Forgot to Add....

Just this morning I remembered another thing I included in the Spring Fling package (which I still don't knowif my partner has received or not): two cute little handwoven "pockets" in purple and yellow. My mom gave one in red and white to my daughter for Valentine's Day with a little gift tucked inside, and it was just so cute I had to try and copy it.

Here are step-by-step directions for anyone who's interested. This seems to work best when made with something that has a bit of firmness to it, like paper or cotton fabric. I tried it with felt, but it tended to torque a bit after weaving.

How to Make a Woven Pocket

Using two pieces of paper or cloth, layer them one on top of the other and fold in half. Cut an elongated half-circle out of both pieces with the short center-line being the fold line. You will wind up with two roughly football-shaped pieces that are folded down the middle. Cut an equal number of slashes from the folded edge almost to the opposite side of each piece, but do not cut all the way through the outer edge.

Next, keep both pieces folded in half and weave the leftmost strip of the piece on the right (red fabric) between the folded rightmost strip of the piece on the left (heart fabric). Basically, you will tuck the leftmost red strip between the fold of the rightmost heart strip. Then take the second-to-right heart strip and tuck it between the fold of the same leftmost red strip.

• Continue weaving in and out in this manner until all strips have been woven together.

• Neaten weaving until pocket lays flat. If you like, add a handle or use as-is.
  

Knitting Olympics

I must say, I'm jealous of all those folks participating in Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. If I'd known, I might have entered, though the way my knitting has NOT been progressing lately, I doubt I'd finish.

I've been working on my ruana pretty regularly. It's totally mindless knitting with the only downside being the tremendous amount of yarn I need to drag along with me if I want to take it anywhere. It's definitely not designed to be commuter knitting.

I also started my mom's silk stole, figuring that should be portable enough to take with me to and from work, but so far I've only gotten about four points worked on the first edging; at this rate, she'll get it for Christmas...2007!

At least I finished spinning the orange never-ending Corriedale on my Louet wheel. Right now it's still in singles on the bobbin; I'm not sure if I want to ply it on itself or with another yarn. Right now I'm spinning up some mixed wool (white) on the wheel and enjoying how I'm increasingly able to spin a more consistent yarn.

Oh, and the Golding Swan Lake has been sent back to Tom and Diane for repair. Let's just say that there'll be no more spindling over bare hardwood floors for me. :( Still, the Goldings are wonderful and stand by their products, so I should get my spindle back in fine working order soon. Let's hope so; I can't wait to finish that purple variegated wool I was working on.

Secret Spindler Spring Fling

OK, I tried posting this a couple of days ago but bagged it when blogger went wonky on me and ate my post. Here goes try #2....

I mailed out my spindlers Spring Fling package about a week or so ago, which means my partner out in SD should be getting it any day now. Since the theme was spring, I started by making some Loom Blooms, which I made on my little Weave-It 4 inch hand loom following the pattern in this season's issue of Spin-Off.

I figure she can attach them to whatever she likes once she receives them.

I then made a bunch of stitch markers (I hope she knits!) in purple, green and gold -- nice springtime colors. Couldn't get a good photo, though, to post what they look like. :( Oh, well.... I sent them in a nice little woven drawstring bag (not handmade my me, unfortunately), which -- since it's fairly large -- she should be able to use to hold all her stitch markers, not just the ones I sent.

Next I included a couple of small skeins of yarn, one in pink and the other a novelty sorta-boucle-type in white. I just had them sitting around with no plans to use them and I thought maybe my partner would be more creative with them than I had.

I also tucked in a few seed packets: baby's breath, poppies and tomatoes. Again, just some seeds I already had in the house, but nice for spring (especially the tomatoes; by the summer they should be ready for picking and eating -- YUM!).

Finally, I packed it all for safe transport in a bunch of "mystery wool" in various shades of white and off-white. It came in a mixed box of wool I bought off ebay awhile ago, and I figured that even though it was a bit rough it would be perfect for needle felting or use in outerwear...and, of course, the color lends itself perfectly to dyeing.

I really hope my partner likes her package! Now, I wonder what I'll receive myself.... :)

Valentine's Day Surprise

Do I have the Dearest DH or what?? He gave me a Golding Swan Lake spindle -- a gorgeous piece of art that is as useful as it is beautiful. I've been happily spinning up some variegated purple wool roving since getting this beauty. How lucky can I get? *g*

Ruana

Tonight I finally started the ruana from Folk Shawls. A ruana is a South American shawl -- very long, solid in the back and split down the middle in front with a floor-sweeping fringe. It takes a tremendous amount of yarn, so I've been collecting for the past couple of months in preparation. I'm doing it in somewhat unusual colors for me -- lots of pinks, raspberry, purple, and also deep blues and charcoals -- and it's basically a showcase for some of the sari silk yarn I treated myself to at Christmas. This is going to be a LONG project --236 stitches in a row, and each row has to be ended and started over to make the fringe -- but it's totally mindless garter stitch knitting, so it'll be a nice break from working on my mom's lacey silk stole and my pi shawl.

Baby Blanket



I cannot believe how well this turned out! I wish I'd taken a "before" photo to show the comparison. I didn't simply because I didn't believe that crumpled, ruffled ball of knots would turn into anything resembling a blanket even after the most determined blocking. Happily, I was wrong! :)

This blanket is based on a Shetland hap shawl, which is the traditional "everyday" shawl worn by women of the Shetland Islands. The solid garter stitch center is for warmth, while the lace edging is for beauty. I picked the colors -- black, blue and light grey -- for my cousins' new baby, a boy due to arrive from Korea in March. I'm glad I have this finished well in advance; my current work/school schedule makes it tough to get in any serious knitting time. Still, I'm almost done with DH's Valentine's Day present, a simple scarf in a zig-zag pattern made from dark brown wool singles from the Brown Sheep company. That's my subway knitting, for the moment at least.

Sick Again

I can't believe this. It feels like I just got over the last horrendous cold and now I'm flat on my back again, mouth-breathing and wondering when I'll just frickin die already and get it over with. DH says it's going back to work that's done it; I'm not used to being around all those germy people, riding the subways and leaning over students' shoulders and such. Whatever it is, I'm miserable. Thank goodness for my in-laws, who very kindly offered to take the baby tomorrow so I can stay home alone and try to recuperate. Bed all day, chicken soup...aaaah, sounds like heaven!

How very, very sad.

Time Warp

Well, I'm officially back to work. Classes started last Monday and I feel like I haven't taken a breath since. Is it less than 24 hours to February already??

When not spinning in a tornado of paperwork I've actually managed to get some knitting done -- finished the lace border on F's baby blanket on the subway this morning (just have to graft the two ends together and it's done, done, done!!) and even started paging my way through Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls (HIGHLY recommend the book for Shetland lace patterns and shawl making tips) looking for a pattern to make my mom a small stole.

Kinda cool story there. I was in Beacon (home of the aforementioned Dia) with DH and friends over the weekend when we stopped into a small artsy-type shop. Lo and behold, the entire back of the store was filled with fiber works (woven, mostly) and hand-dyed skeins of yarn. I came across a real treat: a 4 1/2 ounce skein of 100% silk in the most wonderful silver-grey with just a few deep violet streaks. Wow! That thing just shouted to be made into something for my mom. But silk don't come cheap, and that's where DH once again earned his D ("dear") status.
"Is it a good price for that kind of yarn?" he asked as I waffled.
"Well, I've paid about the same per ounce for hand-dyed silk top to spin myself," I replied.
"So, buy it," he said, and even offered me the money to do so. Is that a sweetie or what?

So now I have just shy of 850 yards of the most wonderful silk two-ply, probably something like a fingering weight. The stole will be small and I'm picking the most open lace stitch I can find just to stretch it as much as possible. I think I might even try to do a teeny-tiny bead-accented pointed edging on the short ends. Now to sharpen my bamboo size 10s into needle points (for those killer p3togs in the Madeira Mesh) and start sampling!

It's amazing where inspiration comes from.

Yesterday I went to Dia: Beacon, the modern art museum in an up-and-coming (until recently VERY economically depressed) river town about half an hour from where I live. As DH and I toured the site, I was struck by what I think is the single most important message that modern art has to teach us: Art is everywhere, and everything is Art. How else to explain a gallery full of string, piles of rags, video loops of a rat infested studio, giant metal-lined holes and Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes?

A trite but incredibly freeing revelation, at least to me.

Now I'm inspired. I've been contemplating doing a little painting for a couple of years now; something large, oil on canvas, definitely non-representational. But now I know I want to incorporate my fiber arts into that vision, making something of a sculptural painting, a dyed and woven fabric lifting itself off of a canvas, playing with light and shadow and color and texture. I want to start with the raw fleece and process, dye, spin and weave it all myself, keeping bits of each stage -- a snippet of raw fleece here, a hand-carded rolag there -- as I go along (hey, if some Japanese dude can make art out of a series of canvasses with a single date and a newspaper clipping from that date then I don't see anything too far out about my fleece idea).

Lord knows when I'll actually have time to do any of this. I'm just so happy to be this inspired!

And the next time the crap piles up around the house, I'm just going to stick a title on it and call it Art! :)

Rethinking the Blog

Back a few years ago, I was a vegetarian. I mean, a serious vegetarian: no meat, no fish, nothing "with a face," as the saying goes. I had reasons for going veggie, which were sound and valid at the time I took up my salad fork and put away my steak knife. But as the years went on, those reasons got further and further from why I was a vegetarian. Finally, I had to admit that I was only a vegetarian because it was who I'd become. "Splindarella the Vegetarian," that was me. I couldn't separate myself from what I would and wouldn't eat; my meals had begun to define my existance.

I bring this up because I've been thinking about my blog. I started it as a class assignment; I continued it as a personal record. But, all along I felt like my blog needed a "theme." People keep educational blogs or technology blogs or poetry blogs or fill-in-another-adjective blogs. So, I decided my adjective would be "fiber," and I'd fill my blogs with photos of my projects and descriptions of my adventures in wool. Funny thing is, I never seemed to get the camera out when I should; when I did manage to photograph my work, it took way too long to get the pics from the camera onto the hard drive. And let's face it, it's not like I finish a project every day. Much as I might have wanted to blog about other things, I felt the need to maintain my fiber blog as strictly as I'd maintained my vegetarianism. I'm sure there's something Freudian in all this, but hell if I know what it is.

Anyhoo, I eventually fell of the veggie bandwagon -- jumped headfirst into a BBQ pit is more like it. I decided it was stupid to let something define me if it wasn't working with the reality of who I was. Same goes for this blog. So, while I'll probably still blog about my adventures in fiber, such as they are, I'm also officially giving myself license to blog about anything else I damn well please. Starting with the fact that I have to get up at five frickin' a.m. tomorrow for work, to which I just returned this past week after a 10 month maternity hiatus.

Off to bed now, understandable. More to follow, much sooner now that I'm not waiting for fiber adventures to happen before posting....

Serenity Stone

This is just a little something I made this evening for my co-worker, H. She's going through some problems and has a lot on her mind these days, so I decided to make her a variation on a worry stone. The "stone" is actually a flat glass marble, the kind for decorating the bottom of a vase or bowl. I wrote "serenity" across the top in English (out of view in the photo) and the Chinese character for "peace" on the front. I also knitted the small bag to hold the stone. It's made of corriedale wool that I hand spun on a drop spindle, some of my very first homespun. I'm hoping it makes her feel just a little better, even if only because it always feels good to get a present, especially a handmade one.

A Visit to the Frog Pond

Well, after struggling gamely on with my striped hap shawl design, I finally decided it just wasn't working since a) the colors were godawful, and b) it was so oversized that had I continued, by the end it would have been big enough to cover the whole house and everyone in it. I therefore made the painful decision to take it down to the frog pond and rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.

The good news: I've already re-knit one of the skeins of yarn into the center of a half-sized hap shawl which will eventually become a baby blanket for Fletcher, my cousins' second (adopted) son, who is due to arrive from Korea in March. The re-knit center is black garter stitch done on the diagonal; the lace border (which I just started on this evening) is royal blue, and the edging (which I hope to start by the end of the weekend) will a very, very pale grey. I was originally planning to make Fletcher a handknit sweater instead of a blanket, but when I had to frog my hap shawl I immediately started re-knitting it without really thinking through what I would do with what by necessity (due to shortage of non-godawful yarn colors) would never be a full-sized shawl. I briefly toyed with having my 9-month-old wear a mini-shawl, but a quick reality check took care of that idea (it's all I can do to wrestle my little free spirit into normal baby clothes like onesies -- no WAY she'd keep a shawl on her back for more than a nanosecond). Then I hit on Fletcher and my need for a gift for him. Since the hap was calling me much more loudly than a sweater, I decided to call it a hap blanket and continued to knit on it guilt-free.

I'm really enjoying knitting Fletcher's blanket far more now that it actually IS Fletcher's blanket and not Splindarella's GINORMOUS Shawl-from-the-Bowels-of-Hell. If I can get myself together enough I might even post some on-the-needle pics. Stay tuned....

Still Catching Up...

...on posting pics of handmade Christmas gifts. Here's the necklace I gave my teenage cousin:


White and rose quartz chips with garnet accents and a decorative flower clasp. I'm quite pleased with this piece; I only wish the photo weren't so washed out. Oh, well. She liked it, and that's what's important.

The J Family Hats

How do I love my knitting machine? Let me count the ways....

Well, at this moment I'm absolutely loving the instant gratification of knitting up a trio of hats from start to finish in a matter of a couple of hours. Sewing up the seams and tucking in the ends took as long as the knitting itself.

The J family actually consists of 6 people: my best friend K from high school, her husband R, his two kids from his first marriage, and infant twins. Way back in November, I sent a Christmas package with something handmade for each of them. K and R got a wildly-fringed red-white-and-blue laprobe (I figure if my friend is going to up and move to Europe the least I can do is saddle her new family with some kitschy Americana). Pre-teen daughter got a beaded bracelet; infants got coordinating sweaters; but it was teenage son's gift -- a simple winter hat in red-white-and-blue stripes -- that got the greatest raves. K asked if I could make a hat each for her, hubby and step-daughter...and of course, how could I say no?

Now that holiday gifts are a thing of the past, I decided to sit at the machine and turn out the hats so they could be worn THIS winter instead of next. Here's how they turned out:

The hat on the right is for R, in his favorite team's colors (black and yellow). I promised I wouldn't make the hat look like a giant black-and-yellow bumblebee, and I think I managed okay.

The hat in the center is for R's daughter. She specifically asked for hunter green and light green stripes. It looks a little weird in the photo, like the brim of the hat is narrower than the top. Mea culpa; it's the way I stuffed the hat so I could photograph it. In reality, it looks very similar to the black-and-yellow hat but with small ridges where the striping is.

The hat I'm proudest of, though, is the one for K:

It almost looks like one of those bag-purses that were popular for awhile when I was a teenager. K specifically asked for a bag top and three large blocks of color in rust orange, green and purple. I chose the yarn -- Lion Brand Suede -- because I thought it had the best combo of those three colors of any of the yarns I looked at. It's also machine washable and something a bit unusual for use in a hat. It looks like it could fit the Jolly Green Giant, but that's so K can wear it pulled all the way down on cold days without totally crushing her 'do.

Now I just have to get out to the post office and mail them off -- yippee!

For the Benefit of Inquiring Minds

So, the HVME was a bust. How disappointing! I thought their move into new digs a few years back would have resulted in their having even more cool stuff at dirt-cheap prices. Instead, it seems the cool stuff was left behind and all they have now is piles of crap -- not much of a bargain at any price. What's worse, I brought friends along for the ride, and so exposed not only myself but those I care about to a (fortunately brief) romp through a warehouseful of crap. Oh, well. We compensated by heading out to New Paltz and the amazing Guilded Otter Brewery for lunch afterward, and no one was the worse for wear.

And now, it's time to give me a round of applause: I've finally downloaded some Christmas present photos! Here's one of the blankets I machine knitted:

This is the second of two, each one given to a cousin and spouse. This one is actually a tri-color blanket in sage, cream (the two colors you see in the photo) and beige (turned under in this shot). I'm especially proud of how this one turned out because I got the basketweave join perfectly correct (as opposed to the first one, where I had to go back and splice some loops that accidentally got left out of the weave -- oops).

And here's a photo of the second of three scarves I made for friends:

Same pattern (Horseshoe), different background (stockinette) and color (rose); this one went to Sue, who promptly put it on as soon as she opened the package. Joy! *g*

More photos to come as soon as I can figure out how to download them from the other camera....

I Wish I Could...

...manage to download photos in a timely enough fashion to actually post them on my blog. I'm ever so impressed with the knitters' blogs I read that include tons of photos. It seems like nearly every post sparkles with a visual record of works in progress, completed projects and even the occasional UFO (UnFinished Object). I, on the other hand, seem to take photos only to keep them consigned to the depths of memory-card oblivion. I have photos of my machine-knitted blankets, completed the day before Christmas Eve and delivered Christmas Day to two very impressed and appreciative cousins; I have photos of another cousin wearing the lovely rose-quartz-and-amethyst necklace I made for her; I even have photos of the second of my three Shetland Lace scarves for friends. And where are all these photos, pray tell? Still in the camera, of course. *sigh* I'll get them up here eventually.

In the meantime, I'll just continue to play with my wonderful Christmas gifts: four fibery books (Folk Shawls, Knitting in the Old Way, A Gathering of Lace, and Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls), plus two -- count 'em, TWO -- Golding spindles: the small Tsunami I'd asked for and a larger Celtic 2 that DH picked out just because he thought I'd like another spindle (and, of course, I did *g*). So far, I'm completely entranced with Folk Shawls. There are so many I'd like to try it's hard to know where to start. However, I think I may actually wind up using the information in Knitting in the Old Way first as I attempt to modify a baby pattern sweater for my cousins' new son-to-be, who is due to be arriving from Korea in March at about 6 months of age. And, of course, I'll be scouring the other two lace books for ideas for my Pi shawl, which I'll be starting in January as part of the EZasPi knitalong.

Oh, and I'll be heading to the Hudson Valley Materials Exchange tomorrow; they got all the yarn from a local mill that closed down and they're selling it for 75 cents to 3 dollars a pound. Not to mention that they're selling the contents of an entire bead shop that went out of business for a nickel a bead.

Off to bed now...big day of pawing through bins of stuff ahead of me (yippee!)....

Christmas Eve

Well, the presents are finished...at least, the ones needed for tomorrow are. We're back from my in-laws' house and relaxing a little before bed. I'm well-fed and sleepy and looking forward to tucking the last little goodies into the stockings and hitting the hay.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

This year's Christmas tree, decorated with hand-crocheted snowflakes courtesy of my mom.

Christmas Prep



Powered by Castpost

Well, my audio post, above, was all about how I was going to spend the day finishing Christmas gifts. I did manage to make the felted soaps (go to Mielke's Farm to see how to do it) and they turned out fairly well, although my artistic design definitely needs improvement. I finished off the sachets...well, all but the stuffing and tying of the last one, but that takes just a couple of minutes, no biggie. I even found the pretty box I'll use for presentation, complete with red and green confetti inside for a "professional" look. I didn't block the scarves, though. Again, not a big deal -- I still have time before they're needed, and they're fairly quick to steam block with the iron anyway. My bigger concern: I've yet to do today's blanket strip (I know, I know, then WHY pray tell am I sitting here blogging when I should be knitting? I blame it on Castpost -- they were down all day today and I couldn't post my audio when I originally wanted to, so I'm forced to take time now to do it). Once I'm done here, I'm going to haul my butt upstairs and crank that puppy out.

I'm also not, I repeat NOT going to eat the last two chocolates in the candy dish. I'm saving them for DH.

*still thinking about chocolates*

Hmmm...maybe he wouldn't miss just one...?

One Scarf of Three

This is my second foray into Shetland Lace knitting, and I must admit, I'm much more pleased with it than with my first attempt (the purple scarf pictured in an earlier blog posting). I used only one pattern here -- Horseshoe -- but I did vary the background from garter stitch to stockinette (3 pattern repeats of garter to every pattern repeat of stockinette). Interestingly enough, when the scarf was blocked it was difficult to tell the difference between the two background stitches (something for me to remember for next time as the garter stitch background goes much more quickly than the stockinette). I gave this mint-green scarf to Karen for Christmas; I've made another in rose for Sue and one in peach for Jen. I still need to block those two, then photograph them for "posterity" LOL, and finally box and wrap.

I really don't mean to procrastinate but I just can't seem to get myself in gear to make that last blanket I need for Christmas. It's for my cousins, who I love dearly, so there's no lack of desire to create them a lovely gift by hand. I don't know what it is, really, except that just about every other project I have going seems infinitely more enticing than making the last 4 blanket strips on the knitting machine. Much as I swore I wouldn't start anything new until that blanket was finished, I blew my resolve and began weaving on my little Weave It handheld loom. Who knew little 4-inch squares could be so enjoyable to make? I've been using two colors -- a dusty yellow single that seems to be homespun and a yellow-and-orange variegated novelty yarn that I'm pretty sure is synthetic, both obtained in the mixed bag of yarn and roving I bought off ebay a couple of months ago -- and once I have a pair of squares woven, I sew them together on three sides, line them with cotton batting, fill them with homemade scent (crushed cinnamon, cloves and vanilla), and tie together at the top to form beautiful little sachets. I decided that since I haven't had time to make my aunt and uncle anything very substantial for Christmas, the least I can do is give them a few sachets to go along with the storebought wine they're getting as a gift. At least, that's how I justify sitting and playing with my little loom instead of working on that friggin' blanket. And it wouldn't be fair to give one set of cousins a handmade blanket but give the other -- what? A bagful of sachets?

No, the blanket will get made. Tonight once DH gets home, we'll have a quick dinner, put the baby to bed, and then I'm heading over to that knitting machine and not coming up for air until I have at least two of the four strips I need finished.

HOW many days do I have until Christmas??

Trade Day

Way back maybe eight or nine years ago, I heard about a barter group. Basically, you signed up and stated what it was you had to offer -- services mostly, or goods that you produced yourself -- and what you were looking for. The service then matched people up. You didn't have to make a direct trade with someone else; your goods or services, when selected by someone in the group, would generate credits for you to use for bartering for someone else's goods or services. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I tried to sign up. It seems that there is very little need for "ESL teaching" or "proofreading/editing" services, at least within that group.

I was therefore delighted to find that one of the fiber listservs I belong to holds a weekly "trade day." Every Friday, any member is welcome to post a TGIF trade. The items offered for trade can be pretty much anything related to fiber -- I've seen people post yarn, fibers, spindles, books, magazines, you name it. And after offering my back issues of Rug Hooking magazine from 2002, I'm happy to report that I've just sealed the deal on my very first online fiber trade. My trading partner will get 5 magazines, and I will get 4 ounces of dyed mohair locks, 4 ounces of border leceister roving, 4 ounces of mixed wool roving, and a booklet called "Socks: The Next Step." All in all a fair trade, I think. I get rid of some magazines that were taking up space in my fiber drawer and I get some interesting new fibers to play with plus instructions on, among other things, how to make two socks on one circular needle; my partner, who has recently taken up rug hooking, probably feels about the same way on her end.

What a nice little no-cost Christmas present!

And speaking of Christmas presents...yesterday I finished four, yes four, gift bracelets. Three were photo bracelets, one for each of my daughter's grandmas and one for her godmother. They're cute little things, each one holding six tiny photos. I also made a bracelet out of small stone and glass beads for DH's friend Gina, who is up visiting from DC. Simple but pretty. Now I just have to finish knitting one more lace scarf, block that scarf plus one more (both gifts for friends of mine) and then tackle the elephant in the corner -- a large machine-knitted blanket for my cousins. The blanket should knit up relatively quickly since I'm doing it on the machine, but it's just a matter of getting started.

Oh, and then there's the little matter of decorating the house...and finishing wrapping presents...and HOW many days are there left till Christmas??