Yippi-kai-yay!

I have always wanted cowboy pajamas. Don't ask me why. But I can't wear button up pajama shirts because I always feel like I am being choked. Again, don't ask me why. But I found this wonderfully tacky red fabric with cowboy heads on them a while back and made myself some pants (aka Loungewear). They are so deliciously cowboy too! They have their names next to each cowboy (Slim, Tex, Leroy, Luke, etc.)! My 5 year old niece is going through a MAJOR horse phase and she just LOVES these pants! Every time I am with her and wearing them, she will point to the different cowboys and ask, "What is HIS name? What is HIS name?" And I am STILL kicking myself because a few weeks ago I found some PINK fabric from the same designer with cowGIRLS on it (Josie, Mary Jo, Ellen, Liz, etc.) and I DIDN'T (can you BELIEVE it?!?) buy any. That is why it is always best to be an impulse buyer when it comes to fabric. I FIRMLY believe this! I will see fabric and have a small stroke in the store and snap up a LOT of it (lately I've been limiting myself to 1/2 yards for the stash and I think that is very healthy, but I also believe in buying YARDAGE because I won't know IN THE STORE what I'm going to do with it but I know some day I will have an idea and will use it and it will be FABULOUS in whatever I do with it--I often will sit up in the middle of the night out of a dead sleep with the "inspiration" and make some notes--it's also useful to keep a pad and pencil next to your bed for this purpose. I'm sick. I know. And I'm also done with this parenthesis rant!) So anyways, I was loitering in Hobby Lobby with the gift certificate that my late grandpa Maynerd gave me for Christmas burning a hole in my pocket and I happened across this HORSE fabric from the same designer and bought 1 yard of it. In a way I'm glad I passed on the cowgirl fabric because my niece loved this EVEN more! And thank goodness for little girls because they are short and you can make a pair of pants for them in under 1 yard! I bought a pattern and made them about 4 sizes too big in the waist and just cinched them up with elastic and hemmed them up by at least 5 inches because I have a feeling that she will wear them for a long time! She was so excited as I was cutting them out and it was a lovely opportunity to show her how to lay the fabric out, how to read a pattern and the cutting diagram, etc. She will be a sewer. I have a child's sewing machine that I bought when she was 3 months old with a real needle and everything and I'm just biting my fist for the day I can give it to her when I'm assured she won't majorly injure herself! And now she has her own pants and she is able to recognize letters and words and now I'm going to make HER tell ME what the horses' names on her pants are! And it felt so good to sew again! It had been awhile and it was a JOY to sew on my mother's Elna machine because it corners like it's on RAILS!

I Heart Cannibals!

We all went to my grandpa's house this weekend to collect the things we wanted for ourselves before the auctioneer got there to appraise everything. I came home with far more things than I can find homes for, but I will always treasure them. One thing in particular was this pile of scraps we found in the trunk in Grandma's closet. She had cut these pieces off of old clothes and I so wish I could ask her where they came from! There is a sizeable piece of needle tatted lace, some crocheted lace on some cotton fabric (I wonder if it was a pillowcase at one time), a lace collar that has hook and eyes still sewn on (what would have been hooked onto it? And WHO has a neck that small?!?) and a beaded yoke or headband. Most of it is machine stitched onto the accompanying fabric which makes me wonder exactly how old it is. And the airy lace at the far right is one big circle. It seems to have been stitched in gores, but I'll bet it was just cut off the hem of a skirt. So now I am just THINKING about what I could do with all this. I spend a lot of time just THINKING how to utilize raw materials. I'd like to incorporate them into something I'll use and will always remember that these pieces belonged to my grandmother, but I want to preserve them as well. These need to be made into "underwear drawer items". You know, something very pretty but kind of fragile that you put jewelery into or fragile things and then you put them in your underwear drawer. That's where the women in our family always keep things like that because I swear the underwear drawer is the safest place in the whole house! That beaded yoke/headband is disintegrating though. They are pearly glass beads stitched onto some stiffened crinolin and the crinolin is cracking in places. I think I will cut the beads off and use them for some Perdita wrist warmers. I'll have to see how many pairs I can get out of the beads, but that would be a nice gift for my sister and mother and sister in law and cousins and aunts, but I'll have to see how many beads are required for each pair. Oh I just LOVE starting new projects! And maybe I'm just sentimental, but I believe in carrying things with you from people in your life or from your past. I will have to get out some pictures, but I wonder if that yoke/headband wasn't from her bridal veil?

Tres Chic!

Ok, ok, so I started a new project. Hard to believe, eh? I ran across this Le' Slouch pattern online, was instantly enamored of it and spent the next 12 hours racking my brain taking mental inventory of any worsted weight in my stash. I remembered I had 2 skeins of Colinette Prism just WAITING to be made into something fabulous. I was a bit nervous because the pattern called for 200 yards of yarn and each skein had about 120 meters. I thought for sure I'd have a dreaded runt of a ball left over for the scrap heap, but I finished this hat in under one skein AND under 24 hours! I still have one skein left if someone I know wants a hat like this. I also have that skein of Mango Moon I bought not too long ago and maybe that would make a cute hat for someone! I really like this pattern and I've been thinking about making a hat for my niece from the yarn left over from her sweater. I couldn't follow the matching beret pattern to save my life, but this hat looks like it is shaped similarly and it would not be at all difficult to put some cable panels in amongst the seed stitch!

Slainte!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

I wanted to make something green and obnoxious to take to work tonight for treats. I was going to make frosted shamrock sugar cookies the day before yesterday but I lacked both the time and strength. I had a moment of inspiration this morning when, hungry and scrounging for a before-slumber-snack, I happened upon a box of lemon pudding mix. I then rummaged through my cupboards and found a lemon cake mix and Voila--Lemon Bread! I baked them in my festive green bread tins I bought at the Liberty store in London (I STILL have the shopping bag!) and I even added green food coloring to the batter as added craic! This is a recipe from the family cookbook my mother compiled in 1995. It's official title is the "Cook's Choice" cookbook, but we lovingly refer to it as the "White Trash" cookbook! It is a simple recipe and really should be considered more of a pound cake than a bread.

1 small box instant lemon pudding mix

1 box lemon cake mix

4 eggs

1/2 c. oil

1 c. water

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Pour batter into 2 greased bread pans and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until knife comes out clean. Mix together 1/2 c. sugar and 1/4c. lemon juice and drizzle over loaves while still in pan.

I went to a local charity based second hand store the other day in search of piles and stacks of knitting needles (they're never there when you're actually LOOKING for them) for gifts/prizes at the next Knit Night. I didn't find any but I bought a big bag of lovely wooden spools of thread, two funky zippers, and a darning egg for my collection (honestly, what DON'T I collect?!). I could think of no greater backdrop today than my Aran sweater that I purchased at An Tuirne on the Aran Island of Inismore and you can STILL smell the lanolin in the wool! I am working up the courage to knit one for myself soon! If my apartment ever catches fire, I will be wearing this sweater as I run for my life!

Kottou Cardi

I finished my niece's Kottou Cardigan earlier in the week. This sure was a cute little pattern, but it's knit with Koigu yarn on size 4 needles so you never feel like you are making any progress! And I must admit I was a bit worried about the sleeve shaping. The entire lower portion is knit in one piece, then folded to make the asymmetrical flaps and THEN stitches are held and picked up on both the front and back. The shoulder/upper sleeve seams don't have to be sewn because they are bound off together with a three needle bind off which means that the only seams to be sewn are the lower sleeve seams! Yesssssss! I hate sewing seams. And I was pretty sure as I was knitting a huge rectangle (the lower portion of the back and front sides) that I would run out of yarn and of course I had already thrown away the labels with the dye lot numbers on them when I wound the balls! I did have some left over though for the scrap stash. All in all, I am very pleased with this little sweater and I just saw my niece this weekend and she will have some room to grow into this little project!

Pictured here is the first of a pair of Mrs. Beeton wrist warmers that I started at Knit Night over at Brenda's the other day. We watched Borat and I think I was the only one actually working on something because we couldn't bear looking away from the movie! That is my hand in the picture (Summer, my usual hand model, was not here tonight) and it is quite tricky holding still AND taking the picture. These knit up quite quickly, but I must admit that I'm not mad after Rowan KidSilk Haze yarn! It's kind of like knitting AIR! It was hard to keep the stitches joined on the three needles so I always had a bit of a ladder at the junctures. These are cast on with beads strung on the KidSilk Haze for the first row and then the Shibui Izu is used for the main body. A second set of scallops is knit with the Silk Haze and then joined to the main body with a three needle bind off. The Izu yarn was just lovely to work with! I see they have a line of variegated superwash sock yarn. Hmmmmmm. I might have to acquire some of that!

Oh, and did I mention...

...that it is flipping WINTER?!? The entire state quite literally shut down towards the end of the week AND I got my car stuck in my own driveway TWICE in as many days. But the sun shone today and things are up and running again. I do like winter, but I don't like being shackled by it! I stayed in all last night, not by my own volition, but because I literally could not get out! But as long as the Earl Grey holds out (I did run out of milk for it though!) and the heating pad on my chair functions and a smelly candle is burning nearby and a pile of knitting sits in my lap, I can weather any storm! I am thankful that we never lost power like the hundreds in the area who did. I remember losing power in the winter all the time as a kid but it just seems so much more serious if it happens nowadays. I can remember being stranded with my friend's family on our way home from sledding and we invaded the home of a relative of theirs in Ventura. We got into her cedar chest and sat around a card table with blankies wearing crocheted slippers and old sweaters and playing go fish all afternoon while we waited for power. Back then it was just accepted that winter could be cruddy and you would lose power every now and again. We haven't had to worry about that for a long time it seems.
And here is the Kitty Pi and it's new owner! He chewed on it at first and played with it and rolled around with it a bit, but he wasn't in the mood for sleeping. I hope to get a report that he was found curled up in it!

Kitty Pi and Other Felting Adventures

I finally washed my Fuzzy Feet and they are nice and thick and fuzzy now, but I had to wash them no less than three times in our crappy washer. I was felting my Kitty Pi (below) with it and I figured out I could bail some of the water out of the washer and poured a kettle full of boiling water in to replace it to make the water good and hot. I am quite pleased with the results and I'm sure my feet will be too once these are dry.

This frumpy pile of knitting will be felted into a Kitty Pi as a gift for a sick kitty I know. And did I mention that I used up EVERY LAST BIT of my Cascade 220 that I bought for that felted purse? I feel that was a good investment because I got 2 purses and a Kitty Pi out of those 6 skeins. And it's always a good feeling knowing that you won't have leftover yarn festering in your scrap pile: too little to really use for anything but too much to throw away.

I ended up washing this twice and then blocking it on my round Tupperware with some bedsheets wrapped around it. I still think it could shrink a bit more, but we'll see how it 'fits' him first. I'm taking it to the invalid shortly and I hope he likes it!

Fuzzy Feet--Before

Here I had such a drowsy night at work last night and I vowed to go straight to bed upon returning home...and then I sat up in my chair and finished my pair of Fuzzy Feet. I wanted to quick throw them in the washer before I hit the sack, but oh yeah, my neighbors were washing clothes as usual. All day. Constantly. Ceaseless. Nonstop. I also wanted to post a picture of them before the storm hits. We were lucky enough earlier in the week to not lose power, but I'm told that this storm is supposed to be even worse. My new fuzzy feet would have been a nice thing to wear but apparently it was not to be. Oh well, I'll be at work during the worst of it anyway. I needed to make a new pair for myself since I finally wore through my old ones without knowing it. I was walking around on the carpet with them on, and then stepped onto the linoleum of my kitchen and "Whooooooey!" There were some rather large holes and thereby cold spots on my feet! I can't wait to see how they will felt!

Goodies

I bought this lovely skein of recycled viscose yarn at the Yarn Garden the other day and then of course had to yik yak with the gal who runs the shop. We got to talking about Irish and English knitting styles and she mentioned that she was trying to get a gal, "who was originally from Norway and has a yarn shop down in Ames," to come and teach a class up here, to which I replied, "ARNHILD?!?". Arnhild is of course Arnhild Hillesland of Arnhild's Knitting Studio fame and I was THRILLED to hear this! I have never met the woman, although I have been to Ames to visit The Rose Tree Fiber Shop, but when I asked native Ames people about directions to Arnhild's, no one seemed to know about it and in fact doubted it's very existance. And I can of course snakke litt norsk so I would be doubly thrilled to meet her and just be in her presence, let alone LEARN something from her! So that was, needless to say, a red letter day.

I also dinked around making some swell stitch markers like I see on all my favorite blogs. I have a buttload of Czech glass beads that I bought on my last pilgrimage to Europe, but after taking stock of my bead inventory, I realized I really didn't have that many firelamp beads like the markers I've seen before. I did try to "Make Do and Mend" and produced a few that I was happy with. I will have to keep an eye out for sales on firelamp beads from now on. I made 3 different sizes: the smallest will fit up to size 4, the midsized ones will fit up to size 10.5, and the largest will fit up to size 13 needles. These will be divided up between myself, my mother and Melissa. I used up some abalone shell pieces, some acorn charms, some 'handmade' charms, some eggplant beads, and some adventurine beads I've been hoarding in my stash. They weren't that tricky and I'm quite pleased with them. I plan on making a lot more of these! :)

Valentines Day: The Revenge

My prayers were answered and I was flexed tonight...but after 2300. I walked home and nearly froze my bum off, sat and enjoyed The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, did some knitting, and got around to making those Valentine bath bombs. I made a triple batch from Not Martha's recipe and got 9 hearts, 1 round, and 1 runt out of it. I used the last of my orange lily fragrance oil and cut up some angel wing botanicals for decoration--no glitter this time. While I was measuring, I remembered I have quite a lot of loose chammomile tea that I could use as an additive! It is supposed to be very good for the skin and hair, but I'm afraid it would gunk up the tub too much. On the other hand, Lush does recommend putting the bomb inside an old stocking if it's full of twigs and other such botanicals. If I used chammomile, what fragrance to pair with it? Hmmmm. I'll have to think about that. And I must admit, I was a bit nervous about how these would unmold, but they popped right out! I didn't grind up the epsom salt with my mortar and pestle this time either. It was coarse and straight out of the bag but it made no difference in the molding process. Now all my girlfriends can take smelly baths! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here are the Brit treats I got for myself up in the Twin Cities, and here are the treats I baked for my family! I was going to whip up a batch of heart shaped bath bombs for girlfriend gifts this morning after work, but last night was a "helluva day at sea" so I'm heading for bed! Happy Heart Day!

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.