Category Archives: Knit

summer slow down

Posted on July 14, 2010 | 5 comments

I thought I’d have a lot more knitting to show you, since I had 3 hours in the car and 6 hours on a plane on Friday, but I’m just a little further than I was in the previous post. Why?

See how the lace pattern on the back gets wider every 6 rows? Apparently I forgot to increase the lace on the left edge on the last increase set, and then I knit merrily on for 30 rows. Oops. I blame it on the spa at the resort. I had a delightful body polish/mud wrap/moisturizing treatment, and was so relaxed when I came back to my knitting that I wasn’t really paying attention. But it was worth it.

We passed through Boston’s Logan Airport on the way back, and I met up with a friend that I’ve known for years but had never met in person. We frequent the same piano forums, and Ravelry, and we’re Facebook friends, too.

Not only did she drive to the airport to meet me, but she brought me a gift.

Truffles from Dante Confections, made by Santi Falcone, her neighbor, the ex-piano maker. How cool is that? I read about him in “Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures” by Noah Adams, way back before I ever went to piano camp. Thank you, Kerri!

Flight home was uneventful, but I didn’t do a lot of knitting there, either. There was free wi-fi on the plane (in-flight wi-fi seems so wrong, since they’ve always told us to have our wi-fi OFF before this), so I caught up on my blog reading. Now I need to go knit, instead of reading about knitting!

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged Dante Confections, Knit, passiflora

people will talk…

Posted on July 7, 2010 | 11 comments

Martha! Some crazy lady is out back taking pictures of her knitting!

Yup, it’s true. I’m at a resort on the coast of Maine for DH’s work conference, so the neighbors don’t know me. They can talk all they want. This is the back lace on Passiflora.

We came here via Boston, so I had a lot of knitting time on the plane and in a car. We spent a night in Boston, and took a quick tour through the North End before coming up by car. I had to see this.

One if by land, two if by sea at the Old North Church, right? Do you remember which it was? No peeking! In the meantime, here are the organ pipes in the church.

The organ was built in 1759 and was the first organ made entirely in the Colonies. The organ has been rebuilt several times, but the case is original. The clock was built in 1726, and is the oldest functioning clock in a public building in the USA.

And it was two lanterns, signaling that the British were leaving Boston for Lexington and Concord by sea. Points to you if you remembered! (I forgot.)

Here’s just after sunset last night.

We took a boat tour this afternoon; here’s the lighthouse and dock from the water.

You can stay in the lighthouse, but it’s not air conditioned. We’re having a heat wave on this coast this week, so I’m happy to be in a room with a/c!

Dinner tonight was a traditional lobster bake.

Doesn’t it look delicious?

I’m looking forward to seeing how Passiflora shapes up. The lace you saw in the previous post goes up the sides of the garment. There’s a little bit of lace on the front, but not as much as on the back. The lacy holes should be nice air conditioning. The yarn is fuzzier than I thought it would be, but it’s the yarn specified in the pattern. I wouldn’t want to wear it on a super hot day, but I can see wearing it in Portland…Oregon, that is.

What’s your summer knitting? Or winter knitting, for those of you down under?

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged lobster, maine, passiflora

Passiflora update

Posted on July 5, 2010 | 11 comments

Well, these are really clematis, not passion flowers, but I love them passionately.

They’re growing on this spring’s new trellis. I love how the leaves and buds echo the metal ones.

But that’s not what you’re really here for, is it?

Here’s Passiflora. I’m ready to start the detail at the front and back neck. Gauge has been an issue for me on this piece; I went down two needle sizes, and it’s still a little wider than I anticipated. The second needle you see there is me starting over with the next smaller size needle, just to see what would happen. It’s too small, so I’ll just soldier on with the first piece. I think I’m now knitting more tightly, and that may take care of it.

What else is new? The Teen decided to brew some ginger beer (non-alcoholic). He likes the spicier varieties like Fentiman’s, which we don’t get very often. He got champagne yeast and these cool re-sealable bottles at FH Steinbart here in town. They were very helpful there.

We did a tasting on Sunday, and it was pretty good! Great ginger flavor, but he realized that he had put in too much water, so it was more dilute than he expected, and less fizzy, too. Round two will happen after we finish drinking round one…we don’t have more bottles!

The kitchen has been humming. CollegeGrad made dinner that same day, fried rice with Chinese sausage. It’s nice to have someone else make dinner sometimes! He’s hard at work, looking for work.

And the sun finally came out of hiding, just in time for the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival, an annual event here. Saturday was glorious, and fun. How was your weekend?

Super Chikan with his gui-jo made from a ceiling fan and a guitar neck/headstock, and lots of bling.

Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble

Sunshine means party time!

11 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged clematis, ginger beer, passiflora, portland blues festival, waterfront blues festival

Just in the nick of time

Posted on June 27, 2010 | 16 comments

I was knitting the Sweetie Pie hat for a Sunday baby shower. It’s been a busy week. Saturday came and the hat wasn’t done. I had work in the morning, a wedding to attend on Saturday afternoon, and the wedding reception on Saturday evening. Saturday night found me reading blogs in bed with my laptop, madly knitting i-cord. I was getting to the end of the ball, and I wanted the two i-cords to be the same length, so I knit one with the inside of the ball, and one with the outside. I’d show you a picture of this little trick, but it was 1 a.m. and the lighting wasn’t great. Next time!

So cute! There was a bit of a setback when I was working the heart motif. The last three rows crossed the transition between blue and black, and it offended my sense of order. I ripped it back down to the beginning of the blue, and started the lacy hearts earlier.

The hat is supposed to have bobbles on the top color stripe. I don’t enjoy making bobbles, so I left them off.

The topknot is cute!

When I bought this yarn, I wondered how the transitions between the colors would be handled. It turns out that the colors are just tied to each other, so I cut the knots out and did my own joins and weaving.

I also wondered how that lace motif would fit into the stripe sequence, and as you can see from my comment above, it didn’t! So I changed it to suit my own tastes.

If I were to do this again, I think I would start from the inside of the ball and knit with the pale pink first, which would give me a pale pink picot edge, and a purple stripe with the lacy heart motif. But by the time I thought about this, I was halfway done with the hat, and wasn’t willing to start over. Blue hearts are cute, too.

Details:

Sweetie Pie Hat by Tanis Gray, knit with size 6 Lantern Moon ebony circular needles
Be Sweet Bambino Taffy yarn, 70% organically grown cotton, 30% bamboo

Done in time for the baby shower!

16 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged be sweet yarn, Knit, sweetie pie hat

Sweetie Pie

Posted on June 24, 2010 | 14 comments

On Tuesday, I remembered that I’m going to a baby shower this Sunday. I dashed into Twisted to get some yarn for an Elsa hat, and while I was there I remembered that I may have designed this hat for baby’s big sister two years ago. Oops. I cast about for a different hat project, and spied this.

It’s a cute skein of Be Sweet Bambino Taffy yarn, and the pattern for the Sweetie Pie hat by Tanis Gray is on the label. What could be simpler?

I like that there are several colors in one little 100 yard ball.

The provisional cast on and picot edge would have been easier if I’d had the right tools with me, but I just took the yarn and needles to cast on at knit nite without reading the instructions. It all worked out, eventually.

Speaking of sweetie pie…

This strawberry icebox pie is a hit around here. I’ve made four in the past two weeks for various events (birthday party, graduation party, knit nite, just because). It’s really easy, absolutely gorgeous, and tastes divine. Most of the berries are uncooked, so the flavor is out-of-this-world fresh. Go ahead; you know you want to make one! I saw this in my local paper, the Oregonian, but it turns out to be from Martha Stewart.

And one more sweetie pie…

I found this picture on my camera. Apparently the Teen likes taking pictures of the cat. Who knew?

Have a great weekend! I’ll show you the hat when it’s done.

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, recipe

Tagged be sweet yarn, Knit, sweetie pie hat

origami cranes

Posted on June 19, 2010 | 10 comments

Last week I happened to be downtown by the Ace Hotel, which was displaying Seann McKeel’s Knitnotwar 1000 project. This is based on the legend that if you fold 1000 origami cranes, your wish will be granted. Wishes are traditionally for health or peace. The twist in this project is that the cranes are knitted and felted yarn instead of folded paper.

A closer look shows that they’re not crisp like a traditional origami crane.

But they’re pretty, anyway.

I like the novelty yarn on the one in the center.

I didn’t participate in this project; I know it was years in the making. But it reminded me of a project I spearheaded several years ago, for the pastor of our church at that time. The goal was to have the congregation fold 1000 paper cranes as a wish for his health and healing, and to have it be a surprise. We ended up with about 2000 cranes.

He was very moved when we presented these to him. He didn’t recover his health, but he was heartened by this sign of love and affection. A little bird can mean a lot!

10 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Knit, knitnotwar, origami, origami cranes

in which I show you an FO

Posted on June 18, 2010 | 10 comments

FO: as in finished object.

CollegeDude graduated from the University of Oregon on Monday. We’re all very proud of him, and thrilled to pieces. But now I need a new name for him…

It’s been super-busy around here, with just a little knitting. I did have several hours of knitting time in the car on the way to and from graduation, so I worked on Passiflora. My gauge swatches told me I needed to go down 3 needle sizes, so I did. It’s worked in the round, so it takes a while to get much length on the needles! I got about 3 inches done, and saw that it was way too tight. So I went back up 2 needle sizes, and started over. Depending on how I looked at it, I was either spot on, or way off. So I just kept knitting. I’m now halfway through the third ball of yarn, and I’m pretty sure I’m making gauge…or not.

The hem really curls. If I had any sense at all, I would steam it to see if it’s going to hang straight.

But I don’t want to get the ironing board out. It’s hiding to the left side of my IKEA shelves. You remember these.

They’re still this neat and tidy, except I filled that empty space with the knitting bag that’s supposed to be there. Perfect.

Eventually I’ll check about that hem. But not today…

10 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged graduation, Knit, passiflora

Single Skein Club: June edition

Posted on June 4, 2010 | 18 comments

It’s June, and that means it’s time for the next installment of Twisted’s Single Skein Club.

I was really looking forward to this month’s offering, because it’s my design! I was delighted when Shannon and Emily asked me to design June’s project. They wanted a market bag out of a single skein of Hemp for Knitting’s AllHemp6 (100g, 165 yards, DK weight).

I knew that the bag couldn’t be huge, so my usual bag construction with a rectangle bottom wasn’t going to cut it. I took this project on Crafty Mom Weekend in March, and this was the result. It’s big enough to hold goodies from the farmers’ market, or lots of yarn.

The kit comes with a skein of AllHemp6 in Pumpkin. Since I already have a bag in nearly that color, I swapped for a skein of Deep Sea. I get special treatment, just this month! The package also includes this little container of solid hand lotion. It smells fresh and feels great.

The pattern is available only through the Single Skein Club for now; it will be available to the public on September 1.

Knit on!

18 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

sew cute!

Posted on June 3, 2010 | 14 comments

I don’t sew a lot, but I have my mom’s old Singer 306 sewing machine from the 1950’s. I love this machine. It’s big, black, heavy, and makes a dreamy machine hum when it runs. I actually learned to sew on a newer Singer that Mom had in the 1970’s, but it didn’t have this great sound.

When I was at Mom’s house last week, I nearly tripped over something on the stair. It had been sitting there for a long time; it was pretty dusty. I decided it needed rescuing. She said I could take it home.

It’s a little hand-cranked Singer. Mom didn’t know much about it; she said my dad picked it up somewhere. He loved gadgets. Baba passed away in 2001, and I think the Singer may have been sitting on the stair since before that…

back

crank

It looks like it uses the same bobbin and bobbin holder as my big machine. It’s missing a needle. But other than that, it seems to be in good working order. I wonder what it was meant to do? Mending? Just a curio? It feels too solid to be a toy, but maybe it was. Time for a google search!

I poked around online and found this interesting site. It seems that my little Singer is a Singer 20 toy sewing machine. It was made sometime between 1926 and 1950, because it has the threading numbers on it (post 1926) and doesn’t look like the “modern” 1950’s models. Looking around some more, I found that the machine came with C-clamp to fasten it to a table. That makes sense; it would be hard to hold it and sew at the same time. Apparently Singer used to market these toy machines to young girls so they’d remember the Singer name when it was time to buy their own real machine. More about the marketing here, if you’re interested.

It looks like the little sister of my big machine, and I’m happy to give it a home.

In knitting news, I’ve finally cast on with the Incense for Passiflora. Can you believe I waited more than a month after the yarn arrived? There’s not much to show for it yet. I’ve gone down 3 needle sizes, and I hope I’m getting gauge. I’ll report back soon…

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, Uncategorized

Tagged passiflora, singer sewing machine, toy sewing machine

Ikea idea, realized

Posted on June 1, 2010 | 20 comments

Well, that was a highly productive weekend! We have a little room off our bedroom; it’s about 6 feet square, with three casement windows on each of two sides, one wall, and an archway from the bedroom as the fourth would-be wall. I think it was probably a dressing room or nursery, once upon a time. For us, it was a place where an extra dresser and an ironing board hung out. We rearranged the bedroom this weekend, and moved the dresser into the actual bedroom (the room is huge, with a fireplace). Here’s what I did with the one wall in the little room.

I love it. My baskets and totes are no longer cluttering the floor in the bedroom. Current projects, spinning, knitting, beading, origami, and sewing supplies now live in this shelf unit. Totes are in one of the clear boxes, and the baskets are out where I can see them. I’m organizing my knitting needles to make it easier to find what I’m looking for.

There’s still more organizing to do, and my stash yarn still lives under the bed, but the current stuff is all right here.

How was *your* weekend?

20 Comments

Posted in Knit