It's been ages

I have been knitting though. There were several scarves for Christmas presents (wool: ribbed, basket weave). There was a pair of fetchings for a friend. After Christmas there was a prayer shawl made for another friend who had just unexpectedly lost her Mom. NO PICTURES! As always life's demands are overwhelming. Kids keep me extra busy, there is the writing for children class and my full time job as always. I am also involved with some Block Print exchanges, one themed "rat" for the Chinese New Year and another is a Winter Solstice print exchange. I have carved my rat block but haven't printed yet. Need to get "sick" one of these days so I can get something accomplished at home! I rarely ever do that....

WIPs remain the Kureyon blanket that I might finish by the time I'm 90. It's at least 4.5 feet wide and getting to be 3 feet in length. This time of year working with Kureyon is definitely color therapy. And speaking of color therapy I have aquired some books: "Latvian Mittens" and
"Selbuvotter, Biography of a Knitting Tradition." Fair Isle has been calling my name again. To have something to work with I also broke my yarn diet and ordered some heather fingering and sport weight wools from Knitpicks. I cast on for a mitten last weekend but I was starting too many new things at once. I was learning to knit using magic loop, knitting an edge that would become a hem and knitting my first mitten. I sratched that and instead pulled out some Lopi-lite that I have had for 15+ years (!!!!) and knit my first basic mitten to felt. Finished it last weekend and attepted to felt but it wasn't going quickly enough so have laid it aside. Yes, one usually knits 2 but, well, mine was a narrow mitten and somewhat longer than the B+W image in the book and I wanted to see how much it could shrink. Will utilize the washer/dryer sometime.

Today's project lust has centered around a shawl/scarf based on this blogger's shawl. Thanks KnitDad! Sounds easy with a look somewhat like entrelac but easier for a fractured mom to put down then pick up, put down then pick up...

Last but not least our wee pup is growing up! Piper is now 7 months old and a young gentleman. He is a wonderful addition to the family! See Piper's pup-page here. Cheers.

Welcome Piper!

Piper went to the beach

Cat card

No knitting this Summer. I will have to remember next year how busy Summer can be. My co-workers are the best, they presented me with this card, worth posting here for a laugh!

Almost May

Wanted to post some FOS, humble they are. A simple, rustic scarf made from the hand spun pictured before as a ball. A basketweave stitch scarf made from Dune yarn that is really rather scratchy, the photo is pathetic.

Color work ogling

Haven't made an entry in a while. I can only offer up a link to someone elses pictures:

http://www.knittingbeyondthehebrides.org/color.html

But what wonderful finished works they are!

My current WIP is not a lizard ridge but I am using all of my Kureyon for a plain stocking stitch afgan with a moss stitch border. I keep thinking of it as my "Weasly" afgan as it seems like something Mrs. Weasly would have clicking away in the background at her home, very bold and rustic, almost shocking! I cast on oh, maybe almost 300 stitches on a size 9 60" circular. The thing will be the size of a twin blanket if I ever finish. This initiative was started after I spent a couple of hours one afternoon cataloging my stash. It's currently a 3 page hand written list (that would be legal not letter size!), someday to be converted into an MS Excel file for easy sorting by weight, manufacturer or whatever. My balls of Kureyon numbered in the 20's. I will probably need 30 for this afghan. Maybe I'll sneak in some solids to try and avoid more yarn purchases. I have some GORGEOUS Beaverslide Farm aran skeins. I think cascade 200 would be too light weight. The Ecowool would be the right weight but they are all natural sheepy colors which would look odd next to the vibrant kureyon.

I can only hope to make a dent in the stash which is the other reason for the catalog. If I have proof of all of the potential projects in front of me I will be less likely to buy more yarn.

Along the lines of stash reduction I did finish a St Pattys day scarf made from two long-ago purchased balls of Trendsetter Dune in the forest green colorway. That leaves me with 1 and 1/2 balls left. It's pretty scratchy stuff. Not REALLY the best choice for a scarf but it looks nice. Almost wore it to see the Chieftans in Hartford but another outfit won out :-)

Also finished a simple ribbed scarf made from handspun purchased off of Etsy. Pics are at home, need to upload sometime. Dune scarf was difficult to photograph. Handspun is gorgeous.

Adios

Lame blogger

Turns out I am not the best candidate for blogging. Too busy with the full time job and being a mom. That's OK as I still seem to maintain the blog entity despite not posting.

I did manage to knit a sweater vest as a Christmas gift and here it is. It was a symbolic gift. I don't think sweater vests are the most practical garments. It did however end up being my first sweater, first in the round completed project, first cable project. Yarn is Noro Kochoran, pattern is "Boogie" by Knitty. I departed from the pattern in that I knit it in the round to the v neck then knit the back and both sides back and forth. I had not realized that the neckline includes these dead end corners that sort of flap about. Am not pleased with the color on the right front shoulder differing so much from the left but I did not have enough of the yarn to play with. Used 3 skeins. The yarn had alot of the farm in it which could be scratchy. Hope mom can see the zen of it all LOL. Click on the pics for the big picture and have a great day!





















































And finally some good cheer for the eyes, some sunny homespun that I got from etsy...

Not much time for posting but here goes. I tried my spindle out last night but wasn't able to draft. Definitely not worried though, just need more practice.

Currently working on a top down pattern from Pure and Simple patterns, that has to be my big WIP now as it should be a holiday gift.

Without further blab here is a better picture of the natural dyed yarn.

Starmore Kit

Here's a pic of the Alice Starmore "Grant Ave." kit I ordered. I don't know how I'll ever knit it up! Never done steeks. Never even made an entire sweater. Not very good at keeping my place in patterns or charts. But I can never say never and I will, come hell or high water, make this vest. May take awhile but I will try. Goal is to complete other projects as skill builders.

Swatched up my natural dyed yarn this weekend. Tough to find a fair isle pattern to showcase the colors. Keep thinking I should have reds. Perhaps I will make the background color the natural off white of the Dale and use my colors to pattern. By the time I'm done with natural dying experiments I'll probably have enough to make a larger project.

10 NOV Advanced Life Forms

Okay, someone tell me how to do it. This must be a world with super-humans scattered among us. I perceive that so many are accomplishing so much. They must have power over time. My daily schedule:

5am ARISE
6am Arrive at work (outside home)
2pm leave work (no lunch break)
2:30 – 3:50pm FREE CHOICE
3:50 – 9pm Kids present
9pm – 9:30, maybe 10: finish chores, collapse in bed, maybe read a few knitting book pages

The competing tasks for FREE CHOICE would include but not be limited to: exercise, knitting while watching HGTV, starting dinner, reading, putting away laundry, yard work, cleaning (what’s that?). Well, you get it.

My question is how everyone else manages to get it done? How can there be so many fit, working, productive, crafty, blogging, beautiful knitters out there?

OK, just to prove that I do here’s a shot of an in-progress:


I leave you free to enlighten me about advanced life form time management....

Lizards, not Lizard Ridge

A FO. This hat is giant, made for my 9 yo son who has a New Caledonian Crested Gecko. This chameleon chart came from the book Tap Dancing Lizards. I guess you would call it intarsia but let me tell you it's not elegant on the inside. I just cut the red at the end of each motif row and ended up weaving in a million ends - AFTER I showed it to DS to make sure he loved it enough for me to continue. It has a fair amount of ribbing, all folded inside in this photo. Think I may sew it in on the inside permanantly.

November 8th 2006

I've been wanting to create a blog for a while to share and express my various passions. At present this amounts to a fiber obsession in the form of knitting. Mom taught me to knit, I think I was a young teen. It never took off as an obsession until the last few years. Well, the details of my particular existance can wait. Here are some photos.

My grandmother's cedar chest holds much of my yarn stash. Found some plain undyed Dale Helios and another skein of natural wool.

What I found to dye, Dale Helios. The Candide will be for another time:

Vinegar soak:

Tumeric, waaaay concentrated and Hibiscus tea on the right:

I also used black walnut powder to create a brown dye. No picture.

Results, tumeric on the left was a vibrant saffron yellow. I ended up tossing the rest of the tumeric dye in with the black walnut (right). Result is an alpaca brown. Better daylight pictures are needed. Hibiscus tea was turning out a pretty beige. I added 1/4 bottle red wine to the dye bath and decided to let it sit. I'll either get a darker shade or wooly wine.