Knitting Content!

Those of you who know me may recognize the shape of this shawl.  It's my second Danish Tie Shawl.  The blue one is still beautiful, but I had some fantastic brown marled handspun that was calling to be a bulky shawl.

Believe it or not, this shawl took me 16 days to complete, including weaving in ends and blocking.  I think if I'd done the weaving in and blocking as soon as the knitting and border were done, it would have been more like 12 days. 

With one project off the needles, of course I have to put a few more on.

Here are a couple of 8" squares made for a friend's baby blanket that my knitting group is doing together. 

And I came across a skein of brown Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool that called to be a nice warm scarf for Jeff.  

And that's what's on  and off the needles right now!

Another installment of. . .

WIP Wednesday!

With the vest done, I wanted to have something a little less complicated to work on, and what's less complicated than good old Stockinette Stitch?

It's the Citron Shawl from Knitty, done in Malabrigo Lace.  It's so nice to work with.  Soft Smooth Merino wool. 



I'm also working on spinning up yarn for a friend.  Elizabeth brought in a ton of gorgeous roving, and handed the entire bag to me!  I was floored, and saw one that was specifically perfect for Diana, so am paying it forward!

Cutting up perfectly good knitting

This week in WIP Wednesday!

Steeking

Scary but fun.  It goes like this:

You knit (and knit, and knit) planning ahead for things like arms and necks and torso openings. 

One yarn in each hand so that you end up with a beautiful tube like this.

In some places, instead of a pretty pattern you just knit with one after the other, making a sort of checkerboard pattern

Then you use your sewing machine and run stitching down either side of the center of that checkerboard.

And then. . .

You cut!!!!!

ahhhhhhhhh!!!

no, actually it's going really well

See how it's not unravelling?   If you look closely you can see black thread where I stitched down the steek. 

When done, you have knitting that looks like something vaguely resembling a vest that you can then pick up stitches around to finish the edges. 

More to come, as the edges are knit! 

Man, I need to clean my craft room.

Long Overdue

Oh how I love long weekends. I took Friday off as well to be able to really relax and get a bit of cleaning done. I'm also obviously taking this chance to get some blogging done as well!

I can't believe how long I've had my February Lady sweater finished and haven't posted pictures. I guess that's sometimes what happens when there's a sweater you really really like that gets worn immediately after finishing.


There was enough yarn left at the end for me to be able to make a matching hat, which is rather cute when paired with the sweater.


I also made this cute flowerpot hat while I was on the road doing USDA work.





A while ago I'd received a bunch of corriedale on trade, so decided to make a chunky three-ply yarn sweater/coat thing. It is extremely warm. I think it'll be fine for a coat-sweater this winter!



Also, apparently my nephew Nick really enjoys wearing hats, and has been borrowing Ally's pink piggle hat, so for his birthday this year he gets his own nice warm handknit hat!

Options

My wonderful Mother-in-law (the one who got me the Jumbo flyer kit a few blog posts ago) liked the shawl in the previous post so much that she asked for one herself. It was such a fun knit I was already planning on making more, so am ecstatic to knit it again. Though I may not only take 5 days at it this time!

Since she's in Michigan and I'm in North Carolina, I'm gonna post a bunch of yarn options here for her to look at.

First up is some handspun. I have beautiful alpaca fiber that spins into a slightly thicker than fingering weight yarn, but it is oh so buttery soft. I can easily adjust the pattern by using a larger needle to make it more open and lacey. This is a swatch of (from left to right) a commercially prepared mixture of bamboo, alpaca and merino (the blueish one), Lola (brown), Snowdrift (white), and Cinnamon (beige)

I can also take any of the three on the right and make a tweedy blend; Lola plus Snowdrift would make for a very pretty carmel color, for example. This little swatch I'm going to mail along with the birthday gift that I spaced out on packing when we came to Colorado for Jenny's wedding.

I also have some washed and ready to card Corriedale which is not as soft as the alpaca, but it makes for lovely varigated yarn that makes a spectrum of natural colors, all from one sheep.



But she was talking more something that could be used for formal, and while these are soft and beautiful, they are more rustic.

So I have some commercially prepared yarns that are already in my stash, waiting for a project!

A black and white tofutsies yarn. Very soft and silky because of the soysilk, and it will block well.

Premier Bamboo Merino and Nylon sock yarn. This should subtly stripe, and is a muted orange, blue and grey color. Very pretty, very soft.


A couple options from Berocco Sox. The top one is browns with purple, the bottom one is greys with blue. Wider stripes than the Sensations yarn, and this isn't as soft, but it's extremely pretty.

Lion brand Sock Ease. A charcoal grey base with yellow, white and orange accents. Mom Kass did mention blacks and blues, but hey, gotta have a little yellow, right? (As an aside, this is Jeff's favorite of all the options in my stash)

a gorgeous handpainted merino yarn. All yellows and tones of yellow. I personally couldn't resist tossing this one in as an option :)

Finally, if none of these seems just right, I'm hoping that they'll end up coming here for Thanksgiving, at which point I can take Mom Kass around to my favorite knitting shops and have her pick out just the right one!

5 days

Yep. I knit a shawl in 5 days. Cast on Thursday, cast off the following Tuesday. The dress was made in about a week as well. Both are for this weekend, as Jeff's sister is getting married!

Frog Pond

The sweater I have been making for Jeff is "finished"

and I hate it.

I don't think I'm even going to post pictures, but it doesn't fit right.

Adamas

Adamas in greek means indomitable or untamable. This name was given to diamonds because of their incredible resiliancy.

When I started this shawl, Callay was sick and I was wanting to focus my energy on something that symbolized such strength and resiliancy of diamonds. Then my uncle and father both get sick as well. So with each stitch I was thinking of those I love and want to be well, as well as those I love who are hurting because of their loved ones' illness.

One thing I know for sure: We're all tough as diamonds, and able to adapt. Much like this shawl, in both symbolism and the blocking transformation.

Before


and After

Finished objects

Boy have I been bad about posting pictures of my finished products. Here's one now!

Samus was done in about 4 months, and almost entirely at work. Not while I was supposed to be working, but rather when the guys are hanging about chatting after I'm long done eating, I knit. I would get about 45 solid minutes of knitting done while they discuss the latest television programs. I was a little worried that I would get it done just in time to put it away for the seasone, but fortunately, there was still time after it was finished to wear it. Hooray for freezing temperatures in April! It's missing a button, but my awesome friend Aaron is going to be cutting me one from a piece of antler he has.

I also have been having some moderate success at Etsy, so made a purchase of some new roving and dyed fleeces from The Sheepshed Studio


Some blue superwash, some "dye soppers" and some coopsworth curls.

I was so excited about the order I immediately started a batt. No name for this one, but it's sooo soft and fluffy, I think I"m going to put it in my etsy shop along with a drop spindle as a learn to spin kit!

Too cute!

I just got a picture of my adorable niece Ally in the Piggle I'd made for her. What a sweetie!

Looks like the top is a little bit long, and she'll need to wear her pigtails a little lower to make it really work, but it looks like we have a winner!

A few for me. . .

I've been knitting a little for myself lately, as a reward for all the awesome handmade presents that went out in the last couple of weeks.

I made some monkey socks for myself. I loved the texture of the monkey socks I'd made for Mom, that I just had to have a pair for myself.


I also combined a couple of different patterns. These socks have the toes from a very nice Berroco book Mom got me, combined with the heel from a Cat Bordhi heel. Trust me, they're some odd heels, but I have to say these are probably the best fitting socks I've made for myself to date. The gussets may be in odd places but then again, the heel is a fairly strange piece of human body architecture, if you think about it.

Last is a cute little shrug that took me less than a day to make. I had found myself riding in the car and, having finished the toe socks, I had nothing left to knit. Now, mind you I had just gotten that PILE of yarn from a couple posts back, but my husband being the expert packer he is had packed them safely away in the car. . . so I couldn't get to them.

Fortunately I had at hand another new knitting book from Mom, 101 one-skein wonders. I also happened to have in my knitting basket an already wound skein of my first three-ply handspun. It was fate.


And it is cute! I need to find a cute, thin long-sleeved shirt to wear this with!

Title of the blog. . .

Let's see. According to the title of this blog I knit.



Check



And I quilt





Double check




The first is my much-loved Danish Tie shawl. The main reason I haven't posted a picture of it sooner is I'm always wearing it, and I'm terrible at taking a picture of myself!


The second I can't take full credit for. It's a friendship quilt with blocks made by the ladies from my Mom's quilt guild up in Michigan, and finished by Mom. Well, there may have been a little prodding on my part to work on it, but really the work is hers. The only problem is she doesn't care for machine quilting. So I offered to quilt it for her. It turned out great, and only took one long evening to complete. My neck is rather sore, but it's done! Mom's going to put the binding on and do some hand quilting in the two center squares (They're both appliqued). I am, however, contemplating wrapping this and putting it under the tree!



Oh, I would also like to point out the particularly awesome quilt displayer I have. His name is Jeff :-D


The only drawback? Now I want to quilt. . . Anyone know where I could get a few extra hours in a day?

Knitting feat!

This is my friend Jeffrey.




He knits with pikes.

This is what happens when his entertainment director tells him to "make it bigger"

Because this started with size 9 needles.

New Spinning content, and an FO

I've started a new method of dying roving, which results in a loooooong color change down a single piece (with a weight in the vicinity of 2-3 ounces of roving). Then I spin it as one single, working my way from one end of the piece of roving to the other. While I haven't gotten a picture of the roving before spinning, I have a picture of two of those rovings in yarn form. And they're just beautiful.

I also finshed Mom K's Spring Forward Socks, in my own hand-dyed knitpicks sock yarn. They were a fun knit!

I hope she likes them :D

Back to Work

After nearly 6 weeks, I'm finally back to work. It was good. although I have to admit I did not at all mind all the time I had to heal. I needed it, too. This last week I had a minor infection in one of my sutures, which made life pretty miserable. That's pretty much healed now, though.

I even went back to the farmer's market this Saturday! Thankfully I had Ana there to do all of the heavy lifting for me! I got out a chair and the card tables, then Ana hauled out everything else. It's great having friends to rely on in situations like this. I had missed going to the market!

In other exciting Farmer's Market news, we're having a Customer Appreciation Day this Labor Day weekend, complete with free ice cream, and they have asked us to do spinning demonstrations. I see this as an awesome way to bring in customers, and show them exactly WHY that yarn is so expensive.

So in anticipation, I've been busy.

I spun up four skeins so far, three in this brownish roving I overdyed with red and purple, and one in roving which came already with brown, black and white wool.



I dyed some of the licorice twist yarn with coffee, which produced a 4-ply yarn, one ply which took up the color faster than the rest. It smells great too, like caffeinated sheep!

For the spinning demonstration, I dyed some white and black roving. The roving I"ll be spinning is actually not nearly as nice looking as this, it's in smaller chunks which are just fine for spinning, but not great for selling. But they're the same dye lot, so to speak, so to the customer I can pretty much say it's the same color. They'll get the same results, and they'll be able to see what it looks like going from fluffy roving to smooth yarn

While I had the crock pot out and the kitchen clean, I also dyed sock yarn, but this is for Mom K's Christmas socks this year.

And I've been busily working on socks for Dad for Christmas. He wanted plain beige. Well, they're plain on the front. . . and just a little bit of cabling down the sides. Here they are, modeled on my feet. His are pretty much the same size, but a bit wider so they'll be just right on him.

I'm hoping to make up some froggy feet, but I may just opt for more handspun.