Monthly Archives: May 2009

Wow, Actual Knitting

Posted on by

Shawl in Progress

Hey, look at that, it’s knitting, on knitting blog!  Seriously, I know all I’ve been posting about is photography and weaving lately but knitting has been going on.  It’s all be really repetitive stuff, but it is knitting.  So the shawl (Three-Cornered Shaw from Victorian Lace Today), I’m finally up to the fifth chart which are these big holes that involve lots of decreases and double yarn overs and aren’t good computer knitting because I have to watch what I’m doing.

I really haven’t been at the computer much lately, anyway, I’ve been too busy drinking insanely large lattes and doing yoga, and reading and weaving and watching Lost, but that can all wait for another post.  In fact, I’ve already taken pictures and everything for a post about what I’ve been weaving, I’ll try to get to that tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s a little video from last night.  We had a bad storm blow through at about 11pm, lots of wind and a couple tornadoes (one was around five miles away, too close for comfort).  After the storm passed, it calmed down some outside and the rain with a little thunder and lightning and cooler air was really nice, it’s been so humid and warm here.  I took my camera and sat it out on the porch and took less than a minute of video, here it is, the quality isn’t great, my camera doesn’t do too good in the dark.

A Little Weaving

Posted on by

Woven Bag

I finally got most of my books from Amazon Thursday and after pouring through them, I decided to try out a project from Weaving Made Easy.  There is a little tapestry woven color blocked bag that I thought was cute and I wanted something similar but with only one color and I wanted to use only stash yarn.  I used some Lion Brand Wool Ease Sport in blue for the warp and some Lion Brand Homespun for the weft.  I beat the weft pretty tight to get a weft faced fabric (only the Homespun shows, the warp is hidden).  I ended up with a bag that is about 6”x10” then I took a few strands of the warp and weft yarn and made a four strand braid to use as a strap.  The bag is just big enough to hold a few things, wallet, keys, lip gloss, some mints, and the strap is just the right length to wear across the chest with bag at my hip.  Plus it only took about four hours to make.

I’m ready now to do a ton of weaving but that doesn’t mean I’ve been neglecting my knitting.  I’m almost done with the leaf section of my shawl (pictures later) and I’m blocking my work project today.  I’ve been rewatching season five of Lost, trying to see it all again before the finale Wednesday, and that’s been giving me a good amount of knitting time.

This weekend my parent and I drove up old Route 66 from here (Springfield, MO) to Lebanon, MO, and back.  It was fun to see the little old towns and we stopped a few antique stores (didn’t buy anything).  In a few weeks were going to try heading south to Joplin, maybe into Oklahoma and back.  I would love to start in Chicago and drive all of Route 66 to California but the fact that I don’t have a car and gas is going back up again, and I don’t have enough money, I just don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Next weekend I’m heading off to Marshfield to a little fiber fair (same one I went to last year) where I plan on dropping quite a bit of money on wool.  I spent around $100 last year and I’ll probably spend more than that this year, I’m stocking up.  Hopefully it won’t rain.

Pictures

Posted on by

Sally

I mentioned buying an old Kodak Duaflex at a thrift store a couple weeks ago.  I loaded it with some 35mm film and got about six photos out of it.  The camera takes 120 film, so I really wasn’t expecting anything great to come out but I like the pictures that I got.  I like how they’re kind of washed out and faded and discolored.  It looks like the camera has a couple light leaks, but I can fix that easily with some tape.  I can’t wait to use some 120 film and see what I get out of that. 

These three pictures were the best I got.  The top is Sally, barking at something in the back yard.  I like how it came out, the fading and the dark line at the bottom, the washed out colors.

Maple

This is a little maple in the backyard.  I don’t know why this picture came out so purple when the rest were more blue.  It has a kind of dreamy look, though, that I like.

My parents & Sally

I think this is my favorite of the bunch.  They were badly processed and this actually got broken up into two images so I spliced them back together, it’s not as obvious in smaller size as it is full sized.  This is my parents and with the color and fading of the image it looks like it could be any of the old pictures we have.  I like how bored Sally looks, too.

I really want to get some chemicals and a negative scanner and start developing my own film.  I have a ton of cameras (everything from cheapie 35mm cameras, to old 120 cameras, I even have a really nice Canon SLR) and I would use them a lot more if I didn’t have to mess with having the film developed.  I should get on that, heh.

Slow

Posted on by

Shawl

I’m so glad I wanted a long-term project because this shawl is slow knitting.  The border is done and I’ve knit one repeat (out of three) of the leaf lace pattern and I’m down to 240-ish stitches on the needles.  The pattern is starting to feel a little repetitive but I still like knitting it and I love the yarn, so I don’t think I’ll be getting bored anytime soon.

I have been looking at what to start on next.  I want some summer tops since the only summery thing I’ve made is my Josephine Top and I’m not really thrilled with how it fits (I should have gone up a size and made it shorter), I like it, I just don’t love it.  I really want Laura’s Cardigan by Annie Modesitt, from the Summer ‘09 IK, and the Akomeogi Tunic by Olga Buraya-Kefelian, from the same magazine.  There’s actually a lot of stuff I like in the new IK and I think I’m just going to order a whole ass-load of yarn and knit them.  I spend very little money on yarn and I don’t knit many garments except for work and if I use cheaper yarns it won’t really cost that much.

Speaking of work, my KnitPicks project is all done, it just needs blocking and I’ll do that tomorrow.