through but I can't wait! So now I see what all the fuss if about and I know I will do more in the future. How can I not?? I will show the pillow in progress as soon as the yarn dries and I get started.

UFO Progress Report

2010-06-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

UFO Progress Report

I have decided to try and stay on top of my UFO and be accountable for getting it done in a timely manner. How long that timely manner is...still remains to be seen. So I am headed down the road. This week I joined a swap that will add some more variety to my blanket. I joined a swap with some local women that I knit with on a regular basis. I am very excited to see what kin
ds of things they come up with that I can mix with my stuff that I already have.

The theme for this swap is Rainbow colors. This is my contribution. I purchased it from here. I purchased some Trekking XXL 311. I tried to find yarn that had most if not all the colors of the rainbow. After I purchased the yarn I came home and used one of my newest toys...a new scale. A yarn buddy let me buy it from her and it works great weighing my stuff. Of course it does grams and ounces. It's been getting a work out!
Since there are 20 people who are allowed to participate each person gets a 5 gram skein or ball. So the whole skein has to be weighed. It takes a while but look what the end results are... NOT enough balls! I only got 18 balls with the 19th ball being super small. See the little green one at the front of the picture? That was the left over yarn. I am not happy that I didn't get 20 balls out of it. I doubt that 20 people will sign up for the local swap so it might be okay but it still doesn't make me happy. So by June 22nd we (everyone) in the group should have different balls/skeins to add to the blankie.

Mine is not going as quickly as I thought it would because I had to take one out that didn't look right. Sure enough I ask our local blankie expert, Ashley and she said it wasn't in the right place and 2 seconds later it was frogged. I will re-knit it some time soon and hopefully thing will be back to normal and on a roll again.

Oh, and by the way. The yarn diet is offically over! I purchased four skeins of yarn today at the LYS because it was their birthday and I got 20% off.

2010-05-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

A Day at the Farm

I have been lucky lately to be able to do some things on the weekends that are fiber related. In April I got to travel with my husband and met three other couples at a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) fiber farm. Juniper Moon Farm relocated from Martha's Vineyard to Palmyra, VA. I can't say I was heart broken that they moved closer to me from NY. I had wanted to travel to NY but knew that was out of the question for a while. So when they moved closer, that was my opportunity to do a farm visit. In April they did a spring shearing. It was like no other sheep shearing I have been to. The farm and the house where the hostess lives were open to everyone who came. I didn't take very many pictures because I was busy socializing but I did manage to get a few shots off.

Here is a shot where the ladies are waiting their turn to get their summer clip. There is one who is not like the others. Can you find him? Some of the ladies got sheared already and some have their babies with them.

Here is a shot with a mom and her twins. The hostess put matching ribbons on the moms and their babies so we could see who belonged to whom. Everyone was so cute.

Here is the woman who came to shear. I heard she has won awards for doing such a good job. The shearing took place in the barn and everyone found a good place to see everything that was going on.

Here another picture of the same animal. This was seemed very relaxed and really didn't put up much of a fight. It must know that summer is coming and this really is the best way to cool off.

Of all the animals on the farm I am most excited about meeting this guy below. His start in life was very hard and his twin didn't make it. This is Rushworth. He is the smallest lamb I have ever seen. I think the time we took this photo he weigh 5/6 pounds. He was so small he could walk underneath is mom to nurse. It was so much fun watching him huddle close to his mom when they laid down in the barn. How could anyone not all in love with little guy?

Watching Rushworth nurse was so cute. He just stands under mom and gets what he needs. Way too sweet. The day at Juniper Moon was really fun. There was a pot luck, items to be bought, fiber to be fondled and lots and lots of happy people, goats, sheep and dogs. The chickens looked a little concerned with so many people coming and going but when we all went to eat behind the house I think they got happier. If you have a chance to visit Juniper Moon Farm that would be great. If you don't then you can check out their forum on Ravelry. They even have a LambCam. It's outside in a little shed where you really get to see lots of sheep and goats. I did make a purchase while at the farm so I feel like the day was totally complete. I have not spun this up yet but hopefully it will be one of the next two things to be done. I will post what it looks like once it's done.

A Future UFO

2010-05-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

A Future UFO

I am in the process of starting a future UFO. My fiber friends (who are also known as enablers) introduced me to new group on Ravelry. It's called BlankieMania. I need to get my head examined but I joined. I have not however joined a swap on the site but instead decided to be a part of a small group here locally.

So to get ready for the local swap I used a ball of sock yarn that was spending way too much time in my sock stash drawer. My friend Ashley gave me her digital scale after I made a fuss about it on Facebook. A check was written and now I am the proud owner of the cutest little digital scale for weighing yarn.

The point to the swap is to measure out 20 balls of yarn that all weigh 5 grams each. There are 20 people in the swap and everyone does the same thing. Then all the yarn is mailed along with a SASE to the swap moderator and she gives everyone one of all the skeins and packs then up and off they go back into the mail. Each person gets 20 different little skeins to start on a sock blankie that is made up of a bizzion little mitered squares. This will be a long term project or a future UFO.

I chose yarn that I really am not wild about-it has pink. I am not a huge fan of pink or blue so this one could go. Maybe someone will be crazy about the color. I honestly don't know why I bought this stuff but I did and now it's going to have some new homes! So stay tuned for the future UFO.

New Addition

2010-05-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

New Addition
I know this post will be shocking for some and amusing for others. I just thought I should go ahead and talk about it first and get it done. This is mostly for my family members. This will be shocking in a way for them but they know me so maybe it won't be THAT shocking.

For those who don't know me very well I am a bit rebellious and I do things that my family does not always approve of. Take tattoos for instance. I got my first one when I was well into my 30's in Kingsville, Texas while attending a conference for Navy Wives Clubs of America. I was with a group of friends and of course we egged each other on and I caved. I got a very small yellow rose (in a place not for public display) and have been very happy with it ever since. I then got a second tattoo in my 40s while again away from home at a conference for the United States Personal Chef Assoc. in Tucson, AZ. A friend took me to a place where she had a tattoo done and I had another small tattoo (yet again in a place not for public consumption). Do we see a trend here??

While my oldest son and my DIL came to visit in April this year, we visited a tattoo parlor in Norfolk. No, it was not exactly for me but for my son. Actually we both were thinking about getting a new tattoo but I was the only one who made an appointment. The appointment was for Friday, May 7. I did loads of research about what I wanted my tattoo to look like and told the artist what I wanted. Thankfully I had another friend who had a similar tattoo done there so he was familiar with the other artist's work. I kept the appointment. Of course I took morale support and it was needed. If you have ever had a tattoo in a sensitive place you understand the morale support concept. They are there to distract you from swearing and screaming out loud.

This is what happens when you get home from such an adventure. You sit with a lovely bag of frozen peas and wait for the swelling to down. It takes a while but this is a good start.

Yes, that is my foot. Very sensitive place. I had heard this before getting my tattoo but now I know it for sure. Hurt does not begin to describe getting a tattoo on my foot. Agony is more like it. I took some Tylenol before going but that didn't even begin to put a dent in the pain. Alcohol would have worked much better in my humble opinion. It's not allowed but I sure could have used some! Here is what the pain and agony was all about.

I wanted a design that was all me. I am a native Texan and a dedicated knitter so I wanted a tattoo that represented that. So here is my concept. The artist did a great job knowing what I wanted. I was super pleased and am thankful that it turned out so well because it's not like I get a redo if it goes badly...

It's in my favorite color and includes my favorite state. Here is what I see and down below is what everyone else sees.

This what everyone else sees when I am barefooted. I have been trying not to wear shoes all weekend to give it time to heal. Right now it feels like a wicked sunburn. In a few more days the pain will pass. I will however have to invest in some really good sunscreen so that my color stays fresh. I can always go and have a touch up of the color but hopefully that won't be for a while.

So now I have gotten a tattoo in my 30s, 40s and 50s. I am now thinking about what to do in my 60s. Any ideas? I was thinking about a spinning wheel or maybe some sheep... or....

Catching Up

2010-05-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

Catching Up

I didn't realize how long it had been since I last blogged until the other day. I just have been caught up in a heavy work schedule and lost track of time. So much has been going on, that I hope that I can remember what to catch up on. I have been knitting on the same project forever. I am not one for having a lot of UFOs hanging out so I have been working on the same thing and it's boring me to tears. I made a promise not to buy any yarn until Maryland Sheep and Wool and I haven't. I am debating whether or not I will hang in there another six months and not buy anymore yarn. I am positive that I can, but I am wondering about gifts for friends and family. What if I don't have a color they like for a certain project? My taste seems to be more earth tones and more subdued colors compared to what everyone else likes. So I keep working on this project until the answer comes to me.

I joined a local CSA (Community Support Agriculture) farm that does a fiber CSA. I split a share with another spinner. I am very excited to see how it goes. I think we might get to attend a day of dyeing and then get our shares in the fall after they come back from the processor. I will post all of this as soon as it happens.

I came and went to Maryland Sheep & Wool Show with a group of ladies that were tons of fun from a knitting group that I belong to. Had a great time and made a few smallish purchases and one really long overdue one.

Just this past week (5/7/10) I added something new to me. It was painful but I thought it turned out well.

We got the garden in and a new rain barrel hooked up to the one we bought last year so watering the garden should cost us a little less. The next big addition is going to be a compost bin of some sort. Can you tell I am really into the gardening thing. If I could figure out where to put a bin for Vermicomposting (composting with Red Wigglers) I would. I am afraid the dogs would go after the juices that come from that kind of composting. Not a wonderful thought.

So can see that I have been busy doing thing and I have been taking pictures in hopes that I would be able to find time to catch up on what's been going on. So stay tuned for posts on each of the events listed above. I took pictures for the purchases for MDS&W and hopefully I can get some posts done this week with my lesser working schedule. So please hang in there with me while I do some catching up!

MIA

2010-05-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

MIA
I know I have not been around because I have been working more hours than I can handle so blogging and most knitting has fallen by the wayside. I have been some great adventures but I am just too tired to blog about them right now. My schedule changes next week so hopefully life will be more quiet and I will have time to knit, sleep, sleep, garden, knit and sleep some more. So please hang in there and I will have some accounts of the last few weeks. They really have been very busy with work and fiber adventures.
Thanks,
VAPurl

2010-03-25T05:56:00.000-07:00

Shaving Day
As promised I am doing a follow up to show you the before and after picture of Frick and Frack. Like both males and females, a good shave always improves the way they look. Felted objects are not exception to the rule.

Here is Frick's before shot. Frick is a very hairy bowl!
...and now the newly shaved Frick. Check out how much hair came off of Frick

Here is Frack before. Not quite as hair as Frick.

Now a newly shaved Frack. Much better!

I am by no means a felting expert but I feel like I am getting better at understanding what I like in my felted projects. I think when the yarn diet is over later this year, I will buy some more colorful yarn and felt with brighter colors and invest in a book that talks about techniques that I might be missing. Felting is scary the first time but after you've done 5 or 6 projects, you get more confident in what the expected results might be. So, that's Frick and Frack at their best! So try some felting today. You will totally be delighted with yourself.

2010-03-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

Frick and Frack
I got an idea the other day and since I am still on the stash down diet, I went right to the stash. This time I went to a drawer in my collection that I don't usually take things out of. It's my hand spun drawer. I am really good at putting finished skeins in there but not knitting anything with them. I know whatever I knit with my hand spun wool, can't be washed in the washing machine or dried in the dryer, so I never use it because most people don't want to hand wash anything these days. I did make one scarf and I made this last fall. Since that went so well I decided I needed to try it again. So I did...

I used the Felted Bowls pattern from One Skein by Leigh Redford. Her bowls that were featured in the book look WAY smaller than mine but yarn and needle size have a way of doing that. I used two strands of both colors to give the bowl a more bulky thickness. I wanted the bowl to be more sturdy. Size 15 Addi Turbos and US15 dpns were the needles that I used in both projects.

After I finished the first bowl I decided to try a different look and ended up with two completely different looks. Just for grins and giggles I tried them on and they make great saggy hats. I might have to try this again and actually make a hat next time I get a whim. So there are two knitted potential bowls. Don't they look like hats??

This bowl was supposed to be a stripped look. I didn't read the directions for the decrease rows and ended up not making a bowl exactly. At first I tried to use the back of a bowl but the bottom was too narrow. So I noticed the jar we store the dog treats in and tried to stretch it over that. Perfect! The top white band seemed a bit wishy washy so I solved that by folding it over on itself. As soon as booth projects are done I will cut any loose ends that didn't felt and give them nice close shave to make the look less fuzzy.

The second bowl, actually turned out looking a lot like the first bowl that I made back in the fall of last year for a swap. I used the same yarn as the first one and the same sized needles but this time I changed up how I used the yarn. I blended the two colors together for a major portion of the bowl. I tried to do two color knitting around the band of white and that didn't go as well as I had hoped. So I will keep trying until I get the results I want. Anyway it was fun and I used some yardage of my own stuff. I am hoping to do other things with my homespun so that I can make room for more spinning that needs to be done. I might do more spinning in the summer months than in the winter this year.

Here are Frick and Frack together being molded. In a few days I will take them off and then let the insides dry and see how they hold up.

Warm Noggins

2010-03-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

Warm Noggins
I have no idea how all of this started but I have been knitting preemie caps ever since the Olympics. I know it's a combination of needing a quick knitting "fix" and wanting to burn some yardage in my stash. Now I have passed the point of no return. I have been looking at some many preemie hats on Ravelry, that I feel like I am adding fuel to the fire.

I started with about six or eight patterns that have been perfectly fine for the last few years I have been knitting them. Now all of a sudden I have realized that knitting the preemie hats is my opportunity to learn new skills and hone the old ones. What could be a more perfect way to achieve so many things at once?? Let's run down the list.

1. I get quick satisfaction
2. I am using up yarn that has been sitting in my stash for over three years
3. I am helping a charity which helps the more defenseless of us all; babies
4. I have been dabbling in two color knitting for the first time since I failed to learn in a class almost a year ago.
5. I have found some cable patterns to practice my cables with.
6. I am learning the technique for a "joggless" stripe.

Not so bad, eh? So here are what I have made. I am still going away at it because I think I have about 10 more skeins that need to be knit up. I am not sure I will knit up all the skeins of baby yarn or not but I sure will put a dent into them. I will do my best to list the needles, yarn and patterns. There are just so many, so if I miss something just let me know and I will edit my post to correct my oversight.

One of the simplest pattern came from the Preemie Project site itself. It's called Rolled Brim Hat. It's super easy and makes a really cute hat. I did modify the top a wee bit. When you link to the pattern you can see that the top of the hat can have a "top knot" but I did a pom-pom instead on a few of them. Instead of knitting the last six rounds to form the stem for the top knot, I just took a Chubi needle and put them on a 4 inch tale and pulled them tight to close the top hole.

The next pattern is one I got from here. I am just crazy about this pattern. It is so simple and has allowed me to play around with two color knitting and now with the "joggless" stripe. I am still perfecting those two techniques so I think I am going to have to knit more of these! The possibilities are limitless! Boy have a I had a ball with these little beauties! This pattern is very easy too and it makes a cute more textured hat. I think it's more feminine that masculine but it still looked good in blue. Lastly I made one of these because I thought it was too large for a preemie. I will include it in my box to the Preemie Project and tell them to use where needed but I think it's too large to use for a 1-3 pound baby. I haven't been around a baby in so long I am not sure how large their little heads are. The yarns I have used are Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby D.K. and Sirdar Snuggly Fair Isle D.K. I have other baby yarns but haven't knit anything with them yet. I am planning to but want to knit up this other two brands first before starting something else. My needle sizes range from US3-US7.

I am still knitting on the hats and will post more as soon as I have more new patterns printed off and in place. I am still excited about doing these!

2010-03-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

So what I don't sew...

I can still admire a great event that has come to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. I have never gone before so thought since it was here in our area, a 20 minute drive would be well worth it. I was a bit put off by the $14 door fee, but after going I can it was well worth it. I dragged DH with me and he was as impressed as I was. Here is where we went. I actually remembered to bring my camera because I knew there were going to be lots of Kodak moments (does anyone remember that old slogan besides me?).

Here is what I saw first. How could I not take this picture. After all, I am a spinner and it's like a moth to the flame...I just couldn't help myself. It sure is a beauty!

I didn't get the name of the booth but I think it was a weaver's guild somewhere around here in the Hampton Roads area. Either way, it was more than picture worthy. Don't you think??

I took 32 pictures. Half of them are quilts and the other half is the maker's name and the name of the quilt. I think of these quilts as pieces of art and not just something you lay over a bed. They are to be hung and admired by as many eyes as possible; even by a non-sewer like myself. So feast your eyes on what I saw. They are so wonderful and I think the door fee was well worth it. There were rows and rows of beautiful things both large and small but the camera only could take so many pictures! This got it's picture taken because I was attracted to the silk worm cocoons. I have some but have never done anything with them. Never thought about using them like this. Very creative. Here is the sheet that was next to the piece.
Picture #2 I liked this one because we see a lot of these birds in the waters in and around Hampton Roads. They are such graceful birds and very regal looking. Please take a closer look at all the pictures so you can really see the craftsmanship.

Picture #3

I especially love this for two reasons. I saw the picture first. I do love fall leaf pictures. My downstairs bathroom is covered in framed pictures of them. The second reason I loved this is because when I went to read about it I saw the maker was from Texas. I might live there but my Texas pride is always with me! I would love to have this quilt hanging in my house. It would be such an honor!
Picture #4

This one was so strange that I had to include it. It was so different and had such a cool factor it was a must.

Picture #5 I like this one for purely selfish reasons. I loved the curly hair. I had curly hair like that once when someone rolled my hair on perm rollers. When my mother saw me, I thought she was going to have a stroke. The next day our school pictures were taken and I still love that silly grin on my face with all those billions of curls.

Picture #6

This is looks so tedious to me that I can appreciate how much time this must have taken. It's all in beads. This was on a Beading Guild's table. I did not get the name of the artist. It was just so wonderful how delicate she looks even in beads. Picture #7 Sometimes I think I am like a rat or a ferret. I am totally attracted to shiny things. Quilter's Fancy provided me with a ferret moment. No, I did not buy anything. It was so tempting though.

Picture #8 This has to be the most stylish rat I have ever seen!

Picture #9

I think this quilt is one of my favorites. I love the difference between the two faces. It's just so reflective of youth vs. aging. Every wrinkle tells a story of some adventure, of some pain and some joy.

Picture #10 Again, I see these birds in our area and just love how odd they look. The fact they can fly with that huge beak fascinates me. They are odd looking and graceful at the same time.

Picture #11 How can you not love this $1 bill? It's fabulous.

Picture #12 This is my husband's favorite of all the quilts we looked at. He said when we retire and build our log cabin we should build it where these are planted. I agree!

Picture #13 This one made me think of Alice in Wonderland. Could this have been what she saw when she looked up? Pretty impressive I think.

Picture#14 This one is my favorite. I have had cats for the last 30 years I have been married. This reminds me of the soulful look that so many our beloved cats have had. I have one 16 yr. cat and she is blind and deaf. This reminds me of her as a youthful kitty.

Is that a fierce and determined face or what?

I don't sew and I certainly don't quilt but I can sure admire someone else's talent. I hope you enjoyed looking at some of the quilts I found fascinating at the quilt show. I just might have to learn how to thread a needle...nah.

2010-02-27T04:52:00.000-08:00

Mission Accomplished (part 2)

I am so excited that I signed up for two groups in Ravelry. I was starting to get a tightness in my chest thinking about working and trying to knit a scarf, spin eight ounces of unknown fiber and then knit a cowl with it. I don't usually set deadlines for projects but for the Ravelympics that was required. You cast on during opening ceremonies and then have everything done by closing ceremonies.

This is my second time doing something for the winter Olympics. The first one was this. I was so excited that I made it! I gave it away but it was still such a thrill for a pretty new knitter. I thought I had been knitting longer than what I thought, but guess not. So I think that I should make this an event from here on in every time there is a winter Olympics whether or not it's with a group like Yarn Harlot formed or Ravelry. Either way, it is a challenge either with time or a skill. Fun, fun!

My second challenge was to spin a declared fiber and then knit it into something.
I picked a project and then tried my best to match the type of yarn the original pattern was knit in. It was sock yarn. I have never tried to spin that small before so this was a challenge for me. I bought a tool months back that would help me gauge how thick I was spinning. It's such a basic tool, but it did the trick when the directions were read and followed. Yes, I followed the directions. You know that is so unlike me but this was the Ravelympics you know!

The tool that was used to help me gauge my spinning is called a WPI Tool Kit. It's such a simple concept and works like a very basic charm. This my first time using the tool. When using the tool, you wrap the yarn around and around to measure an inch. There are four one inch marks on the tool. Then there is a card the helps you determine what kind of yarn you have just spun. I was shooting for 15-18 wpi (wraps per inch). That category is called sport yarn. I managed to get 12 wpi. I thought I was going small but guess it wasn't quite small enough. I still need way more practice getting small. I have heard from other spinners that once you've gone small, it's hard to make fatter yarn.

So I got 412 yards from the eight ounce of roving. It was WAY more yarn than what I needed to make the Good Luck Cowl. The most important part is that I finished it! My assessment is that I need to spin a wee bit tighter and this roving wasn't really the perfect yarn for this project but it turned out okay.

While I was knitting it I started to get panicky. It was looking kind of small. When I cast off I ran into the bathroom and tried it on. It fit. I have a short neck thank goodness? So it's done and now it needs to be wet and blocked. Here is my favorite model showing it off.

So with my finished Robin's Blue Egg Hat and now my newly completed Good Luck Cowl, I am ready for the snow they are predicting this week. Oh, goody!

2010-02-23T12:42:00.000-08:00

Mission Accomplished (part 1)

I finished the first of two scheduled projects for the Ravelympics. I completed the Irish Hiking Scarf. It was easy and fun at the same time. It refreshed my memory about how to do cables and how wonderful a knitted item looks with cables. I won't let this project be the last one with cables. I will have more cabled projects in the future. I was thinking a pair of socks...anyway my first project is done!

The scarf ended being a wee bit over 60 inches. I had hoped for 70 but since I knit one other scarf and a hat to match that scarf, there wasn't enough to make this scarf really long nor is there enough to make a matching hat. I am disppointed about the hat because I have seen a matching hat for this pattern on Ravelry. I might have to break down and buy another skein of this same yarn and try that hat.
Here is the scarf stretched across my dining room table. I hope the cables are the way they are supposed to be. I think they are. The next step is to wash the hat and the two scarves and get them dried and stored away until I have enough of them to mail off to OFA. Now I am off to finish spinning my roving for the next Ravelympics project. I am almost done with the spinning and then the knitting will begin!

Since this post was created I got this...I am really excited to knit for a logo. Silly, I know but it was fun and despite how easy the pattern was I feel like I pushed myself to get it done in a timely manner.

2010-02-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

Revving Up for Ravelympics

I have been laboring over what to knit for weeks and what Ravelympic groups to join. Don't you know that I would finish other projects (UFOs) and then be left with time to kill until the official cast on time. This can make a compulsive knitter nuts. No sticks and strings in my hands? What do I do while avoiding laundry and housecleaning? Look for a small project to whet the knitting appetite but of course!

Since I am trying to do a serious stash down I went right to the source of all of my efforts. I found a ton of single balls of yarn that needed to be knit down. So I picked this project to work on while I watched the clock until cast on time. The worst part of waiting was knowing that we would be on the road while I was waiting. It's hard to pick the right project for a road trip. I didn't want to over pack but pack enough knitting supplies that I could have anything I needed for a knitting emergency at my finger tips. So one small one ball project was perfect.
Here is the perfect short-term project while traveling. This is the Knit Baby Hats 1 by Sandra Huffines. It was knit on #3 dpns with 60 stitches. I found two half balls of yarns in a zip lock bag; Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby DK and Sirdar Snuggly. I don't know which yarn is which and at this point I don't suppose it matters. I just wanted to knit. So I did and when it was finished, it was perfect timing for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.
It's a wee bit blurry and the lighting isn't great but it's still a finished hat. It satisfied my need to knit, be a short and quick knit and it will be donated to yet another great cause sometime this year. I just love it when a plan comes together well... My model was another spare ball of yarn that was in the zip lock bag. It was probably between the size of an orange and a grapefruit. I think the pattern said it would fit between an 2-3 baby. I am not such a good judge of those kinds of things but it doesn't matter as long as it goes to a baby who needs it.
Then the opening ceremonies started and I cast on my project! Here is the pattern and the beginning of my swatch. I cast on and then measured the width and decided that it was outside the measurement specs set down by the OFA. So I went down to size 7 needles. I am using the rest of my Caron One Pound skein.

I made good progress while the opening ceremonies. I haven't done cables in years and years but found that they came back to me quickly. This Irish Hiking Scarf is super simple for anyone who is a beginner at cables. I really didn't remember how easy cables were until I got a good mojo going. It really was like riding a bike. I have made great progress over the weekend and am very pleased so far. I hope who ever gets the scarf likes it as much as I do so far. It is a bit stiff so I think I am going to wash and dry both scarves to soften them up a bit. I will post the finished project once it's done.

2010-02-09T12:10:00.000-08:00

Simple Satisfaction

I am in sort of a knitting limbo currently. It's the time before the Ravelympics and the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics which is Feb. 12th. I have committed myself to two groups and hopefully I will accomplish the goals I have set for myself. In the meantime I want to continue knitting but on a project that I can finish by the time I have to concentrate on my two projects.

So to fulfill the need to be obsessive about knitting every single day, I decided that knitting my very first project for the Red Scarf Project was the way to go. I joined the group on Ravelry and have been looking forward to my very first project and yesterday I completed my very first project to be sent to them when the time comes.
So here is a close up of my very first non-pattern effort. It's a simple nondescript pattern of K3P3 for 6 rows and then do the opposite for the next 6 rows. I cast on 36 stitches on US 7 Addi Turbos. I used acrylic (please do not run from the room screaming) yarn because these scarves and hats are going to very busy college students who don't have time to worry about hand washing and blocking a lovely wool scarf and nor do they always have the money to have something dry cleaned. So truly acrylic or a super wash wool was the way to go. I went with acrylic because of the affordability.

I used Caron One Pound skein in the color called Claret 562. It's more of a maroon than a "real" red. I paid about $8 for it at our local A.C. Moore. I don't usually buy yarn from them but I really wanted something super affordable as I mentioned above.

It's such a simple knitting pattern that it only took me two days to make. I am not really a fast knitter but it was so easy, it was hard not to whip through it. I was so happy with the way it turned out I thought it needed an accessory... a nice warm hat to match. I did not have a pattern but used the basic concept from another hat to make this one.

I cast on enough stitches (78) to make it around my head and then continued the same pattern that I had used the for scarf. I knit about 5-6 inches of the pattern before starting the decreases. To start the decreases I knit 7 and decreased in the pattern by either P2tog or K2tog. Then one row of knitting in the pattern and so on and so forth. I did try to stick to the pattern of changing the K3P3 every 6 rows and then switching to P3K3. It worked out pretty well. I was pleased with the end product even thought it's not perfect. I hope that who ever gets the set, will have a nice warm head and neck!

Here is my model wearing both the scarf and the hat together. She looks warm although she wasn't so sure of my choice of fashion eye wear for this photo shoot.

If you are thinking that you would like to do some charity knitting and you belong to Ravelry they have a great group and their site has all the free patterns you could hope for. The site also has care labels and washing instructions. I printed them off today to wrap around my scarf and hat.

I wound up the rest of what was left of the One Pound skein and have it ready for scarf #2 . I have chosen a cabled pattern for my 5K Stashdown Ravelympic challenge. I haven't done anything with cables in over 5 years so I thought this would help me get back into cabling. The name of the scarf is the Irish Hiking Scarf. I sure hope I can get it done in the time allotted. I don't know if I will end up doing a hat to match the scarf but I will know after I have finished the scarf! Nothing like a new or rusty skill to shore up your knitting confidence!

2010-01-24T03:27:00.000-08:00

Treading Water

I thought I was going to hit my knitting stride in 2010 but it has not turned out that way. Between working and trying to purge my office, I have not done nearly the amount of knitting I had thought I would. I have been working on the same project as has been seen here many, many times in the past few years. I so love this pattern as is evident of how many times I have knit the Mary Scarf. Now I am just knitting now to knit down my stash.

I joined a group called 5K Stashdown because another Ravelry friend mentioned it. I thought it a bit silly but when I sat down for 2 1/2 hours and started an Excel sheet with my stash inventory; I was mortified. I always knew in the back of my mind that I had a lot yarn, but I didn't know I HAD a lot of yarn. I am up to item #98. That doesn't mean that I only have 98 skeins, but different kinds of yarns and colors. Some of the catergories I have listed have 7 skeins, so I have more than 98 skeins of yarn. Say what? No, it can't be. I have only been a knitter for five/six years and there is no way that I could have bought that much yarn. Really?

I have still yet to tackle my closet. I have bags in the closet that are for sweater knitting that I have yet to inventory. I am dreading that. It only reminds me that I have been overly free in my spending for my hobby. I used to laugh and have self righteous thoughts about those who had storage sheds with yarn in them. Not anymore.

So to help relieve myself of some of the "yarn burden," I have been knitting on several projects at once. One of the projects was for a co-worker who admired my fingerless mitts. I told her that if she bought me the yarn I would knit her a pair. So she did. She purchased one skein of Homespun yarn. I let it sit on the diningroom table for a while until I could get motivated to knit the mitts. When they were done, I was happy with them and I think she liked them too.

They do look rather plain but when they are one someone's hands they do look so much better. The pattern is rather simple which gives me courage to step up my design selection for the next pair.
I had to try them on before taking them to work. I don't think they look so bad. Homespun is rather bulky so they are very warm. I took them to work and then my co-worker modeled them for you.

Notice the chef's jacket. That is the co-worker at work trying on the gloves.

I used the same pattern for these that I used in the first pair I made over a year ago.
There are the palms. The whole pattern is basicly a ribbed pattern with a thumb hole, which I had never done until I knit my first pair, which I gave to another co-worker. Then there was so much left over yarn, that I knit her a hat.

I took the hat to work for her to put a button on. I sadly did not get a picture to show you the hat but she did promise to bring the hat back and model it so I can take her picture. Stay tuned for more!

2010-01-15T18:35:00.000-08:00

Wrapping Up

I was thinking that I had another blog entry in the wings so I have been sitting here all fat, dumb and happy. I just checked and there is not another post. I could have sworn that I wrote one before the end of 2009 and it would be posted sometime this year so I could coast. No such luck. So here I am trying to come up with a post with last year's news. Does that really matter as long as it's a subject that brought others joy? Probably not. So I will wrap up what was wrapped up and given away.

I sent out my last package for my Santa Swap right before we left for our Christmas vacation. It had to be in the mail before Dec 16 and I did have it out before that to my partner who lives in Lawton, OK. Everything they say about mailing early is totally true. My box got there in three days. I was shocked and very pleased that my partner got her package so quickly. It's a good thing I did mail it early. She posted on the Ravelry site that my gifts were her only gifts under the tree because she was snowed in and was not able to be with her son and his family. I sure was glad that I mailed that box on time.

I tried my best to give her things that I thought she would enjoy. When I went to Rhinebeck back in October of last year, I was shopping for gifts for my friends and my swap partner. I know that my partner loves to make Tams and I tried my best not to come up with some more chunky weight yarn but my yarn was pretty fat. This is how it turned out below.

I know this is dark but the yarn is very dark too. It's a dark green with smatterings of orange, brown and shades of a lighter green. There was about 7 ounces all spun up. It was wonderful to spin and actually went very quickly.
I sent the tag with the yarn so that Laura would know what kind of yarn she would be dealing with. It was a blend. I was pleased at how well it turned out and I hope that Laura was too. Laura also received the red felted bowl. I purchased that roving from Rhinebeck too. I spun it and then made the bowl. I loved the bowl and gave some serious thought about keeping it for myself. Now I have to make another one!

I wanted to put in an ornament so I decided to sort of make one.

I took some of the yarn that I had spun and put it into the ball, some stitch markers, a stitch counter, and some point protectors. I bought some needles to put into the ball but they were too long to fit. The ball is plastic and can be opened in case of a fiber emergency; a knitter never knows.

Here is what the box looked like right before I packed it up.

There is the handspun, some Biscotti I baked, the little box that the ornament was in, the red handspun bowl and the left over yarn and a cute little felted sheep pin. I am never sure if it's enough. I hope that Laura enjoyed the box. I had fun playing the fiber hunter gatherer.

So here is what I got from Laura.

This is contents of the box I received minus a few things. You'll see in a minute what is missing.
There was a box to make some socks. The box has the yarn, instructions and includes the needles. Then there was a lovely gold shimmery gold tam. I have a model showing it off. She's doing such a lovely job that I took two shots of her and the Tam.

I also got a pillow sham with purple and yellow and then some single serve coffee bags from Starbucks And last but not least the things that are missing...
I would say the box was a success! I ate them all! I was happy to swap with Laura and hope that she had a lovely Christmas. I know I did. Thanks Laura.

2010-01-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Simple Yet Effective Shawl

I found this pattern on Ravelry. The designer is Laura Chau. She also wrote this book. I met her very briefly at Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Show) this past October. She was there to sell and sign her book. I don't own one but might consider buying one due to this shawl that drove me a wee bit nuts.

I thought that since it had the word simple in the title I would breeze through it. Three skeins of sock yarn later and it's finally done. I picked sock yarn for this project because I thought it would wash and dry up like a great pair of socks would. Wrong. Let me refresh your memory. Here is the shawl I worked on for months...

Not much to look at in this form or the next one either...
I decided that months of my grubby hands on this piece, it might need a bit of a wash. So I had some special wool wash that smells like lavender and gave it a nice dunk in tepid water. Not hot mind you, just tepid. As I watched the water fill the sink, I started feeling sick to my stomach. Panic set in. See how murky the water is?? Does this tip you off to the next shot?
See that lovely shade of blue? It's bleeding from my sock yarn shawl. This is not hand dyed yarn mind you. This yarn is made by a big named company, Berroco Sox Metallic. I have never had sock yarn, hand dyed or other wise bleed like this before. I am so thankful that even though it says you can wash in the washing machine and dry in the dryer, I did not. I rinsed it off and hopefully that will be the one and only time it bleeds blue everywhere. I will never wash this in with any of my clothes at this point because frankly, I don't trust it. I know yarns bleed all the time but just never thought that it would happen with a product from Berroco which I have knit socks with before.

I rinsed the shawl out as much as I could. I did see the water run clear but who knows...I still don't trust it. Then it was off to the next step of blocking. I have never blocked a shawl because I never really had anything that needed to be done that way in the past. Lucky for me my friend had a brand new set of blocking wires and let me borrow them. So without really knowing what I was doing I started to thread my shawl on to the wires through holes as consistently as possible.

It took way more wires than I thought it would but there were some to spare. The cat loves to lay on my bed upstairs so I can't lay it out on the bed. So the dining room table had to be cleared off and there it will sit until it dries. Thankfully Thanksgiving dinner is over and we don't have to eat there for the time being. It's not as flat as I have seen in other photos but this is all I have to work with for now. I will check on it tomorrow to see how the drying process is going.

This post was right after Thanksgiving when I started it and now it's 2010 and the shawl was given to my SIL for Christmas. Since both my SIL and MIL read my blog, I have to be careful what I say the closer it gets to Christmas every year. I am really mad at myself that I didn't get a picture of my SIL with her shawl. I hope it brings many, many warm days to come!

2009-12-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

Same Song, Green Verse
I know there are others out there in cyberland who keep knitting or crocheting the same pattern over and over because it makes them happy and brings such a satisfying sense of accomplishment. I love that feeling when I knit. I have looked at pattern after pattern of dishcloths so I know that others are knitting the same basic pattern over and over and over. You know a good pattern when you knit it. It feels good and you are comfortable with it. You know inside and out. Slipping into a familiar rhythm.

So this one is no different. I think I have knit at least 12 of this pattern. What can I say? It's the perfect 56 stitch lace scarf for a beginner. It's just enough lace to satisfy a need to knit lace and not feel like it's a life time commitment. Thus this makes the perfect gift for almost any occasion. I can knit this in 10 days or less even while working a part-time job. That's about the same amount of time that I can knit a pair of socks. Of course this time it took me a bit longer because I have been spinning and felting the same time I was knitting on the scarf.

I have never been one for doing gauge, swatching or blocking. I know better but some things you really need to know the gauge, swatch or even block. This pattern however does need to be block ever so slightly. All of the other times I have made this scarf I either steam and hand blocked or hand blocked it on an extra large bath towel. This time I have a new way.

My favorite enabler and I shared an order for KnitPicks and we bought blocking squares. I haven't used them yet and since I returned her blocking wires, I thought the blocks and some old sewing pins would do the trick. They did!

I love the blocks. I really wasn't sure about them but they are wonderful. Why did I wait so long to do this? The pins just slide right in and look at that! There was one little problem though...
My diningroom table isn't long enough to block the whole scarf. Since I sleep on a Sleep Number bed, pinning it the the bed to accomodate for length, isn't happening! So 3/4 of the scarf will be blocked over a two day period. Then I will have to wet the last 1/4 and block that. A little awkward but with five dogs my options are limited for sure.

Here is another view of the scarf in the process of being pinned for blocking. Lastly the close up of the lace. I am sure that if you are a member of Ravelry you can link to my project page and then follow the link to the designer's page. I feel like I got my money's worth from this pattern! I sure hope my friends think as much as their gifts as much as I did making them.

Pattern Stats: Mary designed by Linda Johnson. Knit with US #4 Addi Lace circulars with Misty Alpaca Lace weight.

Seeing Red These Days

2009-12-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

Seeing Red These Days

I have to admit that I learned how to spin about four or five years ago, bought a wheel and then set it aside. It's been collecting dust and would continue to do so if it not for the small group of spinners that belong to Yarn for Breakfast. I have talked about them before. Every once in awhile they meet at someone's house and spin, talk about fibers and where to get the "good stuff". Being with them inspired me to start spinning a little more every week.

I went to Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Show) and bought roving. I have five fleeces stored in the house but thought I needed some more color in my life. I bought red roving what was really meant for felting but didn't realize that until I started to spin it. It's coarse and I have no idea what the fiber was other than it was a nicest color of red. So I snagged it and started spinning. I ended up with this... It's a bit blurry but you get the jest of it. I triple plied the yarn for a project. I did two plies red and threw in one in a misc. light colored roving that I had. The yarn ended up being a bulky yarn. That was what I wanted. It's for a project that needed bulky weight yarn.

I wanted to make my very first bowl from this book. I love books but never seem to use them after I buy them (except for sock books). I have thumbed through this book many times and admired the felted bowl. I have seen them on blogs and different sites and decided I wanted one. So I made one. I have to say that I was totally impressed. The pattern was wonderful. You can be the judge.

Here is the yarn in a cake (same blurry picture as above). Then I knit the bowl. I am sorry that I didn't get a before shot but I was so excited about getting it into the washing machine that I forgot.

After I felted it I found a bowl to serve as a form to put the newly felted bowl on so that it would dry like a "real" bowl. I was lucky because I found a pyrex bowl the perfect size in my cabinet. I wanted the outside of the bowl to dry first so I flipped it upside down and left that way on the dining room table for two days during Thanksgiving.

This is the bowl upside down drying. Once the outside felt dried to the touch I turned it back on the flat side of the bowl so that it would sit flat . Worked like a charm.

I love the texture. I haven't shaved it. Don't think that I will either. I did think that the two colors would be stripped or marbled or something but it turned out speckled. I really do love the way it looks; hairy and speckled.

Here is the final bowl. It's dried and it stands up really well. The walls are not as thick as I thought they would be but I really love the bowl. It has given me great satisfaction to spin the wool, knit the bowl, felt it and now get to use it. I have got to use my books more often!

50, Twice

2009-11-27T16:33:00.000-08:00

Fifty, Twice
Not too long ago I turned 50 for the 2nd time. I have to say that it was one of the nicest birthdays I have had via my friends from both close and afar. One friend locally treated me like a princess with some nifty gifties and then two good friends from Ravelry made going to the mailbox a delight.

Let's start with local...

I got lots of goodies in bag. There were designer Kleenex, pads for writing down my thoughts, a mask (we all tried them on), a bouncy balloon and a crown. Not only that but I got treated to lunch out too. It couldn't have been a nicer day with three of my favorite people.

Next a gift in the mail made my day. Even though I am a knitter, I rarely knit useful things for myself (except for a shawl here and there and of course my beloved socks). So my friend from IN sent me these lovelies.

I do knit, but I never knit dish cloths for myself so she did it for me. Not only did I get that but I got a nice message center where I can put paper and a pencil so that when I answer the phone I can actually write something down without searching for something to write with.
She also sent me my favorite candy but as you can see it didn't make it to the photo session...ahem...

I am sorry for the bad quality on my pictures. My camera was have a cranky episode and I couldn't get the flash to work correctly. So it's a bit dark. The back drop is my new bookcase that DH built.

Then my friend from CO sent me these items. I was speechless!

Since the picture is so horrible I will tell you what's in it. There are two felted acorn bags. There is a large one and a small one. Each has a dark brown lid with a nice little handle on it, I think icord. The lids are held shut but little loops that wrap around a cute little wooden button. You can take the lids off and put lots of lovely thing inside each of the acorns. Let me tell you, they were both packed with tons of goodies.

This picture is a better one with all the of contents of both the acorn bags laid out. I got all kinds of things. There is (was) Emerald dark chocolate covered almonds in little bags that were 2.5 ounces that had 100 calories. They didn't last very long...ahem. There is roving I have to add to my spin list, flavored tea bags, a pair of tiny scissors, a tape measure and a bag of earrings. It was just the neatest presentation for a ton of little gifts. I can't tell this person how impressed I was that the whole time we are talking about our knitting projects, she never once mentioned she was knitting on these guys. Just too cute!!

So the gifts in the mail, gifts in person, Birthday greetings both from Ravelry and Facebook and a dog singing Happy Birthday made the day a lovely one. Everyone should be so lucky to have so many nice people in their life.

Today is the day after Thanksgiving and I am thankful for those people in my life who put up with me with a smile on their face and those who put me in my place with a gentle hand. I am very thankful that my grandmother started me down the road of knitting and crocheting when I was a child or none of this would have been possible. I hope that everyone out there in cyberland had a Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving should not be one day of the year but everyday!

2009-11-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

Where does your fiber come from?
(warning this is high in fiber content and cuteness-very long post filled with a lot of pictures)

I know that I really didn't give it much thought when I was crocheting many, many years ago where my yarn came from. Do they make an acrylic animal?

I started going to sheep and wool shows because I want to buy things that I couldn't get locally. Little did I know that I would get an education at the same time as shopping. When I looked at the content of yarn I never had seen the sheep the fiber came from. I know that alpaca was soft as well as Merino, but really never had experienced the animals up close and personal until attending sheep and wool shows. What a great education it has been. I see something new every year.

This year was no different when it came to seeing the fiber bearing animals in person. I saw all kinds of great animals.

Below you will see one of the most photographed young man at the show. Meet Zack...

This handsome young man has some pretty impressive horns. Check them out. Can you imagine that coming toward you in a sheep pen with a good head of steam??
Then we moved over to the Angoras pen. What a lovely, soft and silky group of animals

They were pets more than anthing else. The older gentleman in the middle picture is the owner. The ram who is standing up wanted his attention to be pet. He was very friendly and let others pet him but really wanted his "daddy" to scratch his head.

These are some of the most expensive sheep that were at the show. These sheep do not get sheared like other sheep. Their fleece falls out in clumps and you have to pick it up off the group when they "shed" their fleece. I have met the owner at Maryland Sheep & Wool and she quoted me a price of $600 for one sheep. Soays are small sheep like Shetlands. She told me there is a waiting list for their fleece. Now that's a good business when someone waits on a list to get the fleece.
I have never seen a Soay that is any other color but brown. There might be other colors but I am not sure. They are just so shy and very small. This would be a great sheep for someone who has small land space challenges.

As I mentioned above, I learn something new about sheep every year I go. This is my first year to see this breed of sheep named, Ouessant. You can read more details about them here. It states on that board pictured that these are the world's smallest sheep. If you google them you will see a link with tons of pictures of the sheep. They seem to come in colors besides brown. Take a look. They are so interesting to read about. I did not get a chance to touch them or see what their fleece is like. Just loved they are so small and it's a breed I had never heard of until the show.

I think the weather at Rhinebeck this year was perfect for this sheep...I bet he/she was perfectly content.
Look at that fleece! Boy wouldn't you like to get ahold of that to spin!
Here are beautiful Jacobs. One of the most fun things about Jacobs is their horns. They can have up to 2 sets and each an go a different direction. It's funny to look at their horns. Check out this guy's horns. Funny, huh?
If you are a spinner you will recongize this breed below. I love spinning with Corriedale mixed with Lincoln wool. It's super easy to spin.

Look at these project wannabes! Man that's some fleece!
These are not a new breed for me but you don't see these in too many places...
These sheep look so cuddly. Sorry I didn't get anything but the back side but their food is more important to them than my photo.
These are sheep whose fiber I have not used yet. They are attractive sheep though.

I have pictures of the llamas and alpacas but will save that for another day

Vacation Travels and Finds

2009-11-11T10:12:00.000-08:00

Vacation Travels and Finds
(This contains one cool knitting thing but the rest is about all the places I went on vacation in Milwaukee besides the yarn shops)

The whole point of going away for nearly two weeks was to see my son and daughter-in-law. There they are! We had a whole day of shopping with the kids and my DIL suggested we go to a cute little place called Cedarburg, WI. There are tons of cute little shops and believe me we looked at a lot of them. We visited the Cedar Creek Winery and you know I can't go to a winery without making a purchase or three. We did the tasting and came away with three bottles of our own; Pinot Grigio, Cranberry Blush and a bottle of Settlement Gold.

Not only did we get three bottles of great wine but something really cute and very funny. Can you guess what these are? I had never seen these until our visit.

These are wine glass coasters. The green grapes are for the white wine and the dark ones are for the red wine. You just slip your glass right in the flip flops as if they were your feet.
Pretty clever! Don't you think? They were $5 a piece but so worth it if not for the "funny factor.

We drank the Pinot one night with some beer marinated grilled brats. They were totally yummy for two reasons. One, I didn't have to cook them and two the person who did cook them knew exactly what they were doing. That would be my DIL's older brother. They were awesome! Thank you D!

While we were in the same building as the winery we ventured upstairs to a little resale shop and I made the cutest purchase. This was a find of a life time.

I bought the cutest little spinning wheel lamp. Did anyone know there were spinning wheel lamps?? The price on the lamp was $12.95 but there was a 50% off sign on it and I got it for $6.50. Can you believe it? The little wheel actually turns and the pedal moves up and down. Too funny! I haven't decided where to put it yet, but I just had to have it! What spinner would pass this up??

Then there was the trip to Penzeys Spices. I love getting the catalogs and even better when I get to actually go to one of their stores. I have been to the Penzeys in Kansas City and now Milwaukee. I went nuts there too. It will all be used up sooner or later.

I tried to buy things that I have never bought before to give them a try without paying for shipping and handling.

I love Penzeys Hot Chocolate mix. With cold weather coming I think it was a good buy!

Since DH humored me and took me a for a whole day of a yarn crawl, I sucked it up and did something with him and the kids I never thought I would ever do...
Can you guess where I was??? Here are some more hints... still no? Okay one more??

Okay surely you have guess by now? The two older bikes were the precursor to what was to come to be a multi-million dollar business. The two newer looking bikes are history makers in their own time. They are the two bikes in this movie.

This bike belonged to the one and only...and they even had the original bill of sale with his signature on it. Very impressive to me. I dearly loved this singer as a teenager and well as millions of us did.

Why anyone would want to do this to a bike, was beyond me but they did and it wasn't too, horrible. The picture does not do it justice. It was so sparkly!

Okay, okay so we did the tourist thing and sat on the bikes in the bike room. It was our vacation after all! That's the longest I have ever sat on a motorcycle and will probably be the last time too!
Okay, that's enough about my vacation for now. Some other cool things happened while I was on vacation but that will be in yet another post. So your knitting vacations involve going to "guy" places to offset the "girl" places? Well, it only seemed fair!

2009-11-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

What Budget?

When my son said he was going to be in WI close to the time of Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Show) I just could not help myself! I asked DH if it was possible to combine the trip to WI along with a trip to NY. He said yes and I was thrilled beyond words. I have heard about Rhinebeck since the very moment I became a knitter. Maryland Sheep & Wool is much closer but I have dreamed about going to Rhinebeck too. I was so lucky to get there this year.

I am sorry that I didn't get a picture of the Rhinebeck banner but you can find that here. There are some really nice pictures on their site. They are every bit as wonderful as I saw in person.

I didn't have a budget but if I had it would have been blown for good. Here are some of the things that I purchased. My purchases have no rhyme or reason; just my desire to have them.

I get suckered in by the basket people every year. This past year at MS&W I resisted. They don't usually have the oblong baskets and I already have two round ones. This one was different. That's how I justify my purchase. Can you see how the rest of this post is going to go??
This little baby was a new find. It's a small basket from a different vendor. I love how small the basket is. It's perfect to store a small project in the works; socks maybe or a preemie hat in progress?

This purchase was a well thought out corrected regret from MS&W this year and last. I have admired Jennie's pottery bowls, mugs and the yarn bells but just didn't think I should have one. This time I decided I was going to get one. I like my yarn mostly in balls if it's not lace so, a ball from one of my projects will fit nicely in here. I love the green ball of yarn and the black sheep on the inside so it was a "must" purchase.

Found a small bag of red roving that just caught my eye and I snatched it up. It was just the right amount to make a wee skein to do some Fair Isle knitting. It's called Cranberry and there is 4 ounces. Not sure what sheep fiber it is but it will be fun to spin it nevertheless.
I have five brown fleeces to spin but need more color in my life so thought I would give this a chance. I do like flashes of pink even though it's not my favorite color. I was attracted to the orange and green. I am curious to see how well it spins up. It's 100% Merino and there is 8 ounces. I thought the price was very reasonable. I will keep you posted on how well it spins up.
There could not be a trip to a sheep and wool show without some handmade item. So for $5 I bought myself a pin. How cute is this felted sheep? There were so many to pick from. I think I got the best of the litter~
As if I didn't have enough spinning to do, this ball called out to me and I answered the call. Here is the tag that was on the end of the roving

I found these buttons at a booth and thought I could add them to my newest collection of snarky knitting buttons to wear on a hat that can be worn at sheep and wool shows.

If you ever have a chance to attend NY Sheep and Wool Show, you should go despite any rain, snow or the crowds. It was super cold and that brought out every one's knitted finery. It was impressive to see what others had knit. I love looking at the scarves, hats, gloves and sweaters that everyone made.

Rhinebeck is held at the Duchess County Fair Grounds and they put on an impressive show. Unlike MS&W they have paved paths almost everywhere you would want to walk. Many vendors are in several building that are listed by letters of the alphabet. It's easy to get around the fair grounds. The bathrooms are manned by attendants that keep the toilet paper and paper towels in good supply. Those ladies keep the line moving so the wait was not long at all. Most of the food vendors were in covered buildings as well as most of the fiber vendors. From my best judgement, it seemed like NY Sheep and Wool is much larger than MS&W show. The only draw back that I can see is that they charge a fee to get into the show. We bought two days tickets. I shopped mentally on Saturday and then made almost all my purchases on Sunday. Yes, I did stand a chance of not getting something I really wanted but since I didn't go with a list, I was good.

I had a great time and am planning on going back next year. I have been reading about hotel bookings and this time I am booking early so I get a place where other knitters stay. They get together at the hotel and I think that would be fun. Rhinebeck is a must if you are a fiber freak who wants to see, smell and experience the whole enchilada!

2009-10-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

The Lake Effect Yarn Crawl...Part 2

I just couldn't post all the pictures and keep going and going on about all the shops that I managed to see while on vacation. So here is part 2 of where I went. I had such a great time and saw loads of wonderful things as well as wonderful people!

After we (I) left Loop we headed for Hartford, WI and the Main St. Yarn Shop. I got to meet the shop owner herself and she was just delightful. We corresponded several times about the shop and how to get there. Once I got there we had a conversation about lots of different things. The shop is located on a street in Hartford that has lots of little shops on both sides of the street. It looked like a great place to live as well.

As soon as you walk into the shop there is a nice little seating area that I suspect is for the waiting husbands. Another special thing that is directly to your right hanging on the wall is this. I have known people who were working on this but have never seen the whole thing put together. It was certainly impressive and absolutely picture worthy.

I just loved this afghan. So much work went into this. I guess it's like eating an elephant-one square at a time. If you have never seen one finished-it's a sight to see.

What I especially loved was all the felted purses that the shop has. I was focused on them because I have often thought of making one and then making socks instead.
I really was drawn to this purse because it reminded me of those polymer clay squares that people make into jewelry. Each one of those swirl is a separate square. I have no idea how this was made but it was impressive. The black purse behind that one has little fuzzy caterpillar thing sticking out all around the top of the purse. There were other purses and I regret not taking more pictures of them because they were just so unique.

The shop was well organized and I found some yarn that I had only found in Alaska. So I was a happy knitting camper when I left. I am going to make a hat from this to wear to Rhinebeck next year! I made my son a hat with this yarn last year at Christmas and once it was done I was so pleased with it. I wasn't able to find that yarn here so consider this to be a big coup. So a hat will be made!

As we traveled on the next shop was a dual find.

See double yummy! I mainly went here because it was in the town of West Bend, WI which is where we were staying. I really didn't look at too much of the yarn. I was mostly interested in the beading part of the shop. I want to knit a beaded amulet bag and wanted to see if they had some 0000 dpns. Sure enough they did. So I bought five and then the search was one for decorative beads for the ends of the needles. I found a ton of beautiful beads. It was an awesome source for beads, classes and supplies. I sure wish they were closer to where I live. I might consider doing more projects with beads.
Here is just a fraction of the beads that were hanging up in the shop.

Here is another shot of the beads at the shop. Of course there was the yarn half of the shop...
Lovely yarn as sell as beading supplies. Wonder how many knitters walk in here and then get addicted to knitting with beads? Not hard I imagine.
These are my 0000 dpns with the beads I found. I will glue them on the ends of the needles and see what happens. I just love them!

So that's my yarn crawl in and around Milwaukee and three other cities. I really did enjoy the day and thank all the wonderful people on Ravelry The Lake Effect who gave me their recommendations. Y'all did a great job.