As I’ve learned the hard way a swatch is your friend. I’ve been swatching for the Saddle Shoulder Aran for Bryan and while I’m happy with the swatch. It wasn’t the most fun swatch to knit, which slightly disappointed me. It was a matter of too few stitches stretched on a circular needle, eventually I used the magic loop technique and I had a hard time keeping track of the cables since I hadn’t fully charted everything out.
The yarn looks beautiful, it’s Rowan Classic Yarns - Wool Tweed in Shetland (953). The swatch was also a great lesson in steeking, I’ve never done a steek before so I figured this was a great time to practice. It actually turned out quite well and I’m feeling pretty confident about my steeking abilities for the full sweater. It’s truly not as scary as I thought it might be. I’ve cut so many knitted pieces to lengthen or shorten them that the cutting part doesn’t scare me quite as much as it probably should.
Last week, Bryan and I traveled out to western Kansas to help my mother clean out my grandfather’s house. It was definitely an experience. My grandparents never threw away bills, receipts, tax returns or credit card statements. We found them going back to the 1950s. It was really amazing because it was all put away and out of sight. Every time we thought we were finished with a room, we’d find one more drawer that needed to be cleaned out. Nothing could be just thrown away because there were literally photographs tucked away everywhere. We found some real treasures in the house - a photo of my grandparents locked in a kissing embrace before they were married that looks like an art photo you’d buy, a darning egg, many buttons, old library cards from the 1950s and 60s (a treasure for a librarian), family photos we didn’t even know existed, a few Singer Featherweight machines and so much more. It was a real experience to clean out someone’s house. My mom needed to get the house cleaned out because she wanted to put it on the market, it sold while we were there.
During our travels, about 12 hours in the car each way, I started the Saddle Shoulder Aran Cardigan for Bryan. It’s coming along well and I’m definitely keeping track of the cable pattern better than I did in swatch.
I’m still alive and very busy. My Google calendar is blocked solid almost every day with classes, meetings, work, practicum and other random things. This weekend is an action-packed one with fiber and stories. Saturday morning, I’ll be attending the Fiber Event in Indiana with my knitting friends. I can’t wait! And the annual Storytelling Festival is this weekend at school. In all of the craziness, I sat down at my wheel for half an hour this afternoon and spun some of the lovely silk hankies that I have from my silk-spinning class in February.
I have finished a few projects but haven’t taken the time to take or post the photos.
Do you ever finish a project and think, “Wow, who knit that!?” The Anniversary Socks by Nancy Bush from the Favorite Socks book was my first wow project, the first project that I actually thought that I created something absolutely beautiful. I realize I posted a photo after I finished the first sock but the pair together just has to be shared.
Anniversary Socks by Nancy Bush from Favorite Socks
yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock (Natural)
needles: size 1 Knit Picks circular needles
sock 1: December 14-24, 2007
sock 2: January 30 - March 17, 2008
After things start to slow down a bit in the next few weeks with the end of the semester quickly upon us, I’ll post more photos. The Martha sweater is so close to being completed but I’ve been fighting with fitting the sleeves into the armholes and not having pointy shoulders, never a good look.
Finally, I can’t write a post without mentioning my beloved Jayhawks who won the NCAA National Basketball Championship on Monday night. It was a very sweet victory and it made me miss Lawrence so much. For those who don’t know, I did my undergraduate work at KU and loved Lawrence. I’ve been singing the Crimson and the Blue alma mater song to myself with a Rock Chalk chant thrown in all week.
Even though it’s colder than %*&# (insert favorite expletive) outside things are good. I’m tired of the cold but who isn’t. At least it snowed a bit last night to justify the cold. We’re not surrounded by twenty feet of snow, like some people so a dusting is fine with me every week or so.
Things are good. Today I came home from class and decided, I’m going to make bread for my knitting group tonight (it’s a goal I have every week but sometimes just can’t manage) and just do what I want this afternoon. So I’ve been catching up on bloglines. I love blogland but don’t always feel I have the time to read everyone’s blogs. What I love about blogs is that I can read about someone I’ve never met but feel like I know them quite well from their blogs. It’s amazing that I “know” people all over the world that I’ve never met but would love to meet one day. When I read that someone’s pregnant I’m so overwhelmed with joy for them and when someone has a pet die, I find myself crying. I don’t comment on blogs as much as I should and hope to be better about it in the future.
Like I’ve said a few times now, things are good. I’m getting into a semi-routine with the semester, even though we’re in our six week of classes. Classes are going well. For my Media Literacy class, we have a portfolio we’re working on and we get to pick from a list of like ten things to do. I chose to interview an author or someone in the media that works with youth. So I emailed several authors that I’ve read recently. I didn’t expect to have the response that I did and also didn’t expect one particular author to respond as quickly as she did. She was the one that I figured wouldn’t respond and was sort of my “dream” interview. For my paper, I now have three authors and a children’s book editor.
My silk spinning class was great. It was really fun and I have a lot more confidence in spinning silk. I think silk hankies are probably my favorite just because fiber was the easiest to work with. I also really like the look of the yarn that I get from the hankies. We tried spinning several different types of silk - hankies, bombyx silk top and tussah silk top. I bought some bombyx silk in Maryland in 2006 that I’ve been afraid to spin. Now I think I’ll be spinning it up some day soon, I hope.
It’s been a while since I posted. I’m still alive and am very busy with school, my practicum at the local public library and my assistantship. I started on Sunday but it didn’t feel appropriate to lead off with but you can read it here (by clicking the “View the rest of this entry…”), if you so desire. I was having an extremely analytical evening the other night and that’s when I wrote it. While I’ve been busy with classes, I’ve managed to finish my tweedy vest (photos to come soon). One of my assignments for my Media Literacy class this week was to find a favorite YouTube video. I have several and have managed to somehow while away an hour here and there browsing through YouTube videos. Here’s my favorite and I thought you’d all enjoy it. You thought that library school was all about learning about library service and library theory, obviously there’s more to it.
My friend Dorie, who is an amazing quilter has three quilts that are part of an exhibit in New York. They are so adorable and so inspiring. I truly admire her work.
The Moderne Baby blanket is coming along fabulously, it’s turning out beautifully and the Lorna’s Laces solid colors all have slight variations in color that are just magnificent.
The Cat’s Paw shawl is nearly complete, it just needs a border around the bottom.
My original intentions for May for my Knitting Almanac were to work on American Aran afghan squares, instead I’ve decided to focus on the various baby projects that need attention. I might even throw in another shawl too.
I’ve done a bit of spinning in the last few weeks and I just noticed that the yarn I’m spinning is very much in the same color family as the baby blanket.
The last week or so, I’ve been really struggling with whether or not I want to continue to write a blog. I don’t know if it was the five year mark or seeing that I’ve written over 620 posts or if it’s just spring fever? Part of it is feeling like I’m putting myself out there and getting very little response. Are people getting tired of reading blogs? Recently I read in American Libraries, a magazine put out by the American Library Association, that there are about 250,000 abandoned blogs. My original reason for blogging was to share what I was working on with other knitters, then it became a personal journal and recently it’s again become more of a place to share my projects. It’s a time of transition around here and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking anyway as I’m preparing to go to graduate school and have accepted an assistantship at a library on campus. It’s a very exciting time and also a bit scary as Bryan and I embark on another chapter in our lives.
March 26, 2007 at 5:52 pm
· Filed under sewing, spinning
This weekend L and S from my knitting group and I all took a fabulous field trip to Chicago. Our main reason was to visit a quilt store and Vogue Fabrics in Evanston. We added a stop at Loopy Yarns to the itinerary at the last minute.
We had a fabulous time with lots of girl talk on the way up and back, and lots of great shopping and wonderful Indian food while we were there.
Our first stop was Loopy Yarns. It was great to see my friend and owner Vicki again. I made a small purchase of some lovely Fleece Artist fiber and some sock reinforcement thread while there.
While we were at Loopy Yarns, we found out about a fairly new quilt store called Quiltology in Lincoln Park that opened. What a wonderful store. Walking in I felt an overwhelming sense of colors, all of the fabrics were so beautiful. All of those beautiful fabrics were mighty inspiring, so much so that I couldn’t resist some of them. One fabric in particular was exactly what I’d been looking for for a skirt I’ve wanted to make. I discovered and am in love with Amy Butler’s fabrics, they’re all so beautiful.
I also bought a pack fat quarters to make this cute Chelsea Bag from Amy Butler. Last night, I was so excited about the bag that I cut out the main pieces and will cut out the interfacing tonight.
We then went to lunch at a wonderful Indian restaurant. The food was so wonderful and I think we all stuffed ourselves nearly silly. Then we headed up to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston for some more fabric shopping. I was on a mission to find some fabric that I could make bedroom curtains out of. I had something in mind and after some wandering around found the perfect fabric. About five years ago, I painted my bedroom dresser and nightstands red, which has made it all the more complicated to find something that looks nice.
After some tea, we hopped on the expressway and headed home. What an absolute blast we had. I think more field trips are in our future.
First of all, thank you all for your wonderful comments and emails about my acceptance into library grad school. I’m so excited to start and see what the library world may have in store for us.
February was a very cold month, we had snow and more snow. We still have snow on the ground despite a few warmer (over 35°F) days this past week. I’m so happy March is finally here. February was a great month for reading and I read an amazing book that I’m recommending called Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I’d seen it at the library and had meant to read it but kept putting it off. This was a wonderful book and it’s on my personal top ten list now. When I was a child if there was one animal that I wanted to be, if I had to choose one, it was the elephant. Why? Because it was big, something I definitely wasn’t and it started with an E. Silly reasoning, I know but I was about 5 or 6 when I thought about this.
February had been designated sock month for my knitting almanac project but for some reason my excitement for socks just wasn’t there until about February 26. I did knit a pair of baby socks knit, Bryan’s alpaca scarf, a pair of fingerless gloves and made quite a bit of progress on Martha.
A former co-worker of mine is having a baby in a few weeks and when I received the invitation to the baby shower, I knew I had to knit her a pair of socks. I missed the shower because I had to work that day, but she loves the socks. These were experimental socks for me in that I decided to try the after-thought heel. I had started out with a short-row heel but had holes and decided that it was time to try the after-thought heel, which worked quite well.
During the cold of the last six or so weeks, I’d thought many times about knitting myself some fingerless gloves but didn’t wanted to buy any new yarn for them. Around Feburary 8, the idea hit me, spin some yarn from fiber that I received from Wendy, my secret pal back in July 2005. I started spinning it quite bulky and after two days of spinning and plying, I had about 45 yards plied. I wasn’t sure how far that would get me so I decided to just knit until I ran out of yarn. Fortunately, 44 yards got me quite far. February 16, I knit one of the gloves and on February 19, I knit just past half of the second one before I ran out of yarn. Immediately after I ran out of yarn, I sat down, spun and plied another 18 yards, which was plenty to finish the top of the second glove. (Pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.) Of course, as soon as I finished them it started to warm up slightly but they’ve been perfect for those chilly mornings and evenings.
In the last five days my excitement about the Go With the Flow socks seems to have exploded. The idea of wearing them really appeals to me now (why they didn’t before I don’t know) and when I set a goal of knitting 20 rows a day, I’ve seen some amazing progress. Now I’m about 16 rows from the toe decreases on the second sock. Then I have the fun of ripping out the foot of the first sock and reknitting it. In wearing several pairs of my handknit socks recently, I’ve realized that those knit on the size 2 Addi’s aren’t wearing well on the bottom. So I’ve decided that the only solution I have is to rip out the feet and reknit the bottom of the socks on size 1 Knit Picks circulars, while knitting the top of the instep on the Addi’s. I’m fine with this, especially since it means that I won’t worry about wearing my socks out as quickly and having to repair them sooner than later.
March is lace month, here are my planned knitting almanac projects:
I’m planning to graft together the two pieces of the lace sampler scarf that I’ve already knitted. Easy-peasy lace project to finish.
Finish the Go With the Flow socks.
Swatch and knit the lace doily from A Gathering of Lace by Meg Swanson
Finally, I can’t write a post without mentioning my beloved Jayhawks who won the NCAA National Basketball Championship on Monday night. It was a very sweet victory and it made me miss Lawrence so much. For those who don’t know, I did my undergraduate work at KU and loved Lawrence. I’ve been singing the 
