A Local Surprise

Knitting can take some wacky forms--crazy hats, scarves, toys, and a what I think may be a fairly recent phenomena, yarn bombing.  For those who are unacquainted with this practice, let me share its definition.  According to Wikipedia:

"Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk."

Now I had read about this activity in forums with writers' opinions varying between it's awesome to it's a waste of yarn, but was surprised when I came across it locally.

This bit of knitterly expression was to show appreciation for participation in a local scarves for the homeless project and a breast cancer awareness project.  I am not sure what I think about yarn bombing, but it did make me smile.

She came, she saw....

....she decided not to conquer.

Sometimes you just have to give a thing a try to discover that it really isn't something you want to do.  During the month of May, I took a shawl design class at my local yarn store. Most shawls consist of lace patterns which are usually written in chart form.  Charts are great.  I find them easy to read and use, but creating one was much harder than it would seem.  After several days of wrestling over how one gets a pattern into chart form, and then creating a simple pattern, I came away from the exercise fully convinced that my creative ability does not naturally flow in that direction.  It is like learning another language, and I am sure over time I could gain some skill in it, but I would rather direct that energy into my quilting--especially since I am starting to get requests for my work, but that will be a subject for another time if anything comes of it.  

So, I want to express my appreciation to all those wonderful knitting designers who make the lovely patterns I can enjoy knitting.  Thank you!

Not In My Queue

A sweater for an introvert:

Created by Andrea Crew

Homework

I am taking a class--something I rarely do.  Most classes in my interests of quilting and knitting are about making a certain pattern or project, and I would rather spend the cost of the class on fabric or yarn.  This class, however, is about how to create a knitting pattern, with the object being a shawl, my favorite thing to knit.  Now, having 250+ shawl patterns already queued on Ravelry, it isn't like I am lacking in project ideas, and I don't really have an interest at this point of pursuing pattern design as a business venture.  I have, however, reached a point in my knitting where I would like to be able to modify a pattern I mostly like, or change an element to make it more unique to me.  So, for the first time in a very long time, I have homework to do.

Technically, I have homework with a personal Bible study I am doing, but I don't see it the same way.  There isn't really a deadline, and if there is a question I don't want to spend time on, I just skip it.  My class homework comes with a different level of expectation. First of all, this is a group project.  By group, I mean the shop owner, myself, and one other woman--about all the "group" I can handle. ;-)  We have a specific assignment and a deadline.  Granted, the deadline isn't hard and fast, but if we are going to make the most of these four weeks, then we need to keep up as best we can.  

Here are the beginnings:

Free download from Laylock

We are making the shawl pattern on the far right--the heart-shaped shawl.

First we need to do some swatching, or make a sample, to try out a lace pattern and get the hang of how the shaping works.  The stitches will show up best in a light colored yarn, so I will be using this cream colored yarn I had in my stash.

I picked out a lace pattern from a perpetual calendar on knitting stitches I had, printed out a list of knitting chart symbols, and put some graph paper in a notebook.  The yarn is ready, and now I need to draw out a chart of the pattern, and cast on.  We are off and running!

A Favorite Outing

This past week, my dear hubby was on vacation, so we took the opportunity to make another trip to the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, TX.  It really is a wonderful place to visit.  The weather was beautiful.  The drive down was lovely.  And the bluebonnets and Indian paint brushes were starting to make an appearance.  

The quilt museum changes their exhibits each quarter.  This time it was some of the winners from Quilt Festival in Houston--a great way to seem some truly amazing quilts without the crowds.  There was also a display of art quilts based on the seasons--another favorite theme of mine--and a few traditional quilts with a bit of a modern twist. Unfortunately they don't allow photos or I would have a whole slew of pictures to capture the details of the quilting.  I was able to take a couple of outside photos, though.

Quilt, quilts everywhere. :-)

 And a lovely garden to boot.

And on the other side of the museum is a shop called The Quilted Skein--yarn and quilting, what could be more perfect!  http://www.thequiltedskein.com

Knit Focus

Saturday it was cold and I needed to get to the farmers' market.  Donning my layers, I pulled a knitted hat out of my box of wooly items, put it on, and decided it was too big.  Hmmm...I have never taken apart a project that was complete, but this time I will because I love the yarn.  The plan is to undo all the decrease section, and finish it back off as a cowl.  And I decided that that was the last of my hats. (Sorry, P.  You will have to be content with your quilt.)  Life is short, my queue is long, and making projects that have to be a certain size is just a bother.  

On the other hand, I am almost finish knitting a beaded shawl for my sister-in-law, and I have to say that it has been such an enjoyable project.  The pattern is interesting.  The beads along with my markers help me keep the pattern on track.  If I do make mistakes, they are easy to correct.  It is a pretty, sparkly bit of  woolyness.   Ahh, shawls...I love them.  Cowls are fun, too, and I don't mind throwing in a scarf here or there.  Life is short, my queue is long, and creating snuggly warmth for necks and shoulders is what I am going to do.

Since all my shawls, cowls, and scarves are knitted on circular needles, the question is...do I keep all my double-points?  

Backing Up

Knitting teaches a life lesson:

Current project:  Shawl with a lace edge.  

Progress:  About 95% done.  

Status:  Knitting along, realize my stitch count is wrong, determine where the mistake is, try to correct it, make a mess.  

Response:  Wonder why I enjoy doing this.  Try to determine which would be worse--starting completely over or undoing what looks like could be ten (long) rows and hoping I will then be back on track.  

Decision:  Decide that starting over is too drastic at this point.  Settle in and start tinking (tink--knit spelled backwards, thus describing the unknitting process).  

Results:  Was able to get past the mess after tinking back just two rows, and I could see that the mistake was just a couple of more rows down from there.  

Conclusion:  Sometimes issues can look worse than they are.  Taking a deep breath and working on resolution a little at a time can make the process bearable.  The first emotional response is probably not the basis for the best decision.  And I do really love to knit. :-)

Gifts

The holidays didn't go quite as we planned since both my hubby and I came down with colds just a few days before Christmas.  Consequently we weren't able to join the family for the celebration, making for a very quiet Christmas, but thanks to technology we were able to join from afar.  

To catch up, here are some the special things I have given and received for Christmas.  

First, from my dear husband, a lens for my iPhone:

I hope this will improve the quality of some of the photos I post here.

For one of my daughters I made what I will call a tote cloth since its original name is trademarked.  It can be used to carry produce she gathers from her gardens or kindling for her wood stove.  On a nice day, it could even serve as a picnic cloth.

This is the cowl I made my other daughter, but I will need her to send me a couple of pictures with it on to really show it off. (hint, hint :-)  )

One of my sons had my name for Christmas, and his family gave me a nice hefty knife to add to my kitchen cutlery plus a gift card for iTunes (yeah!).  

And my parents gave me a couple of quilting books to help me with skill and inspiration.

Every once in a while our family tends to do the unexpected.  At our Sunday school class Christmas party I made a steal during the white elephant gift exchange.  Even my husband was wondering what I was going to do with these.

I told him that I planned to wear them to the farmers' market, though they may not be as practical for that as I had hoped.  They aren't as warm as I might like, but they are something easily washable.  As far as people noticing what they are, that may happen occasionally, but I have come to learn that people really don't pay that much attention to each other.  And those who do will probably laugh to themselves, or make a funny comment.  The packaging gave me a laugh...construction, cooking?

I hope I didn't leave anything out.  If I did, someone remind me and I will add it to another post.  Having a cold made the holidays a bit of a blur.  Happy New Year, everyone!

Wool Gathering 2

The latest washing and blocking event included a cowl and a couple of hats that had been long awaiting this process. 

The pattern of this first hat was supposed to swirl, but for some reason it didn't work out that way.  Even so, it turned out to be a fairly nice hat.  

This is one of my favorite hat patterns.  It is simple, but interesting to make.  The goal of this project was to use up some yarn I had left from another hat, so with the hope that the hat would turn out slouchy, I kept going on the pattern until the yarn was mostly used up.  I like the way this pattern looks on me, but will have to do a different color.  As much as I love this color orange, it isn't something I would wear.  

This cowl pattern actually called for a heavier yarn, but I wanted to see how it would do in a lighter weight.  I really like the texture of this pattern and the way the lighter yarn made it drape.  

Needing more room in my wooly garment box, I sent these projects plus some others with my daughter to give as gifts.  She lives in a much colder clime than I, so hopefully they will warm some heads and necks along with hearts.


  

Wool Gathering

I have finally gotten around to washing and blocking several of my projects which means I finally have pictures to show.  First up is a shawl pattern by a favorite designer of mine--Jared Flood.  The pattern is called Terra, and the yarn color I used is Black Cherry.  Therefore I present to you Cherry Terra:

The yarn is actually a darker red with a hint of black in it (the iPhone camera is not the best in capturing color).  The shawl is large, and just the thing to throw over my shoulders when I need a bit of extra warmth.  Going through my yarn stash, I found that I have enough yarn in several basic colors to make myself some more large shawls (happy me!), and have gotten one started since.  

Knitting and beads--what a lovely result!  The shawl I made to wear to my niece's wedding came off the needles about three days before her wedding--just enough time to get it washed and blocked.  The name of this shawl is Dusk, and the combination of the yarn color and beads had the effect I hoped for--stars just coming out in the evening:

One of my husband's sisters really like it and requested a shawl for herself.  Because I thought this pattern didn't really fit her style, I sent her a link for another pattern from my Ravelry queue.  She approved, and over the holidays I will take some yarn and beads from my stash that I think will work well.  That will be my next shawl project after my current one. Doesn't look like my needles will be idle any time soon.

Knit Knews

I haven't talked about knitting for a while, but it is not from lack of knitting activity.  This past spring I finally got around to purchasing some blocking wires.  Consequently, I was finally able to block the shawl that I finished a year ago last June.  Even with the blocking wires it was a slow process, but much less so than trying to lay it out with the billion t-pins it would have required otherwise.  Here are some pictures of my latest, fully completed projects.  (Self-portraits with the iPhone aren't the best way to display, but it was the best I could do at the moment.)

The first is the Misty Morning shawl.  The crocheted edging is what would have required all the pins in blocking.  It is a nice, lightweight shawl that can work for any season. 

Secondly, here is a scarf I made from a single skein of worsted yarn that had been hanging around in my stash for a while.  There wasn't enough for a shawl, but the colors didn't seem well suited for a hat.  This scarf pattern was a good fit.  

I am getting close to completing my current shawl.  It is going to be big and very cuddly.  For something new, I thought I would try my hand at socks, but found I just wasn't enjoying the process.  While considering an alternate project, I realized that what I didn't like was dealing with gauge, working with the double-pointed needles, and knitting in such a small circumference.  Not really wanting to do another hat at this point, I decided to use the sock yarn for a cowl.  The pattern calls for a heavier yarn, but I liked the design and decided to experiment a bit.  So far I am pleased with both the process and the results.  There are still new adventures ahead.  My next shawl project will include beads in the design.  

Let's Catch Up, Shawl We?

I have been a bit remiss in taking pictures of my knitting projects so I purposed to take some this past week of a couple of shawls I finished back in the fall.  The first is a pattern called Springtime Bandit made with teal-colored tweed.  The yarn color was called Enchantment, hence the name for my shawl:  Springtime Enchantment.  Brilliant, no?  

The second was a shawl made from that lovely yarn, Dream in Color Starry.  It is a wine colored shawl (the color didn't come out very true in the pictures) that I gave my mom for Christmas.  She was gracious to lend it back to me now that the weather is warming up, so that I could get some pictures.  The pattern is called Aestlight which means east light.  My is called Evenstar in honor of Arwen of the Lord of the Rings.

Both patterns were very enjoyable to make and definitely on my list for repeat performances.

Another Catch Up

I feel like I dropped off the planet for a while with all my diet issues, but life has reached a more sane level, so time to do a little catch up.

Knitting:

A recent trip enlightened me to what great travel projects small hats can be.  Easy to pack and nice to pick up in quiet moments, a hat in progress will definitely be a good thing to have on hand for future travels.

Here are pictures (finally!) of two that I completed earlier in year.

The first hat was fun to make until the decreases at the top.  Knitting four stitches together at once was a trying process.  However, I did see some projects where the knitter did a different pattern for the crown, so may give it another go sometime.  The second hat was just a pleasure all the way around.  It will definitely be one I make again.


Quilting:


I had a grouping of fabrics in my stash that were green and purple with the feature fabric having a pattern of grapes on it.  While I really like the fabrics, the colors were not something I would use in my house, so I decided to make a giveaway quilt.  

Here is "My Father's Vineyard":

My camera did not capture the colors as well as I would like, so it is hard to tell how well the fabrics work together. (something to work on)  This quilt had several firsts for me.  It is the largest quilt I have made so far, and the first time I have done a pieced backing.  It is also the first time I have done an all over quilting design, and I find that I am not a fan.  I will probably stick with motifs and fill designs that work within the parameters of the block pattern in most of my quilts, but I will not rule out giving all over quilting a try again.