Recent FOs

I've been getting some knitting done, even if "the sweater" I've dragged around with me for 3 months is not getting done. More on that later.

Felicity by Wanett Clyde
Rowan Kid Classic
4 days to finish, I really liked it. I made it for the BSD Project



One Skein Scarf by Denise Cozzitorto
Blue - Columbia Minerva Roma
Pink - Rowan Kid Classic
3 days to complete. Mods: Instead of the shell pattern, I ended up just doing a DC in each stitch around and 2 DC in each corner stitch. 1 extra row of DC in the pink.
Again, made for the BSD Project


Mens Fingerless Mitts by Kathy North
Stonehedge Fiber Mill's Shepherds Wool
8 Days to complete, given to Fran Healy



Mens Fingerless Mitts by Kathy North
Stonehedge Fiber Mill's Shepherds Wool
8 Days to complete, given to Owen for his birthday



My Crimson Green Jeans is slow going right now. Some time in September I had finished the back and one sleeve. I was about to start the second sleeve when I realized that the back was sucking in too far and that it needed to be redone. So, I frogged the whole cable rib section on the back, and started over with a 2 needle sizes larger. I"m liking the fabric a lot better, however it frequently goes into time out, because I'm so annoyed with having to reknit. Last week I started a new ball of yarn and as it happens it was from a skein that had more red dye in it and it was so obvious I ripped back 6 rows to start with a different ball of yarn. Thank goodness I'm almost done with the cable rib (just a few more inches). Then I need to do the 2nd sleeve and the button band.

Ode To Fall

This is the first project that I have been involved where I started with dyed fiber materials and ended with a finished knitted object. It came about from the Fancy Kitty drum carder group on Ravelry, this was a BSKAL (Batt-Spin-Knit Along) and along the way there would be prizes! My batts won the first round prize where I got a WPI tool from Ron, the maker of FKDCs and a 2oz batt from Blushing Ewe.

It all started when I bought the polworth roving at knit night. Sharon of Stitch Jones brought in her "fiber bin of doom" and I could not resist petting the lovely wool. I had to choose between a lovely light blue roving and an orange/purple roving. I went with the Japanese Maple roving, because they are colors that I don't normally use and I wanted to challenge myself. On my FKDC I whipped up 4 lovely textured batts. Then I spun up the batts into a single and navajo plied it to make a worsted weight yarn. The scarf only took 8 days to knit, because it's done on size 11 needles.

From start to finish this project took 25 days!

Scarf Pattern Off to the Races by Patricia Bishop

Materials used in making the batts:

4oz Stitch Jones polworth roving (Japanese Maple)
1 oz Wool/Silk/Mohair
Sari Silk
Wensleydale Cross Locks
Adult Mohair Locks
Angelina (aurora borealis)
Stacey Charles Ristrato yarn bits
BFL Locks

How I learned to knit

While I was writing last night's post, I had tried to cram in the story on how I became a knitter. Well, I decided I would wait for today to tell it and that way I could add more content. I also went through a really old LiveJournal blog and found a bunch of entries that I made when I was first learning (quotes from that blog are in italics), so now I can share some of my very first projects that I have honestly forgot about and they are long gone.



Some time in 2002 (I think), my favorite craft blogger NotMartha had blogged about the Vegan Fox scarf from the first Knitty, Fall 2002 and I thought that was really cool and that maybe someday I would learn to knit too. In 2003 she blogged about this book called Stitch & Bitch. Admittedly I was intrigued, because it was a book with "bitch" in the name, and figured it had to be awesome! I found it while I was shopping at New Seasons (grocery store)and of all places they had the book! I flipped through it, and it seemed like an easy book to learn to knit from. I didn't buy it that day though.

For Christmas that year my co-worker's aunt had made her an really cool (at that time) scarf that was green and black and very fuzzy, it was made with something called fun fur. After seeing that I knew that I had to have one too! So, for whatever reason, in February of 2004 I decided to teach myself to knit and when I knew how to do it, I was going to make this scarf:



Looking at it now, I'm really embarassed. I guess we all start somewhere and this really caught my eye!

Of course, New Seasons didn't have Stitch & Bitch anymore so I went to Powell's and bought "Knitting for Dummies". I tried and tried and couldn't figure it out, so I returned it. And from my old blog, it looks like I bought S&B on Feb 17, 2004 and I ended up buying the book at a Barnes and Noble. That night I sat down with some white sport weight Red Heart yarn that I had bought for some other non-knitting craft and some too-big-for-that-yarn size 8 aluminum needles and taught myself how to knit. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right because my stitches did not look anything like the pictures in the book. So I had Owen read the directions to me, and look at what I was doing to see if it looked right, and he pointed out that my skinny yarn and the large needles made bigger stitches, but essentially I was doing it right.

Apparently it didn't take that long to learn to knit, so I went to Fred Meyer and bought some needles and Green and blue Funfur yarn to make that scarf!

Feb 22, 2004 - This is the first thing I've ever knitted - It's made with one skein of green and blue lion brand funfur, size 15 plastic needles, 15 stitches, no idea on the number of rows, but it's about 3ft long. It took about 2 days for me to make it, but a total of 4 hours or so.

Then I graduated to Lionbrand Homespun and made a long scarf and a smallish hat for myself in a gray/brown colorway:
March 11, 2004 - US 10 circ. needles and DP needles, 1 skein Lion Brand Home Spun yarn for both projects. I worked on these over a 2 week period.
I loved this scarf so much, because it was long and I could wrap it around my neck a few times. The next summer it was involved in a "bachelor party game" and I never got it back. Don't worry, it wasn't gross or anything like that, but all the guys had to bring something "embarrassing" for the groom to wear and all Owen could find was my scarf. I still miss that thing :( but I have no intention of knitting another one.

After hats and scarves, I made a simple rectangle purse with an icord strap out of a verigated Red Heart:
April 13, 2004 This is my first knitted purse!! I made it for Brooke, because she's watching our cats this weekend. I hope she likes it, and if she doesn't I'm taking it back!!!! I sewed a liner, put on a patch and the closures are snaps on either side of the flap.
I don't know what Brooke did with this bag, I know she liked it when I gave it to her, but I"m sure it's long gone now. It also looks like I made a cozy for our Garmin GPS with the same yarn, and I made my mom a cell phone cozy with some purple/white Red Heart.

The next thing I made was a Booga Bag and matching cell phone cozy that I found out about on the Knitty boards. I was tipped off about a sale on Noro Kureyon from some online site, but there were not many colorways to choose from, I picked 126 from the swatch they had and when it came, I hated the color. Obviously I didn't know about LYSs yet.
June 2, 2004 - Took about 4 half wash cycles to get this felting. I didn't want it any smaller!!! I wish I would have made it a little bigger, but it's pretty cute. The shoulder straps are about 2 feet long each. The bag itself is 8" tall, 8" wide and 3.5" deep. in the comments I replied to a friend who wanted to buy this bag I don't think I could sell this for what it's worth. When I'm done with the cell phone cozy, it'll be around 25.00 just for materials. That doesn't even include labor :/

And that's how it all started!

An evening with Debbie Stoller

Tonight I got to meet an important icon in the knitting world - Debbie Stoller, author of the "Stitch & Bitch" series of books.  This is the lady that taught me how to knit.  She made it so easy to understand what I was doing, and how to do it.  I have been wanting to meet her since 2004 when I bought Stitch & Bitch, and that time in 2007 when I *almost* met her doesn't count. (but that's another story)

The book signing tonight was at The Yarn Garden in Portland.  I went with my friend Alyssa.  The traffic going downtown was awful (due to a 5 car pileup), but we made it with a few minutes to spare!  We were pretty much the last ones there though, but that meant that we didn't have to wait long for the evening to get going!

First, Debbie talked about her new book Superstar Knitting, and explained what each of the chapters were about.  I am really excited about the colorwork section.  Yeah, yeah, I've been knitting for almost 7 years and have never done colorwork other than stripes....  During this part she passed around the different samples from the book.  They really look different in person, and there are a few things I would not have considered, but after seeing them in person I actually want to knit them!

The second portion of the evening was a small lesson on knitting lace and what stitches make lace (yo, and a few different decreases).  Even though it was remedial for me, since I have knit many lace projects, the one thing that stood out was reasons for where yarn overs (yos) and decreases go in lace.  She had a sample chart that had yos and decreases in different spots and a knitted sample showing what the chart looked like.  Well, it was clear after seeing that, that there is a reason, that sometimes the yos can look "suck ass" (her words) if they're on the wrong side of the slanted decrease.


This is a sample from the book - I loved this tiger in a dress so much! I'm totally making one for Hazy!


Here's the lady that was at the back of the room who ended up with the stack of samples!

At the end of the evening she signed books.  I brought along my Stitch & Bitch book and when we got there we were given the pre-ordered a copy of the new book.  While she signed my books, I gave her a small token of appreciation, a crochet bracelet that I made from her "Happy Hooker" book.


Me and my new friend Debbie ;)

Family Vacation

(In-N-Out, Redding,CA)

2 weeks ago we went on a family road trip to Tahoe and Yosemite! This was Hazels first long car trip so we decided it was time to face her carseat forward. She wasn't as amazed as I thought she would be, but she was definitely not as fussy as she was on our Seattle trip. My favorite times was when she would nap though :)

The first night we stayed in Redding, CA. That was a rough night, because Hazy was not used to the pack n play crib and she was just not liking the hotel I guess. We ended up taking turns driving her around and eventually she passed out of exhaustion, and so did we!

The next morning we started our drive to Tahoe. We went through Lassen Volcanic Monument, but I missed most of the drive through it because I had horrible sinus pressure and just reclined my seat to try and sleep. The rest of the drive was very scenic, we watched the sun set on Lake Tahoe as we ate pizza for dinner. It was dark by the time we got to our hotel. Hazel had another rough night.


(South Lake Tahoe)

We stayed in Tahoe for one week at the Marriott Timber Lodge. It was a nice hotel, had a heated pool and 4 hot tubs, which we used each night! During the days we would drive around to scenic places and take pictures of the beautiful fall foliage. My favorite place that we saw was Emerald Bay. We saw the sun set one night there and it was totally my colors - pinks, blues and purples, fading in to dark blues.

One day we went to Mono Lake and spent some time at the visitor center and we even walked on this nice boardwalk down to the lake's edge to see the "tufas" (salt formations).



(Lily Lake, South Lake Tahoe)

I brought my spinning wheel along and used almost every night for an hour, I even finished 2 skeins of yarn! I used my wheel more than I worked on all the knitting I brought. I had a chance to visit the one yarn store in town (Wool Tree) and spent an hour chatting with the people in the shop and knitting a bit.


(Tunnel View, Yosemite NP)

On our way home we stayed one night in Yosemite's Curry Village. Our "room" was a tiny cabin that had 1 double and 2 twin beds, inuslated canvas walls and a heater. Can't say it was the best night ever, since the 3 of us squeezed onto a double bed, and Hazy got the prime sleeping space (the middle, with both of us hanging on the edge of either side). The whole place is covered in "Be Bear Aware" signs and making sure all food and toiletry items are stowed in the bear boxes. We didn't see any bears, but they neglected to warn us about mice! We had a mouse that chewed through a bag of chips, a granola bar and couple other things.

I have been wanting to go to Yosemite for years now to re-visit the place my family went camping every year when I was little. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy for the two days we were there. This was the first time I had not seen Half Dome! That's ok, we had fun hiking in the Tuolomne Meadows and checking out the Visitor Center and Village Store. On the drive out we took the road up to the Hetch Hetchy Dam. The weather there was not too bad and we could see all across the lake. I bet this place was so pretty before they dammed it up. It was supposed to be like the Yosemite Valley.

We stayed in Redding on the way home again, and by then Hazel was used to the pack n play so the night was easier on us. The next day we drove home in a huge rainstorm. We stopped in Ashland for lunch and for a walking break, that happened to include a Starbucks and Yarn Shop :) A few nice things came home with me! Our final stop was in Salem for dinner with Owen's brothers and then finally we made it home!

Seattle Extras

So, my last post had nothing crafty in it, and I did want to share a few things.

Here I am, working on a test knit shawl for Michelle (of PDX Knitterati). I found a few moments on our trail hike to sit and enjoy the nice weather and the negative ions from the water. I'm wearing my Travelling Woman shawl (in case you were wondering)


Something I've been making for people lately - Crochet Bracelets. I made them for bday presents and for a spinning swap that I recently participated in. They are really simple to make - I used 26 gauge colored wire, beads, a size J metal crochet hook and a magnetic clasp. You can check out in Debbie Stoller's "The Happy Hooker" for the pattern I used :) I am sorry to say that I have not been photographing them, because I make them and the next day give them away, and then say, "DARN! I should have taken a picture!" So, here you go, I took one with my cell phone just to say I have a picture of one! This one may end up being gifted as well, because I think I may be allergic to the metal. I was wearing it for a little while and my arm started to itch where the bracelet was. Grr :(



Bead purchases from Shipwreck! I bought the 6/0 beads for the above mentioned shawl, some swarovski crystals, blue-green stars, two boxes of mixed beads in turquoise and purple, a few turtle charms and some Bails (for a project coming soon! well for Christmas, so probably wont post about that for a long time yet).  You can click on the picture to see the beads in better detail.

Recent FOs

I recently finished a couple of shawls that I wanted to share with you! Neither of the pictures do the shawls justice, because they are made with Glam sock.  That yarn has silver fiber in it, so in the sun they sparkle like you wouldn't believe! Totally gorgeous, totally me!!

Ishbel by Ysolda Teague
StitchJones Glam Sock "After Midnight"
A nice simple pattern - took me 10 days to knit :) I made this as a shop sample for Sharon of StitchJones and it was really really really hard to let it go!



Echo Flowers Shawl by Jenny Johnson Johnen
StitchJones Glam Sock "Simply Irrisistable"
23 days to finish. I did not have enough yarn for the edge chart, so I just continued with the border chart until the "nupps" came to a point. Instead of making nupps I used beads for extra sparkles.

Crimson Greenjeans

Here is my assistant helping me with the start of my second sweater. She's checking to make sure I got gauge (I don't care if I did, because gauge is an evil, lying, witch with a B).

I'm making Mr. Greenjeans by Amy Swenson using Stitch Jones' Dyepot Worsted in Crimson. I'm already past dividing off the armholes, so it's going fast!!

Hoppy Easter

Hazel loves her new bun-bun and the shrug that matches her Easter dress!

Watch out! I'm Sewing, and What would Tony Danza Do?

I need to have an apron or a sign that says "Watch Out! I'm Sewing" when I haul out the sewing machine to work on a project! This time, I actually had 2 projects, but one is secret. The one I can talk about is called the Manhattan Bag. I bought the pattern and a stack of complimentary fat quarters abouttttttt........3 years ago, from Craft Warehouse. Yeah, I'm a slow sewer. I had all of the stripes cut out and ready to sew together 2 years ago, but then I got a cold and put it all away and never had the energy to pull it back out to finish it. Well, it took 5 hours one evening, but I got it all done! I even made a pocket that my iphone fits into perfectly.Oh, you spotted that yummy St. Cupcake big top cupcake did you? Well, it matched my bag and outfit perfectly, how could I not get it? That was from the yarn crawl at the beginning of this month, that I didn't blog about.

In a situation like this you have to ask, What would Tony Danza Do??? Well, he would link to Tami's blogpost, because she did an awesome write up from the yarn crawl, and since I was with her the whole time, I don't know if I really need to try and one-up her. There's even a bonus picture of me eating almonds :)

so, here's what I bought:

2 Sivia Harding patterns from Twisted
Namaste Buddy from For Yarn's Sake
2 Skeins of Universal Star Light yarn in White and Blue from Naked Sheep
1 skein malabrigo lace in blue from Happy Knits
2 samples of unicorn wool wash and rinse

The hat that everyone recognized us by and complimented me on:

Si Capitan!
Pattern: Capitan by Rosi Garmendia
yarn - malabrigo worsted
turtle buttons from the button emporium

Ravelymics 2010

I didn't have time to blog the last 3 weeks because I was busily knitting on my Ravelymics projects!

I *finally* finished my monster "WIP Dancing" project - the 4 Season's Throw by Judith Shangold.

You guys, I started this in June 2008. Being the project oriented person that I am, it was like a monkey (or rather a gorilla) on my back sitting in my ravelry project page at 65% for months. I had no interest in working on the strips because the block patterns were boring, and lace is much more interesting. As a prize at the end, I allowed myself to stray from the pattern for the last block and I used Barbara Walker's Embossed Turtle pattern for the green square. Although I despised this blanket as I was working on it, I love it now. It is really warm and cozy to have on the couch. It also ended up bigger than I thought it would, each block is about 14.5" x 14.5" after it was blocked.



For "Short Track Shawls" I used - 198yds of Heaven by Christy Verity
The yarn is Madiline Tosh DK in Fjord, a bday present from my friend Patrice. This was the perfect project for the yarn, since it only needed on skein of yarn! I finished this in only 10 days. It would have been done faster if I had not had the blanket to work on. It's a great mini shawl and totally my colors! I'm keeping this one for me! I modified the border of the pattern, because I didn't like that the yo's did not line up with the body of the pattern.



I did watch a lot of the Olympics while working on these projects, but for the last week I was just getting bored by the NBC coverage. They were very biased to the American athletes and did not show scores during the ice skating if it wasn't an American (for the most part). They were jumping all around between 4 different events each evening and I felt like I had ADD watching :( Only towards the end did I find out Curling was on USA network. GAH! I've never watched it before and thought I would try to, oh well.

Pavo Real Shawl

Forgot to blog about this shawl!

I was surprised that it only took me one week to knit! It's blue, it's sparkly and it's totally me :) I love this shawl!!

This shawl is worked from the point upwards and the chart is a little difficult to read because there are 3 separate charts, it only took me 2 false starts before I was off and running.

Pattern - Pavo Real Shawl
Yarn - Kitchen Sink Dyeworks Silver Spoon

Shawl FOs

Well, I thought the new year was going along beautifully, until I got sick again. I went from having a sinus infection that went away and came back again to getting the stomach flu. The flu was awful! And to make it even worse than that, Owen got sick at the same time. Imagine having us both sick and then taking care of Hazel. It's been a few days since the "attack" and I'm still recovering. This really hit us hard! Owen thought it was "romantic" because now we can share our stories of being sick and have someone else understand how gross it all was. Can I get better now? kthxbai!

So, I did manage to get a couple of shawls finished.

I have not decided if I want to keep this for myself yet. I love it, and I love the pattern (even if it was St st and only had 3 rows where action happened) because I could just knit and purl and not have to really pay attention to what I was doing. I guess I'm just not sure about the color on me. I don't have a lot of things that match it.

This was my first attempt at dyeing yarn. I used Wilton's icing dyes and followed these instructions. I started out using the no-taste red and instead of a crimson, it turned a strange pink. So, I added some burgundy and that made it better. I would post pictures of the dyepot, but it looks like I'm cooking intestines, I kid you not! Long story short, I didn't put enough vinegar in the pot and when I rinsed it my hands turned pink, so I cooked the yarn again and it felted a little bit. In hind sight I probably shouldn't have used Malabrigo lace as my first yarn to dye, but oh well, it gave the yarn a fuzzy halo that I kind of like.

Pattern - Citron
Yarn - Malabrigo laceweight



And what would a blog post be without a picture of Hazel???

I never inteded to knit her a shawl when she was this young, but OMG I'm so happy that I did because she looks so cute in it! I used the yarn from a Hazel Knits baby sock kit that I purchased wayyyyy back at Sock Summit. I took the sock with me on TWO vacations and only got to the heel flap of the first sock. Yeah, it took me 5 months and guess what? Hazel grew up too fast and I knew that if I ever finished the socks they would not fit over her toes. After a poll on my facebook I ended up frogging the sock and Tami suggested a few patterns I could use the yarn for. She found a cute bear shawl (rav link) and I would have done that, but the price was 6.00 for a basic mini shawl pattern!!!!!!! So did a search on Ravelry and found this adorable hearts shawl pattern for an American Girl doll. Hazel will soon outgrow this shawl and I"m not even sure if I could keep it on her for very long if I did put it on her, so it will be for her bear.

Pattern - Loving Hearts Shawl
yarn - Hazel Knits sock yarn in Tulip

More F.O.s

I've been a busy little knitter! I thought I was all done with shopping for presents, and then I went to this new yarn shop that opened last weekend (Make One), and since then I've been inspired to make more stuff with the yarn I bought! I am working on a cowl for a friend's birthday, but it is after Christmas, so it's not critical knitting right now.

There is one F.O. that failed. I made one of those slippers that the Yarn Harlot was raving about, because I thought it would be a fast knit. Well, the 90 minutes turned into 2 days because I *could not get gauge*. When I got stitch gauge, my row gauge was totally off and I ended up ripping back a few times to get the correct measurement. I only made one slipper and when I felted it, it looked like a freaking baked potato, I kid you not. It was pitiful. Also, it didn't fit my foot. I brought it to knit night and my friend whose name also happens to be Rachel took it to fix it and make it look good so she could give it to her mom, who coincidentally only has one foot! I call that serendipity! I still plan on making another slipper, but maybe a darker yarn would felt better.

These are the same fingerless mitts that are in my previous fo post, using the left over yarn from those mitts, but these are shorter.



Roving from Susan's Kitchen that I spun up and plied with a thread of beads! It is very pretty in person. I am giving this to my mom, but she may end up asking me to knit something up for her.


Duet by Linda Wilgus, from the Winter Knitty
Yarn is Cascade Rustic
This is for my sister in law. I'm giving it to her as a scarf, I don't know if it's stretchy enough to wear as a hat. The linen is making it stiff. A note for people using this yarn. It bleeds dye like crazy! So wash wash wash, and use vinegar to help set the dye.


A Simple Yet Effective shawl, out of some of my handspun (Everything but the kitchen sink is in this shawl, even some beads). This is for Owen's grandmother!

recent f.o.s

Sorry for the lack of posting. I have had a few health problems for all of November and this first half of December. Mostly a never-ending sinus infection with 2 colds on top of that, then the most recent cold travelled to my lungs and made my asthma flare up :( I'm on my second round of anti-biotics for the sinus infection and a round of Prednisone for the asthma. If you have ever been on Pred, then you probably know it's like Speed. Be ware if you call me on the phone, I may just talk your ear off!

Then there was the issue with my bum thumb - de quervain's tenosynovitis - trigger finger -- whatever you want to call it, my hand has been in pain since September. I finally went to the doctor and she told me to take ibuprofen, wear a thumb brace and then do hand exercises until it didn't hurt anymore. Well, the pain didn't go away, so I went in again. They told me there wasn't anything more they could do and so I was referred to a hand specialist who fixed me up in 5 minutes with a lovely cortisone shot! Knitting is sure a heck of a lot easier when your hand is not hurting all the time!

So, now that I can knit without pain, here are some things I knitted up the last two weeks!

Neck scarf using a merino/angora handspun made with fur from my friend's rabbit Fast Feet
pattern: Stash by Donyale Grant


two crochet bracelets for my friend's daughters, no pattern, just made it up as I went along.


Hat for my friends' son. SW Merino/Angora. no pattern.


Twilight mitts for my friend Jen for Christmas. Alice Mitts by Nancy Fry