June 23, 2009
After anxiously waiting, I finally received my five pot holders from the Pot Holder Swap!! Adrian, Maryse and Maritza did a wonderful job of dividing up, packing and mailing 90-ish packages — that means over 500 pot holders! You can see pictures of Adrians living room full of pot holders here and here and here.
Here are the lovely pot holders I received, starting with the coral & white with green center and going clockwise: Erin, Pam, Susann, Anne, and Lulu. Thanks to all of you for your wonderful workmanship!!
June 3, 2009
Finally, these socks are done!
They’re the Interlocking Leaves pattern by Kelly Porpiglia from the Fall 2008 issue of Knitty. I used Jojoland Melody superwash yarn and two 16″ US #0 circular needles. I love the lace pattern and the yarn, even though it’s varigated, really defines the stitches.
This is my first pair of toe up socks, and they were a bit on the frustrating for me. I used a figure eight cast on and loved how easy that was. My grumpiness came when the gusset wasn’t deep enough and I needed to rip back my knitting twice (as though once wasn’t bad enough) before I was pleased with it and it fit correctly. The other thing that made me growl was the cast-off edge of the cuff. Even though I went up a needle size and cast-off very loosely, the edge was so tight it was difficult (if not almost impossible) to pull over my foot. A friend suggested a sewn cast-off (that the clever Elizabeth Zimmerman wrote about in “Knitting Without Tears”), and that worked so much better. I found a great page at Wooly Wonders blog that has excellent (big) pictures that show how to do this flexible and easy cast-off. After all is said a done, I’m not going to say I’ll never do toe up socks again, but I’ll admit I not a big fan of this technique quite yet.
One thing that always amazes me is what happens when I wet block a knitted project.
The sock on the left is fresh off the needles and has not been blocked yet, while the sock on the right has been soaked in the sink and put on a sock blocker to dry. You can see a marked difference, as the lace pattern has been opened up, but what’s more is that the feel of the yarn has softened to the touch. I’ve tried steam pressing and spritzing my piece with a spray of water, but nothing seems to get the job done like totally immersing my finished knitting in a sink of water and then laying the article flat and shaped to dry. Steam ironing smashes the fibers while wet blocking allows the fabric of the knitting to stay light and fluffy.
I need to thank my friend Ana for taking the top three pictures of my socks!
June 1, 2009
Marilyn hosted our May get together at her house in Topeka on Sunday. What can say that I haven’t said before — it’s a wonderful and inspiring group of women with a variety of interests that are brought together by their love of fibers and spinning. No matter how stressed I’ve been, I can sit and spin with this group for three hours and leave relaxed and happy (and full, as we’re all foodies). If someone doesn’t know a technique, there will always be someone else in the group that has an answer and the knowledge, there’s always encouragement and excitement as skills improve and always envy and admiration as plied yarn comes off a wheel.
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves . . .
Our lovely hostest with the mostest, Marilyn, on Ravelry aka Marilynpickle.
Drop spindle, knitting and spinning — can life get much better?!
May 27, 2009
Louis had a small bit of surgery this week and he has been a BAD patient. So, he’s been ordered to wear this lovely cone collar for the next week and he’s been confined to limited activity — he’s got to stay in his crate. As you can see, he’s already decided to redesign his collar, and I think we’ll be lucky if it makes it the entire week. He keeps looking at me as if to say, “Really?! Really?! You’re actually going to make me wear this?”
May 15, 2009
I can hardly believe that my little blue boy is one year old today. Thank you Kim for letting me take him home with me!! Happy Birthday Louis!
(my friend Karla did this wonderful drawing)
May 12, 2009
Whew! Spring Yarn School has come and gone!
I went as a helper again, along with Ana and Jen M, and we were the dish washing, fiber rinsing, towel gathering, table busing, chicken rangling, airport shuttling, laundry doing, Yarn Zombies — all in all, we made a good team. There were two teachers, Adrian and Jen S and then, the grand Poo-Baa, Nikol, who made the whole thing roll. This spring, there were twenty students, many of whom were attendees for a second and even third time. Everyone was great — we all had our wheels in a giant circle and we would laugh and spin when we weren’t in the dye lab, carding or eating. Jan absolutely kept everyone in stitches and Rachel laughed till she fell out of her chair. There was amazing food (thank you Nikol — when are you going to put out a cookbook?!), wonderfully dyed fiber, lots of spinning and just plain fun.
If you’ve never been to Yarn School, I would HIGHLY recommend it — you’ll leave exhausted & revived!
More pictures can be found here & here!
Jacey is an amazing instructor — her yarns are stunning, but her technique and her ability to convey how to accomplish those techniques is what makes her such a good teacher (well, that and the fact that she’s SO much fun and nice). She would bring us up in groups of four and demo what she was going to spin, going over the technique and explaining it as many times as needed. Then we would go back to our wheels and trying it for ourselves. When Jacey had demo-ed for everyone, she would then go around to each of us individually at our wheels and see how we were doing, give us pointers, and showing us hands on if needed. Then she would go back up front and do group demos again as needed. So thorough! By the end of the two days I may not have perfected each technique, but left with a firm understanding of each ones structure (plus I bought one of her dvd’s so I’d have a reference at home!).
The Studio did a great job hosting and sent out orders for lunch for the group each day. All the participants were so nice, with Steph coming all the way from Germany to attend! I left exhausted and thrilled and anxious to go home and attempt my new skills at home.
