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May 29, 2004
Creature of Habit
Well I decided to knit another felted bag. I'll post pics later. I'm not quite as satisfied as I was with the first bag since the pattern came out a little oddly? It's still Noro yarn and of course you know it's beautiful stuff. It makes patterns all by itself. But this time, the pattern didn't come out so visually pleasing. You have to knit up one ball for the bottom half of the bag and then start another ball for the top. You finish the drawstrings with the rest and there is a little left over in my experience. So I've been trying to come out with a solution that is doable for me and I think what I'm going to do is to make a felted patch to put on it as a pocket all around the midsection of the bag. So in essence, I'll be felting the bag, then felting a pocket for it before I stitch the two together. Does that make sense? Anybody else done anything like this before? I'm going to use a solid color for the pocket and add a mosaic motif and just see what happens. I'll be sure to post before and after pics when I get to come up for air! :)
Memorial Day, Here I Come!
Since I have a long weekend, I'm going to be working on some of my previous projects and hopefully get around to changing my progress bar. Admin of another site and work has kept me from being as productive as I'd like to be but, it's coming along. Probably won't post much because I'll be busy knitting (and fixing that bar)!! I'll miss y'all!
Knit lots!
Posted by stacey at 10:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 23, 2004
Quick As You Can!
This is so exciting! Click on this link to hear a knitting radio programme in England that I got from Tom Cunliffe who is not a knitter but is an artist. See his blog called The Bright Field Weblog. It is so cool and so is this radio programme he emailed me! There are children and a woman teaching the announcer (is that the word for it) how to knit! It may not be up for much longer. Hurry up!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?gfi
Posted by stacey at 09:24 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 21, 2004
Lunch Break Notes
While sitting on her lunch break, having a Subway Sandwich, the author writes these notes:
Quick Knits
What is it about that Hot Head Hat? I've knit it again! This time for someone I don't know though. "Huh?" you say.
I emailed Mercy Ministries about whether I'd be allowed to send knitted items for some of their girls. Just some kind of way to help. Mercy Ministries helps a lot of young women who want to be rid of drug addiction or are unwed mothers as well as young ladies with other kinds of personal crisis. It's a Christian ministry so they don't get any government support. They rely on friends of their ministry and what not. I think I like what they're doing for a lot of reasons. I happen to be a single mom myself, for one. But also because I think they do what they do from the heart. They really want the young women to know that they are special and that is something I think all young women need to know. So I planned on sending the keyhole scarf, the Chunky Knits scarf, the Hot Head Hat and this nifty little felted tote (maybe someone can use it as a smallish diaper bag?). I knit things and then I put them in this little white paper bag that I got from my fave yarn shop. They just sit there when they could be being used. I had thought about sending things to this ministry for at least six months or so, but I kept getting cold feet about it. Then I decided to email. What's the worst they could've said, "We don't want any!" But it turns out, they can accept gifts such as these so...I get this little fuzzy feeling thinking about it!
I'll post the pic of the tote in progress when I edit this later. It's so cute! I want one of my own! I don't even know if I'll use it, I just like the way it looks...So?
Okay. So here are the pics of the tote unfinished and finished.
Isn't it just adorable?! I did have to pick out a lot of lint though. Whoa baby, did I! But the lint-picking made it a bit fuzzier and I think that was good. The kit was on sale at SWS and so I got it for like 28 dollars when I bought it. It's made with the very beautiful Noro 100% wool yarn which I've never used before but was really nice to work with. It had a lot of variation along the strand, not just in color but diameter. The texture was very nice and it was so fun seeing the colors change on their own. If you haven't tried that stuff, this kit is a good one to sample. This bag was done in about two days so it's not a whole lot of knitting (so I guess if you didn't like the yarn, the bag would be done before you knew it and if you do like it, I did the felted version and still had a little less than half a ball left for something else!). I hope one of the young ladies will be able to use it for diapers, pacifiers, small recieving blankets and small, baby wash cloths, and such. I would like to knit one of these for myself and incorporate a strip of a mosaic pattern to kind of branch off of what I learned from the samples. Good idea? I also saw another pattern for a lunch bag that doubles as a small baby diaper bag too. I'll have to dig it up and try it as well. This is so fun!
There's Good News, and Then There's Bad News
Which would you like first? How about I just mix it together! Bitter with the sweet kind of thing. Okay, so I went to Stitches With Style to sniff around and also to see the traveling collection of The Knit Stitch. First of all, it was so cool! The Einstein coat was just sitting on a hanger right on the door! Nice! But I couldn't take any pics of the show because of other issues. :( I did get to take pics of the shop and my fave yarn store owner though. :) I'll post them later too. I bought some sweet things though!
And here they are (uh, the pics from Stitches With Style):
It's good isn't it? :) Sometimes I leave that store feeling so gluttonous...What can I say?
Knit some more!
Posted by stacey at 01:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 16, 2004
Not So Ample Samples!
Now that wasn't so bad was it? I don't know what I've been procrastinating about with getting these pics up. These are those samples I promised. I was just emailing Kathleen about how small they are! I spent hours on these little gems and who would be able to tell?? The first one is the Mosaic example on the knitty site. The second one is from a charted pattern in Mr. Fassett's book. I'm wondering if that second one couldn't have been done with an intarsia technique or maybe it was intarsia and I don't know it? I did another fair isle in a tube as if to start a sock. It has a checkerboard pattern, but darned if I know which stash bag I stuck it in. I should've taken a pic of the back of these too. I've got lots of strands of yarn going across that back section. Typical of fair isle I guess. In some areas I'd like it to be a little tighter than it is, but...I've heard that double knitting is the one that is reversible. At any rate, I did learn with these how to carry a strand of yarn up the side and that is a pretty good thing to know! Speaking of learning...
Knitting Knutz
Those Knitting Knutz are always up to something! I learned a little about stranding today. Why didn't I take pics? Something is wrong with me folks. Really. I mean I carry the thing all day. What's up with that? Anyway, one of the group admins taught a session on this technique and then we all got to try it. One of the members helped me to pick out some yarns and two needles which were mixed matched! I didn't really memorize the sizes but one needle was about a size 15 and the other was somewhere between sizes 6-8. It was so fun because it came out really interesting. It looked like there was this one ribbed section sandwiched in between the larger knit sections. So cool! Then, the admin also showed us how to get the yarns to blend better by k1, sl1, k1, sl1... across one row (for garter or stockinette patterns). I had so much fun today! I wound up saying, "I really didn't need to learn another thing. I've got too many projects I'm trying to finish up now!" So the member who had helped me pick the yarn and needles said, "Nonsense! By the time you finish everything it'll be time to bury you. Have fun! Play around a little." Of course, this came from someone who finishes at the least two garment pieces a week! Nonetheless, it sounded good to me! I did finish a keyhole scarf this week that I'm sending to charity. It's black, made out of some of the rest of that wool that I used for the mitts. I know, I didn't put it on the progress bar. Where is my head? :)
Posted by stacey at 05:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 15, 2004
Oh Yeah...
I forgot to mention the last time I posted that there was a very unusual occurence that happened to me and my yarn the last time I was working on one of the fair isle samples...Maxie Cat actually attempted to swat the yarn!! For those of you with cats you may think this is very odd, but Maxie has not played with my yarns since he was a kitten (which was around late 2002, early 2003-ish). It may sound like he is an unhealthy cat. But he has a very good reason for his behavior. He had a very rough experience as a kitten...
Maxie's Story
I thought it was just going to be an average night one night when I put Maxie in the second room of my one bedroom apartment. My son just could not sleep with Maxie out and about while he was a kitten. He'd try to play with him all night long! At any rate, there was a huge ball of white acrylic yarn in the room that I had forgotten was in there sitting on a shelf of a bookcase. One of those one pounders. I didn't know what I was going to do with it. If I remember correctly, I just wound up using it as a practicing skein. So anyway, as I was putting my son to bed that night, I heard it..."MEOWWWROWWWRRMROWRRR!" and a few little grumbles. I didn't know what had happened so I went in to see about him. In a matter of minutes, Maxie had tangled himself so in the yarn that his front left leg, his back right leg, his neck and his tail were trapped in a huge web of yarn! That yarn had him cornered...and boy was he mad about it! Poor little kitty. He was only a baby. Well, needless to say, he has never really had a love affair with the stuff since. But a couple days ago I guess my colored yarn may have struck his fancy a bit. He swatted at it a little. :) Maybe he is in recovery and in a forgiving mood these days? Let's hope so.
Posted by stacey at 08:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 13, 2004
Knit A Little, There A Little
Forever
I've been spending a lot of time with Forever lately...at work...at my son's karate practice...at home...during house shopping with my folks. Pretty much everywhere. I feel like it's my woobie or something. :) Nice and stable. Since the decreases began, it is going a bit faster. Maybe the knitting part of it will be finished by June 10th when school lets out for the summer. But I'm going to have a tough time getting all those ends weaved in afterward. Whew! On this half though (the half where it's beginning to decrease to complete the square), I've implemented something I've learned from the color swatching samples I've been doing (intarsia/fair isle-I promise to post a pic of some of that before this weekend is over, really!! they're on the camera, it just takes freaking forever to load up and sometimes it doesn't work. I know, bummer): carrying the left behind yarn up. Mighty fine, that method! Yeah!!
The Low Down
Guess what?! My local yarn shop, Stitches With Style, is hosting the trunk show from Sally Melville's book THE KNIT STITCH! I can't wait until I can get over there!! It's up until May 24th and I will have some time between now and then to stop over....yay! I'm going to take loads of pics when I go! Yipee! I'm excited...can you tell???
My visiting artist is coming to do a Jazzpainting Session with my art club kids at the school where I teach next week too. Her name is Teresa Haman. She studies with Edward Loper, Sr. He's pretty popular around the Northeast Coast. Lots of stuff going on right now. No wonder I've been so wiped out!
Congrats! & On the Homefront
Congrats are in order to my parents! Chances are they'll never see this post, but they've been shopping for a house for a while now and have finally found one. They're closer to retiring now and they've been looking for a ranch out in a suburban area. They're going to settlement soon, $5000 under asking price which isn't too bad, huh? After having lived in the city for their whole lives, they're finally packin' it up! Not a moment to soon either. At any rate, I'm very happy for them! :)
I wonder if I'll be congratulating myself soon. There is a full time job opening at a place where I've wanted to work since I became a painter and I was actually emailed the ad for it by the person who would be my boss! That's a good sign, right? Benefits are included in the package and that is my primary concern. I don't know how much the pay is yet because that wasn't detailed in the ad, of course. :) Hey, as long as I can support my yarn habit, what do I care? ;)
Posted by stacey at 11:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 09, 2004
Mother's Day Weekend
Happy Mother's Day!
Some Knitting Progress, Finally!
I was able to get a little more headway on Forever this weekend along with a keyhole scarf from the SNB book for charity. I know I didn't put it on the progress bar. These types of projects just slip in! :) I've also been reading up on charted knitting designs since I got the Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker. It doesn't seem as hard as I thought it was. But you never really know until you jump in. Maybe later this week. Sleevey is still crying to get finished already. What to do??? So much to knit, so little time.
Knitting & Matters of the Heart
I think I'm going to post that secret project I was working on. I know I said I wasn't going to do it but I have a very good reason. Maybe some of you knitters out there will be able to relate.
I'm a very generous person. I had been planning on giving this knitted item away as a gift this month. I do give a lot of things away for some reason. Most of the people I know really can't stand that about me! They don't really understand that I get a lot of joy from that. People used to make me feel really bad about it. As an artist, it is an occupational hazard, but I could never really help myself. Eventually, I just had to learn that I am who I am for a reason and I just have to be me. If anyone understands the satisfaction from giving I know it would have to be fellow knitters, right? I learned from a certain televangelist that many times giving is something that benefits the person giving so much more than the person receiving the gift because it causes the giver to take his eyes off himself for at least a moment in order to look at someone else's need. It changes roles. That's a good thing! And it feels good too!
But (and maybe this is life experience talking) when it's something that has come out of you...when you make something with your own hands and from the heart, you want to know that when you give it away to someone you consider special, it's going to add to you, not take away from you. And with knitting, because of the type of process it is, you almost feel like you want to knit that person to you. If you've ever knit for a relative, you understand. You want to know that the person you give it to understands the heart that made it. You want to know that you and your gift are valued as much. While I was doing this project I was uncertain as to whether I wanted to give it or not because I didn't want to later regret it. I've done things like that before. Yes, I give, but I think I've come to the realization that no one should "give till it hurts." After much hesitation, this weekend I came to the conclusion that I had best hold on to it until the time is right to give away something that special and until I'm sure I've definitely met a person who understands the value of that sort of gift. I keep asking myself am I a heel for this, but I keep coming up with a resounding, "No!"
It was still a cool project for me to knit at this stage. Yes, I have read the little notations about who to give gifts to in the SNB book, yada, yada... But I still went ahead and made them anyway. Hey, I'm still a beginner knitter...and at times a little hard-headed. I was a little upset to have to take the bow off and unwrap it and what not (it was a birthday gift). Excuse me, but to me, I'm sounding very sober about this. Mark another inch on my growth chart for this year. I think it's for the best and a very healthy decision. Even though it's not going to be serving its purpose yet-not for anyone since it isn't even the season for it (lol!), I still want to share my accomplishment :) :
Cashmere/Wool Fingerless Gloves
These are from the pattern for the fingerless gloves in WEEKEND KNITTING. I think I did a pretty good job. Of course, you probably can't see that though since they are black. What can I say? They go with everything! I'm not particularly sure if this is right. But I used two strands of Pashmina Black Cashmere with one strand of Brown Sheep Pepper 100% Mothproof Wool throughout. The cashmere strands were so much finer than the wool strand was, but whenever I had to cut the strands, the cashmere strands were so much longer than the wool strand was?? So I'm figuring it's either 50c/50w or 65c/35w. Whatever the case, they should be mighty warm! I like to try them on because they are so soft. But it wouldn't have made a good pic because they're too big for my hands!! Oh yeah, I did have troubles around that whole gussett thing. But when you try them on (I use my brother as a model), you can't see through them, so that must be a good thing right? ;)
Mother's Day Weekend
This weekend presented a lot for me to chew on. All in all, I can't say it was the best Mother's Day I've ever had either. Have I ever had a good one? You know what? Yes, I have. Every day is Mother's Day when you have a child that is alive, living and breathing and loves you back.
I went to church today and that cheered me up some. God is always there helping us along. Everyone should be reminded of that from time to time.
Knit one more row tonight.
Posted by stacey at 09:07 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 06, 2004
Definitely Not a Knitting Week
What the...???
This week was one horrible week. I don't like to wish my life away, but I'm really glad to see this week go. Way too much running around with nary a break in sight, on the job and off. And not feeling the best either.
A Little Secret
At age 27 I've only been driving for a year. And I like it. Really, I do. It's nothing like being able to go where you want, be where you want-all in a matter of minutes. But ever since, I have a million responsibilities for a single and a single parent that are just driving me up a wall! It's like I was abandoned on the side of the road or something and I'm tired already!! Let me just say that my family is very supportive. My complaint just has to do with the energy part, I guess. I have dropped on of my jobs and still my days are going from 6:00a-12:00a-and that last hour is just to get some time to take deep breaths alone and try to knit or read for a few and get some closure to my day before drifting off to sleep (oh yeah, and sometimes get a few loads of laundry done simultaneously-you can't imagine what that horror is like until you've awaken to your alarm four times in a night, two to three nights in a row, to switch clothes from the drier to the basket to the washer to the drier..etc. and go back to bed). Wednesdays are my days off, but I usually spend it running around too: car wash, grocery shopping, doctors visits if necessary, or whatever needs to be done along with more clothes washing (which increases in frequency each time a certain six-year old rips or stains a shirt or wears a knee out). Two nights a week it's karate and two nights a week it's my after school program (with a bunch of kids that I love, but truly, they do not understand what it means to conserve materials when they haven't paid for them-Ms. Johnson has (that's me)...and I've found that won't clean their workspace unless they're threatened with having to exit the program...kids...gotta love 'em). The other part of my job is best left alone. It's one of those things where there are your good days, and then, there are your bad days. I can't figure out what went wrong here. I have issues on my job that I don't even want to discuss here and other things that just make me want to go to a closet and holler at the top of my lungs for as long as I can! I did a favor for someone recently and when I needed something in return all I got was a big fuss! All I want to do is gripe and right now this is the only place I can do it. Is anyone listening to me? Oh well, such is life sometimes. Sometimes it just be's that way, I guess. It doesn't hurt to have an ear and a shoulder though.
My Knitting Non-Progress
I've only got about three more rows on Forever since I last wrote. But I'm beginning to think that's a lot. It's somewheres between 227-300+ stitches...so I guess it'd only be natural for me to take a few minutes to get to the end of a row. I'm trying to decide whether I want to keep on the Sleevey or wait until I get some experienced direction from someone in the knitting club...They did offer help. Maybe I should take it? It beats me pulling out those stitches one more time. Or does everyone go through that? I also did a couple samples working up the nerve to go to color soon. Mosaic and fair isle. I'm wondering if that last fair isle couldn't have been made with intarsia? I wish I had some get up and go right now, I'd load a pic up. But I'm really not feeling it today. Maybe this weekend. At any rate, it's a dark purpley color with orange. The orange section is like a large triangle (as large as a sample gets anyhow). It's orange all through though with no interruptions of purple till you get to the edges. Why couldn't that have been intarsia? It's a charted pattern. Maybe it could've and the book just assumed the knitter knew. Who knows?
Till the weekend.
Posted by stacey at 09:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 01, 2004
Knitting on the Go
Well, I've been doing a lot of this lately. I just finished up phase two of a project and am back to working on Forever and Sleevey full time for awhile (which means every little bit of time I can). I'm very relieved because I was beginning to miss Forever. I know, weird. Sleevey just sort of calls me from the basket every now and again. I kind of had to remind Sleevey that I must take my time with the seams. Otherwise Sleevey will just be Sleazy. :) I've ripped them out quite a few times and, sigh, I may have to do it again. I just want it to be right. I mean, it didn't take me more than a week to do the body of the sweater altogether time-wise, so I should at least be able to put it together properly, right?
I also picked up a few books and ordered one too.
KNITTER'S ALMANAC by Elizabeth Zimmerman
KAFFE FASSETT'S PATTERN LIBRARY by Kaffe Fassett and Sally Harding
and I ordered CHARTED KNITTING DESIGNS: A THIRD TREASURY OF KNITTING
PATTERNS by Barbara Walker
Yes, after my current projects I want to start some colored knitting patterns and maybe some small aran projects. Kaffe's colors are really wild! And I think EZ may have some help for me in regards to the aran knitting. Right now I'm just flirting with some sample sized mosaic patterns. But among my first projects will be the hat by Ann Norling and maybe a few other hats. Then I plan to branch off into other things. I have been doing some swatches based on the mosaic directions on the knitty mag site. Through the experimentation I finally figured out how to carry that darn "other" color up the side without it making holes! Yay me!!! It's a simple mosaic pattern but it's so cute! Wanna see? Well, I can't show you since the spanking new and better way to get images up on TypePad is experiencing some errors within my account. So maybe next time.
Until then, keep the needles clicking!
Posted by stacey at 10:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
