Friday, May 18, 2012

Bon Voyage

I will be leaving tomorrow to put sand in between my toes and to feel the ocean waves at my feet… my knitting will be in tow for a full week of fun and relaxation. And, sadly, there are no yarn stores around our beachy destination AT ALL.  I guess people who live by the beach don’t knit?  Seems like a hasty generalization but…seriously!

I’m thinking of just taking my simpler projects with me, the Georgia Vest and the Abalone. No complex lace for me on this trip!  This also ensures I will have a lot of car knitting time, that is, when I’m not driving of course.

I also plan on getting a tan… if you’ve seen photos of me here you know I am about as fair as a mime. Hopefully I don’t end up looking like the lobsters I plan on eating.

I will be taking a lot of photos, so keep a look out for that.  I’m leaving you with this beachy-inspired project I found – I’m thinking about making a couple of these on the beach. :)

Cute, no? These are the Starfish Discloths and they are FREE.

See you in a week my lovely knitting (& spinning & crocheting & weaving) friends!

Posted in Personal

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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Off the Wheel & In the Stash

I’ve been going sort of wheel crazy lately! Having a lot of fun with my wheel. I notice every time I spin, my yarns come out more and more balanced and as I intended.

The first finished yarn is this huge 1/2 pound skein of superwash merino, 485 yards, sport weight.  The fiber was from Becoming Art, in the Ruby Boots colorway.

Then I spun some merino I dyed, for 288 yards of a DK weight.

undefinedundefinedAnd lastly, I’m in love with this superwash merino from Wool Therapy in the Spring Has Sprung colorway – 205 yards.  So bright  and crazy and fun.

undefinedundefinedAnd, my Mother’s Day shopping landed these beauties in my stash: Rowan Summer Tweed in the Tonic colorway, and Malabrigo Sock in the Light of Love colorway.

I’m already knitting this Rowan into an Abalone for a summery tank & dress coverup. A lot of people on Ravelry complain about this yarn being full of vegetable matter and rough.  Well, as a handspinner, a little veg matter is nothing new to me.  It really isn’t a big deal for me… do I pick it all out while knitting this? No.  But if I notice any bits bothering me when I wear the finished garment, I will do a little comb-over. I’ve spun fiber FULL of VM, so when I read people griping about this, I sort of laughed.  Also, it doesn’t really seem that rough to me… not to the point of being unable to knit because of pain (yes, people have said that).  Sometimes I have to wonder if people remember the days of knitting with Red Heart?  We’re so pampered now with the beautiful wools & fibers available to us, we huff if anything is less than luxe against our skin.  I’m enjoying this pretty tweed, and the color makes me think of a crystal-clear ocean tide. :)

The pink Malabrigo… I knew I was a goner once I saw it on the shelf.  It’s so strange… I don’t really consider myself a lover of pink by any means but it spoke to me that day so I took it home.  I’m thinking of making it into a Candlewick.  Though I’m not going to lie, I am a little intimidated by that pattern… it looks fairly advanced.  I haven’t thought that about a pattern in awhile (I usually just dive in and worry about the details later) but this one, well, it scares me.

Posted in Shopping, Spinning, Stash

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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Ashton Shawlette

There are those days on Ravelry where you come across a gem of a pattern and ~ to your disbelief ~ it is also a free pattern.  Such is the case with the Ashton Shawlette.  It’s a very clearly-written pattern, and I think it would be an excellent first lace shawl.  And it only took one skein of Dream in Color Smooshy (450 yards).  I want to make this again for myself.  It’s a great item to gift as well, since it is a quick and easy knit.

I gave this to my daughter’s much-adored preschool teacher, and she LOVED it.  She is moving away from our warm weather here in Arkansas to Minnesota, so I thought it would be nice to send her with something to keep her warm.

And I love the huge wingspan! 62″ on this one!

undefinedundefinedHope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day if you are a mom! I know I did…yarn shopping was involved. :)

Posted in Knitting

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Saturday, April 28, 2012

Spectra is done!

Happy Saturday knitting friends. What’s on your needles this lovely afternoon? I’ll tell you what is off of my needles – my Spectra. It was a fun and easy knit once I got into the rhythm of it. It did take some time though. My only complaint is it is a tad short – if I made another, I would certainly make it at least a foot longer.

I used some gray handspun singles, and the colorful flashes are Malabrigo sock.  It is a pretty little thing.

undefinedundefinedThe Ashton Shawlette is also finished and blocked.  I will photograph that soon before it heads to its new home.  It’s a lovely FO as well – may have to cast on one for myself soon.

So since I finished two things, I’ve cast on two new things:  the Georgia Vest by Cecily Glowik MacDonald, as a simple summer piece to cover my shoulders.

Photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

I also cast on a sweater for my daughter I recently discovered, so pretty and simple, the Little Buds sweater by Karen Borrel. I’m making hers out of a rich deep purple SW merino.  She’ll definitely not be wearing this until, say, November here in Arkansas!

Photo © Karen Borrel

Despite the warmer weather, I am so inspired to knit.  It’s all I want to do.  Throw all the windows open, feel the cool Spring breeze, a cup of coffee at my side and my knitting on my lap.  Not much for a girl to ask for, is it? :D

What’s new on your to-knit list?

Posted in Knitting

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Monday, April 23, 2012

An experiment, and one WIP

I have only one work in progress at the moment!  Feels so strange.  And that would be this shawl, the Ashton Shawlette by Dee O’Keefe.

Photo is © Dee O’Keefe

Isn’t it flipping gorgeous?  And it’s a FREE pattern folks!  I’m considering making one for myself…yes, this one I’m making is a gift for my daughter’s preschool teacher who is moving away.  She is such a sweet woman and we are sad to see her go.  Here’s all I can show you now, which is really nothing, but let’s face it: lace looks like cat yak until you block it.

I’m using Dream in Color Smooshy in the Sundown Orchid colorway.  More on that soon, as I am on a time crunch to get it finished and blocked before the school year is out.

Now on to the experiment!  Occasionally I get a little bored with spinning.  I sort of default to this super-thin, sock to sport weight yarn.  And I do love those yarns, but every now and then I feel like I need to change things up a bit. So I bought this book:

Jacey Boggs knows her stuff.  And the fact that this book included a DVD was awesome.  Spinning is so visual – sometimes looking in a book is not enough, you need to see it in motion.  I started out trying the first technique in the book, the racing stripe yarn.  I did things a little differently, the book suggest spinning a single as your “stripe” and then spinning the inner single that the stripe wraps around.  I decided to use some sock yarn as my “stripe” (the golden yellow) and spin BFL as my inner single.   The results:

Yes, it’s a little wacky, a little ramen-noodlish if you will, but I love it.

Here’s a close-up, where you can see the inner single sort of locked into the sock yarn.

What’s really awesome about this technique is that you are plying the stripe around your single AS YOU DRAFT IT.  There is no spinning two separate singles, followed by plying.  Took some getting used to! But it went so fast and I had 200 yards in no time, while only using maybe 2 oz of fiber!

I was delighted to see it is balanced as well.

I think I am going to be having so much fun with this book! I will keep you updated on my “experiments” in yarn! :)

Posted in Spinning

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