Learning to juggle

I used to work on one project at a time. Ridiculously disciplined and boring. Then I met my knitting friends and began to notice during our Thursday night knitting that they take out one project, work on it a bit, then take out another project, then decide they don’t feel like working on that and rummage through their bag to find something else. What a new concept for me! – working on more than one thing at a time . . .?

Well, I’ve been reformed – I now proudly have 4 projects on needles and two on my wheel! My friends can be proud of me!

My favorite is this scarf. I am very exited about it because it’s my first knitting project with my own hand spun.

my hand spun (dripping with pride)

I bought the roving at MDSW back in the beginning of May. It was such a pleasure to spin. I did a 2-ply and was so excited to finish that I started knitting with it immediately – completely forgot to soak it! oh well. It’s knitting up just fine and will soak and block it when I’m done. I chose a lace pattern and am happy so far with how it is turning out. Should be done in the next week.

As roving

plied

Have also been working a lot on the lace scarf I am knitting as a birthday present for someone very special. The pattern is from Victorian Lace Today, a book I have mentioned in at least one other post – love this book! Both this scarf and the one above are from this book. If you enjoy knitting lace I highly recommend it. This scarf is knit with especially soft yarn in a lush natural color and it’s origin will be a suprise to most people – it is Yak! I personally didn’t know that such soft fiber comes from yak but here it is . . .

A cable wrap and a pair of socks round out my bag of projects. The wrap can be seen on my ravelry page and the socks are just at their very beginning – nothing to really see yet. I am still working out the design.

While working on these knitting projects I am, of course, also spinning. Since I finished spinning the yarn above I have gone back to spinning some beautiful Merino also purchased at MDSW. It’s a gorgeous shade of rusty brown, the photo doesn’t do justice to the color. Haven’t decided yet what this will be but I also bought another color of the same roving and I’m thinking maybe to combine these 2 colors with the natural cream colored Corriedale I got with my wheel. Looking for a pretty 3-color fair isle pattern. And need to see if they all end up at about the same weight!

Find your passion

Find your passion and then live it.

I heard this during an NPR broadcast the other day. It was actually about soccer and passionate soccer fans in Argentina. But really the idea is universal. I have been knitting for almost 25 years but have recently gotten much more obsessed with it than ever. You could say this is because my kids are getting older and so I have more time. You could say this is because I have met and become friends with other knitters (fabulous people!) and so became more exposed to the wider world of knitting.

But I would say it’s because I’ve found my passion. All these years I saw knitting as something I enjoy doing when I have a bit of ME time. But now knitting, spinning, yarn, and wool have become a necessity, a need, a compulsion, an obsession. But I don’t see these as negative words. Just the opposite. By acknowledging knitting as my passion I have freed myself to indulge in my yarn as much as I want. Of course, it helps that my kids are older and I do have more ME time. But how wonderful that I know so very clearly what I want to do with my ME time.

I have found my passion and I’m living it!

My future favorite spinning spot

After 9 years in our house living with a decrepit, ugly, caved-in concrete patio we    are finally getting rid of this eye-sore and putting in a new patio. YEAH! Can’t wait to sit out there with my spinning wheel or my knitting. Oh, and invite people over for BBQs, relax in the evening after work . . .

Is that knitting or crochet?

If you have ever knitted while commuting or even just in public you will know what I’m talking about. It’s amazing the range of comments you get:

“Oh, my grandmother used to do that all the time”/yeah well do I look like your grandma?

“Is that knitting or crochet?”/yeah, bye bye

“Are you making a blanket?”/yes, for the skinniest person in the world

“That looks really hard, is that hard to do?”/yes, very hard, you shouldn’t even consider it

“That’s a dead art, don’t see anyone knitting any more these days.”/yeah, well you obviously haven’t been to the last sheep and wool festival

“How do you get the color to change that way?”/oh, I give up

It’s amazing how many people feel compelled to say something, anything when they see me knitting. And the lines above are just their openers – followed by a whole conversation along the same. Thankfully I’m a patient person and I see these opportunities as a chance to promote knitting in the world. And I make sure to tell people that actually there are a whole lot of knitters, with web sites, blogs, . . .  there’s a whole big world of us!

And by the way, June 12 is the world wide knit in public day -  see http://www.wwkipday.com/history.htm

Hand spun ready to knit

I’m about to finish spinning/plying yarn which will become my first knitting project with my own hand spun!! I’ve been spinning and plying other roving but this is the first one that will actually get knitted up. I bought 6 oz. of roving at the MD sheep & wool festival at the beginning of May. Have been spinning happily and have just finished plying.

hmmmm . . . what shall I be?

It’s looking good and feels so soft. Now to decide what to make with it! Will have to measure it out and see how many yards I have to work with but I’m pretty sure it will be a lace scarf.

I found a wonderful web site http://fitterknitter.com/Lace.html with instructions for lace patterns. I plan to choose one of these lace stitches as the basis for my scarf. Still need to work out the exact dimensions (once I measure the yardage and choose the stitch).

Can’t wait to see how this turns out!

A dress for my daughter

My daughter has never been interested in knitting and has not even been keen on wearing what I knit. She just doesn’t like warm, wooly things (to paraphrase). Then one day I showed her the Kim Hargreaves book, Nectar, which I had just bought and don’t you know there were a couple of things there that she really liked. She even asked if I would make them for her. Would I make them for her???? Isn’t every mother just dying for opportunities like this??? She wanted Dapple – a very pretty cable dress. So I immediately (before she changes her mind) ordered the yarn – the exact yarn that is in the pattern, Rowan All Seasons Cotton. This is something to note for me because I NEVER use the same yarn called for in a pattern. And in this case I followed the pattern exactly. Also noteworthy because I NEVER follow a pattern exactly. I always have to tweak it – change the shape of the neckline or change the sleeve length or use a completely different stitch for a different texture . . .

But I do love my daughter and so – for her – I was willing to do exactly as the pattern says. And I must say that it did come out very nice! Hopefully she is actually wearing it . . . !

I also made her the second item she chose from the same book called Dawn but this time I did change the yarn and used some very pretty bamboo I had recently bought. Can’t change my ways completely!

That short sleeve shirt – finished!

Well, sometimes it’s worthwhile to be patient, start again and again and again. In the end you are more likely to get something that makes you happy.

When I bought the yarn all I knew was that it would be a scoop neck shirt with short or three-quarter sleeves. I started working with the yarn 3 different times and each time it just wasn’t making me smile or excited to wear it. I tore it out each time. I finally found a stitch that got me thinking (which is always a good thing) and got me interested in this project again. I checked my measurements again (unfortunately they hadn’t changed) did the math and got started (again).  As it took shape I found myself smiling and really wanting to finish so I could wear it! This project suddenly jumped to the top of my list and tada!!

I’ve worn it several times already and it is exactly what I wanted it to be!! I am really happy with it! Now if I can just write down what I did . . .

Sheep, wool and roving – oh my!

Last weekend was the 37th annual Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. It is such a wonderful sight to see SO many people interested and involved in the world of wool. People raising sheep, alpacas and other wooly animals for their contribution to this fabulous craft; people making beautiful, hand-crafted spinning wheels and spindles; people spinning soft, luxurious yarn; people dyeing wool in the most amazing colors; people weaving exquisite cloth. They all come together at this festival. And then you have those of us there to ooh, ahh, oogle, fondle and buy all of the above! Well, maybe not a sheep – at least not yet. But I did see the most adorable alpaca fanning himself in the heat!

Thank god my people remembered to bring the fan!

The sheep were very cute too – just not as pampered!

We saw sheep whose coloring was so naturally rich you wouldn’t dream of dyeing it. Others preening for first prize and others patiently being shorn.

We stopped to look at the Vermont Wheels – yeah, I think this will be my next wheel.

We saw some very large production wheels and watched a woman work for a few minutes with the walking wheel. You literally have to walk back and forth a few paces as you spin.

trying out the walking wheel

At front: flax wheel for spinning linen

So I bought and bought and walked around and bought some more – it was really really hot but lots and lots of fun! Looking forward to going again next year.

roving!

more roving!

my purchases from day 1

Will leave you with one more photo – the knitting chicken! I think he speaks for himself . . .

My favorite colors

Driving to upstate NY to visit my daughter at school, . . .  it’s October and the trees are displaying the most amazing range of colors – amazing because they are all my favorite colors! Greens, browns, gold, rust, yellow – and all the shades in between. As we drove by I sighed and said how I would love to knit those colors.

A few months later I was in a LYS and the owner picked up a skein of Zauberball to show me. It had ALL of those colors I had wistfully looked at in the trees zooming by my window on my way to Syracuse! Of course I had to have it – bought it right there on the spot even though I had already made my yarn choices and was just about to pay for them.

Now I had my colors – what to do with them? I wanted to be able to wear them often and so decided on a scarf. Now to find a scarf pattern that was interesting enough to knit and to look at but didn’t compete with the yarn. I looked through dozens of patterns on Ravelry and on various other web sites. I finally came across a simple but interesting pattern with a great name – ABABA – by Angela Mühlpfordt.  The name comes from the repetition of the pattern – knit row A then row B then A, B & A again. ABABA. Genious . . .

So quick, quick, knit knit knit and walla . . . a scarf with all my favorite colors. LOVE IT!

Sandra’s Scarf

I love to walk into a yarn store just to see what ‘talks’ to me. Not looking for anything specific, no particular project in mind . . .

What usually happens when I do this is that one particular skein of yarn will jump out at me – call to me. Last summer I was in Seaport Yarn (NY) and a gorgeous skein of beautiful blue Wagtail Yarns mohair stood up on the shelf and announced “I am a lace scarf for Sandra!” I walked over to it and picked it up and sure enough – it was definitely a lace scarf for Sandra and I knew just where that lace scarf would come from – Victorian Lace Today. No I didn’t have a whole conversation with the yarn and NO I don’t hear voices in my head. This was just a quick and immediate recognition – I saw the yarn and knew immediately what it should be.

A friend recommended Victorian Lace Today not long before while we gushed about how much we enjoy knitting lace. She promised me if I look at it I will fall in love with it. I went looking for it at the local Borders (which has since closed – very sad) and just as promised, I fell in love with it! Beautiful lace patterns, and such a well done and beautifully printed book. I bought it and began leafing through to pick the right pattern for Sandra’s mohair scarf. I found it, started working on it and – oh I really enjoyed myself. This was last summer when I started working on it – of course I was working on other projects too. By September I was half way done and thought wouldn’t it be nice to give it to Sandra for her birthday in November . . .  Put aside those other projects and focus on finishing the scarf. At the same time I was starting to get very interested in spinning . . . but that’s another story. focus on the scarf! I did and I got it done in time. I was so happy to give it to her. The scarf makes me think of Sandra: beautiful, interesting, strong, intricate, delicate, fun. It was hers all along – I just gave it form.

And I think it makes Sandra happy. It made me happy to make it and it makes Sandra happy to wear it. What could be better than that?