stash makeover

It's been a while since I last posted and I can't decide which cool crafty event to tell you about, so I'll tell a little bit about each. I'm blogging from a client's office, so no pics today, but there are plenty of things to show, so pics to come soon!

First there was a knit night which was comfortable and fun, with chat going in all directions. It ends up that I was a doofus and followed entirely the wrong chart while there, so the evening's progress on my glove needed to be torn out after all, but it was a good time anyway.

Then there was the time when Leah and I walked into the local quilting to browse for a new sewing project for her. It was their open sewing day, when all are welcome to use their classroom sewing space for the day. We stepped into that room to see what the quilters were working on and one of them looked up and exclaimed, "I know you!" She's a homeschooling mom who recognized Leah from some past events and the adults recognized each other's names immediately. While Leah floated around the classroom and store, making pals with every quilter in the place and being shown all sorts of cool things, this quilter and I proceeded to have one of those conversations that rolls so easily that it felt like we had known each other for years.

There was also a knitting bee at a historic-house-turned-museum. We were cozy in the warmth of a sunbeam on a very cold day, surrounded by knitters, spinners, and needleworkers.

Possibly my favorite of the events was a stash swap held at a local yarn store. Leah and I have been working from stash for quite a while and have thoroughly enjoyed putting to use all those yarns that we loved enough to buy in the first place. We took the remaining full skeins that didn't have a purpose (mostly leftover skeins from other projects) and decided to see what we could find at the swap. Upon arrival, yarns were sorted into three quality categories. For every skein donated in one category, we could choose a skein to take out of that same category or lower. We were thrilled to walk out with new-to-us yarns that are better suited to the projects in the works now, including some beautiful vintage laceweight, Araucania, alpaca, Lorna's Laces, and handpainted yarns. Stash makeover = fun!

a win-win weekend

This entire weekend was one rollicking moment of supreme awesomeness after another. I loved every second of it and I'm so glad it's over so I can get back to work and get some rest. ;-) There's sooo much more to it all, but highlights from the blog's yarny perspective follow:

We arrived home from celebrating Scott's b'day with another stellar Fire and Ice Day at Old Sturbridge Village to discover that the mailman had delivered our copy of the latest magazine they put out for members. Flipping through, on the last page, hey! There's Scott (holding coffee cup and wearing a handknit hat) and his mom (purple coat), getting warm by the fire when we were there for Christmas By Candlelight. And you see that handknit hat peeking in at the top right edge? That's Jesse wearing Habitat. Sunshine, fresh air, a day spent among living history in action -- win.

While the guys then headed out for ice fishing with a friend, Leah and I met up with other friends at a nearby yarn store for their second annual Stash Swap. We traded in some unused yarn from our stash (most of which was given to us and just wasn't in colors/fibers we'd use, but still perfectly fine stuff) and came away with yarns we are more likely to use, including that gorgeous 3-lb cone of navy blue tweed rescued from being unloved in our friend Jen's stash -- woot! -- sock yarn, superwash wools, handspun, handpaints, some good solid wooly worsteds, and yes, there's some ladder/ribbon/railroad "yarn" there. I have a plan for that stuff too. Just you wait and see. ;-) Traded in freebies/hand-me-downs we won't use for a big pile of yarn that we will use, and hung out with friends in a cozy place -- win.

Sunday morning, while the guys had friends over for a good time, Leah and I headed north w/ my mom and our friend Elizabeth, meeting up with lots of other friends and acquaintances there for the Webs Super Bowl Escape. This is the third year we've gone to this event, which is an excellent party. Leah is in her element from the moment we walk through the door. Just such a festive atmosphere. I have been itching to do another pair of stranded mittens, had actually just Favorited the Signe mittens pattern on Ravelry earlier in the morning, so I was delighted to win a door prize of the yarn, pattern, and needles for Floral Brocade Mittens. Win.

Back home in time to say a quick hello and goodbye to the friends who were visiting Scott and Jesse (the mom asked me to teach her to knit the next time we hook up!), scoop the guys, and head out for a Super Bowl party. This was a house full of folks I've know since we were about the age our kids are now. My kids wore their Steeler shirts. The house was decked out in its usual Steelers paraphernalia, and maybe a wee bit more. The guests mostly showed up in yellow and black, a few wearing some of my dad's vast collection of Steelers shirts (man, if I had a dollar for every time he was mentioned last night...), and I dug out my Steelers pins that have been around since we lived in the 'burgh.

Notice the little crocheted Steelers hat with its hand-drawn logo? Dozens of these were made by kid crocheter Debbie (that's me!), circa 1976, I'd guess. I didn't have any here, but my mom had 2 stashed. Moms are good like that. :-) One of the guests asked me to teach her to knit! We ate Steelers cookies sent by Gram, spun our Terrible Towels like lunatics, munched classic football food and yellow M&Ms printed with Go Steelers, rec'd a steady stream of phone calls from friends/fans also enjoying the game where they were, and basically whooped and hollered until we were hoarse. And happy.

Win!

a gansey, eventually

Started last Feb. with yarn scored in a stash swap. Knit 2 strands together throughout. Slogged through all that stockinette at the bottom. There's mindless social knitting and then there's I'm-so-bored-I-could-poke-my-eyes-out-for-entertainment endless stockinette. Note: Future ganseys will have some sort of pattern on the bottom portions too.

Made my way to the top, where all went surprisingly well. Learned the stretchy tubular bind-off because sweater necks rarely work out for me, only to find the head opening this time was too small. Put the whole thing in time-out for the summer.

Ripped out the neck and did it again -- entirely the same except for staying wth the same needle size as the body, so the neck turned out a little bigger. Tubular bind-off is okay with me after all.

Scoured the yarn, which then softened and bloomed considerably. Blocked to match size of Scott's favorite sweater.

Then it sat again for weeks, while he was sick, then the kids were sick, and now I'm sick (yes, still. yes, it's getting old. yes, I saw the doctor again today. yes, new meds to start later today). I did manage to help Scott get the bakery booth set up for a farmers' market yesterday, though, and it was cool out, so I brought the sweater along for a couple of quick photos.

And then I came home and took a nap.
Pattern: Old Way Gansey from Interweave Knits, although I think I got it from a library book, with help of Knitting In the Old Way or Knitting Ganseys or something like that. I think it was a mash-up of all of the above. Hydrocodone cough syrup brain is not good for long-term recall. And who really cares at this point anyway, right?

Yarn: Mystery coned tweed wool from Jen's stash

For: Scott, with specific request for saddle shoulders and seed stitch. The boy likes his seed stitch. :-)

Verdict: The sleeves are little too long, but otherwise two thumbs up.

And now I think I need another nap. Sheesh.

amused. or not.

We are easily amused 'round here, as evidenced by the ooh...ahhh response to whatever happens to Scott's glass goodies as they go through the annealing process. Yup, it's all pretty and it's all good, except when we want the buttons and the beads for Leah's Sylvi sweater coat to MATCH. The buttons turned out as we hoped, but the beads for the flower centers were not encased in clear glass and turned a much stronger purple. Common sense would suggest that making more beads, using the same glass rods and encasing in clear, just like the buttons, would net that same soft plummy-purple on an amber base with slight iridescent haze over top, right?

RIGHT?!

Um, no, apparently not.

That'll get you mossy greens. Beautiful, indeed, but not what we were aiming for.
So, it has been decreed that the original beads will remain in place, not perfectly matching the buttons, but pretty nonetheless. And the beadmakerbaker has told his #1 pain-in-the-butt non-paying and highly demanding customer :::waving howdy ho, that's me!::: to take her special orders for a flying leap. :-)

Meanwhile, hey, guess what my sister wore as a wrap for her company's Christmas party this year?

It's the Lady Eleanor stole that I knit for my mom a little over a year ago. WooHoo for knits that get used, and in such a stylin' way!

(I'm working on getting Bren to hand over that dress so I can snip off that chiffon outer layer and nuno felt it into a jacket or something for her. She still cringes at the thought, but I know she'll go for it eventually.)

After about a dozen false starts on knitting projects that just haven't worked out lately, I seem to finally have something workable underway.

This is a big fat cone of tweedy goodness scored at a stash swap last weekend. I'm knitting two strands at a time, aiming for a gansey for Scott. As long as it has his beloved seed stitch and a cable or two, he'll be a happy guy. It's the least I can do, after rejecting so many of his pretty (but wrong) beads!

Lastly, a big thanks to Amy at Live, Learn, Knit for passing the Kreativ Blogger award our way. I'm supposed to then pass it on to some bloggers whose work I enjoy, so here's to:

Laurie at Issues With Knitting
Ruth at Knitting On Impulse
Karrie at Delaney's Duds
Lorraine at Of Faith and Fiber
Maria at Passing Down Crazy
Pat at Pat's Knitting and Quilting
and Faith at The Needle and The Damage Done

Palindrome

Pattern: Palindrome. Knit without a cable needle. Cool reversible cables, and easy too! Excellent social knitting, which is a good thing, as there was a fabulous lot of social time in the week I was knitting this.

For: Red Scarf Project

Yarn: Lamb's Pride Superwash, Shane's Red, scored at a stash swap.

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Pattern? Free.

Yarn? Free.

Calmly doing something for others, while enjoying the sunshine or visiting with friends, at a time of year when so many people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off? Priceless.

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p.s. Christina, I don't have contact info to reach you directly, but no, the Hybrid sweater is no longer available. I'll update the old blog post to reflect this.

mountain o' merino

I'm not quite sure how this gansey for Scott has come so far with barely a mention on the blog, but it has.

Using a honkin' cone of tweed scored at this year's stash swap, knitting two strands at a time, I'm within an inch of moving into the patterned top portion of the body -- and thank heavens because I've had more than enough of the stockinette slog, thankyouverymuch. One sleeve is knit to approx. the shoulder and the other one only has a few inches to go. Here's a sleeve detail that will also be the central part of the body patterning.

Must stay focused on the gansey, but ooh, it's tough because look what arrived at my house yesterday afternoon!

It's a mountain of merino sliver in the deep teal color that has me all atwitter lately. Yes, I buried my face in it like a big soft pillow. Scott will probably spin this luscious goodness into a 3-ply yarn that I'll knit as any one of the excellent patterns in A Fine Fleece, maybe Flyingdales, with a different neckline. I rec'd this happy-making pile in an awesome barter for soap and glass beads/buttons. The dollar bill is there for scale. Yes, it's red money, received at CT S&W, probably from a dyer, don'cha think? ;-)

Thanks, Rachel, for the offer of hooking us up with your LYS on this weekend's road trip, but our itinerary already includes one Pittsburgh yarn store knit night, an art glass destination, and a living history event, so I think we're good to go! In preparation for the road trip, I cast on a new project last night and made an emergency run to our favorite LYS for another set of Addi lace needles because P2togTBL was nearly impossible otherwise. So now we're good to go!

couple of quick things

You've seen the shark hats we knit for Scott and Zach. Now the pattern is up at Knitting Ninja. Since Leah and I were the test knitters for this design, the pattern includes pics of some silly kids you might recognize as they're happily getting munched by sharks. Nom nom nom.

I started the Estonian garden wrap (shown at Elann because the Fiber Trends site won't come up for me this morning) with vintage wool I scored at the stash swap a couple of weeks ago. Those of you who are lace knitters will undoubtedly see the boo-boos that identify me as a relative newbie to this kind of knitting, but it's also partially attributable to the countless distractions around here yesterday evening and the fact that I was foolishly trying to follow the written pattern, having forgotten that there were charts on the back of the leaflet. With the help of the charts and some quiet time this morning, I'm on track now and will leave the mistakes as a mark of the learning process. At least for now. We'll see how I feel about it after I finish the other end...correctly. ;-)

Leah's making fantastic progress on her first sweater, having finally realized that it's not such an enormous undertaking and definitely spurred on by how her yarn is knitting up into a cushy, beautiful fabric.

My watercolor cardigan is blocking. Love. It.

Have you guys tried the pattern browser in Ravelry yet? I had been searching before using pattern names and tags, but last week I discovered the pattern browser and, wow, what a helpful tool! The filters make it incredibly easy to sift through the many thousands of patterns and narrow it down to the ones that will be of interest.

waterfall

Inspired by now & ZEN's scarves, 2 balls of blue-green ribbon yarn scored at the stash swap a couple of weeks ago, and leftover bits of teal/blue/green/aqua yarn from other projects,

I laid out all these water-colored wisps of roving, many strands of yarn, and just the slightest bit of sparkly Angelina.

Made the whole thing wet and slightly soapy, then rolled it a couple hundred times, until it all felted together.

And watched a certain someone promptly claim it as her own. :-)

from Zayre's to Auntie Viola

Remember that yarn I mentioned last week, the skeins I'd get on sale at Murphy Mart or Zayre's when I was a kid and I'd make them into toy clowns for sale? Well, some of that yarn has been with me for all these years, and a bunch was added when my Gram cleared stuff out of her big house and moved to her apartment a few years ago. The last time I used it was to make an afghan to donate through a group a couple of years ago. Leah has used lots of it as she became more proficient at crocheting and then knitting. But lately, we've both moved on to different kinds of yarn and the acrylic stash was virtually abandoned.

Then came a post on a Freecycle-like group (swap/sell/barter/borrow/give/request) that I thought of a couple of months ago and has recently gotten underway, thanks to an enthusiastic volunteer who moderates the group. The message was from a local homeschooling family, requesting yarn for their 88-year-old great aunt, who keeps her hands busy with making items to be raffled as fundraisers.

Well, I talked to Leah about it and we agreed that we're happy to send our unused stash to Auntie Viola in Rhode Island. When I originally responded to the person requesting the yarn, I told her I probably had 40+ skeins to offer, but it ended up being much more than that -- two big boxes full to overflowing! Yahoo in so many ways -- cleared out our yarn closet, helped a fellow stitchaholic, and set some good karma in motion so maybe someday when we're in need of yarn, it'll come our way from an unexpected source. :-)

And remember how I said the Goob was all atwitter about the idea of morphing t-shirts, as shown in the Generation T book a friend has and offered to loan to us? Well, sho' 'nuf, when I came home with the book on Friday night, Leah took it into her bedroom to devour. When she emerged in the morning, she had marked her intended projects with paper scraps...
This busy little beaver wasted no time. The very next morning, she chose a project, grabbed the freebie shirt from a baseball game earlier this summer, pulled out the red sleeves we saved from Jesse's Renaissance Faire squire tunic, and set to work. She learned some new sewing terms and techniques along the way, removing the usual t-shirt sleeves and adding some flouncy red ruffled cap sleeves.
Meanwhile, Jesse built a k'nex fishing rod with all the working features of a usual rod, including a trigger release casting mechanism. Not only that, the thing telescopes so it can be collapsed to half its length for easier transport! He and Scott went fishing last night and this rod performed beautifully. Unfortunately, Scott didn't take the camera. I know Jesse was planning to make some modifications to his fishing rod last night, though, so I have a feeling we'll get more opportunities to photograph his creation. And maybe we'll be having fish for dinner! 

making the most of what we have

Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money,
Maybe we're ragged and funny,
But we'll travel along,
Singing a song,
Side by side.

We're a pretty resourceful family, finding ways to make the most of what we have and turning extras into experiences/things we want. A few examples from the past week:

Have: 5 cones of 100% wool yarn scored for $2/cone at the weavers' guild yarn tag sale almost two years ago.

Leading to: A challenging cabled sweater that's being knit by Leah. Both sleeves and ~6" of the body are done now and she's just barely into the second cone of yarn, so the cost for this sweater's yarn is going to be around $6.

Have: A microcontroller experiment kit that includes servo, arduino, piezo element, potentiometer, photo resistor, temp sensor, and instructions/introduction to playing with it all. Worth every penny we paid for it.

Leading to: Our hefty stash of electronics components scavenged from discarded/broken electronics at our dump's put-and-take. The perfect next step for a tinkerer like Jesse.

Have: Glass buttons and stitch markers, handmade soap, knitting patterns we're done with, craft supplies and equipment we're no longer using.

Leading to: The above luscious yarns through a Ravelry swap group. Roving and fabrics (velvet, satin, brocade) for the seamstress still in the pipeline.

Have: Time in winter to finish (stain, 3-4 coats poly) and assemble a Kromski spinning wheel for a nonprofit organization whose work we support.

Leading to: Good feelings from a volunteer job well done, possible loan of their portable weaving loom for a few months.

moments at the farmers' market

The last farmers' market of the season was yesterday and it couldn't have been more pleasant.

Leah wore the Fiber Trends Swirls Hat she knit last week, using Noro Kureyon and a skein of tweedy something or other from our stash. For some reason, the brim came out way wider than expected, so we turned it into a bucket hat by removing a few rounds to make the top more rounded. It's her first time trying the Latvian braid, which adds so much to this design. There's maybe not as much contrast between the yarn colors as we would have liked, but she's still very happy with how it turned out. This will be a gift for a friend's birthday coming up soon and I know she'll be making more of this design. I wonder if the next one will be a bucket hat or the expected shape. I'll make a point of helping her understand yarn dominance for her colorwork the next time too.

A swarm of hungry customers early in the day. Scott brought as much as he could make in the bakery on Saturday and just about sold out of everything. Again. :-) How cool to recognize old friends from high school among the crowd later in the afternoon.

My sister, who conveniently showed up wearing a pink shirt and immediately got drafted as the model for my recently completed Wisp cowl, knitted in Sheep 3 silk and merino handpainted yarn, a row of 11 tiny vintage buttons holding it in a ring. She rec'd compliments on it throughout the day and reluctantly gave it back when it was time to leave. I had it on the day before and am wearing it as I type now. I think it's safe to say this one is a winner! Mmm...silk.

Daughter of the farmer whose booth was next to ours. Dressed in her witchy Halloween costume, she watched me knit and off during the day, asked a couple of questions, and eventually I offered to show her how to knit (and swapped her farmer mom some garlic-parmesan bread and molasses crinkle cookies for leeks and napa cabbage). When we got home, there was an answering machine message from the mom of another young knitter, a sheep-for-Noro swap confirmed, and another online friend with request for pattern info.

So. Much. Fun!

habitat

Well, howdy ho! We've been having so much fun here, Living and Learning about how hard drives go click click when they die and the blue screen of death really does mean you should probably just rip up the week's calendar and pull all your hair out now; and how D3ll D@tasafe is an absolutely unreliable back-up service; and how just because the VW dealer's computer sez your car needs that nearly $1,000 repair, it doesn't actually mean that will fix the problem; and assorted other lovely lessons from the school of hard knocks. But hey, rather than locking myself in a rubber room for the past week, I managed to instead wrap string around sticks for long enough to warm my son's noggin this winter with a Habitat hat.

The pattern is awesome. I modified it a wee bit to make the cables more intertwined, rather than layered, but otherwise followed it exactly. I finally mastered cable charts on this project. This week especially, I'll celebrate the small victories, y'know?

Jesse's eyes lit up and he responded with "Wow!" when he saw this hat pattern. When I offered to knit it for him, he headed straight for the yarn stash and chose Alice Starmore's Scottish heather something or other, snagged in a yarn swap. He doesn't ask for much, so I was happy to oblige and he was thrilled with the results.

handiwork

After getting home from the day's adventures, Leah finished her first pair of mittens! These are made from leftover Green Mountain Spinnery yarn from the fair isle hat I made for her (see January archives, but for some reason I can't link directly to the Jan. 4 and Jan. 16 entries about that hat). She used the same pattern I used for my first pair of mittens and is pleased as punch with them.
Jesse, never one to go the easy route and use the drop spindles we already have, decided to make a new drop spindle out of K'nex. Since he's done some spinning himself, he knew what extra little touches were needed, like the hook at the top and the notch on the "whorl," and he also added a place at the bottom to tie his green leader on.
At the end of the evening, we began preparations for going to the upcoming Renaissance Faire with friends. We've heard that it's much better if folks get into the fun at these fairs and wear some sort of period garb. That makes sense...and Halloween's coming. :-) We got one item for our costumes from Goodwill and will get the rest from the clothing swap, and then transform them into something resembling Renaissance garb. This so far has involved a spinning wheel, purple tulle (the wrapping I use for soap bundles), and gold cord that I brought home from Gram's stash when she moved to her apartment. So the fair Maiden Leahvere has begun prancing around the house in her costume and Sir Jesselot requests a red tunic with silver accents, and imagines his dashing self with a thin mustache. I have a feeling we'll be heading to the library for some Gene Kelly flicks soon.

cooking up glass goodies

I have sometimes referred to Scott as the beadmakerbaker. That's because his main work-for-pay is in our home-based wholesale bakery. Recently, though, he was asked to bake up goodies of the glassy kind as a result of a swap we arranged with Carissa of The Cupcake Factory. Carissa requested very specific cupcake bead "flavors," including one to match her logo, complete with sprinkles and a cherry on top!

Meanwhile, we received an order for a sheep to sock stitch marker set from Lixie, who used to put out a podcast that we enjoyed. While packaging her order, I remembered that Lixie used to wax poetic about her love of cupcakes and at one point I asked Scott to make her a cupcake bead. He did that and also made a bead with her name on it, but somehow they got put in the bead box, not mailed to Lixie, and then she stopped podcasting (only temporarily, I hope!) and time passed and...well, you know how it goes. So I rummaged around in the bead box and found the two beads that were originally made for her.

Apparently Scott's glass cupcake-baking skills have improved in the interim, but the older cupcake was still fun, so off they went to London with Lixie's order.

Thanks, everybody, for the stitch marker loop feedback so far. Lots of great ideas and comments in there. Never thought much about the glass sheep, drop spindles/bobbins, socks, and balls of yarn as jewelry or bracelet charms, but hey, if you all are fiber-crazed enough to adorn yourselves with glass sheep, who are we to argue?! Will get some more jewelry findings and let you know when I post them on Etsy. Meanwhile, keep those comments coming. We appreciate your input!

BTW, Leah's in the home stretch on her Cece cardigan. She has about an inch of raglan decreases to go and then a narrow button band to attach. She intends to block it today and then dive into her dad's pretty glass button stash and see what she can find to perfectly complement her second handknit sweater.