PDXKnitterati

Spring fever…

Posted on March 27, 2010 | 11 comments

This week I finished a couple projects, including the straps for the felted slip stitch tote. I felted it last night. It’s drying, so I’ll take pictures tomorrow. This project took more yarn in the heavier Brown Sheep Lanaloft than the original KnitPicks Wool of the Andes; I’ll edit the pattern notes to make reflect that.

I had a fun day at Pico Accuardi Dyeworks. I taught an entrelac class in the morning. We even purled back without turning our work! This saves so much time when you’re working stockinette over a small number of stitches.

I also took a drop spindle class with Deb Accuardi. We worked with wool roving and with top, and mixed in some other fiber, too. My goal was to spin a more consistent single, and I did. And then we plyed some of it, too.

Stevanie Pico taught dyeing. All in all, a fun day.

The days are getting longer and lighter, and the air is getting warmer. Weeds are springing up like crazy in the garden. The boys helped me weed the front flowerbeds, and we’re in the process of taking out all the Japanese anemone. It was only slightly invasive when we had a big birch tree to shade it, but when we had to remove the tree, the anemone got too happy in the full sun and took over the garden. Buh-bye.

With spring, I’m also feeling the urge to jettison my unfinished Heather Hoodie (bulky yarn) and cast on something breezy and new! But I’m afraid if I set it aside, I’ll never go back to it. Yikes. I think it’s all a result of spring break.

I headed up to Seattle last weekend to play guitar with a piano friend. Yes, that sounds nonsensical, but it’s true. We met in 2000 at September Sonata, a piano camp in Bennington VT. We were roomies then, and have been friends ever since. In fact, there’s a whole group of us west coast “Piano Babes” that get together at least annually. Some of us aren’t playing the piano a whole lot right now (moi, for one), but we still have a lot in common.

Last fall, I bought a new guitar, and Sheryl did, too. They’re both Takamines with the same body style (NEX); mine is cedar and mahogany with a satin finish, and hers is spruce and maple, with a gloss finish. We’ve been trying to get together to compare them, and finally did. Hers sounds warmer/mellower from the back (playing) and more forward/pushy/rock from the front, and mine is mellower from the listener’s point of view, and brighter from the player’s perspective. I happily played them both!

Some of the other piano babes came over on Saturday; we played/sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. We also web-surfed to check out kd lang’s version (she opened the Olympics with it), Jeff Buckley’s (hailed by some as the best) version, Bon Jovi’s acoustic version (my favorite), and of course, Leonard Cohen’s version (Live in London). C played this last year in Carmel, so it seemed like good common ground.

We had a great time! Thanks to Sheryl for hosting. There was more spring break activity, but I’ll leave that for another post.

What is spring inspiring you to do?

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, music, spinning, travel

Tagged dye, guitar, Knit, piano, spinning, spring

Last of the last of the last minute!

Posted on March 26, 2010 | 6 comments

Lorajean thinks she’s last of the last minute, but I’m posting after her…

I’m teaching at a fiber fun day at Pico Accuardi Dyeworks here in Portland tomorrow. There will be classes in spinning, plying, dyeing, and knitting, as well as some shopping opportunities (Lantern Moon, Knitted Wit, Pico Accuardi, of course!).

I’m teaching entrelac in the round, specifically Athena.

And hoping to take a drop spindle class with Deb.

Deets on the day are here.

6 Comments

Posted in Knit, spinning

Tagged Athena entrelac, dyeing, entrelac, fiber fun day, Knit, spinning, yarn

Simple Pleasures

Posted on March 25, 2010 | 10 comments

In February, Amanda from NH Knitting Mama Yarns contacted me to ask if I’d consider having my ZigZag Lace Pedi Sock pattern in her new yarn club offering. Oh, yes! Knitting is a simple pleasure, and Amanda knows it. Her new yarn club is a little different from most, in that there’s no advance commitment. There will be five offerings this year, and you decide if you want to order one of the club packages. You don’t know what’s in it, but you know it will be good! I love the thrill of a yarn club surprise. A Simple Pleasures package includes an exclusive yarn colorway (never listed before) and goodies centering on a theme.

This month, the theme is pedicures. Amanda knit up a sample in her sport weight yarn line (see below), and I added pictures of her socks to the pattern, and also added a toe option to my existing sock pattern. (If you bought the ZigZag Lace Pedi Sock pattern online, an update is coming through Ravelry.) Besides the pattern, there’s a really pretty sport weight yarn, colorway “Winter Buster” which is red, black and white, a project bag, red nail polish, emery boards, and a chocolate. Perfect for beating the winter blahs. If you’re on Ravelry, you can see the colorway here.

It was a pleasure working with Amanda. If you want to order a Simple Pleasures package, they’ll be on sale on the first of the months of May, July, September, and November.

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged Knit, pedi socks, yarn club

Color riot

Posted on March 18, 2010 | 14 comments

I finished the knitting on the shop sample of the Felted Slip Stitch Tote for Twisted.

I love this riot of color!

It’s interesting how the darker part of the blue yarn made a diagonal line across the body of the bag. It looks like a wrinkle in the knitting, but it’s perfectly flat.

I’m looking forward to felting this, but I have to knit the straps, first. I’m only about 5 inches into the first one, but they go pretty quickly. Soon!

14 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged felted slip stitch tote, Knit

Crafty Mom Weekend 7.0

Posted on March 10, 2010 | 17 comments

What I didn’t tell you about the Portland Yarn Crawl: I wasn’t going to be there! I had a Pippi Hat at Happy Knits in the scavenger hunt, but that was it for me. I was at the beach for Crafty Mom weekend. This was the seventh annual getaway; there were 10 of us this year. The weather doesn’t matter much. If it’s nice, I get some good walks in. If it’s not nice, the view from the window is enough.

I had a very productive weekend. I started my Felted Slip Stitch Tote shop sample for Twisted. I love the vibrant colors of Brown Sheep’s Lanaloft. And the pattern just flies along. I would have finished it, but I had a few other projects that needed work, too.

I started and finished a secret project; I’ll tell you about that someday soon. I played the guitar. I wrote lyrics for a song. I did a little spinning with my drop spindle. I enjoyed the view!

I worked on my Heather Hoodie. The cables are lovely. I love how the cable pattern ended at exactly the right place to make an “O” when I joined the shoulders. Serendipity!

But even before the weekend, my hands were already aching from knitting cables with bulky yarn. Manipulating the stitches makes my hands tired. I’m cabling without a cable needle (see tutorials on the sidebar), but I don’t think it would be any better if I used one, because I’d still be manipulating the stitches. I’ve been playing a lot of guitar, too, so my hands feel used and abused!

I joined the fronts to the back, and I did the math to knit sleeves down from the armholes. I’m going to make the sleeves plain stockinette rather than cable some more. I’d like to finish this and wear it before it gets too warm! It snowed on us on the drive back over the Coast Range, so there’s still time…

What did you do this weekend?

17 Comments

Posted in Knit, spinning, travel

Tagged beach, bulky yarn, cable wthout cable needle, heather hoodie, Knit

Portland Yarn Crawl this weekend

Posted on March 3, 2010 | 8 comments

There’s a mega-yarn event happening this weekend in PDX. It’s a yarn crawl, with sixteen local yarn stores involved. There’s a chance to win an amazing goodie basket (a Lantern Moon basket filled with yarn, needles, books, wool wash, patterns, not sure what else was in there) from each of the stores involved. And a scavenger hunt! The theme of the hunt is “Hats off to Local Designers,” and I have a hat somewhere in the hunt. Go find it!

The event begins this Friday, March 5, and runs through Sunday, March 7. You can find more info about the event at PortlandYarnCrawl.com. You know you want to.

8 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Getting ahead of myself

Posted on February 22, 2010 | 19 comments

Spring has truly sprung here in the Pacific Northwest. Temperatures are in the 50’s; the crocuses and daffodils are glorious. And the first cherry trees are blooming, too.

What says spring better than a bag of cheery color from the yarn shop?

Twisted is now carrying Brown Sheep yarns. They carry three weights (bulky, worsted, sport) of Lanaloft, a single-spun 100% wool yarn, as well as an ultra-bulky known as Burly Spun. The price is great. I brought home some worsted weight to knit a shop sample of my felted slip stitch tote.

But wait, you say, what about the Heather Hoodie? I’m still plugging away at that, because I want to wear it before it gets too warm here! The back is done, and the left front is just past the armhole. Pictures next time.

19 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged brown sheep, Knit, lanaloft, yarn

Vox knituli

Posted on February 17, 2010 | 14 comments

The knitters have spoken. Rip it! So I did. I frogged 7 inches (almost an entire skein) on the back of my Heather Hoodie so I could go back and bind off for armhole shaping for a modified drop shoulder instead of having a standard drop shoulder. There were 8 stockinette stitches on each edge, so I bound off 6 for each armhole, which is about an inch and a half. This was the most I could bind off and still be able to pick up between the last 2 stockinette stitches before the cable panels. I want to pick up stitches at the shoulder and knit down, rather than sew in the sleeve. Re-knitting the back is going well. I love the OXO cable on this.

Do you see the little ladder at the center of the X in the OXO cable? Those were bugging me. Then I finally opened a Knitting Daily email about blocking that had been sitting in my box for a week. What timing. It’s about this very cable in the Heather Hoodie pattern. No worries now; I know that blocking is going to fix those!

In other OXO news, I’m sending $265 from sales of my Hugs and Kisses OXO Cable Fingerless Mitts to Doctors Without Borders. Thank you for purchasing this pattern.

And it really does feel like spring here. Temperatures in the 50’s, and it got sunny today! I took advantage of the break in the rain, and walked down to the local library. Here’s a little taste of spring. Most of the pix are from my camera phone, so they’re not quite up to the usual standard. But they make me smile.

Last year’s something or other.

Snowdrops.

Daffodils! and crocus! It must be spring.

Do you know what these are? I think they’re gorgeous, and I saw a lot of them. I want to plant some…

14 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged heather hoodie, help for Haiti, Hugs and Kisses Fingerless Mitts, Knit

Auto-pilot knitting

Posted on February 14, 2010 | 17 comments

I ripped back my mistake on the Heather Hoodie, and re-knit back up to where I was, and then some. I’m at 20 out of 22 inches on the back. This morning I woke up and remembered that I had planned to modify the pattern and bind off a bit at the armholes to make this a modifed drop shoulder instead of a full on drop shoulder. Oops. Guess I was knitting on auto-pilot. The Olympic men’s short track skating was so thrilling, I lost track of what I was doing!

So I’m looking for opinions here. I’m 5’2″, not a big person. The fabric of this is pretty dense, and I have about an inch to 1.5 inches of ease all around on this cardi. Do I rip back 6 inches so that I have 8 inches of armhole for a modified drop sleeve, better shoulder fit), or just carry on as written and have sleeves that start further down from my shoulder? It’s pretty quick knitting, big yarn and big needles, so I don’t mind doing it. I just have to decide if it will make enough difference to be worth it. Here’s a picture from the pattern, if that helps. I’m planning on long sleeves instead of this vest look.

For now this project is in time-out, awaiting your advice. But in the meantime, you can admire how the Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky looks like it has a vertical stripe. It’s because it a singles yarn, not plied. Instead of V’s, the left leg of each knit stitch looks like a half a V, and the right leg looks like a vertical line. I like it.

I’m back at work on my sister’s Quincy hat. It’s never-ending garter stitch for quite a while. Still garter stitching…

I really like the knit-in i-cord edging. So tidy!

Thanks to all who helped celebrate Marie’s birthday. The blog party was fun! I took the names of all of you who were interested in the dpn case and put them in a Pippi hat. And the winner is…

Katy over at What Katy Did! Katy, please email me your snail mail addy, and I will send you the needle case. Congratulations!

And happy lunar new year and Valentine’s Day to you all, too. Are you celebrating? Gung hay fat choy!

17 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged heather hoodie, Knit, quincy hat

Franken-tar, redux

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 15 comments

Spring is coming, and that makes us a little bouncier around here. Off the wall dreams seem like good ideas. And perhaps they are. What if we take those ideas one step further? You may remember the Teen’s Franken-tar.

I had a lesson the other day with Jim Loewenherz. He’s a local musician and luthier. We worked on some strum patterns for Irish reels and jigs. Near the end of the lesson I asked him about bass runs and fills for a song I’m working on with the Day Old Pastries, but all of that was pretty much over my head because I’d have to learn where the notes actually live on the guitar neck first. I’m a pretty rudimentary guitar player; I love my open cowboy chords, strummed or picked!

So we discussed ensemble play, and he talked about each instrument having its own sonic space, each doing something a little different. The Day Old Pastries have five guitars and a mandolin. The mandolin has its own sonic space by default. But the guitars can each have their own space by having one of them strum, one pick, one capo up for a different voicing. And then Jim asked if we have a 12-string. Nope. an extra guitar? Sure! So he suggested high string Nashville tuning, just for something different. Basically, you string a six string guitar with the extra six strings that you’d find on a 12-string guitar. The lowest four strings are an octave higher than normal, and the top two strings are the same as usual.

I just had to try this to see what it sounds like. I decided to try it on the Teen’s Taylor Big Baby, because he doesn’t play acoustic guitars much, and it’s a comfortable size for me. I poked around on the web and found that D’Addario sells string sets for high string tuning.