Smitten

Posted by knitting

Jun 3

The grass outside my window is actually turning green and my husband is starting to work on outside projects.  I’m very excited as we are doing extensive yard projects this year.  It’s not quite a total yard makeover, but it will be close.  We’re moving the garden to a sunnier spot as the trees around our old garden have gotten much bigger and leafier since we planted it.  We’re putting in a retaining wall type of planter along the south side of the house, and we’re putting in a backyard patio.  I say “we” but really all I’ve done is consult on the correct color of block and pavers.  I’ll do the majority of the planting or replanting.  And of course the purchasing of new plants.  The nights have still been really cold, so I’m hesitant to buy or plant much right now.

As for my knitting, welllll… I am knitting.  I’m in the 2nd section of the Cameo shawl.  I’m anxious for the final section,which is lace.  I spent the Memorial Day weekend driving down to Chicago and back (a trip that I would normally be a passenger on most if not all of the trip) so I didn’t get to knit as much as I would like.  I did get to work a little on a crocheted blanket for my nephew while I was there.  The up side to driving all that way was that I was able to catch up on my knitting podcasts while in the car.  The girls got a little tired of listening to knitting though so we mixed it up with They Might Be Giants on the way home.

This weekend I realized too late that I had left my knitting at the office hiding under my desk.  I pulled out a kit for a Mini Mania scarf.  Oh. My.  I am smitten!!  I don’t know what it is about this scarf, whether it’s the colors or changing yarn every row, but I totally and completely love it.  I’m planning my next three scarves in my head right now.  There is no reasoning with myself that this is seed linen stitch and it should be boring the pants off of me.  Somehow it is not boring.

Pretty Pretty

Somehow I want to rip through my stash and find all the contrasting colors that I can find and make 20 of these for all my closest friends.  See?  I’m Smitten.

The trick to this scarf is that there. Is. No. Purl. Row.  I know!  It seems wrong.  You start every row on the right side with a 8″ tail and then cut your yarn at the end of the row, leaving a long tail.  I’m tying the yarn as I go so that I’ll have fringe.  Who wouldn’t want fringe on their scarf?  Especially when the payout is this good.

Yep, I’m totally over the top Smitten.

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A Review: Annie and the Swiss Cheese Scarf

Posted by knitting

May 8

Annie and the Swiss Cheese Scarf by Alana Dakos

Addie and I ran into the yarn store the other day in between doctor appointments to pick up a ball winder.  I had a punch card full and was able to get the ball winder for 30% off.  Addie kind of likes going to this store because they have some stuffed lamb toys that she can play with.  Instead, she spotted this book and asked me to get it down off the shelf.  I had heard about the book on the Knitmoregirls podcast, so I was interested to see what Addie thought.

Addie read the book in the store and said it was definitely worth buying.  I read the book to both girls last night as a bedtime story.  I think Addie liked it because it was a little girl spending time with her Mommy knitting.  The girls can definitely relate to a Mommy that sits on the couch and knits all night.

Addie says, “I thought it was a wonderful book and I recommend it to any kid or a kid whose mom knits.”

What I liked about the book was that it reinforces that you need to practice knitting to be good at it.  Knitting isn’t something that you just all of a sudden get, it takes practice and patience.  Annie has to practice in the story, then she shows her friends at school how she knits.

Lily says, “I thought it was really good.  I liked that she knits and that she taught the kids in her class to knit.”

The illustrations are beautiful, Annie and her mom both wear sweaters that Alana Dakos designed – they’re available under the Never Not Knitting brand.  Both girls enjoyed finding the cat and mouse that are hidden on every page.

Three thumbs up from the girls in the Knitting Up North household.

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Cameo

Posted by knitting

May 4

My husband was practicing with his new camera lens the other day and decided to use my knitting as his focal point.  I’m always happy to have him take pictures of knitting, especially if my exhausted face is not the focal point.  This is after an all day event at work, so I am wiped out.


It’s interesting to watch myself knit from photos.  I am a thrower rather than a picker.  I.e. I knit English rather than Continental.  I know this is a less efficient way to knit as your motions are much bigger and therefore slower.  I’m not going to win any speed knitting competitions any time soon and I’m ok with that.

I can knit either way, and when I knit with two colors I hold one color in each hand.  It’s just that I’m more comfortable throwing and it’s a relief whenever I’m done with two color knitting because I can go back to throwing the yarn over.

As I teach the knitting class, I am mostly teaching them to throw the yarn.  However, I have noticed that a couple of kids are more comfortable holding the yarn in their left hand and picking.  It makes me wonder about whether our knitting preference is because we’re taught that way or if there’s a natural inclination.  Both girls that want to pick are right handed, so it’s not an issue of what the dominant hand is.

An interesting side note is that one of our students was knitting backwards last week.  She got to the end of the row and rather than flipping her work around, she just started knitting the row backwards.  It took me awhile to figure out what she was doing (I was watching 5 kids knit all at once), because all of her stitches were sitting on the needle backwards.  While she’s the most proficient knitter I have in the class along with Lily, she’s also the tightest knitter.  I think next week I’m going to cast on with much larger needles and see if she’s ready to start making her square.

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Knock Me Over

Posted by knitting

Apr 27

This is roughly a conversation that took place in my office this week.

Me:  Guess what Boss?  We had 16 kids show up for a Knitting Class at the school yesterday!  I’ve got 21 kids registered and I have to start a waiting list!  Who would have thunk?

The Boss:  You’re going to blog this, right?  I hope this makes the blog, because it really should.

So yes, the fact that I started a Knitting and Crochet class at the school and that it is wildly successful will in fact make the blog.  He also commented on the fact that he is now an enabler since my office closet is now overflowing with donated yarn.  Hee hee.

 

Remember These Things with Petals that Smell Nice?

In other news, it appears as though spring might actually come to the land of endless snow.  The rumor is that we might actually reach a temperature soon where snow will melt.  Whether we get any more snow… well that remains to be seen.

It’s been very hard to focus on all the things I need to do this spring when it still feels like February.  I’ve got 2 large events in May as well as all the smaller end of the school year things that happen and I’m starting to feel as though I’m behind the eight-ball on all of them.

And knitting… well knitting has been slow.  I started work on a small scarf because I wanted something springy.  There was just too much red sweater action happening and since one of the sweaters had progressed to a spot where I needed to only work on it at home when I had access to a chart, it wasn’t travel knitting any more.  If I can’t pull a project out and work on it at odd times when I have a minute here or there or am having lunch with friends, then it tends to sit and wait for large chunks of time that rarely happen.

This week it hit me that a very fancy dress up event was happening in 3 weeks.  I have a dress that I found a few weeks ago on sale.  Since it’s been so chilly I really wanted a shawl to go with.  My intention back in January was to make the Lumen shawl.  The event is called the Lumen Christi and I just like the idea of wearing the Lumen shawl to the Lumen Christi.  I’m funny like that.  However, the Lumen is a charted pattern and I’ve already established that I don’t have the time to work a charted pattern consistently right now.

Instead, I chose the Cameo pattern.  I’m fairly certain that I can whip out a basic garter stitch shawl in the time needed.  Of course, the problem with shawls is they tend to get larger as you go, so what seems like a fast knit to start with becomes a neverending endurance race as the rows get larger.

Cameo

I tossed the stash one night this week while my husband was at work (the safest time to really air out all the yarn from the different hidey holes that I stash them in).  I compared different shades of blues and greens against the dress and weighed the merits of each.  I was really hoping to use some green Madelinetosh that I had bought for the Lumen shawl, however it just didn’t sit right with the dress.  I finally decided on these two colors.  The Hazel Knits from a yarn club that I was briefly in and the MacKintosh yarn from a Stitches event.  It was kind of sad pulling out the MacKintosh as I bought 1200 yds of it with the intention of using it for a cardigan or sweater.  Once I saw the match up of the two yarns though, I am happy I did it.

Now, I’m off to enjoy the rest of my Saturday and hopefully spend much of it knitting.

 

 

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Put One Foot in Front of the Other

Posted by knitting

Apr 17

Put One Foot In Front of the Other

I think that link is appropriate for this time of year.  After all, it’s continuing to look a lot like Christmas outside!

Just one of the snow piles that is bigger than Lily

(By the way, that’s a soy hot chocolate that she’s holding in the Starbucks cup.)

It’s one of those days weeks where I really need to see progress and relatively instant gratification.  In other words, it’s a list day.

  1. We are starting a Knitting group after school at Cathedral School.  I’m excited, really-really excited.  There’s a stash of donated yarn in my office closet.  The goal is for the kids to be able to knit squares for an afghan.  The kids will make garter stitch squares, the adults will knit complementary 4 leaf squares to pull it all together.  My sample square:

    4 Leaf Clover Afghan Square

  2. Since it looks like Christmas outside, I knit a Button Tab Hat over the weekend.  It’s out of leftover Socks that Rock Heavyweight.  I might even be able to squeak one more hat out of this skein.  The buttons are a gift from a friend which have been marinating in my stash for quite some time.

    Button Tab Hat

  3. The 2 red sweaters are still in progress.
  4. It’s Eat Downtown week in Duluth.  It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year.  I’m kidnapping a co-worker and we’re going for lunch.  The only hard part is deciding where to go for lunch.
  5. I wish I had seen this post from Crafaholics Anonymous before Easter.  The little rock chicks are so cute!
  6. And lastly, I want to take this class at Stitches Midwest next August.  I don’t know why.  I think making that much icord (unless I can use my fun icord toy) would drive me absolutely batty.  Absolutely, Seriously batty.  I would never finish it.  I would have really good intentions, but I think the icord would just be too dull.  But I would love wearing it.
  7. Edited to add:  Why do I look at food blogs when I’m already hungry?  This is bad.  It’s like grocery shopping when you’re hungry kind of bad.  I do have a pretty amazing list of food bloggers that I currently read.  It always amazes me how amazing their staging and photography is.  Clearly they do not work out of my kitchen with it’s 3 feet of counter space and poor lighting.  Course I’m sure the fact that my iphone is my go to camera doesn’t help matters much.

 

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Cabin Fever

Posted by knitting

Mar 27

The forcast was for clear skies and 38 today.

It’s snowing.

Soft gentle flakes that won’t add up to much.  But…. it’s snowing.  Seriously people, Easter is 5 days away, we’re in the midst of SPRING Break and it’s snowing.  I now understand why people went a little snow crazy back in the day when their nearest neighbor was a half day away by wagon.

The interesting thing for me is that I’m not the only one who’s feeling this way.  The Yarn Harlot talked about how she’s not feeling the fall and winter colors anymore and how she wants some spring colors.  My good friend Dana talked about it in her blog.  I was in Stillwater over the weekend and stopped in to Darn.Knit.Anyway to check things out fall down the rabbit hole.  As I brought my skeins of purples, pale greens and pink to the counter, the salesperson commented on how everyone is buying springy colors right now.  Even more so than usual this time of year.

I’m ready for a little of this.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live. The first few lakers have gone out already. It’s always a positive sign that spring is coming when the ice gets broken up by the Coast Guard and the ships start moving again.

Although I’m not feeling the usual startitis that comes with spring (maybe I shouldn’t say that since I have 2 sweaters, 2 blankets and multiple other UFOs on the needles), I did buy enough yarn for 2 baby blankets.

I’ve come to the realization that the Beekeepers Quilt is not going to be finished anytime soon.  And I’m ok with that.  I’m rather attached to the little puffs and I like the idea of continuing the add to the blanket as I go.  This has absolutely nothing (cough cough) to do with the fact that the idea of tying all these little hexipuffs together terrifies me.

Since the blanket won’t be done soon, and I have to come up with a gift for a newish baby and a 1 year old, I decided to crochet a couple of blankets.  I know I said swore that I would never learn to crochet, but a very kind woman that volunteers at my office taught me.  To be fair, I sort of watched her teach a child, grabbed a crochet hook (of which I owned exactly 1) and copied her motions.  Then I stopped her in mid-hook (is that the right adjective?!) and asked her to repeat it.  Easy peasy.  Now I’m looking up other stitch patterns to try new things.

The blanket is just a combination of yarns with some stash yarn thrown in for texture and fun contrast.  I’m doing a combination of single crochet and double crochet rows just to keep it interesting.  It’s nothing fancy, but I love how fast it’s going.  I think the different textures will make it a fun blanket for a baby.

 

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Seeing Red

Posted by knitting

Mar 21

For some reason, all of my projects are red right now.  The Banana Tree Cardigan – in Red Ella Rae Merino Lace.  The Lettuce Pullover in Intenso Malabrigo Lace.  And they’re almost the exact same shade of red.  Even the Looped Loop cowl that I really want to start would be out of red cashmere.  It makes it a little challenging to get motivated to knit on one verses the other.

Just the berry colors

This should be a refreshing change from the blues, greens and turquoises that I normally gravitate to.  Or the spring greens that I normally crave at this time of year.

Especially when the world outside your window looks like this (with possibly even less color):

There is 2 feet of snow in my front yard, 6 inches fell on Friday and more is coming down today.  Everything is blanketed in snow.  Those of us Up North start craving a bit of color.

Personally, I crave a bit of this (remember when I said I gravitated towards the blues?):

My Happy Place

Complete with sun, sand and surf.  Alas, this is not my year for sun, sand and surf.  I am almost tempted to find an insanely cheap Carnival cruise with the hope that I would be stranded on some tropical beach somewhere.  However, I would probably need to go alone.  Knowing my husband, if I took him, he would start a mutiny and take over the stranded ship, jury rigging the failed engine and get us back to port in time to make our planned flight home.  Spoil sport.

All this to say that I really don’t have much knitting content to talk about.  I haven’t done much more than put a row or two on each sweater at night.  Perhaps if I weren’t having so much fun playing with paint combinations at Design Seeds, I’d get more done.  I just keep thinking I will find the perfect combination of colors for the next room I redo.

 

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The Nemesis Returns

Posted by knitting

Mar 7

Faster than stitches slipping off a needle….

More indestructible than 20 year old Red Heart yarn.

More difficult than an Alice Starmore colorwork sweater.

 

It’s my old nemesis Gauge back again for another run.

Do you remember the Banana Tree Cardigan?  The brown one that I just started?  Well I had just gotten to the top of the sleeve when I decided that perhaps I should check the length since it seemed to be getting rather long.

Maybe it’s stress.  Maybe it was because I had worked on this mostly when I had 2 sick children home from school (one of which ran a fever for 4 days).  Maybe it was that I was exhausted.

Maybe I might have just possibly forgotten that I really should have check gauge a whole lot earlier.  Maybe I should have actually checked the ball band to see what the suggested gauge for that yarn was.

Maybe I’m not the brightest knitter in the shop.

I would probably have to drop down to a size 2 to make this aran weight yarn knit to the gauge I want it to be since I was already at a 4.  It would be like wearing armor!

I hate when the hero in the story is taken down by the nemesis because they just don’t see what’s right in front of their face.

Turns out I don’t have the right yarn in my stash after all.

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Nemesis

Posted by knitting

Mar 1

Out of the blue, Lily asked me what a nemesis was yesterday.  I explained that a nemesis was something that you are always fighting, something that you are always struggling against.  We talked about how comic book characters always seem to have a nemesis.

If I were a comic book character, Gauge would be my nemesis.  It’s a constant struggle to get gauge.  Take my Lettuce Pullover for instance.

Gauge Swatches

I swatched on a US 4, a US 5, a US 2, and finally on a US 3.  (And don’t ask me why, but it was in that order)  I think it should really be knitted on a 2.5 because none of the swatches came out just right.  I decided to go with a 3 because I have plenty of yarn and I think a pullover with slightly more positive ease is better than a too tight sweater.  Especially a sweater like this where I will definitely have to wear a shirt underneath.  Some things are just better left to the imagination.

Since you asked, this is what the sweater looks like right now.

Happy Knitting to All and to All a Good Night

It’s slow going as only a sweater with laceweight yarn and size 3 needles can be.  And no, I don’t think it’s the wine’s fault that it’s so slow going.  I’m hitting that point in the raglan increases (about 20 rows before I can separate out the sleeves) that each row seems to take absolutely forever instead of the appoximately 10 minutes that each row really takes.

To cut the boredom and give my hands a break from the teeny tiny yarn, I cast on for a Banana Tree Cardigan.  I have enough of a brown washable worsted weight yarn in my stash that I didn’t need to go shopping for it.  I’m somewhat amused that all of my knits have food names right now.

 

Banana Tree Sleeve

In other news, I am on the search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.  The chocolate chip cookie recipe that I remember as a child.  One with lots of vanilla, too many chocolate chips to count (ok, I always add extra) and the perfect soft but not overly puffy texture.  I just made a batch that was good, lots of vanilla flavor and soft, but they fell flat.  If you have a good recipe, send it my way.

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Focus

Posted by knitting

Feb 21

Malabrigo Lace – Vintage 2010

 

Do you ever feel like you’re running from one thing to the next, never really buckling down and finishing the first thing?  Never really sitting back and appreciating the feeling of accomplishment you get from finishing?  My Dad would have a somewhat coarse description of this that I won’t share with you.  Suffice it to say that a whirlwind is involved.

 

The kicker is that I have finished things.  I haven’t taken pictures yet, but I have finished things.

  1. I cleaned out the Ugly Room.  I need to find a new name for the computer/yarn/toy room.  Unfortunately it has a rather large stairstepper right smack in the middle of the room so I can’t really call it the Pretty or Beautiful Room.  It’s functional.  The yarn that was creeping out of control is now contained.  I separated out projects that have yet to be finished (yikes I have a lot!) from stash yarn.  I feel a lot better about the room and I no longer feel like I have to ban people from entering the room when they visit.
  2. I made 10 1/2 hats for the Optimist Club baby hat challenge in the last month.  I tend to knit these here and there as I have bits of yarn to use up or as a quickie project.  The half of a hat I am hoping that I can finish at lunch time today… during the Optimist Club meeting.
  3. I made cute little headwarmers.  Someone brought these into my office last week to show some other volunteers.  I copied the pattern and promptly cast on for 2.  One is for Addie and one is for myself.  I haven’t added the flower for myself – not sure I could pull that off.  Addie’s headband has a fluffy flower pinned on.  Lily has decided that she wants one to match the cowl she made, so that will be next.  It’s a super quick, one to two hour project.  I do need to block the one for myself a bit, it just doesn’t quite cover my ears.
  4. I finished the Ugly Blankie.  It’s blocked and drying right now.  I hope to mail it off this week.

 

I’ve also cast on for a Lettuce Pullover in the Malabrigo laceweight in the picture above.  This is part of a Knit a Long with Knittymuggins and Troy.  I’ve gone back and forth on whether this is really the sweater I want to knit or not.  However I think I’ve done enough cardigans for awhile and I really want a pullover.  I haven’t gotten much done on it since we cast on Valentine’s Day night (I know, not very romantic but my hubby worked that night).  You can probably guess from the list above why I haven’t worked much on it.

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