Catch up Part Two

Remember TW's pixie hat? (you saw it in the last post too.) When my cousin discovered that she was pregnant, she immediately requested that I make one for he son as well. I couldn't refuse!

 

Stella Pixie hat
in Vickie Howell Sheep(ish) in turquoise
on US 6 (4mm) circular needles.

I used the same mods as last time.
(project's Ravelry page)

 I can't wait to get the pictures of it on him! I'll be giving it to her at Christmas, along with a pair of thumbless mittens in the same yarn. (more on them in a later post)

 ***

When my mom was visiting a while ago she brought me yarn! Lion Brand Amazing. It's a wool/acrylic Noro wannabe. It was quite soft and the colors seemed pretty nice too. Around the same time I discovered that all my knit hats either didn't go down over my ears well, or had lace/yarn overs that let the wind in. I decided to remedy that.




It's in Bicolor Brioche
On US 6 (4mm) needles In Lion Brand Amazing in Strawberry Fields and Pink Sands.
(project's Ravelry page)

This is the third time I've knit this particular pattern, and my sixth time knitting Brioche in the round, and I gotta say I still love it!

The hat is nice and squishy and soft, and VERY warm. Perfect for the frequent walks TW and I take while Bill is at work.

***

It hasn't been just all hats around here though. I've also started a new pair of socks:

 

socks on a plane (link is to the Ravelry pattern page)

(my Bayerische socks are on hold until I stop being annoyed at them for being so fiddly in a dark colored yarn)

***

I also washed, carded, spun, and plied up a bunch of yarn from the batch that had originally been destined for a sweater. The dyeing process had been interrupted by our move, and I decided that the sweater was never going to happen. So I cast on in the white yarn I already had spun up, and spun up a batch of blue and white mixed.




There are four skeins of white, two in the center and two for an edging, and then four skeins of blue all for the border.

It should be a nice large, squishy, warm blanket when it's done. It is a bit further along than in the picture now (I'm into the second skein of blue), but its my mindless big lap knitting, and I don't work on it much, but that's ok, since there is no deadline.

***

And finally before I end this post, here is an unremarkable picture of the start of an amigurumi mouse doorstop.

Over the summer and early fall when the temperatures were so nice we had the windows open a lot, unfortunately the wind kept catching the door to TW's room and slamming it on us. Eventually I got fed up and decided that his door needed a doorstop too. But that it had to match Marmalade who guards our bedroom door.

 

 I’m taking my time on him, since he doesn't need to be ready until spring when we open the windows again.

Whew!

It's amazing how busy life can be with a toddler. Yep I said Toddler, TW is walking like crazy, and it's a full time job keeping up with him.

I've managed to squeeze in quite a bit of knitting and sewing during naps and while wearing him, but I never seem to be able to find a moment to sit down and write a blog post, when I have a free moment I usually would rather be relaxing and knitting rather than typing, but I'm making an effort to get a post our today since I have such a backlog of things to write about.

I finally got around to sewing the last buttons on TW's baby surprise jacked, which I finished months ago. Thankfully it still fins him, and will for a while; all I will need to do is lengthen the sleeves occasionally, which should be no problem since I still have some yarn leftover.








TW outgrew the hat his grandmother made him, so I had to make another.



Stella pixie hat
Lion brand wool ease
US Size 6 (4mm) needles







The original pattern called for a normal cast on with a thin neck band sewn on later, but I wanted something that would cover his neck while we were out walking. I did a provisional cast on and then once the min hat was finished I picked up the bottom stitches, knit a few rows, then cast on 8 more stitches and joined it in the round and ribbed for 2 more inches. I threw in a few short rows along the front for a bit more coverage.

It works beautifully and is so stretchy that it will probably fit him next year too, and he looks so adorable!



I also knit TW a pair of socks, he was outgrowing his old socks, and they were all cotton anyways and I wanted him to have something warmer for the wintertime.



It's just my usually sock patter sized way down. They keep his feet warm, but as little ones are known to do, he keeps pulling them off. I need to make some more, he's already beginning to outgrow them.





Besides things for The Boy I've also been making a few things for me and Bill,

First off I have been sewing some new project bags, my old ones were made way back when I first started sewing and weren't very well put together. It was getting time for some fresh new ones.



the kitty bag on the left has socks waiting to be darned, the big red bag in the middle holds all my hand knit socks, and the purple bag on the right had my latest WIP





toe up bayerische
knitpicks essential (now stroll) in kettle dyed Jay
US size 1.5 (2.5mm) needles
although I think I'm probably just going to do my normal short row heel.

And finally on the spinning front, remember this?


I started spinning this Jacob fiber way back before TW was boon, and only just finally got the time to finish it up.



I plan on starting a pair of plain mittens for Bill out of it. The last two years he's only had his squirrel and oak mittens and he's been worried about ruining them, so he needs a plain 'working' pair of mittens



whew!

A post to distract me

Because today is my due date, with no end in sight.

I've been in heavy 'nesting' phase for the last couple of weeks, it's all crafting all the time around here (when I'm not napping)

***

First this little guy:
This is out first dishwasher, and sometimes we don't empty it as promptly as we should, so there have been many days where either I or Bill has needed to ask the other "are these clean?" So I made a little sign to help us out.



It's kind of silly, but I'm way happier than I should be about it.
Stitched on 16 count Aida, three strands over two holes.
'dirty' is DMC 816
'clean' is DMC 3755

***

Of course I've also been knitting a lot too, sometimes I just lay on the couch and knit all day, (when I'm not dozing off) and of course socks make perfect waiting room knitting at the doctors during my weekly visits.



We had better light conditions today, and I tried putting one on a blocker to stretch it out, but it's still difficult to get a good detail shot of the pattern on the dark yarn.
Trust me, it looks really neat.

***

And lest you think I forgot about the baby (HA!) I finished spinning the yarn for his BSJ last night. Now it just needs to be washed and abused a little, and I can start knitting!



The two darker skeins came out to approximately 168 yards and the yellowier skein came out to about 180 yards. Right now it's roughly light fingering, but I tried to spin it rather softly, so it should bloom quite a bit it the wash, and be all sorts of snuggly and warm!


Next up on the wheel:



Some delightful fluffy Jacob top I got in a swap on ravelry. This is going to be a pair of work mittens for Bill. he wore out his last pair before we moved, and he's reluctant to wear his Squirrel and Oak mittens while cleaning the snow off the car, for fear of ruining them.

Spinning, Rhinebeck, and a very special hat.

The last month or so has been really busy around here, there is only about one more month to go before the baby is due, and I can definitely feel it! We've been in a flurry of baby preparations, doctors visits, ultrasounds, and weekend visits from my parents to buy last minute supplies.

But I've still managed to spin and knit a little, and even to haul myself to Rhinebeck for the NY sheep and wool festival

++++

First the spinning:

You may remember this fiber that I bought at the Southern Adirondack Fiber festival.



Well it's been spinning up nicely into a lovely worsted weight two ply which I plan to make a baby surprise jacket (ravelry link) from for little TW. I wanted it worsted to make a slightly bigger jacket to fit him later on, as he will be born in winter, so by the time a regularly sized jacket would fit him, it would be too warm. But I figure a larger size will fit him slightly longer.



I wasn't quite happy with the amount of plying twist so after this picture was taken I went back and added a little more, and I'm much happier now.

I have two skeins finished now and am working on the last.

++++

Rhinebeck:

Rhinebeck was awesome this year; there were so many places to go and sheep to see.

I even bought my first Abby Bats by Abby Franquemont who is an amazing fiber artist. They are 40% merino, 40% tencel, and 20% BFL, and they are DELICIOUS! I can't wait to start spinning them. I only got about 76 grams, whish isn't much so I think I will spin them up lace weight, and see if I can find some green silk in a matching colour to spin up and ply them with for a shawl.



The rest of the festival was awesome, and so was the afternoon Ravelry meet up even if I was a bit too shy to talk to some of the people I wanted too, unfortunately I completely forgot to take any pictures. Luckily, Bill did take a few, and you can check them out at his flikr stream. (there's even a picture of me with Bob!) please try to ignore how big and squishy I look, pregnancy has not been kind.

Specking of pregnancy, I was SO SORE by the end of the day! I missed so many things that I wanted to see because I was just too tired and sore to keep going. :(

But there is always next year, and we can introduce TW to all the sheep and critters!

++++

And the very special hat:



No I did not knit this hat.

A few weeks ago, we got a package in the mail from Bill's mother, inside was this hat.
No she didn't knit it either.

Bill's Grandmother did.

Many, many years ago, Bill's Grandma Bid knit this hat for one of her nieces who was expecting. Unfortunately the baby never got a chance to wear it (he outgrew it before it was cold enough to wear.) but it was a hand knit, so it was kept. Years go by and Grandma Bid passed away. But when the niece heard that we were expecting she immediately thought of Grandma Bid (I have been told repeatedly that she would love me) and she sent the hat our way.

The hat is so tiny! I hope that it will fit so that TW can wear it at least once. I nearly cried when I read the letter and story.

It's fiber festival time!

On Saturday Bill and I piled into the car and took a scenic drive to the Washington County Fairgrounds to attend the first annual Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

It was a beautiful day, the temperatures were cool, perfect shawl weather, and it was bright and sunny all day. There were over 80 venders there. On top of spinning, weaving, and rug hooking demonstrations, and a really interesting sheep sheering demo.



we saw cashmere goats, llamas, alpacas,



and Bill got to commune with some sheep:


(I love this picture)


Bill bought lots of yummy smelling hand made soap from Natural Specialties (no web site, but they'll be at Rhinebeck!) and Saratoga Suds 'n' Stuff

We drooled over the shirts from five sheep and a donkey especially the baby's onesies, soo cute!

And finally I gave in and bought 9oz of hand dyed wool from Spinners Hill


I plan on making a baby surprise jacket out of it for TW and hopefully a hat and maybe mittens if I have enough left over.

I wanted to preserve the colors so I split it into three sections for easier handling (my bobbins will only hold about 4 oz each) and when I go to spin I'll split each section in half lengthwise and then ply each half together to (hopefully) get a self striping two ply.



I just love the colours in this roving, it reminds me both of autumn, but also of summer fields, I can't wait to get started on this!



Afterwards Bill and I were talking, and we really enjoyed how small the festival was, unlike Rhinebeck with its huge grounds and huger crowds. It was so calm yet cheerful, we could actually stroll up and down the aisles, and were able to take our time as we perused the vendors, and I never got jostled once! The SAFF will undoubtedly get bigger and more popular as the years go on and it gets more advertising and more activities and such. But for now we are going to enjoy the calm and stress free time wile we can. (Don't get me wrong, we LOVE Rhinebeck, and definitely plan on going, but anybody who has been there will tell you, the crowds are wild, and it can be a bit stressful trying to check out all the vendors and their wares while a massive crowd presses in around you trying to do the same)

This post brought to you by the letters F and O

Yow, sorry about the two week wit between posts. I guess I'm just a bit too easily distracted.

Well, anyways, today is all FOs!

Lest start off with the oldest, shall we?:

Handspun legwarmers: these guys were made with handspun yarn from some beautiful and gloriously soft alpaca/mohair/Marino roving I got from All Strings Considered (weavespinknit.etsy.com) at Rhinebeck last fall. I decided I needed legwarmers with the exceptionally cold winter we had, so I whipped up a pattern and finished them around the middle of January and wore them almost constantly until last month or so. They are so nice and warm, and did I mention soft! I did need to thread some elastic through the top ribbing so they would stay up, but otherwise these are PERFECT!


(excuse the weird cropping and background, Bill took the pictured and managed to get some rather unflattering pictured of my butt in there too)



And what is that under the legwarmers? Why yes! It's another pair of socks!
Just a plain old Jane toe up pattern, but what makes these guys special is that once again, they are handspun! Made from some wool I dyed myself! The yarn for these socks was entirely spindle spun, and is wearing wonderfully. I didn't have quite enough wool for a full pair, so I saved some aside and spun it with some undyed singles, along with a strand of wooly nylon, and I used that for the heels and toes and cuffs. There a bit pilly in the picture, but that’s only because I've been wearing them A LOT since I finished them, but besides a few pills, they show no sign of wearing out any time soon, awesome!



next up, some tatted Easter bunnies that I put in cards for my family this year:



the two on the left are from here, the middle one is my own design, and the one on the right is from here everybody loved them! Yay!


at the beginning of march during knit night a woman came up to me and asked if I took commissions, a friend of her had begun a baby blanket, but had just gotten out of surgery and the pain meds were making her too loopy to knit, but she really wanted the blanket to be done soon, since the baby had already arrived and the weather was getting warmer.

I looked at the pattern, and it looked relatively easy, so I said sure, what the heck!
Slightly under a month later after some pretty seriously monogamous knitting I had this:




The pattern was an old Bernat pattern (at least all the materials, from yarn to needles called for were Bernat brand), but all I had was a photocopy, without any other information besides “style no. 3020-132”

I'm not really sure this blanket is really all that baby appropriate (there are a lot of long strands to make the swags, and the repeated stitch slipping left rather large holes on either side of the purl sections. And lets not even mention the loopy edging) but when I mailed it out, the woman loved it. so I guess that's all that matters.

And finally, a couple of years ago, I crochet and knit up a bunch of pot scrubbies using some old acrylic and cotton yarns, and while they worked well, they also were falling apart! So I went out and got some nylon yarn and made some new ones!



The 100% nylon (Needloft brand, I got it in the plastic canvas section of Michaels.) should make them both tougher, but also, rougher, so they can do a better job at scrubbing. So far so good!

From the top, clockwise, they are: a crochet pattern of my own design, Abigail, from 1870 Pearl's knit tribble and a crochet spiral tawashi from here (the site is in Japanese, a direct pdf link here)

Oof, a lot going on but not much to show.

I am alive, I promise, its just I get all ready to sit down and do a post, and then I get distracted and by the time I get back to it I just don't feel like posting anymore.

A couple of weeks ago a lady that frequents the coffee house where the local knit night meets approached me with a very old and raggedy knit headband. She had bought it many years ago while on vacation and it quickly became her favorite. Unfortunately it was time to get a new one, but the place where she bought it no longer sells them. She was wondering if I could make her one.

Of course I said I would, and immediately set out to figure out a good pattern, and this is what came of it:



She loved it and immediately ordered one in read, which I am just finishing up. I'm working on getting the pattern written up and as soon as I've gotten all the kinks worked out I'll post it for you.

I also finished some spinning:


This is a test batch from the two fleeces that I received a while ago; these four skeins are about 4 oz each. I carded and blended half of each fleece, and then spun them up soft and woolen. I got a bit of a fright when I washed them. I really wanted to make them bloom and hold together so I washed it in alternate hot and cold and abused them quite a bit. When I pulled them out they had felted almost solid!! I was crushed; I hung them up to dry and then tried to figure out what to do.

Once they were dry I took one skein and kind a roughly picked it apart. Thankfully it wasn't quite as solid as it had appeared when they were wet, and the strands pulled apart with some work. I reskeined one, and then just rolled the rest into balls. This yarn is quite soft and has the most amazing halo. (most likely because of all the abuse and then having to pull them apart after they felted together) I'm thinking about knitting this up loosely into a sort of shawl/lap blanket.

I've also been doing a little bit of sewing!

Bill and I love our local library and often take several books out at a time, but carrying them all can be a bit awkward sometimes, so I sewed up a denim tote bad to carry our books in:



On top of all that I've been weaving.
I just finished my second scarf, and hopefully will have pictures for you all in my next post!
See you all then!

I'm alive!

I've just been super busy with Christmas stuff.

I finished off the merino/tencel:



(click through for a super huge version that I am currently using as my desktop wallpaper)

30/70 merino/tencel from stony mountain fibers
It came out to about light fingering-ish, 520 yards, 4 oz.

Im planning a pretty lacy scarf, but it will be for me, so it will have to wait until after the Christmas crafting is done.

Example: my mother's mittens.
You may remember I posted a picture of the bats last time
The bats became this:

(this was my desktop for a while as well)

Which became this:

(also makes a nice desktop)

166 yards, worsted-ish, 4 oz.

I've cast on for the mittens. Just a plain old boring mitten pattern, no pictures yet.

I've also been cross stitching up a storm, I have a bunch of ornaments ready for finishing, I just need to get to jo-anns tomorrow to pick up some fabric and ribbon. I'll be posting pictures once they're done.

I've also finished my grandmother's pillowcase, but it needs to be washed and pressed before I can take any good pictures.