once a month

i will try to vow to write at least once a month. Crafty Bastards has me back on the fiberwagon, so here i am.

business was good at the fair - lots of yarn found hopefully happy homes. a few newer knitters were asking how much sock yarn it'd take to make a scarf... more power to folks who knit scarves from sock yarn, but i'm thinking it might be time to test drive some worsted weights and see if we can add one to the inventory.

on my needles right now are lots of hats, in prep for a winter craft fair and a couple of new babies. my camera is still packed from this weekend, so no pics today, but hopefully soon!

Crafty Prep

First of all, the main woman behind Woolarina is now plus one baby boy! congratulations, Paula!

baby Oliver means that I need to pick up the pace in carrying the weight of the wool, at least when it comes to Crafty Bastards, a fair that we wouldn't miss. I'll be flying down for the weekend, yarns in tow. I'm still in the process of dyeing, so if anyone has colorway recommendations, send them this way!

I've had the week off of work recovering from pesky medical issues, so I've been entertaining myself by knitting on very small needles. I have a whole box of odds and ends from previous dye jobs, so I started making wrist warmers. None of them match, but they do show off the yarns that I've made, and they've been keeping me company while watching season three of Dexter and some Red Sox games.

sunny days

Okay, it's been years since I managed to knit a sweater of any kind. I know myself well enough to know that sleeves and seams are not likely to happen, but I have an 8-hour car ride to and from NYC this weekend, so I figure I should have something to work on. Plus, I sit in front of the tv for baseball games a lot these days, so more mindless projects will come in handy.

Thus, I've decided that Soleil is a good next project to put on the needles. I have a full bag of Classic Elite Premiere that's been in my closet for years that should be perfect. Wish me luck!

halfpi

halfpi
Originally uploaded by kismet09

Paula gifted this yarn to me for xmas, and i've been fretting about how to do it justice. it's a gorgeous handpaint from fleece artist called Suri Blue, a blend of Suri Alpaca and Blue Face Leicester, in the Midnight colorway. I finally decided on a half-pi shawl, since I had such good luck with the full pi shawl that I gifted away. Yet another mindless knit, and that's all I seem to like these days.

soxscarf

soxscarf
Originally uploaded by kismet09

i'm still here. i'm barely knitting. it was too cold to dye in the basement in the winter in maine. but, i do have a traveling scarf that made it home that i figured i should show off. it's about 8" wide, and fairly short, and i like it a lot. i was worried about what a bunch of different reds might look like together, but it turns out that they behave just fine. i have two more projects to show off, but i'm too lazy to code things, so i'm going to keep using this flickr blog engine to post them, and just make them two new posts instead of combining everything.

Pi Shawl

1208-shawl3
Originally uploaded by kismet09

this is my favorite knit of the year. It's an Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi Shawl, with yok2tog rows every six rows, knit out of a bunch of scraps that I have from various dye projects. I love the way it looks after being blocked - it has been awhile since I've done a lace project, and I forgot about the magic that comes with blocking. It's hard to tell with this lighting, but it's mostly dark purples, blues, etc., but it has all the colors of the rainbow in it. It took a very long time, and measures about 6' in diameter. It ended up being a Christmas present for my mother. I also just finished a merino/silk Clapotis that I meant to keep for myself, but my grandmother liked it, so it went to her as a gift. That just means I get to treat myself to more of that yarn and dye it up. I'm currently in California and stopped by a yarn shop with a wall full of Schaefer yarns, and realized that I can pretty much replicate any of their colorways, if I really put my mind to it. That's pretty cool.

winter break plans

So, I have 16 days of vacation! Some of them will be taken up by traveling, but a fair amount of the traveling also allows for knitting. I spent a good hour staring at my boxes of yarn and shelves of patterns. Here's what I think I'll try to work on:

Japanese Vines in a Louet that I dyed awhile ago and haven't found a use for.
Turn a Square Hat - Cascade and Berocco Jasper
a pair of wristers for the sister in law - maybe swirling gauntlets (rav link)?
A red-friendly scarf for a Red Sox Traveling Scarf project...

Basically, I'm just shoving a bunch of yarn, all my double points and size 5-8 circs in my bag. Luckily, there's a yarn store nearby when I'm home in case I need extra supplies, plus the sister has knitting stuff I can steal from.

Cash Island Wristers

These were a fabulously rewarding quick knit. First off, I love this new Noro, because it's super soft. I wish the other Noros were equally soft, because the colors make me so happy. I knit the first wrister of this pair on a weekend visit to friends - most of it was knit at a bowling alley on a Sunday morning (doesn't every bowl on Sunday mornings?) The second was knit today while waiting for the power to come back on in Maine - I started it at a coffeeshop, and finished it bundled up in bed, trying to maximize the last few minutes of daylight. Happily, the power kicked back on soon after.

The mitts are just taken from the Anne Budd 'handy book of patterns' - my go-to when I want to knit thumb gussets without having to calculate anything. I started them on sixes and went down to fives to make the finger area nice and snug (a few more details on ravelry here). They took almost exactly a skein, and are fraternal twins, thanks to Noro's long color stripes - there were no real color repeats in the skein. I still have ends to weave in, but I tucked them all in and took a picture -- this is one of the few projects I can share, since so many of them are xmas gifts that have to remain under wraps for a couple more weeks.