Category: Blog

 I am quiet. Not all the time, as most of you know first hand. But the last few days I have been loving quiet. The weekend was spent quietly (as much as that is possible with 3 kids). I spun, made myself a couple of niddy noddy’s out of pvc, went to the farmer’s market, basically just had quiet time. Here are the 5 hanks that I spun over the weekend.

I should have laid them out in order of spinning but too late now.  I overspun all but the two red yarns. That is something that I will have to be sure to pay attention to that for sure from now on. I get why it happens with the settings on the wheel I just have to get used to drafting at the correct speed with my treadling. Practice makes perfect! My next goal is to spin a good laceweight to ply.

I haven’t been doing much knitting, just flitting around from project to project with no real direction. But my daughter has outgrown all hand knit items I have made her so I cast on for a sweater for her this afternoon. Simple, in the round EZ style that will be hooded. I have a cone of a worsted weight boucle blend yarn, light sage and white, that will be very cute on her.

I have a small list of items that are *must knits*. I am going to list them below in the order in which they must be accomplished.

-sock for sock class

-Sadie’s sweater

-Family hats (Shedir pattern using Telemark yarn)

– Cream cabled sweater from Rebecca #32 for our Christmas vacation to good ole’ Idaho in the snow

-George’s ski sweater for our Christmas vacation so he can actually ski in it. The Jefferson is the name of that one. You know, the one I started well over 6 months ago & set aside to finish right about now. Better get on that one.

Now, my brother in law just got laid off this week. I am extremely tempted to take it upon myself to go knit crazy and make them all gifts for Christmas even though they are not our family to give to this year. On the other hand, I feel that is not a realistic idea given there is only 6 weeks left until we leave for their house. 4 kids, 4 gifts, not much time. I could always do the stock hat but that is a downer if you ask me & they have plenty of hats from me. That is one I have to think on for a bit.

So that is the knitting schedule for the next 2 months. Fun, huh? Yeah, I thought so.

 

I wouldn’t exactly call it yarn. I might call it sheepwool becomes lumpy art. or lumpy crap. Either way, I got the wheel all spinnin’ round.

First up is a full bobbin of Emerald Garden roving from Copper Moose on Ebay. I bought this over 2 years ago when I learned to use my drop spindle so I am not sure how much I bought but when I held up the ball of roving next to an 8 oz ball  that I hadn’t touched yet it looked like the same size.

Now, what you don’t see is the first layer of yarn on the bobbin that looks nothing like this here finishing layer. Bad, lumpy, scary, yarn. I got the rhythm down, tension adjusted, predrafted the roving just right and voila!

Then I started some merino that Karen sent me. There has to be at least 6 oz there to spin. It’s so soft and the fiber staple is so different than the corriedale green that I had just finished that it took me a little while to readjust the tension. I flipped the bobbin around so it would spin faster and get a more thin yarn. I am happy that I am actually understanding the mechanics of how the wheel works and how to adjust things so it does what I want it to do.

It is still coming out as a worsted weight single but I am not having much breakage during spinning.

Let’s see what else? Oh yeah! I finished the green lacey hoodie from Rebecca 32 on MONDAY. Woops. I forgot to post about that, sorry.

Most of you saw it at knitting on Thursday night but I gave it a bath yesterday and now she’s dry.

I kinda liked how it faded out to dark on the bottom, if you got a problem with that, too bad ;o)
(the bottom is just straight with no shaping anyways)

I love how the hood is constructed on this sweater, brilliant shaping. They used decreasing and then short rows to get the top to turn, much like a heel of a sock. I will be using this method of construction on hoods in the future I am sure. If you really want to read how it’s done you can buy the Rebecca 32 magazine, it’s well worth the $17. And you can use your 40% off coupon at Craft Essentials here in SB to buy it too! yippee for that!

Now I am working on the sock for my sock class I will be teaching (go sign up at Knit & Pearl people). And spinning. I am going to run out of fiber here in the next week so I better get buyin’!! Not too sure how much George is going to like the expense of my bday gift but oh well!

That box contained this:

Those are all the bits & pieces that make this:

Behold the loveliness (haha, gotta love the anti-flash look on the half-assed assembled wheel just so I can get a shot of it in my house before leaving for knitting tonight ;o)) of my Louet s10 in my living room.

Once it’s all screwed together & bolts tightened I promise to get a picture of it in it’s permanent spot in my living room.

Onto other things.  I will be teaching classes at Knit & Pearl. First a sock class starting early November (go sign up for it now), then a finishing techniques class in December and a beginners sweater class starting in January. I got the yarn from Julie today for the sweater class (and the pattern book we’ll be using). Gorgeous, gorgeous Manos Del Uruguay cotton yarn. Yummm….

And I got some yummy, yummy merino laceweight (950 yards each, yeehaw) in verde esperanza from HPY.

The reeling machine & ball winder will get a workout tomorrow morning! Fan-doodley-astic!

This weekends knitting (which there really hasn’t been much of) has been just to keep my hands busy.

First I decided to do holiday hats for us. I chose the Shedir pattern from knitty because it’s a great charted cable pattern that is easily altered for each head size in my family.

And I am using Knitpicks new yarn, Telemark in the colors below:

George’s is the first to be worked on in the Grey Wolf color. I do love the pattern.

And next is a hat that I whipped out (crocheted) for Sadie using one of Red Hearts new variagated yarns. For $.79 worth of yarn and one hour it’s not a bad lookin hat!

It didn’t pool! I don’t care if it does the whole spiral/twisty thing as long as it does not pool!

Since you don’t really get a good ribbing in crochet I decided to do a horizontal edging. Simple but just a little something on that last inch. So I just single crocheted through the back loop for the last 4 rounds. Simple.

The patons sws sweater that I am designing has seen some work also. This is how it looked on Saturday morning:

And here it is as of last night:

Stitches are all picked up around the deep V for the collar. All that is left are to knit the sleeves after finishing the collar, then a tad bit of finishing work. Finalize the pattern, have someone test knit it for me & I am good to go!

Um…other than that I have sat on my butt. oh, the pumpkin patch last night with the kids, church this morning and shopping with tracy yesterday. Okay, then I sat on my butt!

 

1949-2006

Denise was a Mother, Wife, Friend, Second-mom to me, The MOST addicted crafter I have ever met.

Tracy, you were blessed with the most amazing mother. You had a friendship and bond with her that not many daughters have. She loved you with that beautiful unconditional love that only mothers can have for their daughters. I promised her I would take care of you, step in as a mother when needed (which is not very often since she did such a good job as your mother & besides that, I could NEVER compare) and be your sister.

I loved Denise even when she gave me a hard time about my hair, my clothes, my tattoos. She gave me strength in being a mom. She will always be a role model to me as a mother to my kids. Through Tracy my kids will always have Denise as an influence in their lives.

Go with God Denise, watch over us and love us for all eternity.

I had such a good time last night at JS that it cannot even be described! There was much laughter, some innapropriate topics (Mary was there, what do you expect?? teeheehee) and not a whole lot of knitting got done. Welcome to Marieke and Sierra! It was great to have two new visitors. Some of our pals from the spinning guild came, Tracy was in town, Kristen was all SUPER-SCENE for our entertainment. It was just really fun. Summers came after work & then had to leave due to being tired. I am just so glad you came even though you were tired, you gorgeous thing!

Can you tell I am happy this morning? yeah, I am. We have an awesome knit group and I am happy to say that it’s been over 2 1/2 years that we have been meeting happily.

Now, Laura tagged me & fine, I will do it!

Four jobs I have had:

Payless Drugs (before it was Rite-Aid)

Big Dog Sportswear

El Dorado County Volunteer Firefighters

California Dept of Forestry & Fire Protection (CDF)

Four Movies I could watch over & over:

(I am going to so cheat on this one)

Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

Return of the King

Jurassic Park

Four Places I have Lived:

Fair Oaks, CA (ages 0-11)

Ankara, Turkey (ages 12-14)

Pollock Pines, CA

Summerland, CA

Four of my Favorite Tv Shows:

Arrested Development

X-Files

Law & Order

General Hospital (I love how I own up to that one)

Four Places I have been on  Vacation:

Big Bear, CA (honeymoon)

Europe (twice, Turkey all the way west to France)

A private driving tour of Turkey with just my sister & I

Disneyland, of course! (honeymoon and 6 out of 10 anniversaries)

Four of my Favorite Dishes:

(This is a hard one for me. I am not a big fan of food.)

Pumpkin pie

Pumpkin pie with whipped cream (hand whipped very little sugar, pretty stiff)

Pumpkin pie with canned whipped cream

Pumpkin pie with vanilla bean ice cream (pie still hot from oven with extra spices)

Four Websites I visit daily:

Bloglines

My bank

My Ebay Summary

My blog host

Four Places I would rather be right now:

Denmark visiting my husbands family

Apple Hill in Camino, CA

Idaho at my parents

Rhinebeck with everyone else elbow deep in yarn & sheep

Four bloggers I am tagging:

Kristen (just to get you to blog)

Suzanne

Summers (just to get you to post on Knitta ;o))

Marieke (to get to know you a little better)

 

 

 

That is right, two finished objects today! Not that they are so large in size but just the fact to do two projects today is fantastic!

For baby Peter are the following:

A raglan in the round sweater and the cutest darn hat from Lucinda Guy’s book And So To Bed…and other knit things. I had to adjust the hat pattern for a tiny baby head & worsted weight yarn instead of the dk weight they use. But it all worked out in the end. He probably won’t be able to use it right away but it’s better too big than too small! I have a sneaking suspicion that the sweater will end up being doll clothes for the girls to play with & not actually fit him. He was over 8 lbs and I was expecting smaller, oops! Just goes to show, you never can guess the size of the baby.

I just want to say thanks to those of you that commented on the comment post. I am so happy to know that there are some of you out there that I didn’t even know were here reading! Well now I know.

I hereby promise I will practice what I preach and comment much more frequently on posts. I don’t want you to think I am stalker though so it will not be on each & every post ever posted. ;o)

AND TOTALLY OFF TOPIC:

Congratulations to Betsy & Andrew who had their baby boy, Peter Coffin (way to go Betsy, you & the girls won on that fight) last night at 9:11pm. Healthy & kicking I am sure!

I am going to expand on what Laura had to say on comments yesterday. You can read her post here.

From Laura’s blog I followed a link to a UKnitters blogring site. Of course I got completely sucked in! What I noticed is that the UKnitters are all commenting. I mean, COMMENTING. Some posts have just over a dozen comments, others have in the 20-30 range. Almost every blog on the ring! Well, as far as I went before deciding to post here.

I just wonder why we Americans are lurkers. Is it a dirty little secret that we blog? Is it a dirty little secret that we like to be nosy and read about other people’s lives that connect with ours through knitting? I thought the whole purpose of blogging was to have contact out here in big ol’ bad cyberspace. Well I for one have taken to commenting frequently on others’ blogs in hopes that it will be reciprocated.

Comments don’t have to be fancy & perfect. Just a ‘hi, nice half assed sock’ would be nice. I think one of the killers for comments is bloglines, newsgator, rss subscription feeds in general. We all read the digest of posts & move on with our day. We, as users of these wonderful internet inventions, miss the gritty detail of the posts. The background color, the sometimes garrish buttons & links on the side, the little details that make a blog a blog. Especially knitting blogs.

I say we rise up & become more like our UKnitters friends & make ourselves be heard!

Who’s with me??

nooone?

fine.

Thuy’s post about Shelly from Northern Exposure has inspired me to share a little insight into my overly tv-addicted life.

1- X-Files

2- Deadwood

3- General Hospital (so housewife-y of me isn’t it?)

4- Northern Exposure

5- Arrested Development

There are some others that I do love but just don’t make it into the all time I-can-watch-them-over-and-over-again category so here they are.

6- Law & Order any & all of them

7- CSI any & all of them

8- Project Runway it’s a very seasonal, trendy watching experience for me

9- 24

10-  I just sat here for a couple of minutes and nothing popped into my head. There are plenty of shows I do & have watched but I guess they are fleeting to me.

I do love TV.