Been awhile

With the holidays I haven't had time to post for a couple of weeks! We've seen the kids in Christmas concerts and visited family. We've also made it through a bout of stomach flu...

I have been working on the knitted pillow some more. It is definitely ill-fated. The Harmony needle cables BROKE the first time I used them. They come in pairs. I knitted about 1 1/2 inches before the first cable broke, then about 1 1/2 rounds before the second one did. The metal connector pulled right off of the plastic cable. The join between the connector and the needle is threaded. I had no trouble with that. Now that Christmas is done for the year, I need to call KnitPicks and see what they will do for me. I am very disappointed, and quite surprized. I have always been happy with things I have purchased from them. Maybe they had a manufacturing problem. I'll post what I find out!

Brenda

New Harmony Needles

Hey!

I just got some size 5 Harmony wooden Needle tips and a cable yesterday in the mail from KnitPicks! These are interchangeable tips, like the Denise set that I already have, but I do like the Harmony needles better! The cable is thinner, so it is easier to slide the stitches along. I have always loved my Denise needle set, but when using the #5 and #6 (the two smallest sizes) it takes a little work to slide the stitches along since the cable on this set is thicker than typical circular needles. The Harmony needle is smooth and more pointy than the Denise plastic tips. I also feel that the join is more secure. I almost feel disloyal to the Denise needles because I have used and loved them for years. They are good, but the Harmony is better and it is always fun to try something new! It has brought new life into my scratchy-pillow project. I may actually finish it, you never know!



I am really looking foreward to January. I hope to have more knitting time. The pressure of unfininshed Christmas projects is currently upon me!

Mitten begun again

I finally frogged the mitten and I have been working around on a new version that I hope I have enough yarn for! I am almost done with the thumb gusset. I think that when I get to the top, I will wait to graft my stitches together until the second mitten is done just in case I run out of one of my colors, or something.

I ordered a new size 5 circular knitting needle from KnitPicks. Meanwhile, my wonderful husband got the broken off piece of plastic out of the size 5 needle point from my Denise needle. Yeah! It is saved!

I have not been enjoying winter very much so far. It hasn't been too bad, but we've been getting at least a dusting of snow everyday for a couple of weeks. That means overcast skies and no sun. I love the sun. I am a sun person, and the greyness really gets me down, whether it is because of snow or rain. I did see a bit of sun today, but not much. However, there was one day earlier this week when the flakes that were drifting down were very crystaline and reflective. I watched them swirling past the house out the back window and they sparkled in the sunlight like glitter. It was truly spectacular. I really enjoyed it while it lasted!

Bad knitting moment

I have been dutifully going round and round on my scratchy wool, stockinette stitch pillow cover, since my other projects are stopped at points which require some thought. Yesterday, I brought it with me as I took Thing 2 to the chiropractor. I sat in the lovely waiting room chair, picked up my knitting, slid the stitches into position, adjusted my fingers and SNAP! My size 5 Denise interchangeable knitting needle snapped cleanly off from the cable to which it was attached. So not only did I lose the pair of size 5 tips (one now is plugged up with the plastic from the cable and I can't get it out) and the cable, but I had to sit and wait for 30 minutes WITH NO KNITTING! I did manage to survive.

I have been eyeing the Hamony interchangeable needles from Knitpicks. I think I will invest in some size 5 tips and a set of cables now! At least some good has come of this! I still have the rest of the Denise set which I have been using and enjoying for years, so I supose that I don't need the whole set of Harmony needles just yet...

I am thankful!

It is lovely sitting in my nice warm house watching the snow drift past the window. I was going to do a little shopping, but I really hate to drive in snow if I don't have to! I missed the whole thanksgiving with the family thing because I wasn't feeling well (I hate throwing up on road trips!) so I have had a couple of days of quiet. I am very thankful for my family, and for all the things that we have been blessed with. I have also been thinking a lot lately about how grateful I am to be able to make things with my hands.

That brings me to the above picture! This is the shrug from Interweave Knits 2005 summer issue and it would really like me to finish it someday. I started it not long after I fell in love with it, but then got side tracked with the wedding gift mittens I pictured in another post. This shrug is knitted from the center back to the cuff, then the provisional cast-off is removed and the second half is knitted. This shrug is exactly half done. Maybe I will take a few minutes to pick up the stitches later today. I actually really enjoy knitting lace, but it does take all of my concentration, which I cannot spare most of the time. My current mindless knitting project is a pillow that I am knitting in the round in stockinette. I don't even have to look at it as I knit.

Anyway, I dyed the yarn for the above shrug, so I thought that I would share a pic of the yarn in a ball and in the skein. I have been very pleased with how it looks knitted up. I use KnitPicks yarn for almost everything. They carry good quality yarns and the wools are soft!

The Shoes

A warning: this post has nothing to do with knitting.

It has to do with something that I never thought I could do to discipline a child.

I believe in finding consequences that are very undesirable for the child. With my son, he would rather misbehave and have all of his toys taken away than behave and get to have his stuff. So we actually bought him a Gameboy so that we would finally have some leverage. That worked for him because he really wanted it and didn't like having it taken away.

A few months ago, my 5 year old dd was kicking the back of my seat on the way to somewhere (church, probably) and was generally being a brat. So I threatened her "If you don't stop that right now I will take away your shoes!" Now these are no ordinary shoes. They are lipstick red sandals with a bit of a heel. These are the shoes that my 7 year old dd saw in the store and she just could not leave without them "But mom, they are lipstick red shoes! We have to buy them!" And so I caved and bought a pair for each girl, even though we had been shopping for a more practical cream colored dress shoe at the time. Anyway, the 5 year old (we like to call her Thing 4) kicked the seat again, this time slipping and actually kicking my elbow (ouch!). When we got home, I took away the shoes, and put them on the top shelf of my closet.

The shoes were mourned. When Thing 3 was putting her sandals on, she would wonder aloud if Thing 4 would ever get her's back. When Thing 4 was wearing something red, she would ask if she could have her lipstick red shoes back. I held out. Recently, I told her that if she apologized, she could have her shoes back. And she did. Now she wears those shoes anytime she can, whether they match or not! Yesterday, she dressed for church in a coral dress with a pink sweater (handknitted!) and the lipstick red shoes. What a (colorful) picture!

Which led me to ponder on how strange it is to be able to take away a pair of shoes as an effective punishment (I will point out that she did have several other pairs to choose from-I didn't leave her barefoot!). When I was a kid, I could have cared less, as long as I had something to wear. At least when I was 5. When you have kids, you go into it with some preconcieved notions, that are often quickly dispelled. Each kid is different from the other, and more importantly, often quite different from you! It's all a great adventure, anyway!

Brenda

Swatch mitten cuff (soon to be frogged...)

I wanted to post a quick picture of my poor mitten! You can see the beautiful yarn (Thanks Holly!), that I would most certainly run out of if I continued as originally planned. Once I have taken a quick count for gauge, I will frog the thing and start again.

Knitting time has been at a minimum. The kids have been keeping me quite busy. Yesterday there was no school, so I took the three girls shopping for new coats and jeans. Gives new meaning to the phrase "shop 'til you drop"!

I posted some hand dyed sock yarn at my etsy store today, along with some very soft bamboo fleece throws that I hand dyed. www.dye4fun.etsy.com I am absolutely in love with bamboo fleece! It is fabulous to touch, and dyes wonderfully. I have been keeping my eye open for some naturally colored bamboo yarn to try (since I'd rather dye it myself...). I've also read about cutting polar fleece into thin strips and knitting with that and I have been wondering how that would work with this bamboo fleece, since it really is quite a bit different than polar fleece. I really must try it one of these days...

I started a new project Monday, finally starting in on the yarn I got from the Spin to Knit exchange. The yarn is so beautiful- a grey Romney skein and a blue Romney-Gotland blend skein. I started knitting mittens using a mitten pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. The cuffs are oversized to fit over a coat sleeve, rather than under. I have the cuff done and really like the look, but I am going to have to frog it and start over. I didn't knit a gauge swatch- I planned to frog if it wasn't like I wanted, since my yarn is limited and impossible to get more. I like the gauge I am getting, the fabric is a comfortable weight, so now I need to do some calculations and figure out where to go from here. Definitely smaller cuffs. I would just keep knitting, but I won't have enough yarn for the design as planned. I could knit just one truly beautiful mitten, but that really isn't the point...
Brenda

My two projects

Today has been kind of low key. I've been going through kid's clothes and getting rid of things that are too small, moving on hand me downs that have been grown into.

I did find a few minutes to knit. I only have two projects on the needles right now. The first is mindless knitting- what I was working on earlier. It is a cushion cover in stockinette stitch worked in the round. It is a lovely shade of blue, but the yarn is kind of scratchy and I don't really enjoy working on it. I bought the yarn at a local harvest festival a few years ago, intending to make a felted basket out of it. Turns out the darn stuff will not felt. It is too scratchy for anything that I would want to actually want to wear, and I don't have very much of it. Hence, the cushion cover that it is finally on its way to becoming. Someday. Once I get another project going, I'm sure it will fade into the background. Unfinished.

The second project is actually half done, and has been for awhile. It is from the Summer 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. It is a shrug with a leaf lace pattern that I fell in love with. I dyed several skeins of yarn for it and took right off knitting (yes, back in summer of 2005). Then 2 of my brothers got engaged and I decided to make hand spun, hand knit mitten sets with a joined mitten for hand holding for each happy couple. That project took me a long time- though it turned out well. I have worked on the shrug a bit since then. I actually enjoy the lace, but I need full concentration, which is in short supply here most of the time. Now that all the kids are in school, I should be able to get back to it. It is worked from the center back out, and is currently waiting for me to undo the provisional cast on and pick up the live stitches to continue on to the second half...

Life in general...

Halloween was a great event at our house this year. The evening was not too cold- the girls didn't have to cover up their costumes with bulky coats, or put on multiple layers underneath! By the time we were done, the wind was picking up, so it did get chilly, but what a beautiful night. When we woke up Thursday morning, I was surprised at the puddles. It had rained hard sometime during the night. That made the beautiful evening the night before even more amazing!

I have spent much of this week dyeing various things. Today I wanted to just relax and do some sewing, but being a bit fuzzy headed messed up my sewing machine. So I spent much of the day driving to the sewing machine dealer and letting her figure out what I did, and then fixing it, and then coming back home. The dealer is 45 minutes away (yes, that is the closest one...).

So now I am going to go fold laundry, and then maybe I'll dust (it really has to be done when it reaches around 1/4" deep). I probably can't mess up those two things, at least not irreparably.

It is definitely not a good day to start a new knitting project!

A Pair of Socks

I started these socks as a travelling project at the beginning of August and finished them Saturday. That is good for me. I like mindless knitting for toting around, so often my sock projects languish for months waiting for me to have an uninterrupted hour to turn the heel. I make a lot less mistakes that way!


I bought the yarn for these socks several years ago, when the owner of an almost local yarn shop was retiring. It is Fortissima Colori Socka Color yarn from Schoeleer Stahl. I bought it before I was into dyeing most of my own stuff. Once I actually started to knit it, I decided that I wasn't very fond of the colors. Each sock doesn't even have two full color repeats in the yarn. It is 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon. I find that I love the socks that I have made out of handspun, but that I am constantly darning the holes I wear much too quickly in the bottom. One of these days I am going to experiment with blending nylon top into my wool with a drumcarder before I spin. Too much work goes into handspun socks for them to not last a really long time! Until then, I will continue to use commercial yarns to knit socks.

Back to these socks, the pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. I used the chevron pattern from the chapter "Cheveron Patterns for Self-Striping Yarns". I really like how the cheverons break up the stripes a little. The pattern had a two row repeat, so it was easy to remember. The socks had a "forethought heel" which is an afterthought heel planned for and done as you go along. So far, it is not my favorite heel to knit, but it is always good to try something new.

My daughter loves these socks, and since they are for her, it's all good. (Doesn't she have cute feet?)

On Saturday, I posted a "Magic Yarn Ball" on Etsy. It is a 100g. ball of hand dyed wool with surprises wrapped in as you go along. They fall out as you knit (or crochet). It was fun for me to make. We'll see if anyone likes it! It is in the colorway "marine" which is shades of blue and green. As always, you can reach my Etsy store by clicking the "Hollow Brook Handmade" link at the top.

PINK HANDSPUN DONE!

I just posted my latest handspun yarn on Etsy. It has been a lot of fun to make. It is so soft. My daughter wants me to give it to her so she can feel it whenever she wants. I have been knitting some socks with commercial sock yarn, and I was amazed at the contrast in texture when I knitted the handspun swatch. It really is nice yarn.

Hopefully I will get better at organizing my pictures as time goes on! To the right (and below) is the hand dyed roving drying last week. There is also a skein of dk weight yarn on the bottom, and felted mittens on the top. It is always hard to wait for the roving to dry after I dye it. I can't wait to spin it and see how it's really going to turn out!

Below is a lovely picture of the roving in the sink getting rinsed. I have to be very careful at this stage to not felt the wool.

I was going to post a picture of my actual spinning wheel in action, but I forgot to have someone snap a picture. I will do it with the next yarn, for sure!

New Handspinning project

Looks like my yarn picture from the last post did show up!







Two days ago I handpainted some roving that I had on hand. I divided it in half and did two colorways. The first is a blue-white-violet-navy repeat, the other is a blue-pink-navy repeat.





This picture shows one of the rovings painted, and ready to wrap and steam.

Yesterday morning I divided the rovings up. The pink one I pulled apart along the blue and navy divisions. I have been spinning these little fiber bundles from the fold. It makes a yarn with a lot of depth. So here is a photo of my little fiber piles from both rovings.

I also started spinning yesterday. I should have yarn pictures to post in the next few days!

Yarn experiment

This yarn is something that I have wanted to try for a few years. Now that my kids are all in school, I am getting to a lot of projects that have been waiting in the wings. I haven't been spinning much this year, and it is great to have some time to do it.

One ply of this handspun yarn is Bluefaced Leicester wool from Louet, the other ply is silk, from predrafted silk hankies. Both plies are softly spun, and a bit fuzzy, with the wool being much to loose in some places. The yarn is very soft. I have wanted to see the sheen of the silk next to the wool texture. It is a nice contrast in this yarn, but the silk has quite a bit of texture on its own, because of the preparation. I will have to try it again with a silk brick and more twist to maximize the difference.

I waited to dye the yarn until after it was plied. I wanted to see how the different fibers reacted in the same dye bath. I know that silk has a strong affinity for dye, but it was very interesting what happened. I was using a roasting pan (that I use only for dying) and I heated the water, vinegar, and yarn up to just below boiling. Then I poured the fuschia dye in- but only in certain spots. At that temp the dye usually strikes fairly quickly and you can get some great effects. After the fuschia, I added some blue in other spots. Instead of getting pink spots and blue spots, I got pink silk and blue wool. Very few areas look truely purple, which is surprising...

Here may or may not be a lovely picture of the dyed yarn. I have been having some trouble uploading the picture, and currently can only see the dreaded "x". I will try again tomorrow.

Alien tie dye

I wanted to show a picture of one of my favorite things to dye. This is from a long sleeved t-shirt that I have for sale on Etsy, in a youth size 14. I can do this on almost any t-shirt or fabric, as long as it isn't too small. I made one for my son, and it is one of his favorite shirts.

It is amazing how much fun you can have with some white fabric, and a few bottles of dye... It was fun how the mouth turned out. The dye travelled in just the right way. It is hard to actually plan stuff like that.

Etsy store

I've opened an etsy account to sell handmade stuff. This is an exciting move for me! Later this week I will post some of the yarns and clothing that I have hand dyed. If you haven't checked out etsy.com you should. They sell hand made items. There are lots of neat things there!

My etsy store is http://www.dye4fun.etsy.com/