shoeless

Now that is a big painting.

2011-09-25T15:26:00.001-06:00

Painting 2 of 2, commissioned by a client in Lichtenstein, 6 feet 3 inches by 13 feet. The first of the pair was *only* 6' 3" by 9'. Good thing my honey is a genius!

Typical question to Eric: "How do you paint something that big?"

Typical answer: "With a lot of paint." :P

wicked awesome

2011-09-13T22:25:00.001-06:00

Raisinets. Idina Menzel. People lifting a burning car off a trapped motorcyclist. 13-year-old son doing his own laundry. Little red baby sweaters.

These are a few of my favorite things tonight. Naturally I have a picture of the last item. My oldest daughter's drill team coach just had a baby girl. What more reason does one need? I think I'll put the pattern up on Ravelry--next week. I have a 16-feet long banner to make for the drill team's homecoming parade float before any pattern writing can happen.

Seriously, all we could talk about at work today was the video of people pushing a burning car up so they could pull the trapped guy out from under it. As we were driving back and forth from lessons this afternoon, I told my kids about it and showed them the video online. Then we drove up the hill and I pointed out the big burn mark on the asphalt. Unbelievable. Paige devoted her entire bedtime prayer to "the hurt motorcycle man and those good people who got him out". So sweet.

And finally, teenage boy doing his own laundry (sans prompting!!) while I listen to the Wicked soundtrack, nibble Raisinets, and type a blog post? Totally, unbelievably, super wicked awesome!

Wherein iSpin and iBlog about it

2011-09-10T23:39:00.001-06:00

Guess what I figured out?!? I can blog with my phone!!! I know this is not news to many, but as I sat, spinning happily on a Saturday afternoon, the thought distilled upon me like the dews of heaven. Laaaaah!

The only drawback is typing with my thumbs. Not my favorite. But otherwise this is completely AWESOME. Look! Blogging again!!! And instead of playing Pocket Frogs late at night when I should be sleeping, I can be surfing my favorite knitting blogs again. I'm ecstatic. I have missed it so.

I'm spinning some carded alpaca, angora, and silk--with a wee bit of copper flash--from Wooly Wonka Fibers. I got two 2 ounce bags of this fiber (colorway "The Shire") a few years ago at the Great Basin Fiber Fest. (Side note: I don't know how to, or
even if I can, put hot links in my text. Sorry. ) I'm spinning it fine with a forward-hand assisted long draw. I'm feeling a 2-ply lace-weight coming on. Lace scarf, perhaps?

elixir-of-crochet

2009-03-18T09:28:00.003-06:00

Oh blog, I've missed you in a vague sort of way. I was busy with school and didn't let myself think about you, but I've missed seeing your bright, shiny reflection of me (or at least the little part of me that is sometimes bright and shiny). I've missed the way that you represented that there was a slot of time in my day when I could sit at the computer and read blogs or type messages to you, dear neglected blog o' mine.

Oh well. There's nothing better for shaking off the lack-of-crafting blues than some crochet action, WOOO! It's hot pad season, or my name's not Sqeaky McRumple! Whatever--I'm still making hot pads, and what's more, I'm going to join a swap! Go look at this flickr group. The sight of these hotpads make the beams of my 1962 pseudo-ranch-style home vibrate with happiness. MMMMMMMMMMM.

Dear Ali asked a while ago, and I'll finally answer: School? I was going through a program at our local Vo-Tech college in Medical Assisting. I finished that up at the end of February and now I'm looking to join the ranks of the gainfully employed. You see, art sales are quite slow in a recession. My long-range plans are to work as a medical assistant for the next 3 years, then find a physician assistant program that will accept me, and eventually become a PA. There. Now it's all out there. I don't have an internet connection at home anymore, which is most of the reason why I haven't been on the blogs. I figured that since I have a little down-time while job hunting--I might as well renew myself with a little elixir-of-crochet. It was either that or laundry, and we all know how I feel about laundry...

my excuse for being a slacker

2008-09-21T19:14:00.008-06:00

Guess what?!? I have a new thing to neglect while blogging. No, it's not another child. (Please, don't stick a fork in me--just take my word for it: I'm done.) It's homework! I've gone back to school and Holy Schnikey, I LIKEY. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy school. My kids think I'm nuts. What do they know? I'm challenging my brain and it is muy fantastico. I'm not sure if it will lead to more or less blogging. I'm pretty certain that there will be less knitting/spinning content, but I think there might be more philosophizing and generalized navel-gazing going on. In that last sentence, I managed to get a Z into 3 of the last 6 words. Huh.

Some spinning...

Crosspatch Creations Totally Tubular Spinning Kit: 4 ounces of fiber divided up into 12 little batts--a joy to spin. I used long draw for it all and I heart long draw. Combed fiber + long draw = a fluffy, fuzzy woolen-spun yarn. I don't know how many yards, but I think I'll make something lovely for my mother out of it for Christmas. (I think that's my urge with all my handspun because my darling mom is so appreciative of handspun. Love her.)

Weedy Surprise

2008-08-22T07:55:00.004-06:00

And no, I'm not talking about my garden. It's that Baby Surprise Jacket again. (I'm a little too pleased with myself for dyeing some yellow yarn and calling it "Mustard Weed" so that not only the color, but also the name coordinates with the blue/yellow "Flowering Weeds".) But in today's installment, the jacket is fully completed--buttons and all. I thought I'd mention the rounded neckline, since that's the only modification I made to the pattern.

The original pattern has a squared off neck. I wouldn't normally mess with a square neck, because I really like square necklines, but I just wanted to see what a curving neck opening would look like. In the pattern, when it directs to cast off a bunch of stitches on each side for the neck, I simply cast off 3 at the beginning of the next two rows, then cast of 2 at the beginning of the next two rows, then cast off 1 at the beginning of the next bunch of rows until I had cast off the originally specified number of stitches. The edge was smoothed out with the applied i-cord, but I think it's still maybe a little lumpy. I think I'll be doing the regular neckline in the future; the angles of a square neckline echo the shaping on the front of the sweater, and it just looks right. Favorite part of this project? Doing the i-cord edging. It's such a perfectly gratifying way to finish off an edge. I want to put i-cord on everything now.

I have 2 skeins of Hello Yarn Fat Sock (DK-ish weight, super-springy merino) in Zinnia. I've been trying valiantly to make socks out of this yarn, but every time I get about an inch on my needles, I start having visions of a particular Baby Surprise Jacket (that's a Ravelry link) that I saw in the same yarn--and it was soooo adorable. My real problem is that I'm too selfish to give away anything made out of this treasured yarn, so I've resisted the BSJ urge. Alas, resistance is futile. My weapons are useless. (Save yourselves!) (Does anyone else have lines from Star Trek Next Generation and Tommy Boy flitting through their heads?) I want to cast on today. And it can be my new car-knitting! And I could just knit the sleeves and body a little longer to make it big enough for PeeWee! But maybe I ought to finish the Bog Jacket collar and button bands first. Hmmm.

2008-08-20T23:31:00.009-06:00

I stayed up late tonight to do dishes. Not to read, not to knit, not to spin, and not even to watch the Olympics. I finished the dishes and now here I am, actually typing a blog post! I'm stunned, too.

I have been knitting a little, here and there. I finished the body of a Bog Jacket for PeeWee that has been my car-knitting for the past 6-7 months. I started it with some Noro Silk Garden that was left over from Boberly's entrelac hat I made last fall. When I ran out of that, I bought a couple of random balls of Silk Garden from my LYS. Then I bought a few more balls of Silk Garden as souvenir yarn this past spring when I was in Solvang, California for an art show. I'm not really sure how much yarn I used... I plan to finish the jacket off by picking up stitches up one front edge, around the neck and back down the other front edge, then knitting button bands and a shawl collar. I have to add on a couple inches of width to the jacket with the button bands because when I started this project, PeeWee was a lot smaller than she is now. :)

I've also been doing some gift knitting for darling Prairie Mama Kim. She's due in about a month and I'm taking this Baby Surprise Jacket over to her tomorrow. (Kim, if you read this before I get to your house, just act surprised, okay?) I subscribe to the Spunky Eclectic Fiber club, but in July, I got sent the sock yarn of the month by mistake, instead of the fiber of the month. I think it was meant to be, since the colorway (Flowering Weeds) just cried out to be made into a BSJ and the pretty yellow made me think of Kim. I adore this pattern. This was the first time I've knit it and it was a delight. I HEART Elizabeth Zimmermann. (Sisties, she's the designer of this pattern and the Bog Jacket above--and though she has passed on, I consider her to be my Knitting Muse and Guru.) About halfway into it, I got worried that I would run out of yarn, so I pulled out some of my undyed Henry's Attic Kona DK (superwash merino that matched the weight of the Spunky DK sock yarn perfectly) and dyed it a coordinating yellow.

My babies started school this week. I have one big baby who is now in high school. I have another baby (who is actually bigger, though younger, than the big-baby-high-school-freshman) who is now a Big Man on (middle school) Campus. I surprised him with his first cell phone (you got to love pay-per-use phones, huh?) and he's pretty excited, can you tell? My next two babies are still in elementary school, and then the baby of all is here at home. She strapped on a back pack this morning and asked if she could go to school, too. She was pretty disappointed that she didn't get to stay at the school with the big kids. (Can you see the look on my Middle Child's face? He was peeved that I made him stop for a picture.) Sigh. Where did my wee precious darlings go? Why can't they grow up already and stop breaking my heart with how fast they change? I have a recurring desperate fear that I'm going to blink and they'll be old and I'll be really old and I won't remember any of the clever and adorable things they did (are doing)...whatever. I need to go to sleep. I should have left the dishes for morning.

mustard pickles

2008-06-27T15:02:00.003-06:00

I dyed some of the mountain of superwash merino I have hiding in my closet. I actually dyed this about a year ago with PAAS Easter egg dye tablets and it was gross. The pinks and blues ran together and made a muddy lavender--and I mean MUDDY. I decided to overdye it with a huge dose of yellow. The yellow turned out--as perhaps you can tell--not ochre, not sunshine, but rather PEE yellow. The splotches of green might save it, though. The color name for it shall be Mustard Pickles--either that or Poopy Diaper. Well, at least I had fun with the dyeing process.

I sent some to a friend and I'm going to spin the remainder soon (after spinning the Toxic for the Snaky Blanky, of course!) and see what happens. This could be very exciting. In my world, yes, this is big excitement. Shut up.

My mother made the best mustard pickles when I was young. I need to find her recipe and make some this year. Did I mention the ravenous bunnies in my back yard? I have no more carrots. The beans are gone. They don't seem to care for the zucchini, onions, or tomatoes. My kids have named the rabbits. So much for the tragic and horrible fate that I had planned for them to meet (the rabbits, not my children). There's one named Mr. Cinnamon Boots. See my problem?

Snaky Blanky startup

2008-06-25T23:40:00.001-06:00

I spent the past month gradually spinning up my November subscription to to the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. This is superwash Corriedale wool in a colorway called "Toxic". And in a cosmic turn of events, I hurt my back again last Tuesday--So I spent the following 3 days lying down and swatching crochet patterns out of a Reader's Digest knitting and crochet stitch pattern book that my children gave me for my birthday. (It's not Barbara Walker, but it's okay.)

It started out innocently enough: I just wanted to do something mindless. Swatching crochet stitches goes so fast that you can work, hate, and rip out a stitch pattern in a matter of minutes. Wouldn't you know it, I happened on a stitch that I LIKED! I was just a wee bit loopy from a pain pill, so I messed up the directions and came up with my own version of the stitch pattern. I have decided that I must make an afghan with it. The original stitch pattern is called "Long Waves", but it looks more snaky and sinuous to me, so I shall call it the Snaky Blanky. It's a Poisonous Snaky Blanky because it's made out of Toxic materials. Har har. I love this yarn--what's not to love about handspun in these colors?

I started out with 8 ounces of this fiber and got about 310 yards of 2-ply aran weight yarn. My calculations yielded the somewhat discouraging news that I'll be able to make a itty-bitty afghan of about 36 x 14 inches with this amount of yarn. If there weren't already enough reasons to love Ravelry, I have been rescued by the Hello Yarn group there. I went fishing for generous souls who might be willing to exchange any of their Toxic fiber for some of my other hoarded Hello Yarn club installments. I had two takers on the trade (Bless you Vickie and Felicia, if you read this) and Adrian (Hello Yarn, herself) let me know that she still had a pound of Toxic in storage. It's a Ravelry Miracle!

All together, I'll end up with 36 ounces, which should be enough for a 36 x 63 inch afghan. I might end up blocking it into the more conventional dimensions of 40 x 60--or I might just leave it long and skinny...snaky. (Hmm. I have a tendency to get caught up in themes.) The first batch of traded fiber arrived today, and I'm going to try really hard to let my back finish calming down before I start spinning it. I predict that I will last 2 days.

some summer spinning

2008-06-24T12:26:00.005-06:00

Spun on my Schact Matchless using long draw!!! (I love long draw.) It's dreadfully underspun and SO fuzzy. It was a bit of a fight to spin because it was a barely-blended batt and the chunks of silk, mohair, wool, and soy silk didn't always want to get along while drafting.

Kind of a boring post, but there we are. Maybe I could add in some personal details...things like: We have rabbits in our back yard and they ate my eggplant plants. I'm peeved. They haven't touched the tomatos yet, at least there's that. I hurt my back again. I'm infatuated with crochet; it's fast. I tried to knit a baby sweater for a new little niece while I was on a 10-hour road trip to a funeral a couple of weeks ago. It was a dismal failure. I backed into a parked car last night. PeeWee is piteously proclaiming, "I need foooooood!" So is Joe. So is everyone. I've fallen out of love with food. I used to love food. I used to love to cook. I'm tired of it. I think I need a private chef. Yeah, that would do it. Maybe Bob will do it... Okay, enough of the daydreaming, they're starting to gnaw on my ankles.

tweedy jacket in progress

2008-05-12T10:45:00.008-06:00

I need to finish this jacket in three days. I need to ship it and the pattern to the magazine before my Resident Artist and I leave on Thursday for a show. I can't even compare knitting this jacket with that first magazine sweater. I've discovered that it wasn't the deadline or the knitting-for-hire aspect that killed the joy for me on the first one. Rather, it was the cotton yarn. This (ah, wool!) is Plymouth Tweed which is so satisfying to knit. With its mossy, felted texture, I can knit with my eyes shut--but I don't want to because of the happy little jewel-like flecks and nubs. O Tweed, how I love thee!

Today is my Middle Child's birthday. What does he want for his birthday? He wants to go camping. He's much more of an adventurer than we usually think. I don't want to crush that outdorsy spirit in him, but it snowed here less than a week ago. Brrrr. That's all I have to say.

And finally, in case anyone wondered:

Huh. If a person's self-esteem were too tied up in whether they feel smart or not, this would be a little bit of a downer. Junior High? Fortunately for me, my self-esteem is securely grounded in whether or not my kids have clean socks each day.

I can't wrap this up until I've bragged a little bit about my children. They gave me a splendid Mother's Day. Boberly made breakfast (served to me in bed!), lunch, AND dinner. And dessert. Pancakesbaconeggsorangejuice, turkeysandwiches, roastedchickenmashedpotatoesgreensalad, and strawberry shortcake. She marshalled the other kids and they did all the clean-up. I took a 4-hour nap after lunch and it was an AWESOME day.

What? There's a lady in a gold lame body suit with shoulder-to-floor white fringe along her back and a romantic ringleted bouffant 'do on the TV telling PeeWee to jump up and do a dance with "glitter hands" and "razzle-dazzle". I've clearly been sitting at this computer too long. Where did the Backyardigans go? Now there's a guy playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" with hand-farts. ?!?!?!? This kind of reminds me of a music professor at Utah State who used to entertain his Music 101 students by playing the classics on his nose-flute. Bizarro.

no harlot sightings here, just mini-burgers

2008-05-05T09:11:00.004-06:00

I did not go to Salt Lake City yesterday. That endlessly clever knitter Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (a.k.a. The Yarn Harlot) had a tour stop at the SLC Downtown Library promoting this delightful little book. I was going to go. Prairie Mama Kim and I had it all planned. Saturday night arrived and Kim called, exhausted from a day of selling at a craft boutique (and the lady is gestating, you know) and begged off. Even still, I planned to drive South by myself and enjoy the solitude of the drive, followed by the connection with knitters at the library. Early Sunday morning, I looked across PeeWee's head toward my Resident Artist and decided that I like him better than the Yarn Harlot. So I didn't go. I don't see him much on weekdays--or even Saturdays--and Sunday is really our only day.

After church, we made mini-burgers that were served with leftovers from a veggie plate I had made for my sister-in-law's baby shower. Little slices of cherry tomato, baby pickle chips, tiny green onion rings. I usually back away from the presentation of precious food to my children; I just don't have time for that sort of thing, yada yada. But maybe I don't have to be so serious all the time? Yeah.

It's a beautiful Monday morning. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, PeeWee is sleeping, I am blogging. I will type quickly and then lace up my shoes for a walk. The little darling will probably awaken before I finish this paragraph. Thre is a lone hyacith in view through my patio door. I have a formerly-magnificent rock garden in my back yard. When we moved in to this house 12 years ago, the previous owner's daily tending of the garden was evident in the riotous spring display of daffodils, hyaciths, tulips, basket-of-gold allysum, bergenia (which has the entertaining common name "pig squeak"), candytuft, and moss phlox. It was beautiful. Now, the intervening years of neglect have left us with bindweed, crabgrass and a lone pink hyacinth. Oh, and I see one daffodil.

I have grand plans this year. I'm getting more sleep on a regular basis than I have since Before Children, so I'm going to reclaim the rock garden! (Or at least a portion thereof.) It stretches the entire width of my back yard, and I'm going to start with the part that is visible through my living room window...if one is facing due east...and not using any peripheral vision. Yes, and I'm going to plant a vegetable garden this year. I have often had a couple of tomato plants and some summer squash, but this is the year of the Potato. And the Carrot, and the Bean, and the Eggplant, and the Cucumber, and the Onion, and maybe even the Corn. And RASPBERRIES!

cloudy thoughts

2008-04-12T20:45:00.004-06:00

MagKnits is gone. (MagKnits: formerly an online knitting magazine.) Gone. GONE. Poof, in the blink of a monitor, no more. Some designers didn't even have backup copies of their patterns and it's too late now.

I just finished reading The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel. It has given me much to consider. Is leaving early cowardice or courage? Is it a good thing to leave before the second act, before the plot gets too messy, before things start to unravel? Is there really solace in that? Or is one cheating oneself (who says "oneself"?) by trying to avoid the sticky tangled consequences of the first act?

I stay up too late at night by myself. For the sake of a few hours of my own thoughts, I handicap the next day with inadequate rest. Is that my way of leaving early? Am I trying to give myself an excuse for not being fully present in the daytime? Is this pathological avoidance or laziness? Am I thinking too much about this? (Finally a question with a clear answer!) Yes. Go to bed.

But first, how about a picture to liven things up? Remember those Miranda Mitts from the last post? When I was experimenting with the mitered rib, the first yarn that I tried was a beautiful cream wool/silk/angora handspun. After I knit and ripped back 3 or 4 times, I decided that maybe angora wasn't the best fiber to experiment with--but here is a picture of it. Note the kiwi fruit. I was feeling poetic.

Tina, you said "Blog more" but this probably isn't what you had in mind.

Miranda Mitts (no early bird here)

2008-04-04T12:59:00.013-06:00

***I keep editing this post to fix little errors in the pattern. Sorry.***
***Edited a link due to the demise of MagKnits...Sorry again.***

I'm on a bit of a roll today, this being my second post in one day. Nevertheless, I'm bummed. I wrote a pattern last fall for some mitts knit from my handspun. I intended to submit it to Knitty or Magknits or somebody, but I suffered a crisis of confidence and did nothing. After my last post, I was messing around with Ravelry's pattern linking and I thought I'd post my mitts so I could link to them on my designer page. Then I had a bright idea: I decided to check out MagKnits deadlines and maybe submit the pattern. I clicked over to MagKnits, glanced at their current patterns page and saw (dun dun duhhhh) a pattern for mitts that have the SAME styling, though a rather more refined version (skinny yarn, more complicated construction). D'oh!

I've decided to stop dithering and post this pattern. I swear to you all that I did not copy Sarah Wilson and her lovely Angularities; I knit these during the 2007 Little League baseball season. I have witnesses.

Here is the pattern, which I suppose should be announced with a flourish, but instead it's getting more of a dismissive wave...

Miranda Mitts
by Valerie Wallis

One evening while folding laundry by the oh-so-romantic flickering glow of the television, I wrapped a knitted washcloth around my wrist, curious to see how the diagonally-knit ribs would look as a sleeve. My sweetie looked over and said, “Ooo, that’s sexy.” That’s pretty much all the motivation I needed to figure out this pattern.

There was never any question of what yarn to use; since learning to spin last winter, I’ve been trying to find ways to wear my handspun on a daily basis. This 2-ply merino was my first wheel-spun yarn and the fiber was handpainted by etsy-seller Nettie and Tuddy (nettieandtuddy.etsy.com). The ribbing makes for a very accommodating and stretchy fabric. The centered double decrease creates a crisp line that stands in contrast to the nubbly, rustic handspun. A finger loop keeps the point in place on the back of the hand and I find it rather evocative. Perhaps Miranda on her island would have made herself something similar.

SIZE
One size

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS
Wrist, with ribbing unstretched: 6.5 inches
Length, point to point: 9.5 inches

MATERIALS
70 yards of fluffy aran weight yarn; 8 WPI
Fiber used in sample mitts was spun from 1.6 oz of Merino wool

1 set of five US #10/6mm double-point needles
1 size H crochet hook

GAUGE
3 sts = 1 inch in stockinette stitch

PATTERN NOTES
Centered Double Decrease (CDD): Slip 2 stitches at once as to knit. Knit the next stitch; pass the 2 slipped stitches over the knit stitch.

PATTERN
Cast on 36 stitches. Divide stitches between 4 DPNs with 10 stitches on 1st needle, 8 on the 2nd, 10 on the 3rd, and 8 on the 4th needle. Join, being careful to keep stitches untwisted, and work in the round.

ROW 1: *YO, (k1, p1) 3 times, k1, CDD; (k1, p1) 3 times, k1, YO, k1. Repeat from *.
ROW 2: *(P1, k1) 4 times, k1; (k1, p1) 4 times, k1. Repeat from *. (As you knit this round, knit the 1st stitch from needles 2 and 4 onto the ends of needles 1 and 3 so as to position the stitches for the CDD on the next round.)
Row 3: *YO, (p1, k1) 3 times, p1, CDD; (p1, k1) 3 times, k1, YO, k1. Repeat from *.
Row 4: *(K1, p1) 4 times, k1; (p1, k1) 4 times, p1. Repeat from *. (Again, as you knit this round, knit the 1st stitch from needles 2 and 4 onto the ends of needles 1 and 3 to position the stitches for the CDD on the next round.)

Repeat these 4 rows until work is 6 inches long, ending with row 2 on needles 1 and 2, and casting off in pattern the 17 stitches on needles 3 and 4. The last stitch of the round (the side rib) shifts to the front of needle 1 to become the first stitch of the next row (19 sts remaining).

Begin working back and forth, creating the top point of the mitt. (Be sure to stop making yarn-overs unless you want a square-edged mitt rather than a pointy one, which actually could be interesting…but would probably just look floppy.)

Row 1 of Point (RS): Slip 1st stitch as to purl, *(p1, k1) until 2 sts from center st, p1, CDD, (p1, k1) to end.
Row 2 (WS): Slip 1st stitch as to purl, follow rib pattern across row, accommodating center stitch whether it should be k or p.
Row 3: Slip 1st stitch as to purl, *(p1, k1) until 2 sts from center st, k1, CDD, k1, (p1, k1) to end.
Row 4: Repeat row 2.

Repeat these 4 rows until only 3 sts remain. Work a CDD on the RS to decrease to 1 stitch. Using a crochet hook, chain 10 and join with a slip st to the back of the point. Draw yarn through loop to fasten off. Now make another.

FINISHING
Weave in ends. Block if desired.

Copyright 2007 Valerie Wallis. This pattern is provided free for personal, non-commercial use. Stores may not sell this pattern or give it away to customers. This pattern may not be redistributed in any way without permission of the designer.

All text and images on this site is copyright the author, Valerie Wallis. Images and text may not be used on other sites without permission of the author.

embossed daisies

2008-04-04T10:58:00.004-06:00

Marly (Hiya Miss Marly!) called me a couple of days ago from her location at a magazine rack about 800 miles away from me. Why? Why indeed. Because she's a sweetie. Because she was looking at the latest (May 2008) issue of Creative Knitting Magazing. Because she saw my name. Wheeeeeeeeeee! (Little plug for Creative Knitting: Its niche is accessible knitting. If sometimes the challenging designs of those other wonderful knitting magazines makes you heave a big sigh, check out CK. I think this latest issue has a particularly nice balance of simple yet charming designs. ) (And I'm talking about the other designs, because I'm trying desperately to keep from pointing out all the flaws in mine. Relax, Valerie.)

I haven't received my copy yet, but the magazine has pictures of the current issue's projects on its website. I found this link: Embossed Daisies. It features a drastically cropped photo of the sweater which serves to show off the model's sparkling white smile and a glimpse of the sweater's collar. Oh yes, and the sweater drooping a bit from her elegant, narrow shoulders. It looks to me like they steamed the stuffing out of that cotton yarn, because if you click over to the magazine photo, you will note a vast difference in the appearance of the knitted fabric versus that shown in my photo...

The day I took that photo, I vowed to my friend Jenny (who graciously modeled the sweater for me) that I would never knit for pay again. Well. Somehow, as in childbirth, the pain of that endeavor has faded and I'm ready to have another (sweater) baby. I'll be doing a tweed jacket for CK's January '09 issue. This one should be much better--after all, I've done this before...heh heh. Wish me luck.

and one month later...

2008-03-19T21:32:00.007-06:00

It's March. The snow is melting, crocus are popping, the days are lengthening--I love spring. What else do I love? I love books. I love new books. I love this book. And I'm in it: my Meathead hats, my brown slipper socks, and an afghan square.[excited giggle] It's a beautiful book with sweet patterns, and lovely discourses on knitting communities. Writing and most of the patterns are from Larissa "Stitch Marker" Brown and Martin Brown, two very nice, deep-thinking people. Knitting + Philosophy = Love. (And did I mention the Entomology Mittens and Hat (scroll down a little) in there by Adrian" Hello Yarn" Bazilia? Aaaaaaaadriaaaaan... I think I love you...)

I also love spinning. My back is doing better, so what do I do? Do I sit at the computer and get my taxes ready for the accountant? No. Do I go for invigorating walks in the fresh spring air? No. Do I sit and spin? Yes.

I've had this Falkland wool in the colorway "Ravelry" from Spunky Eclectic on my Schacht wheel since Halloween. I was finally able to finish up enough this past weekend to merit plying. This is just under 2 ounces of fingering weight 2-ply. I have about 2 ounces left, but my SpinnerADD got the best of me and I started on something else...

In the second picture, we again have Falkland wool, also from Spunky, called "Pie for Everyone" divided in half and plyed with two different singles that I had languishing in my Great Pot o' Fiber. (I have a very big ceramic pot in which my fiber stash resides. I cannot show it to you at this time because I let Bob take my camera on a field trip today. The Great Pot o' Fiber started out as a covert hiding place for fiber, but about 5 Spunky Club shipments ago, I gave up on the "covert" part.) I plyed the darker skein with a wool-silk-soysilk-mohair batt from Splitrock Ranch. It was such a lovely batt, but once I spun it, it kind of murked out. Plying it with the brighter Pie for Everyone brought out all the fun colors of the batt again. I quite like this tweedy skein--plus it's soft and silky. Ooooh, shiny...

The lighter skein is plyed with a batt that I carded at Yarn School from random floor fiber. It was a rusty-orangey-red color and though I love the resulting color of the skein, it is rough stuff. I spun the second half of the Pie while talking with my kids about book orders (very exciting stuff at chez Wallis) and it is SO overspun. This is a prime example of how spinning tightly will cut your yardage. The two skeins are the same weight, but the light one has about 1/3 less yardage.

Lastly, we have some yarn that I dyed for the Holiday KAL-CAL as a prize. I had so much fun dyeing this yarn. I have over-dyed things in the past simply because I didn't like the first go-round of dye. This batch, however, I overdyed on purpose. First I did a cool version of rainbow colors on the yarn, then I overdyed it with blue and I really liked the watercolor effect of it. I hope the prize recipient liked it too! (The bauble is a little bracelet that I made to match the yarn. And I printed up those yarn labels and everything. Woo. :)

Snow Day? I'll have one, please.

2008-02-13T14:20:00.013-07:00

It seems to have become a point of pride with our school district that we don't need no stinking snow days. True, the temperature is above zero, but wouldn't you think that a foot of snow on the roads and white out conditions would influence the decision? No? All righty, then. We shall just say a prayer of thanks for 4-wheel drive and please grant us clear intersections. Are you somewhere warm? Would you like a cooling shot of a pretty blizzard? I shall oblige...

You know what? I'm going to stop playing coy and just spit out all the stupid things whirling in my brain. I get too caught up in worrying about the possibility of my idiocy, as revealed on the internet--not just the regular real-life dorkiness, coming back to haunt me in the future. Who cares? And I like crafty blogs with opinions. So. Henceforth I shall be unburdening myself of my strongly-held and perhaps even controversial beliefs about knitting, spinning, dyeing, and crocheting!

Yes, that's right--I have returned to my crochet roots. All it took was a polite request from a sister-in-law and BAM! A cute little crocheted cloche for my darlink neice. You want instant gratification? I give you the Hailey Hat. Vee-oh-la! Here it is as modeled by LB, my 7-year-old. She picked out this particular shot and I must agree that the I'm-holding-my-breath-until-you-let-me-stay-home-from-school look is rather engaging.

Pattern: Hailey Hat (It's mine own! I have grand plans to present it all tidy and spiffy in a PDF, linked on the side bar--so if you read this months from now and don't see it, please contact me and nag profusely.)

Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease--But any worsted weight yarn would do. Low maintenance was a high priority for us on this one, thus the cotton-acrylic blend.

Rating: I give this one a 10, Bob. It's got a nice beat and I think I could dance in it. It's fast and CUTE, just like your favorite Hollywood cheerleader stereotype. You'll be weaving in the ends before you can say "Ready? Okay!" The top has a wee bit of a doinky point that I'll need to fix, but as a whole, I'm irritatingly smug about the little thing.

I remember reading years ago in Maggie Righetti's Crocheting in Plain English about how she was entranced when she first saw someone creating crocheted lace out of thin air. I agree, beloved Maggie, it is magic. (It looks like Maggie Righetti's "Plain English" books are in new printings and I'm so pleased. I highly recommend them.)

thrift is empowering

2008-01-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

I have a little book entitled Raising Kids with Just a Little Cash. Somewhere near the front of the book, the author recommends repeating her mantra (Thrift is empowering!) if one needs encouragement. I repeat it often. (Art as a career is a rollercoaster.) This book can open your eyes to a Whole New World of Frugality. But back to the subject at hand...

I've been thinking about the state of my yarn stash and my desire to be more committed to current projects. Then what do I see? A fine example of Knitting from Stash from the A.D.D. Knitter. She suggested that a medal might be in order to recognize her resourcefulness. I have to say that I agree! As my little PeeWee would say, "Jood Job!" So here's your medal, Heather. :)

I have stayed up way too late messing around with the graphics program. Gentle readers, if any of you know of someone who deserves recognition of their empowered knitting, please feel free to snag this award (saving it on your computer, of course) and spread the love. Thrifty Knitters everywhere, I salute you!

brunette ambition

2008-01-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

Yet Another Work-In-Progress:

I have plans. Yes. I have ambition. I am going to be a better person, yea even a better knitter. I'm going to finish something. I know that statement is directly contradicted by the presence of Yet Another WIP, but I'm hereby resolving to go finish that Brea Bag for my sister-in-law and then Eric's convertible mitts before I knit anything else. AND, I'm going to go fold the mountain of clean laundry on my couch and put it away before I knit! (This is intended to be a mitten for moi, knit from my handspun--Shetland wool dyed by Spunky Eclectic. Crazy colors, huh? You should have seen the wool before it was spun.)

But first, some Personal and Religious Musings:

I'm a Mormon. I know this comes as no surprise to my sisters (hi sisties!) and my local pals who stop by the blog, but I thought I'd just lay it all out there today. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the man that I revere as a prophet of God, Gordon B. Hinckley, died last night. I have such gratitude and love in my heart for him. All sorrow that I feel is totally selfish. I know that he's rejoicing with Christ and his loved ones. I'm also engulfed by feelings that I'm not able to articulate very well--conclusion being that I need to expect more of myself. I need to do more to reflect God's love and light--as President Hinckley did.

pertinacious

2008-01-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

Lest you think I am one of William F. Buckley types who use words like "preternatural" in everyday conversation, I must disclose that "pertinacious" is today's Dictionary.com word of the day. (I love the word o' the day. I try really hard to use it throughout the day, but I often find it difficult: "Children, my poor nerves have become quite friable as a result of your faineant behavior." Huh?)

It seems perfect timing, then, that Ali is having a Finish-an-FO contest and today's word describes the quality of being stubbornly persistent--which is what I'll have to be to get this FO completed. You'd think that I would have no problem getting this taken care of, but I think I need an extra dose of resolve to finish it. I started it as a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law. I didn't get it done in time, and now I'm a worried that the handles and finishing of it will disappoint her. I know, I know. Just get it done already and quit fretting. All-righty, then.

This photo is all washed out, by the way. The yarn is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted and the color is Burnt Orange. It's perfect for this pattern, the Brea Bag from Berroco. I'll try to get better exposure when I have the FO Glamour Shot this weekend. There. I've said it out loud. I'm committed. (Committed. Hmm. Sometimes I think that would be nice: plenty of reading time, someone else doing the cleaning, wearing jammies all day, maybe even a padded room...)

WIP it

2008-01-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

This? This was supposed to be a Christmas gift. Yeah. My New Year's Resolution is to finish this and its mate before next Christmas. Really, I think I could finish both of them today, if I declare it a holiday...

Here you see the mostly-finished-first-half of a pair of convertible painting mittens for my darling, will-paint-in-any-weather husband. I know you're looking at this mitt and saying, "Is she married to a bear?" And I would just have to reply that you would not believe the size of his palms unless you saw them yourself. He also has rather short fingers, and he needs the little mitt-fingers to be short enough that he can use the sides of his fingers to get traction when opening paint tubes. Thus the dimensions of this mitt. I'll pick up stitches on the back and knit a mitten flap to cover his fingers that will be lined in some handspun alpaca/angora blend that I've carded together from fibers I got at Yarn School. That should do the trick. The gray yarn you see here is Araucania Nature Wool Chunky. I like this yarn a great deal. It has lovely kettle-dyed color variation and it's very sturdy--yet softer than you'd expect. I have enough of this same yarn in olive green to make a sweater for my honey. If I start next week, I could get it done by next Christmas, whadda ya bet?

we are only occasional vegetarians

2007-12-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

moar funny pictures

Me-blogger-pal-Faith haz introduced me to the lolcats. Haz u seen dem?

That is my kid, I swear. (No, not really, but Joe would totally have done that when he was little if given the chance. He used to lick everything. He even licked a light post in the winter once--and we watch A Christmas Story every year, so it's not like he was surprised when his tongue stuck to the pole.)

happy, merry, joyous

2007-12-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, I hope this season of the year is full of happiness for you. Our family celebrates Christmas and I got this little finger puppet nativity set last year. I found it at a wonderful little store that carries handcrafted fair-trade items from around the world. The store is Ten Thousand Villages and their website says they have 160 retail locations in the United States. They are definately worth seeking out.

It's been a fun day here at the Shoeless household. A highlight of the evening would have to be when Little Bitty (7-year-old) was taking her turn reading a verse from the Bible on the birth of Jesus Christ. She read, "And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly ghosts..."

lists help maintain the illusion of order

2007-12-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Camera: missing again and I'm peeved because I was almost ready to get her one for Christmas. (Did you hear that, Bob? Too late now!)
Christmas knitting: a little behind, but not too bad since I deleted 8 items off the list.
Other Christmas preparations: hahahahaha.
Herniation in the L4-5 discspace: doing much better.
PeeWee: wearing panties 'round the clock (YAY!!!!!!).

I really wanted to pad this post with a picture of the Brea bag that I'm making for my sister-in-law. It's waaaay cute. I think she'll like it. I'll probably have to make one for myself when the holidays are over, since I don't need to carry diapers in my purse anymore. Oh YEAH!

That is all.

Oh, all right--let's have the gratuitous shot of PeeWee. This is our farewell-to-nursing picture. Yes. She's done with that now, too. Sigh. My baby is such a big girl. I wish I'd had this handy camera when my other lovies were babies. There's so much about their infancies and early childhoods that has just faded into the void.

a tale of two mittens

2007-12-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

PeeWee has a pair of little white mitts. They're a little thin, a little small, and they don't have thumbs. They're okay in a pinch, but the poor thing has a mother who knits, for crying out loud. (Yes, that's my Cheesehead version of Larissa's infamous and darling Meathead on her noggin. It's her favorite hat because it has a mousie, doncha know. We took her dollies for a walk on Tuesday.)

Yesterday, spurred on by the A.D.D Knitter's words ("...the power of the mitten. It will do you right every time.") I decided to whip out a pair of mittens from a bit of leftover handspun merino from Hello Yarn. Such ickle-bitty things! At 3-1/2 stitches per inch, I knew they would be done before I could say bobshrunkle. The first one was finished before lunch. PeeWee was delighted. She pulled it on and wore it the rest of the day. The thumb was a little wonky, but it looked pretty cute and I was very pleased with myself (handspun! handknit!).

After dinner, I settled in to knit the second mitten. PeeWee wouldn't give up the first one for comparison, but no worries! I had noted the stitch and row counts and I was ready to roll. I was also very excited about the idea of ripping back the ribbing on the matching hat I had knit from this handspun and turning it into a wee tam for my darlin'. I think you can all guess where this is heading. Yes. I'll just show you. Sigh.

I know my tension always tightens when I get comfortable with a pattern. I know it. Why do I blow off gauge like this? (Why do my children blow off their homework until it smacks them in the face? Where do they get that from? It must be their father, because I certainly don't live in a near-constant state of denial...)

I have enough yarn for a third mitten. If I start now, I could possibly get it done by lunch if I ditch the laundry. Hmmm. Yeah, because I might strain my back if I lift those heavy wet clothes out of the washer.

***Later in the day...***

PeeWee doesn't care in the slightest whether the mittens are rather ~~homely~~ rustic and mismatched. I reknit the bottom of the hat, and she danced around the living room with the mittens on, asking periodically, "You netting my hat? You made my mettens?" It's so gratifying. When I got the hat done, she put it on and then had to go out to play in the fizzly rain/snow that's coming down today. I don't think I'll bother with another mitten.

warning: exclamation overload

2007-12-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

My secret pal is completely AWESOME! Thank you, Valerie!!! (Her name is my name, too!) How fun is that? She sent me this great bag (which Boberly has already hijacked), a package of peach and passionfruit herb tea, a ball of variegated blue merino wool yarn (I've already got a project in mind for this), a hank of georgous blue Manos del Uruguay yarn, one of those fun compacted wash cloths that expand magically when wet, a beautiful red rose journal, a notepad with VIOLETS (LOVE 'EM!), a bar of fabulous chocolate, all accompanied by a very sweet note on the back of the postcard print of a painting by A.X. Pena. (This was originally published in 1937 as a tourism poster--I would love to have a full-size, maybe 24x30, copy of this painting. I love paintings of strong-looking women--Note my affection for Rosie the Riveter...) Thanks again, pal!!!

If you're happy and you know it...

2007-11-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Clapotis! (I'm probably the 57th knitter to start a post that way.) I joined the Clapotis Second-Wave KAL a few months ago and, thanks to my infirmity ("No, honey, I can't get you a roll of toilet paper. I have to lie here on the couch and ~~knit~~ rest my back.") I'm finally working on it. I like to knit on it in bed, falling asleep with it clutched to my bosom.

The yarn is the Mountain Colors yarn that I dyed at the beginning of October at a Mountain Colors dye workshop hosted by my LYS. I love the knitting and I love the feel of the wool, but I'm not sure that the color lives up to my expectations. I might over-dye it with blue after I'm done knitting.

I'm twisting the stitches (on either side of the dropped stitches) on both the knit and purl rows. I'm also just doing a purl stitch to mark the to-be-dropped stitches, instead of using markers.

great-nephew

2007-11-20T15:02:00.000-07:00

I'm about to have a great-nephew. This will be my 4th! I've even got two darlin' great-neices. Their parents, my nephews and neices, are such great parents and I'm so impressed with them. They are good and kind, just the sort of people I'd like my children to be when they grow up. This is one of my neices leading races in the sand this past July at nearby Bear Lake with her daughter, another niece, and my little PeeWee.

I have planned to knit adorable and amazing little gifts for each new little grand-nephew/neice, but this bib will be my first completed effort. Finally, I've finished something. It's a variation on the Mason-Dixon Knitting Baby Bib o' Love. I used less than one ball of brown Peaches n' Creme, knitted one strap instead of 2, and made a giant bobble in place of a button. I think I need to make a boatload (not to be confused with a buttload--even if I do live within a schoolbus-ride of Napoleon Dynamite's stomping grounds...) of these for this nephew and the other 2 impending arrivals.

I love brown. Back when I was developing what one might generously term my "fashion sense", I used to hate it. Was that just because it was the 80's and brown was out? I was all about the forest green and salmon pink. Yeah. I used to boldly declare that nothing should be dyed brown except silk, because flat brown is UGGGG-ly. Ha.

nervous

2007-11-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

Right around Halloween I began to get nervous. (Let's insert a Halloween picture here, shall we? Yes, we shall. If this were your child, you'd be nervous, too. Just kidding, Bob! Love ya, babe.) I started mildly freaking out in the quiet recesses of my brain, worrying that maybe the reason I had a pinchy nerve that kept getting worse was because of a tumor. I went to my nice family doc and told him about my worries and he suggested an MRI. I thought that was a great idea. So I had an MRI two weeks ago and found that IT'S NOT A TUMOR! (said in my best Arnie-as-Kindergarten-Cop voice) Yay. It's just a herniated disk! Who'd have thought that would make me so happy?

I think the initial injury happened back in May when Eric was out of town and I decided to move a couch down to the basement by myself. Moving it down wasn't so bad, because I had gravity on my side. I think the problem was that I decided about 20 seconds later that I didn't want the couch in the basement after all, so I wrestled it back upstairs. I had just started doing that Couch-to-5K thing and I thought I was having sciatica from not stretching properly after exercising. And for the past 6 months, I've just been making it worse.

So now, I'm lying around or standing, avoiding sitting if at all possible, not driving, and (hardest of all) not picking up any children. Ever. Well, for a while, at least. PeeWee doesn't mind, she's 2 and she wants to do everything by herself anyway. I mind it more than she does.

You'll notice that I'm back at the computer--that's because I finally thought outside of the box and realized I can stand and type at the same time! Duh. Also, I'm feeling much better today and I must show off my latest obsession: entrelac! I ripped out the langishing 1-1/2 inches of ribbing on the Boberly Hat and made another entrelac hat. That entrelac, it's more fun than a bottle of Percocet.

The yarn is Noro Silk Garden, color #258, just over 2 balls. I cast on 64 stitches and started with 3/4" of 2x2 ribbing, did 8-stitch sections for the base triangles and 2 rows of rectangles. I then reduced to 6-stitch rectangles for 2 rows, then 4-stitch triangles at the top. The top was finished up with 2 rounds of k2tog, then I cinched up the last 8 stitches to close the top. Boberly has been wearing it which makes my heart very happy. I've been enjoying knitting backwards so much that I think it's time to make the plunge into my long-awaited Lizard Ridge Afghan. Yeah, remember that KAL I joined about 2 years ago? :) It's time.

entrelac

2007-10-31T23:25:00.000-06:00

At the beginning of this month, I took a dyeing class at a fiber retreat that my LYS hosted--Didn't I mention that in the last post? I tink so. I also took an entrelac class. Did I mention that part before? Did I yak about the fact that I now know how to knit backwards? Yeah. It's fun. I made a hat, see?

I'm kind of empty of words tonight. I've got a stoopid pinchy nerve in my hip and I'm currently dizzy/pukey from the stoopid pain medication that I tried out today. I'm squeezing in one last post for the month because if I don't I'll be in trouble with the Secret Pal peoples (4 posts per month, it's not too much to ask!). I don't think I'll do the next round of SP, but I don't want to be blacklisted, ya know? I feel myself pulling back from the blogging stuff, and I think it's mostly because of the aforementioned stoopid pinchy nerve. I'm not functioning terribly well in real life, let alone as a knitblogger. No worries, though. The pinchy nerve will not be around forever. But right now I just feel Stoopid. I like spelling it that way. We must find pleasure in the little things...

excitement

2007-10-13T22:43:00.000-06:00

My amazing secret pal has TOTALLY spoiled me. Look. Just look at this. LANTERN MOON!!!!

This is a beautiful needle organizer, a lovely needle sleeve (perfect for the pair of ebony Lantern Moon needles I got in the Jimmy Beans prize pack), a darling soap, adorable stitch markers, and a pretty note pad. Thank you Pal! After opening your package and recovering from the wonderful surprise, I upended my ratty needle tote bag and put all my needles in the roll. I love it--Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Indians and Red Sox have just gone into extra innings. What a game. I love baseball. It's the perfect complement for knitting. I thought of calling this hat the Swirly Hat (yes, I'm not terribly imaginative--it's the same swirly pattern as PeeWee's Swirly pullover), but I think it might get called the ALCS hat. Cleveland and Boston have the same colors, have you noticed? And they both match the hat. It's knit from my handspun, a bulky 2-ply spun from 4 ounces of Hello Yarn handpainted merino top called "Darling".

PeeWee is wearing panties now. She does really well with tinkling, but we've been having problems with the solid matter. She likes to go hide in a sheltered location and work her magic, emerging with a surprise in her pants. Sigh. I can't be too upset. There was a time that we thought the nerves controlling bladder and bowel function had been messed up by the neuroblastoma tumor. I'm just so glad that she can poop when she wants to--it doesn't seem to matter very much whether it's in my closet or the toilet. She's cuddling and watching baseball with Eric right now, poking her fingers in his ears and up his nose.

lost (top) and found (skillz)

2007-10-08T00:07:00.000-06:00

I can't find my superwash merino top. (Sisties, top is fiber that has been combed to prepare it for spinning.) It was my favorite of all the hunks o' fiber that we dyed at Yarn School. I'm almost certain that I remember squeezing it into my suitcase. What if it popped out and fell on the floor at the Howard Johnson's in Kansas City when I had to stay over Sunday night? I'm desolate. Wellllll, not really. Disappointed, though.

I'm consoled by this yarn. I dyed it this weekend under the direction of two Mad Dye Scientists and who happen to be the owners of Mountain Colors Yarns, Diana McKay and Leslie Taylor. !!! This is half of the 1 pound of Mountain Colors 4/8's wool that I dyed in these colors--around 1000 wonderful yards. You know, it kind of reminds me of another yarn I adore... (If you follow that yarn link, scroll down to the bottom. I'm talking about the STR, not the Anabel Fox, because though my feelings for the Anabel Fox Donegal are deep, they are of a different, tweedy variety of yarn-love. End of aside.) Maybe I should call this yarn Chicken Hawk instead of Rough-Legged Hawk.

Yarn Today, a yarn shop here in my little valley, hosted a fiber retreat on Friday and Saturday. I was able to take the Mountain Colors dye workshop on Friday and a class on Saturday on entrelac knitting. Two of my fondest knitting desires have been realized: 1) I've learned how to knit backwards, and 2)I had the creators of the most beautiful hand-painted yarn of all time (Mountain Colors Red-Tail Hawk--What can I say, I like the hawks...) coach me on how to find color palettes I love and then replicate them in fiber. I'm feeling completely spoiled--first Yarn School and now this!

Leslie and Diana had a quick and brilliant way to get us to dive right in with the colors: They handed out magazines and asked us to pick out a picture that spoke to us and use it as our inspiration for dying. First we did a test skein of their Weaver's Wool, decided what worked and what did not, then dyed the two giant skeins of 4/8's. I don't really like my test skein. It reminds me a little too much of some variegated Red Heart yarn that I crocheted with when I was about 11. Maybe I'd like it better knit up, maybe not. I'm very glad that Diana and Leslie had us do the practice run, because I would have been peeved to end up with 1000 yards of early-80's Red Heart look-alike yarn. Anyway, I decided that I needed to concentrate on the reds and golds and leave all blue out of the equation. I also lightened concentration of the the darker dyes (the browns and purples) and used more of the gold.

What shall I do with it? Clapotis, perhaps?

yarn school aftermath

2007-10-03T12:26:00.000-06:00

My living room looks like a sheep exploded (well, just the fleece). I got back from Yarn School Monday night. Today is Wednesday and I still haven't managed to put much away. Yes, I said Monday night. I was supposed to get home Sunday night but I got stuck in Kansas City. Until United Airlines does a serious overhaul of their customer service policies, I would advise anyone reading this to avoid United whenever possible. I understand that delays and breakdowns happen, but there's no excuse for the rudeness with which I and the passengers around me were treated. Harrumph. Now, back to something more pleasant...

What happened there in beautiful downtown Harveyville, Kansas, you ask? We dyed, we spun, we knit, and we talked--a lot. It was wonderful. I was able to obsessively pursue whatever wooly endeavor my little heart pleased. The only down side was that I missed my chicklets so much my heart ached. I missed Eric, too--but I wasn't worried about him developing any abandonment issues. I know, 4 days isn't going to scar my kids for life, but still. When I told Eric how badly I missed the kids, he said that I just need to go places by myself more often. The idea is starting to grow on me. :)

I was trying to organize things for the family so they wouldn't suffer too greatly in my absence [said with a completly straight face] right up until the moment I ran out the door Thursday morning. Consequently, I forgot a few items--like my yarn and fiber for the swap, an extra bag for the fiber I would get at Yarn School, and MY CAMERA! We shall just have to be content with a few after-the-fact pictures, and here they are:

I dyed...

I spun...

Okay, there's only one picture here, but I really did spend a lot of time spinning. I had this Spunky Club fiber started on my wheel and I was determined to finish it off rather than flit around doing 10 yards here and there of other stuff. One of the reasons I really wanted to go to Yarn School was the chance to devote myself to a singular goal with out distraction. After I finished this 4 ounces of Shetland wool, I did mess around with some Navajo plying and making novelty yarn, but I didn't produce much of anything. It was fun, though. :D

And I knit...

I met some marvelous people. I learned some very interesting things. And that fiber up there isn't even the half of what I came home with. I had to mail the rest home to myself because I didn't have room in my bags. Ah, PeeWee awakens from her nap. Good timing. I was about to start blathering on about United Airlines again.

It's good to be home.

slouch

2007-09-16T20:51:00.000-06:00

I've been in a bit of a blogging slump lately. I credit it to my experiment with "professional" knitwear designing (read: doing the blasted magazine sweater, also known as the BMS, not to be confused with, although not unlike PMS). I've come to the conclusion that using my precious and limited crafting time to produce something under a strict deadline serves only to suck the joy out of knitting for me. I don't think I'll do it again. I have momentary fits of ambition, but they soon pass and I find myself to be, yet again, a sluggard.

I mentioned in my last post that I had started a sweater for PeeWee--Well, knitting this little item was just the thing to speed my recovery from the BMS. I give you The Swirly Sweater.

I don't know if you can see the swirly yoke terribly well, but trust me, it's there.

I loved knitting this seamless yoke sweater. It was a nice, quick knit and I'm revved up and ready to knit versions for my entire family. I think it would be particularly nice in handspun for my sweetie. Right now, I'm trying desperately (What was that I said about deadlines? Heh.) to knit one for myself before Yarn School which is in 11 days. Denial: it ain't just a river in Egypt...

Some details about The Swirly...

Yarn: Marble by James C. Brett in the color "Berries". It has a lovely marled subtle stripe, as you can see. It is 100% acrylic (gasp), but stay with me here--I'm teetering on the brink of Laundry Chaos as it is. If I were to start knitting anything besides machine washable items for my kids, I would probably plummet into the abyss.
Pattern: Seamless yoke sweater template from The Knitter's Handy book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd.
Modifications/Customizations: There are 6 rows of garter stitch on the hem and cuffs, then random purl rows in the mostly-stockinette body and sleeves (actually, the sleeves only have a few purl rows near the cuff). At the yoke, after 1 purl row, there are randomly spaced 2-stitch purl columns that shift over one stitch on every row, creating the swirls. As I neared the neck, some of the columns petered out and some reduced down to 1 stitch. If I were doing it again (oh wait, I am!) I ~~would~~ will regularly and more widely space the swirly columns and see if that results in a pattern that is easier to discern.

The off-center one-button placket was necessary to accomodate PeeWee's gigantic melon. It was meant to be centered, but I counted the stitches wrong and it ended up where it is. Yes. It's a design feature. :}

I have more to say, but it will keep for the next post. Aw, I can't help myself; here's a preview: I went to the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair with Kim this weekend--Wohoo! And my local newspaper got a press release from Jimmy Beans and decided that they'd better do a "local girl makes good" story on me and my knitting. [snicker] It was in today's--Sunday's--paper. I look like a complete dork who needs a makeover, more supportive undergarments, and better posture, but at least the yarn is beautiful...

I have a secret pal!

2007-09-06T21:33:00.000-06:00

Look! This time I have a secret pal who sends stuff! Yay! (My last secret pal forgot that little detail.) Thank you, Pal! I'm tickled that you sent me "shoes". The yarn is luscious and lovely. And a knitting and beading book! I love it! Thank you, again!

I've been knitting a sweater for PeeWee. It's a bottom-up, knit-in-the-round, circular yoke pullover. When she sees me working on it, she says to me, "You netting my setter? Oh, tank you!" Then she insists that she MUST try it on. I should probably quit knitting the sweater right now and just hand over the sleeves. They make great leg-warmers.

Hey Presto! (modifications)

2007-08-17T12:26:00.000-06:00

I've had a some questions about the modifications I made on the 24-month size of Presto Chango, which I'll call the Lightning Bolt Version (LBV). Sara, since I'm not sure that the email address I have for you is correct--and Karen, since you asked, here are the specifics.

About 2 weeks ago, I sent some pattern edits to Jimmy Beans Wool. Laura (Jimmy) was so reassuring and kind (because I was feeling like a complete idiot) in her reply and told me that she had forwarded those changes to her webmaster. The edits were posted today, August 17, and they correct the neck and sleeve on the larger sizes to more reasonable dimensions. The neck has been brought in on the 12- and 24- month sizes; the straight-across sleeve width has been decreased on the 24-month size. So what am I trying to say here? The Jimmy Beans pattern is now good to go. If, however, you are like me and are rarely content to knit a pattern as written, read on.

What necessitated the changes, you ask? I was very concerned that you lovely trusting knitters who want to make the 24-month size might have the same disappointment I had upon seeing the very-wide neck. Commenter Karen also pointed out the huge cuffs on the unmodified 24-month size. If you're after the full-on kimono look for the sweater, the big cuffs would be good, but I think they were a little too big--so they got changed.

After considering how to explain the LBV mods, I thought you might want to see exactly what got changed in the original version, as well. So, along with the sleeve and shoulder shaping and lightning bolt panel pattern that I post today, I will include those changes that I sent along to Jimmy Beans. I refer to the Jimmy Beans site throughout these pattern changes and I got the okay from Jimmy Beans to post this, so here we go.

P.S. If you are knitting for a chunky baby and want to have the original wider sleeve width at the top where it meets the body of the sweater, I would highly recommend shaping the sleeve so that it is not huge at the wrist; that's what I did on the LBV. The numbers for that mod are included below {in these kind of brackets}.

Changes are in red.

Back

CO 36 (39, 45) sts.

Rows 1-5: Work seed stitch, creating bottom band of back.

Row 6: P across, increasing 5 (6, 6) sts evenly across the row; 41 (45, 51) sts.

Row 7: K across.

Continue in st st until back measures 6 (7, 9 {8 for LBV shaped sleeves}) inches from cast on edge.

Add Sleeves

Cast on 24 (28, 32) stitches at beginning of next 2 rows; 89 (101, 115) sts.

Work k1, p1, k1 on first 3 sts, stockinette across row and k1, p1, k1 on last 3 sts of each row until back measures 9 (11, 13) inches from cast on edge.

Begin seed stitch band for neck edge as follows: K1, p1, k1 (cuff), st st 29 (35, 42) sts, seed stitch on next 25 (25 for all sizes) sts (neck border), st st 29 (35, 42), k1, p1, k1 (cuff).

Repeat this row 4 more times.

Neck opening

Next row: K1, p1, k1, st st 29 (35, 42); seed stitch 4 at neck edge, Cast off 17 (17 for all sizes), seed st 4, st st 29 (35, 42). k1, p1, k1.

Sweater will now be worked back and forth to form one side of front.

Continue in st st, maintaining 4 seed stitch border at neck edge and 3 seed stitch border at cuff. Work until sleeve measures 8 (10, 10 {11 for LBV}) inches, ending at cuff edge. Piece measures 14 (17, 19) inches from cast on edge.

Side fronts

Cast off 24 (28, 32) stitches to end sleeve; 12 (14, 17) sts remain.

Work remaining stitches for side front in st st, maintaining 4 seed st border along inner edge.

When work measures 6 (7, 9 {8 for LBV} ) inches from sleeve cast off edge, work seed st across row, decreasing 1 (1, 2) stitch(es) by k2tog.

Work seed st 4 more rows.

Cast off remaining stitches.

Join yarn to neck edge for other side front.

Work back and forth in st st maintaining 4 seed st border at inner edge and 3 seed st border at cuff.

When second sleeve measures same as first, cast off 24 (28, 32) stitches to end sleeve.

Work remaining sts as mirror image of other side front.

Front panel with cascading leaves

Directions for all 3 sizes are changed to the same stitch counts as the smallest size--please see the pattern on the Jimmy Beans Wool website. Buttonhole spacing and panel length are unchanged.

As the panel is knit, make a buttonhole in each side at an interval of 2 (2 1/2, 2 1/4) inches, approximately every 12 (15, 14) rows. The top buttonholes should be 1/2 inch from the top.

Repeat the 8 pattern rows until panel is 6 (7 1/2, 9) inches from cast on edge.

End with 5 rows of seed stitch (remember the top two buttonholes) then cast off.

Panel measures 7 (8 1/2, 9) inches from cast on edge.

Finishing

Sew up seams on sides and under arms. Sew on buttons, using buttonholes on panel to mark placement for buttons.

Lightning Bolt Version sleeve shaping

Follow directions for casting on and working body as above.

After adding sleeves, work 4 rows. On next row, knit to 4 sts from left edge. Bring yarn to front work, slip st from left needle to right, take yarn to back of work and slip st from right needle back to left needle; turn work. (If you haven't done short rows before, this is called "wrap and turn", often abbreviated as "w&t".) Purl back to within 4 sts of edge, w&t. *Knit to 6 sts before previous turning point on this sleeve, w&t. Purl to 6 sts before previous turning point on this sleeve, w&t. Repeat from * 2 more times (4 turning points on each sleeve).

Now this is the nifty part: Knit all the way to the cuff. As you reach a wrapped stitch, pick up the wrap together with the stitch it encircles. Knit the two strands together, making sure to lay the stitch yarn over the top of the wrap yarn and so that the wrap yarn disappears behind the stitch.

Continue to knit the sweater, following directions for making the neck opening.

After about 2 1/2 inches of sleeve after casting off for the neck opening, start the short rows again: work to 22 sts from the cuff edge, w&t the next st. *Work back to neck edge, turn and then work back to 6 sts past last turning point, w&t. Repeat from * 2 more times (4 turning points). Return to neck edge, then work all the way to the cuff edge, again knitting the wraps together with the sts they encircle. Finish knitting sleeve as directed in original pattern, taking measurement of the sleeve only at the point where it meets the body. Finish sweater front as specified in the pattern on the Jimmy Beans site.

Join yarn to neck edge for other sleeve and follow shaping directions as for first sleeve. Finish front same as other side.

Lightning Bolt Version shoulder shaping

This is going to take some time to put into words. I fully intend to edit this post to include this info after I'm done knitting the blasted magazine sweater. If, however, I don't get back to it, I followed the shoulder shaping instructions for the Bog Jacket found in Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I did four increases every other row as I approached the top of the shoulder, then 4 decreases every other row as I came down the front of the shoulder.

Lightning Bolt Version front panel

(This panel was designed for the 24-month size before the neck opening width was changed to be narrower. It would still work for the revised 24-month size, but it would bow out a little, as it is wider than the opening. That might be a good thing, considering little tummies bow out, too.)

Cast on 27 sts. Work 6 rows in seed sts, just as for original panel pattern, placing buttonholes as directed. Work one plain row of knitting between seed st borders, increasing 4 sts evenly across row (31 sts).

Keeping 4 sts on each edge in seed st, work zig-zag pattern across the middle 23 sts.

Zig-zag pattern:

K3, k2tog, k3, [yo, k2tog] twice, yo, k11.

Purl.

K2, k2tog, k3, yo, k1, yo, [ssk, yo] twice, k3, ssk, k6.

Purl.

K1, k2tog, [k3, yo] twice, [ssk, yo] twice, k3, ssk, k5.

Purl.

K2tog, k3, yo, k5, yo, [ssk, yo] twice, k3, ssk, k4.

Purl.

K 11, yo, [ssk, yo] twice, k3, ssk, k3.

Purl.

K6, k2tog, k3, [yo, k2tog] twice, yo, k1, yo, k3, ssk, k2.

Purl.

K5, k2tog, k3, [yo, k2tog] twice, [yo, k3] twice, ssk, k1.

Purl.

k4, k2tog, k3, [yo, k2tog] twice, yo, k5, yo, k3, ssk.

Purl.

Continue to place button holes as specified in original pattern. Repeat 16 rows of zig-zag pattern until 1" from desired length. Finish with 6 rows of seed st, evenly spacing 4 decreases across in first row of seed st.

no knitting, just Cousin It's dog

2007-08-12T22:35:00.000-06:00

What do you get when two bored boys find a wig?

SP11 Q/A

2007-08-12T02:18:00.000-06:00

My camera is missing again. Grrr. So we have a picture-less post--No cute pictures of PeeWee, no annoyingly teasing pictures of the blasted magazine sweater, no bizarro pictures of a dog wearing a wig... Please pay no attention to the time stamp on this post. It's not really 2 AM, I'm not really up in the middle of the night waiting for a wash load to finish spinning so that I can put it in the dryer and go back to bed, and laundry is not really ruling my life. Denial is my friend.

I'm in Secret Pal 11 (Wohoo!) and I've been instructed to get this little Q&A session posted tout de suite. Alors, c'est voici. (I think those last two words were redundant, but I don't remember my college French well enough to be sure. Quel dommage.)

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? Favorites: springy natural fibers. (That's code for wool, right?) Non-favorites: furry yarns, although I do have a soft spot in my heart for pink fuzzy and/or eyelash yarn because my girls love it so.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? They're currently squashed into an old canvas tote bag.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I've been knitting for about 9 years. My dear, darling friend Wendi answered her door one day wearing a sweater she had knit and my jaw dropped when she said she had made it. That afternoon, she placed two mis-matched aluminum Boye needles and a ball of forest-green acrylic yarn in my hands and taught me how to knit. It was one of the best days of my life and I have been unable to adequately repay her, lo these many years. I would consider myself to be on the advanced side of intermediate.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? Yes, Amazon.

5. What's your favorite scent? Grapefruity-limey-citrusy type scents.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Ah, yes. Unfortunately, I love pretty much every candy there is. I especially enjoy crystalized ginger, lemony candies, and dark chocolate.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I like to sew and bead. I enjoy the thought of gardening, though you wouldn't know it to look at my yard. I learned to spin this past winter and it's probably my favorite thing in the whole entire world.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like almost any music that has interesting and creative instrumental qualities, but my current favorites are bluegrass and Scottish music. I recently downloaded Lost and Gone Forever from Guster and I think they're pretty nifty. Bongos on every song? Oh yeah. MP3s: yes.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? I love colors on the purple-blue-green side of the wheel. And I love reds--from russet, to aubergine. Ooooo, go look at this picture. Gorgeous! It makes me want to dye some wool.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I'm married with children--5 little cheeky monkeys. I have a sweet elderly lab/border-collie named Dottie. She's a love. Want to see a picture?

There. Picture-less no longer.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? Not so much with the ponchos; yes to the others.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I like to knit baby sweaters because they make me feel like I'm making a major item, but they go so fast since they're little. And tiny things are just cute. I like socks for the same reason.

13. What are you knitting right now? I'm working on a sample for a pattern that will be in the May '08 issue of Creative Knitting. It's my first magazine pattern and the deadline is making my fingernails sweat. I don't know that I'll do this again. I'm experiencing barely-controllable urges to knit anything, anything else besides the sweater.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Yes! That's the best kind of gift.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I like my on-the-go projects on circulars, but straights were my first love.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes, both.

17. How old is your oldest UFO? Hmmm. That would have to be the Lion Brand Homespun sweater for my 12-year-old son that was started when he was 5. I need to let it go already!

18. What is your favorite holiday? Easter--besides the holiday part, you can always find cute lambs and the PAAS egg dye is really cheap on the day after Easter. :)

19. Is there anything that you collect? I'm assuming that this question is not referring to my library overdue fines... I used to think I collected pottery, but most of it has been broken in the past few years. I have two matryoshka dolls and I hope someday to have more. I like ladybugs, does that help?

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? At the top of my book list is Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I've been wanting to knit with some angora. I'd like some wood DPNs in the mid-range of sizes (between 4 and 7). I want to get the pattern for this Blue Sky Alpacas Crochet Trim Hoodie. I subcribe to Interweave Knits, Spin-Off, and Vogue Knitting.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I like to bead. I like to knit. Interestingly (at least to me) I haven't knit with beads and I'd like to try it.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? Yes, but I'm a newbie. I'm on only my second pair of socks. I knit them in the car, but with school out for the summer, I haven't had a lot of car-knitting time. I wear a size 8 shoe and I have average width feet.

23. When is your birthday? April 3.

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? Yep, I'm 'shoeless'.

C'est fini.

stalling

2007-08-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

Let's start out with a cute picture, shall we? Here's our Pretty Princess PeeWee, applying her lip gloss. She calls it her "diptick".

Many thanks for telling me about your favorite pies! I wrote the entrants' names on cards, shuffled them, assigned each card a number, then let the random number generator do it's magic. (And this time, I only asked for one number. It's definately better that way. I'll play around with the numbers on my own time.) Tina wins the Whoops-I-Picked-a-Prize-Winner-a-Day-Early-So-Let's-Have-Another-Drawing prize. So our two winners are Nell and Tina. I'll send out Nell's froggy and yarn on Monday. But Tina gets her yarn hand-delivered, because it turns out that we live in the same town! How about that? When she sent me her entry email I followed it back to her family website and was surprised to recognize her son as a classmate of my 9-year-old son. I need to get out more. I go to a bi-weekly spinning night, but I don't get out and meet with any knitting groups--and I think that needs to change.

Eric is gone to a show. He took our two older daughters (13 year-old Bob and 6-year-old LB) with him. It's very calm and quiet in the house. I like it. To be sure, I dearly love and miss my absent family members, but I'm really enjoying the near complete absence of sibling rivalry. Eric called today and said that even sleep didn't stop the two girls from bickering last night.

I've been working on that magazine sweater. Want to see the swatch? I think that would be legal, don't you? I have figured that if I could manage to knit 40 stitches per minute (that would be SPM) in the reverse stockinette sections and 20 SPM in the charted areas, I could knit it in 22 hours. I have 19 to go. I finally got the right yarn about a week and a half ago, swatched and started writing out the pattern. Yesterday I actually began knitting the thing. It has made my hair go grayer. I figure there's a learning curve to this process of submitting, writing, and knitting a pattern for a magazine and I'm at that first really steep part. I'm not quite sure if I want to keep climbing. Maybe I'll just go back down the trail and sit on a rock.

In order to restore my equilibrium and relieve the tension caused by worrying about my SPM, I spent yesterday afternoon focusing on RPM. Me loves spinning. I finished up this Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club wool, 4 ounces of Blue-Faced Leicester called "Tulip".

It went fast, 'cause I spun (spinned?) it bulky. I got 145 yards out of it, and I think I'll make a hat. Speaking of hats...

I cast on for this hat after finishing the Tulip spinning. It's Kuryon, number 215. My LYS got some new Kuryon colors in last week, so I went in to get a couple balls for my Lizard Ridge afghan, and ended up getting maybe a few extra of this color. It was calling to me, "Valerie, hold me, love me, knit me!" It might just get turned upside down and become a collar for a sweater. And I could carry the cables down the sleeves. Yeah.

You don't think I'm stalling on the magazine sweater, do you? Nah.

power to change

2007-07-31T23:46:00.000-06:00

***Whoops! I just realized that I jumped the gun and picked the winner a day early. If anyone missed entering for the froggy and sock yarn and still would like to send me an email, I'll give away more yarn tomorrow on the proper deadline. If no one else enters, I think I'll pick another prize winner anyway. It's fun. :D

I really like the Random Number Generator. The last time I picked a prize winner, I discovered that I have to do the same thing that I do with stoplights. When I'm driving along and approaching a stoplight, I have to say out loud, "I'm going, I'm going, okay NOW I'm going!" And up until the moment I say NOW, I will stop if it turns yellow; after that point, I have passed the point of no return. What's the official term for it? You know, the words they use for when you've gone past the point where you have enough fuel to fly back where you came from... ?? The Point of No Return? (Would that be the PNR in military jargon? I have a brother in the Air Force, for crying out loud; I should know these things!)

Anyway, I could sit (and have sat) for an embarassingly long time, hitting the "Again!" button and asking for new numbers to be generated, just for the fun of seeing what will pop up. So when I selected the prize winners last time, I had to say, "I'm picking, I'm picking, okay NOW I'm picking!" Please don't let this distress you as to whether the choice is truly random. We are assured by the Random Number Generator website that each number is truely random--like atmospheric noise, they say--and not just produced from a mathematical formula. (Speaking of randomness, and to confuse you, I have a random picture of yarn to spice up the story. This is Hello Yarn Fiber Club's May selection, 5 ounces of Blue-Faced Leicester wool, called "Cricket". I got 297 yards of worsted weight 2-ply yarn out of it. I think it's the most beautiful, gentle, sublime mix of colors I have ever seen in wool. It's softly spun and very fluffy. I can't wait to knit it.)

Tonight, to choose the winner of the froggy and sock yarn, I said, "I'm picking, I'm picking, okay N--aaaarh!" Because the power went out just as I was going to get the final number. Grrrr. It's just as well. Now I can go into it fresh and just say that the first number is the one (won!). I can play around with more numbers later... (Another random picture of yarn: Boberly is knitting a hat out of one of the new colors of Noro Silk Garden. I'm not sure of the color number, but there's some very bright pink in there! Doesn't it make a pretty flower? She saw this yarn at the LYS on Saturday and asked if I'd teach her to knit a hat. She's only done flat knitting up until now. I think she's quite impressed with herself, and she's smitten with the Silk Garden. I know I am.)

Back to the Random Number Generator (that would be the RNG): The winner is...Number 2!!!! (Hang on, I've got to go look at the emails and see who that is.) It's Nell of Chicken Knits! Yay Nell!

Little Lovey PeeWee (that's LLPW) has started sleeping through the night! (Hallelujah!) Not every night, but about every other night. The other nights she has been waking up at odd intervals and shouting things like "I NEED IT!" She's a funny little bird. She finally let me take pictures of her in the Presto.

I have to admit that I'm very disappointed in how the neck fits her. She has skinny little shoulders, but I think that the pattern needs a serious edit to bring the neck opening in closer on the 24-month size. If anyone reading this happens to be knitting the bigger size, I'm going to contact Jimmy Beans and see if they wouldn't mind letting me tweak the numbers to fix it. If you've already knit it, you have my sincerest apology. I didn't realize until I actually knit the 24-month size that increasing the neck opening at the same rate as the body width would come out this way. The 6-month size will be unchanged; I think it's fine as is. The 12-month and the 24-month size neck openings will be changed to be the same measurement as the 6-month. (They will all have 17 stitches cast off for the neck opening.) The front panel will be the same width for all three sizes, just increasing in length as needed for each size. (This was Jean's brilliant suggestion when I presented her with the problem.) I'm sorry I'm such an amateur. Tsk. I'll do better next time!

Can you hear her? Can you hear LLPW singing her favorite song? It's by Laurie Berkner: Boots, boots, B-O-O-T-S!

Change-O!

2007-07-28T11:29:00.001-06:00

My cutie 6-year-old has let me know that spelling a word c-h-a-n-g-o means that it should be pronounced "chan-go" (rhymes with fandango). Hmmm. Anyhoo, here it are!

I finally finished the 24-month-size. PeeWee won't let me put it on her for a glamour shot. It's just as well--I don't have the buttons sewn on yet. I posed the sweater with these daisy buttons but I only have 8 of them. I'll probably get some more of these green shell buttons

Pattern: Presto Chango by yours truly; size 24 months.
Yarn: Blue Sky Organic Cotton #81 Nut, just barely more than 2 balls.
Modifications: I widened the cuffs from 3 to 5 seed stitches. I wish I had only done 4; 5 is a little too wide. I specified 3 stitches in the pattern because I thought it would be easier for people to remember to knit-purl-knit on the end of every row rather than worry about whether it should be kpk or pkp. I think I needn't have worried. After all, I didn't let that stop me from using 4 stitches along the front.

I shaped the shoulders by increasing 4 times every other row on the uphill side of the shoulders and decreasing equally on the downhill side. I got the idea for the shoulder shaping from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Bog Jacket.

The sleeves are shaped with short rows, 4 turns before the center line of the sleeve and 4 turns after. I was worried that I'd have a hard time matching the second half of the sleeve shaping to the first half (since I hadn't written anything down) but I just peered at the wrong side of the knitting and tried to do my turns in approximately the same places. I picked up the wraps and knit them in behind the stitches, but they did leave little lumps. They'll probably smooth out when I block it.

I also knit a different pattern on the front panel. I knitted the front panel while listening to Harry Potter 7 read aloud by my dear friend Wendi. She and her husband hosted a weekend Read-HP7-Until-We-All-Pass-Out-Or-It's-Over-Whichever-Comes-First Party. It was fantastic. I got to listen to Harry Potter AND knit. In honor of the occasion, I knit a lightning bolt into the front panel. :)

If anyone is interested in the specifics on the sleeve or shoulder shaping, I'll type that up and post it...

Jen of Knitting Sutra is having a great contest and looking for pool-defying sock pattern suggestions. Here are the details, so go give her your ideas--and be sure to tell her I sent you (because then I get another shot at the gorgeous German yarn and the nifty Dutch bag she's offering).

I can't bear it--I want to have a contest, too. I'm such a lemming. And I want to reward the hardy souls who made it to the end of this post. :)

Does anyone remember the frog accessory case that I tried to give away a couple of months ago? The prize winner never came back to claim it. Sad, I know. But I have learnt my lesson: I shall try again, but I will ask for email addresses! I'd like to send Froggy out to someone with some sock yarn--So if you're interested, send me a note at shoeless UNDERSCORE valerie AT yahoo DOT com (there's a link on my blogger profile) and tell me your favorite kind of pie. Hey, I like pie. It's not really a contest, is it. I just thought it would be interesting... I'll put your names in a hat and draw one out on August 1 after dinner, say 8 PM? Good? Okay.

closet

2007-07-18T06:26:00.000-06:00

I cleaned out my closet yesterday. It's not a huge closet, but once I had all the yarn and unspun fiber out on my bed, it was frightening. I have a cedar chest in there and 6 big canvas bin thingys that I bought for off-season clothes. Haha. They hold my yarn. It's a very good thing that Eric and I don't have a lot of clothes, because they wouldn't have anywhere to go.

There were some happy re-discoveries: this Elsbeth Lavold gold Silky Wool that got swatched and then forgotten in the rush to make Presto Chango; some Dalegarn Stork that's meant for a little lacy bolero for PeeWee; some blue 1824 Wool intended for my middle son; and this beaded wool from Blue Heron Yarns in Leaf--that I had no plans for, but I bought anyway because it was just so beautiful. (Go look at those Blue Heron color cards--they're gorgeous.)

I ordered it from my LYS based on a color card and a sample skein of the colorway in Egyptian Cotton. When the beaded wool arrived it was vastly different from the color card and I was rather disappointed. (You may kindly remind me that cotton and wool take up dye very differently.) I promptly socked it away in my closet.

Boberly walked in my room yesterday just as I was taking the beaded wool out of the bag to look at it. She started saying words like "lurve it" and "make me a sweater" and "pleeeeeease". I'm sure you can guess what came out of the closet next. Yes. The swift and the ballwinder. I now have a ball of Leaf and an anxious daughter. She pestered me all last night about when I was going to start swatching for her sweater. She drew up a design and with a little help from Maggie Righetti and Sweater Design in Plain English, I will be knitting the Boberly Sweater: a top-down raglan with an off-center two-button placket, stockinette body, and deep ribbing at the cuffs and bottom. My two Maggie Righetti books (the other one is Knitting in Plain English) are the two most frequently referenced books on my knitting shelf. I HIGHLY recommend them. They're not flashy, there's no eye-catching color photography--but there is the wisdom of a veteran no-nonsense knitting instructor who will spell it all out for you at any time of the day.

I'm still spinning away on my Hello Yarn BFL for my Bohussy mittens. It's slow, but steady progress. Hmmm, am I seeing a color theme in this post?

Have I done any good in the world today?

2007-07-07T09:46:00.000-06:00

Once again, it's not just a song, it's a way of life. It doesn't really have anything to do with this post, but it's on my mind. And in answer, I must say...not yet. I should probably make like a responsible person and feed my children. But first, I have to do this: An anonymous commenter thanked me today for posting (it was part of my 7 things meme) the words to the "Breathless" song that I was certain had faded into obscurity. Anonymous, you're welcome, but I hope you come back because I have the words to the whole song, not just the first verse. Your wife needs to hear the song in entirety.

And so, without further delay, I'm Breathless (as I remember it from my childhood):

If I had a dictionary, I would read the customary
Complementary phrases when I want to sing your praises,
But I'm up to here in trouble, my adversity is double,
And to make the matter worse, I'm breathless.

When I try to be poetic, you are never sympathetic.
As it is I do my best and hope and pray I pass the test,
But up to now I'm in the soup, my heart is doing loop-de-loop,
On top of all of that, I'm breathless.

You take my breath away.
My castles are all in a heap--
You've got me right where you want me.
Baby, you walk in my sleep!

So I...
Take you for a little walk, 'cause I'm a guy who likes to talk.
You leave me on the porch and then I wind up with a torch
For every single time that I'm inclined to tell you what is on my mind
I'm darned if I don't find I'm breathless!

We used to have races to see who could sing it the fastest. Ah, good times...

Now I just need to figure out how to attach a MIDI file with the tune...

I have an idea. (We're back to knitting content now.) I've been petting this 5 oz. of Blue-Faced Leicester wool (color: Cricket) from the Hello Yarn fiber club. I LURVE it. It is everything I love about wool and color in one tidy package. I want to make something for me that I will use on a daily basis--so as to maximize the time I get to spend with it. I have decided that mittens are the answer.

I've been waiting for the right moment to knit Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens, and I thought that maybe this was it--but then I decided that the colors I love in this wool might mute and blend too much for my liking if I spun it that fine. So I started looking for stranded pattern ideas with thicker yarn.

I was cleaning out my closet and found this sweater. (Hahaha, I had you going there, huh?! I wasn't really cleaning, per se, this sweater actually fell off my shelf when I was trying to stuff something else in next to it. Cleaning. That's funny.) The patterns are kinda Bohus-y, don't you think?

Then I was flipping through Marcia Lewandowski's Folk Mittens and saw her Bohus mittens. I think I should probably not post an image from the book, but I'll just say that it got my gears turning. On top of all of that, Adrian (Hello Yarn) is knitting a Bohus-inspired sweater that is so gorgeous. (Can you tell that I'm pretty much in love with everything she makes? Yeah. It's kind of obvious.) Anyhoo, I'm going to make some Bohus-y (I like that: Bohussy, that's me!) mittens using the sweater patterns and the BFL Cricket, and one other yet-to-be-determined color. I'm going to spin the Cricket so that it has distinct color changes so it can serve as my slacker version of multi-colored stranding. That's my idea. I'm sure I'll have enough Cricket left over from the mittens to make a hat, too. Now I just have to get past the planning stages and actually knit it!

I have no title for this one

2007-07-01T23:33:00.000-06:00

Time for some late-night blogging! My honey is still out of town and the kids are in bed. If I hurry, I can blog and knit tonight! I've retrieved my guilty pleasures from their hiding places (diet Pepsi in the reefer behind the cheese, Belgian chocolates in the cupboard behind the mixing bowls) so I'm ready to make up for 3 weeks without a post.

My most heart-felt gratitude goes out to all who contribued to our virtual Alex's Lemonade Stand. Your generosity and kind comments warm my heart. God bless you! Our real-life lemonade stand on June 9th was great fun for all, especially my kids. The lemonade sales of the day combined with the donations to our virtual stand bring our total amount raised for childhood cancer research to $1369.07! (The 7 cents were donated by a little friend of my middle son who emptied out his piggy bank for the occasion, bless his heart.) We blasted right past the goal of $1000. Thank you very, very much.

The remainder of June flew by for me. My recent absence from this blog was due mostly to the fact that I’ve had a pinched nerve in my hip and it hurt to sit at the computer. I’m feeling much better now because I spent the past week lounging around at my sister’s lakeside cabin and popping anti-inflammatory pills. I also spent a fair amount of time chasing cute little children around with my camera—See?

Just before leaving for the lake, I finished plying 4 ounces of superwash merino that I dyed with easter egg dye. After pulling the fiber out of its steam bath to set the dye, I wasn’t sure that I liked it. Then, while spinning it, I was still wondering if I’d again wasted some perfectly good white fiber by making it look like red dryer lint. After plying it and winding it up into a hank, I finally decided that I like it! It’s just so different from what I had in my head when I started the process. I didn't squeeze enough of the initial soaking water out of the fiber before applying the dye, so the colors intermingled much more than I intended. I learned a lot about dying fiber and I’m anxious to do some different colors now that I’ve finished up the spinning of this batch. I’m not sure what I’ll knit with it. I could do socks, or some lace or...or... It's probably a sportweight, but I'm not sure that it's spun tightly enough for socks.

Earlier this afternoon, I started spinning my May Spunky Eclectic club fiber (wonderful long-staple, crimpy Coopworth wool in a colorway called "Nightshade") that has been patiently waiting in my fiber basket. When it arrived back in May, I was not very excited about the dark colors. I was in a very springy mood and wanted to be spinning buttercups and rainbows. I guess I had enough bright sunshine this past week, because the deep, mysterious colors of Nightshade kept me entranced (and the Backyardigans kept PeeWee entranced) for almost 2 hours of spinning! Can you believe I got to spend that much time on it? I know, I'm a slacker with the boobtube-as-babysitter, but she played hard at the lake all week. I loved the pictures on the Spunky club blog of this fiber spun as a single, so I decided to do that, too. Adrian of Hello Yarn also had a handy link to information on spinning low-twist singles, and that was a great help.

And now to finish off tonight's post, we have news. Yes. News. I'm just going to say it fast, then shut up. I'm going to Yarn School. I'm so excited, I nearly pee my pants every time I think about it. Faith, you coming? It's in Kansas, what could be better? YARN SCHOOL. (Adrian will be one of the teachers and I'm like her #1 fan, and maybe she could mention your name to Jared--you know, Brooklyn Tweed?!?--and maybe she could get him to autograph your forehead, cuz aren't you like his #1 fan?! SQUEEEEE!!!!! {hyperventilating})

More news? Yes. More News. I submitted a design to Creative Knitting magazine and they accepted it. It will be in their May '08 issue. I don't think they want me to say anything else about it. I could probably safely say that it's a sweater. It's in cotton (yes, ouch-knitting-cotton). It's something that I would actually wear myself, assuming I ever finished it--but I have to finish this sweater, because THEY'RE PAYING ME TO KNIT!!! Shutting up now.

no more pencils, no more books

2007-06-04T13:39:00.000-06:00

Knit? Blog? School's out, dontcha know. There are sprinklers to dance in, trees to climb, bugs to collect. Also, planning the lemonade stand has been using most of my free time. I'm overcome with gratitude for the support from the good people who have visited our little virtual lemonade stand. Your kindness and generosity are a blessing. I thank you. PeeWee thanks you. Little bald kids with cancer who are just like every other kid and simply want to play--they thank you. If any of you gentle readers are new here and are following links from other's blogs, please see my last post for more information about the lemonade stand. Thanks for coming by! I so wish I were really pouring lemonade for you.

There has been a bit o' knitting, though. We have ball games every night, so I get a few stitches done in between yelling "That's okay, buddy. Nice swing!" and trying to sweet-talk PeeWee into thowing away the used sunflower seed shells she finds under the stands. I've been working on a 24-month size of the Presto Chango pattern. I thought I'd try out a few mods--shaped shoulders and sleeves. The shoulder shaping is done by coming out a few stitches from the neck (about 6 rows before the neck is bound off) and increasing on each side. Matching decreases will be done after reaching the summit of the shoulders and coming down on the other side. I've been shaping the sleeves by doing short-rows. I like the shoulder shaping, but the short-row shaping is causing me stress, because I didn't write down what I did as I did it and mirroring the shaping on the down-hill side of the sweater will likely be tedious and nit-picky. (How many stitches was that?!?!?)

I'm going to confuse you with some random pictures of yarn while I talk about something else: RAVELRY!!! Wahoooo! I got an invitation to join in last week--It is SOOOOO COOL. If any of you have put your names on the request list to join and have not heard from them, be patient, it is worth it.

The site designers, Casey and Jess, just put out a message tonight asking for understanding and patience. Apparently some people are getting frustrated with the wait. At the beginning of May when they put up the form for requests to join, they got 3,500 requests within 2 weeks (!!!) and another 1000 in the following weeks. They said that they're up to #1,166 now and working as hard and fast as they can to catch up with demand. There are beta issues they have to take care of before they can open up the site completely, but for now, it's metered merging.

We need one more picture...

Ah...Socks that Rock in Rooster Rock. See the brown and purple? Me loves it!

when life hands you lemons

2007-05-28T03:35:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my little PeeWee is a cancer survivor. In tribute to our marvelous little fighter, our family is hosting our 2nd annual fundraising lemonade stand to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF). Our real-life stand will be June 9, but our virtual lemonade stand is up and running and can be found here. We'd love it if you'd stop by for a cup! ;)

I first learned about Alex and "met" her parents through an online support group for parents of children with neuroblastoma. Alex had a dream to raise money for cancer research, so she did what any little kid would do when they want to make some money: she set up a lemonade stand.

"ALSF is a not-for-profit organization that evolved from Alex's front yard lemonade stand to a nationwide fundraising movement for childhood cancer. For four years, despite her deteriorating health, Alex held an annual lemonade stand. Following her inspirational example, thousands of lemonade stands have been held across the country by children, schools, businesses, and organizations, all to benefit ALSF. To date, her national campaign has raised over 10 million dollars for pediatric cancer research."

"Alex passed away in 2004, but her giving spirit remains the driving force behind the foundation she established. Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, guided by Alex’s parents, supports childhood cancer research with a focus on improving the availability of new treatments for children currently undergoing treatments for difficult to cure cancers—such as brain tumors, leukemia, lymphoma, retinoblastoma, neuroblastoma, Ewings sarcoma and Wilm’s tumor—among others." (from the ALSF website)

When PeeWee was diagnosed, I spent a lot of time researching treatment options, and I was surprised by some of the things I learned. One in every 330 Americans develops cancer before the age of 20! Look around, I'll bet you have a family in your neighborhood which has been touched by some form of childhood cancer. Perversely though, funding for pediatric cancer research is scarce. I had assumed that money going into cancer research benefits all ages. But it turns out to be a little more complicated than that since many cancers—such as neuroblastoma—are found almost exclusively in children. Since children make up a relatively small percentage of all cancer patients, childhood cancer gets an extremely skinny slice of the funding pie from government and charitable cancer organizations. Research is crucial to finding new and more effective treatments for cancer. Nobody should have to go though chemotherapy, especially a child. Not only is it dreadful to intentionally pour poison into your baby, it often doesn't even work. I'm convinced that there are better alternatives on the verge of discovery. There are advancements in biotechnology and immunotherapy, for example, that could bring stunning changes to cancer treatment, if we can marshall the resources needed to fund their investigation and application.

The beauty of using a lemonade stand to raise money for kids is that it makes it so accessible and easy for anyone of any age to help. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation has a great website with all the information you need if you'd like to host a lemonade stand, too.

I'd be ever so grateful if any of you would like to spread the word about our lemonade stand. Marly, bless her, talked about it on her podcast, but I'd like to repeat it--If we could get a bunch of knitters on the case, I know that we can have a fantastically successful lemonade stand and do a lot of good for little sweethearts like my PeeWee.

pitty-arn!

2007-05-23T12:10:00.000-06:00

Here's the latest installment in the series--Pitty-arn III: Strawberry Fields. I love it when PeeWee carries the hank of newly spun yarn around and pats it and loves it. I finished this up last night from Spunky Club fiber for April. It's 4 ounces of corridale that ended up as a sport-weight.

I messed around with all kinds of different drafting techniques and I even (gasp) did a wee bit of long-draw! Long-draw seems so magical to me, pulling out that fiber just ahead of the twist. Ah. Spinning this wool seemed almost effortless after the shorter staple merino that I did last. I'm not so great at it, but I'll keep working on it!

I wanted to hurry and get the Strawberry Fields done because I'm so impatient to see what my weekend dye project will spin into. I'm glad I didn't let it languish on the bobbin any longer. It's such happy yarn! LB wants me to make something for her, but I don't know what--it will need to be outerwear because the corriedale is a bit scratchy. (LB is an alternate nickname for Little Sister, or Leela as she is sometimes called--I think I like LB best; it's stands for Little Bitty which is what Boberly calls her. Who are these people, you ask? Boberly is my 13-year old and LB is my 6-year old. If you look closely in the last post, you can see LB standing next to the table in the picture of undyed wool. She has on one of her many fancy dancy leotards. Ever read the children's book Fancy Nancy? That's LB. End of aside.)

seven things (a meme)

2007-05-22T15:08:00.001-06:00

I did it! I started a Flickr group called "Presto Chango baby sweater". If any of you are knitting the sweater, you can post your pictures for us all to see. Yay! And if any of you gentle readers have followed the link over from Jimmy Beans and would like to read the design story of the Presto pattern, it's in the post right before this one--Thanks for stopping by!

Now, since you're all a little tired of me talking about Me and My Pattern, I'll talk about just plain Me! Marly tagged me for the 7 Things Meme, plus I've been pondering my summer knitting list for Ali. Let us begin with 7 random things about me that happen to be on my mind right now. And to liven up all this talk about Me, I'll plug in some pictures of my recent mad dyentist experiments in my kitchen (using Paas Easter egg dye).

1) When my husband is out of town, I usually stay up all night. There's no romantic reason for it, like not being able to sleep without my love by my side--I'm just irresponsible.

2) Sometimes I buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia and I save it in the back of the freezer for when Eric is out of town. I eat it all by myself and watch Silverado.

3) I once counted up all the instruments that I've played in a band, orchestra, or ensemble and it was 18--but it's only 11 if we don't count the percussion instruments seperately. (My favorite was the marimba.) I used to spend a lot of time on music; I've let it slide for the past 12 years, though, and it is a regular souce of guilt.

4) While rehearsing the clarinet solo in the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony, I figured out how to speed up and slow down my heart rate by thinking about it (13 largo measures without a breath can do that to a person).

5) I'm trying to learn Italian by listening to Italian language CDs in my car. My kids speak it better than I do. They all know how to ask if you're thirsty and if you would like to have a beer.

6) When I was little, my dad would rock me in his La-Z-Boy and sing me tender songs from the 30's and 40's. My kids are perhaps the only ones of their generation who can sing "Mairzy Doats" and "Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer". And has anyone else out there ever heard the "Breathless" song? (If I had a dictionary/ I would read the customary/ complementary phrases/ When I want to sing your praises/ But I'm up to here in trouble/ My adversity is double/ And to make the matter worse/ I'm breathless!) Anyone? Didn't think so. I can't find anything when I google it, either.

7) My best friend when I was a child had a fantastic 14-letter-long Greek last name. I'm still proud of how fast I can spell it. When she got married, she took her husband's last name; it's Jones. She has an older sister--and she's now Smith. Couldn't they at least have hypenated? Then they could have 19-letter last names! The two were often polar opposites in many ways and now as adults, one lives in Alaska and the other in Arizona. Yeah.

This fiber turned out much more pinky-purple than I thought it would; I was aiming for purpley-brown with a lot more bluish-gray. I like it though. I'm dying (har har) to get it spun up and see what happens to the colors. I think I'll probably need real fiber dyes if I expect to have predictable results.

Ali, I'm going to save my summer knitting goals for the next post, but I promise I'll get them listed!

prizes, yours and mine

2007-05-19T12:45:00.000-06:00

***Long, wordy post, not very many pictures, maybe an interesting story or two...

Who got the frog and the yarn? The handy integer generator at random.org spit out numbers 20 and 14, so that means Laura will get the frog and the mysterious S gets the yarn. I hope you are checking back to see if you won, because I don't have email addresses for either of you! Please email me (see the "contact me" link) and I'll get these items sent to you. If I don't hear from you by next Saturday, I'll pick another number. Fair enough? I'm so sad that I don't have prizes for every one of you. I think I'll have to institute regular prize drawings to help me feel better.

The first installment of my prizes from Jimmy Beans Wool arrived on Thursday. I've spent the past three days chauffering and applauding at various recitals and ball games, so I haven't had the chance to set everything out and take a picture, but I'll do that when the second box arrives next week. I did empty the contents of the white bag onto my bed last night and in the course of settling down to sleep, I might have rolled around in it. (Hey, the yarn smells fantastic and I'm a little lonely; Eric's gone to a show for the weekend.)

In her comment on the last post, Brynne pointed out something else that I had considered along with add-on cuffs for Presto, and that's knitting up a wider panel to accomodate an older, wider baby. (Lately I've been feeling cosmically aligned with other knitters. Is it the position of the stars? Is it the power of the wool? Is it the fact that I read your blogs and then forget what I've read and then read it again and it all seems so familiar? Sorry, what were we talking about?) Then Ali mentioned that the stitches could be pickup up around the cuff and just knit the sleeves longer, perhaps with a contrasting yarn. Good thought, Ali--and then you could knit a new panel in the contrasting yarn!

Also in the comments on the last post, Jen mentioned that the Presto pattern had been mentioned on the Knitty boards. Naturally I had to go see what was being said and a very nice person who goes by "lindydiva" suggested that the body of the sweater could be knit in a multicolor with pink and blue (or whatever) panels--handy if you don't know the gender of the baby for whom you're knitting. So many possibilities! I was thinking of perhaps starting up a Flickr group for all these Presto variations. I would love to see these great ideas coming to life.

Jimmy Beans of Jimmy Beans Wool is actually a lovely person named Laura. We've been emailing back and forth and she asked me what my inpiration for Presto was. I gave her the short version; would any of you like the long version? You would? Okay! (I like having these little imaginary conversations with you. You always say just the right things.) This is already one of the longest posts I've ever written. Let's just keep going!

My precious darlin' PeeWee, who just turned 2, was born with a tumor in her abdomen. Between the ages of 1 and 5 months, she had chemo to shrink it and treat the metastases in her legs. The chemo and subsequent tumor removal surgery did the trick and she is now, blessedly, cancer-free. She does have a few little residuals. They're not major and I do not mind them; they are an easy trade for the priviledge of being with my PeeWee. She's a terrible sleeper--prone to nighmares and easily startled--and she has a very touchy gag reflex. She doesn't throw up nearly as much as she used to, but we still have to be vigilant about foods that don't readily dissolve in the mouth.

Last fall, during one of those long pukey nights, I wished for all of her clothes to have interchangable front panels. Moving her around to change her clothes was often very uncomfortable for her and it would have been so nice to only have to unbutton the front and switch it out. This spring when I read about the pattern contest and saw the prize pack for the pattern contest, I zeroed in on the prize from Lantern Moon: a pair of Exotic Wood Needles, an Origami Bag, and a ball of 100% Silk Gelato. I promptly declared that I was going to enter that contest and win that prize, by gum! (Every day I fight the urge to spend all of the grocery money on Lantern Moon needles, and have you seen the Silk Gelato, have you?!?)

Now do you want to hear the story of the pattern writing and submission? Allrighty, then! During another of PeeWee's wakeful nights, I figured out the construction of the sweater in my head and then sketched it out the next morning. I had been wanting to try Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton ever since reading about it on Ali's blog, so I ordered some and got knitting. I finished the prototype on April 28 then spent time on the 29th working out the other sizes. I got the final draft of the pattern written up on the 30th after my kids were in bed, then started trying to email it to Jimmy Beans at around 10:00 PM. I spent the next two hours trying to figure out why my blasted email program (Microsoft Outlook) wouldn't send, finally dissolving into tears at 12:10 AM, having missed the deadline. At 12:17 AM I had a brain wave: I opened up my yahoo email account, copied the entry into a new email and sent it off, telling Jimmy Beans that I'd had "connection issues" and would they please let me know if they could consider the entry for April's contest or not. Then I went to bed. I was sure I'd missed it.

The next morning, I had a reply from Jimmy (Laura) that the pattern had come through just fine and in time. The time stamp on my email was April 30, 11:20 PM!!!! Hooray for Nevada and the Pacific Time Zone! So if you read in their newsletter that I got my pattern in just before the deadline, you'll know they're not kidding!

Wow. That was long.

Edited to Add: I can't believe that I got so busy with telling stories that I didn't say this first-- Thank you so much for the kind and complimentary things that you've said about the Presto pattern. I appreciate it very much!

more Presto

2007-05-15T21:49:00.000-06:00

PeeWee: size 24 months; Presto Chango: size 6 months. Marvel with me at the amazing stretch of the knit. Of course the sleeves are rather short--but fashionably so, don't you think? I tossed around the idea when I was coming up with the pattern of putting buttons on the cuffs and including instructions for extender cuffs that could be buttoned on later in a child's life, but I didn't do it. Maybe I should write that up. Any opinions on that?

Yes, the two photos in the last post are of the same sweater, same yarn. The top one is of the sweater on the lid of my piano next to an east window with late morning light. I put a copy of the picture through a Photoshop warming filter before I sent it to Jimmy Beans, but the one on this blog is the unfiltered copy--It's all washed out. The second shot of Kristen's beautiful baby and today's picture of PeeWee (though a little dark) more accurately represent the color of the Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton (#82-Nut).

I think that its time to spread the love. I have two things to share today. Firstly, I saw these little critters on Sheep in the City and I couldn't help myself; I ordered two. One will stay with me and the other one shall be sent out to one of you. They're made by Clover and there are some other versions besides frogs--CUTE!

Secondly, I have a hank of 4/8s merino, hand-dyed by the nice ladies at Yarn Today. It's 560 yards of 100% merino wool in a colorway called "Autumn Twilight". If anyone would like a little froggy case or a big hank of yarn, leave me a comment saying so and I'll pick the recipients with the handy online random number generator.

ETA: I'll pick the winners on Saturday morning (May 19). Yay! I think giving prizes is as fun as winning them!

Presto Chango!

2007-05-11T15:04:00.000-06:00

I'm stunned speechless. We'll just have to go with a link or three.

Jimmy Beans Wool

Pattern Contest

Pattern contest winner: PRESTO CHANGO!!!.

And you're right, I didn't have the buttons sewn for the photo shoot, but isn't he beautiful? "No pictures, please!"

This is my first published pattern. I'm a little worried that the directions make sense to me because I wrote them, but will be confusing to anyone else. Anybody want to look them over and tell me what you think? That third link up there takes you to the pattern on the Jimmy Beans Wool site.

And while we're talking about Jimmy Beans Wool, they are a fantastically wonderful online yarn store--Try them out and see! They have a great website, a superb inventory, and lightning-fast shipping and customer service. (No, they didn't pay me to say that, really!)

I've got to go call my mom. She's the whole reason I submitted this pattern, because she always told me that it never hurts to try... I hope I can be as encouraging for my children as she has always been for me. Isn't it perfect that tomorrow is Mother's Day?

way too many pictures of spinning

2007-05-08T12:04:00.000-06:00

PeeWee is playing at her little friend's house and Leela (That's not her real name--that's what PeeWee calls her. I'm torn about the whole "using my kids' real names" issue. I think I'm going to go the Precious Nickname route. In fact, I think I'll make sure there are double E's in eeach namee. So we'll have Bebee, Joee, Tedee, Leela, and PeeWee. End of aside.) is off to kindergarten. My plans? I'm going to practice my mad housekeeping skills...in a minute. Firstly, though, Way Too Many Pictures of My Spinning:

We started with 4 ounces of 21 micron merino top called Darling, dyed by the fabulous Adrian of Hello Yarn. I was in a bit of a hurry spinning it, because I'm an eager, impatient beginner, AND I was trying to get it done in time to knit a birthday scarf for my mother. She bought a new red coat this winter, and I know it's spring, but her birthday is in 1 week and I really want to make something for her. Back to Darling... So I didn't spin it as fine as it could, or possibly should be spun, but it is luscious, bouncy, and soooooft. I tended to err on the side of looseness in spinning it and so it's very fluffy. It's probably a heavy worsted weight. I think my mommy will like it.

Must go scrub toilets. Then I'll get started on the scarf. Any suggestions for pattern? I considering linen stitch--I'll have to swatch and see. (Swatchency, isn't that just north of Trenton?)

I am glad for many things

2007-05-03T09:28:00.000-06:00

Yes. I am glad for many things. It's not just a song, it's a way of life. Call me Pollyanna if you will, but this morning I woke up to the wonderful sight of snow on the mountains! I love spring snow! That's a shot of the mountain behind my house. Isn't it beautiful? Doesn't it make you want to dye some yarn? Ooooo or maybe some spinning fiber. :D

Enabler Monica of my local fiber shop opened an account with Henry's Attic (wholesaler of undyed yarn and fiber). She offered to let her regular customers have a substantial discount on the initial order so that she could have enough for the minimum first order. I now have an embarrassingly huge amount of white yarn and spinning fiber hiding in my closet. I want to try to replicate the combination of that purpley-blue-grey of the snow on the mountain with the spring greens. I bought 20 boxes of PAAS egg dye after Easter, and I'm hopeful that there's some purple in there that will look better than grape Kool-Aid. I've also been wanting to see what purple-copper-brown colors I can achieve. Yes, I'm still in love with purple and brown. So what's my point? I'm going to dye some fiber today and I believe that I will use the view from my backyard as inspiration! See the crab-apple tree that's ready to burst into bloom? Voici le beau printemps...

I won a contest! Brynne sent me a ball of Opal sock yarn because I had the best guess for when her new baby would be born. Thank you, Brynne! (I just guessed my own birthday and luckily for me, that's the day he made his entrance.) He is one adorable baby, and the handknits that boy has?! Beyond cute.

Last week Marly sent me a FULL BAG (that's 10 hanks!!) of Noro Blossom as a thank you for her blog buttons and banner. Thank you Marly! I didn't even know that Noro made such a yarn! I think I'm going to make something like this with it. Marly started a podcast at the end of last year that is so fun. Marly can tell a story like no other and she has a great voice. (Love you, Marly!)

Did you see the bit of sweater peeking out in that last photo? It's a sweater that I submitted to the Jimmy Beans Wool pattern contest. I think they're running it as a monthly contest with deadlines for submission at the end of each month. I got this little sweater done just in time and submitted at 11:20 PM on the last day of April. If they don't pick it, I'm not sure what I'll do with the pattern, but the sweater is going for Kristen's new little sweetie. I got to hold him on Saturday and he's so angelic. Mmmmm. New babies are yummy! No, I'm not baby hungry. I'm quite certain that five is enough.

Besides, I still have this precious darlin' and I'm treasuring every moment with her. You'd never guess what she's been through, would you? (Stage 4 neuroblastoma, diagnosed at 4 weeks of age, treated with chemo and surgery between the ages of 1 and 6 months; she's now off treatment and only has quarterly physicals with blood and urine tests. I am very glad for this particular thing.)

darling

2007-04-24T13:05:00.000-06:00

Here you see some merino top from Hello Yarn. It's called "Darling" and it is intruiguing. I'm still very amazed at how hand-dyed fiber changes completely when spun. My photos today are rather dark, but compare the ball of top with the singles on the bobbin. What a difference!

It's not all spinning around here. I do still knit. See? I've been working on this baby sweater meant for my PeeWee. I have knit, frogged, and reknit this left front 7 times. I've finally solved my little cable pattern problems and I think I may finish it in time for Kristen's new baby to wear in another year. Yes, you heard me, Kristen has a darling little baby boy! Yay!!!!

this time there's actually a picture

2007-04-20T18:03:00.000-06:00

That will teach me to walk away from the computer in the middle of typing a blog post. I typed those few silly sentences, not actually intending to leave them, and then had to jump up and take care of something (we had a Bodily Function Day yesterday). Sometime later that night, I noticed that the Blogger window had been closed, but I figured that one of my helpful children had just exited the program. I didn't think that he or she would be ambitious enough to publish before exiting. I have such nice children. ;)

Here's a picture, then, of the fantastic Schacht Matchless spinning wheel that arrived on Friday (the 13th--a very lucky day, if you ask me--right Beans?). And here is one of my helpful children. She likes to make it go roundy, roundy. I promptly spun some roving from Wooly Wonka Fibers. It's Colombia/Merino cross wool in a color called "Rain". This wool is so crimpy and fuzzy. It didn't seem to want to be a spun terribly fine, so I went with it. I'm not used to thinking that I have multiple bobbins at my disposal and that I could spin half on one bobbin and then half on the other, then ply the two from the bobbins onto a third bobbin. So I just spun the whole 2 ounces onto one bobbin. I may just let it sit for a while and then use it to learn Navajo plying. Spinning Spider Jenny says that Navajo plying is easier if the twist in your single is set--either with time or steam. I'm the sort that is perfectly happy to let my single sit for a while. Besides I have three more bobbins! I'm going to spin some wool that my son gave me for my birthday next.

look, a wheel!

2007-04-19T14:26:00.000-06:00

It has arrived!!! I have my lovely, my precious, my Wheel o' Bliss and Serenity (that's WOBS, or Wobbie if I'm feeling playful).

no knitting, just buttons

2007-04-11T02:27:00.000-06:00

There has been no late-night knitting, just graphic design--such as it is. Since I've spent my time on it, I might as well show you. It's for my blogger friend Marly. She asked me to make her a button for her blog. I made a bunch. They're on my test site and tonight, I made a banner graphic. Here it are. Too bad the sheep's face is so small that you can't see the aghast look. Can sheep look aghast? Must sleep now.

dawn of a new day

2007-03-30T09:56:00.000-06:00

I am a new woman. PeeWee slept for 7 hours last night. I just might conquer the world today. I'm also back on the computer because I scavenged a keyboard to take the place of the Cordless Wonder keyboard. What happened to the Cordless Wonder? A few days ago, PeeWee threw it to the ground and then jumped on it. Do you think she was trying to send me a message? Hmmm. It worked. I had to go cold turkey and haven't read any knitting blogs since Tuesday! It was very good for me.

About a month ago I asserted that I had developed some self-control and was limiting myself to 15 minutes of reading blogs per day. Hahahahaha. That lasted for about a week. I gradually slipped off the wagon until I was lying on the side of the trail. Thanks to PeeWee's intervention, I sprinted to the front of the wagon train and caught up with the laundry. I CAUGHT UP WITH THE MOUNTAIN OF LAUNDRY! I even had time to knit--and spin! I lived my own life. How about that. I won't bore you with my self-analysis of why I'm avoiding my responsibilities and letting myself spend so much time in other people's "lives" as represented by their blogs. I will just say this: I think that sleep deprivation is at the core of the issue. Is it really that simple? Yes. Why? Because I decided it is.

Now that I've confessed all, I can talk about my sock. My first real sock! I started out with the 2x2 rib sock that's in Cat Bordhi's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. I don't like knitting ribbing in the round very much, so after 1-1/2 inches, I changed to stockinette in the back and a leafy rib in the front. After knitting the heel, I switched to 2x2 rib on the instep and stockinette on the sole. It's a little slouchy around the ankle--I should have kept the 2x2 rib on the back of the leg. And I wish I'd continued the leafy rib on the instep. I love it anyway. I'm going to knit the second one the same way, much as it pains me to not make the needed improvement on the ankle. I took a gazillion pictures of it with my foot angled every which way. I discovered that there is no flattering way to capture an image of my, um, shapely ankle. I broke it on a skateboard when I was 12. Yeah, it has nothing to do with any subcutaneous adipose tissue. The invisible-high-heel look was my favorite, although it accentuates the baggy ankle.

I finally plied the Elfin Snow Forest merino roving from Nettie and Tuddie. It's just a regular two-ply. (I had thought about doing chained singles--Navajo plying-- but I decided I couldn't wait until I had someone to properly show me how to do it. This little video clip on the Joy of Handspinning website is helpful, but I want to see someone do it in person.) I LURVE IT! If it hadn't been wet last night (to set the twist), I'd have slept with it.

It has some strange, nubbly areas and you can see that my spinning is still quite uneven, though getting finer. I'm thinking of knitting an Argosy scarf out of it, though it might be a little bulky for that.

Or, I could hang the yarn in PeeWee's room by the two Max Hammond paintings at the top of the post. PeeWee likes to hug the yarn, stroke it, and say, "Pitty-arn!" Where does she learn these things?

safety first

2007-03-22T12:26:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I posted. I just haven't the heart (or apparently the brains to save back up copies and thus alleviate frustration) to retype lost posts after the computer decides that something untoward is occurring and all Internet access must be immediately terminated! (save draft)

You see, I have a teenage daughter. I have a pre-teen-who-thinks-he's-just-as-mature-and-capable-as-his-teenage-sister son. They have been repeatedly warned of the dangers of chat rooms. They chose to disregard the warnings and were apprehended in the course of chatting! Something about being irritated and trying to sound authoritative makes me go all formal and multi-syllabic. (save draft)

A very vigilant and jumpy net-nanny program has been installed on the computer. It's killing me. It shuts me down mid-post about every 3 minutes. I've been avoiding confrontation and just not trying to blog in the past week, but I'm suffering withdrawal. I've simply got to expose my dirty laundry to the world and maybe some knitting, too. (save draft) You know, I could compose this in another program and then copy and paste! A-ha!

All right. I've typed up the rest of my say, and now--careful there--I'm gingerly pasting it in... Yes.

Knitting. It has been slow going with one stitch forward and 3 stitches back. I’ve been doing some of the frogging myself, and I’ve had some help from tiny friends. Look.
Can you read that baby body language? The picture is a little dark, so I’ll translate for you. Sis, in front, is saying, “Oh no. I think she’s mad at me. Maybe if I don’t look at her…Hmmm. Is that a goldfish cracker over there?” PeeWee, in back, is saying, “Ooooo, you are in trouble! Don’t you know you’re only supposed to pat the yarn?” Two disastrously paired events occurred to bring about this unfortunate mess: 1) I was foolish enough to leave the in-progress Sweet Pea sweater and two balls of beautiful Sublime yarn artfully arranged in a bowl on my coffee table (I don’t have cats and PeeWee has been trained since infancy to respect the knitting); 2) I had the audacity to make a solo visit to the potty. Five minutes of negligence lead to 2 hours of untangling. No, I could not pitch it—it’s SUBLIME, darn it!

Spinning. I bought some kinda garishly dyed roving a week ago, a little rough but with a nice long staple length, for some serious practice on my wheel spinning. I’m amazed at how the colors change as the fiber is spun. I started out thinking that this roving was a little ugly, and know I really like it! I’m excited to see what the plied yarn looks like—maybe I’ll try doing chained singles (aka Navajo plying) with it and then use it for a Fake Isle hat. That would be cool. The beautiful Elfin Snow Forest roving is buried underneath the purple/teal/lime-green on the bobbin, patiently waiting to by plied. I’m avoiding plying it because I’m afraid that I didn’t put enough twist in the singles and they’re going to come apart when plied. I’ve got to suck it in and just do it. I don’t think the honeymoon with spinning is going to end any time soon. I love it more and more every time I sit at the wheel. I’m so anxious to get my own lovely Schacht. Come soon to me, my darling matchless one!

P.S. I have a Secret Pal!!! (Hi spinaddict!)

BIG NEWS!!!

2007-03-12T12:48:00.000-06:00

Okay, calm down. It's not actually BIG NEWS about me. I'm just thrilling over the news that one of my favorite knitbloggers has just been named the new editor of Interweave Knits!!! Yes, Eunny Jang, that designer-knitter-writer extraordinaire, with her marvelous and brilliant knitting aesthetic will be directing my favorite magazine. I'm pleased, can you tell?

That last post, the one with the glamour shot of a cheese wedge, got the most comments ever! Seven! Is it the cheese? Is it the fact that Kristen commented twice? Is it my incomprehensible obsession with spinning? Speaking of spinning...If you start with this:
Elfin Snow Forest merino roving (3.39 oz) from NettieandTuddy.

Then you kinda pull it apart into strips, roll it up and get this:

Next you take one of these:
Wait--Wait!!! Was that spinning wheel? Why yes, it was. One of the ladies at spinning night on Friday took pity on me and brought me one of her 7 (seven!) spinning wheels to tide me over until mine arrives. How nice is that? Very nice.

Okay, then you take the wheel, give it a spin, stretch out that roving, let it twist, and then you get this:

See? I get to make my own yarn! Next, I get to knit it!! But first, I think there's a load of darks getting musty in the washer...

of course, cheese is always a safe topic

2007-03-09T00:42:00.000-07:00

The camera. It went missing again. It has been found, again. This time there was an incriminating 3-second video clip that proved it had traveled covertly to the middle school. The offending camera gremlin has been reprimanded and sentenced to a month of solo dish-duty. She's pretty pissy about the whole affair. Sorry. I used a vulgar word there. I just can't think of a better way to describe a 13-year-old's mixture of outrage and embarrassment. Mom taught me better than that, didn't she Beans? I should be able to come up with something pithy. Pissy. Pithy. Heeheehee. I make myself giggle sometimes, usually late at night when I should be in bed. Oh, like right now! But I can't sleep, you see because I'm thinking about...The Spinning Wheel o' My Dreams!

Yes, a single-treadle Schacht Matchless spinning wheel. (Why single-treadle? I like being able to treadle with one foot at a time, if I wish. Have I already said that?) Only 5 more weeks to go until it's here in my very own home. Tomorrow is spinning night at the Lovely Little Local Fiber Shop--Oh all right! It's Rumpelstiltskin, okay? Now I've named names, I might as well say the the owner is named Monica and she's a lovely woman and a great spinning teacher and all that hooey I said last time that made me sound irritatingly noble about "buying locally" is just so that I can keep going to spinning night without feeling horrible for showing up with a wheel that I could have gotten from her, but didn't. Marly, I am not a better woman than you, I'm just way too worried about what other people think of me. I think we need a change of subject. How about some cheese?

Aged Cardona from Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin. This is a fantastic cheese. It's an aged goat cheese, firm but not crumbly, nutty and sweet and just right. It's pleasantly sharp and has those great crystals that I've noticed in other favorite aged cheeses (most notably Parmigiano Reggiano) yet it feels nice and smooth on the tongue.

I did manage to get a teeny bit of knitting in while PeeWee was sick. She's all better now, which is wonderful. I appreciate her good health much more than I did/do with my other kids. I hate it when she's sick because I tend to run through all the worst case scenarios in my head when she starts looking poorly. Anyway--Knitting! I should post a picture of the sweater I'm knitting for PeeWee, but I'm thinking of submitting it to Knitty and they require designers to keep mum about designs until publication. So since I'm SUCH an optimist, I'm just going to talk about it, but not show it. Boring. I know. Well, I'm done with the back of Sweet Pea. I've cast on for the right front and it's going FAST. I love little pieces--they make me feel like I'm getting a lot done. Monica (who's Monica? see above) mentioned in passing that she only gets about 2 hours of knitting is each day. ONLY! Harumph. I get 20 minutes. Yep. I've been keeping track for the past couple of weeks and I average 20 minutes of knitting per day. On a good day, I can get in a half-hour. It's a good thing that I can see the positive side of things and can mumble "times and seasons" to myself, or else I might be tempted to box lovely Monica about the ears with her favorite mahogany nostepinde.

positive

2007-03-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

First off, I found a picure of one of my first knitted baby sweaters. That's Lovey, proudly holding a sweet little design from Debbie Bliss' Quick Baby Knits. The yarn was a cashmere-merino blend that I'm sure got felted years ago by my sweet sister-in-law.

Yike. It's been over a week since I posted. In the beginning of this blog, I was determined to keep a separate journal for those things (you know, those things) that I wouldn't want on the wordly wibe web, but needed to get in print and out of my system. I have a couple of entries in that journal. The rest of those things have just faded away, and it's just as well because I'm trying to focus on the positive. Here are some examples of how darn optimistic I can be. Are you ready?

1) PeeWee has ear infections and slept fitfully last night--and I slept not at all. Right now she is dozing on the couch because I parked her in front of a Barney video so that I could go take a shower. Barney. Tsk. I know. Positive: I just had a shower! Wahooo!

2)I have often stated that I feel strongly about supporting the little independent local stored in my valley. I had to put my money where my mouth was (is?) when it came time to order my spinning wheel. (Yes! I'm getting a spinning wheel. Wheeee!) You see, websites like The Woolery and another spinning shop in Colorado called Bountiful Spinning and Weaving had the same wheel that I wanted for a GREAT below-retail price, plus bonus fiber just for ordering, plus free shipping with no sales tax, plus the wheel is IN STOCK. My lovely little favorite local fiber shop will get the wheel in 6 weeks for the regular retail price, plus shipping, plus sales tax, plus no bonus fiber. Sigh. The thing is, I just couldn't bear the thought of showing up for spinners' night (hosted by the fiber shop owner) with a wheel that I bought ON THE INTERNET. So. Positive: I'm getting a spinning wheel! I've done my part to ensure the continuing presence of a lovely little local fiber shop! I didn't even brag about what a saint I am for buying my wheel locally. Um--until now. That's okay--you three won't tell, right? ***ETA: Monica, if you ever read this, just don't mention it to me, okay?***

3)I can't seem to get myself to focus on one knitted item long enough to finish it before starting 3 other items. Positive:I have so many fun projects to choose from! I probably have a years' supply of yarn. Yes! I might need more unspun fiber, though. Maybe a sheep or two in the back yard...

camera found!

2007-02-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize how much I use my camera until it was missing. Where was it? Hmmm. It mysteriously appeared on my 13-yo daughter's desk in her room on Sunday. Hmmm, again. Perhaps we'll never know where it was in between shooting this on President's Day:

and this one week later:

Awww, Mom! We would never hide your camera! Uh-huh. Such sweet little girlies.

Okay, on with the show. Here's my Sweet Pea chart and yarn (please see the previous post for more detail on this lovely yarn). Aren't those colors beautiful? Yes--sublime, indeed. I cast on to knit it in one piece to the sleeves and knit about 1 1/2 inches, but then decided that I didn't like the way the cast-on row looked. I had done the "proper" thing of following the long-tail cast on with a wrong side row and it just looked smushy. It was also rolling to the knit side severely, even though I'm starting out with a 1x3 (interspersed with a vine rib that's 1x2x1) rib on the bottom. So I pulled it out and changed my first row to a right side row and, yes, I now have little purl bumps on the bottom of the right side, but I like it. I also decided to knit it in pieces (back and fronts) and I'm feeling a greater sense of accomplishment since my rows are now only 74 stitches wide instead of 153. I don't mind seaming that much and now I can make adjustments to the size of the fronts if it turns out that my calculations were off on how much the vine rib contracts. I'll get a shot of the back piece tomorrow. I've actually got about 7 inches of it done--amazing with all of the rip-and-redo action going on around here.

This past Friday was spinner's night at the shop where I took my spinning class. Just look what a nice spinning wheel can help a person turn out! Shall we have an extreme close-up? Yes, I think so. That's some natural brown Corriedale-cross wool spun on a Schacht Matchless double-treadle wheel. It's wound on a toilet paper roll and can you see the difference between what I'm doing now and what I was doing three weeks ago? I want a spinning wheel with every fiber (heh) of my being. I need it. I neeeeeeeed it. I've been researching wheels and I've about come to the conclusion that a Lendrum would be perfect for me. I've tried out every kind of wheel I can get my hands (an feet) on, but I haven't found anyone locally who has a Lendrum to let me give it a test drive. I still think that it would be a good choice. My spinning teacher likes Lendrums (if only she carried them at her store!) and I have found that I like the same things in a spinning wheel that she does. If only I could get myself to stop buying yarn and save some money for a wheel. Hmmm. I have a birthday coming up...

sublime Sweet Pea

2007-02-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

I can't find my camera, so we'll have to go strictly verbal with this today. I have been making up my own design for the Pea Pod KAL. I've been swatching my little heart out for what I've decided to call the Sweet Pea. After running through some merino from Rumplestiltskin's, some Classic Silk from Yarn Today, and some (desperation) Peaches and Creme from the little old King's store downtown, I finally found My Yarn. It's Sublime (how perfect that My Yarn should be named with one of my all-time favorite adjectives) and it is machine washable Extrafine Merino Wool DK. Does life get better than this? I think not!

I actually did 2 inches of the Sweet Pea with the Classic Silk and then abandoned it completely once I saw the Sublime yesterday afternoon. Yarn Today had just gotten it in and they have every color in the DK line. SO BEAUTIFUL. It's distributed by Knitting Fever and you can see it and the patterns they have to go with it here. In the fine print of the label it says "Sublime, a division of Sirdar Spinning Ltd." and they have redeemed themselves from the awfulness of Snowflake by coming up with this sproing-a-licious machine washable yarn. Did I mention that it's machine washable? After trying to tell myself that I really did like the (not machine washable) Classic Silk, the contrast between knitting unforgiving silk/cotton and lovely, resilient wool is all the more apparent. And machine washable? It makes me want to knit a whole closet full of kids' knits and write a book to sing its praises. I will call it "What a Mom Wants and What a Mom Needs; 25 Sublime Machine Washable Designs for Children". I heart Sublime.

Would it be bad etiquette to grab a picture of Sublime from Sirdar and post it? I'm doing it. Just watch me. See that color? That's what I'm using for Sweet Pea.

tossing cookies and secret pal questionnaire

2007-02-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

We're all vomiting around here again. I'm very tired of it. Sorry about the dull subject, but there it is.

I need something else to think about...

Wohoo! I signed up for Secret Pal 10! Here be my questionnaire--which may or may not be of general interest. This is really just a meme post, I suppose.

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? My favorite yarns are any weight and any flavor of wool, though I'm currently infatuated with alpaca and Sublime Extrafine Merino DK. My general motto is "cashmere for all", but really, I like all natural fibers. I don't mind cheapo acrylic (especailly if we're talking chilren's or charity afghans) but I don't like knitting man-made furry fibers (I would rather eat road tar than knit with Sirdar Snowflake again).

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? They are currently in an old canvas tote bag.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I tried unsuccessfully to teach myself to knit for many years, but it wasn't until a friend taught me the continental/combination method about 8 years ago that it all made sense. I've been knitting happily since then. I would consider my skill level to be on the advanced side of intermediate. I've made a lot of small things and I often feel that I'm one with the yarn, but I've yet to really do something major, like an adult-size stranded sweater.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? Yes indeedy! I have Amazon.

5. What's your favorite scent? Citrus: lime, grapefruit, orange. I also really like earthy-herbally-minty scents like Burt's Bee's stuff.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Yes, Creme Savers, toffee, and any fine, dark chocolate.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I like to bead and sew. I just learned to spin! I just took a spinning class and I LOVE it. (Shhhhh--I'm getting a spinning wheel for my birthday!!!!!)

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like classical music (Beethoven is my man, but I'm really enjoying early 20th century composers right now), bluegrass (I love me some good foot-stompin' fast note-pickin'!), and jazz (New Orleans, Chicago, bebop, fusion, I like it ALL). Ooo-and Scottish music (you know it's a good day if you get to hear some pipes). I have a fondness for 80's stuff (Journey, John Mellancamp, The Police, U2, R.E.M., New Order, Simple Minds, stuff like that). And yes, my computer is my stereo and it plays MP3s.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? I love all colors! Although I don't really like the color of dryer lint.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I'm married to a most amazing renaissance man--a spectacular artist, a handy-man genius, and an ardent sports fan all rolled into one. We have 5 very interesting and busy children ranging in ages from 13 down to 21 months. We have a dog named Dottie (she's a beautiful mutt--white with black spots on her head), and a fire-bellied toad named Hopper.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? Yes to all but ponchos.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I love to knit children's items since they don't have any *fit* issues like adults usually have. I don't have as much knitting time right now as I'd like, so I mostly stick to small things, but I fantasize about making big cabley sweaters for my honey. I've just discovered sock knitting and I really like it.

13. What are you knitting right now? A baby sweater (Pea Pod KAL!), a baby blanket for my good friend Kristen, a pair of Trekking socks, and a Cat Bordhi moebius. I've just swatched some Silky Wool for an Elsebeth Lavold sweater for myself (!) and I can't wait to really get going on it.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Of course!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I like straights for baby items, circular (metal) for bigger things. I made my first socks (slipper socks, actually) with bamboo DPNs and I liked them--but I decided to try using 2 circs on my current pair and I think I'm a convert.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes.

17. How old is your oldest UFO? I have an 8-year-old pair of Wool-ease mittens that I just can't seem to pick up or let go.

18. What is your favorite holiday? Who can pick a favorite? They're all fun, especially with kids.

19. Is there anything that you collect? Besides yarn? Little dolls, especially from other countries. I have a very small, but cherished pottery collection.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I would love to have Barbara Walker's treasuries, Nicky Epstein's over and beyond books, Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns, Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English, any Starmore book (except Fisherman Sweaters--I have that), and I would REALLY love to find a copy of Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting that I could afford--since that's the book that sparked my love of knitting. I subscribe to Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I'd like to figure out knitting backwards so that I could do that Lizard Ridge afghan without constantly turning the short-rows around.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I am a new sock knitter--I'm currently working on my second pair and I'm really enjoying it. Women's US size 8.5 (European size 40?)

23. When is your birthday? April 3 (me and Doris Day)

preview of coming attractions

2007-02-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is Short Attention Span Yarn Theater. Coming soon to a foot near you, Shoeless Knitting presents a Valerie production of a of a Cat Bordhi design, Star Trekking, a Sock in Motion.

**The next selection is for mature audiences only.**

After months of consideration, the producers of The Booby Square have elected to release this most scintillating sneak-preview. Abandoned for years in the bottom drawer, lonely Lottawool Yarnball finds her way through the perilous thrift store yarn bins and travels to find her destiny in a sizzling-hot dye pot. In the hands of the Knitting Madame, she becomes The Booby Square.

Okay, I can't think of any more clever movie references for the rest of this, and I need to go pay attention to the great hulking pile of dirty you-know-what that needs to be sorted into lights, mediums, darks, baby items, delicates, and things-that-need-to-be-aggressively-bleached. So here is the rest of my week-end knitting. You must agree that I have a rather short attention span. FOCUS, that's what I need. I think I'll finish the Silky Wool swatch first. This yarn is luscious.

This log cabin square is for Kristen's peanut. I was going to do a big ole log cabin baby blanket but I pooped out. I've recruited some friends o' Kristen to make more 8-inch squares out of this Cotton Fleece. I love these strong colors. I think my boys might need some afghans out of this yarn. (Yes, I know I'm delusional. I enjoy it. Dreaming up the project is 2/3 of the fun for me.)

I can't even show you the 4 swatches that I did on Saturday for the Pea Pod KAL because I ripped them all out. I'd better figure out my yarn for that one before PeeWee is too big for it.

The embarrassing thing is that these are only the works-in-progress that I'm willing to let out of the closet. Maybe I'll admit to some more next Monday.

spinning my wheels

2007-02-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the last spinning class. I've been so excited all week to go try out all of the spinning wheels. I finally got the hang of the drop spindle (haha, I just noticed my pun) and I thought I was doing pretty well until I got to class tonight and tried treadling at the same time. Hooo daddy. I'm pretty bad at it. My teacher had six different wheels for us to try. I tried the $350 wheel. I couldn't even get the kinky glob of wool to go onto the bobbin. I tried the $450, the $525, and the $650--no dice.

I was dejectedly slumping on the cute little spinner's stool, when I raised my eyes just long enough to notice that sweet, quiet, unassuming Alex (easily the worst drop-spinner in the class) was busy putting up beautiful lace-weight on the gigantic 30-inch Saxony wheel. Yep. She looked up and saw my wistful (okay, maybe 'slightly hostile' is a more accurate term) gaze and said, "You've got to try this wheel! It makes it so easy!" She jumped up and insisted that she was done. I dragged my pathetic self over to the giant and gave it a whirl (well, actually a treadle) and what do you know? It worked! I spun! I'm going to have to retract that last sentence and say, rather, that IT spun. And it spun like buttah. The treadle motion was so easy and smooth that I was finally able to forget my feet and get my hands to work.

The price of the 30-inch colossus? You don't wanna know. I wish I didn't know. Possibly I could buy it in two years if I sneak the grocery money into a secret account and just feed the family ramen noodles. Twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Yep. One-two-five-oh. My spinning teacher kept comparing wheels to cars, pointing out that a Saturn and a Rolls Royce will both get you to your destination...BUT I WANT THE ROLLS! ARRRRRGH!

So to make myself feel better, I bought some yarn. Yes, of course it was a good idea. No, I don't think that putting the yarn money into the aforementioned secret account to save for the Rolls is a better idea. Hm. Well, I've already wound one hank into a ball and I'm swatching so it's too late to take it back. Besides, this pattern speaks to me. The yarn sings to me. I'm being lulled back to my happy place just thinking about it. I'm going to post the picture and then go finish my swatch. I know it looks a rather nubbly, but you should feel it--it's so smooth and silky. Ahhhhh.

(silent) poetry reading

2007-02-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another Blogger's (silent) Poetry Reading. I first read about this from Kim, who read about it on Cara's blog, who refers to the original site. I'm all for it. The world needs more poetry reading.

Last night I started reading Terry Tempest Williams' book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (I'm a little chagrined that I haven't read it before. Isn't it required reading for anyone who lives in the Western United States? I'm pretty sure it is. I haven't actually gotten into the book yet since I had to read and re-read and then sit and think about this marvelous poem. End of aside.) Williams includes this poem as a preface.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

Spinning Thursday

2007-02-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

I have declared today to be Spinning Thursday. Huzzah! Why all the fanfare? It is because I have crossed the threshold and entered the scintillating world of spinning! I spin! I am a spinner!!! Here is my humble first hank o' handspun yarn: a lofty bulky two-ply Corriedale-cross, taken from greasy wool to plied yarn all by myself!!!!! Okay, I had a lot of help from my teacher.

And next week--next Spinning Thursday--we get to try out the wheels! I'm beside myself, can you tell?

No comments, please, about the so-bulky-that-there's-almost-no-twist plies. Hopefully, I'll keep getting better at it.

orange square, thinking, skiing

2007-01-31T09:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been thinking again. Here, let's get the knitting content taken care of first, then you can navigate away if bathroom philosophy is not your bag. (That would be deep thoughts that come to one in the bathroom, NOT thoughts about the potty! Good grief. And why am I having deep thoughts in the bathroom? Well, isn't that about the only quiet place in the house? Yes.) What were we talking about?

I finished my square for the square-along out of the Knit Picks Bare 100% merino that I dyed with Kool-Aid. (Please, if you click on that link, forgive me for posting my dirty laundry on the internet. Apparently I have no shame. I know. Can you believe I actually put my dirty laundry on the internet? I've lost something here--Sense of proportion? Decency? Marbles?) Back to the knitting! [sound of whip cracking] Making this square made me want to knit a wee baby blanket for Kristen's pea-in-the-pod. Maybe I could get some other knitters to do some squares, too. Bueller? Bueller? (I'm fishing for replies here, Wendi and Julie. Anyone else?) Little squares like these are SO easy and quick!

May I just wax poetic for a moment about the color orange?

O orange, glow and gleam--
Thy radiance is of the sun
Whose beams, captured here
Burn eyes, but not skin.

Thank you for your patience.

So I was in the shower this morning, and I started thinking about how I was in Colorado last week, unknowingly mere minutes away from Marly and how fun and easy it would have been to hop in the car and go meet her. So as I stood there this morning getting pruny (it takes me a long time to have these deep thoughts) I pondered the emergence of a new social construct. I am becoming acquainted, nay, friends with people whom I'll possibly never meet in person. We share a passion for fiber arts and that has brought us to this medium, blogging, wherein we write about our knitting, certainly, but also we mix in intimate details of our lives. (Like dirty laundry, for Pete's sake. Sheesh.) A person like me has to be careful not to get sucked into reading blogs to the point of negecting her own life. It's the same problem I have with being drawn into a book and binge-reading until I'm done--except with blogs, there is no tidy ending. (Don't worry, I've discovered the solution for me: 15 minutes a day for blog reading--then I back away from the computer.)

Anyway--I was considering the network of relationships around the world, virtual friendships that enlarge the average person's circle of influence beyond what would ever have occurred in the past. Is this good? Is this bringing heightened awareness of the human family to which we all belong and increasing our understanding? Is this bad? Is this just feeding and unleashing the inner narcissist? Hmmm.

I went skiing last night! It was my first time downhill skiing and I loved it. My church had a night-skiing event and my older kids really wanted to go--so Eric stayed home with the little ones and I hit the slopes. I used to cross-country ski when I was young, but racing downhill, on the verge of collision and wipe-out is exhilarating! It's just one big adrenaline rush. No wonder people pay a lot of money for it. We've got a great little ski area nearby (30-45 minute drive, depending on RV encounters) and I want to go again--today and the next day and the next day...I'm already plotting the balaclavas and wool socks that I'll need to knit to be properly outfitted. Knitting and skiing, what a perfect combination. I can't believe I didn't see it before.

baby sweaters! (or baby anything, really)

2007-01-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

KNITTING FOR BABIES! Is there anything better? No, there isn't. It's the best. So we need a knitalong, don't you think? Yes, we do. I made a blog to go with it and everything! Now we just need some joiners. Anyone? Anyone want to join and show us what you're knitting for baby? Well, maybe it's just the three of us, but it's going to be AWESOME. TOTALLY. Maybe even TUBULAR!

Here's the link. Here's the button:

I had thought that I'd start with the Pea Pod Baby Set (because basically, it's the eponym and motivator of this KAL) for my little PeeWee, but then, fickle knitter that I am, I saw this! A Cardigan for Merry. I am a sucker for Lord o' the Rings-themed apparel. Did you see the clasp on the bracelet in my last post? I totally want to get another one and use it on a long elfin cape. (I know, I'm a Middle-Earth nerd, but I'm not afflicted nearly to the degree as dear Wendi, who tells me that she's probably so short from spending her adolescence as a Hobbit.) But I digress. Anny Purls is inspired. Her other baby (and adult, too!) knits are fantastic. Go look! So this baby cardi is what I'm going to do next, after I get the testalong-knitalong items squared (heh) away. But what yarn? Hmmm. Suggestions?

***Edited to add:

I was just pulling out my winter 2006 Interweave Knits magazine to look at the pattern for A Cardigan for Arwen, upon which the above-mentioned Cardigan for Merry is based. Guess what? I can't believe that I didn't note this before, but Arwen is designed by none other than Pea Pod Baby Set's designer, the august Kate Gilbert! Well tan my hide and fry me brown, as Abner's Ma would say. You may call me a fan, because I love her designs! Maybe we should rename this KAL as the Kate Gilbert fan-along.

responsibility

2007-01-26T02:17:00.000-07:00

RESPONSIBILITY. Its a heavy word. I did not embrace it today. I am not embracing it even now. E is gone on a trip (another one-man show!) and I find myself staying up late, watching movies he wouldn't like and eating stinky cheese.

Today I didn't do any of this:

You all are so lucky that the battery in my camera pooped out. You've been spared highly embarrassing pictures of my kitchen sink and my family room. It's Julie's fault. She needed reassurance because she was suffering under the mistaken impression that I'm spending all sorts of time making stuff AND my house is clean. HAHAHAHAHAHA. You know me better than that, Julie.

So what else did I do today to avoid that stuff up there? First I did this.(But Mom, where did all your pretty sparkly silver hair go?)

And while I was at the salon, I finished this.It's Eric's Christmas scarf. [embarrassed tittering] Too bad he's gone to Aspen and doesn't have it.

Then I came home and finished up dyeing this. I used 3 packages of orange, 3 packages of tamarind, and one package of black cherry Kool-aid. It smells great. It's for the square-along, since I'm too selfish to use up any of the sock yarn I have for anyone else.

Then in the afternoon, I finished reknitting the meathead hats that were picked by Larissa for her book. I've been letting my kids wear them and the originals are all squirrely. I'll shoot photos of the do-overs tomorrow and get them sent off like I was supposed to two weeks ago.

Finally, tonight was my spinning class! I made the children a colorful, if not nutritious meal of Mac-o-cheese, pickles, and chocolate milk. Then I ran off to see what I could make of all that wool I washed in my bathtub. What did I make? My very first handspun yarn. Yay! I'm a little behind the rest of the class because I missed last week, but I've got a good start! We're learning first on drop spindles. In a couple of weeks we get to use wheels. Yeah baby.

P.S. There's a bead shop next door to the salon. I went in. I beaded. I love it. Can you see the bitty bee charm dangling there?

Today was a completely self-indulgent day.

blue, er--purple Monday

2007-01-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm home! I'm so glad to be home. I will grab a few moments while I wait for the next load of laundry to post some glamour shots of the Purple and Brown Wrap. (Why do I feel the need to name my handknits? And it's such a creative name...) My wrap, which had mostly been knitted the car while waiting for children to attend various lessons, was completed on the road this past weekend. I was knitting as fast as I could to make the deadline on the 20th for photos to the pattern designer Sarah. I managed to take that squirrely photo that's in the previous entry, but I couldn't get it to upload to flickr! Grrr. It's just as well. I'm saved the task of deleting it to make way for these pictures...

(The ornate frame on this painting suits the wrap, don't you think?)

"In the morning the wrap remained where she had flung it after the show--on the corner of her favorite painting..." (As I said in the caption on flickr, please forgive my third-person narration, but this romantic wrap inspires all sorts of storytelling in my head.)

unfortunately, I don't ski

2007-01-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

I'm in Beaver Creek, Colorado. What a gorgeous place. Eric had a gallery opening last night and tonight. We got put up in a posh hotel by the gallery and fed superb food at fantastic restaurants. We brought PeeWee (of course, because I don't leave home without her) and Big Sister (because she needed a little spoiling and because she functions beautifully as a built-in babysitter). Big Sister and I shopped a little, messed around a lot, and went ice skating this afternoon. It's just as well that I don't ski, because I would have to sell one of my kids on eBay to afford lift tickets and equipment here.

I finished my wrap for the wrapalong-knitalong and I'm going to try to upload some pictures of it. This WiFi connection has been a little spotty, so we'll see...
Ta Da!!!! It worked! The colors are a little weird because I borrowed a camera from the gallery for this shot and I had to use a flash. I'll be home Sunday evening, and I'll get better pictures then.

123's and abc's

2007-01-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

First of all, y'all knitters should go look at januaryone's post about casting on for ribbing. Fanfreakingtastic! I used an alternating cast-on like she shows for Joe's ill-fated brioche-stitch hat, but didn't realize what it was until I read Cara's explanation and realized that I could do it for ANY ribbing!

On with the backwards Jackson 5 reference: I grabbed this meme from Rebekah (I followed a link from Wendy Knits this morning when I should have been working on my taxes. I know, it's only January, but I have to have them done by the end of this week for other reasons. bleah. Yes, I'll go back to them in a minute...) So anyway, I saw this meme and since I figured that no one would be tagging me for it, I'm going to crash the party and tag myself! It's such a nice, literary meme that I had to do it.

The Page 123 Meme
1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, look down to the 5th sentence.
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Include the title and the author's name.

See? Who could resist that? Since I'm a rule-breaking party-crasher, I'm going to take the liberty of changing item #3. I'm going to post the text of the next 5 sentences, because I live by the motto that more is better. So here's mine:

After the shearing Jo had gone home and stunned them all with her sacrificial present, the profit from her bounteous hair, her one beauty, as her sisters so backhandedly put it.
"If Marmee had begged Jo to go cut off her hair and sell it," Swede hypothesized, "I wonder how heroic a thing it would have been."
I didn't say anything. But I thought: Aw, crumb.

Here are some of the things we bought, Swede and I, having propped Dad in bed with a a cup of beef tea: Aunt Jemima syrup in a brown bottle, twenty pounds of white Robin Hood flour, a sack of raisins and another of currants, two gallons of whole milk, a three-pound can of Hills Brothers coffee, a box of chocolates, free, Otto Schock swore, of clandestine jellies, and a Christmas turkey, purchased live from the poultry man on the edge of town, who had me hold the bird's legs as he beheaded it--how they flailed and pounded in my palms; that creature just flung me all over the yard. (Peace Like a River by Leif Enger)

No, it's not Dickens, but MAN, this guy can crank out the long sentences. I love this book. It was one of my book club's picks about two years ago, and the shelf of books-I-really-love is to my left with this book sitting closest. I was sorely tempted to pull out The Count of Monte Cristo or The Glass Castle (this month's book) or maybe My Antonia to see which page 123 had the best selection. I think this will be fine, although we just barely missed a sentence in which Mr. Enger worked in the words "mien" and "sagacious".

I've been entertained by other's meme posts in the past and even done one. I pooped out on the alphabetic meme after Cara gave me the letter V and I could only think of things like ventriloquism. I think I should probably steer clear of meme's about ME (who wants to know about me and my laundry?) but I love reading them from other bloggers. It's the voyeur in me. Maybe I should try again with that letter V thing. I have a problem with vacillating--should I publish this whiny post or not? Usually I choose not. I wrote a big long post about voice and my deep inner need to find my own, but it was consigned to the void of unpublished posts that I'll stick in a journal instead. The abc-themed meme is supposed to have 10 words starting with a particular letter that represent concepts/themes in a person's life. I haven't done it properly, but I'm going to list a few more V-words and call it done. (By the way, that's the fleece I washed for my spinning class.)

1) Violets--All that I hold dear about my childhood is represented by memories of picking violets in the springtime. I adore spring flowers in general, and violets in particular. I love their fragrance, their colors, their tenacious habit of popping up in the grass. Since I have no pictures of violets, here are blooms from the Christmas cactus that just returned from a month at the plant spa. (That would be the month in which my mother takes my plant to her house and feeds it and loves it into blooming--wouldn't it be nice if we could be plants?)

2) Valor--My mother told me when I was young that my name meant valor--and that meant that I'm capable of doing difficult things. Many times in my life I've been buoyed by the thought that my mother thinks I'm strong. See that picture of PeeWee in front of the poster there on the sidebar? The poster of Rosie the Riveter rolling up her sleeves? That's my mom, right there telling me "We can do it!" Me and the Christmas cactus. (I love my mommy, can you tell? Right now she's babysitting PeeWee and Middle Sister so that I can work on my taxes. Right. I'm on it--in just a minute. I'm almost done here.)

3) Voracious--I'm afraid I have a bit of an obsessive personality. I tend to go on binges. Reading binges, knitting binges, sometimes even chocolate binges. I usually don't binge on food (except at holidays--hello? Who can resist the cardamom bread?) because I don't like feeling overstuffed (just regular-stuffed is fine, though). But I have a REAL problem with neglecting other obligations when faced with the temptations of good literature and good yarn.

That's all. No more about me, at least for now. Your turns Marly, Kristen, and if I may be so bold, Cara. (You see, Cara is one of the popular kids and tagging her feels a little presumptive.) 123's or ABC's or both, you pick. Marly, you get letter J; Kristen you get letter T. Cara, you're so prolific, I figure you can always use a good meme.

****Shirlene! I'm tagging you, too! If you so desire, you get letter B--but will you please at least do the 123 meme? I'd love to know what book is close at hand by your computer. I'm nosy like that.

fire-bellied toad

2007-01-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

In the interest of full disclosure (encouraged by dear Julie) I must let you all know that while I mess around with dye and yarn, my laundry is languishing, the bathrooms are science projects, and we ate on paper plates last night. There. I feel somehow lighter. It's amazing what confession will do for the soul.

This toad was Middle Brother's Christmas present. His name is Hopper. Taking a picture of the aborted Trekking sock with Hopper made me want to dye some green yarn (plus I need some green sock yarn for the Green Sock KAL).

I gave myself Knit Picks' handily packaged "Socks Gift Kit" for Christmas so I pulled out the hank of Bare Sock Yarn that came in the kit and tried to dye it green. I used an unbelievable amount of Kool-Aid to try to get a mottled-toady green. A batch of cookies, two packages of tamarind Kool-Aid and six packages of green later, I had this:

I think I'm ready to graduate to real dye--I was trying for a more intense range of colors and if I'm using 8 packages of Kool-aid and still not getting what I want, it's time for the serious stuff. You can't see much from this shot, but I dumped in the emergency package of evening blue Rit dye that I've had in my cupboard for about 10 years.

The end result is a little more blue than I had originally envisioned, but I'm SO PLEASED! Now I just have to find the right sock pattern for it.

swatching and soaking

2007-01-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, Oh wise Yarn Harlot. I read it. I giggled when I read the post (didn't we all?). I nodded my head repeatedly, affirming your sage advice to never become smug about swatching. Then, (brain like a sieve) I promptly forgot it and cast on a sock. I knit for a couple of inches on really tiny needles with yarn that looks like crochet thread. I gleefully spread out the stitches on the four needles and tried to put the sock on. NOTHING DOING. I transferred the knitting from the needles to a piece of yarn and tried to put the sock on. NOTHING DOING. I pulled the yarn out, rewound it into a tidy little ball, and stuck it back in the skein. Me? Socks? NOTHING DOING. I call this "Aborted Sock Attempt with Toad".

Don't worry. I'll try again in a few days. And I'll swatch first. But right now I've got this wrap going and I really love it. It has beautiful hand-painted yarn and soft furry baby alpaca on nice BIG needles. You see, I don't know if I can use my precious moments to produce the fine-gauge stuff. I have to squeeze in the knitting when I can: a few rows in the laundry room when I should be matching socks, a few rows in the kitchen when I should be loading dishes, a few rows in the bathroom while PeeWee has a bath--or if I can get Eric to go to bed before me, a whole bunch of rows after everyone is asleep and I should be, too. Don't worry, I like my husband and all, but sometimes a girl just needs to knit. And sometimes she needs to be able to finish projects in less than three years.

Guess what? I'm taking a spinning class!!!!!!!! I'm so excited that I'm overdoing it with the exclamation points again!!!!!! We'll learn how to take the wool all the way from fleece to yarn. I came home from my first class with a pound of greasy fleecy and I've been soaking/washing it out in my bathtub. The water that drained off from the first cold soak was downright disgusting. I soaked and drained it 5 times and there were still mats of mud on the tips of the fleece that were not budging. I don't know if I was supposed to do it or not, but I got irritated at the mats and snipped them off. After I did that, the fleece started to look reasonable, so I finally stopped soaking it and it is now hovering on a sweater rack, trying to dry. PeeWee and Middle Sister are feeling very proprietary because they helped drain the tub and swish out the crap each time we changed the soaking water. Next week: carding! I'm all giddy.

yay for socks

2007-01-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm (ever the joiner, despite protestations of needing to be "original" and "unique") adding another knitalong button to the sidebar, not only because I've cast on for a pair of Socks (thin yarn, skinny needles), but also because that button is way cool. Yes, I've cast on for another project; no, I haven't actually completed the wrapalong project.

Wait, did I never publish that post in which I agonized about the pink and blue stripes in the Rusty Wrapalong? Well, in summary, I shoved it into a bag and tried again with the purple and brown--and I'm feeling the love, baby. No worries about abandoning this ship for the third? fourth? time. I'm sticking with this color combination and this time I mean it. How about a picture...

I haven't figured out the white balance thingy on my camara yet--but the yarn colors are accurate. See why I love purple and brown? See why I love Mountain Colors? See why I love Mountain Colors' Red-tail Hawk colorway? All right, maybe not everyone is dying over it like I am, but if you could only see the way those colors slide by on the needles, so individually and collectively gorgeous. The colors are muted--but intense at same time. Confession: I bought the Mountain Colors yarn with the intention of knitting a scarf for a friend, but kept it, as I was quite certain that noone could love it the way I do. Sad, I know, but there we are. :)

back in the saddle again

2007-01-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

These are for the Socks 101 Knitalong.

They are my first socks ever! They were so fast to knit that I hardly had time to feel intimidated. Now I'm feeling obnoxiously overconfident and I'm eyeing one of Cookie A.'s fantastic patterns. Hedera maybe, or the new Monkey. I should probably actually knit some plain socks first. See these? I adore these socks. I'm a closet pinky-girly. They were knit by Cara from what I'm finding out is a wildly popular sock pattern called Jaywalker out of an equally wildly popular sock yarn called Socks that Rock. Will my usual vain need to think that I'm "original" keep me from knitting these socks? Probably not. It didn't stop me from joining in on the Meathead KAL.

I'm feeling grumpy today. The above mentioned Cara kindly gave me a letter for a letter-themed meme. In this meme, a person gets a letter from someone and then he/she has to list ten things, themes, theories, etc. in his/her life that begin with that letter. So what letter did I get? V--A truly wonderful letter. ;) The problem with feeling grumpy is that the only V words that are coming to mind are things like vanity, vexation, vegetate, verruca, and voluptuous. I'd better stop.

New Year's Intentions

2007-01-03T03:15:00.000-07:00

It has been many a year since I actually had the ambition to record any new year's resolutions. I still don't have the ambition for resolutions, but intentions? I can do intentions (as suggested by mamacate, by way of januaryone).

1. Go to bed when PeeWee does.

2. Get up and go to the gym in the morning. (I truly do enjoy working out, but it's going to take the accomplishment of #1 in order to see through #2.)

3. Reclaim the laundry room and surrounding area. This will require daily effort. Yes. Face it. You need to do laundry every day. Get over it already.

There. That's all. I think I'll have monthly evaluations of my intentions and as I get better at actually accomplishing things, maybe I'll get more ambitious! Maybe not. All I really want is for PeeWee to sleep through the night so I can. And maybe some guilt-free knitting/crafting time.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
12
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Only 12? It's that unusual spelling of my last name. If I were still using my maiden name, I'm guessing that there would be more like 300,000 people with my name. I'd better go see... (Beans, I bet you're the only one with your name--that's 'cause you're special.

reevaluation

2006-12-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out the lint trap while doing my favorite activity, and I decided that the reason that I couldn't stand the purple and brown wrapalong cape was because the blasted bulky lavender merino is the exact color of dryer lint! I frogged it. I started over.

This is my third try. I like it. I mean, I really like it. This time I'm actually going to keep going and knit this wrap!

I still might do a purple one, too. Just look at that purple! It just might be worthy of pairing with the Mountain Colors merino ribbon. I had some of the undyed angora handspun left so I threw it in a pot of berry blue and slammin' strawberry-kiwi--et voila! I like it. And this time I mean it. I was just trying to talk myself into liking the blasted bulky lavender, but let's be honest--I don't like dryer lint.

a few days later...

2006-12-29T00:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a holiday! The lovelies all got better from the stomach bug, then it cycled through Middle Sister and Middle Brother again! Despite the fact that our fridge died and we had to throw out all of our Christmas food, Christmas was a wonderful day. Aren't they cute? I like the way that Eric's portrait of Christ looks like He's sitting there in the group photo.

Nice, huh!

Shameless plug: By the way, if anyone would like a copy of this painting, we had it reproduced as a giclee (archival-quality inks on canvas) so that we could give copies to our parents for Christmas. The image is 16x20 inches and mounted on acid-free board, ready for framing. We have extra copies and one could be yours for a mere $160. :)

Okay now, KNITTING!

I am a hopeless knitalong zealot. I learned years ago that I have a yarn addiction; I'm at peace with it. This new, but related obsession with knitting along is perhaps a little scary. I think that the group mentality (the energy, the camaraderie, the peer pressure...) is sucking me in. I'd better take a break from it...in a week or two. For now, another knit-along! This time we have the knitalong/wrapalong/travelalong! This is a fun idea for using stash yarns to make a cape. Would I wear this item? Maybe, maybe not. I'll have to actually finish knitting it and see.

I am completely enamored of the yarn combination possibilities. The requested/suggested yarns are A) some handspun, B) a variegated worsted-ish, and C) some alpaca. Now we all know that I am replete with alpaca, and I have a fair amount of variegated yarns, but handspun? Do I have any? Well, though I am not yet a spinner (it will happen someday...) I do, indeed, have a tiny bit of handspun. I have squirreled away in my stash a hank of Angora Cottage sport-ish weight angora/silk/wool!!! It's lovely-soft and a lustrous creamy color (seen here with some Noro Silk Garden and a bit of tan Plymouth alpaca). I started knitting the wrap with it and I hated the stripey look. The contrast between the Silk Garden and the cream handspun was terrible.

I frogged it and stuck the bit of handspun that I had used at the top of the pattern in a pot of steamy Kool-Aid (tamarind, strawberry, some berry blue and a sprinkle of arctic green apple). It just occurred to me that I should have dyed a little more of the handspun for the bottom of the pattern. Hmmm. Oh well. I'm sure that I can replicate my entirely scientific method of measuring Kool-Aid for another batch of yarn. Heh.

In the mean time, I've got a purple and brown fixation (I have a vast collection of purple and brown yarn that are intended for an afghan) that is coming to life as a wrap-along-thing. I adore this Mountain Colors merino ribbon yarn (it's the variegated one). The colorway is called Red-tail Hawk and it is everything that I love in a mixture of colors. It even makes me like the blasted bulky lavender stuff that I felted (whoops!) when I dyed it.

So there we are. I haven't done any more stranding since the green Center Square hat from Knitty. I still plan on making myself those lovely Anemoi mittens from Eunny Jang. I've just got to take care of this wrap first!

bodily function day(s)

2006-12-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you combine a 24-hour stomach virus and 5 kids? A five-day hurl-fest! And let's not even talk about what's coming out the other end. Poor PeeWee's bottom is almost as sore as when she was having chemo. All last minute Christmas knitting has been abandoned in the necessity of using the blessed carpet cleaner. Kristen, if you're reading this, SAVE YOURSELF! Don't come near. We started on Saturday with Middle Brother, then PeeWee had it on Sunday (and Monday--she had it the worst), Middle Sister on Monday, Big Sister today, and Big Brother is likely to succumb tomorrow. Yes, and Eric woke up with it today, too. I'm just glad that we're scheduled to wind up before Christmas Eve.

See that look on PeeWee's face? That's the same look that I have.

soft focus

2006-12-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Here's one last meathead for the Meathead KAL. Here is the Cheesehead III: Swiss. Knit in Lamb's Pride Bulky (color: Aran) with needle felted "holes". I took about 20 pictures of it, trying to get one that wasn't all fuzzy. I finally figured out that PeeWee had stuck her baby-oiled finger on the lens, giving me a nice built-in soft-focus filter. I'm too tired to take another picture, so I'm just going to call it artistic photo effect. This is my middle son. That thing under his nose is a shadow--He doesn't really have a mustache.

I've got to get to bed because (drum roll, please) I've been getting up early in the morning to exercise! I'm having a life change and I just read that Marly is having one too (you go, grrl!) although I haven't tried knitting on the treadmill like she does. I like the elliptical machine and I can't think how I'd manage it. Maybe on a stationary bike...

Some stream-of-consciousness rambling: What's the significance of typing "grrl" as opposed to "girl"? Is it just a bloggy thing to do? Does it show that I'm hip and all that? I don't know. Marly, this one's for you: Why do I love alpaca so much? (baby alpaca...mmmmm...soft...) Probably because I can't afford cashmere. Where is that envelope that I used to scribble the Cheesehead I mouse directions? I'd better find it. I think I'm going to have to knit another one. PeeWee and Middle Sister had too much fun playing with the original one and it has disappeared. Oh noooo--Pee Wee awakens. Must stop rambling.

weekend knitting

2006-12-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

The winter issue of Knitty is out! I got the email announcement of it on Friday, clicked over to see it, and knew that I must knit that hat! (See the pink and red one on the cover? Yes, that one!) So I found an excuse to stop by the yarn shop that afternoon and found these lovely greens. I am currently in love with alpaca--so this is Misti Alpaca worsted. I cast on while I was driving home and then later that night (okay, it was much later--oh, say midnight...) I had this groovy thing! It was a good warm up for the Anemoi mittens. I needed to work out a few kinks in my stranding since I haven't really done any since 1998!

I squeezed three squares for Project Warming Kaitlyn out of one skein of Misti Alpaca Sport. I knit them with two strands held together to make thicker, fluffier squares (yeah, that's it--it has nothing to do with knitterly laziness). As you can see from the photo, I had mere inches of yarn left over. See the loop? That's where the inside and outside strands of the skein came together. Little miracles, all around us...

The first square (bottom left) was done in a honeycomb slip stitch. Let us pay no attention to the row where I forgot where I was slipping and where I was knitting.

The second square (on the right) was done from a heart charted in Alice Starmore's Fisherman Sweaters.

The third square (top left) is a stitch pattern that I made up. I'm sure it exists in a stitch dictionary somewhere, but I had fun figuring it out on my own. I love it. I shall call it Traveling Cable Rib with Eyes. Catchy, huh. I've got to come up with something else to do with it. Maybe one of those 39 scarves I have planned to knit before Christmas. :)

Would anyone like me to post the Traveling Cable Rib with Eyes pattern? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

the day after scans

2006-12-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

This is Eunny Jang. She is a design genius. She just released her latest pattern. She posts some of her patterns for free, but this one is for sale and rightly so! Supporting artists with our $$$ is very important. (No, I have no ulterior motives for exhorting people to spend freely on art...[buy art! buy art!]...what was that? I didn't hear anything. [buy art!] There are no [buy art!] subliminal messages on my [buy art!] blog.)

So for the Stranded Colorwork KAL, I'm abandoning plans to do Baby Norgi first. Instead, since the pattern is now on my hard drive, I'm going to do these spectacular Anemoi Mittens by Eunny Jang.

I was a busy little knitter yesterday. We had a drive to and from Salt Lake City, plus an hour of watchful waiting while PeeWee slept off the sedation--well at least she slept off part of it... I don't often have that much time in one day to knit, so I must say that I surprised myself. I finished this on the drive down:

I keep forgetting to get some raspberry Cremesavers at the grocery store--that's what I plan on using to embellish it.

I started and finished this while PeeWee slept:
This meathead is tentatively titled The Lemonhead (even though it's lime). I used Lamb's Pride Bulky in Limeade. The lemon slice dried for about a week on a piece of wax paper on top of my fridge. This morning I coated it with some glossy Mod Podge. I will probably brush on a few more coats of Mod Podge before I call it good. It was knit on size 15 needles in the smaller size and I had about 7 yards left over.

The Lemonhead was knit in honor of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. This is a fantastic foundation which was started as a little girl's dream to raise the money needed to fight childhood cancer. The little girl, Alex, had the same kind of cancer that PeeWee had (neuroblastoma) and she was determined to do her part to save other kids. Her parents continued with her dream after she passed away and have worked to create an organization that is doing great things in the fight against childhood cancer. We are already planning our own 2nd annual Alex's Lemonade Stand in Honor of PeeWee. Come, drink lemonade, donate with satisfaction that your money is going to be very judiciously and effectively spent to help sweet little loves like PeeWee. (Just my little plug for cancer awareness for the day...)

And I finished this on the drive home: This is Cat Bordi's Moebius Scarf knit in Fleece Artist (or is it Handmaiden?) 4-ply cashmere in the Nova Scotia colorway. It's for my mother.

We were at the children's hospital yesterday for PeeWee's regularly scheduled followup scans (aka The Day o' Torture). The sedation she has to have knocks her out cold for about 2 hours, then she's drunk for the next 24. It would be pretty funny if it weren't sad to see her wobbling around, unable to keep her balance, alternately crying and giggling. That was yesterday. Today, she's just plain belligerent.

So what did the scans reveal? "No evidence of recurrent disease." Yahoooooo! I admit, I was feeling anxious. The greatest chance of neuroblastoma relapse is in the first year after completing treatment. Well, we are now past that first year. Combine that with the fact that PeeWee's tumor didn't have the gene amplification that increases likelihood of relapse and that puts her, statistically speaking, in the clear. So the great news from yesterday was that PeeWee's oncologists feel that further regular scans are unnecessary!!!!!!!! Did you hear that? NO MORE SCANS! We'll still have quarterly clinic visits with urine and blood tests for the next couple of years, but that's nothing! Dr. Afify, a most compassionate and understanding woman, even asserted that we could do every other visit with our local pediatrician! So that means visits to the children's hospital only every six months!

stranded

2006-12-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

I LOVE stranded knitting--Fair Isle, Latvian, Swedish, Norwegian, South American, Fijian (I know, there's no tradition of stranded knitting in Fiji, but they have lovely tapa cloth patterns that I'm sure I'll find the time to recreate in wool...someday...about the same time I get all the laundry done which will probably be NEVER!!!) Sorry, what were we talking about?

Well, I done gone and joined myself another knit-along! The Stranded Colorwork Knit-Along!

I couldn't help it. Stranded knitting is magical. I first came under its spell upon cracking open Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. It was mis-shelved at the library next to the silk-ribbon embroidery pattern books. I was not yet a knitter (though I had been trying to teach myself since I was 9--I had found a little unfinished pink baby sweater that my mother had started for me that was so tiny and sweet that I resolved to learn how to knit so that I could finish the sweater). I was transported, illuminated, enlightened by those stunning Fair Isle patterns. My fruitless attempts to teach myself had been very discouraging, but Alice Starmore seemed to hold out her hand to me, telling me to try again. Fortunately I had recently become friends with a knitting-Wendy (actually it's Wendi). When I found out that she was a knitter, I asked her to teach me. I didn't have to ask twice. THANK YOU WENDI! It was a glorious summer afternoon and she sat me down on her front porch, handed me a pair of mismatched aluminum Boye needles and a ball of squeeky green acrylic. It was eight years ago and one of the best days of my life.

The first thing I knit was a baby blankie in cream colored Lion Brand Homespun. I promptly gave it away. I have no pictures. It was shaped like a trapezoid. I learned a lot. The second thing I knit was this lonely little baby mitt. You see, Alice had convinced me that stranded knitting was my destiny--so I kept the mitt, though it never acquired a mate, to remind me that when the season of life was right, I would have time to knit something amazing. I'm not sure that I have arrived at that season, but I'm going to ease myself into it by doing something that accomodates the omnipresent needs of my children. (No, no--please don't misunderstand. I'm not complaining. Oh, all right, I am complaining. It's just that I wish that some little elves would sneak in and do my housework for me. But as Wendi has said, "There is no elf; do it yourself." See? She's not only a wise and gracious knitting instructor, but a poet and philosopher!) So I'm thinking of the beautiful Proper Colorwork Mittens that Eunny Jang designed and showed in this post. But until she writes up the pattern for them, I'm going to start with a pattern from Knitty.com--Baby Norgi.

big decision

2006-12-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

As I rocked PeeWee to sleep tonight, I came to a "conclusion". I must change the name of my blog. "Barefoot" just does not represent "me" or at least the "knitting me" since I am consumed with the desire to knit socks. Then there's that other little urge that I have to put a disclaimer after "barefoot" that says "but not pregnant"--but that would be stupid. So I have made a "big decision"--I will return to my roots and go back to "shoeless", since that is my desired state of being--and it is winter and I'm currently wearing slippers.

Way too many quotation marks...

Gorgonzola

2006-11-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Cheesehead II: Gorgonzola

This represents my first attempt at dying yarn. If I hadn't already been moved to painfully bad poetry by the last meathead (Cheesehead I), I would be breaking into verse right about now.

Dying yarn is incredible! The only thing that I could imagine to be better would be dying unspun fiber and then (gasp) spinning it myself! 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. (There. I knew I could work in some verse at some point. That's Shakespeare, for those of you who have forgotten the To Be or Not To Be soliloquy that you had to memorize in high school. I, of course, remember it because it is all in line with my superfreaky need to be perceived as well-read. Whether or not I am well-read is another matter.) Back to the matter at hand...

I wound a skein of cream Lamb's Pride Bulky into a hank, pulled it into an irregular triangle, rubber-banded the points together and then dipped them into a pot of steaming hot Kool-Aid. Yummy! I used one packet of Berry Blue, one packet of Arctic Green Frost, and 1/4 packet of Grape. I let it sit for half an hour. The dye bath didn't go clear as the Kool-Aid dying directions say it will, but the yarn color was right.

After a rinse and dry, I had this hank of hunky loveliness. And then 1 1/2 hours later I had my Gorgonzola! So what does one use to embellish a hat named after such a fabulous cheese? Why pears, of course! First I tried beading a green pear. Didn't look right. It had too delicate of a look for all that bulky yarn--And I liked the idea of warm tones to contrast with those cool blue veins.

I cut a pear out of tan felt just to check for size, because I thought I might try to do another beaded pear with chunkier amber and bronze beads. But that little felt pear grew on me--So I dusted it with a some eyeshadow, glued on a stem, and here we are!

The children are whining something about "food" and "hunger" and "neglect". I suppose I should go...

Cheese, Gromit!

2006-11-24T01:25:00.000-07:00

Yes. I confessed in my last post "My Life. My Blog" about my weakness for cheese. I love cheese. There. I don't mind saying it and having everyone (anyone?) read it. I love clumps of curdled, bacteria-laden milk products. I especially love it if they are goat milk products. And I love knitting. (Shhh. I actually love knitting more, but don't let the friendly hordes of micro flora in my reefer know.) Now the two have come together in a most gratifying way. How can that be, you ask? Is she knitting with mozzarella strings? No, no. You see that little button on the sidebar? The one that says "meathead"? Well, I present for your viewing pleasure, the Cheesehead! Ta Da!

Thou meathead, thou hat,
Sprung forth from my needles,
O object of my creation,
Though thou wert designed by another,
Yet still thou art mine entirely, forsooth
I did dream of thee with thy wee felted vermin
Attached.

Thou meathead, thou hat,
Thy decreases curvaceous,
Thy gauge Oh! so bulky,
Thou hast made of me a finisher,
Tho' still my cast-ons do outweigh
I become more truly a Knitter with thy seaming
Completed.

I am inordinately proud of this, this, really pointy hat! Why? Why am I so intensely pleased about this? Perhaps because it was SO quick to make, or perhaps because I'm just so in love with the mouse. It's all hairy. I shall call the hat Cheesehead I: Vermont Cheddar. Cheeseheads II and III are forthcoming. I had planned to have them all done before posting about them, but after the delight of felting that little mouse, I couldn't hold back. I think we need a closeup of the mouse.

Project Specs for Vermont Cheddar
Patterns: meathead hat--Larissa of Stitch Marker; mouse--my own

Yarns: hat--Lamb's Pride Bulky in sun yellow and I used all but 3 yards of the skein; mouse--KnitPicks Suri Dream in sandstorm

Needles: hat--US size 15 straights; mouse--US size 7 straights

Likes: Super quick to knit (2 hours maybe? too many interruptions to know) and dang it, that point is cute. The pattern was a breeze. I had so much fun making the mouse. It was my first intentionally felted item and I'll cherish the memory of its drowned little carcass swirling around in the pot on my stove. I used a couple of jet black seed beads for eyes and some black fishing line (Fireline) for the whiskers.

Dislikes: Hmmm. None! I do usually prefer knitting hats in the round, but I don't have double points in the right size--knitting it flat was fine because seaming it was such a quick job.

Oh, and no, I'm not from Wisconsin, although I hear it's lovely. Nor have I ever been to a Packers game or worn a cheese wedge-shaped block of foam on my head. The closest I have come was a Browns/Chargers game in San Diego in 1993. After a thrilling overtime victory by the Brownies, my husband did, indeed, eat a dog biscuit offered to him by a member of the Dawg Pound.

Holy Toledo! I hear the milk truck. Yep, there go the empty bottles...(clunking) and there are the 5 half-gallons of 1%. This means I have officially stayed up WAY too late. In my defence, darling PeeWee has been waking up screaming every half-hour. Either she's having chemo nightmares again, or the pumpkin pie is not sitting well. I don't think it's the latter. She has been trending toward better sleep patterns, but something has set her back tonight. Sometimes it's easier just to stay up rather than get in and out and in and out and in and out of bed. I usually take her to bed with me around 4 AM on nights like these. Eric is such a light sleeper that once PeeWee is in our bed, he's done sleeping. More than you wanted to know...oh well. It's my blog and I like it. Wow, look at me being all sassy. Didn't know I had it in me, did you? (Don't answer that, Beans.) (Beans is my sister.)

My life. My blog.

2006-11-22T03:34:00.000-07:00

What fun. I nabbed this from Cara of januaryone and I likey. First the black and white self-portrait:

I'm totally copying Cara. She is a professional photographer and her black and white self- portrait is in focus and artistic. Mine, on the other hand, is fuzzy and odd. I'm trying to look mysterious. I like to think that I just help other people feel better about themselves when they look at my feeble attempts. I kind of like it, though. As Burt would say, "Better than a finger in the eye, ain't it?" (And if you don't know who Burt is, you are lacking a good dose of Mary Poppins.)

And here is the utterly unmysterious written part of the exam:

Can you see that? Oh well.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled content...

I've got some pink 5 inch squares going for this worthy endeavor: Project Warming Kaitlyn And I'm awhirl with Meathead ideas. Do I have pictures of either? No. Those attempts are still in the "feeble" stage. Time to get on with the day. Happy Thanksgiving to you all! (All two of you!!)

and again with Joe's hat

2006-11-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've discovered something ugly about myself and my knitting world has come crashing down around my ears. Here's what happened...

Friday, in the car, driving children home from school. Sweet, lovely, 7th grade neighbor-child says, "Did you make Joe's hat?"

I reply, "Why, yes!" (blush), "I did!"

Sweet, lovely, darling neighbor-child excitedly says, "My grandpa makes hats like that all the time!"

"Oh, how interesting!" I say, slightly puzzled. "Is he a knitter?"

"No," says sweet, lovely, darling, earnest neighbor-child. "He uses one of those round thingys."

"A knitting loom?" I ask, trying to mask my horror.

"Yeah! Is that what it's called? I guess he is a knitter, then, " concludes sweet, lovely, darling, earnest tormentor-neighbor-child.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Yes. The world looks at the hat, the beautifully striped and ribbed Kureyon and alpaca-silk blend hat that filled me with such pride from deciphering the brioche stitch in the round instructions (which wasn't the easiest thing for me, mind you) and sees just another knitting loom hat. Not that there's anything wrong with knitting loom hats...but can't you see the decreases?????? You can't decrease on a knitting loom. Look at the beautiful decreases!!!!! I will probably never knit in brioche stitch again. I'm grieving. I grieve that no one will look at that hat and think, "Hey, someone used double-pointed needles to knit that!" I grieve for the realization that I am such a shallow, vain knitting snob.

brilliant! (and Joe's hat)

2006-11-15T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling just a wee bit smug. Not greatly smug, nor even mildly smug. Just the tiny, but satisfying amount of smugness one might feel when one is essentially new to the blogging universe and one figures out how to put a picture of one's first knitalong on the sidebar. Yes, yes, I know that I first posted an entry almost a year ago, but really. You must cut me some slack for still having late effects of chemo. I wonder how long I can keep laying down that card. . . especially since I wasn't the one who had the chemo. Hmmm. I'd better find a new excuse in light of the fact that PeeWee has been napping for an hour and 45 minutes! Alert the media!!!! She has never had a non-drug-induced nap of that length in her life! Wahoo! If this keeps up I just might conquer the world (or at least the mountain of laundry sitting menacingly behind me)!! I can see it now: sleep-deprived no longer, Valerie takes up her needles and knits sweaters for everyone on her Christmas list! I'm getting delusional. I'd better stop now.

Oh yes, I finished Joe's hat last night. He wore it to school. I'll have to find some sunshine and grab a picture when he gets home. I got a little loopy-loose in my knitting (so what's new) and the hat is a little bigger than it should be. I love it anyway. I love the nifty reversible-ness of brioche stitch and I love the ribs of grey against the strips of Kureyon on the cuff of the hat.

too many projects

2006-11-14T00:37:00.000-07:00

PeeWee's sweater is almost done. It just needs buttons. Seaming it was actually rather gratifying. There really weren't all that many ends to weave in and little bitty sweaters have little bitty seams--so it all came together quite rapidly. That's bizarre. I don't know why that picture went in sideways. Oh well. You'll have to tilt your head. All two of you. ;)

Joe complained to me a couple of days ago that his poor ears are suffering in the cold as he waits for the bus in the morning. His hat from last year seems to have gone missing, so of course I told him I'd whip one up. You see, from the moment he said his ears were cold, my mind had started ticking away, trying to figure out what sort of manly hat I could come up with for my big little man. I have this lovely, slowly growing collection of Kureyon that is intended for my Lizard Ridge afghan. Unfortunately, the pile is vulnerable to pilfering because I just can't resist it. I need to get going on my Lizard Ridge so that I'll stop "borrowing" from its stash. Back to the subject: Joe's hat. I have been intrigued by a pattern in the book Weekend Knitting (I think that's supposed to be underlined, but curiously, there is not a option on Blogger for underlining, only italics or bold) that uses the interesting brioche stitch in the round. I remembered a couple of balls of lovely soft gray KnitPicks Elegance (70% baby alpaca, 30% silk) in my closet that I thought would look great with Kureyon #183, et voila! (I'm having entirely too much fun with that italics button.) (I'm also having way too much fun with this hat. I adore Kureyon and I'm really enjoying the brioche stitch. It's magical the way those slipped stitches and yarn overs come together.) (I'm also way to fond of parentheses.)

And what other projects are lurking about the house? There's the aforementioned Lizard Ridge afghan. Then there's the KnitPicks Geo Moderne afghan. Then there's yet another afghan for my bed(room) which is coming together from a delicious collection of purples and browns. YUMMY! What else? Some fingerless gloves (got some Misty Alpaca worsted in tweedy green for those) Of course, there's the cashmere moebius scarf Christmas gift for my mother. Ooop. Must stop listing. Baby awakens.

Big Sister's world

2006-11-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

When I looked at the computer desk this morning I found this fantastic vignette, courtesy of Big Sister:

I particularly like the perspective lines created by the left knitting needle and the clarinet. And isn't that tiny teacup, sugar bowl, and creamer the perfect little accent? But the thing that amazed me the most was that my 12-year-old daughter figured out all by herself how to do a stockinette/reverse stockinette motif in the middle of her scarf! And unless she has a chart hiding somewhere, she did that heart freeform!! I brought that ball of gold Plymouth Yarn Yukon home from Yarn Today about a week ago. Big Sis saw it and asked if she could play with it. I said yes, but she didn't do anything with it until last night. I went to bed a little early (Pee Wee was tired) and when we left to go start the bath/story routine, Big Sis was just starting to cast on. !!!!! I guess if you have enough yarn lying around and you say you are too busy to give your child knitting instruction, then that child might just get a little defiant and figure things out by herself!

moebius

2006-10-22T03:56:00.000-06:00

Who me? Up all night? Nah. I'm going to get at least 3 hours in bed before the kids wake up. I just have to do one last thing...a picture of the moebius I'm working on.

I caught an episode of Knitty Gritty with Cat Bordi demonstrating her magical moebius cast-on. I recorded it. I watched it three times in a row. I was transfixed. I dreamed about it. I couldn't wait for my order of Hand Maiden cashmere to arrive (that's it in the picture--the color is Nova Scotia) so I got some Classic Elite Miracle (alpaca and tencel blend) at my LYS. (I'm still tickled PINK that I actually have a LYS!!!! That's a Local Yarn Shop, Shirlene.) and I whipped out a loopy, sloppy moebius. I can't stand to have anyone look at it, so I haven't taken a picture of it. Blech. Fortunately, I'm more at ease on this second one and my knitting is much tidier. This lovely Nova Scotia is for my mother for Christmas. I am loving every minute of it. I've never knit cashmere before--blends, yes, but never the straight stuff. It almost defies description. It's like stroking baby skin. Ahhhh.

Does it say something about my personality that when I'm uneasy about a knitting technique that my tension gets looser rather than tighter? Hmmm. Shake it off, Val. This is not the time for excessive introspection. Finish up and go to bed.

morph

2006-10-05T09:59:00.000-06:00

There's PeeWee's little hand, irresistably drawn (like mine!) to this Mountain Colors merino ribbon scarf. I've decided that this blog is going to become my chronical of creative endeavors, most particularly, my knitting projects! Yes, yes! A knitting blog! Of course, there will still be all of that tiresome personal information that leaks around the sides-- but after grappling with the dilemma of posting something meaningful, yet not completely embarrassing, this seems to be the perfect solution! (I figure that being mildly embarrassing should be fine. I am, after all, mildly embarrassed most of the time. It's just who I am.)

Another reason for the morph into a knitting blog is that I have discovered that there is not one, but two (2!!!) yarn shops in my little valley! The closest yarn shop used to be an hour's drive away, but sometime during the cloistered year of PeeWee's cancer treatment, we acquired TWO shops! I've overjoyed! Since my discovery of them a few weeks ago, I have already spent my grocery money on yarn! Who needs to eat? There's Kureyon within my grasp! And a lovely cashmere for Cat Bordi's moebius, and some baby alpaca for a lace shawl, and a locally spun and dyed merino for Elizabeth Zimmerman's nifty knit-in-one-piece baby jacket, and some georgeous Mountain Colors merino ribbon for a scarf, and an assortment of lovlies for an afghan (from Knit Picks, but the purchase was inspired by the presence of the other yarn), and I think that's it for now.

The Noro Kureyon is for an afghan in the latest issue of Knitty. The pattern is called Lizard Ridge and I have joined the Leapin' Lizards Knit-Along (my first knit-along!) since I am determined to have that afghan. Oh yes, it shall be mine. It's georgeous.

I use to hate my stash. In fact, I wouldn't call it a "stash", I'd call it an unfortunate collection of cheap and ugly yarn that I couldn't bring myself to use because it was so awful. Now I LURVE my stash and I feel that in some mystical way found only in natural fibers, it loves me back.

2006-08-28T00:02:00.000-06:00

August is almost over! How does it all go by so quickly? School started and I miss having the children around all day. They are probably glad for the change and the chance to breathe without me listening.

I made more bread. It wasn't worth taking a picture of it. It turned out poorly. I watered down the egg wash too much and sprinkled Germade on top of the loaves. Result: dull, pock-marked, ugly loaves of bread. It tasted pretty good, though. I didn't oversalt the dough this time. I may break down and start using a recipe, but I do enjoy just dumping stuff in to the bowl. It makes me feel liberated and innovative.

I've got about 7 knitting project that I want to start. Each child needs (NEEDS? Ha!) a sweater and Bev and Lydia both want leg warmers for dance. I want to find a lovely pinky self-striping merino for the leg warmers. Bev wants a lime green and yellow tweed wool for her sweater. Lydia wants a pink cotton-silk blend. Ted wants the bulky blue wool that I already have in my stash. Joe just wants anything--he doesn't care what, just so long as I actually finish it before he grows out of it. I think Ted's will get started first, seeing as how we are in between gallery checks just now and a trip to the yarn shop would not be a good idea...

2006-08-20T01:15:00.000-06:00

Game today. Joe's team lost. Lydia and Ted had a great time. They played on a nearby playground the entire time and spent at least $10 each at the snack stand. Bev stayed home. I think she read that blood-sucking book about vampires the whole time. After we got home, I took a three-hour nap with Paige. She will actually sleep for longer than 45 minutes if she's latched on...

Alene just sent me a bunch of pictures from our family reunion in July at Bear Lake. Here's one of my favorites: my beautiful, contemplative, big sister Joyce. She's getting ready for the new school year--teaching two classes. She's a marvel. She has about an inch of hair now. Larry hid her wig, so she just has to go with the pixie look. I think she's adorable.

Cancer sucks. I get mad at my kids when they say that things suck. It's such a vulgar thing to say and children shouldn't have it coming out of their little innocent mouths. Hmmm. Cancer sucks.

2006-08-19T00:43:00.000-06:00

Joe has his first football game tomorrow. He couldn't find his game jersey all day today. I told him he needed to pray about it. We turned the house upside-down looking for that jersey. Finally when we were all starving and ready to give up looking to go out to eat, Joe came skipping triumphantly up the stairs with the blasted thing...I had been on my knees in my bedroom, praying "Lord, help him find that jersey right now, please. He needs it and he needs to know that he can ask for Thy help and receive it..." Joe told me he had finally stopped searching and prayed for help, then had the idea that it might be in the crawlspace under the stairs (which he sometimes uses as a hideout)! There it was!!! Phew! I don't know that there are any extra jerseys and he might not have been able to play tomorrow.

We celebrated the departure of our houseguests by going out to a favorite Chinese restaurant. The children behaved very well and we had fun together. Ahhh...I like my kids. (I like Wendi's kids, too--but I must admit that 9 children on a full-time basis would be too many for me.) Paige over-ate. Does that baby have an off switch? She threw up in the parking lot as we were leaving. She seemed to feel much better afterward.

I told Eric that I was just going to read an article in a magazine and then come right in to bed. Hmmmm. I just can't seem to let go of this quiet time. I want to stay up and knit. Go to bed, Val! I am strong. I can do it. I can go to bed. But first, a picture of the bread I made yesterday. It's so pretty--I have to hold it up for display. :)