And Starting...

Serious preparations are under way for the NSKO.  I can't believe it's less than two weeks away.  I'm getting excited.  I am preparing three projects to bring with me.

The first project on the packing list is an Aran fisherman sweater for my mom.  It will be made with the sport weight Jacob wool I bought last summer from my friend who raises Jacob sheep.  Mom bought a pattern she liked at the MD Sheep and Wool festival.  I have cast on the back and knitted about halfway up.  It's a fun pattern and I now know it by heart, but it does require constant attention, so this one is for periods of serious knitting without too many distractions.

The second project is a jacket with an entrelac yoke.  I bought an amazing variegated blue yarn with silver highlights (they say genuine silver, but I think it's Mylar, it has never tarnished) at Sheep and Wool two years ago.  Way too expensive for my pocketbook but sooo irresistable.  Only enough to be an accent in some larger piece.  This summer I developed the notion that it would be fabulous combined with another yarn in the entrelac in this jacket, so I bought some solid blue worsted wool to go with it.  This week I have been knitting gauge swatches to decide what size needles to use.  This weekend I'll buy the needles I need and then I can get started.  I have knit enough entrelac lately that I think I can do it with only minimal brain power, so this might be the one to do while travelling.

The third project I haven't started at all yet.  I decided that since I'm making something for mom and something for me, I should also make something for Peter.  I have some tweedy brown wool I bought almost a year ago now at a sale at a Jo-Ann superstore because it said "Peter" to me.  I think it will look good worked up into a plain, ragg style sweater.  I think I will take that on the trip as the simple, work on it while the flying Wallendas are taking over the living room project.  I'll use EZ's proportion method as the pattern, maybe do something decorative on the yoke when I get that far, but at the beginning I should be able to work on this one in my sleep.  Perfect for socializing.

As for shopping on the trip, I need to look for some yarn with fabulous stitch definition.  I just found another man's sweater pattern which I just love, with some really interesting stitch patterns.  Not complicated, but cool.  I want to make it.  I need yarn that will show all those neat looking patterns.  It will be good to shop with a purpose.

Finishing!

Today is a good day.  I finished something last night, just in time to show it off at knitting group today.  It makes me happy.  Here it is:

It's a baby blanket for someone I work with.  She's having a boy in October, so I got it done in time!  It's entrelac done in garter stitch.  The yarn is a variegated 80% acrylic 20% wool.  It went through the washer and dryer flawlessly and feels soft in the nice way that wool can feel soft.  I'm very happy with this yarn.  It is lying on top of a twin size bed, to give you an idea of size.  Large for a baby blanket, I guess, but several mothers have told me it will be marvelous as a blanket to spread out on the floor and put the baby on with room for a little squiggling around.  Works for me!  I can tell you that the worsted yarn in garter stitch is nice and warm, also good for winter.  I'm glad the weather cooled off as the blanket got larger -- holding it on my lap to work on it in warm weather was a challenge!

What I did on my summer (non)vacation

Anyone who has been reading this blog from the beginning may remember that I started it at the urging of my friend Kate.  I know that during the summer she does not have good computer access, so I get lazy and let it go.  Now I have been reminded that summer is over, and it's time to pick it up again.  So here we go!

Lots of fun knitting happened this summer, although I can't say I have actually finished anything.  Well, that's typical.  However, I did spend the time working with the yarns I bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which is what I said I would do, so at some level I consider the summer a success.  The first project was the beige organic cotton.  Here it is:

Looks finished, doesn't it?  Well, I knitted it a little large, so I decided to take it in on the sides and (gulp) cut away the extra the same way you do steeks.  So I sewed up side seams (was surprised that they came out looking pretty nice) and have not had the courage to actually cut into my knitting.  I have to do it though.  The sides are too bulky otherwise.

I have photographed the top along with the skirt I am making to go with it, also almost finished.  The skirt is from a modern adaptation of a 1940's pattern.  It has pockets with cute V-shaped top openings.  If you look, you can see them there.  I love this pattern.  It also fits well and makes me look shapely.  It is from a company called Decades of Style.

Here's a close-up of the neck edge and cabling.  It was knitted top down with raglan shaping.  Garter stitch neck edge. 















Then in June I took a class on entrelac with Gwen Bortner.  If you ever get a chance to see her or take a class with her, do it.  She's a great teacher and a fun person.  Since then I have been totally enamored of entrelac.  So I started the next project, an entrelac top in pink and brown:

As you can see, it's still on the needles.  It's just a bottom up entrelac tube, seemed simple enough for a first project.  Now I'm up to where I have to do some shaping.  It will be simple, just split the sides and knit to the shoulders to make a cap sleeve (a style I'm particularly fond of) and then a square neck.  Seems to be the right shape to go with this pattern.

I have staged the top with the fabrics which inspired it, a brown linen which will probably become a summer dress I can wear under the top and an art deco look cotton velveteen I bought ages ago at Vogue Fabrics.  I have always thought it would make a fun jacket in a simple unconstructed style.  I thought the diagonal quality of the entrelac would be interesting with it.  I didn't buy the yarns to go with the fabric, but when I realized I had yarns in the right colors already, it seemed like fate.

Not being one to have only one or even two projects going at a time (!) and being hotly curious to see what the Noro lace weight I bought at sheep and wool would work up like, I also started something called a mananita (that first n should have a tilde over it, it's Spanish) from the book Shawls and Scarves.  You can see some pictures of someone else's finished product here.  Mine is about 2/3 done, and like most lace, it doesn't look like much but a mess right now.  Can't wait to block it and see how it looks!

The first weekend in August I went to the Knit-Out at the Mannings with my knitting group from school.  It was a bit rainy, but I took my pop-up shelter, and we were able to stay sufficiently dry.  That day I started my final project for the summer: a baby blanket for one of my part-time workers, who is due in October.  The ultrasound says she's having a boy.  At the Mannings I found a nice variegated washable worsted weight yarn in shades of blue and teal.  Being still enamored of entrelac, I decided to make the blanket in entrelac.  Since I like blankets to look the same on both sides, I decided on garter stitch instead of stockinette, and since I wanted the blanket to have some drape, I decided on a larger square for the entrelac, about 3 inches.  It will be a substantial blanket, but I figured an October baby can use a warmer blanket.  To make it somewhat more interesting to knit, I also decided to knit some stockinette hearts into some of the squares.  They're subtle, but they're there.  So here it is so far:

The colors in this photo are a little too gray, but you get the idea.  I think it'll need a little blocking to square up the squares.  I think this yarn turned out to be a little short in the color changes for really good entrelac, but anyway it'll be fun and functional for a baby.








So those are the current projects.  My goal is to finish the two tops for the NSKO, and of course finish the baby blanket before the end of Sept.  I think my big project for the NSKO will be an Aran sweater for my mom made from some Jacob sheep sport weight purchased from my friend Ralene.  Here's one of the preparatory swatches for that:

Okay, enough of writing about it, gotta go knit!

Summer projects

Summer, and the blogging is...well...intermittent at best.  However, I have been knitting, so here's an update.

First, a short review of the relevant stash.  At the Sheep and Wool festival last month, I concentrated on yarns for making some summer tops.  I got some organic cotton, some mercerized cotton, and some laceweight Noro rayon blend.  That last is not so summery, as it is blended with some fuzzy fibers.  But my limited experience with Noro has been great, so I wanted to try it.  The day before Sheep and Wool I also took my visitors up to the Mannings in PA, where I got some linen/cotton blend yarn.  That day we also went by Chicory Lane Farm and I got about 2 lbs. of sport weight Jacob yarn from my friend who owns the farm.  Not summery, but fun.

Then I started knitting swatches, washing them to see what would happen, and looking at patterns.  Here's the current state of affairs:

The organic cotton washed beautifully, much to my surprise, not shrinking at all.  I then washed the swatch again and threw it in the dryer, where it shrank a little, but still looked good.  It is a little rope-y in feel, the way cotton usually is to me, but acceptable for a summer top.  I have started a top-down raglan sleeve pullover with short sleeves and a cable pattern down the front.  It's in a book called Brave New Knits, which I got from the library and like a lot.  The yarn is a medium beige, ostensibly its natural color due to some scientific genetic manipulation.  A little creepy, but interesting.  I have some sky blue, beige, and brown striped denim in my fabric stash which I think will make a good skirt to go with the top.  I think the vertical cables will complement the stripes in the denim.  I'm really happy about this project.

The mercerized cotton was the surprise of the bunch.  On the cone, it seemed kind of rope-y and didn't look like anything special.  I mainly bought it because it was cotton and the price was so good.  Once I knitted it up, thought, it produced a fabric with a luscious drape, amazing stitch definition, and minimal shrinkage.  Definitely a star player.  I don't have a definite pattern for it yet, but the fabric stash turned up a cute black denim with dragonflies in blue and a rosy pink printed on it.  The pink matches exactly the color of the cotton yarn.  So again, I'm dreaming of a skirt and top combo.

The linen/cotton blend also worked up well, nothing remarkable but very respectable, with good washability.  This project is the most vague.  No definite pattern, no definite garment to go with it.  One intriguing possibility is a pink, brown, and grey Art Deco print cotton velvet.  Maybe a jacket to go with the knitted top.  Reply hazy, try again later.

The Noro has me the most puzzled.  It knitted up easily, shrunk when washed as you might expect, and produced a fabric that intrigues me.  I knitted the swatch on size 0 needles, so it is fine gauge and fuzzy.  I decided to make something that would not be washable, so not a top.  I hate dry cleaning items too often.  Since it's lace weight, I looked through my shawl patterns.  I found a cute little number that's basically a poncho-type pullover shawl (called "mananita magic", in the Best of Knitters Magazine Shawls and Scarves book which Blonde Knitter and I both have).  I have the first few inches knitted, but I'm very uncertain about it.  The yarn is that long repeat variegation that Noro is known for, and it is making a horizontally striped lacy poncho.  I'm not sure it's the look I was hoping for.  I am thinking of frogging it and trying a serape style wrap instead.  Maybe knit side to side, to get really long rows and less of a striped effect, and using the small needles in a plain stockinette stitch to get a fabric like the swatch.

The Jacob sport weight is for an Aran sweater for my mom.  She found a pattern at Sheep and Wool which has a "wishbone" pattern element which I hadn't seen before.  It's a fun one to knit.  I made a couple of swatches on different size needles.  When I washed them, they didn't shrink much, just a little in the length, and the yarn fluffed up and looked much more like a light worsted than a sport weight.  I think it will make a nice Aran sweater.  I think I have decided on a needle size.  One final swatch with the right size needles, then whatever fiddling the pattern might need to fit my exact gauge, then I can start.  I will probably leave it for later in the summer, though.  It's not the type of garment that will be comfortable to knit in the summer heat once it gets too large, so I'd like it to be September by the time it gets well under way.

That's the news from the eastern front, happy knitting, all!

Hoping for rain

Sheep and Wool last weekend, but I haven't worked up the energy to boil all that down into a reasonable sized post.  Let's just say, Blonde Knitter and K1Frog2 were here, we went, we saw, we petted wool, it was a great time.  For the first time I made it around the entire festival, and all in one day.  Intense!

This week it's back to my somewhat neglected garden, although mostly what I have to do right now is wait for the ground to warm up for the last of the seedlings to go out, and hope for some nice rain soon.  Here are current pix:

Baby romaine lettuce above, slightly older mixed loose leaf lettuces below.  You can also see the snow peas growing at the end of the box.  They're starting to go faster now.

The roots in the other box have also sprouted, but the sprouts are still too small to take a good picture of.  When I asked one of my gardening teachers why they're going so slowly, she said, "It's cold this year!"

The center of the bed above is being saved for the warm weather crops still in the sun porch: eggplant, watermelon, tomato, basil...

and okra!  See the seedlings in the small pots below, sitting in the big pot with the indoor lettuces.  Still have about half of the indoor lettuces left.  Hope I get to put these seedlings out soon.  It just isn't quite sunny enough on the sunporch, not enough hours of sunlight on any one side, so the seedlings are rather leggy.

That's today's update, happy gardening!

Spring fever

With the advent of spring (albeit a cool one), my energies have turned toward gardening, so I have decided to enlarge the scope of this blog to include plants as well as fibers.  Here are some photos of my garden projects!

The season began with some seedlings started on the sun porch.  I am the Dr. Frankenstein of lettuce, submitting them to all sorts of experiments.  First I thought I'd start some in a big pot on the sun porch and see if they would transplant out later on.  Here's my sun porch growing area:

You can see the lettuce in the big blue-bottom pot.  The medium pots have summer savory (seeds not sprouted yet) and a small holly tree we overwintered in the house.  The small pots have more tiny lettuce seedlings and basil (on the left, not sprouted yet). 

Some of the lettuce I transplanted to my garden beds.  The rest I left in the pot for comparison, and to see whether I could grow it to maturity on the sun porch.  It survived the transplanting without any problem, but it did slow them down considerably.  Here are a few of them:

In time, I'm sure they will be yummy.  I also direct seeded some lettuce into the bed as well as some more indoors, we'll see which ones do better.  See?  Experimental.

At one end of one box I planted snow peas, sown directly outdoors:

And finally, I now have almost all the roots planted in the other box.  There's parsnips, beets, and turnips, carrots still to go in, and also a row of kohlrabi.  Just planted all that this week, so no sprouts yet.  But you can see what my garden boxes look like.  I have two of them this year:

They're 8' x 4'.

I also have okra and eggplant seedlings starting in the kitchen.  Didn't do them on the sun porch because they need warmer temperatures, and it has just been too cool and cloudy for the sun porch to be reliably warm.  The okra take a long time to come up, but they're coming up like crazy now (after 3-4 weeks).  The eggplant have not come up well, I think I overwatered them.  I can see some kind of mildew on the soil.  Oops.

But it's fun, and I am accomplishing my  main goal of spending more time outside when the weather is nice.  I mean really, I always stand there at the end of summer wishing I'd spent more time just enjoying the great outdoors.  But just sitting out there isn't satisfying.  I need something to do, so...a garden!

More Fiber Fun

Went to my second meeting of the fiber group last night.  More fun was had!  It was a working meeting, carding wool to be spun and woven for Blacksmith Days.  One of the ladies brought a bag of fleece, washed but otherwise fresh off the sheep.  We newbies helped prepare the fleece, separating the locks and finger-combing out tangles so the fleece was all loose and fluffy and ready for carding.  Others worked the drum carders (I tried it, but left most of the production to more experienced hands).  We got about half the fleece carded and rolled into batts, which 3 of the spinners then took home.  Eventually, the spun fleece (aka yarn) will be used in a weaving demonstration at an event called Blacksmith Days, which the local blacksmiths' guild hosts each year in May.  Blacksmiths come from all over the country to this, it's 3 days of coal burning, hammer swinging fun for them, and also lots of local folks come out to watch them do it.  It takes place at the Farm Museum, which is all about colonial American life, and other groups with interests that tie in with that time period also come out to do a little public outreach.  The fiber group will be warping up a loom and weaving a shawl from handspun yarn.

Here I am playing with wool:

In knitting news, the Lion Suede sweater progresses.  The body is up to the armpits now, time to dig out EZ's book so I get the proportions right for joining the sleeves to the body and progressing up the yoke.  I'm very pleased with how far a skein of this yarn goes.  It must have a lot of yardage for the weight.  When I bought it I was afraid I would not have enough of the main color, so I bought a few skeins of a contrasting color thinking I could do something creative if I had to.  But so far I have only used about 1/3 of the main color.  At this point in the sweater, I think I have used about half as much yarn as I will need, so I'm doing just fine.  Yay!

Mmm, fiber...

So a couple of weeks ago, I read an article in the local paper about a fiber arts group that usually meets once a month at the Farm Museum, just minutes from my house.  How did I live here for two and a half years and not know about these people?  The article also said that this month, they were meeting at the Library downtown.  Maybe an outreach effort, maybe just that it has been a cold winter and many of the Farm Museum spaces are un- or underheated.  Anyway, off I went to the Library at the appointed time.

The group was terrific!  About half spinners, but also several knitters and afficionados of the "c" word.  One woman who has a few alpaca but does not spin brought several bags of fleece and enticed the spinners by saying that if they would spin it for her, they could keep half.  One of the fleeces was from a black alpaca/llama mix (she said), and the fleece was soooooo heavenly.  I was tempted to take up spinning.  The best part was that it was just a big group of people sitting together, working with yarn and fiber, and chatting about this interest we all had in common.  I am so hooked.

Here are a couple of pictures I got in the email the next day:

Look!  I was really there!

Another neat event was that I met another knitter there who was pining for a knitting group.  She had learned to knit at work, but then the person who organized the knitting group left and the group broke up.  She kept knitting on her own, but she was sad and wished for others to knit with.  When she saw me knitting, she asked me to help her with a mistake in her project, so we got to talking and she told me her tale.  Well, what else was I to do but invite her to my knitting group at school?  She came the following week, then was sick this week, but she did email me to let me know why she wasn't there.  I hope she becomes a regular.  She seemed very nice.

As for my own projects, it's still the Lion Suede.  Both arms are done up to the join with the body.  Then I cast on the body (managed to reconstruct how to do that fancy braid cast-on) and I have knitted up about 6".  On me, that's about half the way to the underarm.  I'm doing the cabling we designed for the front, where each side has a cable at the front edge that's half rust and half purple, and the two sides twist is opposite directions.  It's looking very nice.  The yarn is still hard to work, so I knit until my fingers get tired and then stop, and it's taking a long time.  But I still like the way it looks, so I will finish it eventually.

They're Baaaack

Slow days are over for a while.  It's the first day of Spring semester, and they're all back.  And needing something, it seems, though I'm sure that isn't really true.  These are the days when my evening knitting really saves my sanity.

The program these days includes the Lion Suede sweater jacket and a pair of socks.  The dog sweater is all knitted up, just needs to be blocked and then tried on the dog for correct placement of buttons to make it fit just right.  I do so hate blocking.  I hope I get this done before the winter is over.  I already feel a little bad because we are currently having a spell of about the coldest weather we get, lows in single digits highs in the 20's, and this is when the dog really could use the sweater.  But, it is what it is, I'll just need to get my rear in gear before the next cold snap.

The Lion Suede sweater progresses.  I'm probably 3/4 of the way up the sleeves.  I started with the sleeves and I'm knitting both at the same time.  It's not the most fun yarn to knit.  It has no stretch, and I'm knitting it on the tight side because I like the result, which makes it hard on the hands in a funny way.  I just can't do too much of it at one time.

The socks are the current traveling project which lives in my purse and mainly comes out at knitting group.  Usually I stick to the most basic pattern for traveling socks, just a simple rib, so I can chat and knit at the same time.  This time, though, I was so eager to try something out of my new sock pattern book, I am doing a lace pattern on the traveling socks.  Rather risky.  The saving grace is that this pattern alternates lace and stockinette, so I figure if I muck up the lace too badly I can rip it back to the last stockinette stretch and start over.  The pattern has a safety net. 

Okay, back to work.  Thanks for the break!