Slap and Dash...

by Kathleen

When Caroline and I talked about setting up a blog together we both agreed that we shouldn't feel we had to apologize if we didn't post for a while... to each other or anyone else. (Pretty cocky weren't we? Assuming there would be anyone else reading this... though we knew Mom would.) We never felt that other bloggers needed to apologize to us... they didn't need to feel bad for having a real life.
Funny though... how you do start to feel kind of guilty for going away.

So...
I mentioned (somewhere back there) that I had gotten a spinning wheel from a colleague here. It was an odd wheel made in a four post frame manner with an antique cast iron wheel...
Here it is...

It's beautiful. Really a work of craftsmanship. And heavy as all get out to treadle.
We've fixed a few problems (the bobbin was split and it spun loosely on the spindle without activating the flyer), but have a few more to go before it spins well (the leather belt is too loose and doesn't have a good enough grip on the wheel).
I don't know how much spinning I'll do on it as it's made for making thick yarns. But it sure is pretty.

Then in the "If everyone else jumped off the bridge would you do it too?" category...

Yes, apparently I would. This is "Flat Feet", a different way of dyeing yarn for socks. It's a machine knit blank that is handpainted. Then to knit it you unravel it from one end and knit as you go.

The pattern changes based on the size of your sock and your gauge. It's really just another kind of variegated yarn... but it is kind of fun to see what the pattern as dyed does when it gets knit. However I'm finding it not so much fun knitting with bumpy pre-knit yarn. It's not terrible, but it's not a great feel.
So I'll probably only jump off this bridge just the one time.

Other knitting news... I'm up to 17 of the 20 squares needed for the Lizard Ridge Afghan. The second Can-Do sock is close to finished.
And I'm knitting away on DH's sweater...

I've been working on this for over two years now. It's my first full size sweater and I'm making up the pattern as I go. I also had some issues with basic math and lost a skein of yarn in a port-o-potty (I was NOT going in after it).
It will have a full post of it's own someday. It deserves it.

A while ago my guild had a synthetic dye workshop. We made a colorwheel, mixing the dyes by a percentage based formula, and then immersing the fabrics in cups to get the mottled effect. It was quite fun...

My first few reds are too similar in color, but the yellow to green to blue worked out well.

Our guild had a picnic at the end of July and there was a challenge due to be judged that day. Unfortunately I got really, really, really sick, and couldn't make it. So I can't show my challenge project until the next meeting but here are the ingredients...

By the way... the 4th of July Parade we were in?.. We won first place! We beat out the float with the kids in the pool! Nobody ever beats out floats with kids on them... especially flatbed trucks with a bunch of middle to elderly ladies decked out in red, white and blue while knitting, spinning and weaving. Hmmm... must have been the hooking that did it. (Rug hooking that is!)

And this is why I've been off the blog and am going back off for another few weeks...
I'm doing costumes for a production of Shakespeare's Richard II at the American Shakespeare Center. The show opens in a couple of weeks.

I need to go sew now.

BYE.

p.s. A big "Thanks!" to all the members of the ManchVegas group who were knitting that night I called Mom about our spaghetti sauce. Adding sugar did the trick (but we boiled a potato in it too just to make sure).

p.p.s. To the left at the bottom of the sidebar you will see a little white egg labeled "My Dragon". If you would not mind clicking on it I sure would appreciate the help getting it to hatch. Thanks!

Blogging In My Mind....er....On My Mind

by Caroline



You know, blogging is so much easier in my mind. All my imaginary commenters think I am so witty.


A Blog in Three Parts


Part I: Yarn on the move!
I've been going to The Yarn & Fiber Company in Windham for Friday night knitting for a long time now. We managed to fit a pretty large crowd into a not large space. There were nights where, if you didn't arrive early enough, you sat on the floor.....good times! Last month, it was time to move to a bigger shop, this one in Derry. Yes, Yarn & Fiber was not only growing but it was moving closer to me! From 1/2 hour to 10 minutes. Yay! So, on a Friday afternoon, knitters arrived to help pack up. It was amazing how many times you heard someone say, "I haven't seen this yarn before." As a group of motivated knitters, we had that shop moved in one weekend. They were closed only 4 days! And that Friday, we partied in out new digs. Lauren documented the move much better than me so I am going to send you here, here, here, here, here, and finally, here. Several were heard to comment that they have never enjoyed moving a friend so much. And I have to admit that I feel so much more possessive of a store that I helped to set up. My LYS, indeed.


Part II: wee tiny socks continue
The addiction grows. Again, I am sending 2 little socks at a time. The theme was heat wave so I knit up an Amanda sock with some red Cambrio. I used the lace pattern from the Amanda hat, dropping the K sts at the beginning and end of their rows. I'll post the directions if anyone is interested. So, I knit that up but looking at swap pal, I noticed she was a Girl Scout. In honor of G.S. I knit up another sock, Sereknity's Campfire. I'll have to post the sock I received later. I thought I had a picture of it but I can't find it. It is an awesome little sock.

















Part III: Knit & Crochet Show


I went with the plan that I would not buy anything. Meaning, of course, that I would allow myself maybe 2 or 3 purchases. Look what I got:

1. Duets Flying Carpet Socks: Lorna's Laces & Mountain Colors and a Cat Bordhi design. So cool.

2. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, edgewater. I am compelled to buy blues & greens.

3. Habu, 100% bamboo. Softest thing ever.

4. Habu, spiral slub color 7. That's some copper color running through it, yum yum.

5. Sereknity, beachglass in superwash merino

6. Sereknity, dragonfly in superwash merino & seacell

7. Moonrise shawl pegs

There's those blues & greens again and by my favorite, Heather of Sereknity. I am compelled, just compelled. Then, when I was all done....Gigi of Adventures in Crochet showed me this lovely booth where Moonrise was set up. I could not turn away from these two shawl pegs. On the left is the Triskele with, I think, a turquoise bead. On the right is the Goddess with a mother of pearl bead. OK, a bit more shopping than I had planned. But to finish it all off: Jess & Casey of Ravelry walking by the Yarn & Fiber booth. Groupie time!

Is This Thing On?

by Caroline

Boy, once you stop posting it is really hard to start again. But Kathleen is really piling up the posts (and FOs, as well) so I guess it is time to try to catch up.

I've been indulging in a little project obsessiveness again: wee tiny socks! I blame Lora for this. I saw the adorable little socks she knit up for a swap, way back in March or April (way back, anyway) and decided to sign up for the next one. My first swap I sent to RunningKnitter in AZ (I forgot to take a picture first) and I got mine from .... NH! From Lora, in fact. I don't know how she kept it a secret at knit night. I would have been smirking and giggling each time we talked about the swap.

I fell for these little socks immediately and when discussing baby shower plans with friends I opened my big mouth and said, "Wouldn't these little socks be cute favors?" *insert forehead slap here* One of those friends had just learned to knit and jumped right in with me in this foolhardy notion. We needed 60 wee tiny socks and agreed to knit 30 each. She got lucky with her sister-in-law who offered to help and quickly became addicted to the little socks. I got lucky with friends in my knit group who helped, as well. So, a big public thank you to Beverly, Jackie, Lora (linked above), and blogless Amanda. Below are: (left) socks I knit and (right) socks my friends knit.

During this time the famous (infamous?) crochet hook incident happened. And during all this, I did another swap. Why? Cause I'm just that crazy. This little sock (left) went to wenat (Ravelry) in Canada and I received one (right) from Andi in AZ.

You know what comes next ..... the next swap. This time I sent 2 socks (I just couldn't decide which to send) to springermama (Ravelry) in NC and got one from gaylet (Ravelry) in Scotland.

I also knit one up as an angel to send to kwesty (Ravelry) in MI.

Yes, I think you can say I am addicted. There is one more swap coming up. I wonder who I'll get?

I'm working on several other objects, too. But they are all bigger than wee tiny socks and are taking me longer to finish.

Three cheers for the R,W & B

by Kathleen

Thanks all for the nice compliments on my scarf. I admit quite freely that I'm darned proud of it.
I enjoyed the process, am very happy with the final product, and learned a lot meanwhile.
Jersey... I used my Lantern Moon straights in a size 8. I had seen laceweight done on size 4-5, so I figured going to an 8 would work with the worsted. And it did!

And in important breaking knitting news, I have discovered a perfect use for all those giiiiiiiinormous knitting needles...

They're just the thing for fake knitting a large fake flag while riding down main street on a flat bed truck.
These are a size 50. In red plastic.

My guild rode a "float" in the 4th of July parade today. We all wore red, white and/or Blue and tricked out our knitting, spinning wheels, loom and rug hooking stand.
I wanted something that would read, but I wasn't interested in actually spending the time to knit a 4" long red white and blue thing (no matter how many balls of yarn it would have used, Toni!), so I cheated...
I sewed three woven wool scarves together and then sewed some yarn loops at the top and knit into those as we road along. (psst... I know it looks like a french flag... but those were the scarves I had to work with and I wasn't doing intarsia stars!)
It was pretty fun. We got a lot of cute kids waving and saying "Look Mommy, she's sewing!". And a few of the usual "Can you make me a pair of socks?" I called out "They'll be done at the end of the parade!", but no one showed up to get them.

Now what am I gonna do with a big funky flag and ginormous needles?

Happy Fourth to all who celebrate it and a great weekend to everyone!

A Finished Object! Hurrah! (Pay no attention to the UFOs behind that curtain...)

by Kathleen

I got possessed. That's the only way I can explain it. I had a yarn that was lovely and squishy and fun and a pattern that was crying out to be made in it... so for a week this is all I did.

Presenting...
Twinings by Anne Hanson (highly modified to be a scarf in worsted weight rather than a shawl in lace)
Everyone may now go "whoaah duuude" at the awesomeness that is my grafting.
I tried to get what Anne calls the "money shot" and show you the full view, but we couldn't get high enough or far enough away to get the full length in.
The yarn is Crystal Palace Merino5. It is soft and sproingy and was a joy to work with.
I loved the pattern. It's lace patterning on both sides and takes some concentration... and I may not have felt as smug if I was working in the suggested laceweight with 11 pattern repeats (instead of worsted with 2). But I wasn't. So I am.

I'm challenging myself with another of her patterns Cluaranach in Malabrigo laceweight. I'm just finished with the first pattern section and am on to the middle.

It's slow going as it takes some real quiet, no interruptions, concentration time... and that's hard to come by. But so far I'm liking it. A lot.

I also started some socks...

I had some fun yarn from an Internet yarn dyer that I wanted to make into CookieA's Mingus (part of my Scavenger SWAP package). So I cast on...
And couldn't find the dang pattern! I know had it somewhere... but I looked through assorted piles and no go.
So... I had some Colinette Jitterbug I got as a gift from a lovely sister (or did I pay you for that C?) and I had designed a sock pattern with cable and leaf lace patterns. Cast on and...
Oh, come on! Two? How could they both disappear? They were just here, together, on the table... snuggled up close.... Waitaminnit... what if my sock patterns have eloped!?
So. Third times a charm. Sereknity's Can Do (wool and Bamboo blend) in a Charlene Schurch pattern called Cable Rib.

Oh. And no worries y'all about the missing patterns. Though I was rather hoping that I would have lots of cute little baby sock patterns as a result of their weekend away, I found them later. They were hiding right where I had put them. In another knitting bag.
Sneaky little rascals.

Final purty purty shot...

ETA: Oh no! I can't believe I forgot two whole other finished objects!!

Charlene Schurch's Garter Rib pattern socks in Handmaiden Casbah (bought at On the Lamb, my LYS)
The Tipsy Cable square from the Great American Afghan. Made from unknown yarn (donated by Claudia Handpaint) for an afghan being raffled off to support a local Art's center by my LYS.

WWKIP

by Kathleen

Two Saturdays ago, June 14, was World Wide Knit in Public Day. I would like to report that I feel I fulfilled my public knitting duties thoroughly and with vigor.

In the morning I headed down to Staunton (that's STAN-ton), to a gathering arranged by On the Lamb, my LYS (that's Local Yarn Store). It was a blast!

There were about 40 people who showed up through the morning (from about 10 to 2). We even had a spinner bring her wheel.

We were hosted by Blue Mountain Coffee, who very generously gave each participant a free coffee drink (iced anything being the favorite of the day). And Shenandoah Spring Water donated lots of cold bottles of water.
We had lovely goody bags put together by our OTL (On the Lamb) team which had pen and notepad from BB&T bank, discount coupons for Rachel's Quilt Patch and info from other fine sponsors.

Plus yarn!
This is a skein of Noro Silk Mountain that was in the bag!

I put it to immediate good use...

And this is a skein of Icelandic sheep's wool, a lopi style single, from a local farm, Green Fence Farm, that I won as a door prize! They were very generous donating three skeins to be given out.

In fact, the day was supported generously by many wonderful sponsors giving out prizes of dinners at Shenandoah Pizza, yarn, gingher scissors (for the hat contest winner) and more!

There was a hat contest with very clever entries... Claudia wound a skein of beautiful yarn about as if it were a braid of hair; Tonks knitted a tiny sweater; Angel had an real live sheep on her head! (well, maybe not really...)

The participants...

Angel's Under the lamb hat...

And the winner!

After the festivities in Staunton quieted down I traveled back north to help out at my guild's, SVTGM (Shenandoah Valley Textile Guild and Museum. And I promise... no more acronyms.) monthly fiber demonstration. We had spinning, rug hooking, tapestry weaving and me... I continued knitting until 4:00.

Next time I'll show you what all that knitting time accomplished.

It's reeeeal purty.