Sunday, February 28, 2010

this just in

Guess who/what won the
New England Textile Artists'
Spa Knit and Spin 2010
Ugly Sweater Contest?!


crappy pic because I was laughing too hard
for the camera to focus. can you see the tiara?


:::sniff, dab::: I'm so proud.
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Friday, February 26, 2010

Not in Kansas anymore

Packed the ark and navigated through 40 days and 40 nights of wind and rain, crammed into a few hours, to reach our destination.




Messy morning, no electricity.



But the textile artists are arriving and there are signs of good things to come.



Some of us don't need electricity for our fun anyway. :-)

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

bingo!

Fruit loop stitch markers -
too pretty to keep in the knitting basket!


click to embiggen.
guaranteed oohs and ahhs to follow.

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Friday, February 19, 2010

almost there!


2 front panels - check!
back - check!
buttons - check!
sleeve A - 1" to go
sleeve B - 4.5" to go

psyched knitterkid - check!
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whoosh

The Victorian Lady showing a knitted garter. Light bulb moment when she mentioned that's where garter stitch got its name! BTW, this woman puts on an excellent educational and entertaining show, so if you ever get a chance to see her strut her stuff, I'd encourage you to go. She also was absolutely delightful to talk to afterwards, when she gave Leah some leads on how to follow her bliss with the interest in historic textiles and reenactment.

A warped boy winding a warp. ;-)

Some of the newest flock of sheep, socks, bunnies, etc. heading to Stitches West with our friends at Dye Dreams!

Me? Haven't knit a stitch in days. Whassup with that? :::jobchauffeursnifflesgroceriestaxesmealsmendinglaundrybills
dentistshovelingphone::: Oh, life. ha!

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

hot stuff

Just when I accepted the fact that I would be knitting on this green sweater for the rest of my life and never actually making any progress on it -- and I was okay with this. very zen insane of me, don'cha think? -- I discovered that it had reached armhole height! Around the same time, I noticed that I was running low on the 2 darker green yarn cakes I was using, so I rummaged around for the others. I found a hank, but no cakes. Stash tossing ensued. I finally realized that the yarn cakes had been eaten by my sweater and all I have left is the one big hank. Crazed weighing and calculations then followed. Seems like I *might* have enough yarn, but yikes, cutting it close, I think! Since there's no hope of getting any more of the vintage dark green yarn, I must knit faster so I can find out how this story ends!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to conjure up some sleeve cap/shoulder construction. I'd like to do set-in sleeves, but haven't found an easy way to make them up myself, since there's no pattern here and I'm just winging it. EZ's Knitting Workshop is checked out of the library, so I can't refer to its sleeve cap guidelines. Therefore, my bright idea is to use the sleeve shaping instructions for a sweater with a free pattern, using half the number of decrease stitches because my gauge is 4 st/in, not 8 as in the pattern, and plug it into my sweater. This entire thing may crash and burn at any time. Please speak up now if you have words of wisdom or at least don't laugh too hard.

I'll keep you posted.

Socks in fire colors, knit by me for Leah, Trekking yarn, I think.


Glass rods turned into pretty buttons for Leah's cable sweater. Just add fire.

Hey, look at Leah's basketweave scarf in the center of the table in the second picture on Gale Zucker's blog post today!

Happy V-Day, everybody! Mwah!
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Friday, February 12, 2010

Fri night

My view of yo-yo club. This is a few of the guys in the group practicing their mad yo-yo skillz.


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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

score!

We spent Super Bowl Sunday, as has been the case for three out of the last four years, hanging with a couple hundred knitters/weavers/crocheters/spinners at Webs for their pre-game bash.

Such a fun and festive time, meeting old friends and new (in clusters like this throughout the store, down every aisle, in every nook and cranny!), enjoying the snacks, petting the pretty yarns, and working on our projects. Jesse came along because, even though he probably wouldn't admit it, he has a darn good time at these events too. My budding weaver found the loom room fascinating and had a good time chatting about yo-yos and fiber arts among the other folks enjoying the snacks. Lots of people liked his Deathflake mittens and he did proclaim it quite convenient to have a sister who knits such great stuff for him.

Leah has reached the armholes on her cabled sweater and is thrilled to be zipping along on those shorter rows. She expects to finish one front panel today and there's a bunch of snow in the forecast tomorrow, so she's setting aside a couple of Netflix DVDs and doing a happy Snoopy dance about the possibility of finishing the second front panel tomorrow.

Leslie Wind's cable needle necklace is included in this pic because it's been put to use on every single set of crossed stitches you see here and has become one of Leah's favorite and most important knitting accessories. She's also loving those Knitpicks Harmony interchangeable needles -- so pretty and so pointy for easier cabling!

She's been working pretty hard on this sweater and says that, when it's done, she's going to take a good long break from knitting. I'm curious to see how long that lasts. :-)

---

I Spy 2 movie was Fahrenheit 451. I thought that would be an easy one (figuring everybody but me had already seen that movie), but nobody guessed it!

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Saturday, February 06, 2010

bouquets and I Spy 2

A bouquet of beads ready to be removed from their mandrels.

A bouquet of flowers Leah added to the dining room table.

I Spy knitting in another movie we watched recently!
Can you name the flick?

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

drive-by

Trying to find a pretty way to wear the fruit loop stitch markers. Close, but not quite right.

ha ha. Thanks for the laugh, UPS.

Looks like dusty glass rods, right?
It's really beautiful glass buttons waiting to be born!
Miscrossed cables fixed!


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