I won!

I won! June (www.twosheep.com in case this link is misbehaving) had a "guess the recipe" contest, and I won! She sent me some silk and wool yarn. Let me tell you, it perks me right up to get yarn in the mail.

(I still have a flush from bicycling home from work.) I'm thinking a hat, since it matches my hair (mostly).

And more excitement: I was plying last night, which always gives me such a sense of accomplishment. Pink Floyd provided a good beat to pedal to, and I really got into the zen of it all.

The spinning is not so skilled or precise or even, but that's how I wanted it on this one. And I'm still learning and settling into what feels comfortable. I have much more fun when I'm aiming for a "handmade" look.

What is more satisfying than a skein of yarn? And with my new swift and ball winder, I'm all set to use it.

In Spin-off they used to have readers send in a whole skein of yarn. They sent them back after photographing them. Now they have readers send in little bits, and I miss the skeins. It was so cool to see big fat skeins and little skinny ones. Ah, the good ol' days.

Knitting Night with White Hat

Last night was knitting night! Jeanette and I knit and knit and chatted.

And what was I working on? A hat for Danna, a previous neigbor and roommate with a brain tumor and very little hair. She deserves a Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Bulky hat with a made up cable design. And a DB Astrakhan brim. We'll see if I can buck my trend of making hats too big. I went with the Ann Budd measurement of 21" around. I think that when I pick up stitches for the Astrakhan brim I'll cinch it in a little to keep it snug over the ears.

Jeanette is making a bag (the blue one in the picture). Black curly yarn, like black curly dogs, does not photograph so well. In a dimly lit coffee shop.

I think that we're having more fun this year knitting than we were last year studying. Surprise, surprise.

The Not So Fair Isle Mittens

There is a lot to tell you about these mittens. They were one of the early projects that I started, about 5 years ago. I was working in a biology lab that was actually a front for a knitting circle. I checked out knitting books from the library like they were going out of style (and some of them were). Alice Starmore's Fair Isle knitting was one of the books (it will never go out of style). I loved the colorful patterns, and the "rules" of Fair Isle knitting. Only 2 colors per row, usually not more than 5 stitches of one color in a row.

So I embarked upon mittens. I based the colors on a beautiful sunset in the woods that I saw one evening. It took me half a mitten to start to despise the color combination.

Finishing one took a while. Then I waited too long to knit the second one. I started on the wrong size needles (1 instead of 2). I switched back when I realized this, but didn't tear it out. I had fought too hard for those rows to frog it. I made other mistakes. I tore out some of them. I held the yarn too tightly. I just wanted to finish, damnit!

So finish I did. Yuck! The second one has puckers and a transposed color stripe and is longer and has a different point on the top and is smaller in the wrist.

But it's done. And that has a beauty all its own.

Gratuitous Poodle Picture

He loves the snow! (And he really has four legs, not three.)

What kept me sane this christmas

I got away from it all in Summer Valley, Oregon.
Map of Summer Lake, OR US (*zoom out 2 clicks to put in real context)
Waaaay out in the middle of nowhere. In a cozy cabin. With lots of time to knit! What a way to avoid all of the pre-christmas stress. So many expectations around the holidays, there are.


Below is a view from the cabin, out across Summer Lake. There is a small pond just in front of the cabin with ice, then the lake beyond that. It is a dry lake some summers, but wet and half-frozen now. It's a very shallow lake, which means no power boats to disturb the sweet silence. Well, the sweet sound of the wind shaking the cabin. Close enough.

And after coming back to civilization, I got lots of knitting goodness: a swift

and a ball winder! And some gorgeous Manos del Uruguay yarn, like this (only a little greener):

And today I bought the newest Spin-Off, Piecework, and Interweave Knits. Lucky me! So I'm off to play with my toys, and take some photos of current projects.

Reuse and recycle

Here in Oregon, we're big into recycling. Bottles, cans, paper, plastic, building materials, you get the picture.

So I recycled a tablecloth. I saw it at the downtown thrift store (the one that I found a ball of bright purple cashmere yarn for $2.50), and I saw a corner of lovely embroidery peeking out at me. Unfortunately it was attached to a tablecloth with a hole in it.

Well, I took that tablecloth home, and recycled it right into a dress. (Well, not "right into", it was about a year just sitting around before it became a dress).

Ta-da! I even got creative and covered the hole with a little pink heart applique (on the back of the bodice). It has a button for the back neck, and the skirt is open in the front. (There wasn't quite enough time to make the petticoat before christmas).

The past three days were spent at the Summer Lake Inn, in Southern Oregon. I had a blissful amount of time to spend knitting.

Noro Daria and Black Ice

Bamboo usually stands up straight. Today it's acting as a thermometer, it started out here:

and is rising back up as the ice melts off of it.
This is the reason that I'm posting instead of on the road to a winter vacation. Here in Oregon we excel at black ice instead of nice fluffy white snow. Our current plan is to shift the trip a day, but we'll see how the mountain passes are tomorrow. Today was minimum 2 hours delay due to accidents.

In other news, I gave into a silly whim and bought a skein of Noro Daria. It was in such pretty colors! Yes, I knew that I wouldn't like knitting it, and wasn't sure what it would be used for, I admit it. But I bought it anyway. Such is the power of shiny things, especially in a blue and brown colorway.

After googling for patterns, I ended up back at Grumperina's pattern in Mag Knits, for a little purse/bag. I thought that it would be cute in stockinette, but the guage was super loose and big with that. I gave in and followed the pattern (well, I cast on 20 instead of 18 st).

And don't let the photo fool you! It's dinky! About 6 inches in length.
I considered making a belt instead, but then the practical imp on my shoulder whispered that it has been years since I've worn one. (And a little bag is how much more useful?)

Speaking of not really enjoying the knitting process, I had to switch to circular needles because the double-pointed ones kept slipping out of the stitches. Even bamboo, which I can usually count on for a little grip!

Now I need help deciding on a button. Comment solicitation time! Help me decide!

I had a little cording left over, so I made a 5-stich I-cord, and noticed that it was just long enough to fit around my wrist. Can't say that I've ever worn knitted jewelry before, but why not start now? (Looks good with the long underwear top, eh?)

Off to knit some more, there is one project underway that is not able to be shared quite yet.

Mittens!

As I was saying in my last post, mittens are my current answer to everything.

And, in a vain effort to make myself look more productive, I'm unearthing old projects. This is one of my fave-rits. Don't remember the yarn brand, but wonderful colors. My brilliance, though, came from making my own blocking forms out of paperboard. Don't those mittens look rounded at the top? Well, pre-block found them a bit angular.

The best part of these mittens came after they were gone. I sent them to my cousin as a gift, and packaged them in a box I had lying around. A box that said "Stainless Steel Milk Steamer" on it. A new-looking box. When my cousin opened the outer wrap, she didn't look inside the box. She spent a somewhat bewildered day thinking I had sent her a milk steamer. She was much happier with the mittens.

In other news, my spinning mentor is in town, she is here a few months out of the year. We spun last night! Too much fun. She has beautiful, even, fine, fine spinning. I forgot my damned camera though. Next time!

Slack-b-gone

What the heck color is this?

I keep hoping that I'll figure it out. It's kinda blue with pink/red and yellow silk nubs. But we're not firm on calling it blue. It looks gray from a distance.

After spinning this for a while, I'm thinking about color. For example, "Why didn't I figure out what color this was before I bought it?", or, "What can I make out of a color that cannot be identified?"

But I'm having fun spinning. I've gone from once every few months to almost every day. Poor quilt is getting neglected, but yarn is being spun.

What will I make? Mittens. My answer to EVERYTHING. What am I working on? Mittens. What is my next project? Mittens. Who signed the Declaration of Independence? Mittens. I was like this with socks once. Starting at the extremeties and working in? Distal to proximal?

December is not my favorite month. It pretty much blows. I get super stressed about the whole Xmas gift issue, and end up feeling like crap most of the month. Student budget is hard to buy gifts on, and I never plan far enough in advance to knit everyone I know wonderful items. Like this here:

Yes, I'm giving you a neck spasm here. This was knitted a few years ago, but I'm still every bit as proud of it today as I was then. I charted the letters and designs on graph paper before I knit it. Wowzers. The star is from Alice Starmore, I'm almost sure. The back has a little christmas tree design with some diamond lattice. The sock shape is from (martha stewart, shhh).

Someday I'll knit myself one.

Irrestringible

The yarn for the Essential Stripe sweater has this label: 100% EXTRAFINE MERINO WOOL IRRESTRINGIBLE.

Unable to be restrung? When was the last time that I tried to restring my yarn? How does one restring yarn? Un-ply it?

Or is this a case of maltranslation? After all, this is Italian yarn. It really means irresistible.

(Even Googling didn't solve this one.)

Knitting link for the day: A bug cozy.

Two Mittens in Orange and Essential Stripe Update

Here they are! My homespun is now mittens. (I have very fond associations of the word "homespun" from Little House on the Prairie" books. It sounds so wholesome.)

Well, yes, I was hoping that you wouldn't point out that one has white stripes, while the other one doesn't. Shhh. At least they both have stripes. I'll remind you that this was my first adventure with more than 1 color.

How to get stripes: Spin one strand of striped yarn. Spin another, and ply them. If the stripes on both strands line up, you get the mitten on the right. If they don't, you get the mitten on the left. If you're me, you get both.

I didn't expect that I was consistent enough in my spinning to get a significant number of stripes lining up. But here we are! Don't get me wrong, I think that it's charming, and the asymmetry does not offend my sensibilities.


She's a-striping! The photo is a bit misleading in that the folds in the fabric imply that the shoulders go there. They really go more around the second teal stripe. The V-neck is not as deep as I thought from the pattern photos, oh well. It's more like a crew neck with a point.

I carry this in a plastic bag in my bicycle pannier with me to my rotations. I started a new one today, and it's always comforting to pull out my knitting at lunch. A nice anchor while I'm bouncing from place to place.

Spinning in Blue

Spinning over Thanksgiving weekend was fruitful...

See!

Isn't it beautiful! I'm almost sad that the wool is used up now, but that is tempered by the anticipation of moving on to more wool. The official knit/spin blog term is "stash busting". I guess though that instead of stash busting, I'm stash shifting. From spinning project to knitting project.

This will next grace my to-do list as a pair of mittens, to go with the oversize hat. This yarn is thinner than the hat yarn.

Next on the wheel: (after I finish plying this...) a dark blueish melange from the same folks as the light blue above (Three Bags Full). Or maybe I'll give in to temptation and start playing with the rainbow assortment that I bought a few weeks ago at Dyelots. Or I have some dark blue wool/nylon blend that I'm not too wild about. Naah.

I'm still working on Essential Stripe, only a few rows on the bus today. My shoulder was so tense that it hurt to knit on the bus. Now that's a problem!

Oh, and my surprise for the day! It was my last day at the UO health center pharmacy, and they chipped in and got me a gift certificate to The Knit Shop! Yahoo! I'm going to use it towards yarn for a big project (I'm thinking another sweater, since I'm experiencing a dearth of new clothes). It will make the cost much less painful. I can't usually bring myself to buy enough yarn for a big project. My default purchase is about 2 balls.
Specifically, I'm coveting some Debbie Bliss cashmerino or astrakhan. Wish me happy shopping!

Little Feet

This is Matilda's foot. Matilda is two, and lives in Eureka with her mom Kim and dad Fred. When I went to visit for a weekend, we decided that we should have a project for the weekend. So I made slippers for Mattie. The blue part is the same handspun as my hat, and the gray is from the mittens for Hans. Little feet don't take too much yarn!

I used my handy-dandy trusty pattern book by Ann Budd. I think. I could have used the sock pattern basics and winged it a little. Who knows?

They were a little loose on her little ankles, so I threaded some elastic through, about an inch down from the top. Presto! Little warm slippers!

I'm spinning the rest of the blue wool right now. I'm trying for thinner on this, but the last batch was so long ago that I don't remember quite 'zactly how thick it was. We'll see...

Essential Stripe is coming along well. I need to dig out the camera soon. I pinched off the sleeves, which made me feel a WHOLE lot better. Now I can knit a round in a reasonable amount of time.

Goodnight and Good luck.