Somewhere between making the cardigan and writing the pattern, I gained two stitches. I'm not doubting my math, but perhaps I cast on two fewer stitches than I thought... And I already gave it away. I may have to steal it back for a bit so I can figure out what I did.
Just a hiccup, the pattern will be written!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew with the whole seedling thing. I don't have enough dirt or containers for everything and they're taking over!
Okay, the big tomato plants I bought at a greenhouse, but the rest is growing faster than I expected. This picture doesn't include the two big pots housing the okra and peas. Oy vey!
I have a couple pictures to demonstrate spring in Alaska.
Taken Saturday and Sunday in a couple locations, I'll have pictures next week from the same spots and chances are everything will be green, the lake will be totally melted and it will be awesome! (Yes, we do have a plastic deer in our yard, the kiddo likes to ride it like a horse.)
And, of course, knitting news. Spring makes me super productive, planting, sewing, knitting, all of it getting done in the last few days. I started this baby cardigan last night and finished it this morning.
Quick, easy, cute! I suppose I'll write out the pattern.
Off to do something else before Monday sets in...
Okay, the big tomato plants I bought at a greenhouse, but the rest is growing faster than I expected. This picture doesn't include the two big pots housing the okra and peas. Oy vey!
I have a couple pictures to demonstrate spring in Alaska.
Taken Saturday and Sunday in a couple locations, I'll have pictures next week from the same spots and chances are everything will be green, the lake will be totally melted and it will be awesome! (Yes, we do have a plastic deer in our yard, the kiddo likes to ride it like a horse.)
And, of course, knitting news. Spring makes me super productive, planting, sewing, knitting, all of it getting done in the last few days. I started this baby cardigan last night and finished it this morning.
Quick, easy, cute! I suppose I'll write out the pattern.Off to do something else before Monday sets in...
Friday, April 24, 2009
Not terribly exciting
Unless you're me! Yesterday, it RAINED! Real rain! I know, for so many people that's been the whole winter, just lots of dreary rainy days. But I'm really psyched because it wasn't snow, or even slush and it smelled like wet earth and after 6 months without it, that is an AMAZING smell!
Also, had another sewing night last night and we actually got to the sewing part. After patchwork matching with the help of some creative juices (read: tequila and margarita mix), of course! It's a not really top secret projects and there will be some fun pictures when they're done.
I sewed today, too. This is only important to one person, but there are two new baby dresses of indeterminate size (have I mentioned I don't use patterns much?) and the baby size to weather ratio is the determining factor in who gets them. Two baby dresses in one day is some decent productivity...there will be more!
Oooh! Oooh! Since I do kind of advertise this as my knitting blog, I'll throw this in. I wrote about the now pith-covered Corriedale wool I got on Ebay, not impressed. In searching prices on Ebay versus local supplier, I find they're about the same. So, now I'm waiting to hear back on a pound of merino. Something I know for certain is sweater-worthy. I have a picture in my head of the perfect poppy red cardigan made from hand spun and Kool-Aid dyed yarn. If you could see it, you'd totally be on board with me and asking me for the pattern, I swear! Here's hoping my hands and my brain will see eye to eye and make it happen!
Here's a random picture for good measure. Where I was at this time last year, Garden of the Gods in Colorado.
Also, had another sewing night last night and we actually got to the sewing part. After patchwork matching with the help of some creative juices (read: tequila and margarita mix), of course! It's a not really top secret projects and there will be some fun pictures when they're done.
I sewed today, too. This is only important to one person, but there are two new baby dresses of indeterminate size (have I mentioned I don't use patterns much?) and the baby size to weather ratio is the determining factor in who gets them. Two baby dresses in one day is some decent productivity...there will be more!
Oooh! Oooh! Since I do kind of advertise this as my knitting blog, I'll throw this in. I wrote about the now pith-covered Corriedale wool I got on Ebay, not impressed. In searching prices on Ebay versus local supplier, I find they're about the same. So, now I'm waiting to hear back on a pound of merino. Something I know for certain is sweater-worthy. I have a picture in my head of the perfect poppy red cardigan made from hand spun and Kool-Aid dyed yarn. If you could see it, you'd totally be on board with me and asking me for the pattern, I swear! Here's hoping my hands and my brain will see eye to eye and make it happen!
Here's a random picture for good measure. Where I was at this time last year, Garden of the Gods in Colorado.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dear Diary...
It's spring! For real! I'm SO excited! Last summer was an absolute bust here. We had a total of less than two weeks that the temperature went above 70F. In town, that is. A couple hours north there were some nice 80 days. On top of that, there was a day in late April when it snowed 24 inches in 24 hours. Lucky me, I was in Colorado, but I really feel for everyone who got stuck here!
So, seedling time! My dad owns some property about two hours north of here (coincidentally) and he's got it into his head that there needs to be a huge garden there. Guess who's in charge! So, what it seems to mean for me is traveling up there about once a week to do major tending. Basically we're going to be growing stew. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, that sort of thing. And I get a little corner for salad stuff.
I planted some seeds on Friday and already all the brussels sprouts, broccoli, basil and cherry tomatoes have sprouted! I'm totally awed by the visible change in seedlings over the hours. I know it's a little late for starts, but this is an experimental year. At worst, we'll have to buy starts from a nursery.
Spring also means it's time for iced tea! Real iced tea with lemon, and if I'm feeling ambitious, pureed fresh strawberries...oh, summer in a glass!
I also get motivated to cook more! Sure it's not the most season appropriate food, but there's a Guinness beef stew on the stove right now that smells soooooooooo good. I fell sorry for my husband, because there is no possible way it can taste as good as it smells. (The only meat I eat is fish and seafood, but the man likes his meat.) My dinner was damn tasty too, in case you were wondering! Jerk shrimp with rice and a super-salad. I like salad, real salad with green lettuce and lots of extra veggies tossed in. Olive oil and balsamic and a little basil...yum.
Okay, enough of that! What have I been knitting?
I made a little set of cupcakes for a friends' daughter for her birthday, it was kind of hard to part with them. Also made a little shrug for the friend, her birthday was yesterday and she likes to ogle my black and white shrug. Hers was black and maroon and shorter in the sleeves, but she loves it, so I'm happy. And she still wants a black and white one.
Also working on a stack of Lacy Leaf Berets. I think I'm going to knit and stockpile untill fall and open an Etsy shop when the weather starts to cool down.
Spun some of that Corriedale wool I got on Ebay, really not impressed. It spins really easily, but the fibers are pretty coarse and the finished yarn doesn't give me the ooh-ahhs. I'm the sort of person who gets an idea, does it, and deals with the consequences after the fact. That is why there is strawberry pith well attached to that yarn now. I had some black tea from last year (iced tea!) that is old and bitter and pretty much unusable, so I figured I'd try to dye the yarn with it. In a saucepot on my stove. Turned out pretty pale caramel colored, not bad, but not terribly interesting. But wait! I had some strawberries that were turning grodie, why not mash them up in a little water and brew out the pink?! And throw in a few frozen blueberries for good measure, those things stain everything... And just throw the yarn in there with all the mashed fruit. Yep.
Doing some sewing, too. A friend (the one that bakes!) got a new sewing machine and I'm supposed to be imparting my sewing knowledge, such as it is. Although last night we just drank margaritas and talked about sewing. Just as fun!
Another fun thing, I got new glasses. Sure, that doesn't seem so interesting, but I've had my eye on these babies for about 5 or 6 years. Finally decided I needed to get new glasses (I wear contacts most of the time) and I haven't taken them off since. Expensive, but I've been in love with them for so long! Dig the little flower! Pure awesome!
So HOORAY for SPRING! No strawberry pith is going to ruin my mood!
So, seedling time! My dad owns some property about two hours north of here (coincidentally) and he's got it into his head that there needs to be a huge garden there. Guess who's in charge! So, what it seems to mean for me is traveling up there about once a week to do major tending. Basically we're going to be growing stew. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, that sort of thing. And I get a little corner for salad stuff.I planted some seeds on Friday and already all the brussels sprouts, broccoli, basil and cherry tomatoes have sprouted! I'm totally awed by the visible change in seedlings over the hours. I know it's a little late for starts, but this is an experimental year. At worst, we'll have to buy starts from a nursery.
Spring also means it's time for iced tea! Real iced tea with lemon, and if I'm feeling ambitious, pureed fresh strawberries...oh, summer in a glass!
I also get motivated to cook more! Sure it's not the most season appropriate food, but there's a Guinness beef stew on the stove right now that smells soooooooooo good. I fell sorry for my husband, because there is no possible way it can taste as good as it smells. (The only meat I eat is fish and seafood, but the man likes his meat.) My dinner was damn tasty too, in case you were wondering! Jerk shrimp with rice and a super-salad. I like salad, real salad with green lettuce and lots of extra veggies tossed in. Olive oil and balsamic and a little basil...yum.
Okay, enough of that! What have I been knitting?
I made a little set of cupcakes for a friends' daughter for her birthday, it was kind of hard to part with them. Also made a little shrug for the friend, her birthday was yesterday and she likes to ogle my black and white shrug. Hers was black and maroon and shorter in the sleeves, but she loves it, so I'm happy. And she still wants a black and white one.
Also working on a stack of Lacy Leaf Berets. I think I'm going to knit and stockpile untill fall and open an Etsy shop when the weather starts to cool down.
Spun some of that Corriedale wool I got on Ebay, really not impressed. It spins really easily, but the fibers are pretty coarse and the finished yarn doesn't give me the ooh-ahhs. I'm the sort of person who gets an idea, does it, and deals with the consequences after the fact. That is why there is strawberry pith well attached to that yarn now. I had some black tea from last year (iced tea!) that is old and bitter and pretty much unusable, so I figured I'd try to dye the yarn with it. In a saucepot on my stove. Turned out pretty pale caramel colored, not bad, but not terribly interesting. But wait! I had some strawberries that were turning grodie, why not mash them up in a little water and brew out the pink?! And throw in a few frozen blueberries for good measure, those things stain everything... And just throw the yarn in there with all the mashed fruit. Yep.
Doing some sewing, too. A friend (the one that bakes!) got a new sewing machine and I'm supposed to be imparting my sewing knowledge, such as it is. Although last night we just drank margaritas and talked about sewing. Just as fun!
Another fun thing, I got new glasses. Sure, that doesn't seem so interesting, but I've had my eye on these babies for about 5 or 6 years. Finally decided I needed to get new glasses (I wear contacts most of the time) and I haven't taken them off since. Expensive, but I've been in love with them for so long! Dig the little flower! Pure awesome!
So HOORAY for SPRING! No strawberry pith is going to ruin my mood!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Craft Ash
Hooray for spa weekend! A couple friends and I decided to take a trip to Alyeska, stay over night at the hotel and spend too much on food and drinks, go swimming and get massages. It was great! Alyeska is a ski resort, but that wasn't on the list of things to do. Which was good, because Mt. Redoubt blew, there was ash and the lifts were closed early on Saturday. We just watched from the indoor hot tub. It snowed Sunday morning though, settled things down a bit. The inside of the car had a lovely view though!
I thought about taking my laptop with me. I thought about taking a knitting project with me. I did neither and I'm really glad.
I finished the second Lacy Leaf Beret beforehand. I like how it turned out! Misti Baby Alpaca Grande is a tasty yarn choice! Smooshy soft and warm, great for a trip to a ski resort. I'm still in love with the Kool-Aid handspun though. Fun stuff!Also working on a new Socktopus. This one is for my aunt who didn't want to give up the orange one as a baby gift.
In other crafting news, I've been making pants for the kiddo. Mostly from the hubby's old t-shirts. The cat-in-the-hat ones are my favorite! If I can talk him into modelling them, I'll have some pictures up soon. He has no problem letting me know I drive him crazy with the trying everything on and taking pictures. Would anyone be interested in a sort of DIY t-shirt lounge pants pattern? I'm still trying to decide wether to make pants out of the KMFDM shirts or piece them together in a quilt...
Friday, March 20, 2009
Making Up For It / Famouser
So, to make up for my previous procrastination, I kicked into high gear since the last post.
First, the cloud of merino has been spun, dyed and half of it knit into a hat! I really like dying yarn with Kool-Aid. Really. It's so easy and CHEAP. I'm all about the cheap. If you'd like to try it, but haven't, there's a great tutorial on Knitty. So half of it is this sweet pale aqua color, from apple and ice blue lemonade flavors and the other half is the very awesome bright orange with poppy, pink, red tones made by spooning mandarin and black cherry randomly over the skein. I've always been in love with the bright Orange You Glad shade that Brown Sheep has, but this puts it to shame.
Also recieved my pound of Corriedale roving, but it's just sitting there waiting to be spun. My thought was to crack down and spin and dye enough to make a half-sleeve cardigan, but it had to be put on the back-burner for now. Why, you ask? Because my dad's birthday (and mine!) was Sunday, the 14t
h. On Tuesday, I decided I wanted to knit him another tie, this time out of pure silk. I really like Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, but the only colors I could find locally were black (too dark to show), pink and purple. Damn. Hey, I could spin that and knit it before Sunday... And I did! Blo
cked and everything, but it still needs to be backed and finished. He's a patient kinda guy though. So I picked up 1.5 ounces of this beautiful locally dyed teal silk roving, and, oh hey! That purpley merino-silk roving looks pretty too, I may as well get that...Oh, hey! Guess what! One of the ladies at my favorite local yarn shop e-mailed me a couple days ago to let me know that Socktopus was mentioned in Country Living magazine! I'm really not into magazines and probably would never have known, but of course I had to go out and buy a copy. It's just a two or three sentance blurb about DIY with free patterns found on knitty.com, but to see it in print in a magazine was so COOL! The people around me probably thought I was crazy, grinning like an idiot at some magazine.
I picked up the Spring issue of Interweave Knits, too. I don't think I've ever knit anything out of the couple dozen knitting magazines I own, but they're so darn pretty to look at. Someday, you'll see.
Oh, by
the way, that hat is the rough draft of what will be the Lacy Leaf Beret, a new pattern I'm working on. It looks like a lot of work on paper, but when you see how it knits, it's pretty easy to get the swing of the pattern. Very fast, too. I knit, took apart, knit, took apart, knit, took apart, knit, took apart and knit it in two days. I'd like to change the shape of the leaf, but that's for the next draft. As it is, I dig the orange! And I hate to bust any bubbles, but I think I'm going to sell this one. But $2 sounds reasonable to me for a hat pattern. Any input?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Whatcha been up to?
Oh yes! Who rocks the procrastination? Me!
I've been thinking about blogging, but really, there hasn't been much that interesting to write about lately. I got some fun new stuff this week though, so I figured I'd share!
First thing to note is the GORGEOUS new bright striping rainbow yarn! A dear recently renewed friend was in town for the weekend and I managed to get a few hours to hang out with her. She is amazing! We pretty much lost contact (this makes me sound old) about 15 years ago. In that time, we've both gone through hellish teens and early twenties and have come out very similar! She knits! She makes soap! She pickles and cans and gardens! All this in her spare time because she's a 4th year medical student as well! I'm not edumacated like her, but crafty as hell. I'm absolutely psyched that our lives have met up again. We went on a field trip to a yarn store,
surprise, surprise! She bought me this yarn, she said for driving her around. Really, that's not a good reason! I only had to cross one major street to get to her and would have driven hours to get to see her anyway. So I'll be calling this an early birthday present (my birthday is next Saturday! Party!) instead. I was thinking I would finally get down to making a real pair of socks on teeny tiny needles, but (lucky me) this stuff is pure merino and I would hate to have them wear out too fast. I know, I could use nylon reinforcing, but I'm lazy. Plus, how cute is this yarn going to be for arm warmers?!
The yarn shop we visited also happens to be the only one in town that carries fiber for spinning, so now I'll direct you to that fluffy cloud of merino the rainbow yarn is resting on. Lovely. Since I took that picture, I've spun about half of it. It was only my third try at spinning, but I feel like I'm making progress! My goal is a Kool-Aid dyed two ply that I can use for a hat. Fingers crossed. I also have a full pound of Corriedale roving coming to me via eBay. Woo!
Last but certainly not least of my new goodies is the sewing basket. I've been eyeballing the thing for months and finally decided 40% off was worth actually buying it. I've been sewing lately and I've accumulated enough stuff to warrant buying a new sewing basket, as my old one was about six inches in diameter. I think I'll have an entire summer wardrobe of sun dresses this year. Last summer in Alaska was a total bust. I think we had less than two weeks total that the temperature went above 70. Really, it has to be better this year! I'm reaching the point in the year that the cold is getting to be too much. I'm ready for sun and skin and margaritas on the deck! Who's with me?!
I've been thinking about blogging, but really, there hasn't been much that interesting to write about lately. I got some fun new stuff this week though, so I figured I'd share!
First thing to note is the GORGEOUS new bright striping rainbow yarn! A dear recently renewed friend was in town for the weekend and I managed to get a few hours to hang out with her. She is amazing! We pretty much lost contact (this makes me sound old) about 15 years ago. In that time, we've both gone through hellish teens and early twenties and have come out very similar! She knits! She makes soap! She pickles and cans and gardens! All this in her spare time because she's a 4th year medical student as well! I'm not edumacated like her, but crafty as hell. I'm absolutely psyched that our lives have met up again. We went on a field trip to a yarn store,
surprise, surprise! She bought me this yarn, she said for driving her around. Really, that's not a good reason! I only had to cross one major street to get to her and would have driven hours to get to see her anyway. So I'll be calling this an early birthday present (my birthday is next Saturday! Party!) instead. I was thinking I would finally get down to making a real pair of socks on teeny tiny needles, but (lucky me) this stuff is pure merino and I would hate to have them wear out too fast. I know, I could use nylon reinforcing, but I'm lazy. Plus, how cute is this yarn going to be for arm warmers?!The yarn shop we visited also happens to be the only one in town that carries fiber for spinning, so now I'll direct you to that fluffy cloud of merino the rainbow yarn is resting on. Lovely. Since I took that picture, I've spun about half of it. It was only my third try at spinning, but I feel like I'm making progress! My goal is a Kool-Aid dyed two ply that I can use for a hat. Fingers crossed. I also have a full pound of Corriedale roving coming to me via eBay. Woo!
Last but certainly not least of my new goodies is the sewing basket. I've been eyeballing the thing for months and finally decided 40% off was worth actually buying it. I've been sewing lately and I've accumulated enough stuff to warrant buying a new sewing basket, as my old one was about six inches in diameter. I think I'll have an entire summer wardrobe of sun dresses this year. Last summer in Alaska was a total bust. I think we had less than two weeks total that the temperature went above 70. Really, it has to be better this year! I'm reaching the point in the year that the cold is getting to be too much. I'm ready for sun and skin and margaritas on the deck! Who's with me?!
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