I could eat this with a spoon!

Oh those lovely gals over at Knit-Purl! I just got this in the mail yesterday and it even came with a HANDWRITTEN card! I got out of bed to get the mail and brought this back to bed with me so I could look at it a little before I fell back asleep! I can't wait to get started on these, but they'll have to wait a little while yet. The pattern for my baby niece sweater also came and I will start work on that later today. This yarn is for Mrs. Beeton Wristwarmers and I know exactly which beads I am going to use with it! I also have my eye on another red colorway, but I will wait to buy that yarn. This is also my first ever Rowan purchase! I am just moving UP in the world!

Tony the Tiger

My grandpa died at the beginning of the month and my mother had been up to his house to do some sorting and cleaning. She brought this little guy home for me! She told me how when she was a little girl, she would sell stationary and Christmas cards to earn Christmas money and how her mother (my grandma who has been gone 26 years now) used to drive her to all the neighbors' houses so she could sell to them. This was her prize one year for selling her cards and she gave it to her mother for Christmas. His crown is a pincushion and he has a hole in his nose where you would put embroidery scissors and they look like glasses. His tail pulls out to reveal a tape measure! He is just the cutest thing I've ever seen and he has been broken and glued together several times. Mother found it this week and gave it to me and I am just tickled with him!

Can Spring Be Far Behind?

We were under a snow advisory last night and got quite a few inches, and I have not been anywhere without a sweater for at least two weeks now but hey--we finally had winter. It was quite unnatural to be in January with green grass sprouting on the lawn. With all this cold weather bearing down on us, I found myself ironically playing with spring colorways this morning. Melissa was here for Knit Night yesterday so we first went out to eat and then, as a lark, decided to go and "check out" Joann Fabrics. To make a long story short--I spent a lot of money in there! We headed back to the reduced fabric part of the store and found all kinds of stash for $3/yard. It wasn't until we got up to the cutting table that the clerk told us they had been further reduced by 50%--$1.50/yard! And they were lovely 100% cotton prints! Melissa had picked out fabric for scrubs but was wringing her hands trying to decide which one to get, but once she heard that, she bought them both! They also had novelty yarn on sale for $1.50/skein so Melissa was guilty of some stash building last night too! (It is a DISEASE!) I had a point to all this...oh yeah, plot exposition. Pictured are 4 skeins of wound 100% wool that I bought at Joann's as a felted purse kit. I think I will alter the pattern a bit and use wooden handles instead of knitting I-cord handles. I wanted to fool around with this a bit this morning but didn't have time. The other three skeins are my fabulous Koigu that will be made into a Kottou cardigan for my new niece (note the pictured ribbon I've chosen for the closure). I ordered the pattern and my first ever Rowan yarn (!!!--but more on that project later!) from Knit-Purl yesterday and they were just sweethearts on the phone! It will be a pleasure to work on these two projects, even though I couldn't take a focused picture of the yarn to save my life! Oh well, enjoy the colors! They are sitting on just one of the many fabulous cuts of fabric I bought yesterday!

Felted Bag--AFTER!

I took it home and washed it in my mother's machine for one cycle and couldn't believe the difference! It is now a nice handbag size. I knit up a flower from a pattern in Handknit Holidays and sewed it onto the purse with beads. That blue yarn is some homespun Wensleydale wool--I wanted to have a little homespun on the bag so I could take it for show and tell at the next spinner's meeting (!!!). Melissa came over last night for Knit Night and she has started one! She got all the way through the handles and into the medium gray row and is doing very well! We'll finish it up probably sometime next week. And after 2 bags, I do indeed think I'll have enough yarn for a THIRD bag so I am happy with my purchase of 6 skeins of Cascade 220!

Soap Day

This is a very bad picture of the last cube of my hoarded and glorious Savon de Marseilles! It is the lovliest soap ever! I saw it all over Europe when traveling but resisted buying it because I can order it here in the States. I was tempted in Dublin to buy a 500g block because it is just THAT lovely, but I couldn't justify adding a 1/2 kg of unnceccesary weight to my suitcase when braving Ryan Air's baggage regulations for the flight back to London.

Felted Bag--BEFORE

I finished the knitting of this bag this morning and threw it into our washer to be felted. For things to felt properly, they need the shock of different temperatures. I put the machine on the "whites" setting for a hot wash and cold rinse. I was a bit concerned as to how the handles would hold up, but they did straighten out a little. Our machine does not get very hot though and we haven't had much shrinkage yet. I threw it in for a second cycle and we'll see how it turns out. As I recall, when I made Fuzzy Feet for Christmas last year, I did all the knitting here and took them home to machine felt them at my parents' house and their washer was 10 times better. I will be going home this weekend, but in the meantime I will have to start work on some Loom Blooms to decorate the bag with!

Spinning Group

I attended my first ever local spinning group meeting yesterday! I honestly didn't know we had a local group until I demonstrated spinning at the Pioneer Museum this summer and was invited by the other spinner who was demonstrating that day. The meetings are always held on the second Thursday of the month but between working nights and sleeping during the day, I had never been free to go to one. I was so pleasantly surprised yesterday when I walked into the studio at the MacNider museum! There were 7 ladies in attendance that day and most of them were mainly weavers who also spun and there was some knitting talk. I had been told that part of every meeting was a monthly show and tell so I brought along my skein of soysilk yarn I had spun on my drop spindle. One of the ladies had brought several placemat-sized pieces of overshot weaving that she had been tweaking patterns with. She gave them away to the group because she was "clearing out her clutter" and she gave me two beautiful pieces! The top piece in the photo is an overshot pattern and the piece on the bottom (my Pirate hat is sitting on it in another picture) is a jacquard (I think!). I am very enthusiastic about this group and will have to arrange my work schedule around the meetings! I have two sets of wooden card weaving cards that I have never yet used and there was talk of a card weaving demonstration for one of the meetings. I have ALWAYS wanted to learn to weave on a multi draft loom (one lady brought in different cotton towels she had woven on her table loom and they were bee-YEWtiful!), and they were even discussing a Kumihimo Japanese braid demonstration for one of the meetings! I had to run errands after the meeting but I left the museum absolutely foaming at the mouth and all I wanted to do was to just "get to some yarn"! Sitting in that meeting was kind of like going to the grocery store hungry because I just wanted to start a hundred new projects!

Ball Windin'

I have been eager to knit the felted bag that appears on the Winter 2005 cover of Spin-Off. They finally posted a pattern on their Interweave website due to the number of requests they received asking for bag instructions (the bag appeared in the photo but the actual featured article was about small loom woven flowers that embellished the bag). On our last trip to Rochester, I bought 6 skeins of Cascade 220 worsted weight yarn for this project. I wound all the skeins into balls this morning and began work on the bag. You knit with two balls of yarn stranded together on size 15 needles which knits up quite quickly. I'm halfway done with it already and all this before I've even had my NAP! I don't see why I wouldn't have enough yarn for a second and possible THIRD bag! I can't wait to pull it out of the washer when it's finished! More on that later!

Pirate Hat

I knit a We Call Them Pirates hat for my niece while riding a bus around eastern Europe this summer and gave it to her as a Christmas gift (I must admit, I was making the hat for myself but it was far too small). My high school-aged nephew liked it and asked if I would make him one also, and I think my brother wants one now too. This is also my first finished object of 2007 and I hope to crank out all kinds of stuff this year. A note about this pattern: it calls for sport weight yarn (I used Brown Sheep sport weight for my niece's hat which was too small for an adult) and size 3 needles--however, for the adult sized hat, I used Lion Brand Wool (worsted weight) and size 5 needles and was quite pleased with the results. The pattern also calls for you to monkey around with knitting a lining, but that was far too much work. I started by knitting 10 or so rows of stockinette, then one purl row, and THEN began the charted work. This gave me a good inch to fold and tack up inside the hat for a cleaner edge.

It. Is. Done.

Now when my friends scream like Cartman, "Go and knit me a sweater!", I can actually do it! Here is my niece modeling her new sweater (from Debbie Bliss' Great Knits For Kids) over a coordinating monkey suit! We went up to visit my sister and her husband and then my brother and his family this last weekend and I was fiendishly knitting in the backseat for the entire ride and for much of the weekend! I bought the buttons at one of the 3 (count them THREE) yarn shops we hit (!!!) and finished it up on our last day there. In a way I wish I had brought it home so I could show my girlfriends, but I wanted my niece to have every opportunity to use and wear it! I am SO proud of this sweater! The yarn is probably a DK weight and was knit on size US 4 needles. I suppose I took 2 1/2 months to make it and that is just knitting here and there on it. If I had really buckled down, I bet I could have done it in 2 weeks, but with the holidays and my horrendous schedule lately, I made a sporadic job of it. Now all I can think about is how quickly an adult Aran sweater would knit up if made in worsted weight on a size US 8 or so. Hmmmmmmm. I also bought some fabulous Koigu yarn for a pair of socks and a sweater for my baby niece and I have it sitting out where I can regularly fondle it! I will post pics of all my plunder tomorrow, but right now my bed is calling my name! Happy Late New Year Everyone! :)