winter purl

Snowy Day Visitor

2011-01-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

Outside my kitchen window, I spotted this

little fella. I've been watching his tracks, but this

is the first I've seen of him this year.

The last time we spoke, I shared with you photos

of my next project to be. On last Wednesday,

I finished all of the knitting! Above is a sneak peek.

The sweater just needs blocking and buttons.

And my next project... "Girl Friday",

knit from a light grey heather Cascade 220.

So far so good! I am LOVING this pattern.

Happy knitting to all!

2011: A Sweater Odyssey

2011-01-01T06:07:00.001-08:00

An evening with good friends, an early morning explore through the back fields with my good buddy, Jack, and a bowl full of onyx heather destined to become an Owl sweater. Yay 2011!

Well, let's try this again…

2010-08-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

What I have been up to lately: avoiding housework, biting my fingers to keep from casting on the million gorgeous sweaters that have been circulating on Ravelry, and speed knitting through some long awaiting WIPs. Here are a few that I finished up recently:

A 28thirty sweater knit in Wild Apple Hill Farm wool from Rhinebeck 2008. This sweater generates heat on it's own - I am excited to test it out when the the cold weather sets in.

A "Fall Chill" hat & scarf set. I used three skeins of Punta Yarns Merisoft Hand Painted Aran that I found at Rhinebeck in the fall of 2009. The tags claimed that the skeins were all from the same dye lot, but they were visibly much different - one more red, one more blue, and one more yellow. I knit this in mistake rib and alternated rows for about ten inches each time I was about to run out of a skein. So the color change actually works well.

A seed stitch scarf knit along the long side until the yarn was gone. Knit with 1 skein of Periwinkle Sheep Watercolors II sock yarn that I purchased at a craft show in Troy, NY, just before Christmas last year. I think the colorway looks like Eggplant and Carhartt...

The photo quality is eh but this is how we learn. Plus I may have had too much coffee this morning and I may be a little self-conscious that my neighbors will catch me out on my front porch in the heat, wrapped in scarves and sitting in silly poses. I get what I am doing, and if you are a knitter, you do too. The rest of the world? Only if they already love a knitter.

Projects in the works

2009-08-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

I have gift knitting on my mind. A gift certificate and a little fun money later...

and I have plenty of inspiration and supplies for Christmas.

Luckily I have already started a FEW projects, some of them will be gifts. Let's start with the smaller groups first.

THE MITTENS (only one!)

THE SCARVES (three!)

THE GUGGIES! (that's three there)

THE SOCKS!

(enough for a week's worth of colorful, warm feet.

Hmmm.. here is where you see evidence of my resolve and attention span on display.)

THE SWEATERS! (yes, again, a week's worth of variety here, too.)

As my Pop would say, Job Security.

Mettowee

2009-08-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

Last month I celebrated my 32nd birthday with some very special ladies and a trip to one of my favorite states.

We first drove to a place that I never knew existed, and now wonder how I could have lived without. I am being melodramatic, I know, but just look at this place. It is called Mettowee and it sits tucked into the side of the road in Dorset, Vermont.

I think I could live right here.

Earlier in the spring my Gram and I had been out for a wander in the woods looking for Mayflowers. We ended up finding the most curious looking fern, the Maidenhair Fern. I found one to take home with me at Mettowee, and here they are in the woods where we had lunch. Stunning.

Our car mysteriously turned into the driveway of Yarns for Your Soul while we were in Manchester Center visiting Mother Myricks for their Lemon Lulu.

Happy Birthday to me!

Make it do or do without

2009-06-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

OK. So I am one for challenges and numbers and goals, keeping track of how many projects and skeins I can knit up and how fast, taking inventory of how much yarn I have, dividing that by how quickly I can knit, and realizing I can knit solely from stash for say the next 5 years, easy. Maybe you know what I am talking about. I would like to say I am no longer going to purchase new yarn until I can knit down what I already have, but let's be serious. Knitting is a creative outlet; part of that is finding something you love and figuring out what to do with it (ahem... or rediscovering something you already have). Plus, I love my local yarn stores (hello Stitchin' Post and Spinning Room! I am sure I will see you soon).

But I have been challenging myself to use what I already have first. It's either that or go out and find more storage containers, or start replacing the dishes in the cupboards with yarns. But there is one project that I do not have the yarn for, and I cannot get this project out of my mind. I am in love with those stripey knee socks everyone is knitting out of the noro sock yarns. I think they would look just perfect on my feet by the next time the snow falls. My bedroom, after all, barely makes it above 50 in the wintertime, so I must use all that I have in my warmth arsenal. I sleep with 8 blankets, 3 cats, a music man and yes, wool socks. I think those nice stripey knee socks are just what I need to see as I relunctantly pull back the covers on those frosty mornings.

But what is a girl with no noro sock yarn and too much stash to do?

Are you guessing?

If you are thinking that I tried to dye my own nearly noro sock yarn, you would be correct.

Lucky for me, I stocked up on blank sock yarn last summer. And I am newly addicted to dyeing with koolaid. It started with one skein and a packet of grape. Now, I am walking around my house wondering how well pillowcases and curtains will take dye. And thinking of changing my new favorite colors to "ice blue raspberry lemonade" and "strawberry".

So my basic steps were to measure out 12-36 loops around from my hand to my elbow for each section, wrapping them around themselves and tying some scrap yarn through them to kind of hold them together during the process. I left a good yard of extra yarn between each section and had 20 (twenty!) total sections. I lined them up in brownie pans and soaked / washed them. I created a map of the loops - their number of loops and location in the pan, and the color I wanted them dyed. I was hoping for a gradual color change so had solid color koolaids separated by a mix of the two. So say, orange solid, a mix of orange and strawberry followed by a strawberry solid. And I dyed from the lighter colors first, and any of the mixed loops I dyed twice - lighter to darker. I was hoping for a heathered tie-dye look.

And this is about when I realized the real noro is worth every penny (although they have probably figured out a better way than I).

Overall, I am happy with the results. It definitely doesn't replace or even come close to replicating the wonderful noro, but I am excited to see how this knits up. And the colors are definitely cheery. The fiber is soft.

As you can see, the dye process itself didn't quite go as planned. There were a few pitfalls. Tropical punch packets look just like ice blue lemonade. I was mixing blue and suddenly had purple. Instead of starting over, I went for it, since a mix was what I was ultimately going for. Unfortunately the results were not. Strawberry and tropical punch are almost indistinguishable and both overpower whatever color is underneath (good to know for future projects; wish I had known that before this one).

However, the blue / green, blue / yellow, purple / blue and purple / red came out very well, and tempt me to give this another shot. As long as I wrap the loops a bit better next time to avoid the hour and a half I took unknotting one section. (You read that right). Proof that I can be patient.

Hurray!

saturday plans

2009-04-18T06:24:00.001-07:00

working on ...

a new summer quilt.

and itching to start...

a whisper cardigan.

getting ready

2009-04-15T17:17:00.000-07:00

The daffodils are making their appearance in the yard, and I am getting a head start on my Christmas knitting. First up, a pair of Mitered Mittens from Elizabeth Zimmerman. I am excited and intimidated by the addition of the thumb, but the mitering is keeping me calm. Of course, there are those in my house who are just excited that I am still knitting, whatever the reason ...

Apparently, someone thinks this photo shoot has gone on long enough.

Staying inside and keeping warm

2009-01-22T20:17:00.000-08:00

I ventured into the Stitchin' Post for some sock needles and a little bit of yarn followed me home. There is a loop hole in my goal for this year concerning yarn purchases. I will need to be more specific ... next year.

It is possible that we are heading toward Spring (although I did find myself the other morning counting out the months of winter left to go and thinking that there weren't enough). I am noticing a bit of yellow in my next two project; a sure sign of a transition. This past summer, every project I started contained green. Then I began working with teal and incorporating blue into my projects. Then as you've witnessed, blue was it. This project is a cozy cowl for my friend Beth. I hope it helps to keep her warm!

I am happy to report that I am making great progress on a recently started sweater. Here is a quick preview. A great benefit of the cold temperatures outside and a collective hybernation amongst your friends is that there is plenty of time left for drinking tea, watching to see what birds come to the feeders and knitting. And there has been a lot of knitting.

And who wouldn't want to get back inside when you have this guy waiting for you!

Blue is the color

2009-01-08T17:19:00.000-08:00

It seems to be the color my eye is drawn to. It started back in October at the Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool Festival. The first project I started when I returned was the Guilford Guernsey from Yankee Knitter Designs (pattern #17 by Melinda Goodfellow). We had just moved into a new house and I was already layering with wool, so I thought a big ole Drafty House Sweater was just what I needed.

I loved working on this sweater. The yarn that I wanted to use, Wild Apple Wool in Midnight from Wild Apple Hill Farm, would not knit down to the gauge the pattern required. Luckily I had been reading plenty of Elizabeth Zimmerman's thoughts on knitting and figured I could figure my way out of this. I was able to knit in the comfortable gauge of four stitches per inch instead of five, I followed the smallest adult size, and kept an eye on it. Like magic, it came out in exactly my size.

While Christmas shopping at Trumpet Hill in Albany, NY, the next project jumped right into my hands. Regia 4-ply in Petrol. Perfect for a pair of leisure socks for Socks for Soldiers, Inc.

Much like efforts made by knitters during the Civil War or World War II, a group of knitters has gathered together to provide love, support and fine wool socks to US soldiers serving overseas.

I began my first pair of leisure socks while waiting for the yarn in a regulation color to arrive.

And the final blue project is Emilie's Hooded Scarf knit with Mountain Mohair in Maritime, all from the Green Mountain Spinnery.

I finished this cozy one yesterday, just in time for the latest snowstorm. I was walking around during the storm thinking that I had way overdressed and the conditions weren't as bad as they looked, until I realized that I was completely wrapped in wool and down. I highly recommend this project if it drops below freezing where you live and you plan on leaving your house during the winter months.

a fresh start

2009-01-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

For the new year, something warm and cozy for me.

This yarn has been waiting patiently... Several seasons back I traveled to the Green Mountain Spinnery and found their Emilie's Hooded Scarf pattern. This Mountain Mohair in maritime came home with me and sat, waiting until now. We just had some blustery, cold weather; a prelude to the rest of winter. I found myself wanting that hooded scarf now. So onto the needles it went.