Knitasha von Stashenskeins

Even though it feels like it was months ago already, we had a very nice Thanksgiving.  It was great to have Lindsey home.  We squeezed as much fun into 3 days as humanly possible, including the Lights Before Christmas (great as always), seeing The Blind Side (really good movie), and a BGSU women's basketball game.  Lindsey comes home for Christmas the 17th and we get to keep her for 2 weeks, so there will be time for a lot more fun then.

 

I have been Christmas crafting like a crazy person.  My Dad's Christmas sweater is done and I am really happy with it.

 

I just love the button placket and collar - that Elizabeth Zimmermann was a genius.  Ferol and Mary helped me pick out the perfect buttons on Friday at Yarn Cravin' and I sewed them on that night.

Now it is blocked and drying on my dining room floor.  I will get it wrapped up and in the mail soon.

Most of the weekend was spent working, but I did get some sewing done.  Sadly, it is super-secret sewing and I can't show it to you now.  I anticipate a picture-heavy post right around December 26th.

I can show you a couple of little fleece dolls that I made.

 

This is Mimi.

This is Olga.  I will be making Olga II slightly bigger and giving them together - like Russian nesting dolls.

I got the patterns for these from this book.  I had planned to machine sew them, but tiny pieces of fleece and my sewing machine really didn't get along, so I hand sewed them.  It was not as time-consuming as it sounds and they are SO cute!  I'm going to try to get a couple more done.  I did photocopy the templates to be a little bit bigger for the next dolls.  Mimi's arms and legs were nearly impossible to turn right side out and stuff!

Today I hope to finish weaving a scarf that I will show you next time and then I'm going to start a last-minute pair of socks for my nephew.  I have to have something on the needles because tonight is M's Christmas choir concert.  She and I managed to forget she needs khaki's for the performance until last night, so now I get to pick her up from school and make a mad dash to the mall.  Thrilling - NOT!

Just A Theory

All the TV commercials today seem to be about Black Friday shopping. Apparently people will be assembling right around 4am and then elbowing and bitch-slapping each other all day so they can get discount DS's and GPS systems. Yuck! My theory is that for these folks, this annual retail death march is about showing their love. "I love you so much that I got up in the middle of the night and knocked over several senior citizens to get you this MP3 player." I'm thinking these folks are mostly non-knitters. Knitters don't have to engage in cage-match bouts over the last Wii. We can knit 2 color mittens on size 2 needles. We can make cabled sweaters for men with 50 inch chests. We can stay up until midnight Christmas Eve to finish that one last hat. Just as much love and devotion, far less chance of serious injury. Happy turkey day everybody! If you don't stay home to knit tomorrow, stay safe and watch your back. Those soccer moms will shank you.

Busy Week Ahead

I wanted to dash off a quick post before my week gets away from me.  I'm on call this week and on Wednesday Miranda gets her spacers for braces, and I have to do the pre-Thanksgiving baking, and then we drive up to Windsor to pick up Lindsey.  Thursday will be the typical cooking marathon, and then Friday I'll rest! (After I go to the hospital to see newborns.)

As promised, the Selbuvotter mittens are all done.

 

I have the perfect recipient for these.  She's a knitter so she will appreciate them, but she would never make something like this for herself.  For now, they are safe in the Christmas present pile.

Another addition to the present pile:

 

Hoping this one is manly enough for one of the nephews.  Warped for this on Thursday night and finished it during the OSU - U of M game.  With as quick as these scarfs weave up, it is hard to imagine I will ever knit one again.

I've got a good start on my Dad's Christmas sweater.

 

Crazy colors, huh?  That is all one colorway!  The yarn is Keltic from Berroco and I bought a jillion balls of it on final clearance.  (Patternworks? Can't remember)  It is a nice wool and acrylic blend.  It is loosely spun, so I suspect it will want to pill a bit, but it is soft.  I am planning raglan sleeves and a placket collar.  Kind of like this.  Will be interesting to find suitable buttons.

I had a special request to show my hand-made warping board.  "Hand-made" sound a bit too fancy, how about "slapped together in a haphazard fashion".

 

PVC pipe rocks!!

The string in the picture is the guide for the last warp I wrapped.  I follow that path over and over and all the warp threads end up the same length.  I have found it works best to wind in sections - more than twenty wraps and the yarn wants to jump off the pegs.

 

I'd like some caps for the ends of the pegs but I keep forgetting to look for some.  I should at least sand the rough hack-sawed edges, but that would mean I'd have to take a break from crafting and Christmas is bearing down like a freight train.

Now, I'm off to...sew!!

Whole Lotta Weavin' Going On

You know how you'll be blissfully knitting on a fabulous sock and some Muggle will come along and say, "You know, you can get socks for a dollar a pair at Walmart." As though A) you've been living in a cave and never heard of Walmart and B) hand knit socks and white cotton tube socks were in any way comparable. As if!  So you try to explain the superior fit and warmth of a hand knit sock and then you mention that the actual knitting process is it's own reward. About this time, the Muggle's eyes glaze over and they wander away, unconvinced but willing to leave the crazy knitter to their pitiable "fun." We've all been there, right? Okay, keep that in mind as I explain to you how I spent the last week weaving... 

...three kitchen towels. I know, I know, but aren't they beautiful? I wove them from a lovely fingering weight bamboo yarn that I bought from the Weaver's Loft booth at the Ann Arbor Fiber Fest. It is called Bambu 7 and it is very silky-soft.

The pattern is also from Weaver's Loft. There was a sample towel laid out by the yarn and I just loved how it looked and felt. The lady working the booth was nice enough to write down the threading and treadling for me so that I could reproduce it. I chose to use cream and sage yarn hoping they would work in my sister's kitchen.

The Weaver's Loft lady (really should have asked her name!) thought I could get four towels out of the yarn I bought, but I didn't want to run short and warp for three towels sounded plenty long to me. It was very long, but I used my homemade PVC warping board and managed to get it sleyed and threaded. I only had two crossed warp threads to fix, and then off I went. I expected weaving yarn this fine at 15 epi would go really slow but it really didn't and I loved watching the pattern emerge.

As soon as these were done, I warped my rigid heddle loom with assorted brown scraps and made another plain weave scarf.

 

I don't like this one as much as the black and purple one, but I love that fringe!

One more scarf, this one a plaid.

 

The yarn is Katia Mississippi #, a fingering weight cotton/acrylic blend I scooped up off the sale porch.  Another Christmas present for some niece or nephew, but I am sorely tempted to keep it for myself.

Back to knitting for my next post - the mittens are done!

How It Works

First of all, the Yarn Harlot takes it into her head to knit some mittens. Fancy mittens, Nordic-style, with a two color pattern, preferably snowflakes, and a pointy top. Being a wise woman, she asks the umpty-billion readers of her blog for pattern suggestions. You're curious and start to scroll through the comments.

There are many suggestions and lots of them have links to patterns so you bounce back and forth looking at pictures. Some of them are pretty, but none of them really catch your eye.

But a word catches your eye: Selbuvotter. It keeps coming up and it becomes clear that it's a book of mitten patterns. So you click back to Ravelry to check it out and find yourself faced with a staggering array of gorgeous mittens. Five minutes later, you are clicking on the "Buy It Now" button.

The book arrives and you page through it. There are so many beautiful mittens it is nearly overwhelming. You note a couple that are particularly charming and then set the book aside. It isn't really mitten weather and you have plenty of UFO's competing for your attention.

Fast forward several months. You have just finished your second sweater in a row and you really need a small project to break the monotony. But it's also getting close to Christmas and you should really be thinking about presents. Hat? Not special enough. Socks? Just not in the mood. Hey, how 'bout some fancy mittens?

Stash dive produces two beautiful skeins of fingering weight alpaca. You choose #2 dpn's and virtuously cast on a swatch.

Uh-oh. Not getting gauge, not even close. Do you really want to go down to #1's? Naaaah. Let's check the book again. Hey, there are lots of different gauges. Surely there is mitten at your gauge. Happily there are several. After serious deliberation, you pick the prettiest one and cast on. You've got your dpn's, your photocopied pattern, your highlighter tape. It's all good. You cruise through the narrow ribbing and start the cuff.

Hmmm. Not so happy with this. Hard to keep the floats loose and uniform and you can see where you change needles. Not exactly ladders, but not seamless either. Work on two circulars? Drat! Only have one in the right size. Magic loop? Two rows remind you why you rejected that particular technique when it first came around. Now what?

Put project aside and wait impatiently for next day's lunch break when a quick trip to the yarn store erases all the savings created by using stash. Ah well. You grab another #2 circular and then, on a whim, you also grab one of those funny little 8" circulars. You figure you'll hate it, but it is worth a try.

We have a winner! The teeny needle works great and the mitten starts to grow. You have to switch to 2 circulars for the top of the hand and stay with them for the intricate thumb. Before you know it, you have a mitten!

One down, one to go. Gotta love the Yarn Harlot!

And now for something completely different...

Shockingly, I have actual knitting to blog about today. There has been no sewing or spinnng, just knitting and a little weaving that I'm not ready to show yet.

The first item is my creamsicle pullover which I finally finished! I took a long break on this project while it was too hot to work on it, but a couple weeks of steady work got it done.

I used EZ's recipe for a seamless pullover with saddle shoulders and added some X's and O's cables to the sleeves to add some interest.

I just love this yarn (Brown Sheep Lanaloft Worsted) and the color. It is crazy warm and it fits me really well.

Minutes after weaving in the last end, I went in search of yarn for my next project. (I was at Yarn Cravin' at the time) I needed to knit a birthday sweater for my daughter and I had about a week to do it if it was going to reach her in time in Montreal. My requirements for yarn were soft, worsted, and pretty enough to jazz up a plain vanilla sweater.

Malabrigo to the rescue! Can you believe this is the first time I've ever made a sweater of Malabrigo? It will NOT be the last. The colors are gorgeous and it is one of the softest wools I've ever found. I chose Pagoda as my main color, but the shop only had four skeins, so I also bought a skein of Cognac as an accent color. Turns out I could have made the sweater with just the four skeins, but it wouldn't have been as pretty and I wouldn't have had a leftover skein to make myself something!

Standard v-neck vest with steeked armholes and neck. The proportions might look wacky but L is tall with a long torso and she says it fits perfectly. She got her birthday box 3 days before her birthday and was very happy.

The Pagoda is more red than in the picture, but I just love the color variation.

My latest knitting is two-color stranded knitting on size 2's, so you can guess it isn't a sweater! Pictures next time - I gotta make dinner.

Knocked Out

Rough week in Knitasha land.  I'm sick with a cold and the office has been really crazy.  By last night I was worn to a frazzle.  I snore terribly when I'm stuffy, so I packed myself off to the guest room and slept for 11.5 hours without even getting up to pee.  Knocked out cold.  This morning I was feeling marginally improved, but I am getting sleepy again as the day wears on.

Managed to stagger out onto the doorstep and take a couple of pictures.  There is no sunshine in NW Ohio today, but at least it is not raining.

I made a concerted effort to work on the orange pullover this week and I am in the home stretch.

 

I am using EZ's magical saddle shoulder shaping from Knitter's Workshop.  If we go to the football game tonight, I just might get it done.

The crazy purple warp scarf is finished.

 

I really love how the fringe turned out.

 

I will definitely make more of these.  If I used blues or browns, could I give it to a guy?

There is another weaving project in the works, this time on the Dorothy.  I built myself a warping board out of PVC pipe and put on an 11' warp so I could weave two scarves.  I am 25% through scarf #2 with big plans to wrap it up this weekend.  Pictures when they are done.

This is the Christmas mat for my mom.

 

I have a little more machine quilting to do and then I have to sew the binding on.  Weaving has side-tracked me from sewing this week, but I will try to get back to this soon.

Post office, bank, and then to pick up M at school.  Happy Friday my friends!

Retreat!

It should come as no surprise that last weekend's retreat was absolutely fab.  Way too much sugar, not enough sleep, big fun!!!  I had a great massage, we sang Happy Birthday to Mary, Ferol, and Becca, and my puppy chow treat was summarily chowed.

I took my rigid heddle loom to retreat at the request of Dale Ann and Bobbie (who just may be regretting that now)  When I got there I had a scarf already started and I was able to finish it and use my handy-dandy fringe twister.

 

The yarn is Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran in Dark teal.  I bought it a million years ago at Knit A Round in Ann Arbor and it has just been sitting in my stash.  I love it woven - it shows the pattern crisply but is still nice and soft.

Once it was done, I worked on my orange pullover, but the next morning I couldn't resist putting on a new warp.  Inspired by some really cool scarves I saw on Ravelry (but of course can't find now to link to), I concocted a warp out of scraps of purple and pink yarn.

 

I know what you're thinking.  That is going to be one loud and crazy scarf, right?  Well...not if we use a plain sedate black for the weft.

 

Isn't that cool?  I will take a picture of the finished scarf and its very cool fringe if I can ever remember when the sun is out.  This worked out so well that I think I see more multi-yarn warp scarves in my future.

Wanted to show you all the retreat loot that I raked in.

 

Random yarn acquisitions.

Free book and slipper sock kit.  (My kit has the same yarn shown in the pattern picture.)

 

Fabulous and hand silk-screened project bag.

 

With the bag came this luscious skein of Olmue fingering weight yarn - 85% cotton and 15% rayon.  We are all supposed to create something wonderful with our skeins and bring them to the next retreat.

There was a "Chinese auction" on the second day.  Everyone brought a bag of secret loot to contribute and then we drew numbers.  When it was your turn, you could choose a new bag or steal a bag from someone else.  The bag of goodies I brought changed hands several times, so I guess I chose good stuff.  With some judicious bargaining, I was able to get this wonderful Cascade 220 at the end.

 

Four skeins!!  I also got Mary's auction prize, as she didn't think she'd use it.

 

Very bulky denim yarn.  I told her I'd try using it as weft for a rug and if it turns out OK I will gift it back to her.

Since the retreat I have worked more on the orange pullover, finished the black scarf, started a quilted table mat for my mom and warped my Dorothy for a double scarf extravaganza.  Luckily for you, I don't have pictures of any of it, so I will let you return to your regularly scheduled Saturday.

New Friend

I have a new friend.  Her name is Dorothy.

 

She is a 4 shaft table loom and I love her!

A couple of weekends ago I drove up to Detroit with Sarah to check out a spinning wheel she had found on Craigslist.  She wanted my slightly-more expert opinion.  Bridget, the lady who was selling it, lived in a really cool old house and had yarny/fibery stuff all over.  Sarah only had eyes for the beautiful wheel, but I noticed a big floor loom in the corner right away.  When I mentioned that I am a beginning weaver, Bridget said, "Hey, I have a table loom I'm selling.  Want to see it?"  Hell, yeah!!

While Sarah blissfully spun on her soon-to-be first wheel, I checked out Dorothy.  She has a weaving width of ~15"and a reed/beater that is 12 dents/inch.  She was obviously old but seemed to be in good shape.  I had no prior ambition to own a table loom, but now I had to have her.  Bridget and I carried out a negotiation where she threw in some shuttles, books, and magazines and I tried not to drool on her carpet.  We put Dorothy in the trunk, the new spinning wheel in the back seat and went for celebratory ice cream.

Dorothy sat for about a week while I pondered a little and looked through Deborah Chandler's Learning To Weave.  (Really cool book!)  Then I screwed up my courage and started to warp.

I chose a draft pattern from one of the magazines Bridget gave me.  Warping was more of a chore than on my rigid heddle loom, but I got it done.  Weaving was bliss!

 

Seriously, how cool is that?

I used 3/2 perle cotton in Wine and Evergreen and wove until I ran out of warp.  When it was all said and done, I had a 9" x 44.5" table runner with twisted fringe.  (I am twisted fringe mad at the moment)

 

I'm going to give this to my sister because a) it kind of matches her kitchen colors and b) she doesn't weave at all so she is a very uncritical audience.

 

Since I finished this, I found the draft library at Handweaving.net and now I am drunk on possibilities.  For now Dorothy will stay unwarped because this is the big knitting retreat weekend!  YAY!

My knitting project for the weekend will be the orange pullover I started back in August and then wandered away from.  I picked it back up last week and now I have one sleeve done and the second one started.

 

I am also taking my rigid heddle loom which has half a scarf on it and I haven't decided on whether my spinning wheel is coming or not.  So many important decisions!  I plan on packing the car tonight so I can get out there bright and early tomorrow.  Can't wait!

Another busy week.  I was on call and the influx of newborns was steady but not overwhelming.  I had a new Henry this week - that's not a name you hear much anymore!  Nice change from the Joshuas and Blakes.  The office has been hopping - the spate of school-acquired illness has yet to slow.  We are giving flu shots to everyone we can get our hands on  and doing our best to ignore the H1N1 bulletins from the CDC.  They change their minds on policy daily and don't seem to be presenting any info from the standpoint of pediatrics, so we either ignore them or go raving mad.

I was disciplined and worked steadily on the Ric Rac Rayon scarf until I finished it on Thursday night.  To make it go a little faster, I threw in panels of Leno lace.

This is not a scarf for warmth - just fashion.  I only used a 16 end warp, so it is about 5" wide and over 5' long.  I got to use my new Le Clerc fringe twister for the first time.

Sweeeet!

Anybody remember this fiber?

It's Masham that I bought at a fiber fair in Ann Arbor last year.  I loved the colors, but the resulting yarn was really scratchy, so I just tucked it into a drawer until last weekend when I decided my new iPod needed a jacket.

No complaints from the iPod so far.

A little sewing went on.  I used up scraps from the wallets to make a couple mats.

I wasn't happy with the quilting on the black and white one, so it will stay in my own kitchen while the purple one goes on the gift pile.

I think the next sewing will have a holiday theme, as I just received a packet of Christmas prints from Keepsake Quilting, but not today.  Today is about weaving and football.  C'mon Dolphins, you can't lose them all!