Knit, Knit Like the Wind

(yes I stole that title from Brenda Dayne but I thought it was appropriate)

My best friend is getting married next month and she asked me to knit her a shrug to wear with her wedding dress. So after all that spinning obsession talk I haven't touched my spindle or wheels for over a week now. My local yarn shop ordered the yarn we picked out, Lana Grotto VIP:


It's a merino/cashmere blend and so luxuriously soft. I'm stressing out about the shade of white but we have a fitting on Saturday that should ease my concerns.

Since the pattern itself was a bit on the plain side (which we wanted) I still wanted to dress it up a bit with some beads. There's a great bead shop just across the street from my yarn shop and we picked out white pearl seed beads to go with the yarn. Once I got the yarn and the right size beads it was the pattern next. We picked out one that was knit up in chunky weight yarn so the pattern had to be rewritten for the lighter weight yarn. Thankfully my friend Shannon who teaches at the shop offered to help out.


I've got the back all knit up and plan to start the fronts tonight. Overall it will be a quick project which is wonderful just in case I need to rip back and re-size anything. To say this needs to come out perfect is an understatement - my best friend would probably be fine but I know that this is going to be a hand knit item that will last forever through pictures.

I'm not normally monogamous with my projects but there will be no spinning or knitting on other items until this shrug is done and perfect :)

Successful Drop Spindle Class

During tough times like today it's helpful to have distractions. Spinning is one of my many distractions.

I bought a spindle from the Yarn Cupboard about a month ago with the hope of teaching myself to spin on it. I thought it would be nice to have a true travel spinning project that didn't take up a bunch of room. This is the Ashford spindle that's top whorl, 3 1/8 inches and weighs 1¾ ounces:


I tried reading articles and watching YouTube videos but I couldn't get it to work for me. I think my body was just used to spinning on a wheel and didn't understand the different mechanics needed to get started. Plus I was spinning on some junk fiber that I didn't care about so that contributed to the crappy spinning I was doing.

Thankfully I heard about the class and thought if it's possible for me to learn this was my best shot. Beth is a wonderful teacher (I was in her plying class earlier this year) and I bought some special fiber just for spinning on a spindle:


It looks really red in this picture but it's really neon orange, neon pink and a little bit of red. I should wear sunglasses when spinning this stuff! But it's good quality fiber (Spinner's Hill of course) and I thought the colors would be fun for learning.

There were 6 of us in the class, some with no spinning experience at all and some, like me, who had spun on a wheel before. It was a good mix with everyone struggling but staying positive, no two people had the same color fiber. I didn't swear the entire time - big achievement there! Beth gave us each a hand made spindle that was heavier than the one I had. That made it so much easier to learn on. Once I understood the "park and draft" method I could then figure out which hand wanted to be where (I'm right handed but spin left handed) and then I got it like a big light bulb moment. It began to feel like a fluid movement and I no longer wanted to park it, I was fine just spinning and winding, spinning and winding, etc.

I proceeded to spin for the rest of the weekend off and on just making sure it wasn't a fluke and that I really had absorbed all of the information. I even got to the point of letting my son spin the spindle for me and wind the yarn on, he loved it for about 20 minutes. Here's the handmade spindle and my spinning from that short amount of time:


I'd like to spin up an ounce at a time and ply it back on itself using a center pull ball for practice resulting in 4 smallish skeins of yarn. The hard part will be not shopping for fancy spindles ($50 to $250ish a piece) in the meantime. I've promised my self to finish up this 4 ounces of fiber that I bought before buying any other spindles just to make sure it's something that I will continue to like doing. But I have started looking in a couple places . . . Golding spindles with Celtic themes are tempting as are the Bosworth spindles made from Moose antlers or exotic woods. I'm not shopping, I'm just researching for Christmas 2012 :)

Spinning: My New Passion

Ever since I linked up my blog to my Facebook account I've been shy about posting. If you're reading this in Facebook and you don't care about knitting or spinning or yarn/fiber in general you may want to just hide me now :)

Back in the spring I got really flustered because I loved to spin but the resulting yarn wasn't anything I would ever knit with. It hit me that I wasn't plying correctly so I asked for a class from my local yarn shop. That class was my last straw, either I could make yarn that I liked or I was going to stop spinning. Thankfully I had a great teacher and it turned out well. The only bad thing is that now my free time is torn between wanting to spin and wanting to knit. I left the store that day with this:


It's a very basic braid of Colinette roving that I liked the color variations on. When I took my time and used what I learned to ply I ended up with yarn that I would actually knit with (Ravelry link with all of the specs):



It was a huge revelation that yes I can spin and yes I can make a nice yarn. I kind of went a little crazy buying fiber from there. I joined a fiber club with 6 monthly shipments, I purchased a bunch of Spinner's Hill roving from the Yarn Cupboard and I bought even more from the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival in Hemlock.

My biggest problem was finding time now for both spinning and knitting. I need to have some structure around my crafting otherwise I start feeling overwhelmed. I ended up working out an every other night schedule with alternating spinning and knitting. It's working out ok so far with a few changes when my husband is out of town for work.

One of the nice things to come out of this discovery process is that I really enjoy listening to audio books while I spin at night. It's a great way to keep my mind engaged and keep up with my love for books. I found that my local library had a digital media section on their website so I've checked out a ton of audio books all for free that can be downloaded to my iPod. The trade off is that they don't have a huge selection but I am listening to authors that I would have normally not tried before. So far the science fiction & fantasy genre has fit me best but James Patterson's Women's Murder Club was an interesting find. I've listened to the first 3 books in that series and while it's not amazing writing it is very entertaining with the twists and turns.

I'm currently working on the first half of this 4 ounce braid from Spinner's Hill:



I had a hard time photographing the colors. In person it's a deep, dark purple that transitions to a slightly medium purple. Not my normal color choice but it's good to get outside of your comfort zone once in a while. I'm looking forward to seeing how the resulting yarn will look with a blend of the dark purples. It's spinning so nicely I haven't even needed to pre-draft the fibers. I just split it in half, weighed the halves so I could be as close as possible and then started spinning. I'm hoping to have this one done in time for Christmas as a gift but I'm not going to rush the process.

It's Done & I Love It!

I finished my Midsummer Night's Dream lace shawl over the weekend and I couldn't be happier. Of course there's mistakes here and there but the common observer would never notice. This was my first project actually knitted from the Shakespeare in Lace subscription club. I can't wait to wear it to my next festival or retreat.

Here's it blocking on Saturday morning:



Close up of the beads in the center and top sections:



On final modeling shot to show how big it is:



It took me about 4 months to knit from start to finish. The first rows with 439 stitches were a bit hard for me to do mentally when I was barely knitting 2 rows a night. I loved the beads and I have enough yarn left over for another scarf or lace cowl. I can't say enough how much I loved knitting this and I'm really looking forward to starting my next Shakespeare in Lace project.

Mittens for Kids in Upstate New York

A friend of mine from my former high school is organizing a offering "The Angel Tree" at our old school in Upstate New York (NNCS in St. Lawrence County). During the Christmas Holidays, this helps the less fortunate families in our local school district celebrate Christmas. This is the second year that he has made winter hats for the Angel Tree. He can make hats but can't knit (I think he has a knitting machine). He's asking for volunteers to knit mittens to be given with the hats.

If you know anyone who would like to knit a few mittens for this project, please contact me via Facebook, Ravelry or KnittingHelp.com and I'll give you my address to send them too. This will always be an annual event so I will gladly accept mittens year round but they will be collecting for an October 1st deadline this year right when the weather starts turning cold. I'll either make the trip up north to drop them off all at once or mail them when I have enough for a flat rate box.

The donation last year was 104 hats and 76 pair of mittens. They place the hats in one pile and the mittens in another and let them choose their combination. All hats and mittens were taken home!

Here's the specifics:
1. Most mittens are 32 stitches but knitters are making different youth sizes as these hats and mittens are given to families with children ages 4 to almost adult.

2. Just mittens only, no scarves at this time.

3. Unisex, multi-color, whatever so have fun with it. His mom knits what she calls "Crazy Mittens". She will make a brown and orange mitten with the cuff orange, palm brown, thumb orange and top orange. The other mitten reverses the color pattern. The kids like to be different and like bright colors.

4. He uses Red Heart Super Saver for the hats so any yarn that is machine wash and dry would be preferred.


Here are pictures of the hats and mittens that they did last year.

Thank you all and let me know if you have any questions.

A Tale of One Sock (so far)

A long time ago my son, Will, asked me to knit him a pair of socks. Not just any yarn would do either. He specifically asked for gray, yellow, blue & red yarn. I thought it was a phase that would pass but each time I asked it was the same 4 colors. Even with a little prodding and suggesting that maybe just 1 color or even 2 colors would be better he stayed firm with the original 4 colors.

So I searched Etsy figuring it would by my best chance for find such specific yarn. No luck. I tried the alchemy feature but found out it had just been shut down the day before. Desperate, I posted on the Etsy Ravelry group asking for suggestion on what to do. Several people gave me great ideas and then one indie dyer spoke up and said she'd do it for me. I checked out Jill's shop and loved everything I saw. We messaged back and forth with the details and I placed my order.

When the yarn arrived I made sure that Will was there when I opened the box. It was more than perfect. He was so happy that I had found him the exact yarn that he asked for. In fact, he now wanted socks, a hat and a scarf all out of that yarn (thankfully I ordered 2 hanks just in case). Next up was finding the right pattern.



My go-to pattern for men's socks is Anne Hanson's Gridiron. It's super simple, manly with enough detail not to get boring and it fits very well. The problem is that my son is almost 5 and I wasn't sure if it would fit him. I posted to Anne's fan group on Ravelry asking the question and very quickly was given several patterns to choose from that would size down to fit Will's feet. Anne even confirmed that she loves to use Gridiron to knit socks for her own nephews that are close in age to Will. She included a helpful explanation on how she sizes her sock patterns so I can feel confident that I'm knitting the right size the first time.

It didn't take me long to knit the first sock and when he came home from school I asked him to try it on. The sock wasn't even all the way on his foot, his eyes lit right up and he said "Oh this feels really nice!". Once it was on we did a modeling session. This is how he wanted me to take the picture:



This is me trying to get him to hold his foot still:



This is him pointing to the coolest socks ever:



This is one happy boy who is ever so patiently waiting for his second sock:

Knitting Retreat Recap

What a wonderful weekend! I am just overwhelmed by how much I enjoyed the knitting retreat. It was my first time taking classes and first time attending a retreat. I'm still blown away today by how much fun I had.

This was the first ever knitting retreat done by the Yarn Cupboard, a local yarn shop in Jamesville that I still haven't visited (oh that will definitely change soon). It started on Friday night and at check in we were give a nice goodie bag with 3 yarns I had never heard of. I plan to research them more this afternoon. Then it was dinner and a talk by Sandi Wiseheart from Knitting Daily. I was a little late to it but what I did catch was educational, inspiring and entertaining all at the same time. Sandi is a great advocate for helping people understand what patterns will look nice on you no matter what your body shape is and how to adjust existing patterns (hello bust darts). Also on Friday was our preview for the vendors. Jill Draper's section was my first stop since I've bought from her before and love the quality of fibers and colors she offers. I bought two hanks of sock yarn (Cherry Pie & Iowa City colors) for one of my classes.




Next up was Holiday Yarns, which for some strange reason I didn't know they were an actual shop. I thought they were a place for workshops only - boy I was wrong! I was very good about staying away from her lace weights but her sock yarns have amazing choices for colors. I ended up buying one of her Yarn Fairies in a color that reminds me of Orange Sherbet. I was later told that her Yarn Faires are either the "oops" skeins or skeins used to finish up a pot of mixed colors. I originally bought it to make socks for someone else but by the end of the weekend I was smitten and it will be mine, all mine!



Saturday morning we had a lazy continental breakfast and then I headed over to my first class of "Reknittable Heels and Toes" taught by Jill Draper. Since the heels are where my socks tend to wear out first I thought this would be a great technique to learn. It was challenging because I used too light weight of a yarn to move quickly but I did eventually finish the heel. The most challenging aspect of this class was paying attention to making both sides even with the yarn overs. I'm really looking forward to using this heel technique in the next pair of socks that I make for the men in my family who tend to have rough heels and wear out that spot quickly.



Lunch was relaxing and delicious - I'm a picky eater so I was pleasantly surprised that I liked everything. Saturday afternoon we dived into "Fair Isle Toe Up Socks" taught by Shannon Chaffee Adams. I have already done fair isle projects before so I really wanted to focus on the toe up part of the class. The cast on was tricky and fidgety but once I got the first row completed it was easy. Shannon had a few tricks for knitting your ends in so you don't have to weave them in later and I really want to keep practicing that one. I can't stand seaming ends in. When we got to the fair isle part and adding in the second color she showed me how to knit with both hands, meaning one hand in each color. It was slow but I can see how with a little practice it will be faster eventually. It felt natural and fluid in my hands - just one more bonus for taking this class.



Dinner was great again and then we had a talk from the lady who started Great Adirondack Yarns. I loved her enthusiasm for embracing creativity and for recognizing that nothing is a wasted project. Later we heard from a yarn rep who gave us insight on upcoming trends in the knitting & yarn industry. It's nice to hear about the trends but I knit so slow that I'll probably stick with the staples of knitting for now. Several people & companies donated items for the door prizes and I ended up winning a skein of handspun yarn made by Beth. I was so touched. I know how much hard work goes into that and I can't wait to find the perfect cowl pattern to knit up with the yarn she made.



Sunday morning after breakfast I took a second class from Jill Draper called "Double Time Cowl" which focused on double knitting. The cast on took forever for me to pick up but I did eventually get it. Double knitting felt intuitive and I caught on to that quickly. Soon I was focused on the chart with "same, same, different, different" repeating through my head. Big light bulb for me when I realized that I could take just about any pattern and make it double knit. When my husband saw the swatch I made he immediately made a request for a double knit hat. The best part was that I'm not very good at the Kitchener stitch and Jill stayed late with me to make sure I had it down. The resulting swatch is the item I'm most proud of from all of my classes: brand new cast on, brand new double knitting & proper kitchen stitch to finish it up.




There were other vendors at the market but I tried to avoid them for stash overflowing reasons. I bought a Addi Lace turbo needle from the Yarn Cupboard but tried to stay away from her other yarns because her kits and lace were so tempting (I have tons of lace & kits already). There was also a lady with gorgeous spinning fiber and I was very close to buying some but I stayed strong since I haven't been able to spin on a regular bases. Another lady was selling rug hooking supplies and then on Sunday morning there was a table of amazing cupcakes.

I can't believe all I purchased was 3 hanks of sock yarn and a set of needles but it's wonderful now to have new sources for buying yarn in the future. This whole weekend really opened my eyes to what's out there and inspired me to learn more and try more projects. Here's a look at the contents of my knitting bag when I finally got home:



Hands down, the best part of the entire retreat was hanging out with such nice people. We all ranged in age but got along great. This morning my Ravelry inbox was full of friend requests from all of the ladies I met. I can't say enough how lucky I feel to have met them. I will definitely be signing up for another retreat if/when the Yarn Cupboard does it.