A bit of Midwestern class comes to New England

Exciting news! We were at our local purveyor of beverages and look what has finally arrived in New England:That's right, Leinenkugel's! Unfortunately, it's not our favorite flavor (Go Honey Weiss! Go Original!) but we bought it just to show local beverage purveyor that they should keep it coming. It does help that the owner graduated from Luther and knows a good midwestern beer when he drinks it!

On another exciting note, I finished my socks! And I LOVE them! They are my best pair yet...both in execution and in comfort. Hurrah!

Details: Lorna's Laces Shepard Sport gifted to me by Dominique

Pattern: Columbine Peaks (without the peaks, given the pattern mishap) from "Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles"

And, because I was remiss in my last post: The baby bath mitt was knit in Araucania Nature Cotton using the mitten pattern from Ann Budd's "Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns." I used the mitten pattern for the gauge of my yarn. I knit an i-cord out of dishcloth cotton to create the fish.

Knitting along

I've been knitting up a bunch of my "stash" yarn. Here are the treasures I've made:
A bath mitt that was gifted yesterday (with the striped sweater below) at the shower we had for Joanna. More on that later. I used Ann Budd's basic mitten pattern.The French Market Bag from Knitty. I didn't know about the pattern (it was published in my pre-knitting days) until I saw Abi's post about it.
Two baby hats from some sock yarn that looked better in the catalog than in person.

Look! I've made progress on the socks. Now is when I curse my size 10.5 feet...but progress is being made. It's just tedious. From this perspective you can see that I've completed the heel and I'm working on the foot.


And I found this little sweater pattern in a book Maryse gave me. It's a fun little knit.

Finishing Fest

On Sunday I had a finishing fest. I:

--Blocked that baby sweater

--Sewed and attached linings to two bags, the fancy black one from last summmer,

and my first ever complete crochet project I did when Julie visited (I included a photo of the lining):

--Steeked that extra-long scarf and cut it in half

I also made the fingerless gloves with the yarn from Morandia:

The weather around here has been atrocious. J didn't have school yesterday, but I did. It was only a half day for students, though, so they sent the teachers home when the kids left. So that wasn't so bad. But then it turned to sleet and rain and now the ice is insane. Two of my colleagues literally couldn't move their cars this morning because they were frozen to the ground and in the sludge the plow piled up around the tires.

Catching Up

Why is it that most of my posts are about catching up after not posting for a while? Alas. In the last month, both J and I were down with this yucko-cold-flu thing for a week each, and then there was the presentation to the school committee about next year's budget, and the new PR brochure for the library association, and assisting with knitting classes and volunteering at Graceful Stitches, and football games to watch, and tax returns to prepare, and...but enough excuses.

So here are some projects I've been working on:

This hat is from Itty Bitty Hats. Can you tell that those are little crocheted turtles on there? I made this because I'm knitting as a part of the Dana Farber Boston Marathon Knitting Team through Graceful Stitches and Sarah Nixon.

Then there are the socks. Yes, those are the same socks I posted about a month ago, but I had to tear them back to the cuff because I made a mistake in the lace pattern, so I had to put them away for a while to get over the trauma. You'll also notice that they're plain this time around.

This is just a teaser on a baby gift I finished...ignore the unblocked look of the fabric and just enjoy the colors.

And last, but not least, that's me sporting my monochromatic version of The Player, and my very colorful version of Knitty's Argosy. I'm keeping the hat, but the scarf will be a gift. Many thanks to J for taking that photo.

On my needles: Sacred and Profane convertible mittens from Knit Wit using the gorgeous yarn left over from the moebius scarf Morandia made me.

Mulling in my brain: Just what to create with the recycled sari yarn Morandia sent (see 12/10 entry below); Fiber Trends felted clogs.

Welcome 2007!

We celebrated the new year with Josh and Joanna (pictured below during our cut-throat game of Jenga) at Marc and Christine's house (they were there, too). It was a nice, relaxed evening of game-playing and hanging out. We were quite disturbed when we turned on the tv at 11:45 to watch the national coverage and saw the trashy outfits of the dancers. Only 29 and already I'm saying, "I can't believe what kids these days are wearing."


















On the knitting scene, I am still working on knitting up the yarn I already have. I knit up this bath rug, named Absorba, from Mason-Dixon knitting. It's meant to look like a log-cabin quilting pattern. We used it for the first time today and it was very absorbent. Added note: Maryse asked for yarn details: It was quite the hodge-podge...this was a stash-busting project, you know. I used 5 strands of worsted weight cotton--2 strands Peaches & Cream cream color, 1 strand P & C white, 1 strand Sugar & Cream white, and 1 strand white-ish recycled yarn from my cotton sweater.

I'm also working on knitting two socks at a time (to avoid second sock syndrome) using the FANTASTIC Lorna's Laces yarn that Dominique sent me. I like the two-at-a-time thing, but it's definitely slower going. (I don't know why I didn't think of that before, but I have my not-so-bright moments)

Knitted Gifts

Ah, the season of gifting has ended so I can post some pictures of projects I gave away. Of course I forgot to photograph some of it before giving it away (namely the scarves for my Grandma and Julie).

I made felted mittens with cuffs, fingerless mitts, fleece trimmed mittens (modeled by my dear sister when she opened them early Christmas morning), and the white lapel scarf for my great-aunt.

I had a lot of fun knitting gifts, and I was actually there to see some of them open the gifts, which was very nice.

I also received many knitting-oriented gifts, which is superb.

Christmas fun with the fam

Everyone's trip to and from Ohio went very well so we're quite fortunate. We saw a lot of family while we were there, which was great.

Of course, when you're among family, you're also among jokesters. I sat our camera down on a side table during the fun on Christmas night, and found these charming pictures when I went to review the photos later:

Dessert Spread

Tablecloth










Laundry Detergent



Microwave











And my personal favorite, the toilet:

I still don't know who did it, but it made me laugh very hard, so whomever it was: Well Played.

So Generous!

Imagine my surprise when I went to mail box at the end of last week and found another package from my One Skein Secret Pal! The Knitting Librarian sent me this gorgeous yarn:

The purple/green is sock yarn, and the multi-color seems to me to be some of that sari-silk yarn. It is heaven to touch. Here it is under the tree:

Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are so generous, and what a great surprise!

A few more details

Evergreenknits wanted to know how much wool went into the felted balls (they're still in the same state...I haven't decorated them).

I had 2 oz of roving to start.

The largest of the individuals balls (the teal in the center) is .2 oz (6g), with the average sized ones not even registering on my kitchen scale. The whole collection below weighs 1.4 oz and have .6 oz leftover that I didn't ball up yet.

I hope this information helps!

gift-a-palooza

Here are a few items I have just finished:
Ornaments from Handknit Holidays:










(I haven't decided how/if I will snaz them up a bit with beads, etc.)

Felted bowls from One Skein:










I plan to fill these with treats for my librarians this holiday season (those are all yarn remnants I was using up--Wool of the Andes, Lamb's Pride, Dale of Norway)

Here is the product of the Kool-Aid dyeing experiment:










Which I then made into felted balls to make into ornaments like in Handknit Holidays. We'll see how that goes.

Lots of knitting, very little to show.

It is very hard to post right now because I've been doing a lot of knitting, but a lot of it is for gifts and cannot be posted.

The mitered square blanket was gifted the day before baby Lauren arrived. I hope that she will like it!

I played with Kool Aid to dye some roving that I bought at GS last weekend. Here it is in the process of dyeing:

(Um, just kidding. I can't find the camera cord anywhere. I remember seeing it before we painted the guest room but now I have no idea where it is. Shoot! And Justin's not responding to my "have you seen it?" "I still can't find it..." comments)

10 minutes later: CORD FOUND!

This is what the roving looked like to start:

Here it is in the process of dyeing:

I don't have a picture of the final product because I haven't made it yet. I was really happy with the red that's in the lower left of the photo. The other colors were ok.

Last of the yellow walls

The last of the yellow walls are gone! We painted the guest room a nice, fresh shade of green. We even painted the ceiling (hence the picture of me with a crick in my neck). The pictures of the new color don't do it justice, but you can see some of the improvement.

Julie's Visit

Julie visited from MN after she traveled to CT for work. We had a fun time eating in Providence, crocheting at Graceful Stitches, tasting beer at Leta and Tom's, and touring the Breakers in Newport. Such a fun (but too short) weekend! I also saw "Trick my Truck" for the first time. :)_

Step one: felted

Ok, so I took the Christmas Tree Hat idea and wanted to translate that into a felted Christmas tree. I altered the pattern a lot, and added a lip to the bottom. It's drying right now, so I need to decide how to decorate it. I made some garlands, but I haven't felted them yet. What do you think? How should I decorate my tree?


(Heidi asked for dimensions...it's 14 inches tall and 22.5 inches in circumference)

Christmas Tree Hat

I love this little project (even though the trimming of the tree took longer than the actual knitting!) I knit it for Graceful Stitches, and the pattern is from Too Cute!

Here it is by itself:


Here it is modeled by the only thing I have in this house with a child-sized head:

Now I've got ideas for a non-hat version for our house...more to follow.

The Great Finishing Miracle 2006 (Or, what not to do when you're making the pattern up as you go along)

This is a baby gift for an undisclosed recipient (pretty please--ignore the horrible light [and the pillow holding the items up]...the sun sets at 4:00 p.m. in New England at this time of year, so there was no natural light to be found). I decided that there was enough yarn for both a stroller/car seat blanket, and a little jacket. I decided that I would just wing it and see what I came up with. Now that I think about it, I should have made the jacket first. Then the blanket could have been made to whatever length of yarn I had left. But did I think that far ahead? Oh no, because I was winging it and laughing in the face of danger (this from a woman who has worn off the S on her keyboard from saving her documents obsessively). As you might guess, I barely had enough yarn to finish the edging of the collar on the jacket. As in maybe 1.5 inches left, even after cheating and using p2tog at random intervals around the edge to save yarn. However, I managed to weave in the ends, so this is now known as the Great Finishing Miracle of 2006. (there were other acts of divine intervention involved with this project, but I would feel very foolish if I mentioned them all)


Look! Sock #1 is done. That is the sad start of Sock #2 on the needles next to my foot. I am suffering from second sock syndrome.









This has been exacerbated by the fact that I picked up a kit to knit for the shop and it’s adorable. Can you guess what this will be?

it's knowing the little things

I know I've only been married a little over 2 years, but it's amazing to me how much you can learn about a person in that short amount of time. For instance, I just walked downstairs to find my husband watching South Park. That's right, South Park. Knowing him like I do, I know that the poor guy is past his threshold and needed something brainless. He's been working on his grad school application, grading, sorting out the car title mess, and a bunch of other things. Poor guy needs a break, and how do I know? He's watching South Park.

Sock Progress

I'm back from my two-day Massachusetts School Library Association conference. All and all it was a very informative conference. I also got this far on a new sock:














Unlike the Yarn Harlot, I was not confident enough to have the sock pose with the famous people I met there: Ed Emberley (you probably know him best for his how to draw books), Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky (check out this amazing Favorite Poem project--the videos are amazing, and the quality of the videos will be updated in the next week or so), and others.