Knitasha von Stashenskeins

Blown Away (almost)

Yikes! After starting out the morning with a thunderstorm, we are getting some ridiculous wind in Northwest Ohio today.  There are branches down everywhere.  I had to stop on my way to work while a little front-loader tried to wrestle a fallen tree out of the street.  It was a struggle, but the front-loader prevailed in the end.  Then I got a photo from a friend of her husband's truck with a giant tree limb crushing the roof and smashing the windshield.  Kermit and I were happy to get home in one piece with all four wheels on the ground.  

M's stocking is all done.  I think she will be happy with it. As requested, it is enormous.

Pack of cards included for scale.

I used duplicate stitch for her name.

To prevent the Christmas loot from stretching it out of shape, I used some red jersey fabric to make a lining and then I hand-sewed around the top to hold it in place.

Now L wants her stocking lined as well, which won't be too hard.  At least she doesn't want me to start from scratch!

The endless charcoal stockinette is complete and I have moved on to the happy land of striped yoke with raglan decreases.

I'm quite certain it is going to look good, but I'm a little worried it might be a bit...feminine?  The recipient is not particularly macho and always appreciates my hand-knits, but ever since M rebuked me for making him a Purl Bee Bandana Cowl last Christmas, I second guess my ability to choose gender-appropriate patterns.  Any supportive feedback welcome!

Monday Night Football awaits.  Maybe next time I will show you some of the things I've been sewing!!

Pooling It

I finished weaving the kool-aid warp that I dyed.  I wanted to accentuate the colors without washing them out, so I used Comfort DK in a light brown for the weft.

I wish I had put the orange where the yellow is.  Some of the orange was lost to loom waste and the yellow is kind of meh.  Oh well, I finally accomplished a pooling scarf and now I have a reproducible method to make more.  I have enough of the dyed yarn for a second scarf - I might try a black weft for that one.

M's new Christmas scarf is getting bigger.  

That little strip of yellow is waste yarn for an afterthought heel.  Since stockings always hang so you see the side, I think I will rotate the decreases for the heel by 90 degrees so it looks more like a toe. (The pictures when I'm done will help if that just made zero sense to you) I'm also toying with the idea of lining the entire stocking to prevent stretching out of shape.  I think I've got some red jersey or fleece around somewhere.

This pattern doesn't show up well in the photo - not enough contrast between the green and red.

This is a Sanquhar pattern called Prince of Wales.  Sanquhar is a small town in Scotland that was known for producing beautiful hand-knitted gloves in distinctive black and white patterns.  These patterns are very adaptable to other knitted items and look good in colors as well as black and white. A Ravelry search for Sanquhar knitting patterns yields many gorgeous designs.  I don't have the patience for gloves, but the socks are striking and all that color stranding would make them really thick and warm.

Ohio State is playing Minnesota at noon today and I will be camped out on the couch with the stocking to keep me from biting my fingernails.  With some luck, 3:30 will find the Buckeyes with another victory and me with the stocking nearly completed!

Special Request

I caught a bad cold last week and spent most of the weekend snoozing and blowing my nose.  You know you're sick when you don't have the energy to knit!  I worked on the charcoal sweater a little more - now it is two sleeves and three inches of body.  Charcoal stockinette is not a dynamic photo subject, so I will spare you.

I put the sweater on a temporary hold yesterday to start on a special request project.  As you can imagine, the members of the von Stashenskeins family all have hand-knit Christmas stockings.  M's is dark green with cables and it is pretty but it has squeaky white acrylic fluff around the top and it is kind of small.  Every year when I pull out the Christmas decorations I think I should knit her a new one, but by then my last-minute Christmas crafting is already in overdrive and it never happens.  But this year, M was smart enough to request a new stocking in October and I really can't put it off any longer.

I chose Lion Brand Heartland for the yarn.  It is 100% acrylic (horrors!) but really soft and I love the depth of the colors.  Acrylic will also last for a billion years and won't stretch out when the stocking gets stuffed.  The colors are King's Canyon and Redwood.

To make it fancier I started with a two-color cast on and then a Vikkel braid, all courtesy of Nancy Bush's Folk Knitting in Estonia which is a brilliant book that I have loved for 15 years now.  Looks like there are used copies available should you wish to have your very own.  The stranded color pattern is also from the book. I plan one more repeat and then another braid and a new pattern for the next panel. I'm going to do an afterthought heel in red - probably a red toe too.  I'm going to duplicate stitch her name on the plain green panel with white so it will really pop.  

The top edge with the braid REALLY wants to curl - I may knit a little stockinette facing to discourage it.

The only other new thing to show is some yarn I dyed.  Can you believe these colors are Kool-Aid?

This will be a the warp for a pooling scarf - there are good explanations and some gorgeous examples in this Ravelry discussion group.  I wound the yarn on my warping wheel so I had the full length of the warp and then dyed it in mason jars on the stove like this.  If I put it on the loom correctly, the colors will line up and I will have a lovely Ikat effect.  I have a whole list of errands to tackle today, but I think a little pre-errand warping may be in order!

Dye Job

There is a Fiber Fair in Ann Arbor every fall and I have been attending for years.  I usually go just to browse and shop but this year I signed up for a class.  I've really been wanting to hand-paint some warps for scarves, so I signed up for a class on hand-painting yarn and roving.

It really wasn't all I had hoped it would be.  The instructor was an absent-minded woman who rambled without actually imparting much information.  Her assistant was her grown daughter who insisted on interrupting and correcting her mother as often as possible.  The class was unstructured, there were no handouts, and I didn't learn anything I hadn't already learned with my long-ago experiments with Kool-aid dyeing.

On the bright side, they did provide me with two skeins of sock yarn to play with and they had lots of dyes and all the supplies we needed.  The sock yarn was a mystery wool and not white or cream but a soft brown.  It was interesting to see how the brown yarn made the colors richer.  We squirted dye onto our skeins with plastic syringes and then cooked them in the microwave.

My first skein I used lilac and evergreen and I was careful to cover every bit of the yarn with dye.

In the skein.

Wound into a ball.  Not sure how it will look knitted up, but the green/purple combo is soothing to me.

My second skein I used raspberry and pumpkin dyes.  The pumpkin was a hard clump in the jar and I had a hard time chipping any out.  Even when I had a whole teaspoon, the dye looked way too light to show up on my brown yarn.  I poured a little of my mixed raspberry dye into it to make it darker and then I stuck a portion of the skein right into the jar to soak while I painted the rest with the raspberry.  I didn't like the yarn while it was wet, but it thankfully brightened up when it dried.  There isn't anything there I would call pumpkin, but I stumbled into a gold-brown that isn't too bad.

In the skein. At the top you can see a section which is nearly the original yarn color - that's where I squirted on the pumpkin.  The other more golden sections were soaked in the jar.

Wound into a ball.

I'd really like to cast on some socks to see how this will look knitted up, but Christmas knitting cannot be denied.  I have resolutely set these aside for now and did charcoal stockinette during Sunday Night Football instead.

That's sleeve #1 to the armhole finished and sleeve #2 has passed the 5" mark.  I'm going to use the sleeves as my swatch for gauge, so the body will be next.  Then I'll join sleeves and body for a raglan yoke and leave the charcoal behind for some COLOR!

P.S. Are you wondering where the pictures are of my purchases from the fair?  They don't exist because I didn't buy a thing! IKR??!!  Just didn't see anything I couldn't live without.

 

 

Wait, what?

Just checked and my last post was JANUARY!  That's pretty sad.  It's understandable because that is about when M's senior year took over my life.  Despite all the planning and strategizing, that last little bit of the college decision process was brutal.  Boyfriend chose a school we couldn't afford and that M hadn't even visited, putting us on the hot seat.  In the end, we decided we had put a lot of time and effort into being the worst parents ever and we didn't want to break our perfect record (or live in our cars).  We said no and M had to suck it up and pick a different school.  When the shouting subsided and the smoke cleared, the winner was American University in D.C.

Pros: good journalism school, big and vibrant city, family close by, not Ohio.

Cons: 8 hours from boyfriend and 9 hour drive for visiting parents. (waah waah)

So far so good.  She moved in late August and has settled in nicely.  Lots of nice people in her dorm, lots of fun stuff to do outside of class.  Roomate is grumpy cat in human form, but they have settled on a policy of oblivious co-existence where they barely speak to each other and yet it is mainly peaceful. They are thankfully compatible in being very messy, so the thermostat is all they really have to fight about.

We have been to visit twice now.  The last visit was last weekend for parent's weekend.  Lots of eating out, the requisite Target visit, a dinner with Hubby's family.  We even squeezed in a little sight-seeing.  M hadn't made it to the Washington Cathedral yet, so we had a nice peaceful hour there.

Because it isn't on the Mall, a lot of visitors to D.C. don't get around to the cathedral, but it is really worth the extra effort.  The architecture is impressive and there is some really great stained glass.  My favorite is called the Space Wndow.

Clearer and better photos on Google Images here and here.  M bought a postcard of this window for the growing photo collage on her dorm room wall.  

The whole cathedral is just gorgeous and I highly recommend it as a tour stop.  If you won't be traveling to Washington D.C. anytime soon, there are some wonderful virtual tours available on the cathedral website.

Now that we are back in Ohio, the cooling temperatures and falling leaves are reminding me of the approach of winter (yuck!) and Christmas (yay!) Christmas knitting is in full swing at Chez Knitasha.

But before Christmas comes L's birthday, so I finished this vest for her first.  In real life, the grey yarn is actually more brown and it is HANDSPUN!  It is lovely and soft.  The cream is Lamb's Pride Bulky, which matched the weight of the handspun very nicely.  I used size 11 needles, so it knit up very quickly. Using the cream for the yoke meant I didn't have to steek much of the handspun, so it all worked out very well.  L should like it, even though she can't wear it for now.  She's in Dallas until election day, where they are still having 80's and even some 90's, but she'll be back to the midwest soon enough.

My next project was my Dad's sweater without sleeves.  I've really been trying to knit from stash more, but I have a bad habit of only buying one or two skeins of anything.  For this vest I found three balls of Universal Yarn Classic Shades in Sapphires and one ball in Cedar Forest.  Very simple math told me 6 rows of Sapphires then 2 of Cedar Forest would make the yarn come out even.  I used a ball of Plymouth Encore for the ribbed edges and I'm happy with the overall effect.

There's a broad stripe of green in the center of the body section and the shade of the Sapphires and the Cedar Forest matched up too well in that section.  You really couldn't see the two-row darker stripe at all.  It bugged me too much to leave it, but I didn't want to rip the whole sweater out, so I went back and duplicate stitched on a two-row black stripe.  You can feel the extra thickness, but it is undetectable visually so I'm happy.  Couple more rows on the neckband and then I will weave in the ends and move on to the next!

Bad pictures of cool stuff

We spent the week after Christmas with my family in Yuma, Arizona where it was in the 70's everyday. We flew back yesterday. Now we have blizzard conditions, the streets are closed to all but emergency workers, and the forecast says down to -19 F by Tuesday AM.

Let's ignore this vile weather and look at some pretty stuff instead.

These are little trivets my mom made me for Christmas. Each circle is a bottle cap enclosed in crochet.





This is M's Christmas sweater. It has snippets of lyrics from some of her favorite songs. Had to reblock it today to make the arms longer and then she promises to wear it. She better! Choosing lyrics of appropriate length and charting the whole she-bang was not a picnic.





Little owl crocheted from leftover bits from my dad's Christmas sweater. The pattern is here.




My sister crocheted me an afghan!! She is really into crochet right now and unlike me she loves sewing pieces together. I was so surprised! I have already napped under it - two thumbs up!




Have you seen people arm-knitting on the internet? Kinda fun. This yarn is called Dash and is surprisingly soft for an entirely acrylic yarn from Red Heart. This infinity scarf took me about 15 minutes start to finish!




Last photo - tree branches outside my bedroom window. Just got a text that my office is closed tomorrow. Happy blizzard everybody!

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Halloweenies

Because it was cold and rainy on Thursday night, the powers that be postponed trick-or-treating until tonight. Heaven forbid any children get wet or chilly! L's first four Halloweens were in Des Moines and it seemed like we got snow every year. As a friend at work said, who's going to grow up to be Marines?

Just finished a pair of socks. Very plain to show off the nice stripes.

The artificial light makes these look a little bleached. The main color is actually a medium grey. Christmas present for somebody, but I'd kind of like to keep them!


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Easy Soup

As a public service announcement, I wanted to pass along a super easy recipe for chicken tortilla soup that I tried yesterday. It's yummy!

The basic framework for the soup was on Pinterest and then
I tweaked it a little. You need:

6 c. chicken broth
1 jar salsa verde (any kind you like)
Can of Rotel tomatoes and green chiles (I used mild)
1 can corn drained
1 can beans drained and rinsed (I found a combo can of black, kidney, and pinto)
Rotisserie chicken, shredded

That's it! Put it all together, heat to
boiling, simmer about 15 minutes to let flavors blend.

Of course, you can dress up your bowl of soup with shredded cheese, tortilla strips, chopped avocado, fresh lime wedges, or a dollop of sour cream. I made corn muffins as well, and it was a very satisfying dinner. I even took leftovers in to work for my lunch!


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Suddenly Socks

After having no interest in knitting socks for over a year, the mojo is back. In the last two weeks I have finished a pair and a half and the fourth sock is in progress.

Pair # 1 is a) at home and b) inexplicably ugly, so no picture of them for you. I took a perfectly lovely ball of self-striping Liberty Wool and paired it with a coordinating solid in alternating 2-row stripes and the result was two meh socks that only bear a passing resemblance to each other. I am fine with "fraternal" pairs, but these two are distant cousins twice removed.

Ah well, we live and learn. I may give them to L to wear in her snow boots.

Pair #2 is pleasing me thus far.

This is Lang Jawoll Color Superwash yarn that has been marinating in my stash for who knows how long. Each 45g skein comes with a little spool of coordinating thread to fortify the heels and toes. I managed to remember it for the heel but forgot for the toe. I will try to make the second one to match.

M picked out the yarn because the socks are for her boyfriend's birthday. The sweater I made him for Christmas didn't doom their relationship, so I feel ok about making him socks.

He has a funky pair I knit years ago out of bits and pieces and never wore. He ran across them one day when M was searching for a scarf and became enamored with them. "Do you think your mom would let me have these?" You know I'm a sucker for any willing knitting recipient - M knew she didn't even have to ask. She says he loves them, so I'm hoping this new pair will be a hit.

I'm facing a conundrum at home. Hubby was out of town last weekend and while he was gone our ice started to taste funny. Kind of a cross between metal and lettuce. I think we can agree that neither of these flavors are a welcome addition to a cold beverage. I decided that the ancient ice maker in our ancient refrigerator had developed some rust on its inner mechanisms.

My solution was to pull the unit out and buy a bag of ice at the gas station. No muss, no fuss.

Until, of course, the hubby came home. Once he was finally persuaded that there was an actual problem with the ice maker, his solution was to disassemble the entire thing and clean/scrape/sand off any visible rust. Not a little job - it took him over 2 hours. Then he reinstalled it and declared the ice crisis was resolved.

Of course, the ice continues to taste like rusty lettuce and ruins any beverage I put it in. Thus far, he either hasn't noticed or he just won't admit it. After all the work he put in, it feels ungrateful to complain, but the bag of ice I purchased is nearly gone. Soon I will be forced to buy another bag.

Will he pretend not to notice? Or get all wounded and huffy that I won't use the ice from the ice maker? Experience tells me he will insist the ice is fine and that I'm being unreasonable.

Why do guys have to take everything so personally? I'm not demanding a new fridge. I'm not even asking to share the ice purchasing responsibility. All I want is a cold beverage that doesn't taste like iron shavings!


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Posting Paralysis

When it has been this long since my last post, I find myself paralyzed. There has been so much knitting and sewing, so many FO's to share. M had Prom and her 17th birthday. There has been major house renovation resulting in my craft room getting a) bigger and b) built in shelves! Where do I even start?

I have reminded myself that I have been most successful in the past when I keep posts simple and don't try to crowd everything in at once. So I am composing this at work and will only include a few photos that I happen to have on my phone.

First of all, PROM!!

We purchased the dress in Chicago and she had nails AND toenails professionally polished, but for some reason M decided her hair should be a DIY project. DIM actually - do it Mom! This was such a strange choice since in the past she had allowed me to mess with her hair exactly never.

For some reason, she watched on Internet video tutorial for a fancy up-do and decided I was up to the task. After making me watch it four times, she fussed and fumed and micromanaged while I spent 45 minutes and a bazillion bobby pins to create this:

Can you believe it?!

Here she is with her cutie-patootie boyfriend.





My new and improved craft room doesn't have carpet yet, but I can show you the super-cool shelves and the big windows.







The shelves stretch around three walls and were built extra strong so they can hold all my books. Gonna be great when I finally get in there. For now all my stuff is packed into the guest room - looks like a hoarder lives there.

I am really bad about buying every new knitting book that comes along and then never knitting anything out of them. But my newest book is different.






I have already finished one sweater from the book with a second one in progress. The first one is a lace tunic called Joy.



Not a color I typically pick but the yarn was on sale and I ended up really liking it. I wore it earlier in the week over a black tee. I have decided I need to line the straps with some fabric to reinforce them so they don't stretch out over time.

The second sweater is a vest with front pockets and a hood and I chose yellow again.




This is Berroco Vintage which is my new favorite yarn. More pix to come!

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