Anna don't look!

My cousin is getting married on September 6th and I wanted to make her a bridal purse to hang over her wrist as she walks down the aisle. My aunt told me the dress was an "oyster shell" color and I found this lovely, subtly variegated white and pale grey size 8 pearl cotton thread. I knit this on US size 0 needles with size 9/0 Gutermann beads. I surfed around a little looking for pictures of bead knitting until I found something I liked and started there and didn't use any sort of formal pattern. I only had to rip out and start over once at the very beginning because it was a little too wide for the frame. The bag shape is widened simply by regularly sliding a larger number of beads in the middle and a smaller number towards the ends. The entire purse is knit in one long strip, sewn into the frame, and then the sides are sewn together. It was a very free form and forgiving little project. I wanted to knit this for the Knitting Olympics this year and I DID finish knitting and cast off on the 22nd before the torch went out for these Games, but I had a late start. I could not find any size 9/0 beads in this town to work with that thread and I was getting a little nervous! I knit this in exactly one week! Originally I had planned to line it, but I kind of like how the light shines through those rows of beads. With bead knitting, you slide beads on the WRONG side of the work as well as the right side, so those beaded "pleats" are actually gaps in the knitting that are help open with the beads.

Sparky Fur

I have wedding knitting I really should be working on, but instead I have been playing with dog hair! Our family dog had his first hair cut this week and I asked them to save the fur for spinning. He is a beagle/poodle mix so the hair was quite short. I had about 2 ounces or so and carded it all out and tried to spin it...with no luck. Since the staple is so short, I had to really WAD it up to catch the twist because you just plain can't draft it. It would get very thick and thin in places which is fine, but I had trouble getting it to feed through the orifice or it would get hung up on the hooks. Oh well. I tried. I had been laughing about it and hoping I'd be able to knit him a sweater with yarn spun from his own fur! Maybe I can use it for needle felting. Or...I could do what any SANE person would do--throw it away! ;)

Oh, and here is a before and after picture of Sparky the Donor Dog! :) Isn't he a cute little guy?

County Fair

Mom and I did really well at the fair in Britt and Mason City. I entered a pair of those Perdita cuffs, a felted purse, a temari ball, and Deedee's zig zag mittens. In Britt I got a grand champion on the cuffs (I sewed the buttons on just prior to dropping them off and noticed that I had TOTALLY left out a row of beads! I guess the judge didn't notice or didn't care!), a reserve grand champion on the temari ball, and blues on the purse and mittens. My mother entered a hardanger liturgical stole she'd embroidered for our church and got the grand champion overall best in show! She won it last year too with a hardanger baptismal gown! :) I was very proud of her! I even told her as we were dropping our items off that I was just sure she'd win it again! In Mason City, I got blues on everything but won a special "Judge's Choice" award on the mittens. And of course you win $1.50 for each blue ribbon! Mom entered her baptism dress and got a blue as well. Now we're already thinking about what to enter next year!