Monthly Archives: April 2009

It’s a Border

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Shawl in Progress

Yes, after four or five days of knitting on my three-cornered shawl all I have to show is a border.  In my defense there are around 550 stitches on the needles and, while the pattern is fairly easy to memorize, I do have to watch what I’m doing.  Needless to say this is not a good computer project.  It sure is pretty though.  And this yarn (Helen’s Lace) is so soft and shiny and the colors are so rich and pretty that I really don’t mind sitting for a couple hours and knitting a couple rows with no distractions.

forecast

It has rained all week, it’s been cool and dark and cloudy, typical Missouri springtime.  Last weekend was hot and sunny, so I bought a bag of lemons to make lemonade, which I thought would be good in the warm sunny weather.  Jokes on me, I guess.  The lemonade is really good, though.

I’ve been dealing with the crappy weather by playing the Active Life Outdoor Challenge game for the Wii and doing large amounts of yoga and knitting, but that’s a given.  Today I cleaned my bedroom from top to bottom and moved all my things back (I never really finished moving back into my room after I painted in January).  I have so many other things I need to do but this weather makes me want to sleep all the time, I really have to force myself to get up and do stuff.  The upside of all the yoga I’ve been doing is that my arm and leg muscles are getting huge and I feel a lot stronger on top of not as stiff and sore.  Good stuff.

Thrifting and Knitting

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Thrift store finds

I spent a lot of my weekend browsing local antique stores and flea markets, something I haven’t done in a long time.  I love antiques.  One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is have my own quirky little antique store, but I really don’t see that happening.  I have been thinking about selling some stuff on Etsy, though.  I’m lucky enough to live in a town that is chock full of little antique stores and huge flea markets so I can do a lot of looking.  This weekend I went to a brand new shop that specializes in mid-century modern furniture, which is where I picked up my new purse.  It’s called Funtiques Market and I can’t recommend it enough.  If I had the money and the space, I would buy everything in the store, the prices were really good, too.  I picked the camera up at an antique mall (if you’re a local, it’s on East Trafficway, just west of  Freemont) that I spent hours browsing in.  This store had everything, art, clothes, tons of furniture, electronics.  The staff was very nice, too.  And they had free coffee and cookies, which always helps.

The camera is a Kodak DuaflexII which takes 620 film that is no longer in production.  I’ve read a few places that you can use 120 in it, but I stuck a roll of 35mm, braced it with some cardboard (following the instructions here) and shot that Sunday night.  I dropped the film off last night and it won’t be back until Friday, but I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  I got the camera dirt cheap (they can go for over $40 on Ebay) and cleaned it up a little, tightened a few screws, and it seems to work really great.  You can see pictures taken with the camera on Flickr.

624 Stitches

Since this is, primarily, a knitting blog, I suppose I could talk about that.  I (mostly) finished my work project over the weekend, it needs blocked and a little finishing, so I thought I would cast on something for me.  I’ve been wanting to try one of the shawls from Victorian Lace Today and I decided on the “Three-cornered shawl in clover pattern” so I popped in a movie (Frozen River, good movie) and settled in with a skein of Helen’s Lace and a size US5 needle and cast on 624 stitches.  It took almost two hours but I finally finished the cast on and since yesterday I’ve only managed to knit six rows, and this is after knitting for two hours straight last night (while I watched Waking the Dead, another good movie, on Hulu.  But I want a long range project, something that’s a bit of a challenge, and I think this will be a good one.

Now for some cat talk.  I had to take Peanut back to the vet yesterday.  No fights with strays this time, but she quit eating over the weekend and went for about two days with no food.  The vet gave her some fluids and some pills (an antibiotic and an appetite stimulant) and she’s doing a lot better today.  She ate some canned and dry food last night and some dry food today and she’s been a little more active.  Looks like she’s on the mend.

Now I need some coffee and I need to check on the cat, so I guess that’s it for today.  Maybe I’ll have some progress on the shawl tomorrow.

Another new scarf

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Scarf

Sometimes I feel like all I make (aside from my work projects) are scarves, well, here’s another.  This is my handspun, two ply sport weight superwash wool.  You can see how I made the yarn, the whole process, from dyeing to spinning, on Flickr.  I’m always amazed at how fast weaving is, especially a little scarf like this.  I warped the loom Friday afternoon, which took less than an hour, and the weaving took about four hours total and then another half hour or so to twist the fringe.

Scarf

I got the idea for the little bit of lace from an article on Weave Zine called Weaver-Manipulated Lace Weaves.  This is Leno lace and it was very simple to do, you just have to twist bundles of warp threads around each other and then do a pass with the weft and let out the twist.  It did take a couple tries for me to get it looking neat and even, and it’s still not perfect, but I like it.  I actually meant to do another row of leno after a half inch of plain weave but I forgot all about it.  You can’t see it in the picture but the Leno is done an inch from each both ends.

I ordered a couple weaving books from Amazon, Weaving Made Easy and Hands on Rigid Heddle Weaving I’m just waiting for them to get here.  None of my local stores had them in stock or I would have picked them up over the weekend but I can wait.  I love weaving, it’s so much more relaxing to me than knitting is and I love seeing the interaction between the warp and weft yarns, I even love the simplicity of plain weave, though I am interested in learning about more complex patterns for the rigid heddle loom.  I’m so glad I bought my loom.

Don’t worry that I’m going to abandon my knitting though!  I don’t have anything for me on the needles right now (I frogged my scarf and the vest is on hold until I decide whether I like it or not) but the lace bug is biting at me again and I’m feeling the need to knit a big, giant, cozy shawl.  I have a few in mind and I really love the look of this skirt, but I’d like to make a little more progress on my work project before I cast on.

That’s it!  I don’t know if I’ll have anything to post for the rest of the week.  I’m going to spend the whole weekend cleaning (fun, huh?) and since I’m not making anything I may not have anything to talk about.  We’ll see.

Fiber Friday

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Handspun

Here’s my handspun for the week.  This is about 250yds of light fingering weight fulled singles.  They’re a bit over-twisted and kinky but I like it.  The yarn is soft and slightly fuzzy, I just wish there was more of it.  The roving had felted a little when I dyed it so I had a hard time spinning, I was going for a thinner yarn but I could hardly draft the fiber out at all. 

I’ve spent my day knitting away on my work project and I’m a little under half an inch from hitting my goal for the week (I’d be done but I keep getting distracted).  I’ll probably finish the whole project next week, it’s working up super fast, it’s not even due until June.

I took a hour and warped the loom with that green handspun I linked to the other day.  I took a picture but it came out blurry.  I used under half the yarn for the warp and it should take a bit less for the weft.  Hopefully I can make a decent sized scarf and have enough left for a little hat or so some wrist warmers to match.

That’s all I have for today so here’s a cat, enjoying the warm weather.

Peanut