Masters Monday: Week 27

Okay, so, four day weekend, I should get a lot done, right? How you define "a lot" depends on your individual situation, I always say. I will thus stretch this report out over several days.

Let's start with the knitting stuff.

I pulled out all my stuff for Masters Level I again, and discovered several things.

1. The missing Swatch #13 and Swatch #15 have not resurfaced.
2. Knitting has recommenced on Swatch #13.
   
   Now, what I've discovered is that I can do a pretty nice cable cast on, and my cables themselves look pretty good. The problem is the one knit stitch to the left and the right of the purl stitches; it tends to alternate tight and loose (tight for the stitch made on the WS; loose on the RS). It's taken some work, but I've figured out how to handle the tension there. The edges still look OK, so I haven't forgotten much. I'm about to snip the yarn on this practice swatch, and cast on for The Real Thing. Yay?
3. The hat... is in some ways lovely. The switches from color to color aren't that bad, and the ribbing is pretty nice and even. But here and there, there are half-dropped stitches, which leave little fuzz-loops on the outside of the hat, and they just don't look pretty. So I'll have to reknit it.
4. For an imperfect hat, its pretty warm; I'm wearing it right now. I think I'm going to have to weave in the ends and give it to my mother, though; she was eyeing it yesterday.
5. I really need to take a couple of days and just finish all this!

Wednesday looks good, I think.

Things in my Queue

Okay.... so, um, finishing things. Not so much. So, instead, I'm gonna show you The Next Five Things I'm Likely To Make From My Ravelry Queue! Mind you, it's not the top five things in my queue. It's stuff that I already have the yarn for, and have a prayer of finding the pattern for, and I wander by it and go "OOOOOOO!" in my queue. And what I actually start will depend on my mood that day, the phase of the moon, etc. So, in no particular order, here they are. Direct links to patterns provided where possible; links to photo sources provided.

1.

Leyburn Socks

I'll be using the Miss Babs yarn that I thought was going to be my original-design Pumpkin Socks for these, so, unsurprisingly, they'll be orange. I think I first saw them onStephanie's Blog, and decided that yep, I was knitting these.

In fact, these are Steph's lovely, inspiring socks. See here!

2.

Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf

This project is *why* I wanted to take the Overture to Estonian Lace workshop with Nancy Bush. It's in her book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, and, having taken the workshop, I feel much more comfortable tackling the project. I will be making it from the lovely grey silk/wool blend that I bought for the workshop (and just happend to get an extra ball so I'd have enough for the scarf...).

Photo of Kingring's lovely scarf.

3.

Go Fly a Kite Shawl

I have the most beautiful sky blue yarn for this project, and I'm pretty sure I know where it is. It's my next "big shawl" project after I finish the Forget-Me-Knot shawl in hot-pink mohair. Nice, smooth blue yarn will be a treat to work with after that!

Photo of Jen from RI's tiny shawl. It's a great shot of the yummy pattern!

4.

Elizabeth I

I'm one of the lucky ones that has a copy of Tudor Roses, but it's in a Very Safe Place so nothing happens to it. Imagine my delight when Elizabeth I was reprinted in Issue #10 The Knitter magazine (issue #12 now on preview)! Anyway, there was a sale on Election Day this year at Fibre Space, and I got the yarn to make this sweater for myself. It's a beautiful aqua blue... and just to make sure, when I had to work late that Thursday and my boss drove me to the yarn store (which worked better for me than being dropped at the Metro), I got two more skeins, just to make sure. Yay, all the same dye lot!

Still the best photos I've found of this lovely sweater, from The Source!

5.

Trilobite

Yes, to go with his Trilobite Hat, should I actually finish it, my husband needs little stuffed Trilobites. Really. At least one of them will be made from sparkly gold yarn. This isn't the original Trilobite I'd planned to knit, mind you; while looking for the photos of another stuffed Trilobite on Ravelry, I found this pattern, and I actually like it better. (It, I should add, is now the #1 item in my queue.)

The photo, from the designer's blog, that convinced me that THIS was the Trilobite to knit.
Now, assuming I ever get a chance to start any of these, you'll hear about it!!

It's Turkey Day!

"Knitting" and "Turkeys" just go together. No, really, they do.

Original Turkey Hats (knitted version pattern available through Ravelry, here; crochet version pattern available through Ravelry, here)

knitted version

crochet version



Baby Turkey Hats (pattern through Ravelry for FREE here)



Turkeys (pattern available here)



Turkey Finger Puppets (pattern FREE here)



Turkey Dishcloths (pattern FREE here)



And, lastly, a Knitted Turkey, Knitting (for which I can't find any incriminating tracks; the photo is all over the 'net.)


Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!!

#230

I meant to share this with you a while back (based on the evidence, I'm going to assume it was August 15, 2009). It's two Burger King receipts, from two different Burger Kings, one day apart.


Clearly, we should've bought lottery tickets that day. (And yes, we're eating less Burger King now.)

Bonus Post, because It's Important

As of today (Tuesday), the Orphan Foundation of America (address on the poster above) has just barely 1300 scarves. They need 3000 for the Red Scarf Project, to send in care packages to college students formerly in foster care, who are going it on their own.

So, since there's a four day weekend coming up for most of the USA, if you can, follow this plan (by Gale):

1. Cast on for a red scarf and work on it as much as you can this week, and if you're in the US, especially over Thanksgiving. Pick a simple pattern and you'll maybefinish it by Sunday. Or next.
    
2. Be thankful for whoever supported you with a care package when you were a student. Think what it would have been like without them. And if there wasn't anyone? Then you really know how it matters.
    
3. Tell another knitter about it . There's info on the Red Scarf blog. And patterns.
    
4. STEAL THE POSTER above and put it on your blog. Really! Right Click, hit "view image", save it somewhere on your drive, and upload it to wherever you upload your photos. Wheee!
    
5. Call your local yarn store and tell them about this. If they need a poster to print out, there's one of this one, print sized, linked to the Red Scarf blog. Offer to print it out for them & hang it in the store. Maybe they want to offer a discount on any red yarn for one day to perk things up?
    
6. Knit! Gale is determined to finish the one I'm on now, and crank one more by the December 15th deadline. I'm hoping to get at least one finished and shipped out before the deadline. It is do-able. Join us?

Gale's last pep talk on the subject is here; it has additional suggestions for helping out. When I read that post of hers, I remember thinking "oh, that would be kinda cool to do" - and promptly forgetting about it. But it means *so* much to the young men & women that receive these scarves, it's really worth it!

Yarn Pimping.

Miss Babs has a blog. It's about the yummy yarn she makes. As I periodically do, I have chosen this yarn to announce to the world (just in case you don't know about it). I don't own quite as much of it as you probably think I do. Yet.



"Yet"... is actually the name of this type of yarn!

Week 26 - pretend there's progress. I do.

Here's a post I was hoping to actually post a month or so ago. There aren't any photos, because none of it has actually happened yet. But I have hope that it will over vacation....

Hallowe'en was a quiet day at our house, so I pulled out the knitting, and tried to get a good swatch each of missing swatches, #13 and #15 (the single-cross cable and the "your choice" cable). All the cable things to remember! Same number of rows before and after, pull tighly so the left side of the cable isn't floppy, cross with the needle points so it doesn't look awful... gah! But I managed. And then, back in the groove, here are my babies, blocking:

[IMAGE OF SWATCHES PINNED]
And then, the Weaving In. I could do half of them on the board at a time, so happy little swatches 1-8 got pinned to plastic-coated cardboard with specially-obtained stainless steel pins, and were doused with water and set in front of the fan, and once they dried, they became tail-less (and their temporary tags pinned to them carefully).

[IMAGE OF Completely completed swatch]
Then, the careful storing with their temporary tags. Arenda, goddess of the Basics, Basics, Basics class said that Side Loading Pages were fine for swatches that kept trying to escape, but mine stayed in their top-loaders just fine. I'll be using the side-load pages for all the questions, report, and other paper, so I won't be out the cost. Managed to find a nice, lightweight binder, too - I know trying to keep postage costs down is key.

So, that's a big part of the work done. Now, I just need to do the darned tags, deal with The Hat, and finish the writing up. (!!)

See, it's a nice little fantasy, and it might actually happen someday!

Okay, so I haven't actually finished anything... but...

Okay.... so, um, finishing things. Not so much. So, instead, I'm gonna show you The Next Five Things I'm Likely To Make From My Ravelry Queue! Mind you, it's not the top five things in my queue. It's stuff that I already have the yarn for, and have a prayer of finding the pattern for, and I wander by it and go "OOOOOOO!" in my queue. And what I actually start will depend on my mood that day, the phase of the moon, etc. So, in no particular order, here they are. Direct links to patterns provided where possible; links to photo sources provided. Annoyance at Blogspot's inability to deal with a VALIGN=TOP command noted.

1.

Leyburn Socks

I'll be using the Miss Babs yarn that I thought was going to be my original-design Pumpkin Socks for these, so, unsurprisingly, they'll be orange. I think I first saw them onStephanie's Blog, and decided that yep, I was knitting these.

In fact, these are Steph's lovely, inspiring socks. See here!

2.

Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf

This project is *why* I wanted to take the Overture to Estonian Lace workshop with Nancy Bush. It's in her book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, and, having taken the workshop, I feel much more comfortable tackling the project. I will be making it from the lovely grey silk/wool blend that I bought for the workshop (and just happend to get an extra ball so I'd have enough for the scarf...).

Photo of Kingring's lovely scarf.

3.

Go Fly a Kite Shawl

I have the most beautiful sky blue yarn for this project, and I'm pretty sure I know where it is. It's my next "big shawl" project after I finish the Forget-Me-Knot shawl in hot-pink mohair. Nice, smooth blue yarn will be a treat to work with after that!

Photo of Jen from RI's tiny shawl. It's a great shot of the yummy pattern!

4.

Elizabeth I

I'm one of the lucky ones that has a copy of Tudor Roses, but it's in a Very Safe Place so nothing happens to it. Imagine my delight when Elizabeth I was reprinted in Issue #10 The Knitter magazine (issue #12 now on preview)! Anyway, there was a sale on Election Day this year at Fibre Space, and I got the yarn to make this sweater for myself. It's a beautiful aqua blue... and just to make sure, when I had to work late that Thursday and my boss drove me to the yarn store (which worked better for me than being dropped at the Metro), I got two more skeins, just to make sure. Yay, all the same dye lot!

Still the best photos I've found of this lovely sweater, from The Source!

5.

Trilobite

Yes, to go with his Trilobite Hat, should I actually finish it, my husband needs little stuffed Trilobites. Really. At least one of them will be made from sparkly gold yarn. This isn't the original Trilobite I'd planned to knit, mind you; while looking for the photos of another stuffed Trilobite on Ravelry, I found this pattern, and I actually like it better. (It, I should add, is now the #1 item in my queue.)

The photo, from the designer's blog, that convinced me that THIS was the Trilobite to knit.
Now, assuming I ever get a chance to start any of these, you'll hear about it!!

Still a bit out of it...

Nothing much for today. Just some yarn-based LoLcats...

Writing is a craft. It acts like a craft...

Well, I finished all the really dark green on the current (for really, really broad definitions of "current", since the marriage ended almost a decade ago) wedding sampler.

I knit two rounds on the Trilobite Hat.

All my crafting time has been spent writing my National Novel Writing Month novel. Here's how it currently stands:


[INSERT COOL HTML TABLE WITH NIFTY GRAPHICS HERE. FOR WHATEVER REASON, IT LOOKS FINE IN PREVIEW, AND THEN WHEN I POST, IT GETS EATEN AND LOOKS BIZARRE.]

The goal is: 50,000 words in 30 days.

The important bit is:
Day Seventeen
32,450 written
(64.90%)

Which is:
28,339 required
(56.68%)
or, 2 days ahead

And I was sick yesterday. *Sigh.*

Week 25 - scant progress.

Okay, so, I started up again, sort of. For certain values of "I did some research for about four hours," at least. I got books from the library - including the original Vogue Knitting from 1989 and Meg Swansen's Knitting, both of which I am hinting STRONGLY to my husband that I would like for Christmas/Birthday/Surprise. Since I'm a bit behind the curve on my yarn-and-supplies budget, "gift" is the only way I'll get either of these books in the forseeable future.




I went through and noted all the resources I'll need for Question Citations (I should have them all done by now) and the Report. I was going to do more, but thanks to National Novel Writing Month, I haven't actually knitted much of anything the last two weeks, let alone concentrated on much of anything else.

Well, almost. 2012 ROCKED.

I do too finish stuff. Sometimes.

Well, here's something I finished in the 70s, and just unearthed. I'm pretty sure it was a Girl Scout project. I cleverly combined pale yellow and black threads to make the eagle look "more real". I'm guessing I only had four colors of thread. I'm tempted to frog the whole thing and do it again better, but when the heck would I find the time? Plus, IT'S DONE.


Here's an item from The List. I started it shortly before my BFF's first wedding in 1998, and she does want it finished, dammit. So, I'm working on it about as fast as I have been for the past decade. What I've noticed is that I'm a MUCH better stitcher now. Not that things back then didn't look good, but I distinctly recall this pattern taking forever (and being really, really tricky!) the first time I did it (early 90s, for my college roomie & her new husband - I finished it the night before the wedding, and framed it myself before heading over to her house for the ceremony), and this one is done on smaller-count fabric, and I'm changing up the colors a LOT. (It's supposed to be all pink roses; her colors were primary yellow, red, and blue). Instead of the dates of the wedding (or the marriage), I've decided to put in a little Bible verse that should make her giggle.


Now, since I started the Trilobite Hat from Knitty, I'm back up to 53 UFOs. But I still think I'll manage to finish four things before the end of the year!! I WILL GET UNDER 50!!!

That Time of Year

This past weekend, during a spate of unusually beautiful November weather, we attacked the back yard. And I mean attacked. We took down two over-six-foot TREES that had grown up since the last time we cleaned out; there was ragweed taller than my unusually tall husband; there wasn't a brick back there that didn't have something growing up between the cracks. Our wooden back patio furniture? Mushrooms. (I'm not an outdoorsy type; sitting out in the sun for "fun" has always escaped me.) Anyway, a LOT of work had to be done. Three different sizes of loppers/clippers, a rake, two dustpans, a bow saw, a weed-whacker, hammer, nails, and many, many, many large clear rubbish bags (required by our trash company for Yard Waste) were employed. One of the first things we had to do, just to get in the back fence, was lop down several thousand yards of wisteria vine. Here's what's left, along with a dozen or so seed pods, just in case it has, in fact, been cut back too far:


None of the leaves pictured are actually part of the plant now.
So, this got me thinking about wisteria and knits. For example, Vicki crocheted this lovely shawl:


The pattern is for sale on her blog for just $1.99 here. (This is a pattern I could actually afford after my double-overindulgence at Fibre Space last week.) And there's the lovely way that wisteria goes all twisty:


I was able to save one small piece that was three vines twisted together. I'm going to strip off the bark this weekend, polish it up, and let it dry out really well, then carve & coat it. In a year or so, it should be very pretty. Speaking of very pretty, Angela Hahn got this lovely photo of actual wisteria:


... and used it as inspiration to create this adorable child's dress:


This, and lots of her other patterns - which, trust me, if you've been knitting a while, you've seen them around - are available on her website, knittitude.com, and there are tons of Ravelry links for many beautiful finished projects. Or you can find them in Interweave, Vogue Knitting, Twist Collective... you get the idea.

Now, along with all the green growing things, several of the neighborhood trees are coughing up their leaves. Like these - which are HUGE. Those are my little size-eight boots in the photo, for scale, because you can't see the quarter I put down!!


So, big leaves. I've seen some lovely knitted leaves, so I went hunting on the internet again, and found Lorraine McClean correspondence courses. She has several examples of knitted leaves. Hm. May have to look into this once I finish my Level I TKGA (if I ever do).

Good resource to have, there. Also, while we're on the subject of leaves, here's the way one of our local Old Towns is stopping skateboarders from using the fountains in the town center for tricks:


Permanently attached metal leaves!
And, because the whole point of finding pictures on the internet to share is to find the pretties, here's a spectacular silver leaf, and other lovely things. Sadly, everything's dated from 2007, so it's probably all gone, but oooooo.... the pretty....

Extra Bonus Post!

Just want to direct everyone's attention to

this post
by OfTroy (of Queens) over on her blog, golden-apples. I never really thought of "reading" knitting, but that's what I do, and nope, I sure couldn't at first. Very cool.

Still a bit blah.

I pretty much swear by ShoesbyColor.com. The three times I have seen BOOTS I MUST HAVE out in the real world, I've managed to track them down here. Seriously. You try to find a pair of russet 12RW Frye "Eagle" size 8 harness boots; it ain't easy.


Also stumbled across this site. Haven't tried getting anything from it yet, but I just like the idea of a Wall of Jewels.


Yeah, it's a slow week, and I'm still not feeling great. I'm pretty sure that "poison" is an accurate term for what happened last week, and if I'm not feeling better by the weekend, it's back to the doctor.

The Yarn LNS: A Dangerous Place

So, several Fridays ago, I wandered into Fibre Space (hey, it happens!), to get some DK cotton for the Nancy Bush workshop that Sunday, since I'd very cleverly stored most of my yarn in a storage unit and then proceeded to give myself a nasty abdominal strain so I can't actually shift anything around in said storage unit for a while. I emerged with two balls of the softest, loveliest alpaca blend that is *just* the perfect color for my husband's eventual Trilobite Hat,


and hopefully for his stuffed Trilobite, as well. (The Trilobite Socks... will be for next year.) Somehow, I wound up with some size 3 DPNs (Darn Pretty Needles) that I didn't really need, but they really were Darn Pretty.

There was also a small ordering accident at Nature's Yarns during the Nancy Bush workshop, wherein I will eventually get a copy of The Enchanted Sole, nicely chronicled by Franklin Habit over on his blog. Picked that up from Nature's Yarns on Saturday - amazing book. Then, this past Thursday, I had to work late, so my boss-who-knits DROVE ME TO Fibre Space (!!!)


so I got to see the Ori Ami Knits trunk show, picked up three more skeins of Silky Wool in Flourite Blue (just in case, or, for a matching tam) for Elizabeth I, a ball winder, and a really lovely shawl pin


from DyakCraft (formerly Grafton Fibers). Um, ignore the Pop Tart in the corner; I just discovered "stickers" on Photobucket.

I just shouldn't be allowed in knitting stores.

Monday blahs

Nothing done this weekend, but do have news. Will post later this week, when I've actually accomplished something.

(The building at work tried to poison me Thursday night/all day Friday; I spent most of the weekend recovering. Still not feeling great, though. Seriously, could I please go a year without any health incidents? Just once??)

Starts and Finishes.

Finished something, and something ended. First, the finish. Not in time to up the numbers for October (although I did unravel some socks I'd started, so I did 'finish' seven things in October), but we're off to a good start in November. This is Teresa Wentzler's Tropical Dream Sampler. According to The List, I started it in 2006. I've had everything but the 1-over band, the woven band and the cutwork done since 2006, I think - as it only took two days to get the rest of it done, I'm wondering why I'd put it aside in the first place. (Probably something shiner and newer, and 50% odds it was also a Teresa Wentzler design!) Anyway, here it is:


This brings my UFO count down to 52, the lowest it's been probably since the second year I started being a Serious Stitcher!

Now, the Ending. As I reported on Tuesday, the amazing Teresa Wentzler is closing down her design business. This is a very sad thing for the world of cross-stitch, because there's always this little "oooooo...." when anyone announces that they've actually finished A Wentzler. I actually got a ribbon (!!!) at the Woodlawn Needlework Exhibition a few years back for my version of her Harvest Sampler (the kit for which I got on eBay from someone in Belgium!). There are currently four Wentzlers on The List (The Castle Sampler, my oldest UFO, started in 1992, but it Will Get Finished Dammit!; Day, which I've started, which goes with Night, which I have not; Night Watch, a lovely unicorn-outside-a-window on 32ct black linen, which my husband picked out as the Thing I Should Stitch For Him when we got married... I've since bought a print of the artwork from Teresa and given that to him, as a placeholder for the eventual unicorn-on-cloth; and Peacock Tapestry, since I love all things peacock-y. Plus, I've got kits, charts and patterns for another three dozen. (Why yes, I do have a copy of practically every chart she's ever designed.)

The cross-stitch world will really, really miss TW's contributions to it!


Tiny SoapBox: To anyone selling COPIES of her charts on eBay and other file sharing services, I hope the Karma gets you, bigtime. I'm not the only blogger who thinks the thieves hurt, and ultimately did in, her bottom line. And yes, if you sell or buy a photocopy/digital scan of something that's got a copyright, you're a thief, it is *not* covered under "fair use" and yes, it does put the designers out of business. You're probably not reading this, but the Karma is still out there, and it'll bite you.

Yarn on Thursday - Things That Look Like Yarn, but Aren't

Now that the chill of winter is creeping in upon us (our first frost was yesterday morning), it's time to start dreaming of summer vacation. While at the local elementary school on Tuesday morning to vote, I spent some time parked in front of a bulletin board full of photos from some of the teachers' summer vacations. The photos were grouped into categories of the Arts represented therein, and one of the Arts was "fiber":


Note the umbrella swift there! The picture of the big twine ball in Kansas reminded me of the giant twisted pile of metal from the construction project across the way from work - which, upon seeing it, I thought looked a lot like yarn:


This got me to thinking about things that look like yarn and knitted things, but aren't actually yarn OR knitted things. To wit: Wankette took this photo of some Christmas lights - it looks like yarn to me!


Bloomkitty captured a photo of this Rope Sculpture at the Sheraton Inner Harbor. It does look like fringe... but doesn't rope technically count as really, really BIG yarn? Sorta?


MARTHA STEWART (yes, THE) found this cool yarn-y light fixture at Youngblood in Sag Harbor, NY. I want one. (No, seriously. I need to have a light put in our front room eventually; I want this to be the cover!!)


Chiggers kinda look knitted. Creepy, but knitted. (This was pointed out over on the DemocraticUnderground.com board.)


So, remember the Knit Night Cupcakes over at VeganYumYum.com? There areHow To Knit Marzipan Instructions at VeganYumYum.com, tiny versions of which are here:

Cemedia took this cool photo of Tiny Flowers that Look Knitted:


She also took this photo of a moth - it looks like a shawl, doesn't it? (She's got lots of cool photos, go look!)


Orinda5 found this very cool light fixture at a store. I agree, it looks like knitted glass!





Then there's the Lace Fence by Demakersvan; it's part of a collection that's supposed to officially debut now, November 2009!



This last one has nothing to do with fiber, and a whole lot to do with art. This is Crazy Horse, which, when finished, will be the largest sculpture on earth. Korczak Ziolkowski, the artist, is responsible for Stone Mountain in Georgia, and Mount Rushmore. Korczak is gone, but his family (and a whole lot of other people) are continuing his work on the Crazy Horse Monument, carved out of the Black Hills. Sculpting (which, at this scale, means "explosions") has been going on for a really, really long time. I've been there several times years ago (if you can go over a long summer weekend, Memorial or Labor day, they do a Night Blast on Saturday evening. Very cool.). I got to see the space under the arm open up for the first time, and the last time I saw it, the blast had just happened so you could sort of see where the nose would be. The fact that the face is finished just amazes me - remember, they're carving up a MOUNTAIN. Anyway, it was on the school vacation board, so I just had to share.



Whee!!!